O desenvolvimento tecnológico, o crescimento industrial, o acelerado processo de urbanização e o crescimento populacional transformaram o espaço geográfico brasileiro. Somado à mudança de hábitos e de consumo acarretou e vem acarretando diversos problemas ambientais. O incentivo à troca e o investimento em produtos descartáveis, levaram a um aumento significativo da geração de resíduos sólidos. Tratar e dar um destino adequado à grande quantidade de resíduos tem sido um grande desafio às autoridades brasileiras. Para que haja melhor gestão e gerenciamento dos resíduos sólidos é preciso conhecer o que tem sido gerado, ou seja, qual a quantidade e que tipo de material é descartado. Para bem conhecer essa produção, a melhor maneira é fazer um estudo da geração e composição gravimétrica dos resíduos sólidos através de sua caracterização física. Portanto, a proposta deste trabalho foi fazer um levantamento da geração dos resíduos sólidos domiciliares no município de São Carlos. Essa investigação levou em conta não apenas os resíduos que chegam ao aterro sanitário através da coleta convencional, mas também os que chegam às centrais de triagem através da coleta seletiva, utilizando-se como instrumento principal a sua caracterização física. Na coleta convencional, o número de amostragem compreendeu todos os setores, sendo a massa da amostra obtida por quarteamento. Foi feito uma caracterização no inverno e outra no verão. Destacam-se, nos resultados, o percentual de resíduos sólidos domiciliares, em massa: matéria orgânica (59,08%), papel e papelão (6,44%), tetra pak (0,94%), vidro (1,67%), metal e alumínio (1,31%), plásticos 10,47% (2,84% de plásticos rígidos e 7,63%de plásticos filmes) e outros (20,09%). Observou-se que o percentual de materiais que poderiam ser reintroduzidos no mercado e estão sendo depositados no aterro sanitário, ainda é elevado, considerando a que a coleta seletiva foi introduzida no município em 2002. Na coleta seletiva destacam-se: o papel e papelão, com 47,41%; seguido pelos plásticos, com 21,60% (rígidos - 17,95% e filmes - 3,65%); vidro, 12,25%; metal e alumínio, 7,63% (lata - 1,54% e geral - 6,10%); rejeitos, 5,79% e tetra pak, 5,30%. / The technological development, the industrial growth, the sped up process of urbanization and the population growth had transformed geographic the space brazilian. Added to the change of habits and consumption it caused and it comes causing diverse ambient problems. The incentive to the exchange and the investment in dismissable products, had led to a significant increase of the generation of solid wastes. To treat and to give an adequate destination to the great amount of wastes have been a great challenge to the brazilian authorities. So that it has better management and management of the solid wastes are necessary to know what he has been generated, that is, which the amount and that type of material is discarded. To know this production well, the best way is to make a study of the generation and gravimetrical composition of the solid wastes through its physical characterization. Therefore, the proposal of this work was to make a current survey of the generation of the household waste in the city of Sao Carlos. This inquiry will not only take in account the wastes that arrive at it fill with earth bathroom through the conventional collection, but also the ones that they arrive at the central offices of selection through the selective collection, using itself as main instrument its physical characterization. They stand out, in the results, the percentage of household wastes, in mass: organic matter (59,08%), paper and cardboard (6,44%), tetra pak (0,94%), glass (1,67%), metal and aluminum (1,31%), plastics 10,47% (2,84% of rigid plastics and 7,63% of plastics films) and other (garbage) (20,09%). It was observed that the percentage of materials that could be returned in the market and they are being deposited in the sanitary landfill, it is still high, considering what the selective collection was introduced in the municipal district in 2002. In the selective collection they stand out: the paper and cardboard, with 47,41%; following for the plastics, with 21,60% (rigid - 17,95% and films - 3,65%); glass, 12,25%; metal and aluminum, 7,63% (can - 1,54% and general - 6,10%); garbage, 5,79% and tetra pak, 5,30%.

