Circling the drain: A systems analysis of opportunities for enhanced sewer self-purification technologies in wastewater management.

The shift of discussions on wastewater management to realize a circular water economy requires rethinking of how the existing systems are managed. The collection system, a physical infrastructure that collects and transports wastewater, is often overlooked in innovation studies in wastewater management. Hence, a review of the collection system is required to realize overlooked innovation points, especially those of its functions and configurations. In this paper, we highlight the possibility of the collection system to contribute to wastewater management, not only to collect and transport wastewater, but to treat wastewater through enhancing sewer self-purification. To realize this, a systems analysis of the forms and functions of the collection system was first conducted to see how the collection system supports different wastewater management systems. It was found that emphasis on the collection system's function to treat wastewater is beneficial because of the transition of wastewater management towards a circular water economy. Second, a scenario analysis of applying enhanced sewer self-purification technologies was conducted to determine communities which would most benefit from using the collection system to treat wastewater. The findings highlight that communities with as much as 100 cap ha-1, typical of urban peripheries, could have their pollutant load reduced to about half if the pipe length per capita is 5 m. It was seen in this study that while the collection system supports wastewater management by functioning to collect and transport wastewater, it can further be elevated into a treatment technology within appropriate localities and thus, contribute to a circular water economy.

Pharmacological effectiveness of the active phytochemicals contained in foods and herbs.

Food ingestions generally regulate many physiological functions to maintain a healthy life. Furthermore, herbal medicine is prescribed for the prevention and the treatment of various diseases. There are not a few herbal medicine-derived drugs (phytochemicals) clinically using now. The phytochemicals such as digitalis, curare, morphine, quinidine, atropine, and so on are so much important drugs for clinical treatments. Herbal medicine and foods are composed of many constituents. The pharmacological actions that contain phytochemicals are exerted each by each mediated through different receptors, ionic channels, and cellular signal transductions. Thus, they produce multiple pharmacological and pathophysiological functions mediated by the complex interactions with lots of the ingredients.

Pharmacological characteristics of Kampo medicine as a mixture of constituents and ingredients.

Herbal medicine in Japan is termed as Kampo medicine, which is derived from traditional Chinese medicine. Shakuyakukanzoto (Shao-Yao-Gan-Cao-Tang) as a kind of Kampo formulations is composed of just two components; Paeoniae Radix and Glycyrrhizae Radix, which produced marked relaxation of intestinal tract. Mokuboito (Mu-Fang-Ji-Tang) inhibited cardiac ionic channel currents, and as a mixture also produced great vasodilatation. Sinomenine (a main ingredient of Mokuboito) as a single compound also caused the vasodilatation, but decreased it along with ageing. Gypsum containing in Mokuboito and Chotosan (Diao-Teng-San) caused more marked effects, as compared with those without Gypsum. On the other hand, Rokumigan (Liu-Wei-Wan), Hachimijiogan (Ba-Wei-Di-Huang-Wan) and Goshajinkigan (Niu-Che-Shen-Qi-Wan) increase in order the number of contained ingredients. The formulations with more herbs (ingredients) produced much more effective actions on rat aorta, presumably due to compensation of the decline of pharmacological sensitivity with ageing. Thus, there are some important differences between single chemical drugs and mixture drugs with many ingredients. The effects of Kampo medicine (mixture) are never just a sum of each effect induced by a lot of ingredients. For elder persons, furthermore, Kampo medicine exerts more effective actions.

Role of gap junction involved with endothelium-derived hyperpolarizing factor for the quercetin-induced vasodilatation in rat mesenteric artery.

AIMS: Modulation of vasodilating actions by quercetin, a kind of flavonoid, was investigated using rat mesenteric arterial ring strips. MAIN METHODS: Ring strips (1mm) of rat mesenteric artery were used. The specimens were kept at 36.5 °C in Krebs-Henseleit solution oxygenated with 95% O(2) and 5% CO(2). KEY FINDINGS: Quercetin (0.1 to 100 µM) dilated the contraction induced by norepinephrine (1 µM) in a concentration-dependent manner. The quercetin-induced vasodilatation was almost resistant to both 100 µM L-N(G)-nitro arginine methyl ester (L-NAME) and 100 µM indomethacin. At 1mM tetraethylammonium (a KCa channel inhibitor) decreased the quercetin-induced vasodilatation, which was resistant to L-NAME and indomethacin, but not significantly. L-NAME- and indomethacin-resistant quercetin-induced vasodilatation was significantly attenuated by 100 µM 18α- and 50 µM 18ß-glycyrrhetinic acids (gap junction inhibitors). Endothelium removal as well significantly attenuated the vasodilatation to the same extent. SIGNIFICANCE: These results indicate that quercetin dilates the mesenteric artery via endothelium-dependent mechanisms, and the dilatation is mainly mediated by gap junctions closely involved with endothelium-derived hyperpolarizing factor (EDHF).

