Feasibility of rapid gravity filtration and membrane ultrafiltration for the removal of microplastics and microlitter in sewage and wastewater from plastic industry

[EN] Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) act as barriers in reducing uncontrolled microplastic and microlitter (MP-ML) emissions from both urban and industrial wastewaters. Despite removing most of the MP-ML, large quantities of this waste still enter the environment through WWTP effluents, which means further post-treatment technologies are needed. This study contains a technical evaluation of MP-ML removal from urban wastewater (UWW) and from the wastewater from the recycling plastic industry (PIWW) using two different pilot-scale post-treatment systems: rapid gravity filtration (RGF) and ultrafiltration (UF) membranes. The MP-ML mass concentrations contained in UWW and PIWW were measured by a simplified method adapted for the long-term monitoring of WWTP operations. The method was validated on standard samples. Despite the RGF system consumed less energy than UF treating UWW (0.097 kWh·m-3 and 0.156 kWh·m-3, respectively), RGF was not efficient enough to properly decrease the risk of MP-ML emissions (39.5 ± 34.6% of MP-ML removal). With respect to PIWW, the energy consumption of the UF plant decreased up to 0.059 kWh·m-3. The combination of RGF and UF technologies was expected to reduce membrane fouling but it did not show significant differences in the mid-term operation.This research work was supported by the Agència Valenciana de la Innovació (AVI) of the Generalitat Valenciana (Spain) through the Project MICROPLAST (INEST00/19/058), which is gratefully acknowledged. It was also supported by the Entitat Pública de Sanejament d'Aigües Residuals de la Comunitat Valenciana (EPSAR) and the Camp de Turia Mancommunity. First author J. Gonzalez-Camejo is also grateful to the Spanish Ministry of Universities and the NextGenerationEU for their support via a Margarita Salas Grant.González-Camejo, J.; Morales, A.; Peña-Lamas, J.; Lafita, C.; Enguídanos, S.; Seco, A.; Martí, N. (2023). Feasibility of rapid gravity filtration and membrane ultrafiltration for the removal of microplastics and microlitter in sewage and wastewater from plastic industry. Journal of Water Process Engineering. 51. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jwpe.2022.1034525

Conserved ancestral tropical niche but different continental histories explain the latitudinal diversity gradient in brush-footed butterflies.

The global increase in species richness toward the tropics across continents and taxonomic groups, referred to as the latitudinal diversity gradient, stimulated the formulation of many hypotheses to explain the underlying mechanisms of this pattern. We evaluate several of these hypotheses to explain spatial diversity patterns in a butterfly family, the Nymphalidae, by assessing the contributions of speciation, extinction, and dispersal, and also the extent to which these processes differ among regions at the same latitude. We generate a time-calibrated phylogeny containing 2,866 nymphalid species (~45% of extant diversity). Neither speciation nor extinction rate variations consistently explain the latitudinal diversity gradient among regions because temporal diversification dynamics differ greatly across longitude. The Neotropical diversity results from low extinction rates, not high speciation rates, and biotic interchanges with other regions are rare. Southeast Asia is also characterized by a low speciation rate but, unlike the Neotropics, is the main source of dispersal events through time. Our results suggest that global climate change throughout the Cenozoic, combined with tropical niche conservatism, played a major role in generating the modern latitudinal diversity gradient of nymphalid butterflies

Deterministic and Probabilistic Slope Stability Models Forecast Performance at ~1:5000-Scale

