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We present a second-generation wastewater treatment inventory model, WW LCI 2.0, which on many fronts represents considerable advances compared to its previous version WW LCI 1.0. WW LCI 2.0 is a novel and complete wastewater inventory... more
We present a second-generation wastewater treatment inventory model, WW LCI 2.0, which on many fronts represents considerable advances compared to its previous version WW LCI 1.0. WW LCI 2.0 is a novel and complete wastewater inventory model integrating WW LCI 1.0, i.e. a complete life cycle inventory, including infrastructure requirement, energy consumption and auxiliary materials applied for the treatment of wastewater and disposal of sludge and SewageLCI, i.e. fate modelling of chemicals released to the sewer. The model is expanded to account for different wastewater treatment levels, i.e. primary, secondary and tertiary treatment, independent treatment by septic tanks and also direct discharge to natural waters. Sludge disposal by means of composting is added as a new option. The model also includes a database containing statistics on wastewater treatment levels and sludge disposal patterns in 56 countries. The application of the new model is demonstrated using five chemicals as...
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The aim of this paper is to introduce an easy-to-use environmental-economic index (EEI) which can be used for comparative purposes when assessing processes and services. The EEI differs from traditional ratiobased Eco-efficiency... more
The aim of this paper is to introduce an easy-to-use environmental-economic index (EEI) which can be used for comparative purposes when assessing processes and services. The EEI differs from traditional ratiobased Eco-efficiency indicators, since it is defined instead as the sum of two components, one corresponding to environmental performance and the other to economic performance. In order to show the calculation of this index and its potential usefulness, it is used in an example where several Advanced Oxidation Processes (AOPs) for wastewater treatment are compared based on their life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions and life-cycle cost. The options assessed are: solar-driven photo-Fenton, lamp-driven photo-Fenton, and ozonation. Solar-driven photo- Fenton appears as the preferable option from an integrated environmental-economic point of view, if the environmental and economic dimensions are equally weighed. The case study shows that EEI captures, in a single score, both environme...
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One of the most commonly used elements in ephemeral architecture is a particleboard panel. These types of wood products are produced from wood wastes and they are used in temporary constructions such as trade fairs. Once the event is... more
One of the most commonly used elements in ephemeral architecture is a particleboard panel. These types of wood products are produced from wood wastes and they are used in temporary constructions such as trade fairs. Once the event is over, they are usually disposed into landfills. This paper intends to assess the environmental effects related to the use of these wood wastes in the end-of-life stage. The Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of two scenarios was performed, considering the recycling of wood waste for particleboard manufacture and energy generation from non-renewable resources (Scenario 1) versus the production of energy from the combustion of wood waste and particleboard manufacture with conventional wooden resources (Scenario 2). A sensitive analysis was carried out taking into account the influence of the percentage of recycled material and the emissions data from wood combustion. According to Ecoindicator 99 methodology, Damage to Human Health and Ecosystem Quality are more significant in Scenario 2 whereas Scenario 1 presents the largest contribution to Damage to Resources. Between the two proposed alternatives, the recycling of wood waste for particleboard manufacture seems to be more favorable under an environmental perspective.
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Regulatable gene expression is a powerful genetic tool for analyzing the function of a given gene product. The use of tetracycline-regulatable promoters in yeast represents a substantial improvement over previously described methods for... more
Regulatable gene expression is a powerful genetic tool for analyzing the function of a given gene product. The use of tetracycline-regulatable promoters in yeast represents a substantial improvement over previously described methods for gene regulation. Here we show how this approach can be used to analyze the biological role of serine/threonine phosphatase catalytic or putative regulatory subunits by constructing chromosomal or plasmid-borne conditional mutants. This is particularly useful given the large variety of important biological processes performed by these of enzymes, often necessaries for cell survival, which makes in some cases infeasible the generation of null mutants.