Para comparar padrões de vida de famílias com diferentes características demográficas são construídos índices relativos denominados escalas de equivalência. Um dos principais componentes dessas medidas são as economias de escala, que levam em consideração o decréscimo do custo per capita quando um membro adicional é incluído em sua composição. Dentre os modelos que procuram medir economias de escala, o modelo de Barten, proposto por Deaton e Paxson (1998), parece ser o mais apropriado do ponto de vista teórico e prediz que a participação dos alimentos no gasto total da família, adotado como indicador de bem-estar, aumenta conforme o tamanho da família aumenta, mantendo constante o gasto total per capita. As evidências empíricas para o Brasil, no entanto, apontam para uma diminuição da participação dos alimentos no gasto total da família conforme o tamanho da família aumenta (confirmando a situação conhecida por Paradoxo de Deaton e Paxson). O modelo de Barten é validado somente quando é alterada a composição dos gastos na construção da participação relativa dos alimentos e considerando, ao invés do gasto total, o gasto com alimentos e um bem mais público. O paradoxo, porém, permanece. Evidências empíricas quanto a economias de escala na preparação de refeições dentro do domicílio ajudam a entender melhor o paradoxo. / In order to compare the standard of living of families with different demographic caracteristics it is necessary to construct an index called equivalence scales. One of the main parts of such index refer to the effect of economies of scale, which reflect the decrease in the per capta cost when an additional member is introduced. Among the models used to measure economies of scale, Deaton and Paxson\'s (1998) Barten Model seems to be the most appropriate from a theoretical point of view. According to this model, the share of food in total expenditure, used as an indicator of welfare, increases as the size of the family goes up but the total expenditure per capta is held fixed. However, empirical evidence for Brazil indicate a decrease in the food share as the family size increases, reinforcing the so called Deaton and Paxson Paradox. The Barten Model seems to be valid only when the food share is taken relative to the total expenditure with food and another good closer to a pure public good. Nonetheless the paradox remains. Finally, the results obtained indicate that the economies of scale in food preparation at home may be important to shed some light on the paradox.

Made available in DSpace on 2015-04-11T13:54:07Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 carlos.pdf: 3387044 bytes, checksum: 1986dc11874381294e086258c766af85 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-08-22 / The need for establishing new forms of relationship between man and the environment has become evident since the Stockholm Convention, in 1972, where the term Sustainable Development was coined. The term was further established during the ECO 92 conference, in Rio de Janeiro, where the Agenda 21 document determined the parameters for achieving sustainable development. Since then, the implementation of sustainable development programs or practices have been countlessly attempted. Studies carried by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Brazil show that the majority of these attempts does not succeed, being incapable of promoting the necessary changes to achieve the aimed increase in quality of life, within the parameters of sustainable development. Considering the co-existence between sustainable initiatives and capitalism as opposing ideas, it is noticeable that the first are hampered by the second, preventing the achievement of its best results. Aiming to find a better equilibrium between sustainable initiatives and capitalism, in the sense of improving the life conditions of the people practicing sustainable development, the present research evaluates the possibility of reaching sustainable development goals while using and applying modern marketing tools, within the capitalist framework. For that, we applied a questionnaire to the small household farmers from Ramal Nova Esperança, in the township of Manacapuru, Amazonas, Brazil, to evaluate wether the use of marketing tools was a viable option, capable of bringing tangible gains to the population. The questionnaire evaluated the concept of development within the participants, as well as their work methods and work conditions, together