Publications by authors named "Amos Branch"

Article Synopsis
  • * This study examines human fecal contamination in stormwater by analyzing microbial source tracking markers and pathogens in both wet and dry conditions.
  • * Findings indicate that human MST markers provide a more reliable estimate of fecal contamination compared to pathogens due to data limitations in current studies.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

As water treatment technology has improved, the amount of available process data has substantially increased, making real-time, data-driven fault detection a reality. One shortcoming of the fault detection literature is that methods are usually evaluated by comparing their performance on hand-picked, short-term case studies, which yields no insight into long-term performance. In this work, we first evaluate multiple statistical and machine learning approaches for detrending process data.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Wastewater treatment plants are a major pathway for pharmaceuticals to the aquatic environment. Many pharmaceuticals, including non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), are chiral chemicals and the biological activity of their enantiomers can differ. Few studies have assessed the effects of different NSAID enantiomers on non-target organisms.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Ozonation of wastewater has gained popularity because of its effectiveness in removing colour, UV absorbance, trace organic chemicals, and pathogens. Due to the rapid reaction of ozone with organic compounds, dissolved ozone is often not measurable and therefore, the common disinfection controlling parameter, concentration integrated over contact time (CT) cannot be obtained. In such cases, alternative parameters have been shown to be useful as surrogate measures for microbial removal including change in UV absorbance (ΔUVA), change in total fluorescence (ΔTF), or O:TOC (or O:DOC).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Ultrafiltration is an effective barrier to waterborne pathogens including viruses. Challenge testing is commonly used to test the inherent reliability of such systems. Performance validation seeks to demonstrate the adequate reliability of the treatment system.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF