Le risque est consubstantiel à la médecine. Dans le système de santé malagasy la médecine est partagée entre plusieurs mondes : le traditionnel et le moderne, le visible et l’invisible puis, le public et le privé. Ainsi, les différents acteurs œuvrant dans ces différents mondes peuvent voir leur responsabilité devant le juge pénal, le juge civil, le juge administratif et le juge disciplinaire en cas de violation des normes de comportement prédéterminées par le Législateur et l’Administration. Effectivement, le sorcier guérisseur, le Tradipraticien, le professionnel de santé et l’Administration peuvent causer des préjudices corporels sur le patient. La pluralité des mondes confrontée à un pluralisme juridique pourrait être à l’origine d’une incohérence dans le traitement des faits relatifs à la relation de soins. Cette confrontation est dédoublée d’une carence textuelle, d’une absence d’uniformisation des systèmes de responsabilité et des systèmes de réparation notamment en matière assurantielle. En effet, il est important de compenser l’insuffisance de support de la réparation des dommages corporels. Une des manières d’harmoniser ne se trouve pas dans la complétude mais dans la réunion de la tradition et du moderne dans le système de santé et dans le système normatif. Il est désormais nécessaire que l’intégration de la médecine traditionnelle soit parfaite dans le système de santé malagasy. Les différents acteurs de droit tel que le Législateur, le juge et l’assureur devraient suivre cette dynamique. / The risk is consubstantial with the medicine. In the malagasy health system the medicine is shared between several worlds: the traditional and the modern, the visible and the invisible then, the public and the private. So, the various actors working in these various worlds could be responsible in front of the penal judge, the civil judge, the administrative judge and the disciplinary judge in case of violation of the standards of behavior predetermined by the Legislator and the Administration. Actually, the wizard quack, Tradipraticien, the healthcare professional and the Administration can cause physical damages on the patient. The plurality of the worlds confronted with a legal pluralism could be at the origin of an incoherence in the treatment of the facts linked with the relation of care. This situation is increased by a textual deficiency, an absence of standardization of the systems of responsibility and of the systems of repair in particular in insurance. Indeed, it is important to fill the space created by the insufficiency of support of the repair of the physical injury. One of the manners to harmonize is in the meeting of the tradition and the modern. It is necessary from now on that the integration of the traditional medicine is completed in the health system malagasy. The various actors of right such as the Legislator, the judge and the insurer should follow this dynamics.

Levando em consideração que a piscina é um elemento necessãrio à saúde da comunidade e que a água, reservada nesses tanques, pode veicular agentes etiolológicos de doenças, procurou-se estudar as condições sanitárias de piscinas de uso coletivo de Campo Grande, Mato Grosso do Sul, Brasil. Com a finalidade de realizar análises físico-químicas e bacteriológicas, pesquisas de leveduras, algas e amebas de vida livre, foram obtidas 336 amostras, em quatro coletas de cada piscina, durante o periodo de 09 de agosto de 1981 a 27 de junho de 1982. As amostras foram coletadas da água e do raspado das paredes. De modo geral, com base nos resultados conseguidos, constatou-se que as piscinas não mantêm os de cloro suficientes à desinfecção. Em algumas foram registrados altos índices de bactérias, presença de algas nas paredes, bem como a ocorrência de leveduras e de amebas de vida livre potencialmente patogênicas. É importante assinalar a presença destes protozoários, face aos recentes registros de casos de meningoencefalite a eles associados. Conclui-se que há necessidade de tratamento adequado da água, treinamento especializado dos operadores e prática de principias básicos de educação em saúde. Recomenda-se o estabelecimento de legislação pertinente. / Considering that a swimming pool is a necessary item for the public health and that the water in such pools may contain aetiological agents of diseases, we sought to study the sanitary conditions of public swimming pools in Campo Grande, Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil. With the objective of making physical-chemical and bacteriological analyses, yeast, algae and free-living amoebae researches, we obtained 336 samples in four samplings, from august 9, 1981 to june 27, 1982. The samples were collected from the water and from the walls. Generally, we observed that chlorine levels necessary for desinfection were not usually maintained in the swimming pools. In some of them high bacterial levels and algae on the walls were detected, as well as the ocurrence of yeast and potencially pathogenic free-living amoebae. It is important to focus the presence of these protozoa on occount of the recent occurrence of primary amoebic meningoencephalitis cases. In conclusion, there is the necessity of adequate treatment of the water, specialized training of the people who deal with it and the practice of the basic principles of health education. We recommend the stablishment of a legislation concerning this matter.