with the random use of marketing practices. The conclusion reached was that modern marketing concepts can significantly contribute for the improvement of quality of life and for the conservation n of natural resources among the small household farmers in Ramal Nova Esperança, as long as other aspects of sustainable development are concurrently implemented in a systemic manner. / A necessidade do estabelecimento de novas formas de relacionamento entre o Homem e o Ambiente tornou-se evidente desde a Convenção de Estocolmo, 1972. Nesta época começou a ser conceituado o Desenvolvimento Sustentável que veio a se firmar na Convenção do Rio de Janeiro ECO 92, quando foi elaborado um documento denominado Agenda 21 e que estabelecia os parâmetros do Desenvolvimento Sustentável. Desde então, inúmeras tentativas de implantação de programas ou mesmo de práticas de Desenvolvimento Sustentável vêm se sucedendo sendo que, segundo estudos realizados no Brasil pela Fundação Konrad Adenauer, a maioria não consegue se efetivar, incapazes de promover as mudanças necessárias e a consequente melhoria da qualidade de vida, dentro dos parâmetros do Desenvolvimento Sustentável. Considerando a convivência entre as iniciativas sustentáveis e o capitalismo, ainda que excludentes entre si, percebe-se que as primeiras são prejudicadas pelo segundo, impedindo seus melhores resultados. Com o intuito de buscar maior equilíbrio entre iniciativas sustentáveis e capitalismo, no sentido de melhorar as condições dos praticantes do desenvolvimento sustentável, o presente trabalho verifica a possibilidade de alcançar tais objetivos utilizando e aplicando junto às iniciativas sustentáveis as ferramentas do marketing moderno. Para isso focalizou, dentre os diversos segmentos que compõe as populações tradicionais, os agricultores familiares, mais especificamente, os agricultores familiares estabelecidos no Ramal Nova Esperança, no município de Manacapuru, Amazonas, realizando junto aos mesmos pesquisa que levasse a concluir sobre a viabilidade ou não, do emprego das ferramentas do marketing com ganhos concretos para os agricultores. Para isso foram avaliados os conceitos de desenvolvimento dos participantes da pesquisa, as condições e os métodos de trabalho, assim como, a utilização aleatória de práticas do marketing. A conclusão a que se chegou foi de que, o marketing moderno pode contribuir significativamente para a melhoria da qualidade de vida e conservação dos recursos naturais dos agricultores familiares do Ramal Nova Esperança, desde que, de forma sistêmica, outros aspectos sejam também desenvolvidos.

Como tentativa para compensar a ausência de resposta, aplicou-se o estimador ponderado por pesos amostrais nos dados de um inquérito domiciliar que registrou uma taxa global de resposta igual a 79,10 por cento . O procedimento procurou viabilizar a aplicação do ajuste ao nível dos elementos, usando os pesos obtidos a partir da taxa diferencial de resposta verificada na amostra composta pelas famílias. Fixado o número de cômodos do domicílio como a variável critério para a formação das classes ponderadas, calcularam-se as médias ajustadas e suas variâncias para o peso e a estatura dos menores de 19 anos, usando-se as estimativas calculadas na amostra constituída pelos elementos pertencentes às famílias que efetivamente responderam ao inquérito. A consistência dos resultados obtidos sugere que estudos devem ser desenvolvidos a fim de buscar soluções que minimizem as pressuposições necessárias à aplicação do procedimento e determinem níveis de abrangência que possam ser considerados satisfatórios. / The weighting adjustment by sample weights was applied on the data from a survey sampling with a total response rate of 79,10 per cent , in order to compensate for the unit nonresponse. The weighting factors were gotten by the differential response rate calculated on the household sample to facilitate the application procedure. The variable used to define the weighting classes was the number of rooms of the dwellings. Also, the adjusted means and their variances were calculaled for weight and height of persons with ages under 19 years, using the measures obtained from the same age group individuals related to the respondent households. The consistency of the results support the sugestion that more research has to be done to search for procedures that will minimize the necessary assumptions that underlie them and that can assure wider application levels.

