Health risk assessment of heavy metal variability in sachet water sold in Ado-Odo Ota,South-Western Nigeria

The sales of sachet water (SW), also known as “pure water” (PW), in Nigeria is a lucrative business. It serves many people, especially low-income earners, by providing a more affordable access to safe drinking water when compared with table water. However, some of the producers of SW do not effectively treat raw water before packaging them for sale. This study investigates the presence and concentrations of heavy metals, such as chromium (Cr), iron (Fe), manganese (Mn), copper (Cu), aluminum (Al), and zinc (Zn) in some samples of SW sold within Ota, Ogun State, Nigeria. Samples of SW from nine different producers were purchased for four consecutive weeks and analyzed to determine the concentrations of these heavy metals in them. Furthermore, health risk indicators, such as chronic daily intake (CDI) and health risk indices (HRI) for children and adults, were calculated separately. The metal concentrations were compared with allowable limits set by the World Health Organization (WHO), Nigerian Industrial Standard (NIS), and the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA). High concentrations of Cr, Fe, and Al were found in all the nine samples and exceeded the maximum allowable limits (MAL) of all the standards considered. However, the concentrations of Zn, Mn, and Cu were within permissible limits. The HRIs of heavy metals were in the order of Cu > Fe > Zn > Mn > Al > Cr, but since the standard limits set for some metals were exceeded, proper and effective treatment is required to safeguard the health of consumers.     

Multiscale Analysis of Hydrology in a Mountaintop Mine‐Impacted Watershed

In the Appalachian region of the eastern United States, mountaintop removal mining (MTM) is a dominant driver of land‐cover change, impacting 6.8% of the largely forested 4.86 million ha coal fields region. Recent catastrophic flooding and documented biological impairment downstream of MTM has drawn sharp criticism to this practice. Despite its extent, scale, and use since the 1970s, the impact of MTM on hydrology is poorly understood. Therefore, the goal of this study was a multiscale evaluation to establish the nature of hydrologic impacts associated with MTM. To quantify the extent of MTM, land‐cover change over the lifetime of this practice is estimated for a mesoscale watershed in southern West Virginia. To assess hydrologic impacts, we conducted long‐term trend analyses to evaluate for systematic changes in hydrology at the mesoscale, and conducted hydrometric and response time modeling to characterize storm‐scale responses of a MTM‐impacted headwater catchment. Results show a general trend in the conversion of forests to mines, and significant decreases in maximum streamflow and variability, and increases in base‐flow ratio attributed to valley fills and deep mine drainage. Decreases in variability are shown across spatial and temporal scales having important implications for water quantity and quality. However, considerable research is necessary to understand how MTM impacts hydrology. In an effort to inform future research, we identify existing knowledge gaps and limitations of our study.     

Refinery firefighters: assessing fitness for duty.

Firefighting is a hazardous and physically demanding activity. The demanding nature of the tasks involved in firefighting requires a high level of fitness both for the safety of the firefighting personnel as well as for the adequate performance of their tasks. Here, the characteristics (body weight, lung function, etc.) of a small group of refinery firefighters were investigated using exploratory factor analysis and discriminant analysis. The results indicated that there is a group of factors that characterize those individuals meeting minimum fitness requirements as described previously in the literature. The factors that were identified included those related to anthropometry (such as body composition and weight) and those related to physical capabilities (such as push-ups). Since these data are collected relatively easily in most occupational settings, they may offer an efficient surrogate method to determine fitness for duty among firefighters.     

Growth of two Antarctic lamellibranchs: Adamussium colbecki and Laternula elliptica

The growth of two Antarctic lamellibranchs, Adamussium colbecki (E.A. Smith) and Laternula elliptica (King and Broderip), has been investigated. A. colbecki is a pectinid that grows to a shell height of approximately 70 mm in 6 to 7 years; L. elliptica is a deep-burrowing form, ecologically similar to the genus Mya and grows to a shell length of approximately 90 mm in 12 to 13 years. The growth pattern of both species is accurately described by the Bertalanffy growth equation and both have smaller values of the Bertalanffy K coefficient than comparable temperate species (A. colbecki K=0.24, L. elliptica K=0.16).     

Case study: Honda of America Manufacturing,Inc.: Can lean production practices increase environmental performance?

This article covers the strategic, organizational, and operational decisions involved in one automobile manufacturer's efforts to balance its goals of productivity and high quality with the more elusive goal of environmental responsibility. The case material is based on the real-life experiences of Honda of America's two manufacturing plants in East Liberty and Marysville, Ohio. The case unfolds as the environmental manager in charge of the two plants faces the pending visit of her corporate boss from Tokyo, who has made it clear that environmental issues are of growing importance in Honda's overall direction. ISO 14000, the new environmental quality standards being adopted by some other manufacturers, serves as a focusing issue for the environmental manager's thinking, but this issue is really representative of a wider challenge facing the Ohio plants: balancing Honda's core mission of producing the best cars at the lowest cost possible, and being a responsible actor in the environmental arena. Complicating this challenge, the environmental manager has to negotiate another tension common in global manufacturing firms today: balancing the influence of Honda's corporate headquarters in Japan with the local and regional context at its American plant sites.     

Visualization of fetal intra-abdominal organs in second-trimester severe oligohydramnios by intraperitoneal infusion

Fetal intraperitoneal infusion of saline was performed in two patients with severe oligohydramnios at 24 and 25 weeks' gestation in order to enhance visualization of intra-abdominal organs. Renal agenesis was easily diagnosed. The technique can be considered as an alternative to artificial instillation of amniotic fluid in the differential diagnosis of conditions associated with severe oligohydramnios.     

U.S. consumer crash test results and injury risk in police-reported crashes

Consumer crash test programs provide comparative information on the crashworthiness of new vehicles which, in turn, should predict the performance of the same vehicles in real-world crashes. However, the detail and quality of available information from tests and real-world crashes differ widely, so identifying meaningful relationships between crash test results and real-world crashworthiness can be difficult. Despite these data limitations, studies in the late 1980s and mid-1990s reported positive correlations between dummy injury measures from the U.S. New Car Assessment Program (USNCAP) and real-world fatality rates. More recent analyses of results from Australian crash tests and real-world crashes also have found positive correlations. This article considers relationships between recent U.S. frontal crash test results from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) and USNCAP, and real-world crash injury risk estimates computed from police-reported crash data from three U.S. states. The frontal crash test results include dummy injury measures by body region from both IIHS offset tests and USNCAP full-width barrier tests plus measures of structural performance from the IIHS offset tests. Individually, results from the full-width and offset tests were not significantly correlated with the real-world injury risk estimates. Stronger relationships were found when a combination of overall ratings from the full-frontal and offset tests was used. However, the current results find only weak correlations between both full-front and offset frontal crash test performance and the real-world injury risk estimates. These weak relationships likely reflect the lack of detail and fundamental difference in injury information in police crash reports compared to that used in deriving crashworthiness ratings from the crash tests.