Foram estudadas as condições sanitárias e realizada a classificação das águas do mar destinadas à balneabilidade, de praias do Estado do Paraná. Para isto, foram selecionadas as praias de Leste (L), Gaivotas (G), Caravela 2 (CL), Betaras (B) e Marajá (MJ), com baixa afluência de banhistas e as de Matinhos (M), Caiobá (C) e Guaratuba (GB) com alta. Nestas praias foram predeterminados 22 locais de colheita e, através de amostragem sistemática e periódica, foi colhida uma amostra de água do mar de cada local, durante 50 semanas consecutivas entre 7 de janeiro e 15 de dezembro de 1980, perfazendo um total de 1100 amostras. A partir de cada amostra realizou-se a determinação dos Números Mais Prováveis (NMP) de bactérias coliformes totais e de coliformes fecais por 100 ml de água. Os NMP de bactérias coliforrnes totais e de coliforrnes fecais por 100 ml, observados para as amostras de água do mar obtidas nos 7 locais de colheita situados nas praias de Leste, Gaivotas, Caravela 2, Betaras e Marajá, foram de maneira geral baixos, não se verificando variação acentuada entre os valores encontrados. As ãguas nestes locais estudados mostraram-se em boas condições sanitárias, apesar de alguns valores apresentarem-se mais elevados, principalmente, no período de classificação de 17/Mar./80 a 14/Abr./80. As amostras de água do mar obtidas nos 15 locais de colheita das praias de Matinhos, Caiobi e Guaratuba, revelaram-se com os NMP de bactérias coliformes totais e de coliformes fecais por 100 ml mais elevados, sobretudo nos períodos compreendidos entre 7/Jan./ 80 e 14/Abr./80 e no de 17/Nov./80 a 15/Dez./80. Nestes períodos, as águas mostraram-se em geral, em piores condições sanitárias, enquanto nos demais, os NMP daquelas bactérias revelaram-se, na grande maioria das vezes, mais baixos. Durante o período da pesquisa foram realizadas, para cada local de colheita, 20 classificações das águas quanto a sua qualidade para fins de balneabilidade, sendo 10 relativas aos resultados dos NMP de bactérias coliformes totais e 10 de coliformes fecais por 100 ml de água. Cada classificação foi feita de acordo com o padrão nacional vigente do Ministério do Interior, no final de cada conjunto de 5 semanas consecutivas e, portanto, após terem sido analisadas 5 amostras de água correspondentes a cada um dos locais de colheita. De modo geral, as águas do mar das praias estudadas revelaram-se proprias à balneabilidade, ou melhor, com qualidade excelente, excetuando-se os locais M1 e M2 da praia de Matinhos e C4 da de Caiobá. Os locais M1 e M2 revelaram-se com águas impróprias à balneabilidade, sendo uma vez para ambos, com relação aos valores dos NMP de bactérias coliformes totais e 4 e uma vezes, respectivamente, quanto aos NMP de bactérias coliformes fecais. O local C4 foi classificado com águas impróprias à balneabilidade apenas uma vez, com base nos NMP de bactérias coliformes fecais encontrados. / Sea water from beaches of the State of Paraná, Brazil were studied considering sanitary conditions, in order to classify them regarding bathing conditions. The following beaches were chosen: Leste (L), Gaivotas (G), Caravela 2 (CL), Betaras (B) e Marajó (MJ), which present lüi\'v\' affluence and Matinhos (M), Caiobá (C) and Guaratuba (GB) presenting high affluence. Twenty-two predetermined collecting places were stablished. Using systematic and periodic sampling, samples were collected from each place during 50 consecutive weeks, between January 15 through December 15, 1980, totalling 1,100 samples. On each sample Most Probable Number (MPN) of total coliform bacteria and fecal coliform bacteria per 100 ml of water were determined. MPN for both types of bacteria was low at the seven collection places of L, G, CL, B and MJ beaches, not differing significantly one from another, showing good sanitary conditions. Some values were rather higher during the period March 17 through April 14, 1980. Water from the 15 collection places located on M, C and GB beaches showed higher values, especially between January 7 through April 14, 1980 and between November 17 through December 15, 1980. Sanitary conditions were better at the others periods, in general. During the study period waters were classified 20 times, 10 regarding total coliformes and 10 regarding fecal coliforms, each classification relating to five weeks periods. Ministery of the Interior standards were used. On the whole water from the beaches studied can be considered of excelent quality regarding bathing conditions. Localities M1 , M2 and C4 were exception, however. M1 and M2 revealed improper for bathing, once each, regarding total coliform MPN. Considering fecal coliforms M1 showed improper conditions four times and M2, once. C4 showed improper conditions regarding fecal coliforms only once.

