•After yoga, stress was reduced, and mood improved for four populations including people who were incarcerated, people in treatment for substance use, veterans, and youth.•Across multiple sessions ...both the largest decreases in stress and greatest increase in mood occurred after participant in the first session.•A specific exploration of curriculum class impact by theme for participants who were incarcerated indicated no difference in impact by theme.•For individuals in treatment for substance use, reductions in systolic blood pressure occurred immediately after the first curriculum session, and diastolic blood pressure reduced over three consecutive sessions.
Individuals with trauma experience negative mental health impacts and are at risk of poor cardiovascular outcomes. Unmanaged, these conditions may worsen, compromising healing and wellbeing. Yoga, particularly trauma-informed, may improve outcomes. The current pilot study explores the impact of a novel trauma-informed yoga and mindfulness curriculum on wellbeing in two parts. The first examined mental health (stress, mood) outcomes in four trauma-impacted populations: adults who were incarcerated (INC), individuals in recovery from substance use disorders (SU), veterans (VA), and vulnerable youth (YTH) assessing both the impact of individual class participation and impact of attending at least four curriculum sessions. For the subgroup of incarcerated individuals, impact by theme was examined. After curriculum sessions, stress was reduced, and mood improved. Across multiple sessions both the largest decreases in stress and greatest increase in mood occurred after participant in the first session. Further, a specific exploration of curriculum class impact by theme for participants who were incarcerated indicated no difference in impact by theme. The second part of this study explored cardiovascular outcomes for the population of those in recovery from substance use. Reductions in systolic blood pressure occurred immediately after the first curriculum session, and diastolic blood pressure reduced over three consecutive sessions.
Networked microgrids are considered an effective way to enhance resilience of localized energy systems. Recently, research efforts across the world have been focusing on the optimal sizing and ...pre-positioning problems of distributed energy resources for networked microgrids. However, existing literature on mobile energy storage systems mainly focused on single pre-positioning or operational problems rather than a comprehensive resilience-driven planning model capturing both optimal sizing and pre-positioning, especially in the presence of several MGs operating in a networked fashion. Additionally, centralized control is the method typically used to model networked microgrids that may be perceived as unrealistic in presence of high-impact extreme events. Therefore, this paper focuses on developing a three-level defender–attacker–defender model to solve resilience-driven optimal sizing and pre-positioning problems of mobile energy storage systems in networked microgrids with decentralized control. The upper level problem is formulated to obtain optimization results against a certain contingency, while the middle level problem and the lower level problem are merged as a subproblem to select a contingency that can cause the most severe damage. An adaptive genetic algorithm has been employed to search for sizing and positioning decisions and capture various potential attack plans, while a decentralized control approach based on consensus algorithm and linearized AC optimal power flow are utilized to model microgrid operations and capture technical constraints relating to voltage and power loss. Uncertainties relating to renewable energy sources and load profiles are incorporated into the model via stochastic programming. Extensive case studies considering meshed networks and load discrimination into essential/non-essential are developed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed model on accurate decision making of capacities and initial locations.
•A three-level model based on adaptive genetic algorithm is developed.•Optimal sizing and pre-positioning of mobile energy storage units are considered.•A decentralized control approach based on a consensus algorithm is developed.•Internal uncertainties and external contingencies are considered.•A linearized AC optimal power flow capturing network and technical constraints is utilized.
In March 2020 the World Health Organization announced a pandemic outbreak. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is the causative pathogen for the coronavirus disease-19 ...(COVID-19) pandemic. The authorities worldwide use clinical science to identify infected people, but this approach is not able to track all symptomatic and asymptomatic cases due to limited sampling capacity of the testing laboratories. This drawback is eliminated by the Wastewater-Based Epidemiology (WBE) approach. In this review, we summarized the peer-reviewed published literature (available as of September 28, 2020), in the field of WBE. The commonly used steps (sampling, storage, concentration, isolation, detection) of the analytical protocols were identified. The potential limitations of each stage of the protocols and good practices were discussed. Finally, new methods for the efficient detection of SARS-CoV-2 were proposed.
•Review of the methods for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater.•Critical discussion of all steps of the analytical protocols.•Proposal for improvement of SARS-CoV-2 methods in wastewater based epidemiology.•Provide techniques from clinical science that are applicable in WBE.•WBE could be used as a tool to detect pandemics and track government interventions.
Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) was applied for the first time in seven cities across Europe with the aim of estimating quinolones consumption via the analysis of human urinary metabolites in ...wastewater. This report is also the first pan-European study focussed on the enantiomeric profiling of chiral quinolones in wastewater. By considering loads of (fluoro)quinolones in wastewater within the context of human stereoselective metabolism, we identified cities in Southern Europe characterised by both high usage and direct disposal of unused ofloxacin. In Northern European cities, S-(-)-ofloxacin loads were predominant with respect to R-(+)-ofloxacin. Much more potent, enantiomerically pure S-(-)-ofloxacin was detected in wastewaters from Southern European cities, reflecting consumption of the enantiomerically pure antibiotic. Nalidixic acid, norfloxacin and lomefloxacin were detected in wastewater even though they were not prescribed according to official prescription data. S,S-(-)-moxifloxacin and S,S-(-)-moxifloxacin-N-sulphate were detected in wastewater due to metabolism of moxifloxacin. For the first time, average population-normalised ulifloxacin loads of 22.3 and 1.5 mg day−1 1000 people−1 were reported for Milan and Castellón as a result of prulifloxacin metabolism. Enrichment of flumequine with first-eluting enantiomer in all the samples indicated animal metabolism rather than its direct disposal. Fluoroquinolone loads were compared with qnrS gene encoding quinolone resistance to correlate usage of fluoroquinolone and prevalence of resistance. The highest daily loads of the qnrS gene in Milan corresponded with the highest total quinolone load in Milan proving the hypothesis that higher usage of quinolones is linked with higher prevalence of quinolone resistance genes. Utrecht, with the lowest quinolones usage (low daily loads) had also one of the lowest daily loads of the qnrS gene. However, a similar trend was not observed in Oslo nor Bristol where higher qnrS gene loads were observed despite low quinolone usage.
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•Quinolones usage and consumption estimated in 7 European cities using WBE.•Higher quinolone usage estimated in Southern cities vs Norther cities.•Direct disposal of unused antibiotics evidenced.•S-(-)-ofloxacin distributed in Southern cities vs racemic ofloxacin in Northern cities.•The highest daily load of qnrS gene corresponded with the highest quinolones load.
Caffeine metabolites in wastewater were investigated as potential biomarkers for assessing caffeine intake in a population. The main human urinary metabolites of caffeine were measured in the urban ...wastewater of ten European cities and the metabolic profiles in wastewater were compared with the human urinary excretion profile. A good match was found for 1,7-dimethyluric acid, an exclusive caffeine metabolite, suggesting that might be a suitable biomarker in wastewater for assessing population-level caffeine consumption. A correction factor was developed considering the percentage of excretion of this metabolite in humans, according to published pharmacokinetic studies. Daily caffeine intake estimated from wastewater analysis was compared with the average daily intake calculated from the average amount of coffee consumed by country per capita. Good agreement was found in some cities but further information is needed to standardize this approach. Wastewater analysis proved useful to providing additional local information on caffeine use.
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•Analysis of caffeine and metabolites in wastewater in ten European cities•Comparison of metabolic profiles in wastewater and in human urine•Selection of a suitable biomarker for assessing population level caffeine consumption•Use of 1,7-dimethyluric acid for caffeine consumption back-calculation•Comparison of caffeine intake from wastewater vs coffee trade by country per capita
Monitoring the scale of pharmaceuticals, illicit and licit drugs consumption is important to assess the needs of law enforcement and public health, and provides more information about the different ...trends within different countries. Community drug use patterns are usually described by national surveys, sales and seizure data. Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) has been shown to be a reliable approach complementing such surveys.
This study aims to compare and correlate the consumption estimates of pharmaceuticals, illicit drugs, alcohol, nicotine and caffeine from wastewater analysis and other sources of information. Wastewater samples were collected in 2015 from 8 different European cities over a one week period, representing a population of approximately 5 million people. Published pharmaceutical sale, illicit drug seizure and alcohol, tobacco and caffeine use data were used for the comparison.
High agreement was found between wastewater and other data sources for pharmaceuticals and cocaine, whereas amphetamines, alcohol and caffeine showed a moderate correlation. methamphetamine and 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) and nicotine did not correlate with other sources of data. Most of the poor correlations were explained as part of the uncertainties related with the use estimates and were improved with other complementary sources of data.
This work confirms the promising future of WBE as a complementary approach to obtain a more accurate picture of substance use situation within different communities. Our findings suggest further improvements to reduce the uncertainties associated with both sources of information in order to make the data more comparable.
Aquaculture production has globally increased and its environmental impact is not well understood and assessed yet. Therefore, in this work nine metals and metalloids (Cu, Cd, Pb, Hg, Ni, Fe, Mn, Zn ...and As) and three nutrients (P, N and C) that seem to accumulate in marine sediments, were determined under the fish cages (zero distance) and about 50 and 100 m away from them, in three aquacultures in Greece. The analysis of these data is crucial due to the negative impact of the intensive aquaculture activities on fish population, human health and marine environment. This study investigated the environmental impact associated with aquaculture cages on marine sediments, using Supervised Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) in parallel with Classification Trees (CTs). Optimised models were constructed in order to detect the significance of each variable, predict the origin of the sediment samples and successfully visualise their results. Three popular ANN architectures, as multi-layer perceptrons (MLPs), radial basis function (RBF) and counter propagation artificial neural networks (CP-ANNs) were used to assess the impact of the intensive aquaculture activities on marine sediments. In addition, more traditional multivariate chemometric techniques like CTs were applied to the same data set for comparison purposes. The modelling study showed that P, N, Cu, Cd were the most critical (and polluting) factors of those metals studied. Moreover, single-element models achieved elevated predictive percentages. The results were justified due to the usual practices used for fish feeding or cages maintenance.
