Phosphorus removal from municipal wastewater by hydrous ferric oxide reactive filtration and coupled chemically enhanced secondary treatment: part I--performance.

This work examines the performance of a hydrous ferric oxide (HFO) reactive filtration (RF) process with coupled chemically enhanced secondary treatment (RECYCLE) for phosphorus removal from municipal wastewater (HFO-RF-RECYCLE). A 3-month, 0.95-ML/d (0.25-mgd) demonstration of HFO-RF-RECYCLE was performed at a municipal wastewater treatment plant equipped with oxidation ditches and secondary clarifiers. Influent to the plant averaged 6.0 mg/L phosphorus, with a tertiary effluent average of 0.011 mg/L phosphorus. Iron doses to the plant were low, at 5 mg/L. Inline recycling of HFO solution rejects to the plant influent resulted in a maximum 90.3%, dose-dependent reduction of phosphorus in the secondary effluent at 4.5 ML/d (1.2 mgd). Other results included reduction of total suspended solids and turbidity. A mass balance analysis was performed. We conclude that HFO-RF-RECYCLE may allow very low levels of phosphorus discharge from municipal wastewater treatment plants with a ferric-iron-based tertiary filtration process and residual recycling.

Phosphorus removal from municipal wastewater by hydrous ferric oxide reactive filtration and coupled chemically enhanced secondary treatment: part II--mechanism.

The removal mechanism of a hydrous ferric oxide (HFO) reactive filtration (RF) process with coupled chemically enhanced secondary treatment (RECYCLE) for phosphorus removal from municipal wastewater (HFO-RF-RECYCLE) was examined. A 0.95-ML/d (0.25-mgd) demonstration of HFO-RF-RECYCLE was performed at a municipal wastewater treatment plant equipped with oxidation ditches and secondary clarifiers. Influent to the plant averaged 6.0 mg/L phosphorus, with a 3-month tertiary effluent average of 0.011 mg/L phosphorus. In addition to aqueous geochemical modeling, experiments with surface charge, scanning electron microscopy, adsorptive capacity, thermal desorption, and most probable number of iron(III)-reducing bacteria were performed on samples from the system, to determine the major phosphorus-removal pathways. Results suggest that, in addition to filtration of particulate phosphorus, the low tertiary effluent total phosphorus result was achieved by adsorption.

Snow sports related head and spinal injuries: an eight-year survey from the neurotrauma centre for the Snowy Mountains, Australia.

Neurotrauma from snow-sports related injuries is infrequently documented in the literature. In Australia no collective data has ever been published. The aim of this study is to document the injury pattern of snow sports related neurotrauma admissions to The Canberra Hospital, the regional trauma centre for the Snowy Mountains. A computerised hospital record search conducted between January 1994 and July 2002 revealed 25 head and 66 spinal injury admissions. The incidence of severe injuries requiring referral to tertiary trauma hospital was estimated to be 7.4 per 100,000 skier-days and for head and spinal injury 1.8 per 1,000,000 skier-days and 5.6 per 1,000,000 skier-days, respectively. Collision with a stationary object was disproportionately associated with head injury ( [Formula: see text] ) and falling forward with spinal injury ( [Formula: see text] ). Snowboarders tended to sustain cervical fractures more often than skiers ( [Formula: see text] ). The importance of helmet usage in buffering the impact of head-on collision and the proposition of having both feet fastened to a snowboard in leading to cervical injury were highlighted.

Lumbar discectomy and the diabetic patient: incidence and outcome.

Medical records of 363 patients who had a diagnosis of lumbar disc disease and were managed by a posterior approach lumbar discectomy over a 7 year period were reviewed: 33 patients had a preoperative diagnosis of diabetes, an incidence in this patient population of 9.1%. The results for these 33 patients who had a diagnosis of diabetes mellitus were compared with those of 33 age and sex matched nondiabetic (control) patients who had a similar operative approach. Twenty-five of the diabetic and 28 of t he control patients were available for long term follow up. The results were positive (good to excellent) for 24 of the 28 (86%) control patients and 15 of the 25 (60%) diabetic patients. Seven of the 25 (28%) diabetic patients had reoperation for recurrent disc herniation at the same level following the initial procedure compared with one of the 28 (3.5%) control patients.

Colloid cyst of the third ventricle in opposite sex, non-twin siblings.

This report describes a colloid cyst of the third ventricle presenting in a 23-year-old woman. Subsequently, her brother presented with a similar colloid cyst also at 23 years of age. In both patients the cysts were successfully surgically removed. The cysts were examined by light microscopy utilizing immunohistochemical staining. The epithelial lining was essentially identical in both cases. Both cysts stained positively for cytokeratin and epithelial membrane antigen and negatively for S100, vimentin, carcinoembryonic antigen and glial fibrillary acidic protein. A genetic predisposition to this congenital condition may be present in some relatives of patients in whom colloid cysts have been detected.

Neurosurgery and iatrogenic transmission of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

The Neurosurgical Society of Australasia has not recommended that recipients of dura mater grafts be actively sought out and informed, but rather that neurosurgeons should attempt to discover for individual patients whether they have received dura mater grafts.

Cube copying after cerebral damage.

The capacity of patients with cerebral lesions to copy a picture of a cube, as opposed to a nonrepresentational figure of similar structural complexity, was examined. Patients with copying disability showed greater impairment for the cube than the noncube whereas patients without copying impairment and controls performed equally on the two figures. It was concluded that the copying-deficit patients had particular difficulty in drawing 3-dimensional figures and that the copying deficit was not simply one of formulating the sequence of steps necessary to produce a complex as opposed to a simple abstract form. The results suggest that copying-disability patients may experience particular difficulty in encoding the pictorial structure of a model which depicts a three-dimensional object. The occurrence of errors of intellectual realism in cube copying (which also occur in children's drawings) was noted and it was suggested that the patients were experiencing difficulty in perceptually isolating the picture structure from the picture content.

Cerebrospinal fluid rhinorrhoea during treatment of pituitary tumours with bromocriptine.

Bromocriptine is widely used in the treatment of hyperprolactinaemia. It has also been shown to be effective in reducing the size of large pituitary tumours, particularly those secreting prolactin. We describe CSF rhinorrhoea in two such patients during treatment with bromocriptine and believe that this complication developed as a result of contraction of the tumour exposing a defect in the sella floor. The possibility of this complication, especially in patients with downward extension of tumour, should be noted.

Radiological abnormalities in temporal lobe epilepsy with clinicopathological correlations.

In 73 patients with drug-resistant temporal lobe epilepsy submitted to an unilateral anterior temporal lobectomy the radiographs were studied to see if there were any correlation with the pathology subsequently found and with the outcome of the operation. A small middle cranial fossa, focal calcification, and temporal horn displacement are often better indices of the underlying pathology than temporal horn dilatation alone. In a small number of cases, however, radiological changes were seen on the side opposite to an unilateral EEG focus, thus suggesting bilateral disease.