Rethinking assessment of success of mitigation strategies for elephant-induced crop damage

Crop damage is the most common impact of negative interactions between people and elephants and poses a significant threat to rural livelihoods and conservation efforts. Numerous approaches to mitigate and prevent crop damage have been implemented throughout Africa and Asia. Despite the documented high efficacy of many approaches, losses remain common, and in many areas, damage is intensifying. We examined the literature on effectiveness of crop-damage-mitigation strategies and identified key gaps in evaluations. We determined there is a need to better understand existing solutions within affected communities and to extend evaluations of effectiveness beyond measurement of efficacy to include rates of and barriers to adoption. We devised a conceptual framework for evaluating effectiveness that incorporates the need for increased emphasis on adoption and can be used to inform the design of future crop-damage mitigation assessments for elephants and conflict species more widely. The ability to prevent crop loss in practice is affected by both the efficacy of a given approach and rates of uptake among target users. We identified the primary factors that influence uptake as local attitudes, sustainability, and scalability and examined each of these factors in detail. We argue that even moderately efficacious interventions may make significant progress in preventing damage if widely employed and recommend that wherever possible scientists and practitioners engage with communities to build on and strengthen existing solutions and expertise. When new approaches are required, they should align with local attitudes and fit within limitations on labor, financial requirements, and technical capacity.     

大肠杆菌吸附-化学还原法用废含金催化剂制备金纳米线

采用大肠杆菌吸附-化学还原法,以大肠杆菌(ECCs)为模板、十六烷基三甲基溴化铵为保护剂、抗坏血酸为还原剂,由废含金催化剂制备金纳米线(AuNWs)。采用XRD,SEM,TEM等技术对AuNWs进行表征。研究了AuNWs对罗丹明6G(R6G)和4-巯基苯甲酸(4-MBA)的拉曼散射信号的增强效果。实验结果表明:在制备过程中加入微生物ECCs,可使金回收率提高约20百分点;当溶液pH小于4时,反应2 h后,有大量呈线状的AuNWs聚集沉降,金回收率可达99%1以上。表征结果显示,AuNWs呈多晶结构,晶格间距为0.23 nm。表面增强拉曼散射分析表明,AuNWs对R6G和4-MBA具有良好的拉曼光谱增强性能。     

废旧硬质聚氨酯泡沫塑料的木质素改性及再生

采用含有二乙二醇(DEG)和乙醇胺(ETA)的双组分解交联剂降解废旧硬质聚氨酯泡沫塑料(PU硬泡),并利用降解得到的低聚物多元醇与木质素复合制备出性能增强的再生PU硬泡。通过对制备的再生PU硬泡的红外光谱、密度、吸水率、抗压强度、热稳定性、导热系数、热重曲线等进行分析测试,考察m(DEG)∶m(ETA)对再生PU硬泡性能的影响。实验结果表明:m(DEG)∶m(ETA)=1∶3时废旧PU硬泡的降解效果最好;木质素加入量为2.0%(w)时再生PU硬泡的密度低、抗压强度高、保温性能良好,达到国家标准《建筑绝热用硬质聚氨酯泡沫塑料》(GB/T 21558—2008)的品质要求。     

网状季胺基阴离子吸附剂制备及吸附性能

以丝瓜络为原料,采用醚化-接枝技术制备出季胺基阴离子交换吸附剂。采用电镜扫描、傅里叶红外光谱、比表面积孔径分布测定仪和元素分析仪等仪器对其进行分析和结构表征,并考察了温度、p H和硝酸盐初始浓度等因素对NO-3去除率的影响。实验结果表明,在20℃,p H值为3~10时,NO-3的吸附率可达90%左右;在不同温度下该吸附过程用Langmuir等温线模型和Freundich等温线模型描述均可;与伪一级动力学方程相比,伪二级动力学方程能更好地描述其吸附动力学方程。     

固相萃取-气质联用法测定固体废物浸出液中的二硝基苯

建立了一种利用固相萃取法对固体废物浸出液(TCLP)中二硝基苯进行萃取,DB-5石英毛细管柱(30 m×0.25 mm×0.25μm)进行分离,质谱检测器检测二硝基苯的方法。方法在0.002 0~0.020 0 mg/L之间线性关系良好,二硝基苯三种同分异构体的检出限均为0.5μg/L,模拟样品加标回收率为93%~96%,RSD≤2%;实际固体废物样品测定的加标回收率为95%~98%。     

Pre-concentration and separation of heavy metal ions by chemically modified waste paper gel