Microbial community composition of polyhydroxyalkanoate-accumulating organisms in full-scale wastewater treatment plants operated in fully aerobic mode.

The removal of biodegradable organic matter is one of the most important objectives in biological wastewater treatments. Polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA)-accumulating organisms (PHAAOs) significantly contribute to the removal of biodegradable organic matter; however, their microbial community composition is mostly unknown. In the present study, the microbial community composition of PHAAOs was investigated at 8 full-scale wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs), operated in fully aerobic mode, by fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) analysis and post-FISH Nile blue A (NBA) staining techniques. Our results demonstrated that 1) PHAAOs were in the range of 11-18% in the total number of cells, and 2) the microbial community composition of PHAAOs was similar at the bacterial domain/phylum/class/order level among the 8 full-scale WWTPs, and dominant PHAAOs were members of the class Alphaproteobacteria and Betaproteobacteria. The microbial community composition of α- and ß-proteobacterial PHAAOs was examined by 16S rRNA gene clone library analysis and further by applying a set of newly designed oligonucleotide probes targeting 16S rRNA gene sequences of α- or ß-proteobacterial PHAAOs. The results demonstrated that the microbial community composition of PHAAOs differed in the class Alphaproteobacteria and Betaproteobacteria, which possibly resulted in a different PHA accumulation capacity among the WWTPs (8.5-38.2 mg-C g-VSS(-1) h(-1)). The present study extended the knowledge of the microbial diversity of PHAAOs in full-scale WWTPs operated in fully aerobic mode.

Bacterial population dynamics in a laboratory activated sludge reactor monitored by pyrosequencing of 16S rRNA.

The microbial population in a laboratory activated sludge reactor was monitored for 245 d at 75 time points by pyrosequencing of 16S rRNA. Synthetic wastewater was used as the influent, and the reactor was operated under the same conditions throughout the experiment. The behaviors of different bacterial operational taxonomic units (OTUs) were observed. Multiple OTUs showed periodic propagation and recession. One of the OTUs showed sharp recession, which suggests that cells in the OTU were selectively killed. The behaviors of different phylogenetic lineages of Candidatus 'Accumulibacter phosphatis' were also visualized. It was clearly demonstrated that pyrosequencing with barcoded primers is a very effective tool to clarify the dynamics of the bacterial population in activated sludge.

Revealing microbial community structures in large- and small-scale activated sludge systems by barcoded pyrosequencing of 16S rRNA gene.

The diversity of bacterial groups in activated sludge from large- and small-scale wastewater treatment plants was explored by barcoded pyrosequencing of 16S rRNA gene. Activated sludge samples (three small and 17 large scale) were collected from 12 wastewater treatment plants to clarify precise taxonomy and relative abundances. DNA was extracted, and amplified by 4 base barcoded 27f/519r primer set. The 454 Titanium (Roche) pyrosequences were obtained and analyses performed by Quantitative Insight Into Microbial Ecology (QIIME) with around 100,000 reads. Sequence statistics were computed, while constructing a phylogenetic tree and heatmap. Computed results explained total microbial diversity at phylum and class level and resolution was further extended to Operational Taxonomic Unit (OTU) based taxonomic assignment for investigating community distribution based on individual sample. Composition of sequence reads were compared and microbial community structures for large- and small-scale treatment plants were identified as major phyla (Proteobacteria and Bacteroidetes) and classes (Betaproteobacteria and Bacteroidetes). Also, family level breakdowns were explained and differences in family Nitrospiraceae and phylum Actinobacteria found at their species level were also illustrated. Thus, the pyrosequencing method provides high resolution insight into microbial community structures in activated sludge that might have been unnoticed with conventional approaches.

Dynamics of dewaterability and bacterial populations in activated sludge.

Relationships of bacterial populations and extracellular polymer substances (EPS) to dewaterability of activated sludge were studied on three laboratory-scale activated sludge reactors fed with synthetic wastewater. Dewaterability of activated sludge was evaluated by a novel method developed by the authors, in which small amount of sludge was centrifugally dewatered, and its water content was measured. Bacterial populations during the reactor operation were analyzed by the polymerase chain reaction/terminal-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR/T-RFLP) targeted at a partial 16S rRNA gene. Extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) were extracted using cation exchange resin (CER), and polysaccharides and total protein in EPS were determined. Some of the dominant terminal-restriction fragments (T-RFs) were observed to have significant relationships with dewaterability of sludge, and it was suggested that bacterial species corresponding to those peaks significantly affected dewaterability. On the other hand, significant relationships were not found between EPS concentration and dewaterability of sludge.

