The fate of bezafibrate, carbamazepine, ciprofloxacin and clarithromycin in the wastewater treatment process

The progress of four pharmaceuticals (bezafibrate, carbamazepine, clarithromycin and ciprofloxacin) is followed through the treatment stages (screened sewage, settled sewage and final effluent) of a large urban wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) employing activated sludge treatment. Concentrations at the inlet to the WWTP are generally higher than those predicted from consideration of local pharmaceutical consumption and typical excretion data. Percentage removal efficiencies are variable (22.5 – 94.3%) with carbamazepine being the most resistant to elimination

Measuring National Mood with Music: Using Machine Learning to Construct a Measure of National Valence from Audio Data

We propose a new measure of national valence based on the emotional content of a country’s most popular songs. We first trained a machine learning model using 191 different audio features embedded within music and use this model to construct a long-run valence index for the UK. This index correlates strongly and significantly with survey-based life satisfaction and outperforms an equivalent text-based measure. Our methods have the potential to be applied widely and to provide a solution to the severe lack of historical time-series data on psychological well-being

Sources and pathways for pharmaceuticals in the urban water environment

The progress of five pharmaceutical compounds (bezafibrate, carbamazepine, diclofenac, ibuprofen and sulfasalazine) and one antibacterial agent (triclosan) were monitored through the treatment stages of a large sewage treatment works (STW) using activated sludge as well as in the receiving water both upstream and downstream of the effluent discharge. All except sulfasalazine were detected in the influent at concentrations ranging from 1.44-3.75 µg/L. The analysis of prescription data has been used as a tool to predict the amount of pharmaceuticals potentially released into the catchment of the investigated sewage treatment works and the results compared with the measured influent concentrations. A reduction in concentration between influent and final effluent samples (51-97%) indicates the variable removal of these compounds and therefore their potential to be discharged into receiving surface waters. The analysis of primary and final effluents highlight the important processes involved in the removal of pharmaceuticals and indicate that sorption processes are important for bezafibrate, carbamazepine and diclofenac. These three PPCPs were observed at higher concentrations (0.07-0.35 µg/L) downstream of the discharged effluent compared to upstream (0.02-0.04 µg/L) although the risks that these compounds pose in the environment are not yet fully understood

Noise Induced Complexity: From Subthreshold Oscillations to Spiking in Coupled Excitable Systems

We study stochastic dynamics of an ensemble of N globally coupled excitable elements. Each element is modeled by a FitzHugh-Nagumo oscillator and is disturbed by independent Gaussian noise. In simulations of the Langevin dynamics we characterize the collective behavior of the ensemble in terms of its mean field and show that with the increase of noise the mean field displays a transition from a steady equilibrium to global oscillations and then, for sufficiently large noise, back to another equilibrium. Diverse regimes of collective dynamics ranging from periodic subthreshold oscillations to large-amplitude oscillations and chaos are observed in the course of this transition. In order to understand details and mechanisms of noise-induced dynamics we consider a thermodynamic limit $N\to\infty$ of the ensemble, and derive the cumulant expansion describing temporal evolution of the mean field fluctuations. In the Gaussian approximation this allows us to perform the bifurcation analysis; its results are in good agreement with dynamical scenarios observed in the stochastic simulations of large ensembles

Breeding and Selecting of New Improved Cultivars of Trifolium subterraneum spp. brachucalucinum

A national programme for the improvement of Trifolium subterraneum ssp. brachycalycinum has been instigated by the National Subterranean Clover Improvement Programme (NSCIP), Australia. At present there are only 2 commercial cultivars,·Ctare and Rosedale. The overall aim of the programme is to develop and release well-adapted early- to mid-season cultivars of ssp. brachycalycinum which are persistent in farming systems and resistant to pests and diseases. Bight crosses were made in 1988. The parents used for the crosses were selected for their earliness, general good performance and strong vigour. Preliminary characterisation of breeding lines in 1991 has shown that early flowering, strong winter vigour and\u27good spring production have been incorporated in many lines. Eleven subsequent crosses were made in 1989. In addition, comparisons of F2-bulk, F2-progeny and pedigree selection methods will be examined

Singularity Structure, Symmetries and Integrability of Generalized Fisher Type Nonlinear Diffusion Equation

In this letter, the integrability aspects of a generalized Fisher type equation with modified diffusion in (1+1) and (2+1) dimensions are studied by carrying out a singularity structure and symmetry analysis. It is shown that the Painlev\'e property exists only for a special choice of the parameter ($m=2$). A B\"acklund transformation is shown to give rise to the linearizing transformation to the linear heat equation for this case ($m=2$). A Lie symmetry analysis also picks out the same case ($m=2$) as the only system among this class as having nontrivial infinite dimensional Lie algebra of symmetries and that the similarity variables and similarity reductions lead in a natural way to the linearizing transformation and physically important classes of solutions (including known ones in the literature), thereby giving a group theoretical understanding of the system. For nonintegrable cases in (2+1) dimensions, associated Lie symmetries and similarity reductions are indicated.Comment: 8 page