Organochlorine pesticide residues in maternal blood,cord blood,placenta, and breastmilk and their relation to birth size

There is a growing concern that persistent organic pollutants like organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) can impair fetal growth and affect birth size. However, currently available epidemiological evidence is inconclusive. In this case-control study, we examined the association between exposure to hexachlorocyclohexane (HCH) and its isomers (α-HCH, β-HCH and γ-HCH), dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) and dichlorodiphenyldichloroethylene (DDE) and birth size. We recruited 60 infant-mother pairs, comprising of 30 term, small for gestational age babies with their mothers (Case group), and another 30 term, appropriate for gestational age babies with their mothers (Control group). This study was conducted in a tertiary hospital in Delhi, India, between March, 2009 and February 2010. Organochlorine pesticides were estimated in maternal blood, cord blood, placenta and breastmilk samples, using gas–liquid chromatography. Transplacental and transmammary transfer of OCPs was assessed by correlating the maternal blood OCP levels with those in cord blood and breastmilk by simple linear regression. The birthweight, crown heel length, head circumference, mid-arm circumference and ponderal index of the neonates was correlated with OCP levels in the maternal blood, cord blood, placenta and breastmilk. The OCP estimates were compared between samples of the case and control group. There was a significant (P < 0.001) transplacental transfer of all OCPs, however the transmammary transfer was insignificant for most OCPs except α-HCH. The OCP levels in the case group were higher than the control group; these were significantly more for t-HCH in cord blood and breastmilk; β-HCH in maternal blood, cord blood and breastmilk; DDE in placenta and DDT in breastmilk. There was a significant negative correlation between birthweight and t-HCH levels in maternal blood (P = 0.022), cord blood (P < 0.001), placenta (P = 0.008) and breastmilk (P = 0.005); β-HCH in cord blood (P < 0.001) and placenta (P = 0.020); γ-HCH in placenta (P = 0.045); and DDT (P = 0.009). Length at birth had a significant negative correlation with t-HCH in cord blood (P = 0.014) and breastmilk (P < 0.001); β-HCH in cord blood (P = 0.016) and breastmilk (P = 0.012); DDE in placenta (P = 0.016); and DDT in breastmilk (P = 0.006). Similarly, OCP levels were also found to be negatively correlated with head circumference, ponderal index and chest circumference in neonates. We conclude that prenatal exposure to some OCPs could impair the anthropometric development of the fetus, reducing the birthweight, length, head circumference, chest circumference and ponderal index.     

Comparison of drinking water mutagenicity with leaching of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons from water distribution pipes

The primary objectives of this study were to examine the changes in concentration of six polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) and the possibility of changes in mutagenic potential of treated waters as a result of their passage through commonly used distribution pipes. With the exception of the finished water taken at one treatment plant in which the total concentration of the six PAH was 138.5 parts per trillion (ppt), the total initial concentration in all other treated water ranged from 0 to 13.4 ppt. The corresponding total PAH concentration in water after passage through the distribution pipes varied from 0 to 61.6 ppt. This demonstrated that PAH concentration in water can increase as a result of their passage through coated distribution pipes. Mutagenic activity was also detected in many of the treated water samples, however, the levels of this activity did not correlate with either the transit of water through the distribution system or the levels of PAH in the water. There was some evidence to indicate that the water treatment process itself may have contributed to the mutagenicity observed in the finished water.     

Ecological Monitoring for Assessing the State of the Nearshore and Open Waters of the Great Lakes

The Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement stipulates that the Governments of Canada and the United States are responsible for restoring and maintaining the chemical, physical and biological integrity of the waters of the Great Lakes Basin Ecosystem. Due to varying mandates and areas of expertise, monitoring to assess progress towards this objective is conducted by a multitude of Canadian and U.S. federal and provincial/state agencies, in cooperation with academia and regional authorities. This paper highlights selected long-term monitoring programs and discusses a number of documented ecological changes that indicate the present state of the open and nearshore waters of the Great Lakes.     

Comparison of dynamic subgrid-scale models for simulations of neutrally buoyant shear-driven atmospheric boundary layer flows

Several non-dynamic, scale-invariant, and scale-dependent dynamic subgrid-scale (SGS) models are utilized in large-eddy simulations of shear-driven neutral atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) flows. The popular Smagorinsky closure and an alternative closure based on Kolmogorov’s scaling hypothesis are used as SGS base models. Our results show that, in the context of neutral ABL regime, the dynamic modeling approach is extremely useful, and reproduces several establised results (e.g., the surface layer similarity theory) with fidelity. The scale-dependence framework, in general, improves the near-surface statistics from the Smagorinsky model-based simulations. We also note that the local averaging-based dynamic SGS models perform significantly better than their planar averaging-based counterparts. Lastly, we find more or less consistent superiority of the Smagorinsky-based SGS models (over the corresponding Kolmogorov’s scaling hypothesis-based SGS models) for predicting the inertial range scaling of spectra.     

