Happy 2019 to All of Our HeadsUp Readers!
New Year and New Website! What a lot of work goes into revising a website, but it’s finally completed and looking awesome. Like Madonna, websites should evolve with time and take on a refreshed look and that is what we’ve achieved. Take a look for yourself – www.HeadworksInternational.com.
Many multinational corporations have resolved to be environmental leaders wherever they are in the world. We start this year with our case study on the largest personal care product manufacturing plant in the Middle East North Africa Region. This was our fifth MBBR biological process installation for this particular customer, treating extremely challenging effluent water generated by their factory in Dubai and taking it all the way to reusable water. As you can imagine, when a plant is making numerous products such as soap, shampoo, and skin care items, the effluent water can change dramatically from one moment to the next. To treat it takes significant know-how. The treatment facility has been in operation for two years and the customer is well satisfied!
The New Year is a time for resolutions, many of which seem to fall to the side of the road of life as we march forward. We resolve to exercise more, eat less, make more time for ourselves, meditate, and so forth. Perhaps these life changes are too big a bite and that’s why they often fail. But here is a resolution for being healthier which I believe is relatively easy: listen to more music. Science is proving its healing benefits for premature babies, people with Parkinson and depression. Check out our article on the health benefits of music which includes a link to HealthTunes.org which collates the latest medical research on the effects of music and has a library of music developed by experts for a wide variety of health issues. How easy is that? Every time you get in your car, office or home and turn on music on the radio, you’ll think: This is making me happy and healthy. Resolution kept!
Our 24-year old daughter came home for the holidays and our mission was to cook up a storm! Think traditional stuffed turkey dinner with all the trimmings. One recipe called for kosher salt and as we didn’t have it in our pantry, I looked up whether it made any difference. I’ve always just used whatever salt seemed handy or appropriate, but having read this highly informative article about the differences in salt, I’m converted to paying more attention. And with microplastics now showing up in sea salt due to the worsening pollution of the oceans, that will definitely not be in my pantry in the future! I suggest you make that resolution as well!
Whenever our daughter is home, we tend to focus more on health with her able guidance, so the refrigerator was filled with fruits and vegetables. Conversations often revolved around our theories about food quality impacting health and the increasing cancer rates perhaps being linked to the mass production of pesticide, toxin, hormone and antibiotic ridden food these days. I have believed this for many years, and now the science has caught up with our assumptions. So, our third resolution after reading this abstract published in the December 2018 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association and covered by CNN here for a bit of an easier read will be to eat organic as much as possible.
Last resolution? Well, it will be to not only eat more organic and less processed foods and cut out the sea salt, but to try to incorporate more of the top 100 most nutritious foods into our daily diet. Scan through the list and see where your favorite foods rank (no, pizza is not on the list, sadly, but if you add arugula to it, you may feel better about yourself!) A Texas tradition for New Year’s Day is to eat black-eyed peas, aka cowpeas, for good luck for the rest of the year. I’ve generally managed to avoid them in the past, but now that I see they rank #49 on the list, I’m game!
If you are looking for some New Year’s Eve music to make you happy, here’s Johann Strauss’ Blue Danube Waltz to bring in the year with a smile on your face and in your heart. Wishing you a wonderful 2019!
Michele LaNoue
Headworks International Inc.
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Background
In December of 2016, the Middle East North Africa’s largest personal care liquids manufacturing unit was inaugurated in Dubai Industrial Park, UAE. The factory generates around 200 m3/d of high strength effluent with varying loads and flows. The characterization of the influent and effluent are summarized as follows:
Process
Headworks Bio proposed a wastewater treatment process utilizing Moving Bed Bio Reactor (“MBBR”) technology for a plant with an expected treatment capacity of 200 m3/d.
To counter the varying flows and loads, an equalization tank with 36 hour retention divided into 2 parts was utilized. The process scheme includes a Primary Dissolved Air Flotation system (DAF), followed by a two stage MBBR, and a Secondary DAF, offering a compact solution for the factory with a minimal footprint.
After secondary treatment, the effluent is further treated through Ultra Filtration and Reverse Osmosis which allows 100% of the resulting water to be re-used.
The protected higher surface area bacterial biofilm nature of MBBR technology allows the bacteria to self-regulate, adjusting naturally to varied influent loads without compromising plant performance while providing an easy to operate solution with minimal operator control or maintenance required. Headworks Bio’s proprietary Active Cell 920 media formed the core component of the MBBR process for this installation. AC920 provides an extremely high protected surface area (680 m2/m3) for growth of the biofilm, but not so fine that the media becomes clogged and no longer functions.