The novelty of this research is that it investigates an on-site solution for the treatment of restaurant waste using a microwave generated plasma for pyrolysis and gasification. The developed system has been used to treat waste from a city centre fast food restaurant. The system was designed with the aim of reducing the amount of waste being sent to landfill by approximately 94%. The waste is mostly food based but also includes paper waste such as napkins. It was separated into three categories: mixed food, paper and fries. Samples of the mixed food and paper waste were analysed for chemical composition and calorific value. A 2.45GHz magnetron was used to supply 1kW of microwave power to a plasma cavity that had an argon flow rate of 1.5 litre per minute. The design of the microwave plasma cavity was performed using the simulation software, COMSOL. The cavity consists of a tapered waveguide section that is shorted at one end to produce a stationary wave with a large electric field at the gas nozzle. The field is strong enough to produce a self-striking argon plasma when the power is applied. Nitrogen was used to keep the plasma cavity clear of smoke, vapours and other hot gas. The best nitrogen flow rates were found to be around 2 litres/minute, although 5 litres/minute was used in the test to avoid the CO sensor saturating. The combination of the argon and nitrogen was used to purge the gasifier of oxygen. The pressure inside the gasifier was held at 200mbar during the experiments. The resulting plasma jet was used to produce syngas from the waste samples inside a thermally insulated, steel-walled reactor. Temperature profiles were recorded to find the best gas flow rates. 10g samples of the three waste categories were tested in triplicate and the results are presented. Syngas production was recorded using a Quintox gas analyser that measured CO, CO2 and O2. The data was captured every 10s during testing using a PC running a custom-built LabVIEW program. This program was also used to set the microwave output power and record the reflected power and temperatures using National Instruments cDAQ modules with analogue to digital converters. The CO and H2 in syngas can be used as a fuel to offset the cost of running the plasma jet. The results reveal that it is possible to generate the syngas using waste food materials. This study has included an investigation of some of the parameters, including power and flow rates of argon and nitrogen, on the plasma created. Others effects were taken into consideration throughout the research such as the study of the sample moisture levels and the final reduction of mass after the experiment. The ashes produced by the tests were investigated using SEM/EDX analysis. These results are also presented and analysed.

Accurate urban water demand forecasting plays a key role in the planning and design of municipal water supply infrastructure. The reliable prediction of water demand is challenging for water companies, specifically when considering the implications of climate change (Zubaidi et al., 2018). Several studies have documented that weather variables drive water consumption in the short-term, and it enhances the accuracy of the prediction model when it is combined with socio-economic factors. However, the impact of climate change on the municipal water demand has yet to be challenged. To surmount this challenge, more research work is needed to accurately estimate the required quantity of water with increasing water demands. Recently, Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) have been found to be an innovative approach to predict water demand. This PhD study aims to develop a novel methodology to forecast the impact of climate change on municipal water demands for a long-term time series based on the baseline period 1980-2010. It should be highlighted that, based on our knowledge, this is the first study of substantial duration, based on data collected from 1980-2010, which focuses on the associations between monthly climate change and municipal water consumption. A new approach is therefore proposed to quantifying municipal water demands through the assessment of climatic factors, using a combination of a Singular Spectrum Analysis (SSA) technique, three hybrid computational intelligence algorithms and an ANN model. These hybrid algorithms include a Lightning Search Algorithm (LSA-ANN), a Gravitational Search Algorithm (GSA-ANN) and Particle Swarm Optimisation (PSO-ANN). The SSA technique is adopted to decompose the time series of water consumption and climate variables to detect the stochastic signal for each time series. In the same context, the hybrid algorithms are used to find the best value of learning rate coefficient and the number of neurons in both hidden layers of the ANN model. Based on the performance of each hybrid algorithm, the most accurate and reliable water demand forecast model will be selected and used for estimating future water consumption. The considered environments of this study are applied in Australia and the United States from America for mitigating the uncertainty associated with the geographic location (the data of the United States of America was used to support the reliability of developing the municipal water demands prediction model). Furthermore, the Long Ashton Research Station Weather Generator (LARS-WG) model is utilised to simulate future climate factors over three periods (2011-2030, 2046-2065 and 2080-2099) based on the B1, A1B and A2 emission scenarios and seven General Circulation Models (GCMs). The future projection of these climate factors is applied directly to the impact model of water consumption to obtain the projected municipal water demand for different future periods and different greenhouse emission scenarios. The principal findings of this research are the following: from the model perspective, 1) the SSA is a powerful technique when used to remove the effect of socio-economic factors and noise, and detect the stochastic signal time series for water consumption. 