Introdução: A obesidade é um problema de saúde pública com múltiplos determinantes e consequências. Objetivos: 1) Analisar a relação entre a disponibilidade domiciliar de produtos alimentícios processados e ultraprocessados e a prevalência de excesso de peso e obesidade; 2) Descrever o gasto familiar privado com saúde, segundo a presença de indivíduos obesos nos domicílios; e 3) Estimar a influência da presença de indivíduos obesos nos domicílios sobre o gasto total com medicamentos (obtidos nos setores privado e público). Métodos: Tese composta por três manuscritos baseados em dados da Pesquisa de Orçamentos Familiares (POF) 2008-2009. O primeiro manuscrito utilizou os 550 estratos amostrais da POF como unidade de análise e modelos de regressão linear para avaliar a relação entre a disponibilidade calórica domiciliar de produtos processados e ultraprocessados e a prevalência de excesso de peso e de obesidade, ajustados para variáveis de confusão. Ainda, foram estimados os valores preditos dos desfechos, segundo quartos de disponibilidade de produtos ultraprocessados. Os demais manuscritos consideraram os 55.970 domicílios como unidade de análise. O segundo manuscrito descreveu a distribuição do gasto privado mensal com saúde, considerando o gasto com medicamentos e com assistência à saúde, segundo a presença de obesos nos domicílios. O terceiro analisou a influência da obesidade sobre o gasto mensal per capita com medicamentos, obtidos nos setores privado e público, por meio de modelo de duas partes (two-part model), com ajuste para variáveis de confusão. Resultados: Com relação aos determinantes alimentares, verificou-se que a disponibilidade de produtos ultraprocessados, mas não a de processados, foi positivamente associada com a prevalência de excesso de peso e obesidade. No quarto superior de disponibilidade de ultraprocessados a prevalência de obesidade foi 37 por cento superior à do quarto inferior. No que tange as consequências financeiras, verificou-se que, na presença de obesos no domicílio, o gasto privado com medicamentos total e específico para doenças crônicas foi maior, o mesmo não sendo observado para a assistência à saúde. Ainda, considerando os medicamentos obtidos por desembolso direto e no SUS, a presença de obesos nos domicílios resultou em um gasto com medicamentos 18 por cento superior. Conclusões: A disponibilidade de produtos ultraprocessados é um dos determinantes alimentares da obesidade, que tem como uma de suas consequências financeiras o maior gasto com medicamentos resultando em impacto negativo para o orçamento familiar e para o SUS. / Introduction: Obesity is a public health problem with multiple determinants and consequences. Objectives: 1) To analyze the relationship between household availability of processed and ultra-processed products and the prevalence of excess weight and obesity; 2) To describe the private spending on health, according to the presence of obese individuals in households; and 3) To estimate the influence of the presence of obese individuals in households over the total spending on medicines (obtained in the public and private sectors). Methods: Thesis comprising three manuscripts based on data from the Brazilian Household Budget Survey (HBS) 2008-2009. The first manuscript used the 550 sampling strata of HBS as the unit of study and linear regression models to evaluate the relationship between household caloric availability of processed and ultra-processed products and the prevalence of excess weight and obesity in the stratum, adjusted for confounding variables. Furthermore, predictive values of outcomes were estimated according to quartiles of the household caloric share from ultra-processed products. The other manuscripts considered the 55,970 households as the unit of study. The second manuscript described the distribution of private spending on health, considering the spending on medicines and healthcare, according to the presence of obese individuals in households. The third manuscript analyzed the influence of obesity on the household spending on medicines, obtained in the private and public sectors, using two-part models controlling for potential confounders. Results: Relative to the dietary determinants, we verified that the availability of ultra-processed products, but not of the processed, was positively associated with both outcomes studied. Moreover, the prevalence of obesity was 37 per cent higher in the upper quartile of availability of ultra-processed products, compared with the lower quartile. In relation to the financial consequences, we verified that the presence of obese individuals in households resulted in higher total private spending on medicines and on medicines for non-communicable diseases, but for healthcare this was not observed. Furthermore, considering the medicines obtained in SUS and by out-of-pocket, the presence of obese in households increased the total spending on medicines by 18 per cent . Conclusion: The availability of ultra-processed products is one of the determinants of obesity and one of the financial consequences of this disease is the larger spending on medicines, resulting in negative impact to the household budget and to the public health system

