Response to lead pollution: mycorrhizal Pinus sylvestris forms the biomineral pyromorphite in roots and needles

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - The development of mycorrhized pine seedlings grown in the presence of lead was assessed in order to investigate how higher plants can tolerate lead...     

Valorisation of used cooking oil sludge by codigestion with swine manure

The addition of lipid wastes to the digestion of swine manure was studied as a means of increasing biogas production. Lipid waste was obtained from a biodiesel plant where used cooking oil is the feedstock. Digestion of this co-substrate was proposed as a way of valorising residual streams from the process of biodiesel production and to integrate the digestion process into the biorefinery concept.Batch digestion tests were performed at different co-digesting proportions obtaining as a result an increase in biogas production with the increase in the amount of co-substrate added to the mixture. Semi-continuous digestion was studied at a 7% (w/w) mass fraction of total solids. Co-digestion was successful at a hydraulic retention time (HRT) of 50 d but a decrease to 30 d resulted in a decrease in specific gas production and accumulation of volatile and long chain fatty acids. The CH₄ yield obtained was 326 ± 46 l/kg VS_feed at an HRT of 50 d, while this value was reduced to 274 ± 43 l/kg VS_feed when evaluated at an HRT of 30 d. However these values were higher than the one obtained under batch conditions (266 ± 40 l/kg VS_feed), thus indicating the need of acclimation to the co-substrate. Despite of operating at low organic loading rate (OLR), measurements from respirometry assays of digestate samples (at an HRT of 50 d) suggested that the effluent could not be directly applied to the soil as fertiliser and might have a negative effect over soil or crops.     

Attenuation potentials of royal jelly against hydroxyurea-induced infertility through inhibiting oxidation and release of pro-inflammatory cytokines in male rats

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Hydroxyurea (HDU), a class of antineoplastic drugs, has a powerful efficacy in the treatment of several types of malignancies. However, it has...     

PM10 and surface dust source characterization in Baguio City Central Business District (CBD), Philippines

Environmental Geochemistry and Health - This study measured both PM10 and surface dust concentrations at roadside in the Central Business District of Baguio City. A total of 66 PM10 filters and 25...     

Freshwater fish diversity hotspots for conservation priorities in the Amazon Basin

Conserving freshwater habitats and their biodiversity in the Amazon Basin is a growing challenge in the face of rapid anthropogenic changes. We used the most comprehensive fish-occurrence database available (2355 valid species; 21,248 sampling points) and 3 ecological criteria (irreplaceability, representativeness, and vulnerability) to identify biodiversity hotspots based on 6 conservation templates (3 proactive, 1 reactive, 1 representative, and 1 balanced) to provide a set of alternative planning solutions for freshwater fish protection in the Amazon Basin. We identified empirically for each template the 17% of sub-basins that should be conserved and performed a prioritization analysis by identifying current and future (2050) threats (i.e., degree of deforestation and habitat fragmentation by dams). Two of our 3 proactive templates had around 65% of their surface covered by protected areas; high levels of irreplaceability (60% of endemics) and representativeness (71% of the Amazonian fish fauna); and low current and future vulnerability. These 2 templates, then, seemed more robust for conservation prioritization. The future of the selected sub-basins in these 2 proactive templates is not immediately threatened by human activities, and these sub-basins host the largest part of Amazonian biodiversity. They could easily be conserved if no additional threats occur between now and 2050.     

Cost‐effectiveness of conservation payment schemes for species with different range sizes

Payments to compensate landowners for carrying out costly land‐use measures that benefit endangered biodiversity have become an important policy instrument. When designing such payments, it is important to take into account that spatially connected habitats are more valuable for many species than isolated ones. One way to incentivize provision of connected habitats is to offer landowners an agglomeration bonus, that is, a bonus on top of payments they are receiving to conserve land if the land is spatially connected. Researchers have compared the cost‐effectiveness of the agglomeration bonus with 2 alternatives: an all‐or‐nothing, agglomeration payment, where landowners receive a payment only if the conserved land parcels have a certain level of spatial connectivity, and a spatially homogeneous payment, where landowners receive a payment for conserved land parcels irrespective of their location. Their results show the agglomeration bonus is rarely the most cost‐effective option, and when it is, it is only slightly better than one of the alternatives. This suggests that the agglomeration bonus should not be given priority as a policy design option. However, this finding is based on consideration of only 1 species. We examined whether the same applied to 2 species, one for which the homogeneous payment is best and the other for which the agglomeration payment is most cost‐effective. We modified a published conceptual model so that we were able to assess the cost‐effectiveness of payment schemes for 2 species and applied it to a grassland bird and a grassland butterfly in Germany that require the same habitat but have different spatial‐connectivity needs. When conserving both species, the agglomeration bonus was more cost‐effective than the agglomeration and the homogeneous payment; thus, we showed that as a policy the agglomeration bonus is a useful conservation‐payment option.     

