"Healthy" eye in office-like environments

Eye irritation symptoms, e.g. dry eyes, are common and abundant symptoms reported in office-like environments, e.g. aircraft cabins. To improve the understanding of indoor related eye symptomatology, relevant knowledge from the ophthalmological and indoor environmental science literature has been merged. A number of environmental (relative humidity, temperature, draft), occupational (e.g. visual display unit work), and individual (e.g. gender, use of cosmetics, and medication) risk factors have been identified, which are associated with alteration of the precorneal tear film (PTF); these factors may subsequently exacerbate development of eye irritation symptoms by desiccation. Low relative humidity including reduced atmospheric pressure further increases the water evaporation from an altered PTF; in addition, work with visual display units may destabilize the PTF by lower eye blink frequency and larger ocular surface. Results from epidemiological and clinical studies support that relative humidity >40% is beneficial for the PTF. Only few pollutants reach high enough indoor concentrations to cause sensory irritation of the eyes, while an altered PTF may exacerbate their sensory effect. Sustained low relative humidity causes impairment of the PTF, while its stability, including work performance, is retained by low gaze and intermittent breaks.     

The costs of secondary sexual characters in the lekking great snipe (Gallinago media)

Summary Recent studies of the lekking great snipe (Gallinago media) have shown that male mating success increases with display rate and the amount of white on the tail. An obvious question then arises: what is setting the limits to male display rate and to the evolution of even whiter tails? In this study the costs of these two traits are considered. In the case of the white on the tail, almost no predation was observed during the display period. However, predation on the winter grounds and/or during migration cannot be ruled out. Males differed in the amount of white on the tail between years. It is suggested that increasing the amount of white is costly, though the reason for this is still unknown. In the case of display rate, it is shown that predation cannot be a considerable cost, again because of the near absence of predation on the leks. Instead, it is shown that male displays are energetically costly. The daily energy expenditure of displaying males was estimated to be on average 4 times the basal metabolic rate, which is close to the supposed maximum sustainable work load for birds. Furthermore, males lost on average 1.8 g per h (1.7% of the body mass) which is about 7.2 g (6.8%) during a night of display activity. Males do gain some weight during the day when no displays are performed but loose on average 9 g during an 11-day period in the early part of the breeding season. These results indicate that high energetic demands set the limits to male display performance and that males do not have to trade off the benefit of attracting females by their displays against a cost of attracting predators. Offprint requests to: J. Höglund     

Comparison of airborne and terrestrial gamma spectrometry measurements - evaluation of three areas in southern Sweden

The Geological Survey of Sweden (SGU) has been conducting airborne gamma spectrometry measurements of natural radioactivity in Sweden for more than 40 years. Today, the database covers about 80% of the country’s land surface. This article explores the first step of putting this data into use in radioactive source search at ground level. However, in order to be able to use the airborne background measurements at ground level, SGU data must be validated against terrestrial data. In this work, we compare the SGU data with data measured by a portable backpack system. This is done for three different areas in southern Sweden. The statistical analysis shows that a linear relationship and a positive correlation exist between the air and ground data. However, this linear relationship could be revealed only when the region possessed large enough variations in areal activity. Furthermore, the activity distributions measured show good agreement to those of SGU. We conclude that the SGU database could be used for terrestrial background assessment, given that a linear transfer function is established.     

Secondary ozonides of substituted cyclohexenes: a new class of pollutants characterized by collision-induced dissociation mass spectrometry using negative chemical ionization

Recent studies indicate that secondary ozonides of cyclic alkenes are formed in atmospheric reactions and may be relatively stable. The secondary ozonides (SOZs) of cyclohexene (1), 1-methylcyclohexene (2), 4-isopropyl-1-methylcyclohexene (3) and 4-isopropenyl-1-methylcyclohexene (limonene) (4) have been characterized by rapid gas chromatography electron ionization (EI), negative and positive chemical ionization (CI: ammonia, isobutane and methane) and collision-induced dissociation (CID) mass spectrometry. Both EI and positive CI spectra were found unsuitable for reproducible analysis. However, negative CI showed stable (M−H)⁻ ions with minor fragmentation. CID of the (M−H)⁻ ions resulted in simple and reproducible fragmentation patterns for all four SOZs with loss of m/z 18, 44 and 60, tentatively assigned as H₂O, CO₂ and C₂H₄O₂ or CO₃, respectively. Thus, negative CI-MS–MS in combination with rapid gas chromatography is the preferred method for identification of secondary ozonides of cyclohexenes.     

Nutrients and heavy metals distribution in thermally treated pig manure.

Ash from pig manure treated by combustion and thermal gasification was characterized and compared in terms of nutrient, i.e., potassium (K), phosphorus (P) and heavy metal, i.e., cadmium (Cd), chromium (Cr), copper (Cu), nickel (Ni) and zinc (Zn) contents. Total nutrient and metal concentrations were measured using energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence analysis. Acid (HNO3, H2SO4) and water-extractable concentrations were also measured both in non-classified ash and in selected ash particle size fractions using flame atomic absorption spectrometry and colorimetric spectrometry. Results indicate that ash from gasified manure contained more water-extractable K in comparison with combusted manure whereas the opposite was the case with respect to P. Heavy metals Ni, Cr and Cd were present in higher concentrations in the fine particle size fractions (< 30 microm of particle diameter), whereas K, P, Zn and Cu exhibited higher concentrations in the coarser particle size fractions (> 30 microm).     