Orientador: Elisabete Dória Bilac / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-19T16:18:11Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Aparicio_CimarAlejandroPrieto_M.pdf: 1385358 bytes, checksum: a74fb6a57b833b781c560cd93a8efcd8 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012 / Resumo: Esta dissertação insere-se nos estudos empíricos sobre famílias e pobreza e tem como objetivo geral realizar uma análise multidimensional da pobreza segundo a "perspectiva das capacidades". Argumenta-se que a pobreza envolve um conjunto de privações de capacidades vivenciadas em um contexto familiar e domiciliar. A partir dos dados da Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílios (PNAD) e da Pesquisa de Condições de Vida (PCV), verifica-se a existência de interdependência entre organização domiciliar e privações de capacidades, sendo que o arranjo domiciliar constitui a unidade de análise. De modo específico, são discutidos os conceitos de família e domicílio e as possibilidades metodológicas de uso das informações da PNAD e da PCV para uma análise da pobreza conforme a "perspectiva das capacidades". Assim, desenvolve-se uma comparação metodológica dos planos de amostragem, dos questionários dessas pesquisas domiciliares e dos efeitos de diferentes formas de operacionalização dos conceitos de família e domicílio sobre a estimativa de arranjos domiciliares. Os resultados da análise da pobreza para o Estado de São Paulo em 2006 evidenciam a existência de privações de capacidades associadas a determinadas formas de organização dos arranjos domiciliares, em ambas as pesquisas. Confirma- se a sobre-representação de arranjos com crianças e adolescentes, pessoas de referência jovens e pessoas portadoras de necessidades especiais entre os arranjos domiciliares pobres. A desigualdade de renda, a limitada participação feminina no mercado de trabalho associada à desigualdade de gênero, uma elevada ocorrência de pessoas de referência sem ensino fundamental completo, o acesso restrito a instituições públicas de educação infantil, a escassez de equipamentos sociais próximos aos domicílios pobres e a falta de garantia legal de posse da moradia constituem componentes importantes da pobreza. No entanto, há uma limitada presença do Estado junto às comunidades pobres em termos do acesso à rede de segurança social e das oportunidades sociais relacionadas a serviços e equipamentos de educação, saúde, esporte, cultura e lazer / Abstract: This dissertation is connected to the empirical studies about families and poverty and has as general purpose to conduct a multidimensional analysis of poverty according to the "capabilities approach". It is argued that poverty involves a set of capabilities deprivation experienced in a family and household context. From the data of the National Survey by Household Sampling (PNAD) and from the Research on Living Conditions (PCV), one can observe the existence of interdependence between household organization and capabilities deprivations, with the household arrangement constituting the unit of analysis. In a specific perspective, the concepts of family and household as well as the methodological possibilities of usage of the information from PNAD and PCV for an analysis of poverty according to the "capabilities approach" are discussed. Thus, a methodological comparison of the sampling plans, of the questionnaires of these household surveys and of the effects of different forms of operationalization of the concepts of family and household on the estimate of household arrangements are developed. The results of the analysis of poverty for the Brazilian Federal State of São Paulo in 2006 exhibit the existence of capabilities deprivations associated to certain forms of household arrangements' organization, in both surveys. One can confirm the overrepresentation of arrangements with children and adolescents, young individuals and people with special needs among the poor household arrangements. Income inequality, the limited female participation in the job market associated with gender inequality, a high level of individuals with incomplete elementary education, the restricted access to public institutions of childhood education, the shortage of social equipment near the poor households and the lack of legal guarantee of household possession constitute important components of poverty. However, there is a limited presence of the State along the poor communities in terms of access to the social security network and of the social opportunities related to services and equipment of education, health, sports, culture and entertainment / Mestrado / Demografia / Mestre em Demografia

M.Com. (Industrial Psychology) / Little is known in South Africa regarding the bullying behaviours faced by domestic workers at the hands of their employers. The objective of this study was thus to explore the nature of these bullying behaviours as experienced by South African domestic workers. The study was approached from a qualitative perspective where 10 participants were interviewed using unstructured interviews. The participants were South African from various parts of Gauteng, working for families from various demographics for at least three years. The interviews allowed for unbridled stories from the world of the domestic workers to emerge, thus consistent with my philosophical views and research strategy. It was found that all the domestic workers had experienced bullying by their employers and that all of these experiences were at least partly shared amongst them. Two categories (verbal and non-verbal) and eleven themes (belittlement, deception, wrongful accusations, lack of regard for wellbeing and basic worker needs, lack of regard for worker safety, abuse of power, racial discrimination, unsatisfactory remuneration, lack of regard for employment laws, threats to employment status and exclusion from decision making) were identified. The bullying was perpetrated by both sexes and all races. The study will add to the existing body of knowledge of bullying and assist policy makers in finding practical solutions to combating bullying.