2) The ANN model has better performance in term of optimising the correlation between observed and predicted water consumption when using the (LSA-ANN) algorithm. 3) The evaluation of the ANN model (using a validation data set) for Melbourne and Columbia Cities gives a correlation coefficient of 0.96 and 0.95, and the root mean square errors are 0.025 and 0.016 respectively. These findings indicate the capability of the proposed model to predict water demands with high accuracy in different continents. 4) The high performance of LARS-WG model results are found to be appropriate for the simulation of future climate variables. 5) The harmonisation between future monthly water demand (for the periods 2011-2030, 2046-2065 and 2080-2099) and stochastic signals of climate variables, relative to baseline period 1980-2010, emphasises the reliability of the present methodology. However, from the water demand perspective, the water percentage demand (WPD) are likely to rise in winter, drop in summer and fluctuate in both spring and autumn seasons for all periods and under all greenhouse emission scenarios. The results of WPD distribute between -3.5% and 3% for all periods and emission scenarios. The A2 scenario shows the highest and lowest values of WPDs compared to the A1B and B1 scenarios, in particular, in the 3rd period. The mean of seasonal WPD values shows that there is no dominant scenario as the best or the worst case of water demand over all future periods. The highest amount of seasonal demand happens in winter (A2 scenario, 3rd period), and the lowest amount of seasonal demand occurs in autumn (A1B scenario, 3rd period). In conclusion, this study facilitates the conception of the impact of climate change on municipal water demand from the baseline period 1980-2010.

Due to increasing awareness of potential Cr toxicity, there is a pressing need to establish sensitive and robust Cr fractionation and speciation methodologies that will be enable separation of the two redox Cr species (CrIII and CrVI) from different environmental phases and their quantification. The intention of this work was to assess the behaviour of Cr species, especially CrVI, in soils and the factors controlling Cr solubility, fractionation, redox transformation rates and uptake by plants. The analysis methods relied on alkaline extraction in TMAH, liquid chromatography (LC) to separate the chromium species and inductively couple plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) for quantification of chromium. The interference of 40Ar12C+ background peak at mass 52 was reduced by using the CCT-KED facility of the ICP-MS. A solution of 50 mM TRIS buffer, 40 mM NH4NO3, 10-5 M ammonium-EDTA at pH 7.0 was used as the chromatographic eluent. The method developed is suitable for determining CrVI in soil, following alkaline extraction in TMAH, but not for CrIII due to poor recovery, redox transformation and strong binding of CrIII with humic acid despite attempts to preserve the trivalent species using EDTA and heating. The extraction method was applied to assessing Cr speciation and fractionation in a wide range of soil ecosystems collected from urban sites in Wolverhampton, Nottingham, London and a historical sewage sludge disposal farm in Nottinghamshire. To predict soil CrVI content the use of TMAH-extractable Cr (CrTMAH) was better (R=0.911) compared to total soil Cr content (Crtotal; R=0.554). The same analytical approaches were also applied to the development of a method to determine isotopically exchangeable CrVI in soils. This employed isotopically enriched 50CrVI as a ‘spike’ isotope added to soils suspended in varying concentrations of TMAH in an attempt to resolve a consistent fraction of isotopically exchangeable, or ‘labile’, CrVIO42- in soil. It was apparent that, because of the slow exchange kinetics of CrVI in soils, it was difficult to determine a consistent isotopically exchangeable fraction. Nevertheless, the investigation did suggest a refinement of the simple TMAH extraction protocol could enable direct determination of labile soil CrVI. The kinetics of CrVI interaction with a geocolloid (humic acid) was assessed and humic acid was found capable of both reducing CrVI and binding with the resulting CrIII species. Finally, Cr uptake by maize grown on a historical sewage sludge disposal farm was assessed with several approaches to finding a correlation between Cr in soil and Cr uptake by plants. The concentration of CrVI in soil, and its solubility, could be reasonably well predicted from Crtotal or CrTMAH and soil properties. However, restricted uptake of CrVI by the maize plants, and probably reduction of CrVI to CrIII in the root system, made it impossible to predict Cr transfer to shoots or the speciation of the Cr in maize shoots. Overall, due mainly to the apparent ability of the maize plants to control uptake and speciation of CrVI, the produce was considered safe to be consumed by ruminants as regards CrVI content.

