Using foraging honeybees to sample an area for trace metals

The metal contents of pollen loads gathered by honeybees have been determined in areas with known concentrations of soil-borne heavy metals. The manganese, zinc, copper, and lead contents of the pollen loads reflected those of the environment, indicating that honeybee colonies might be used to sample areas.     

Book reviews

Local Planning in the Netherlands and England

J. Minett

Working Paper No. 37, Oxford Polytechnic, Department of Town and Country Planning, May 1979, 98 p.p.     

Inactivation of Cryptosporidium by ozone and cell ultrastructures

The fluorescence staining method and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) were used to study the effect of ozone (O3) inactivating Cryptosporidium in water and cell ultrastructures variation to shed light on the mechanism of inactivation preliminarily.Results indicated that O3 had a stronger inactivating capability.When the concentration of O3 was above 3.0 mg/L and the contact time was up to 7 min,a significant inactivating effect could be achieved.The turbidity on inactivation effects was also found to be statistically significant in artificial water.With increases in turbidity,the inactivating effect decreased.Inactivation rate improved with a temperature increase from 5 to 25°C,but decreased beyond this.The inactivating capability of O3 was found to be stronger under acidic than that under alkalic conditions.When the concentration of organic matter in the reaction system was increased,the competition between Cryptosporidium and organics with O3 probably took place,thereby reducing the inactivation rate.In addition,the cellular morphology of Cryptosporidium varied with different contact times.At zero contact time,cells were rotundity and sphericity,at 60 sec they became folded,underwent emboly,and burst at 480 sec,the cell membrane of Cryptosporidium shrinked and collapsed completely.     

Sensitivity of future ozone concentrations in the northeast USA to regional climate change

An air quality modeling system was used to simulate the effects on ozone concentration in the northeast USA from climate changes projected through the end of the twenty-first century by the National Center for Atmospheric Research’s (NCAR’s) parallel climate model, a fully coupled general circulation model, under a higher and a lower scenario of future global changes in concentrations of radiatively active constituents. The air quality calculations were done with both a global chemistry-transport model and a regional air quality model focused on the northeast USA. The air quality simulations assumed no changes in regional anthropogenic emissions of the chemical species primarily involved in the chemical reactions of ozone creation and destruction, but only accounted for changes in the climate. Together, these idealized global and regional model simulations provide insights into the contribution of possible future climate changes on ozone. Over the coming century, summer climate is projected to be warmer and less cloudy for the northeast USA. These changes are considerably larger under the higher scenario as compared with the lower. Higher temperatures also increase biogenic emissions. Both mean daily and 8-h maximum ozone increase from the combination of three factors that tend to favor higher concentrations: (1) higher temperatures change the rates of reactions and photolysis rates important to the ozone chemistry; (2) lower cloudiness (higher solar radiation) increases the photolysis reaction rates; and (3) higher biogenic emissions increase the concentration of reactive species. Regional model simulations with two cumulus parameterizations produce ozone concentration changes that differ by approximately 10%, indicating that there is considerable uncertainty in the magnitude of changes due to uncertainties in how physical processes should be parameterized in the models. However, the overall effect of the climate changes simulated by these models – in the absence of reductions in regional anthropogenic emissions – would be to increase ozone concentrations.     

Hardcore drinking drivers and other contributors to the alcohol-impaired driving problem: need for a comprehensive approach

OBJECTIVE: Understanding the hardcore drinking driver concept in the context of the alcohol-impaired driving problem. METHOD: Review of the relevant literature. RESULTS: As progress against alcohol-impaired driving slowed in the early 1990s, public and political attention turned to "hardcore" drinking drivers, and they have been a priority for the past 15 years. Though intuitive, the hardcore concept has been difficult to conceptualize. Its definition of hard-to-change chronic heavy drinking drivers focuses on a group that is not easily identifiable and ignores many who account for a large portion of alcohol-impaired driving crashes. These include drivers who drink heavily on occasion and drivers who drink at more moderate levels that elevate crash risk. Emphasis on the hardcore has focused attention on the small proportion of drinking drivers who have been detected and arrested, whereas the vast majority of drinking drivers go undetected. Some countermeasures aimed at the hardcore group have been effective in reducing recidivism, but attention and resources also need to be given to general deterrent initiatives (e.g., 0.08 g/dL, sobriety checkpoints, administrative license suspension). There has been no reduction in the overall alcohol-impaired driving problem since the mid-1990s. CONCLUSION: Reductions in the alcohol-impaired driving problem require that attention be focused on all relevant target groups. Some benefits could accrue by recognizing that countermeasures developed for hardcore drinking drivers, such as alcohol ignition interlocks and vehicle or plate impoundment, might also be effective with more numerous first-time offenders. However, such strategies are likely to be most effective against recidivism (specific deterrence). Greater gains could be achieved through general deterrent efforts (increasing the real and perceived risk of arrest and punishment to all drinking drivers), along with application of public health measures designed to reduce overall consumption. Additional ways need to be found to separate drinking and driving, either through cultural changes in drinking and/or driving behavior or, in the future, with the use of technology that can make vehicles inoperable by drivers with illegal blood alcohol concentrations.     

