Publications related to Wastewater monitoring outperforms case numbers as a tool to track COVID-19 incidence dynamics when test positivity rates are high

Monitoring an Emergent Pathogen at Low Incidence in Wastewater Using qPCR: Mpox in Switzerland

Wastewater-based epidemiology offers a complementary approach to clinical case-based surveillance of emergent diseases and can help identify regions with infected people to prioritize clinical surveillance strategies. However, tracking emergent diseases in ...

2024

Oxidation processes and me

Urs von Gunten

This publication summarizes my journey in the field of chemical oxidation processes for water treatment over the last 30+ years. Initially, the efficiency of the application of chemical oxidants for micropollutant abatement was assessed by the abatement of ...

Pergamon-Elsevier Science Ltd2024

Challenges of COVID-19 Case Forecasting in the US, 2020-2021

Joseph Chadi Benoit Lemaitre, Pan Xu, Myungjin Kim, Shan Yu, Lei Gao, Weitong Zhang, Wei Cao, Xinyi Li

During the COVID-19 pandemic, forecasting COVID-19 trends to support planning and response was a priority for scientists and decision makers alike. In the United States, COVID-19 forecasting was coordinated by a large group of universities, companies, and ...

Public Library Science2024

Microbial genome collection of aerobic granular sludge cultivated in sequencing batch reactors using different carbon source mixtures

Aline Sondra Adler, Christof Holliger, Pilar Natalia Rodilla Ramírez, Laetitia Janine Andrée Cardona, Jaspreet Singh Saini, Ruizhe Pei

Aerobic granular sludge (AGS) consists of a microbial consortium that has an important role in wastewater treatment. This study investigates AGS microorganisms cultivated in a laboratory-scale sequencing batch reactor. Metagenomic sequencing was conducted ...

Amer Soc Microbiology2024

Epidemicity indices and reproduction numbers from infectious disease data in connected human populations

Andrea Rinaldo, Lorenzo Mari, Marino Gatto, Cristiano Trevisin

We focus on distinctive data-driven measures of the fate of ongoing epidemics. The relevance of our pursuit is suggested by recent results proving that the short-term temporal evolution of infection spread is described by an epidemicity index related to th ...

2024

Optimal regimes for algorithm-assisted human decision-making

Mats Julius Stensrud, Aaron Leor Sarvet

We consider optimal regimes for algorithm-assisted human decision-making. Such regimes are decision functions of measured pre-treatment variables and, by leveraging natural treatment values, enjoy a superoptimality property whereby they are guaranteed to o ...

2024

In Situ Synthesis of CuxO/N Doped Graphdiyne with Pyridine N Configuration for Ammonia Production via Nitrate Reduction

Sophia Haussener, Roberto Valenza, Jian Li

Electroreduction of nitrate to ammonia provides an interesting pathway for wastewater treatment and valorization. Cu-based catalysts are active for the conversion of NO3− to NO2− but suffer from an inefficient hydrogenation process of NO2−. Herein, CuxO/N- ...

2024

Using Negative Control Populations to Assess Unmeasured Confounding and Direct Effects

Mats Julius Stensrud

Sometimes treatment effects are absent in a subgroup of the population. For example, penicillin has no effect on severe symptoms in individuals infected by resistant Staphylococcus aureus, and codeine has no effect on pain in individuals with certain polym ...

Lippincott Williams & Wilkins2024

Optimized numerical solutions of SIRDVW multiage model controlling SARS-CoV-2 vaccine roll out: An application to the Italian scenario

Alfio Quarteroni, Nicola Parolini, Luca Dede'

In the context of SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, mathematical modelling has played a funda-mental role for making forecasts, simulating scenarios and evaluating the impact of pre-ventive political, social and pharmaceutical measures. Optimal control theory represent ...

KEAI PUBLISHING LTD2023

Virtual reality intervention alleviates dyspnoea in patients recovering from COVID-19 pneumonia

Bruno Herbelin, Olaf Blanke, Sylvain Cardin, Oliver Alan Kannape, Jemina Fasola, Aline Schmit, Florian Lance, Sophie Jacqueline Andrée Betka

Background Immersive virtual reality (iVR)-based digital therapeutics are gaining clinical attention in the field of pain management. Based on known analogies between pain and dyspnoea, we investigated the effects of visual respiratory feedback on persiste ...

