The Wu-Luo River, located in the Ping-Tong County of southern Taiwan, has long been polluted by untreated domestic and partially treated swine wastewaters and is among the most polluted rivers in Taiwan. The main objective of this study was to find a practical and effective way to improve water qualities of seriously polluted rivers with a natural technology. The Wu-Luo River was taken as an illustration of the approach in the first subject of this study. The second subject used mixed sewage and a partially-treated swine waster as a simulated polluted river water to test if an UASB (upflow anaerobic sludge blanket) reactor followed by a constructed wetland (CW) system could be used for clarification of the water. For verification of the performance results achieved by the second subject, the third subject used a pilot UASB-CWs system to test the performances by using the water sampled from the Wu-Luo River. A full-scale constructed wetland system (CWs) has been in operation for cleaning a portion of polluted Wu-Luo River water since January 2005. The first section of study investigated the efficiency and treatment capacity of this full-scale CWs on the river shore, and the operation parameters of CWs could be improved to enhance the treatment. Due to the limited efficiency and capacity of the full-scale CWs treatment, the second section of this study use a pilot-scale system to treat wastewater mixed in laboratory to simulate the polluted water treatment of the Wu-Luo River. This system was equipped with an UASB reactor in front of the CWs, which is expected to raise the efficiency and capacity of the CWs. Since the system of UASB-CWs in the second section showed good performance, the actual Wu-Luo River water was introduced to 2 pilot-scale systems which only the experimental one had UASB reactor before CWs in the third section of study. The removal efficiency of pollutants including heavy metals between the experimental and control systems was compared. In the first section, the Wu-Luo River CWs occupied a total area of 18 hectares in which approximately 9 hectares were wetted by the introduced river water. Close to 4.7 hectares of the CWs was flooded by the river water with 1.9 hectares occupied by emergent and floating plants. A total water volume of about 9,930 m3 was estimated. During the investigation period, 10,000-20,000 m3/d (CMD) (average 10,800 CMD) of the polluted river water was introduced to the CWs with a hydraulic retention time (HRT) of 0.92 day. It was concluded that water sampled from near the midpoint of the CWs got better clarification results than those from the effluent end. Pollutant removal efficiencies were 60, 60, and 67%, respectively, for TCOD, BOD, and SS at the midpoint, and 56, 54, and 45%, respectively, for TCOD, BOD, and SS at the effluent end. Organics, N, and P released from decayed plants were responsible for the poor water qualities at the end. The CWs had only a TN removal efficacy of approximately 18% with no TP removal effect. In the second section, a pilot system with an UASB reactor combined with two CW reactors was used to evaluate the feasibility of treating wastewater samples (mixture of sewage and partially-treated swine wastewater). To observe the influence of HRT on the removal efficiency of various pollutants in the wastewater in the UASB reactor, 2 phases of experiments with HRTs of 6 and 2 hours were conducted. The UASB reactor responded well in removing most of the pollutants observed except for AN and TP. The average removal efficiency could reach the levels of 93, 91, 86, 89, and 78% for SS, SCOD, SBOD, AN, and TP with the UASB-CWs systems, which have potentials to be used to improve the water quality in river in practice. To observe the influence of HRT on the removal efficiency of various pollutants in the wastewater in the UASB reactor, 2 phases of experiments with HRTs of 6 and 2 hours were conducted. In the third section, the experimental system was composed of UASB-CW1-CW2 in seris, whereas that of control system was only CW1-CW2 in series. Water samples were taken from Wu-Luo River water. To observe the influence of HRT on the removal efficiency of various pollutants in the river water in the UASB reactor, 3 phases of experiments with HRTs of 6, 4, and 2 hours were conducted. Heavy metals were easily settled in the first section of treatment, the concentrations of them were found higher in the sediments in UASB of experimental system than those in CW1 of control system. UASB can be used for primary sedimentation to prevent the CW1 blocking especially when the river quality changes dramatically on SS. With 4 hrs of HRT in UASB and 32 hrs in CW1 and CW2 each, the removal efficiency is the highest for all pollutants observed in this study. In the effluent of both of the whole systems, more than 96% of SS, NH3, and TN were removed, while more than 70% of COD and TP, more than 60% of BOD were also removed. When HRT in CW1 and CW2 is decreased to be lower than 16 hrs, the ability of CWs to remove TN and TP is also lowered.

Thesis (M.S.)--Bowling Green State University, 2009. / Document formatted into pages; contains ix, 36 p. : ill. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri--Columbia, 2000. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 132-143). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis ((Ph. D.)--University of Queensland, 2003.

Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 1989.

published_or_final_version / Medical Sciences / Master / Master of Medical Sciences

Background Swine influenza virus (SIV) was first isolated in the United States in 1930 and was thereafter widely reported in many countries. Most SIVs that have been identified are influenza A viruses. There was no report of influenza B viruses isolated in swine. Seroepidemiological study in UK has shown a low seroprevalence of influenza B antibody in pigs. The primary serological test used to detect influenza antibody is the hemagglutination inhibition (HI)test. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) are also available commercially for detection of antibodies against influenza A viruses but not for the detection of influenza B antibodies. Objectives 1) To examine the prevalence of influenza B antibodies in pig sera sampled at the abattoir in Hong Kong. 2) To develop the cell-based ELISA assay for the detection of antibodies against influenza A and B viruses. 3) To compare the cell-based ELISA assays with three commercial ELISA kits, namely the IDVet ID Screen influenza A antibody competition ELISA, the IDEXX Influenza A Ab test and the IDEXX AI MultiS-Screen Ab test using swine sera. 4) To test swine sera using the influenza B cell-based ELISA assay to complement data on swine seroprevalence obtained with HI tests. Methods The first part of this study involved HI screening of 4643 pig sera from 2009 to 2012. These sera were tested for the presence of antibodies against B/Brisbane/60/2008 and B/Wisconsin/1/2010whichrepresent the B/Victoria and B/Yamagata lineages respectively. The second part of this study involved the development and performance evaluation of the cell-based ELISA assays. The cell-based ELISA assays were developed using influenza virus infected cells as the capture antigens and fluorescence-labelled anti-IgG antibody as the detection antibody. The viruses that were used to prepare the assays were A/California/04/2009, B/Brisbane/60/2008 and B/Wisconsin/1/2010. All three cell-based ELISA assays were tested with WHO reference sera and swine sera and the results were analyzed using paired t-test and receiver operating characteristic analysis. In addition, the results of the influenza A cell-based ELISA assay were compared with the commercial ELISA assay using Fisher’s exact two-tailed test, Pearson’s correlation analysis and Bland-Altman plot. Results A low prevalence (0.28%; 95%CI: 0.16%-0.47%) of influenza B antibody was observed inthe swine sera samples. The seroprevalence for B/Victoria was higher than that of B/Yamagatain 2010to2012. Co-existence of B/Victoria and B/Yamagata antibodies were found in the swine population during 2010 and 2011. The influenza A cell-based ELISA was found to have low sensitivity (64.1%;95%CI: 52.4%-74.4%) and high specificity (94.7%; 95%CI:80.9%-99.1%) when compared with the commercial ELISA assays. In contrast, using HI as the reference test influenza B cell-based ELISA prepared using B/Wisconsin/1/2010 infected cells were shown to have high sensitivity (92.31%; 95%CI:64.0%-99.8%) but low specificity (63.16%;95%CI:38.4%-83.7%) in detection of influenza B antibodies in swine sera. Conclusion Sporadic transmission of influenza B virus may occur in swine but there is no evidence for efficient and sustained transmission of the virus between them. Cell-based ELISA assay prepared with B/Wisconsin/1/2010 may be considered as an alternative screening testprior to HI subtyping. / published_or_final_version / Public Health / Master / Master of Public Health

published_or_final_version / Zoology / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

This item was digitized as part of the Million Books Project led by Carnegie Mellon University and supported by grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Cornell University coordinated the participation of land-grant and agricultural libraries in providing historical agricultural information for the digitization project; the University of Arizona Libraries, the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, and the Office of Arid Lands Studies collaborated in the selection and provision of material for the digitization project.

A notable contribution to the knowledge of relative incidence and cause of mortality in pigs was made by an extensive survey carried out by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Veterinary Investigation Service in England. [...]