Bridging the Gap between Architecture and Engineering: a Transdisciplinary Model for a Resilient Built Environment

As the focus of environmental engineering increasingly shifts to landscape-based, decentralized solutions to energy and water; and as architecture increasingly shifts its attention to resilience, ecological connectivity and independence from centralized infrastructure, these two disciplines find themselves closer in scale than before. This paper presents a collaborative project between upper level architecture and environmental engineering students focused on the design of sustainable and integrated water systems. Critical features of transdisciplinarity included: the engagement of stakeholders in the process at multiple moments; the speculative nature of working on very distant futures, the multi-scalar requirements of the collaboration, and the expectation of balancing quantitative and qualitative performance criteria. The curriculum was successful by many measures of work quality and impact. Students reflected on expectations and outcomes at two points of the semester, providing insights on challenges and opportunities. Relying on a shared responsibility for the project and well-aligned touchpoints, rather than daily- integrated studio-format, overcomes administrative constraints, but made misalignments more evident. While initially students had higher expectations of learning about the other discipline’s role than about their own, later results clearly show many more thought they had learned more about their own discipline, and expressed more confidence on their joint work. This is an encouraging finding about the power of transdisciplinary educational experiences

Intracellular polyphosphate length characterization in polyphosphate accumulating microorganisms (PAOs): Implications in PAO phenotypic diversity and enhanced biological phosphorus removal performance

Polyphosphate (polyP) accumulating organisms (PAOs) are the key agent to perform enhanced biological phosphorus removal (EBPR) activity, and intracellular polyP plays a key role in this process. Potential associations between EBPR performance and the polyP structure have been suggested, but are yet to be extensively investigated, mainly due to the lack of established methods for polyP characterization in the EBPR system. In this study, we explored and demonstrated that single-cell Raman spectroscopy (SCRS) can be employed for characterizing intracellular polyPs of PAOs in complex environmental samples such as EBPR systems. The results, for the first time, revealed distinct distribution patterns of polyP length (as Raman peak position) in PAOs in lab-scale EBPR reactors that were dominated with different PAO types, as well as among different full-scale EBPR systems with varying configurations. Furthermore, SCRS revealed distinctive polyP composition/features among PAO phenotypic sub-groups, which are likely associated with phylogenetic and/or phenotypic diversity in EBPR communities, highlighting the possible resolving power of SCRS at the microdiversity level. To validate the observed polyP length variations via SCRS, we also performed and compared bulk polyP length characteristics in EBPR biomass using conventional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE) and solution 31P nuclear magnetic resonance (31P-NMR) methods. The results are consistent with the SCRS findings and confirmed the variations in the polyP lengths among different EBPR systems. Compared to conventional methods, SCRS exhibited advantages as compared to conventional methods, including the ability to characterize in situ the intracellular polyPs at subcellular resolution in a label-free and non-destructive way, and the capability to capture subtle and detailed biochemical fingerprints of cells for phenotypic classification. SCRS also has recognized limitations in comparison with 31P-NMR and PAGE, such as the inability to quantitatively detect the average polyP chain length and its distribution. The results provided initial evidence for the potential of SCRS-enabled polyP characterization as an alternative and complementary microbial community phenotyping method to facilitate the phenotype-function (performance) relationship deduction in EBPR systems

Application of Toxicogenomics for Toxicity Assessment and Screening of Nanomaterials

The growing production and use of engineered nanomaterials (ENMs) has raised considerable concern regarding their implicated environmental and health risks. Therefore, there is an urgent need to understand the toxic effects and mechanisms of these ENMs. Our group has applied toxicogenimic approach for mechanistic assessment ENMs. The results revealed that although the stress response and the potential toxic mechanisms varied among the ENMs tested, the oxidative stress, DNA damage, and protein stress are the most important toxicity mechanisms for all the ENMs examined. Most ENMs caused oxidative stress as well as cell membrane and transportation damage. We revealed detailed information of the involvement of different DNA damage and repair genes, suggesting that some NMs cause DNA damage via recognized SOS pathway, while others do not. To link the toxicogenomic results with regulatory benchmarks and conventional toxicity assessment endpoints, we determined the Non Observed Transcriptional Level (NOTEL) for all the ENMs based on the dose-response curves obtained. The NOTEL values correlated with the endpoints proposed by others for nanotoxicity assessment. We also proposed a new ToxicoGenomic Response Indicator (TGRI) and the TGRI correlated well with those established endpoints (e.g. NOTEL, Biological Oxidative Damage), indicating that it can be potentially employed as a regulatory benchmark and toxicity assessment endpoint. Our results demonstrated that the proposed prokaryotic toxicogenomic approach using whole-cell arrays promises to be a feasible method for quantitative toxicity assessment of ENMs