A Very Happy Client
The plant has been in operation now for two years and the client is extremely happy with the plants performance. In keeping with their corporate policy to maintain environmentally sound practices worldwide, the system allows them to generate reusable water with ease while the company employees focuses on its real business – manufacturing and selling personal care products! If your industry is generating wastewater that is tough to treat, has high pollutant and/or solid loads and is a headache you want to just go away, Headworks Bio has the team that can bring you the 4 E’s: effective, efficient, economical, and easy to use solutions™. With over 20 years of experience in every type of industry and municipality, our talented process engineers will fix your wastewater problems so that you can focus on your business. Contact your local manufacturers’ representative or our process engineers at sales@headworksintl.com or +1.713.647.6667 to discuss how we can get you out of the wastewater business and back to your core industry.
Check out how music can improve your immune system, your mind, and your attitude Here
While visiting the Austrian exhibit at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, last year, Headworks co-founder and Honorary Consul of Austria Gerald Seidl met with inventor and musician Walter Werzowa. Walter is Austrian born, but lives in Los Angeles, California, where he immigrated back in the ‘90s to attend a postgraduate program for motion picture and television scoring at USC.
Among his many accomplishments, he created the Intel audio signature, one of the most recognizable sound brands in the world, and worked with Steven Spielberg on the film “Minority Report.” Werzowa started his own company, MusikVergnuegen, which is German for “enjoyment of music.” In addition to the Intel audio mark, Werzowa has written music for other commercials and for more than two dozen movie trailers, including “Men in Black,” “The Crying Game,” “Addicted to Love,” “The Flintstones” and the remake of “Psycho.” From his success with Intel, his firm has immerged as one of the leaders in creating corporate brand mnemonics, creating the audio signatures for companies like T-Mobile, Comedy Central, LG and Samsung.
Researchers at many institutions have been studying the impact of music on people’s health for many years with extremely positive results. The American Psychological Association published an article back in November 2013 entitled “Music as Medicine” citing numerous studies on the benefits of music in healing. For example, researchers at McGill University in Montreal found that listening to and playing music increases the body’s production of the antibody immunoglobulin A and natural killer cells — the cells that attack invading viruses and boost the immune system’s effectiveness. Music also reduces levels of the stress hormone cortisol.
So, when Walter and his wife learned that their son had a rare medical disease, they decided that before they tried surgical intervention, they would have him listen to music inlaid with binaural beats and isochronic tones. As stated on the Patient Empowerment Network for cancer patients and their caregivers, “physicians saw a drastic improvement in [Walter’s son’s] condition and began requesting more information from Walter and his wife on how they accomplished such a feat.
Subsequently, Walter decided to share his knowledge of the healing power of music and created HealthTunes™ in the hopes of assisting others who suffer from complex medical conditions. HealthTunes’ MusicMedicine regulates the autonomic nervous system and accelerates endogenous processes. Binaural beats, which are the result of two slightly different frequencies, create a third signal in the brain. Coupled with music, binaural beats restore and balance a patient’s physiology.
Chronic pain patients recorded 30 percent less pain perception after undergoing music therapy. Chemotherapy is very important in fighting cancer, but can have unpleasant side effects. HealthTunes music has been shown to relieve chemotherapy symptoms in patients both during and after undergoing treatment. Therapy for anxiety, depression, stress, as well as numerous other ailments is offered on the HealthTunes site.
Walter and his wife strive to lessen the cost of medical care; therefore, the service is free to all patients. (Donations, however, are accepted and greatly appreciated.) The goal is to allow everyone access to credible medical research explaining the benefits of the music they listen to. Thus, HealthTunes provides all users access to medical research from knowledgeable institutions as well as music therapy all in one place. UCLA Medical Center Nephrology Department and UCLA Center for East-West Medicine endorse HealthTunes. So does the musician Moby who has an interesting interview on Vimeo you can watch here where he explains what is known about music as a healing modality, and what is still not known.
To use HealthTunes, simply go to the website, sign up, and music therapy is at your fingertips. Therapies can be listened to anytime, anywhere internet access is available and no credit card information is necessary. All therapies were created by music composers with medical research in mind to treat specific ailments. You will read, though, on the HealthTunes website that high quality speakers are required to actually hear the embedded tones, so iPhones and laptops won’t work. The site recommends earbuds or headphones if you don’t have high definition sound speakers.
Ever wonder what was the difference between table, kosher, Himalayan and sea salt? Find out.
It seems obvious that food with hormones, toxins, pesticides and antibiotics are bad, but here’s the scientific proof.
After studying 1000 different foods, here’s a list of what the researchers determined were the 100 most nutritious. Click here.
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