Deterministic methods are appropriate for analyzing specific slopes at site-scale where geotechnical parameters are better known. Probabilistic techniques provide better results than deterministic methods at regional scales (1:10,000–1:50,000). However, the performances of deterministic and probabilistic methods at large scales (e.g. 1:5000-scale) are not well-known. We applied GIS-based deterministic (WEDGEFAIL, SAFETYFACTOR, SHALSTAB) and probabilistic (Likelihood ratio) methods to a mountain road of 14 km in the Alpujarras region (S Spain) to investigate the behavior of these models at detailed scales. The studied road stretch was affected by 111 landslides (7–8 landslides/km) during the 2009–2010 winter in a period of high precipitation. These landslides cut off the road in several points and disconnected the central region of Alpujarras from the main transport infrastructures. We delimited a small study area with only 4 km2 restricted to the slopes that cross the road where we gathered as much data as possible. Our results show that deterministic methods have less prediction capability at ~1:5000-scale than probabilistic methods and it seems that the needed effort to improve their results is not worthwhile. However, it must take into account that probabilistic methods need an inventory and they could not have been applied before the analyzed landslide event. As our results indicate, the deterministic methods, such as the SHALSTAB model, are reliable tools to make an evaluation of the stability of cut slopes in a roadway at project-scale

Diseño y comparativa de biomateriales para el tratamiento de defectos óseos. Estudio de su comportamiento in vivo en modelo animal de conejo

Objetivo: Comparar in vivo la capacidad de formación ósea de dos tipos de biomateriales diseñados como sustitutivos óseos respecto a autoinjerto de cresta iliaca, uno basado en carbonatohidroxiapatita y otro en vidrio mesoporoso bioactivo. Material y método: Estudio experimental compuesto por 14 conejos de Nueva Zelanda hembras adultas donde se realizó un defecto crítico en hueso radio. La muestra fue dividida en cuatro grupos: defecto sin material, con autoinjerto de cresta iliaca, con soporte de carbonatohidroxiapatita y con soporte de vidrio mesoporoso bioactivo. Se realizaron estudios seriados de radiología simple a las 2, 4, 6 y 12 semanas y estudio de micro-TC a eutanasia a las 6 y 12 semanas. Resultados: En el estudio de radiología simple, el grupo de autoinjerto mostró las mayores puntuaciones de formación ósea (7,5 puntos). Ambos grupos de biomateriales presentaron formación ósea similar (5,3 y 6 puntos, respectivamente) y mayor al defecto sin material (4 puntos), pero siempre menor que el grupo de autoinjerto. Los resultados del estudio de micro-TC mostraron el mayor volumen de hueso en el área de estudio en el grupo de autoinjerto. Los grupos con sustitutivos óseos presentaron mayor volumen de hueso que el grupo sin material, pero siempre menor que en el grupo de autoinjerto.Fundación de la Sociedad Espanola de Cirugía Ortopédica y TraumatologíaInstituto de salud Carlos IIIDepto. de Química en Ciencias FarmacéuticasFac. de FarmaciaTRUEpu

Prediction of long-term outcomes of HIV-infected patients developing non-AIDS events using a multistate approach

Outcomes of people living with HIV (PLWH) developing non-AIDS events (NAEs) remain poorly defined. We aimed to classify NAEs according to severity, and to describe clinical outcomes and prognostic factors after NAE occurrence using data from CoRIS, a large Spanish HIV cohort from 2004 to 2013. Prospective multicenter cohort study. Using a multistate approach we estimated 3 transition probabilities: from alive and NAE-free to alive and NAE-experienced ("NAE development"); from alive and NAE-experienced to death ("Death after NAE"); and from alive and NAE-free to death ("Death without NAE"). We analyzed the effect of different covariates, including demographic, immunologic and virologic data, on death or NAE development, based on estimates of hazard ratios (HR). We focused on the transition "Death after NAE". 8,789 PLWH were followed-up until death, cohort censoring or loss to follow-up. 792 first incident NAEs occurred in 9.01% PLWH (incidence rate 28.76; 95% confidence interval [CI], 26.80-30.84, per 1000 patient-years). 112 (14.14%) NAE-experienced PLWH and 240 (2.73%) NAE-free PLWH died. Adjusted HR for the transition "Death after NAE" was 12.1 (95%CI, 4.90-29.89). There was a graded increase in the adjusted HRs for mortality according to NAE severity category: HR (95%CI), 4.02 (2.45-6.57) for intermediate-severity; and 9.85 (5.45-17.81) for serious NAEs compared to low-severity NAEs. Male sex (HR 2.04; 95% CI, 1.11-3.84), ag