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Inactivation of HAL3 in the absence of SIT4 function leads to cell cycle arrest at the G(1)-S transition. To identify genes potentially involved in the control of this phase of the cell cycle, a screening for multicopy suppressors of a... more
Inactivation of HAL3 in the absence of SIT4 function leads to cell cycle arrest at the G(1)-S transition. To identify genes potentially involved in the control of this phase of the cell cycle, a screening for multicopy suppressors of a conditional sit4 hal3 mutant (strain JC002) has been developed. The screening yielded several genes known to perform key roles in cell cycle events, such as CLN3, BCK2 or SWI4, thus proving its usefulness as a tool for this type of studies. In addition, this approach allowed the identification of additional genes, most of them not previously related to the regulation of G(1)-S transition or even without known function (named here as VHS1-3, for viable in a hal3 sit4 background). Several of these gene products are involved in phospho-dephosphorylation processes, including members of the protein phosphatase 2A and protein phosphatases 2C families, as well as components of the Hal5 protein kinase family. The ability of different genes to suppress sit4 phenotypes (such as temperature sensitivity and growth on non-fermentable carbon sources) or to mimic the functions of Hal3 was evaluated. The possible relationship between the known functions of these suppressor genes and the progress through the G(1)-S transition is discussed.
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Research Interests: Catalysis, Photochemistry, Life Cycle Assessment, Energy Consumption, Multidisciplinary, and 15 moreGlobal Warming, Pharmaceuticals, Land Use, Iron, Industrial Application, Environmental Impact, Hydrogen Peroxide, Ozone, Biological treatment, Biological Process, Industrial Waste, Industrial wastewater, Glycine, Advanced Oxidation Process, and Municipal Wastewater
Research Interests: Water, Monte Carlo Simulation, Life Cycle Assessment, Multidisciplinary, Spain, and 15 moreUncertainty, Salinity, Ground Water, Membrane Separation, Electricity Consumption, Life Cycle, Seawater, Environmental Impact, Reverse osmosis, Uncertainty analysis, Sea Water, Osmosis, Water Productivity, Environment, and Monte Carlo Method
Due to increasing interest in reusing wastewater in water-deficient regions, we suggest environmental risk assessment (ERA) as a suitable tool to evaluate potential risks from trace pollutants in irrigation water. We propose a simple... more
Due to increasing interest in reusing wastewater in water-deficient regions, we suggest environmental risk assessment (ERA) as a suitable tool to evaluate potential risks from trace pollutants in irrigation water. We propose a simple method for screening environmental risks associated with ...
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Life Cycle Assessment has been used to compare different scenarios involving wastewater reuse, with special focus on toxicity-related impact categories. The study is based on bench-scale experiments applying ozone and ozone in combination... more
Life Cycle Assessment has been used to compare different scenarios involving wastewater reuse, with special focus on toxicity-related impact categories. The study is based on bench-scale experiments applying ozone and ozone in combination with hydrogen peroxide to a wastewater effluent from a Spanish sewage treatment plant. Two alternative characterisation models have been used to account for toxicity of chemical substances, namely USES-LCA and EDIP97. Four alternative scenarios have been assessed: wastewater discharge plus desalination supply, wastewater reuse without tertiary treatment, wastewater reuse after applying a tertiary treatment consisting on ozonation, and wastewater reuse after applying ozonation in combination with hydrogen peroxide. The results highlight the importance of including wastewater pollutants in LCA of wastewater systems assessing toxicity, since the contribution of wastewater pollutants to the overall toxicity scores in this case study can be above 90%. Key pollutants here are not only heavy metals and other priority pollutants, but also non-regulated pollutants such as pharmaceuticals and personal care products. Wastewater reuse after applying any of the tertiary treatments considered appears as the best choice from an ecotoxicity perspective. As for human toxicity, differences between scenarios are smaller, and taking into account the experimental and modelling uncertainty, the benefits of tertiary treatment are not so clear. From a global warming potential perspective, tertiary treatments involve a potential 85% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions when compared with desalination.
