Natural radionuclides in trees grown on a uranium mill tailings waste pile

Objective  

The purpose of the study was to investigate natural radionuclide uptake and allocation by trees.     

Mekong at the Crossroads

The Mekong region is undergoing rapid transitions, socially, economically, and environmentally. Economies are stabilizing after the political turbulence of the last several decades, and development pressures as well as ambitions are vast. Water is related to these social, economic, and environmental changes in many ways and in a very profound manner. This article summarizes the approach and major conclusions of the research project title "Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) on the Mekong River." The concept of IWRM is elaborated in the setting of these major transitions, and the roles of academic research and education are highlighted.     

Comparison of VOC emissions between air-dried and heat-treated Norway spruce (Picea abies), Scots pine (Pinus sylvesteris) and European aspen (Populus tremula) wood

Heat-treated wood is an increasingly popular decoration material. Heat-treatment improves dimensional stability of the wood and also prevents rot fungus growth. Although production of heat-treated wood has been rapidly increasing, there is only little information about the VOC emissions of heat-treated wood and its possible influences on indoor air quality. In the present study, VOC emissions from three untreated (air-dried) and heat-treated wood species were compared during a four weeks test period. It appeared that different wood species had clearly different VOC emission profiles. Heat-treatment was found to decrease VOC emissions significantly and change their composition. Especially, emissions of terpenes decreased from softwood samples and aldehydes from European aspen samples. Emissions of total aldehydes and organic acids were at the same level or slightly higher from heat treated than air-dried softwood samples. In agreement with another recent study, the emissions of furfural were found to increase and those of hexanal to decrease from all the wood species investigated. In contrast to air-dried wood samples, emissions of VOCs were almost in steady state from heat treated wood samples even in the beginning of the test.     

Supporting organizational learning by comparing activities and outcomes of the safety-management system

The approach to support organizational learning from pro-active monitoring (activities observations) and deficiencies revealed (outcomes observations) in process-safety incident investigations is proposed.The approach builds on five main steps: i.) Implementation of the incident-investigation procedure at the company level, ii.) Monitoring of the preventive safety activities using various tools, iii.) Identification of the safety outcomes including root-cause analysis, iv.) Comparison of activities observations with outcomes observations in order to reveal latent deficiencies as well as to proof relationships, v.) New universal indicator method is proposed to enhance organizational learning from both activities and outcomes observations.The approach is demonstrated on the implementation at the anonymous SME company. This involved carrying out activities observations in terms of the SMS internal audit and the ARAMIS and the violation-motivation safety-culture questionnaire surveys. The outcomes observations consisted of the three incidents investigations using ECFA+, 3CA and MORT methods. The approach and the case study enabled demonstration of the relationships between activities observations (preventive indicators) and outcomes observations (root causes/deficiencies indicators) and vice versa. We state that such a comparison adds to the justification of the preventive safety performance indicators. Finally, in order to ease the organizational learning from both activities and outcomes observations, universal management indicators attributes/categories are suggested to be followed and are briefly explained based on a modified REWI approach.     

Nonthermal mechanism of interactions between electromagnetic fields and biological systems: a calmodulin example

The possible mechanisms of interactions of electromagnetic fields (EMF) with biological systems are often discussed in bioelectromagnetics in light of thermal versus nonthermal mechanisms. This paper attempts to show the principle difference between the biophysical and engineering approaches to biological mechanisms of EMF initiated bioeffects. While biophysical approach is based on experimentally obtained data on biological responses to the applied EMF, the engineering approach strongly relies on specific absorption rate (SAR) value. With experimental data, comparing effects of low- and high-frequency electromagnetic fields, discussing modulation of radiofrequency (RF) signals, the author demonstrates the superiority of the nonthermal approach. Biological windows, resonance mechanism, and various reported biological effects of geomagnetic fields are also in favor of the nonthermal mechanisms. Finally, one potential nonthermal mechanism involving the role of calmodulin in cellular functions is shown in this paper.     

A fuzzy model for assessing risk of occupational safety in the processing industry

Managing occupational safety in any kind of industry, especially in processing, is very important and complex. This paper develops a new method for occupational risk assessment in the presence of uncertainties. Uncertain values of hazardous factors and consequence frequencies are described with linguistic expressions defined by a safety management team. They are modeled with fuzzy sets. Consequence severities depend on current hazardous factors, and their values are calculated with the proposed procedure. The proposed model is tested with real-life data from fruit processing firms in Central Serbia.     

Physiological testing of Mytilus galloprovincialis for the environmental assessing of coastal marine areas: a case study in Boka Kotorska Bay (the Adriatic Sea)

The aim of this work was to validate in the field certain measurement of the heart rate alterations of the bioindicator organism Mytilus galloprovicialis as a tool for ecotoxicological biomonitoring and assessment applications related to coastal and marine environment. The latter was determined by testing the mussels according to the method of functional loading (1-hour lowered salinity stress-exposure). The time of heart rate (HR) recovery (T_rec) and the coefficient of HR variation (CV_HR) in a group of tested animals were used as biomarkers for the assessment of their physiological state. It was found that the values of the biomarkers in mussels from our reference location were 1.3-1.5 times lower than in mussels from differently polluted coastal areas of the Bay. The study also included an investigation of the relationship between the mussel’s cardiac rhythm characteristics and the bioaccumulation of trace elements in their soft tissues, caused by chronic pollution. The conclusion was drawn that this approach to the physiological testing of mussels could be useful in developing a rapid and low-cost method for the assessment of the health of coastal ecosystems.     

Influence of static magnetic fields on nerve regeneration in vitro

Our research involves determining how non-invasive electric and magnetic fields influence neuronal growth in vitro. In previous studies we have shown that pulsed electromagnetic fields (PEMF) as well as direct current (DC) alone stimulate neurite outgrowth from dorsal root ganglion explants [Sisken et al. 1984; Sisken et al. (Restor Neurol Neurosci 1:303–309, 1990); Greenebaum et al. (Bioelectromagnetics 17:293–302, 1996)]. A maximum response was obtained when nerve growth factor (NGF) was also present in the medium. The results of our experiments using static magnetic fields of different strengths are presented below and indicate that fields of high magnetic strength (450–900 gauss) with added NGF stimulate neurite outgrowth comparable to the response obtained with PEMF plus NGF.