Removal efficacy of fly ash composite filler on tailwater nitrogen and phosphorus and its application in constructed wetlands

Constructed wetlands (CWs) have been widely used in tailwater treatment. However, it is difficult to achieve considerable removal efficiency of nitrogen and phosphorus in tailwater solely by CWs—an efficient green wetland filler is also important. This study investigated 160 domestic sewage treatment facilities (DSTFs) in rural areas from two urban areas in Jiaxing for TP and NH3-N and found that TP and NH3-N concentrations in rural domestic sewage (RDS) in this plain river network are still high. Therefore, we selected a new synthetic filler (FA-SFe) to enhance nitrogen and phosphorus reduction, and we discuss the importance of filler in constructed wetlands. Experiments revealed the adsorption capacity of the new filler: the maximum adsorption amounts of TP and NH3-N reached 0.47 g m-2 d-1 and 0.91 g m-2 d-1, respectively. The application potential of FA-SFe was verified in actual wastewater treatment, with the removal rates of ammonia nitrogen and TP reaching 71.3% and 62.7%, respectively. This study provides a promising pathway for nitrogen and phosphorus removal from rural tailwaters

Solving a discrete multimodal transportation network design problem

This paper investigates the multimodal network design problem (MMNDP) that optimizes the auto network expansion scheme and bus network design scheme in an integrated manner. The problem is formulated as a single-level mathematical program with complementarity constraints (MPCC). The decision variables, including the expanded capacity of auto links, the layout of bus routes, the fare levels and the route frequencies, are transformed into multiple sets of binary variables. The layout of transit routes is explicitly modeled using an alternative approach by introducing a set of complementarity constraints. The congestion interaction among different travel modes is captured by an asymmetric multimodal user equilibrium problem (MUE). An active-set algorithm is employed to deal with the MPCC, by sequentially solving a relaxed MMNDP and a scheme updating problem. Numerical tests on nine-node and Sioux Falls networks are performed to demonstrate the proposed model and algorithm

Designing Vehicle Turning Restrictions Based on the Dual Graph Technique

This paper investigates the turning restriction design problem that optimizes the turning restriction locations so as to minimize the total system travel time under the assumption of asymmetric user equilibrium. We first transform a transportation network into a dual graph, where traffic turning movements are explicitly modeled as dual links. The dual transformation allows us to derive a link-based formulation for the turning restriction design problem. Asymmetric user equilibrium is incorporated in the model as a set of nonlinear constraints. A dual-based heuristic algorithm is employed to solve the problem, by sequentially solving a relaxed turning restriction design problem and a design updating problem

Trajectory-as-a-Sequence: A novel travel mode identification framework

Identifying travel modes from GPS tracks, as an essential technique to understand the travel behavior of a population, has received widespread interest over the past decade. While most previous Travel Mode Identification (TMI) methods separately identify the mode of each track segment of a GPS trajectory, in this paper, we propose a sequence-based TMI framework that constructs a feature sequence for each GPS trajectory and sent it to a sequence-to-sequence (seq2seq) model to obtain the corresponding travel mode label sequence, named Trajectory-as-a-Sequence (TaaS). The proposed seq2seq model consists of a Convolutional Encoder (CE) and a Recurrent Conditional Random Field (RCRF), where the CE extracts high-level features from the point-level trajectory features and the RCRF learns the context information of trajectories at both feature and label levels, thus outputting accurate and reasonable travel mode label sequences. To alleviate the lack of data, we adopted a two-stage model training strategy. Additionally, we design two novel bus-related features to assist the seq2seq model distinguishing different high-speed travel modes (i.e., bus, car, and railway) in the sequence. Besides the classical performance metrics such as accuracy, we propose a new metric that evaluates the rationality of the travel mode label sequence at the trajectory level. Comprehensive evaluations corresponding to the real-world TMI applications show that the sequence-based TaaS outperforms the segment-based models in practice. Furthermore, the results of ablation studies demonstrate that the elements integrated into the TaaS framework are helpful to improve the efficiency and accuracy of TMI

Characterization of a Microbial Community in an Anammox Process Using Stored Anammox Sludge

This study investigated a rapid start-up anaerobic ammonium oxidation (Anammox) process by inoculation with stored Anammox sludge and characterized the associated microbial communities. The Anammox process took only 43 days to start. A high nitrogen removal rate of 1.13 kg N m−3 d−1 and a nitrogen loading rate of 1.28 kg N m−3 d−1 were achieved. The ratio of ammonium removal to nitrite removal to nitrate production (1:1:0.2) was slightly lower than the theoretical value, which indicated nitrogen removal by denitrification in the reactor. Illumina high-throughput sequencing of sludge samples confirmed the co-existence of Anammox bacteria and denitrifying bacteria in the reactor and demonstrated that denitrifying bacteria play a role in nitrogen removal during the Anammox process. The dominant microbes in the reactor were Proteobacteria, Chlorobi, Chloroflexi, and Planctomycetes. However, only one species of Anammox bacteria, Candidatus jettenia, was identified and had an abundance of 4.92%. Our results illustrate the relationship between Anammox reactor performance and microbial community succession

A comparison of users’ characteristics between station-based bikesharing system & free-floating bikesharing system : case study in Hangzhou, China

The paper takes Station-based Bikesharing System (SBS) with docks and dockless Free-floating Bikesharing System (FBS) as two targets to dig out the relationship between users and use frequency of the services for each scheme, and how the relationship varies from scheme to scheme. To achieve this, studies are carried out focusing on three questions: “who are using these two bicycle services?”; “what are the factors influencing the use frequency of both bicycle systems?”; and “which specific level of the factors influencing the use frequency of both bicycle schemes?” To collect data from users, a survey was designed containing questions for user attributes and service experience and conducted jointly on-line and on-site at four locations with mixed land use in Hangzhou, China. Analysis results show that SBS and FBS have similar user structure but different factors influence use frequency. Based on analysis results, from the user perspective, SBS’s strength is to have good quality with low cost while FBS is more flexible and free to use. Finally, recommendations for SBS are to involve more technology to expand its range to aided bikes for senior citizens and open the access for a mobile renting system, whereas for FBS, it is critical to get government cooperation and for operators to add parking area restrictions into the cellphone application, and create an on-line platform where users can find all the free-floating bike informatio

Determination of Methomyl Residue in Tobacco Samples by Heart-Cutting Two-Dimensional Liquid Chromatography with Tandem Mass Spectrometry

A novel heart-cutting two-dimensional liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry (2D-LC-MS/MS) was developed for the qualitative and quantitative analysis of methomyl residue in tobacco. Compared to traditional methodologies, fairly high sensitivity and stability were achieved, and the sample procedure was simplified in the two-dimensional liquid chromatography (2D-LC) method. Although methomyl had poor retention performance in most of the reversed-phase liquid chromatography (RPLC) columns, an effective RP/RP strategy was successfully facilitated. An XB-Phenyl column was employed in the first dimension to effectively remove thousands of interference compounds in the matrix. In the second dimension, an ADME column was applied for further separation. After optimization of the separation conditions, a six-way valve was utilized for direct transformation of the target fraction from the 1st column to the 2nd column. A dynamic range of 2.5 ng/mL to 500 ng/mL was achieved with correlation coefficient (r2) greater than 0.9995. The limit of detection and limit of quantification were determined to be 0.69 and 2.30 ng/mL, respectively. The 2D-LC method shows high sensitivity, good reproducibility, and recovery for methomyl in tobacco samples. Therefore, the new method was quite suitable for routine analysis