The regulation of a spatially heterogeneous externality: Tradable groundwater permits to protect streams

Groundwater pumping can reduce the flow of surface water in nearby streams. In the United States, recent awareness of this externality has led to intra- and inter-state conflict and rapidly-changing water management policies and institutions. Although the marginal damage of groundwater use on stream flows depends crucially on the location of pumping relative to streams, current regulations are generally uniform over space. We use a population data set of irrigation wells in the Nebraska portion of the Republican River Basin to analyze whether adopting spatially differentiated groundwater pumping regulations leads to significant reductions in farmer abatement costs and costs from damage to streams. We find that regulators can generate most of the potential savings in total social costs without accounting for spatial heterogeneity. However, if regulators need to increase the protection of streams significantly from current levels, spatially differentiated policies will yield sizable cost savings.     

Pre-copulatory sexual selection in the cigarette beetle Lasioderma serricorne

Traditional concepts of sexual selection and sexual conflict make different predictions about the costs and benefits to females of exposure to males with higher mating success. The traditional concepts of sexual selection assume that females benefit from their mate choices, whereas sexual conflict assumes that the females suffer greater costs by mating with males who have greater mating success and thus reduce their fitness. In order to understand how mate choice evolves, it is necessary to estimate the overall effect of mate choice on female fitness. However, relatively few studies have conducted that investigation. In this study, we investigated the direct and indirect effects of mating with attractive males on the fitness of females in the cigarette beetle Lasioderma serricorne. Mating with attractive males increased the number of female offspring but did not affect female longevity. Additionally, we found evidence that attractive males sire highly attractive sons. Thus, mating with an attractive male provides direct and indirect benefits but no fitness cost to female L. serricorne.     

Estimation of faecal pollution based on the amounts of urobilins in urban rivers

An attempt was made to establish a new indicator for faecal pollution in aquatic environments using a sensitive determination method for urobilins, which are only present in mammalian faeces and urine. Assessment of urobilin stability was followed by determination of the amount of urobilins in river water. When river water containing urobilins was shaken at room temperature, the number of total and faecal coliforms increased, while urobilins decreased only in small amounts, indicating that urobilin is relatively stable in river water and hence can serve as a useful indicator for the estimation of faecal pollution of river water. The amount of urobilins in the river waters increased steeply from the mid-point of a stream near a sewage treatment plant, while amounts in the upper stream were very low. The amount of urobilins in river water increased after rainfall. Findings suggested that urobilin, i.e. sewage, originated from the output of the sewage treatment plant and raw sewage.     

Isolation and identification of new vasodilative substances in diesel exhaust particles

Background, aim, and scope  

We recently developed a new isolation method for diesel exhaust particles (DEP), involving successive extraction with H₂O, sodium bicarbonate, and sodium hydroxide, in which the sodium hydroxide extract was found to consist of phenolic components. Analysis of the extract revealed that vasodilative-active nitrophenols are in DEP in significantly higher concentrations than those estimated by an earlier method involving a combination of solvent extraction and repeated chromatography. These findings indicated that our new procedure offers a simple, efficient, and reliable method for the isolation and identification of bioactive substances in DEP. This encouraged us to extend our work toward investigating new vasodilatory substances in the sodium bicarbonate extract.     

Study on chlorine removal from mixture of waste plastics

The recycling of waste plastics that include plastics that contain chlorine, such as polyvinyl chloride, is difficult because the chlorine leads to the corrosion of equipment. Then, the dechlorination method of waste plastics containing chlorine (CCWP) that consists of a series of melt process and hot water process was examined. CCWP was put into the melt process with coal tar (HOB) and converter dust (CD) to inhibit the diffusion of the chlorine-containing gas. The results indicated that iron oxide of the principal element of CD combines with chlorine eliminated from CCWP, and forms water-soluble iron chloride on the melt process. HOB dissolves or adsorbs a part of the chlorine during the melt process, and inhibits the diffusion of the chlorine-containing gas. Approximately 98% of the chlorine in the CCWP reacts with CD and forms iron chloride, which can be extracted on the hot water process.     

What factors control soil profile nitrogen storage?

Factors influencing soil profile nitrogen storage (SPNS) in GB have been investigated. The SPNS values of moorland peats and podzols in the South Pennines, of permanent grassland in Yorkshire, and of adjacent arable-, semi-permanent grassland- and ancient woodland-soils in Worcestershire have been compared to assess land use effects. The soils exhibited similar SPNS values, because changes in bulk density and organic matter composition offset increases in N concentrations in highly organic soils. Data from the Soil Survey of Scotland were used to show effects of soil parent material on SPNS were also small. Data on Scottish podzol soils under heather moorland and derived from sandstone or quartzite were used to show that SPNS declined with increasing precipitation, but increased with the amount of pollutant N deposited from the atmosphere.     

What factors control soil profile nitrogen storage?

Factors influencing soil profile nitrogen storage (SPNS) in GB have been investigated. The SPNS values of moorland peats and podzols in the South Pennines, of permanent grassland in Yorkshire, and of adjacent arable-, semi-permanent grassland- and ancient woodland-soils in Worcestershire have been compared to assess land use effects. The soils exhibited similar SPNS values, because changes in bulk density and organic matter composition offset increases in N concentrations in highly organic soils. Data from the Soil Survey of Scotland were used to show effects of soil parent material on SPNS were also small. Data on Scottish podzol soils under heather moorland and derived from sandstone or quartzite were used to show that SPNS declined with increasing precipitation, but increased with the amount of pollutant N deposited from the atmosphere.     

Estimating mutagenic compounds generated during photolysis of fenitrothion--by HPLC fractionation followed by mutagenicity testing and high-resolution GC-MS analysis

We aimed to: (1) evaluate the change in mutagenicity of a fenitrothion-containing solution during photolysis and (2) elucidate mutagenic compounds that were possible major contributors to mutagenicity. A batch test involving irradiation by natural sunlight was conducted on the solution, and then HPLC fractionation, mutagenicity testing, and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analysis were performed on the irradiated solution. During the 15-day photolysis, fenitrothion was almost completely decomposed, and 34 transformed products (TPs) were generated. Photolysis decreased the mutagenicity of the fenitrothion-containing solution for base-pair-substitution-detecting tester strains (YG1026 and YG1029) but increased mutagenicity for frameshift-detecting tester strains (YG1021 and YG1024). One TP was identified as a potential source of the increased mutagenicity; its molecular formula was estimated to be (CH(3)O)(2)PS-O-C(8)H(6)NO.     

Alkaline hydrothermal treatment of brominated high impact polystyrene (HIPS-Br) for bromine and bromine-free plastic recovery

A method to recover both Br and Br-free plastic from brominated flame retardant high impact polystyrene (HIPS-Br) was proposed. HIPS-Br containing 15% Br was treated in autoclave at 280 degrees C using water or KOH solution of various amounts and concentrations. Hydrothermal treatment (30 ml water) leads to 90% debromination of 1g HIPS-Br but plastic is strongly degraded and could not be recovered. Alkaline hydrothermal treatment (45 ml or 60 ml KOH 1M) showed similar debromination for up to 12 g HIPS-Br and plastic was recovered as pellets with molecular weight distribution close to that of the initial material. Debromination occurs at melt plastic/KOH solution interface when liquid/vapour equilibrium is attained inside autoclave (280 degrees C and 7 MPa in our experimental conditions) and depends on the plastic amount/KOH volume ratio. The antimony oxide synergist from HIPS-Br remains in recovered plastic during treatment. A pictorial imagination of the proposed debromination process is presented.