Infrastruttura verde e sostenibilità urbana: multifunzionalità e resilienza per la città di Somerville

Le attuali proiezioni di rapida espansione delle aree urbane e il cambiamento climatico in atto sul nostro pianeta, presentano sfide ed opportunità per la pianificazione territoriale che guarda alle città come ambiti chiave del rapporto tra persone e natura. La pianificazione, sollecitata dalla necessità di rendere gli spazi urbani più vivibili e sani, vede nei sistemi infrastrutturali verdi (Green Infrastructure, GI) lo strumento per uno sviluppo territoriale resiliente e sostenibile. Risulta opportuno evidenziare come, in tal contesto, la nozione di sostenibilità proposta dalle GI mira a travalicare i confini dell’ambientalismo e della salvaguardia del territorio nella sua accezione più ampia, per investire ed interpellare valori e stili di vita in tutti gli ambiti della nostra quotidianità conferendo, a tali strategie, responsabilità sociali, ecologiche, economiche ancor più grandi rispetto al (solo) soddisfacimento dei bisogni primari delle persone. Da qui, la consapevolezza da parte delle amministrazioni statunitensi sulla necessità di una revisione radicale del paradigma tradizionale dell’urbanistica, ha portato molte città come Somerville in Massachusetts ad investire nelle GI come strumento multifunzionale in grado di concretizzare il concetto di triple bottom line della sostenibilità. Lo scritto riporta un approccio alla revisione della letteratura scientifica e al processo di pianificazione della GI di Somerville, avvalorandone l’efficacia attraverso la quantificazione dei benefici ambientali ed economici

Green Infrastructure as a climate change mitigation strategy. Quantification of environmental & economic benefits for the City of Somerville

The growing awareness of the negative impact of human activities on climate has led to adopt territorial adaptation and mitigation policies. Strategies capable of coping with increasingly extreme and sudden negative impacts make their way into the scenario of territorial planning, which focuses on choices that create more resilient cities. A suitable strategy for this new approach to territorial planning includes green infra-structure a multifunctional tool designed to mitigate impacts of climate change and to intervene on "urban waste" and dismiss places to re-naturalize and make them more inclusive. The paper examines the innovative scenario of the Inner Core in Bos-ton, Massachusetts, exploring the policies of the city of Somerville, which focus on the implementation of green infrastructure to provide multiple benefits. Former industrialized area of Somerville, the Inner Belt is one of the settlements most exposed to the climate crisis and particularly weak territorial context from a social, economic, and political point of view. The evidence of a settlement that "ceded to environmental blackmail" in exchange for jobs, required a procedural approach by rethinking the area in a strategic perspective capable of combining the needs of the community with adaptation to change. The Inner Belt was thus reconsidered as a hub (system of places), that is, as an integral part of the new vision of a green infrastructure network for the city of Somerville and an urban area of planning emergency in the re-composition and identity re-appropriation of its widespread and pervasive waterproofed spaces. This choice highlighted the importance of the local scale in the process of redesigning the public space and forgotten places in the evolution of green infrastructure. This study analyzes and quantifies the environmental and economic benefits provided by the green infrastructure, demonstrating the effectiveness of the adoption of this multi-functional strategy

Life-Cycle Assessment of Advanced Nutrient Removal Technologies for Wastewater Treatment