Prevention of the wortmannin-induced inhibition of phosphoinositide 3-kinase by sulfhydryl reducing agents.

The effects of the sulfhydryl reducing agents 2-mercaptoethanol and dithiothreitol on wortmannin-induced inhibition of phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K) were studied in order to examine whether the sulfhydryl reducing agents directly affect the wortmannin inhibition of PI3K. These reducing agents are commonly used to stabilize enzyme structures by maintaining protein sulfhydryl groups in the reduced state. Preincubation of wortmannin with millimolar levels of 2-mercaptoethanol, a sulfhydryl derivative of ethanol, markedly prevented subsequent wortmannin-induced inhibition of PI3K. In contrast, ethanol, 2-mercaptoethanol lacking sulfhydryl group, and 2-(methylthio)ethanol, a methyl derivative of the sulfhydryl group of 2-mercaptoethanol, had little effect on the wortmannin-induced inhibition of PI3K, which suggests that the prevention of wortmannin-induced inhibition by 2-mercaptoethanol occurs through the sulfhydryl group of this agent. Moreover, dithiothreitol, a second sulfhydryl reducing agent, also markedly prevented wortmannin-induced inhibition of PI3K. These results indicate that the wortmannin-induced inhibition of PI3K is markedly prevented by millimolar concentrations of sulfhydryl reducing agents such as 2-mercaptoethanol and dithiothreitol in the medium, presumably by the binding of wortmannin to the agents.

Effect of aspartate and glutamate on the fate of enhanced biological phosphorus removal process and microbial community structure.

This study investigated the fate of enhanced biological phosphorus removal (EBPR) and changes in microbial speciation in a sequencing batch reactor (SBR) fed with aspartate and glutamate. It involved SBR operation for 288 days, batch tests for observation of metabolic functions together with microscopic and phylogenetic analyses. Polyphosphate accumulating organisms (PAOs) were observed in abundance with complete removal of phosphorus. Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) combined with 4',6-dia-midino-2-phenylindole (DAPI) staining confirmed the accumulation of polyphosphate by Rhodocyclus-related and Actinobacterial PAOs. Aspartate seemed to favor the competitive growth of Rhodocyclus-related PAOs since EBPR population used the common biochemical pathways followed by Rhodocyclus-related PAOs in the aspartate fed batch tests. In the glutamate fed batch reactors, however, Actinobacterial PAOs appeared to be competitively selected which explains the lower levels of PHA generation. Even though operational conditions did not change, effective EBPR could not be maintained during the latter part of the study.

Gender differences in the phosphorus content of the sino-atrial nodes and other cardiac regions of monkeys.

To examine whether there were gender differences in the sino-atrial node (SAN), the authors investigated the gender difference in the SAN using monkey hearts by direct chemical analysis from a viewpoint of element contents. The used rhesus and Japanese monkeys consisted of 30 males (average age=6.5±7.5 years) and 30 females (average age=12.2±10.3 years), ranging in age from newborn to 30 years. The SAN tissues were removed from the anatomical position of monkey hearts and were confirmed by means of histological observation. After ashing with nitric acid and with perchloric acid, element contents of the SANs, such as Ca, P, S, Mg, Zn, Fe, and Na, were determined by inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectrometry. In addition, gender differences in the right atrial walls, left ventricular walls, mitral valves, and left coronary arteries of monkeys were also investigated as controls. It was found that the P content was significantly higher in females than in males in the SANs of monkeys, but the other six element contents, Ca, S, Mg, Zn, Fe, and Na, were not significantly different between males and females in the SANs of monkeys. Regarding the P content, a similar finding was also obtained in both the right atrial walls and the left ventricular walls of monkeys, but it was not obtained in the mitral valves and the left coronary arteries of monkeys. The P content of tissue is mostly determined by the nucleic acid (DNA and RNA) content and the phospholipid content of tissue. Nucleic acids in the cell nucleus and the cytosol, and phospholipids in the cell membrane are all indicators of metabolically active cells. It is reasonable to presume that the P content in the SAN indicates the active cell density, namely, the number of active cells per volume. Therefore, there is a possibility that the active cell density of the SAN is significantly higher in females than in males.