European Respiratory Soc Journals Ltd2023

Mechanistic insights on interactions of dissolved organic matter with chemical oxidants: quantification of reactive sites and identification of oxidation byproducts

Joanna Maria Houska

Chemical oxidants including ozone (O3), chlorine (HOCl/OCl-) and chlorine dioxide (ClO2) are applied for disinfection of drinking water. To cope with water scarcity and the increased risks associated with the presence of micropollutants, water treatment sy ...

EPFL2023

Ozonation of lake water and wastewater: Identification of carbonous and nitrogenous carbonyl-containing oxidation byproducts by non-target screening

Urs von Gunten, Joanna Maria Houska

Ozonation of drinking water and wastewater is accompanied by the formation of disinfection byproducts (DBPs) such as low molecular weight aldehydes and ketones from the reactions of ozone with dissolved organic matter (DOM). By applying a recently develope ...

PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD2023

A Survey of Industrial N-nitrosamine Discharges in Switzerland

Florian Frédéric Vincent Breider, Caroline Gachet Aquillon, Urs von Gunten

N-nitrosamines are formed during different industrial processes and are of significant concern due to their carcinogenic and mutagenic properties. This study reports concentrations of N-nitrosamines in eight different industrial wastewater treatment plants ...

2023

Why five decades of massive research on heterogeneous photocatalysis, especially on TiO2, has not yet driven to water disinfection and detoxification applications? Critical review of drawbacks and challenges

César Pulgarin, Julian Andrés Rengifo Herrera

For fifty years, heterogeneous photocatalysis has been considered as having potential to remove organic and microbiological pollutants from water under either artificial UV light or sunlight irradiation. However, after tens of thousands of published resear ...

Elsevier Science Sa2023

Inactivation of coxsackievirus B5 by free chlorine under conditions relevant to drinking water treatment

Shotaro Torii

Chlorine disinfection is commonly applied to inactivate pathogenic viruses in drinking water treatment plants. However, the role of water quality in chlorine disinfection of viruses has not been investigated thoughtfully. In this study, we investigated the ...

IWA PUBLISHING2023

Formation of carbonyl compounds during ozonation of lake water and wastewater: Development of a non-target screening method and quantification of target compounds

Urs von Gunten, Joanna Maria Houska

Ozonation of natural waters is typically associated with the formation of carbonyl compounds (aldehydes, ketones and ketoacids), a main class of organic disinfection byproducts (DBPs). However, the detection of carbonyl compounds in water and wastewater is ...

PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD2023

Oxidative Water Treatment: The Track Ahead

Urs von Gunten, Yun Ho Lee

Chemical oxidation has been applied in municipal water treatment for more than a century, initially for disinfection. In the early decades, chlorine disinfection was adopted in the fight against waterborne disease. However, the oxidative properties of chlo ...

2023

Periodate activation with copper oxide nanomaterials for the degradation of ciprofloxacin- A new insight into the efficiency and mechanisms

Shaoxian Li, Xi Zhang

In this study, CuO was synthesized using a facile precipitation method and was characterized using various techniques for the efficient activation of periodate (PI). Compared to systems consisting of PI alone (0.5 mM) and CuO alone (0.5 g/L), the CuO (0.5 ...

ELSEVIER SCI LTD2023

Secondary Structures of MERS-CoV, SARS-CoV, and SARS-CoV-2 Spike Proteins Revealed by Infrared Vibrational Spectroscopy

Marta Di Fabrizio

All coronaviruses are characterized by spike glycoproteins whose S1 subunits contain the receptor binding domain (RBD). The RBD anchors the virus to the host cellular membrane to regulate the virus transmissibility and infectious process. Although the prot ...

MDPI2023

Functional and structural characterization of polyphosphate-accumulating organisms in aerobic granular biofilms

Arnaud Michel Gelb

The "Aerobic Granular Sludge" (AGS) technology for wastewater treatment is based on dense microbial biofilm in the form of granular aggregates that have an excellent settling property allowing high biomass concentrations in bioreactors. This promising biol ...

EPFL2023