Assessing Linkages in Stream Habitat,Geomorphic Condition,and Biological Integrity Using a Generalized Regression Neural Network

Watershed managers often use physical geomorphic and habitat assessments in making decisions about the biological integrity of a stream, and to reduce the cost and time for identifying stream stressors and developing mitigation strategies. Such analysis is difficult since the complex linkages between reach‐scale geomorphic and habitat conditions, and biological integrity are not fully understood. We evaluate the effectiveness of a generalized regression neural network (GRNN) to predict biological integrity using physical (i.e., geomorphic and habitat) stream‐reach assessment data. The method is first tested using geomorphic assessments to predict habitat condition for 1,292 stream reaches from the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources. The GRNN methodology outperforms linear regression (69% vs. 40% classified correctly) and improves slightly (70% correct) with additional data on channel evolution. Analysis of a subset of the reaches where physical assessments are used to predict biological integrity shows no significant linear correlation, however the GRNN predicted 48% of the fish health data and 23% of macroinvertebrate health. Although the GRNN is superior to linear regression, these results show linking physical and biological health remains challenging. Reasons for lack of agreement, including spatial and temporal scale differences, are discussed. We show the GRNN to be a data‐driven tool that can assist watershed managers with large quantities of complex, nonlinear data.     

Predictive mapping of soil organic carbon in wet cultivated lands using classification-tree based models: The case study of Denmark

Soil organic carbon (SOC) is one of the most important carbon stocks globally and has large potential to affect global climate. Distribution patterns of SOC in Denmark constitute a nation-wide baseline for studies on soil carbon changes (with respect to Kyoto protocol). This paper predicts and maps the geographic distribution of SOC across Denmark using remote sensing (RS), geographic information systems (GISs) and decision-tree modeling (un-pruned and pruned classification trees). Seventeen parameters, i.e. parent material, soil type, landscape type, elevation, slope gradient, slope aspect, mean curvature, plan curvature, profile curvature, flow accumulation, specific catchment area, tangent slope, tangent curvature, steady-state wetness index, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Normalized Difference Wetness Index (NDWI) and Soil Color Index (SCI) were generated to statistically explain SOC field measurements in the area of interest (Denmark). A large number of tree-based classification models (588) were developed using (i) all of the parameters, (ii) all Digital Elevation Model (DEM) parameters only, (iii) the primary DEM parameters only, (iv), the remote sensing (RS) indices only, (v) selected pairs of parameters, (vi) soil type, parent material and landscape type only, and (vii) the parameters having a high impact on SOC distribution in built pruned trees. The best constructed classification tree models (in the number of three) with the lowest misclassification error (ME) and the lowest number of nodes (N) as well are: (i) the tree (T1) combining all of the parameters (ME = 29.5%; N = 54); (ii) the tree (T2) based on the parent material, soil type and landscape type (ME = 31.5%; N = 14); and (iii) the tree (T3) constructed using parent material, soil type, landscape type, elevation, tangent slope and SCI (ME = 30%; N = 39). The produced SOC maps at 1:50,000 cartographic scale using these trees are highly matching with coincidence values equal to 90.5% (Map T1/Map T2), 95% (Map T1/Map T3) and 91% (Map T2/Map T3). The overall accuracies of these maps once compared with field observations were estimated to be 69.54% (Map T1), 68.87% (Map T2) and 69.41% (Map T3). The proposed tree models are relatively simple, and may be also applied to other areas.     

Chemical and biological evaluation of a reaction mixture of R-(+)-limonene/ozone: Formation of strong airway irritants

The airway irritation of a reaction mixture of R-(+)-limonene and ozone was evaluated by a mouse bioassay in which sensory irritation, bronchoconstriction and pulmonary irritation were measured. Significant sensory irritation (33% reduction of mean respiratory rate) was observed by dynamic exposure of the mice, during 30 min, to a ca. 16 s old reaction mixture of ozone and limonene. The initial concentrations were nominally 4 ppm O₃ and 48 ppm limonene. After reaction, the residual O₃ was <0.03 ppm. Conventional analytical chemical methods were used to measure the formation of readily identified and stable products. Besides the expected products, 1-methyl-4-acetylcyclohexene (AMCH), 3-isopropenyl-6-oxoheptanal (IPOH), formaldehyde and formic acid, autooxidation products of limonene and a series of compounds (i.e., acetone, acrolein and acetic acid), which may or may not be artefacts, were identified. Addition of the sensory irritation effects of the residual reactants and all the identified compounds could not explain the observed sensory irritation effect. This suggests that one or more strong airway irritants were formed. Since limonene is common in the indoor air, and ozone is infiltrated from outdoors and/or produced indoors (e.g., by photocopiers), such oxidation reactions may be relevant for indoor air quality.