Bibliometric analysis of simulated driving research from 1997 to 2016

Objective: The objective of this study was to explore the evolution footprints of simulated driving research in the past 20 years through rigorous and systematic bibliometric analysis, to provide insights regarding when and where the research was performed and by whom and how the mainstream content evolved over the years.

Methods: The analysis began with data retrieval in Web of Science with defined search terms related to simulated driving. BibExcel and CiteSpace were employed to conduct the performance analysis and co-citation network analysis; that is, probe of the performance of institutes, journals, authors, and research hotspots.

Results: A total of 3,766 documents were filtered out and presented an exponential growth from 1997 to 2016. The United States contributed the most publications as well as international collaborations followed by Germany and China. In addition, several universities in The Netherlands and the United States dominated the list of contributing institutes. The leading journals were in transportation and ergonomics. The leading researchers were also recognized among the 8,721 contributing authors, such as J. D. Lee, D. L. Fisher, J. H. Kim, and K. A. Brookhuis. Finally, the co-citation analysis illuminated the evolution of simulated driving research that covered the following topics roughly in chronological order: task-induced stress, drivers with neurological disorders, alertness and sleepiness while driving, trust toward driving assistance systems, driver distraction, the effect of drug use, the validity of simulators, and automated driving.

Conclusions: This article employed bibliometric tools to probe the contributing countries, institutes, journals, authors, and mainstream hotspots of simulated driving research in the past 20 years. A systematic bibliometric analysis of this field will help researchers realize the panorama of global simulated driving and establish future research directions.     

Influence of the geomembrane on time-lapse ERT measurements for leachate injection monitoring

Leachate recirculation is a key process in the operation of municipal waste landfills as bioreactors. To quantify the water content and to evaluate the leachate injection system, in situ methods are required to obtain spatially distributed information, usually electrical resistivity tomography (ERT). However, this method can present false variations in the observations due to several parameters. This study investigates the impact of the geomembrane on ERT measurements. Indeed, the geomembrane tends to be ignored in the inversion process in most previously conducted studies. The presence of the geomembrane can change the boundary conditions of the inversion models, which have classically infinite boundary conditions. Using a numerical modelling approach, the authors demonstrate that a minimum distance is required between the electrode line and the geomembrane to satisfy the good conditions of use of the classical inversion tools. This distance is a function of the electrode line length (i.e. of the unit electrode spacing) used, the array type and the orientation of the electrode line. Moreover, this study shows that if this criterion on the minimum distance is not satisfied, it is possible to significantly improve the inversion process by introducing the complex geometry and the geomembrane location into the inversion tools. These results are finally validated on a field data set gathered on a small municipal solid waste landfill cell where this minimum distance criterion cannot be satisfied.     

Production costs and operative margins in electric energy generation from biogas. Full-scale case studies in Italy

The purpose of this study was to observe the economic sustainability of three different biogas full scale plants, fed with different organic matrices: energy crops (EC), manure, agro-industrial (Plants B and C) and organic fraction of municipal solid waste (OFMSW) (Plant A). The plants were observed for one year and total annual biomass feeding, biomass composition and biomass cost (€ Mg^?1), initial investment cost and plant electric power production were registered. The unit costs of biogas and electric energy (€ Sm^?3_biogas, € kW h^?1_EE) were differently distributed, depending on the type of feed and plant. Plant A showed high management/maintenance cost for OFMSW treatment (0.155 € Sm^?3_biogas, 45% of total cost), Plant B suffered high cost for EC supply (0.130 € Sm^?3_biogas, 49% of total cost) and Plant C showed higher impact on the total costs because of the depreciation charge (0.146 € Sm^?3_biogas, 41% of total costs). The breakeven point for the tariff of electric energy, calculated for the different cases, resulted in the range 120–170 € MW h^?1_EE, depending on fed materials and plant scale. EC had great impact on biomass supply costs and should be reduced, in favor of organic waste and residues; plant scale still heavily influences the production costs. The EU States should drive incentives in dependence of these factors, to further develop this still promising sector.