Advanced nutrient removal processes, while improving the water quality of the receiving water body, can also produce indirect environmental and health impacts associated with increases in usage of energy, chemicals, and other material resources. The present study evaluated three levels of treatment for nutrient removal (N and P) using 27 representative treatment process configurations. Impacts were assessed across multiple environmental and health impacts using life-cycle assessment (LCA) following the Tool for the Reduction and Assessment of Chemical and Other Environmental Impacts (TRACI) impact-assessment method. Results show that advanced technologies that achieve high-level nutrient removal significantly decreased local eutrophication potential, while chemicals and electricity use for these advanced treatments, particularly multistage enhanced tertiary processes and reverse osmosis, simultaneously increased eutrophication indirectly and contributed to other potential environmental and health impacts including human and ecotoxicity, global warming potential, ozone depletion, and acidification. Average eutrophication potential can be reduced by about 70% when Level 2 (TN = 3 mg/L; TP = 0.1 mg/L) treatments are employed instead of Level 1 (TN = 8 mg/L; TP = 1 mg/L), but the implementation of more advanced tertiary processes for Level 3 (TN = 1 mg/L; TP = 0.01 mg/L) treatment may only lead to an additional 15% net reduction in life-cycle eutrophication potential

Universal Quantifier Derived from AFM Analysis Links Cellular Mechanical Properties and Cell–Surface Integration Forces with Microbial Deposition and Transport Behavior

In this study, we employed AFM analysis combined with mathematical modeling for quantifying cell–surface contact mechanics and magnitude and range of cell–surface interaction forces for seven bacterial strains with a wide range of cell morphology, dimension, and surface characteristics. Comprehensive cell–surface characterization including surface charge, extracellular polymeric substance content, hydrophobicity, and cell–cell aggregation analyses were performed. Flow-through column tests were employed to determine the attachment efficiency and deposition–transport behavior of these bacterial strains. No statistically significant correlation between attachment efficiency and any single-cell surface property was identified. Single-cell characterization by atomic force microscopy (AFM) yielded the mechanical deformation and elastic modulus, penetration resistance to AFM probe penetration by cellular surface substances (CSS), range and magnitude of the repulsive–attractive intersurface forces, and geometry of each strain. We proposed and derived a universal dimensionless modified Tabor’s parameter to integrate all these properties that account for their collective behavior. Results showed that the Tabor parameter derived from AFM analysis correlated well with experimentally determined attachment efficiency (α), which therefore is able to link microscale cell–surface properties with macroscale bacterial transport behavior. Results suggested that the AFM tests performed between a single cell and a surface captured the key quantities of the interactions between the cell and the surface that dictate overall cell attachment behavior. Tabor’s parameter therefore can be potentially incorporated into the microbial transport model

Biotransformation of Two Pharmaceuticals by the Ammonia-Oxidizing Archaeon Nitrososphaera gargensis.

The biotransformation of some micropollutants has previously been observed to be positively associated with ammonia oxidation activities and the transcript abundance of the archaeal ammonia monooxygenase gene (amoA) in nitrifying activated sludge. Given the increasing interest in and potential importance of ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA), we investigated the capabilities of an AOA pure culture, Nitrososphaera gargensis, to biotransform ten micropollutants belonging to three structurally similar groups (i.e., phenylureas, tertiary amides, and tertiary amines). N. gargensis was able to biotransform two of the tertiary amines, mianserin (MIA) and ranitidine (RAN), exhibiting similar compound specificity as two ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) strains that were tested for comparison. The same MIA and RAN biotransformation reactions were carried out by both the AOA and AOB strains. The major transformation product (TP) of MIA, α-oxo MIA was likely formed via a two-step oxidation reaction. The first hydroxylation step is typically catalyzed by monooxygenases. Three RAN TP candidates were identified from nontarget analysis. Their tentative structures and possible biotransformation pathways were proposed. The biotransformation of MIA and RAN only occurred when ammonia oxidation was active, suggesting cometabolic transformations. Consistently, a comparative proteomic analysis revealed no significant differential expression of any protein-encoding gene in N. gargensis grown on ammonium with MIA or RAN compared with standard cultivation on ammonium only. Taken together, this study provides first important insights regarding the roles played by AOA in micropollutant biotransformation