This thesis critically examines the geography of the growth in the private rented sector (PRS) in England, changing living arrangements and how living in the PRS affects feeling at ‘home’. It moves beyond the grand narratives and individual anecdotes of the ‘housing crisis’ to explain what it means, for whom and where. An integrated mixed methods approach using quantitative analysis of 2001 and 2011 census tables, 2011 Census microdata, the English Housing Survey 2010-11 (EHS) and qualitative data collected through semi-structured interviews was combined to address the four key research questions:• How have tenure and household type changed nationally, regionally, at local authority and neighbourhood level between 2001 and 2011?• Who is moving into the PRS and why? What are the characteristics of households living in the PRS?• Do different household types in the PRS tend to live in particular neighbourhoods? What are the characteristics of these neighbourhoods and households?• How do people who live in the PRS feel at ‘home’?The growth of the PRS has led to spatial concentrations by household type and tenure in local authorities across England and changing living arrangements. This was particularly reflected by the concentration of other households with and without dependent children in London and some other areas. At neighbourhood level this revealed spatial polarisation by household type and tenure and the emergence of new urban landscapes caused by housing market constraints which were most likely to affect younger households and those who had migrated both from within and outside the UK. The EHS showed that the majority of newly formed households had moved into the PRS suggesting that it would continue to grow, the PRS was regarded as the least desirable tenure with the majority living in it planning to move, mostly into ownership, in the future and that the PRS led to high levels of relative poverty after housing costs exacerbated by higher fuel costs for some and poorer material conditions including higher levels of overcrowding, particularly for other households with dependent children, damp and cold. Despite these financial and material disadvantages there is evidence that households living in the PRS overcame tenancy constraints to enjoy the emotional, cognitive and social aspects of feeling at home and to engage in home improvement and home-making. As well as these substantive contributions to knowledge this thesis provided both methodological and policy contributions. The use of facet methodology provided critical insights from a number of different quantitative techniques that enabled the substantive contributions on the changing geography and demography of the PRS, residential decision making and feeling at home, and together the innovative of spatial econometric techniques to housing, into the emergence of new urban landscapes. The policy contributions are underpinned by the need to recognise the universal right to a home which: requires market interventions to rebalance landlord and tenant rights; provide a strong case to ensure that no household is forced to live in relative poverty after their housing and fuel costs have been taken into account; and that spatial planning needs to be based on a commitment to meet local housing needs and restrict the power of developers to deliver schemes that lead to gentrification, displacement and spatial exclusion.

Based on primary sources pertaining to the village of Zhaitan, this thesis studied the economic transition of households in a village in the south of Anhui Province as they went through the revolutions, political movements and reforms of the twentieth century. The transition was divided into four periods, corresponding to four of the chapters of this text. The first period was from 1927 to 1949, on which I depicted the household economy in a village that had not yet experienced intervention by the powers of the state; the second period was from 1949 to 1962, during which the Land Reform and the cooperative movement were the most significant revolutions in the rural area. The third period was 1963–1978, when the commune system was adjusted in response to the failure of the Great Leap Forward and was continued stably from then on. The last period was the reform period which ran from late-1978 until 1992. During this period, the collective system was abandoned and state control on the rural economy was gradually loosened. In the course of transition of the household economy in Zhaitan, I focused on the conflict between the growing population and the limited resources of the village. Before the 1949, the solution was to go into businesses outside the village; in the 30 years after 1949, under the framework of the collective system and the control of the state command, the peasants managed to develop labour-intensive production to meet the needs of the growing population; in the reform period after 1978, with the overall withdrawal of state intervention in rural areas, the tension was finally released through the market and the development of industry. The experience of Zhaitan reveals that the change of land ownership did not make a difference to the economic condition of most households if the land area was much less than what was needed. It also shows that the collective system of agriculture, however, could promote agricultural production, and thus brought about positive effects on the condition of each household through centralised management of the labour force and the land. Last, but not least, the overall boost to rural household economy is relient on the development of the industry to complete the transfer of rural workforce from the agriculture.

