Software helps to track the origin of feces in rivers – Times

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Software helps trace origin of feces in rivers. – Advertising Agency

The fecal contamination is increasingly common in rivers and water reserves. The concentration of population increases the demand for water and simultaneously generates a high volume of wastewater, both human and animal. Therefore, a multidisciplinary team of biologists and computer Spaniards decided to develop a new system to help identify the origin of this fecal contamination in water.

“The identification of the species to which belong the remains help to resolve disputes over who is responsible for fecal contamination of a river: a farm, a slaughterhouse, a purification or a core of human population, for example, “says SINC Anicet R. Blanch, a microbiologist at the University of Barcelona , project with Lluis Belanche, of the Polytechnic University of Catalonia. Microbial, chemical or eukaryotic

According Blanch indicators, the new software, they have called Ichnaea in ancient Greek means tracker “is based on the development of predictive models based on the analysis of a series microbial, chemical or eukaryotic indicators.

This information helps determine the origin of the sample, even in complex cases where faecal contamination is very diluted or degraded “he says.

To make these predictions is first necessary to provide the system with the results of the analysis of several parameters other water samples with a single source of known fecal contamination.

“From these data, the software determines what the relevant indicators, analyzed in water samples with fecal contamination of uncertain origin, will determine its origin are, “he adds.

” Previously, each research group proposed the who believed most important indicators, but Ichnaea eliminates subjectivity in selecting between different variable parameters which are most crucial for reliable forecasts “, explains the researcher.

Some of these indicators are important parameters such as microbial bacteriophages-viruses that infect bacteria-associated to a single species. Also often appear -group other related bacteria bifidobacteria living in intestino- or mitochondrial DNA of the specimens, said the expert.

The reliability of prediction depends on the number and quality of the samples used to train computer learning models, the parameters have been able to analyze and relevance.

Risks

Knowing the origin of the contamination is important to know the health risk, as are most contagious human pathogens that animal.

scanning from the cloud

The software is currently in the prototype stage, because its components have been developed separately. The researchers are now seeking funding to enable them to debug and integrate the modules into a single computing platform. He plans to raise the complete application to the cloud.

“The idea is that everyone can access the system from any computer, even a tablet, because the calculation is done from a remote machine,” says Blanch .

As planned by the computer, the user can adapt the prediction to its geographical location with customized settings. This software will allow you to provide your own samples of known origin, to complete the learning phase that will allow for predictions later.

In the event that a user should not have their own samples for this training, available database system, which will include those results which have been released for free access by other scientists. In this way, you can choose the analysis of the closest or similar to one that will study geographic areas.

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