Early prenatal diagnosis of an infratentorial arachnoid cyst: Association with an unbalanced translocation

Arachnoid cysts are an uncommon central nervous system malformation, representing only 1 per cent of all intracranial masses. We report the second-trimester prenatal diagnosis of a posterior fossa arachnoid cyst, associated with an unbalanced X;9 translocation.     

Plume analysis from field evaluations of a portable air quality monitoring system

ABSTRACT

Near-road measurements in Rochester, NY with a Portable Air Quality Monitoring System indicate a significant plume control of PM_2.5 black carbon (BC) concentrations. This study evaluates the performance of two portable air quality enclosures deployed at collocated research sites to determine their accuracy and usefulness in field deployments, and specifically in pollution plume analysis. One system deployed collocated sensors for measurement of particulate matter mass concentration (Thermo pDR 1500 against Tapered Element Oscillating Microbalance (TEOM) measurement) and the second system deployed sensors for measurement of black carbon (Magee AE33 aethalometer and Brechtel Tricolor Absorption Photometer) in ambient and near-road locations in Rochester, New York, respectively. While the optical PM_2.5 sensors tended to be biased in their determination of concentration by ~15%, they followed changes and trends in concentration very well. The black carbon sensors in the portable systems agreed very well with each other and with the collocated sensor. As a case study to determine the contribution from statistically significant short-lived excursions of pollutant concentration, Morlet wavelet analysis was performed on data from the portable system sensors. Black carbon was found to be strongly influenced by plume behavior with significant plume excursions representing just over 12% of all data points and contributing on average 1 µg/m³ of black carbon above ambient concentrations.

Implications: This paper first evaluates two air pollutant monitoring enclosures with wide applicability including near-road detection of pollutants. Then, we present a novel method to designate isolate statistically significant excursions in air pollution concentration which can be used to determine the impact of pollutant plumes as observed in PM and black carbon behavior near road.     

A comparative study on the raw chitin and chitosan yields of common bio-waste from Philippine seafood

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Bio-waste materials from aquatic species are alternative sources of chitin and chitosan—high-value natural biodegradable and biocompatible...     

Assessment of semi-natural habitats and landscape features on Irish farmland: New insights to inform EU Common Agricultural Policy implementation

Concerns over the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services in farmland have prompted the development of agri-environment policy measures aimed at reducing farming pressure and maintaining semi-natural habitats in farmed landscapes. However, further knowledge is needed to guarantee successful agri-environment measures implementation. The current study assessed the quantity and the quality of semi-natural habitats in farms across a gradient of farming intensities in two contrasting regions in Ireland. Policy protection seemed fundamental for semi-natural habitats preservation. Habitats not protected by agricultural policy relied on extensive farming and are in danger of disappearing if they are intensified or abandoned. Due to the lack of policy incentives for habitat quality, no correlations were found between farming intensity and share of semi-natural habitats with habitat quality. Therefore, extensive farming and retention of habitats alone may not reverse the decline of farmland quality and biodiverisity and, thus, measures incentivising the environmental quality may be more successful.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1007/s13280-020-01344-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.     

Potential physiological effects of pharmaceutical compounds in Atlantic salmon (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Salmo salar</Emphasis>) implied by transcriptomic analysis

Background, aim, and scope  

Pharmaceuticals are emerging pollutants widely used in everyday urban activities which can be detected in surface, ground, and drinking waters. Their presence is derived from consumption of medicines, disposal of expired medications, release of treated and untreated urban effluents, and from the pharmaceutical industry. Their growing use has become an alarming environmental problem which potentially will become dangerous in the future. However, there is still a lack of knowledge about long-term effects in non-target organisms as well as for human health. Toxicity testing has indicated a relatively low acute toxicity to fish species, but no information is available on possible sublethal effects. This study provides data on the physiological pathways involved in the exposure of Atlantic salmon as representative test species to three pharmaceutical compounds found in ground, surface, and drinking waters based on the evaluation of the xenobiotic-induced impairment resulting in the activation and silencing of specific genes.     

Use of CALPUFF for exposure assessment in a near-field,complex terrain setting

CALPUFF is an atmospheric source-receptor model recommended by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for use on a case-by-case basis in complex terrain and wind conditions. The ability of the model to provide useful information for exposure assessments in areas with those topographical and meteorological conditions has received little attention. This is an important knowledge gap for use of CALPUFF outside of regulatory applications, such as exposure analyses conducted in support of risk assessments and health studies. We compared deposition of cadmium (Cd), lead (Pb), and zinc (Zn) calculated with CALPUFF as a result of emissions from a zinc smelter with corresponding concentrations of the metals measured in attic dust and soil samples obtained from the surrounding area. On a point-by-point analysis, predictions from CALPUFF explained 11% (lead) to 53% (zinc) of the variability in concentrations measured in attic dust. Levels of heavy metals in soil interpolated to 100 residential addresses from the distribution of concentrations measured in soil samples also agreed well with deposition predicted with CALPUFF: R² of 0.46, 0.76, and 079 for Pb, Cd, and Zn, respectively. Community-average concentrations of Cd, Pb, and Zn measured in soil were significantly (p < 0.0001) and strongly correlated (R² ranged from 0.77 to 0.98) with predicted deposition rates. These findings demonstrate that CALPUFF can provide reasonably accurate predictions of the patterns of long-term air pollutant deposition in the near-field associated with emissions from a discrete source in complex terrain. Because deposition estimates are calculated as a linear function of air concentrations, CALPUFF is expected to be reliable model for prediction of long-term average, near-field ambient air concentrations in complex terrain as well.     

