No abstract

The presence of low concentrations of arsenic in water is of serious environmental concern. Though it is a naturally occurring carcinogenic element, it could also be released into the atmosphere through numerous industrial activities. The objective of this paper is to reveal arsenic-adsorptive properties of human hair from contaminated drinking water. Human hair has been found to be extremely effective in separating oil and water from stable oil-water emulsions (recently conducted US DoE study). Both static and dynamic tests, along with numerical modeling, have been performed to observe the performance of human hair as an adsorbent. Static tests show satisfactory performance through high adsorption capacity at low concentrations. Dynamic tests demonstrate the feasibility of the technique in a packed bed column. Numerical modeling was used to conduct various parametric studies and to scale up laboratory data. Finally, a compacted hair pad has been suggested for use in the column, and some prospective future applications have been proposed.

The present study evaluated the cultivation of microalgae in a photobioreactor using effluents from the meat-processing industry, which had been previously treated at the primary and secondary levels. Scenedesmus sp. was the dominant genus in the phytoplankton community in both of the evaluated effluents. The different nutritional conditions affected the production of biomass, which reached 1,160 mg/L of volatile suspended solids (VSS) and 371 mg/L of VSS with cultivation in the primary (PE) and secondary effluents (SE), respectively. In both effluents, great removal efficiencies close to quantification limits were observed for ammoniacal nitrogen and soluble phosphorus. Regarding the accumulation of lipids, there were no considerable differences between the effluents. The highest lipid productivity that was observed in the PE, which reached 3.7 g/m²·d, was attributed to its larger production of biomass as a consequence of its better nutritional condition in relation to the SE.

No abstract

A missão de uma universidade humanizada é a de permanentemente dialogar com a comunidade, no sentido de melhoria da qualidade de vida geral da população, nos diversos contextos nos quais vivemos. A fim de melhor compreender a missão da universidade, o presente estudo apresentou a mensagem institucional, os pareceres de seus segmentos e exemplos de devolutivas que USP produziu ao longo dos últimos meses, durante a pandemia de COVID-19. Pela narrativa dos diversos discursos, observou-se compreensão dissonante dos partícipes em relação a atuação da instituição frente ao cenário desafiador. A dificuldade de se estabelecer uma comunicação efetiva foi refletida em termos de sua “crise identitária”, que resulta provavelmente da falta de uma compreensão profunda sobre a missão institucional, em alguns de seus segmentos atuantes. Apesar desta dissonância, muitas das devolutivas constatadas demonstram grande preocupação com a manutenção da dignidade dos estudantes, e da população em geral. Invariavelmente, talvez seja a ocasião de se pensar ainda mais seriamente sobre o reposicionamento identitário do ensino superior no Brasil e em como conceber efetivamente uma universidade “pluriversitária”, desfragmentada e pujante.