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Research Interests: Biochemistry, Bioinformatics, Environmental Science, Developmental Biology, Climate Change, and 15 moreComputational Biology, Biotechnology, Cancer, Biology, Cell Cycle, Ecology, Drug Discovery, Astrophysics, Astronomy, DNA, Cell Signalling, Base Sequence, Cell Cycle Proteins, Earth Science, and Biochemistry and cell biology
Budding yeast Slx4 interacts with the structure-specific endonuclease Slx1 to ensure completion of ribosomal DNA replication. Slx4 also interacts with the Rad1-Rad10 endonuclease to control cleavage of... more
Budding yeast Slx4 interacts with the structure-specific endonuclease Slx1 to ensure completion of ribosomal DNA replication. Slx4 also interacts with the Rad1-Rad10 endonuclease to control cleavage of 3' flaps during repair of double-strand breaks (DSBs). Here we describe the identification of human SLX4, a scaffold for DNA repair nucleases XPF-ERCC1, MUS81-EME1, and SLX1. SLX4 immunoprecipitates show SLX1-dependent nuclease activity toward Holliday junctions and MUS81-dependent activity toward other branched DNA structures. Furthermore, SLX4 enhances the nuclease activity of SLX1, MUS81, and XPF. Consistent with a role in processing recombination intermediates, cells depleted of SLX4 are hypersensitive to genotoxins that cause DSBs and show defects in the resolution of interstrand crosslink-induced DSBs. Depletion of SLX4 causes a decrease in DSB-induced homologous recombination. These data show that SLX4 is a regulator of structure-specific nucleases and that SLX4 and SLX1 are important regulators of genome stability in human cells.
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Potential health risks derived from wastewater reuse in agriculture have been evaluated with Risk Assessment modelling techniques, in a case study involving the effluents of two Spanish wastewater treatment plants. One of the plants... more
Potential health risks derived from wastewater reuse in agriculture have been evaluated with Risk Assessment modelling techniques, in a case study involving the effluents of two Spanish wastewater treatment plants. One of the plants applies primary and secondary treatment, and the other one applies an additional tertiary treatment. Health risks were assessed on the basis of ingesting contaminated food, due to exposure to: (i) 22 chemical pollutants, namely pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs), and priority pollutants included in the European Framework Directive, and (ii) microorganisms, namely enterovirus. Chemical Risk Assessment has been carried out following the European Commission's technical guidelines, while risks from exposure to viruses have been evaluated by means of Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment, assuming a virus to coliform ratio of 1:10(5). The results of the chemical assessment show that there is a margin of safety above 100 for all substances, with the exception of gemfibrozil, for which the mean margin of safety (MOS) is above 100, but the lower bound of MOS with a 95 % confidence interval lies in the 3-4 range. A MOS under 100 was also found for 2,3,7,8-TCDD in one of the effluents. The assessment of risks from viruses shows a very low probability of infection. The overall results show that risks are lower for the plant applying tertiary treatment, especially concerning microbiological parameters.
Research Interests: Microbiology, Recycling, Agriculture, Public Health, Risk assessment, and 15 moreSafety, Cities, Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment, Health Risk Assessment, Humans, Case Study, Reuse, Human health, Health risk, Lower Bound, Effluent, Risk Assessment, Confidence Interval, Science Health, and ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE AND MANAGEMENT
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Abstract Background, aim, and scope A cradle-to-grave life cycle assessment (LCA) of a toy incorporating electric and electronic components is carried out following the ISO 14044 standard, with the purpose of identifying the environmental... more
Abstract Background, aim, and scope A cradle-to-grave life cycle assessment (LCA) of a toy incorporating electric and electronic components is carried out following the ISO 14044 standard, with the purpose of identifying the environmental hotspots and suggesting ecodesign measures to the ...
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Abstract Purpose There is an increasing interest in the assessment and comparison of the environmental impacts of consumer products. Schemes such as Grenelle de l'Environnement, currently under development in France, aim to assess... more
Abstract Purpose There is an increasing interest in the assessment and comparison of the environmental impacts of consumer products. Schemes such as Grenelle de l'Environnement, currently under development in France, aim to assess and communicate ...