The rapid depletion of fossil fuels has raised increasing attention worldwide, and initiated intensive research for sustainable alternatives for energy production. Among these, biodiesel from microalgae has appeared as one of the most promising candidate due to their ability to accumulate large amount of lipids. Indeed, microalgae can achieve a productivity up to 25 higher than other crop sources without need of cultivatable soil, therefore without competing with food production. In the meantime, microalgae have also shown promising results for the treatment of various kind of wastewaters. However, the cultivation of microalgae for energy production suffers from the large costs of harvesting and dewatering of biomass, prior to lipid extraction and biofuel production, which accounts for up to 50% of operating costs. Therefore, the search for cost-effective methods of harvesting and dewatering of microalgae biomass has become necessary to optimize their usage. This study investigates forward osmosis (FO) for the dewatering of microalgae biomass and its implementation within a photobioreactor used for wastewater treatment. FO is a cost-effective filtration process based on the differences of osmotic pressure across a semi-permeable membrane. The use of FO for microalgae dewatering is of high interest, given the high fouling ability of microalgae biomass and the low fouling promises of FO. First, the feasibility of using FO for microalgae dewatering was assessed, focusing on better understanding the fouling mechanisms involved. The filtration performances have been investigated under various operating parameters. It has been found that when Ca2+-containing draw solutions were used, microalgae responded to the back diffusion of calcium ions by an extensive excretion of carbohydrates, accelerating the formation of algal flocs, thus enhancing the rate and extent of flux decline and reducing the algae dewatering efficiency. However, most of the fouling was reversible by simple hydraulic flushing. In addition, substantial adsorption of algal biomass was observed on the feed spacer. Also, Scenedesmus obliquus and Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, with fructose and abundant glucose and mannose in its cell wall, showed strong response to the back diffusion of calcium ions which encouraged S. obliquus to produce more extracellular carbohydrates and formed a stable gel network between algal biomass and extracellular carbohydrates, leading to algae aggregation and severe loss in both water flux and algae biomass during FO dewatering with Ca2+-containing draw solution. Among the species investigated, Chlorella vulgaris without fructose was the most suitable microalgae species to be dewatered by FO with a high algae recovery and negligible flux decline regardless of which draw solution was applied. These findings improve mechanical understanding of FO membrane fouling by microalgae; have significant implications for the algae species selection; and are critical for the development and optimization of FO dewatering processes. Finally, the implementation of FO dewatering with continuous microalgae biomass production and synthetic wastewater treatment was investigated. Two systems (External FO ; Immersed FO) have been studied and compared in order to provide insights on the advantages and disadvantages of each system. Constant parameters have been set identical for both systems: operation time; photobioreactor; hydraulic retention time; biomass production; FO permeate volume. The results reveals that the wastewater treatment efficiency (nutrients removal), as well as the production of biomass were greater with the immersed system due to a greater microalgae growth. However, these may not be sustainable in a long term operation of the immersed system. The external FO system was found better in terms of salinity build-up and FO dewatering performances. Overall, an external FO dewatering is recommended due to its better flexibility and sustainability.