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•ANNs were superior to CART in differentiating samples.•Aquaculture areas were differentiated by P measurements and ANN models.•Single-element models achieved elevated predictive percentages (even >90%).
The aim of this paper is to present the first study on spatial and temporal variation in the enantiomeric profile of chiral drugs in eight European cities. Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) and ...enantioselective analysis were combined to evaluate trends in illicit drug use in the context of their consumption vs direct disposal as well as their synthetic production routes. Spatial variations in amphetamine loads were observed with higher use in Northern European cities. Enantioselective analysis showed a general enrichment of amphetamine with the R-(−)-enantiomer in wastewater indicating its abuse. High loads of racemic methamphetamine were detected in Oslo (EF = 0.49 ± 0.02). This is in contrast to other European cities where S-(+)-methamphetamine was the predominant enantiomer. This indicates different methods of methamphetamine synthesis and/or trafficking routes in Oslo, compared with the other cities tested. An enrichment of MDMA with the R-(−)-enantiomer was observed in European wastewaters indicating MDMA consumption rather than disposal of unused drug. MDA's chiral signature indicated its enrichment with the S-(+)-enantiomer, which confirms its origin from MDMA metabolism in humans. HMMA was also detected at quantifiable concentrations in wastewater and was found to be a suitable biomarker for MDMA consumption. Mephedrone was only detected in wastewater from the United Kingdom with population-normalised loads up to 47.7 mg 1000 people−1 day−1. The enrichment of mephedrone in the R-(+)-enantiomer in wastewater suggests stereoselective metabolism in humans, hence consumption, rather than direct disposal of the drug. The investigation of drug precursors, such as ephedrine, showed that their presence was reasonably ascribed to their medical use.
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•First spatio-temporal enantiomeric profiling of wastewater from eight European cities•First verification of variable potency of methamphetamine used across Europe using WBE•Mephedrone profiling showed human use in one city.
In response to extreme events, substantial research efforts have focused on developing load restoration strategies for networked microgrids (MGs). However, existing distributed control approaches ...only consider independent time periods, which cannot capture the time-coupled flexibility of storage units. Additionally, mobile energy storage systems (MESSs) have been deployed for resilience enhancement due to their advantages in mobility and flexibility. However, existing research on networked MGs utilizes simplistic energy management approaches for MG modeling without detailed network structures, which cannot capture the mobility of MESSs. To address these issues, this paper proposes a three-stage stochastic distributed control approach based on rolling optimization to enhance the resilience of networked MGs with MESSs. Specifically, a stochastic linearized OPF is formulated in the first stage to capture the flexibility of MESSs and uncertainties, while a consensus algorithm is utilized in the second stage to calculate the power exchange among MGs. Finally, a detailed non-linear AC OPF algorithm is employed in the third stage to capture technical constraints relating to stability properties towards accurate optimization results. Case studies considering load distinction, multiple line outages, and limited generation resources are developed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed distributed control approach in accurate and timely decision-making.
•A three-stage distributed control method featuring rolling optimization is proposed.•Routing and scheduling behaviors of mobile energy storage units are captured.•A time-coupled AC OPF is utilized in the first stage to capture flexibilities.•A non-linear AC OPF is utilized in the third stage to capture technical constraints.•Uncertainties with renewable energy sources and load profiles are considered.
The popularity of new psychoactive substances (NPS) has grown in recent years, with certain NPS commonly and preferentially consumed even following the introduction of preventative legislation. With ...the objective to improve the knowledge on the use of NPS, a rapid and very sensitive method was developed for the determination of ten priority NPS (N-ethylcathinone, methylenedioxypyrovalerone (MDPV), methylone, butylone, methedrone, mephedrone, naphyrone, 25-C-NBOMe, 25-I-NBOMe and 25-B-NBOMe) in influent wastewater. Sample clean-up and pre-concentration was made by off-line solid phase extraction (SPE) with Oasis MCX cartridges. Isotopically labelled internal standards were used to correct for matrix effects and potential SPE losses. Following chromatographic separation on a C18 column within 6 min, the compounds were measured by tandem mass spectrometry in positive ionization mode. The method was optimised and validated for all compounds. Limits of quantification were evaluated by spiking influent wastewater samples at 1 or 5 ng/L. An investigation into the stability of these compounds in influent wastewater was also performed, showing that, following acidification at pH 2, all compounds were relatively stable for up to 7 days. The method was then applied to influent wastewater samples from eight European countries, in which mephedrone, methylone and MDPV were detected. This work reveals that although NPS use is not as extensive as for classic illicit drugs, the application of a highly sensitive analytical procedure makes their detection in wastewater possible. The developed analytical methodology forms the basis of a subsequent model-based back-calculation of abuse rate in urban areas (i.e. wastewater-based epidemiology).
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•A sensitive UHPLC-MS/MS method for the determination of ten NPS in wastewater.•In-sample stability was investigated at different pH and temperatures.•Matrix effects were accounted for using isotopically-labelled internal standards.•The fully validated methodology was applied to wastewater samples from around Europe.
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