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Research Interests: Environmental Engineering, Climate Change, Life Cycle Assessment, Land Use Change, Case Study, and 14 moreBuilding, Land Use, Global warming potential, The, Tomato, Climate change impact, Energy Budget, Greenhouse gases, Climate impacts, Production System, Radiative Forcing, Life Cycle Impact Assessment, Developing Regions, and agricultural land
© 2006 ecomed publishers (Verlagsgruppe Hüthig Jehle Rehm GmbH), D-86899 Landsberg and Tokyo Mumbai Seoul Melbourne Paris Int J LCA 11 (5) 323 334 (2006) ... Using LCA to Assess Eco-design in the Automotive Sector ... Case Study... more
© 2006 ecomed publishers (Verlagsgruppe Hüthig Jehle Rehm GmbH), D-86899 Landsberg and Tokyo Mumbai Seoul Melbourne Paris Int J LCA 11 (5) 323 334 (2006) ... Using LCA to Assess Eco-design in the Automotive Sector ... Case Study of a Polyolefinic Door Panel
Research Interests: Environmental Engineering, Life Cycle Assessment, Automotive Industry, Sensitivity Analysis, Municipal Solid Waste, and 14 moreLegislation, Case Study, End of life, Building, The, Polyethylene, Polypropylene, Life Cycle, Environmental Impact, Glass Fiber, Point of View, Fiber Reinforcement, End-of-Life Vehicles, and Energy recovery
Page 1. Integrated Waste Management Planning LCA Case Studies H LCA Case Studies m LCA Application to Integrated Waste Management Planning in Gipuzkoa (Spain) Ivan Mufioz*, Joan Rieradevall, Xavier Domtnech and Llorenq Milfi ...
Research Interests: Environmental Engineering, Decision Making, Recycling, Life Cycle Assessment, Energy Consumption, and 15 moreWaste Management, Municipal Solid Waste, Planning, Sewage sludge, Fossil Fuels, Building, Plastics, The, Life Cycle, Environmental Impact, Waste Treatment, Environmental Performance, Point of View, Environmental benefit, and Energy recovery
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Research Interests: Fisheries, Health, Public Health, Risk assessment, Aquaculture, and 15 moreEnvironmental Pollution, Multidisciplinary, Risk Analysis, Health Risk Assessment, Humans, Animals, Fishes, Ecological Risk Assessment, Marine Fish, Human health, Food Contamination, Risk Assessment, Sampling Technique, Environmental, and Organic Chemicals
Page 1. ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING SCIENCE Volume 24, Number 5, 2007 © MaryAnn Liebert, Inc. ... Ivan Muñoz,1* José Peral,1 José Antonio Ayllón,1 Sixto Malato,2 Maria José Martin,3 Jean Yves Perrot,4 Martin Vincent,5 and Xavier Domènech1 ...
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The therapeutic options for patients with metastatic medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC) have recently increased due to the development of tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs), some of which have achieved remarkable clinical responses in MTC... more
The therapeutic options for patients with metastatic medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC) have recently increased due to the development of tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs), some of which have achieved remarkable clinical responses in MTC patients. However, the molecular basis for the large variability in TKI responses is unknown. In this exploratory study, we investigated the expression of eight key TKI target proteins (EGFR, KIT, MET, PDGFRB, VEGF (VEGFA), VEGFR1 (FLT1), VEGFR2 (KDR), and VEGFR3 (FLT4)) by immunohistochemistry in 103 molecularly characterized MTC samples and identified the associated clinical and molecular features. A number of MTC samples exhibited a high expression of VEGFR2 and VEGFR3, which were overexpressed in 57 and 43% of the MTC samples respectively. VEGFR1, PDGFRB, VEGF, KIT, and MET were present in 34–20% of the cases, while EGFR was highly expressed in only 10% of the MTC samples. Some proteins exhibited large differences in expression between sporadic a...
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Eleven genetic markers were typed in 112 unrelated patients with migraine (50 with aura, 62 without aura) and compared with a random sample of healthy individuals. No significant differences were found for the ABO and Rh systems, acid... more
Eleven genetic markers were typed in 112 unrelated patients with migraine (50 with aura, 62 without aura) and compared with a random sample of healthy individuals. No significant differences were found for the ABO and Rh systems, acid phosphatase 1, phosphoglucomutase 1, adenosine deaminase, haptoglobin, transferrin, alpha-1–antitrypsin, and D1S80. Strong associations between the group of patients with migraine and group-specific component GC 1F-1F and esterase-D ESD 2–2 phenotypes were observed. These associations raise the possibility that a molecular genetic factor for migraine may exist in or near the Group Component (chromosome 4) and Esterase D (chromosome 13) loci, and represent a first comprehensive step in the eventual localization and isolation of the migraine genes.