This research evaluates two different Biological Nitrogen Removal (BNR) systems for enhanced nitrogen removal in decentralized wastewater treatment. The first study evaluated the performance of Hybrid Adsorption and Biological Treatment Systems (HABiTS) at the pilot scale with and without stage 1 effluent recirculation. HABiTS is a system developed at the bench scale in our laboratory and was designed for enhanced BNR under transient loading conditions. It consists of two stages; an ion exchange (IX) onto clinoptilolite media coupled with biological nitrification in the aerobic nitrification stage 1 and a Tire-Sulfur Adsorption Denitrification (T-SHAD) system in the anoxic denitrification stage 2. The T-SHAD process incorporates NO3- adsorption onto tire chips and Sulfur Oxidizing Denitrification (SOD) using elemental sulfur as the electron donor for NO3- reduction. Previous bench scale studies evaluated HABiTS performance under transient loadings and found significantly higher removal of nitrogen with the incorporation of adsorptive media in stage 1 and 2 compared with controls (80% compared to 73%) under transient loading conditions. In this study, we hypothesize that a HABiTS system with effluent recirculation in nitrification stage 1 may enhance nitrogen removal performance compared to that without recirculation. The following were the expected advantages of Stage 1 effluent recirculation for enhanced nitrogen removal: 1) Pre-denitrification driven by the mixture of nitrified effluent from stage 1 with high concentrations of biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) septic tank effluent. 2) Moisture maintenance in stage 1 for enhanced biofilm growth. 3) Increased mass transfer of substrates to the biofilm in stage 1. 4) Decreased ratio of BOD to Total Kjeldahl Nitrogen (TKN) in the influent of stage 1. Two side-by-side systems were run with the same media composition and fed by the same septic tank. One had a nitrification stage 1 effluent recirculation component (R-system), which operated at a 7:1 stage 1 effluent recirculation ratio for the first 49 days of the study and at 3:1 beginning on day 50 and one was operated under forward flow only conditions (FF-system). The R system removed a higher percentage of TIN (35.4%) in nitrification stage 1 compared to FF (28.8%) and had an overall TIN removal efficiency of 88.8% compared to 54.6% in FF system. As complete denitrification was observed in stage 2 throughout the study, overall removal was dependent on nitrification efficiency, and R-1 had a significantly higher NH4+ removal (87%) compared to FF-1 (70%). Alkalinity concentrations remained constant from stage 1 to stage 2, indicating that some heterotrophic denitrification was occurring along with SOD, as high amounts of sCOD leached from the tire chips in the beginning of the study, reaching sCOD concentrations of 120-160 mg L-1 then decreasing after day 10 of operation of stage 2. Sulfate concentrations from stage 2 for each side were low until the last 10 days of the study, with an average of 16.43 ± 11.36 mg L-1 SO42--S from R-2 and an average of 16.80 ± 7.98 SO42--S for FF-2 for the duration of the study, however at the end of the study when forward flow rates increased, SO42--S concentrations increased to 32 mg L-1 for R-2 and 40 mg L-1 for FF-2. Similar performance was observed in the FF system as the bench scale reactor tests. The second part of the research focused on the findings from a study of a Particulate Pyrite Autotrophic Denitrification (PPAD) process that uses pyrite as the electron donor and nitrate as the terminal electron acceptor in upflow packed bed bioreactors. The advantages of using pyrite as an electron donor for denitrification include less sulfate production and lower alkalinity requirements compared with SOD. The low alkalinity consumption of the PPAD process led to comparison of PPAD performance with and without oyster shell addition. Two columns were operated side-by-side, one packed with pyrite and sand only (P+S), while another one was packed with pyrite, sand and oyster shell (P+S+OS). Sand was used as a nonreactive biofilm carrier in the columns. My contribution to this research was to carry out Scanning Electron Microscopy-Energy-Dispersive X-Ray Spectroscopy (SEM-EDS) analysis to support the hypothesis that oyster shell contributes to nitrogen removal because it has a high capacity for biofilm attachment. SEM analysis showed that oyster shell has a rough surface, supported by its high specific surface area, and that there was more biofilm attached to oyster shell than pyrite or sand in the influent to the column. EDS results showed a decrease in atomic percentages for pyrite sulfur in the effluent of both columns (59.91% ± 0.10% to 53.94% ± 0.37% in P+S+OS column and to 57.61% ± 4.21% in P+S column). This finding indicated that sulfur was oxidized more than iron and/or the accumulation of iron species on the pyrite surface and supports the coupling of NO3- reduction with pyrite oxidation.