Spatial variability of carbonaceous aerosols and associated source tracers in two cites in the Midwestern United States

Semi-continuous and 24-h averaged measurements of fine carbonaceous aerosols were made concurrently at three sites within each of two U.S. Midwestern Cities; Detroit, Michigan and Cleveland, Ohio; during two, one-month intensive campaigns conducted in July of 2007 and January & February of 2008. A comparison of 24-h measurements revealed substantial intra-urban variability in carbonaceous aerosols consistent with the influence of local sources, and excesses in both PM_2.5 organic carbon (OC) and elemental carbon (EC) were identified at individual sites within each city. High time-resolved black carbon (BC) measurements indicated that elemental carbon concentrations were higher at sites adjacent to freeways and busy surface streets, and temporal patterns suggested that excess EC at sites adjacent to freeways was dominated by mobile source emissions while excesses in EC away from traffic corridors was dominated by point/area source emissions. The site-to-site variability in OC concentrations was approximately 7% within the neighborhood scale (0.5–4 km) and between 4 and 27% at the urban scale (4–100 km). In contrast, measurements of organic source tracers, in conjunction with a Chemical Mass Balance (CMB) source-apportionment model, indicated that the spatial variation in the contribution of both mobile and stationary sources to PM_2.5 OC often exceeded the variation in OC mass concentration by a factor of 3 or more. Markers for mobile sources, biomass smoke, natural gas, and coal combustion differed by as much as 60% within the neighborhood scale and by greater than 200% within the urban scale. The observations made during this study suggest that the urban excess of carbonaceous aerosols is much more complex than has been previously reported and that a more rigorous, source-oriented approach should be taken in order to assess the risk associated with exposure to carbonaceous aerosols within the industrialized environments of the Midwestern United States.     

Emission rates and comparative chemical composition from selected in-use diesel and gasoline-fueled vehicles

Emission samples for toxicity testing and detailed chemical characterization were collected from a variety of gasoline- and diesel-fueled in-use vehicles operated on the Unified Driving Cycle on a chassis dynamometer. Gasoline vehicles included normal particle mass (particulate matter [PM]) emitters (tested at 72 and 30 degrees F), "black" and "white" smokers, and a new-technology vehicle (tested at 72 degrees F). Diesel vehicles included current-technology vehicles (tested at 72 and 30 degrees F) and a high PM emitter. Total PM emission rates ranged from below 3 mg/mi up to more than 700 mg/mi for the white smoker gasoline vehicle. Emission rates of organic and elemental carbon (OC/EC), elements (metals and associated analytes), ions, and a variety of particulate and semi-volatile organic compounds (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons [PAH], nitro-PAH, oxy-PAH, hopanes, and steranes) are reported for these vehicles. Speciated organic analysis also was conducted on the fuels and lube oils obtained from these vehicles after the emissions testing. The compositions of emissions were highly dependent on the fuel type (gasoline vs. diesel), the state of vehicle maintenance (low, average, or high emitters; white or black smokers), and ambient conditions (i.e., temperature) of the vehicles. Fuel and oil analyses from these vehicles showed that oil served as a repository for combustion byproducts (e.g., PAH), and oil-burning gasoline vehicles emitted PAH in higher concentrations than did other vehicles. These PAH emissions matched the PAH compositions observed in oil.     

Non-aqueous phase liquid spreading during soil vapor extraction

Many non-aqueous phase liquids (NAPLs) are expected to spread at the air-water interface, particularly under non-equilibrium conditions. In the vadose zone, this spreading should increase the surface area for mass transfer and the efficiency of volatile NAPL recovery by soil vapor extraction (SVE). Observations of spreading on water wet surfaces led to a conceptual model of oil spreading vertically above a NAPL pool in the vadose zone. Analysis of this model predicts that spreading can enhance the SVE contaminant recovery compared to conditions where the liquid does not spread. Experiments were conducted with spreading volatile oils hexane and heptane in wet porous media and capillary tubes, where spreading was observed at the scale of centimeters. Within porous medium columns up to a meter in height containing stagnant gas, spreading was less than ten centimeters and did not contribute significantly to hexane volatilization. Water film thinning and oil film pinning may have prevented significant oil film spreading, and thus did not enhance SVE at the scale of a meter. The experiments performed indicate that volatile oil spreading at the field scale is unlikely to contribute significantly to the efficiency of SVE.