Economic-balance hybrid LCA extended with uncertainty analysis: case study of a laptop computer

The emergence of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) on the global stage as a design and policy tool increases the importance of assessing and managing uncertainty. This article develops and implements uncertainty methods for hybrid LCA. Hybrid LCA combines a bottom-up construction of the supply-chain based on facility-level data on material/energy use with a top-down economic input-output (EIO) model to account for processes for which direct data were unavailable. For the bottom-up part of the LCA, we account for variability in process and usage pattern data by developing parameter ranges. For the EIO side we develop a method to assess price uncertainty. These methods are explored through a case study examining energy use and carbon dioxide emissions of manufacturing and use of a laptop computer, a 2001 Dell Inspiron 2500. Results show that manufacturing the computer requires 3010-4340 MJ of primary energy, 52-67% less than the energy to make a desktop computer, and emits 227-270 kg CO₂. The manufacturing phase represents 62-70% of total primary energy of manufacturing and operation. This indicates, as for desktop computers, that mitigating manufacturing energy use, for example through extending lifespan, can be an important strategy to manage the life cycle energy of laptop computers. Results also indicate that truncation error from excluded processes in the bottom-up process model is significant, perhaps particularly so due to complex supply chains of information technology products.     

Biomass:polystyrene co-pyrolysis coupled with metal-modified zeolite catalysis for liquid fuel and chemical production

Journal of Material Cycles and Waste Management - Biomass and waste polystyrene plastic (ratio 1:1) were co-pyrolysed followed by catalysis in a two-stage fixed bed reactor system to produce...     

Maximising household waste recycling at civic amenity sites in Lancashire, England

In the UK, all local authorities have been set statutory performance standards for the recycling and composting of household waste. As part of their strategy for achieving these standards, Lancashire County Council (LCC) has made a number of alterations to the layout and facilities available at civic amenity sites (renamed Household Waste Recycling Centres (HWRCs)) in the county and tried to create a more positive image of the sites for members of the public. This study consisted of two surveys carried out in order to establish how to maximise household waste recycling at the 26 HWRCs in Lancashire. A telephone survey was carried out amongst all Lancashire's HWRC attendants in order to establish the effects of recent site improvements and to provide an indication of overall customer satisfaction. An on-site questionnaire survey was conducted amongst HWRC customers on five selected sites, over three separate seasons, incorporating comparative weekend and weekday surveys at each site. This survey investigated public opinion of HWRCs in Lancashire, as well as exploring effective methods that would assist customers in maximising the amount of recycling at HWRCs. The attendants' survey revealed that site attendants were actively encouraging customers to segregate waste more efficiently at the HWRCs, and that a recycling-related bonus scheme had provided an incentive towards this effort. Site attendants have a key role in educating the public about waste segregation and the effective use of HWRCs. Lancashire HWRC users were mostly male, used private cars to transport waste and showed high levels of customer satisfaction. Practical changes to encourage more recycling at HWRCs were clearly identified in the customers' survey; these include longer opening hours and the provision of boxes to enable pre-separation of waste. The study has clearly shown how the results of user surveys can provide practical assistance in the development of improved sustainable waste management strategies.     

Speciation and the bioavailability of actinide elements

A good understanding of the quantitative uptake of actinide elements from foodstuffs, across the mucosal cell membranes of the gastrointestinal tract, into man is of great importance in setting intake limits and in assessing radiation doses to critical organs.

In the past, such knowledge has been gained from the extrapolation of animal models to man. Whilst this strategy has proved useful in a number of cases, it is, unfortunately, phenomenological and the results prone to perturbation from factors such as the fasting state of the animal and the initial chemical form of the actinide.

The application of computer simulation models which can calculate the chemical speciation of an element in a variety of foodstuffs under conditions pertinent to the gastrointestinal tract offers a non‐invasive and general method for predicting the uptake of exogenous elements, like the actinides.

This paper reviews the current state of chemical speciation analysis with respect to bioavailability highlighting areas requiring further consideration, presenting results amplifying the issues raised and showing that computer simulation has a rôle to play in predicting quantitative uptake of the actinides.