Iminodiacetic acid was immobilized on waste paper by chemical modification in order to develop a new type of adsorption gel for heavy metal ions. Adsorption behavior of the gel was investigated for a number of metal ions, specifically Cu(II), Pb(II), Fe(III), Ni(II), Cd(II), and Co(II) at acidic pH. From batch adsorption tests, the order of selectivity was found to be as follows: Cu(II)  Fe(III) > Pb(II) > Ni(II)  Co(II) > Cd(II). Column tests were carried out for pairs of metal ions to understand the separation and pre-concentration behavior of the gel. It was found that mutual separation of Ni(II) from Co(II) and that of Pb(II) from Cd(II) can be achieved at pH 3. Similarly, selective separation of Cu(II) from Cu(II)–Fe(III) and Cu(II)–Pb(II) mixtures at pH 1.5 and 2, respectively, was observed by using this new adsorption gel. In all cases, almost complete recovery of the adsorbed metal was confirmed by elution tests with HCl.     

垃圾焚烧烟气中HCl与消石灰的反应机理研究

测试了两种消石灰与垃圾焚烧烟气中HCl的反应率,得出了消石灰的反应率与反应时间的反应曲线,分析了消石灰与HCl的反应机理及影响消石灰最终反应率的因素。试验结果表明,消石灰与HCl反应初期按灰层扩散控制进行,两种消石灰的最终反应率分别为16％和36％。     

Male-biassed response of garden chafer, Phyllopertha horticola L., to leaf alcohol and attraction of both sexes to floral plant volatiles

Summary. Field tests were performed to evaluate the response of the garden chafer, Phyllopertha horticola (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae) to known scarab attractants and to investigate the influence of trap colour and height on the number of captured beetles. Both sexes were attracted by a lure mixture composed of geraniol, eugenol, and 2-phenylethyl propionate (PEP) (ratio 3:7:3). When testing floral volatiles individually, only geraniol, eugenol and methyl anthranilate but not PEP was attractive. Response of garden chafer to (Z)- 3-hexen-1-ol was strongly male-biassed. Both the response to floral volatiles and (Z)-3-hexen-1-ol was increased by using funnel traps with yellow instead of grey vanes. Traps positioned at 50 and 125 cm above ground captured significantly more garden chafers than those at 200 cm. The strongly male-biassed response to (Z)-3-hexen-1-ol suggests that in P. horticola (subfamily Rutelinae) orientation towards plant volatiles emitted upon mechanical damage of plants is part of the male mate finding strategy as recently demonstrated for cockchafers of the genus Melolontha (subfamily Melolonthinae). Possible application of plant volatiles for control of P. horticola is discussed.     

安全评价方法在危险废物处置环境风险评价中的应用探讨

对安全评价方法在危险废物处置建设项目环境风险评价中的运用进行初步探索。主要用"工艺过程风险因素分析表"对工艺过程潜在风险性识别;用蒙德法进行源项分析;用池火灾模型、蒸气云爆炸伤害模型对易燃、易爆物质的火灾、爆炸等重大事故后果进行计算,得出人员的伤亡半径和财产损失半径等参数,以便于判断风险的可接受水平。分析结果表明:采用安全评价方法对危险废物处置建设项目进行环境风险评价是适用的、可行的。     

Decision making under uncertainty in case of soil remediation

Decisions on soil remediation are one of the most difficult management issues of municipal and state agencies. The assessment of contamination is uncertain, the costs of remediation are high, and the impacts on the environment are multiple. This paper presents a general, transparent, and consistent method for decision making among the remediation alternatives. Soil washing, phytoremediation, and no remediation are exemplarily considered. Multi-criteria utility functions including (a) the cost of remediation (b) the impact on human health and agricultural productivity, and (c) the economic gain after remediation are constructed using probability density functions representing contamination for all site coordinates. Herewith, the probability of different types of (i) correct decisions such as a hit or a true rejection and (ii) erroneous decisions such as a false alarm or miss are examined. The decision theoretic model is applied to a case study on heavy metal contaminated soil. This case study reveals the non-linear structure of multi-criteria-decision making. The case study shows that the geostatistical uncertainties of the log-normal distributed soil contamination must be taken into account: When uncertainties are not considered and the utilities are assessed according to the estimated value for a spatial unit, only few (N=26) spatial units result where the utility score of the alternative soil washing are higher than the utility score to the no remediation alternative. However, when taking into account geostatistical uncertainties of the log-normal soil distribution this number is about ten times greater (N=237). Furthermore, the use of 'maximizing expected utility' as decision rule is critical in that it may lead to a high probability of misses.