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Uncontained fecal wastes in cities may present exposure risks to the public. We collected discarded feces from public spaces in San Francisco for analysis by RT-qPCR for a range of enteric pathogens. Out of 59 samples, we found 12 (20%) were of human origin and 47 (80%) were non-human; 30 of 59 stools were positive for ≥1 of the 35 pathogens assessed, including pathogenicE. coli, Shigella, norovirus,Cryptosporidium, andTrichuris. Using quantitative enteric pathogen estimates and data on observed fecal waste from a public reporting system, we modeled pathogens removed from the environment attributable to a recently implemented program of public toilet construction. We estimated that each new public toilet reduced the annual number of enteric pathogens released into the immediate environment (within 500 m walking distance), including 6.3 × 1012enteropathogenicE. coli(95% CI: 4.0 × 1012– 7.9 × 1012), 3.2 × 1011enteroaggregativeE. coli(95% CI: 1.3 × 1011– 6.3 × 1011), and 3.2 × 108Shigella(6.3 × 107– 2.5 × 109). Improving access to public sanitation can reduce enteric pathogen hazards in cities. Interventions must also consider the hygienic disposal of animal waste to reduce microbial hazards with zoonotic infection potential.SYNOPSISThis paper describes enteric pathogen hazards from discarded feces on the streets of San Francisco and estimates their reduction following a public toilet intervention.TOC/Abstract artCreated with BioRender and a photograph by author Jay Graham

In low-income, urban, informal communities lacking sewerage and solid waste services, onsite sanitation (sludges, aqueous effluent) and child feces are potential sources of human fecal contamination in living environments. Working in informal communities of urban Maputo, Mozambique, we developed a quantitative, stochastic, mass-balance approach to evaluate plausible scenarios of localized contamination that could explain why the soil-transmitted helminth

As high definition (HD) sensors on aerial Intelligence Surveillance Reconnaissance (ISR) platforms continue to be deployed, the appetite for high definition video transport and dissemination has been increasing rapidly. HD video is allowing analysts to achieve a level of detailed exploitation that was previously unimaginable with low-resolution full-motion video (FMV). Missions requiring targeting and object recognition have especially benefitted from the high resolution FMV that HD provides. Analyst are able to make critical distinctions like determining the difference between a person holding a loaf of bread, and a person holding an AK-47 machine gun. The majority of airborne sensor FMV across the global information grid (GIG) has historically been low-rate standard definition quality until recent sensor advancements have enabled the capture of high resolution video. Unfortunately, as satellite resources remain expensive and scarce, the demand to transition to HD is quickly outpacing the DOD's ability to transport these desired high-bandwidth HD feeds. One available solution is to use a device called a transcoder to adjust incoming airborne video rates in real-time at the tactical level. The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) has recently completed a study that examined three different transcoders' ability to manipulate high definition video. Transcoders were evaluated based on a number of criteria including: qualitative video quality, quantitative video quality, Key Length Value (KLV) metadata compatibility, and latency impact. A 6Mbps high definition video capture from an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) was used as the baseline test file. The file was streamed onto the test network as an MPEG-2 transport stream where it was processed by each respective transcoder into different combinations of bitrates, frame rates, and resolutions and analyzed based on the criteria mentioned above. The goal of testing was to evaluate the feasibility of transcoding HD video for transport over satellite while satisfying DOD video requirements.