Large-scale complex systems have large numbers of variables, network structure of interconnected subsystems, nonlinearity, spatial distribution with several time scales in its dynamics, uncertainties and constrained. Decomposition of large-scale complex systems into smaller more manageable subsystems allowed for implementing distributed control and coordinations mechanisms. This thesis proposed the use of distributed softly switched robustly feasible model predictive controllers (DSSRFMPC) for the control of large-scale complex systems. Each DSSRFMPC is made up of reconfigurable robustly feasible model predictive controllers (RRFMPC) to adapt to different operational states or fault scenarios of the plant. RRFMPC reconfiguration to adapt to different operational states of the plant is achieved using the soft switching method between the RRFMPC controllers. The RRFMPC is designed by utilizing the off-line safety zones and the robustly feasible invariant sets in the state space which are established off-line using Karush Kuhn Tucker conditions. This is used to achieve robust feasibility and recursive feasibility for the RRFMPC under different operational states of the plant. The feasible adaptive cooperation among DSSRFMPC agents under different operational states are proposed. The proposed methodology is verified by applying it to a simulated benchmark drinking water distribution systems (DWDS) water quality control.

Concerns about climate change and our awareness on energy security have risen during the last decades leading the search for new forms of energy to reduce the world’s dependence on fossil fuels. Bioenergy has been proposed as one route to contribute significantly to meet global energy demand by using renewable sources of energy. The overall objective of this work was to study and optimise a hydrolysis treatment of lignocellulosic biomass but particularly of Miscanthus \(\chi\) giganteus under the biorefinery concept. A modified organosolv method using subcritical water, ethanol and carbon dioxide on a high-pressure batch reactor was proposed and tested for its efficacy on the hydrolysis and fractionation of Miscanthus into its lignocellulose main components, hemicellulose, cellulose and lignin. Temperature (80–200\(^0\)C), reaction time (5–60 min), ethanol concentration (0–70%), carbon dioxide initial pressure (10–55 bar) and load size (2.5–15 g) were the parameters studied and respective ranges. Optimisation models for solubilisation and delignification were obtained and validated using a central composite design based on a response surface methodology. According to both models temperature is the parameter that affects hydrolysis the most obtaining the highest hydrolysis solubilisation and delignification at 200\(^0\)C. On the other side CO2 initial pressure was not significant, what should be further investigated in the future at higher pressures. Reducing sugars quantification obtained a maximum concentration of 2g/10g Miscanthus by DNS assay with an optimal temperature to hydrolyse hemicellulose from 140 to 180\(^0\)C. FTIR analysis of each fraction confirmed a successful separation of the biomass main components with a reduction in the cellulose fibres crystallinity. Temperature was considered the most significant parameter to fractionate biomass with the highest temperature (200 \(^0\)C) being the one that produced a better quality fibres, supernatant and lignin in terms of contamination by the other fractions. However, results also showed that higher temperature tends to oxidise lignin. Fibres analysis by scanning electron microscopy showed that fibre structure was preserved but presented lignin-type globules on their surface indicating lignin reprecipitation.

This research has examined the combustion and emissions of a spray-guided direct-injection spark-ignition (DISI) engine using exhaust gas recirculation (EGR). The impact of EGR type, swirl and tumble intake airflows, compression ratio and fuel type were also investigated. EGR addition resulted in significant fuel consumption improvements and differing particulate matter (PM) behaviour depending on the knock limited maximum brake torque (KLMBT) spark advance achieved. When comparing EGR types, cooled EGR achieved the best fuel consumption and cooled EGR after three-way catalyst (TWC) achieved the best gaseous emissions (NOx and HC). Swirl and tumble intake airflows significantly increased fuel consumption. However, these increases could be minimized with EGR addition. Swirl significantly reduced the accumulation mode particulate emissions, providing a potential solution for PM reduction. EGR addition did not significantly affect PM for the swirl and tumble intake airflow conditions. 20%vol 1-butanol addition to gasoline fuel (Bu20) resulted in significant PM reductions at 8.5 bar IMEP. At 7.0 bar IMEP, EGR addition allowed the KLMBT spark timing to be advanced, as the compression ratio was increased. Fuel consumption was improved by 0.4% due to the spark advance and reduced pumping losses, and PM improved because the formation of primary particles was reduced.