Development of similarity relationships for energy dissipation rate and temperature structure parameter in stably stratified flows: a direct numerical simulation approach

In this study, a newly developed direct numerical simulation (DNS) solver is utilized for the simulations of numerous stably stratified open-channel flows with bulk Reynolds number (Re _b ) spanning 3400–16,900. Overall, the simulated bulk Richardson number (\(Ri_b\)) ranges from 0.08 (weakly stable) to 0.49 (very stable). Thus, both continuously turbulent and (globally) intermittently turbulent cases are represented in the DNS database. Using this comprehensive database, various flux-based and gradient-based similarity relationships for energy dissipation rate (ε) and temperature structure parameter (\(C_T^2\)) are developed. Interestingly, these relationships exhibit only minor dependency on Re _b . In order to further probe into this Re _b -effect, similarity relationships are also estimated from a large-eddy simulation (LES) run of an idealized atmospheric boundary layer (very high Re _b ) case study. Despite the fundamental differences in the estimation of ε and \(C_T^2\) from the DNS- and the LES-generated data, the resulting similarity relationships, especially the gradient-based ones, from these numerical approaches are found to be remarkably similar. More importantly, these simulated relationships are also comparable, at least qualitatively, to the traditional observational data-based ones. Since these simulated similarity relationships do not require Taylor’s hypothesis and do not suffer from mesoscale disturbances and/or measurement noise, they have the potential to complement the existing similarity relationships.     

An ecotoxicological view on neurotoxicity assessment

The numbers of potential neurotoxicants in the environment are raising and pose a great risk for humans and the environment. Currently neurotoxicity assessment is mostly performed to predict and prevent harm to human populations. Despite all the efforts invested in the last years in developing novel in vitro or in silico test systems, in vivo tests with rodents are still the only accepted test for neurotoxicity risk assessment in Europe. Despite an increasing number of reports of species showing altered behaviour, neurotoxicity assessment for species in the environment is not required and therefore mostly not performed. Considering the increasing numbers of environmental contaminants with potential neurotoxic potential, eco-neurotoxicity should be also considered in risk assessment. In order to do so novel test systems are needed that can cope with species differences within ecosystems. In the field, online-biomonitoring systems using behavioural information could be used to detect neurotoxic effects and effect-directed analyses could be applied to identify the neurotoxicants causing the effect. Additionally, toxic pressure calculations in combination with mixture modelling could use environmental chemical monitoring data to predict adverse effects and prioritize pollutants for laboratory testing. Cheminformatics based on computational toxicological data from in vitro and in vivo studies could help to identify potential neurotoxicants. An array of in vitro assays covering different modes of action could be applied to screen compounds for neurotoxicity. The selection of in vitro assays could be guided by AOPs relevant for eco-neurotoxicity. In order to be able to perform risk assessment for eco-neurotoxicity, methods need to focus on the most sensitive species in an ecosystem. A test battery using species from different trophic levels might be the best approach. To implement eco-neurotoxicity assessment into European risk assessment, cheminformatics and in vitro screening tests could be used as first approach to identify eco-neurotoxic pollutants. In a second step, a small species test battery could be applied to assess the risks of ecosystems.     

Air quality analysis and indexing of Kolkata city with respect to vertical floor heights and seasonal variation

Air pollution is one of the most important global environmental issues. Urban air quality is generally becoming vulnerable especially in the developing countries due to various developmental activities. Several national and international studies prove that air pollution is harmful to human health and its long term exposure contributes to even mortality. Current study has been designed to determine the vertical floor wise air quality status of the city of Kolkata and the seasonal variation of the pollutants during two consecutive years. Particulate matter (PM₁₀ and suspended particulate matter), oxides of nitrogen, sulfur dioxide and carbon monoxide were analyzed for a total number of 135 air quality samples throughout the study area and period. Pollutants were found positively correlated with each other and with the floor heights. According to the air quality indexing, all the places were found affected from moderate to severe air pollution irrespective of the vertical floor heights, seasons and places. Although, no such seasonal trend has been emerged from the study but the number of samples beyond standard is found highest during the winter season followed by pre-monsoon.     

On stochastic differential equations and equilibrium distribution: a conditional moment approach

In the recent past there have been several attempts to obtain the equilibrium distribution of multiple populations and their moments in the context of some biological or ecological processes (e.g., Matis and Kiffe in Biometrics 52:155, 1996; Matis and Kiffe in Environ Ecol Stat 9:237, 2002; Renshaw in J Math Appl Med Biol, 15:1, 1998). In particular, the method of cumulant truncation (Matis and Kiffe in Biometrics 52:155, 1996) is a pioneering work in this field. However it requires solving a large number of cumulant functions even in the case of two simultaneous differential equations. Besides the solutions are approximate and depend on the precision of the software. Renshaw (Math Biosci 168:57, 2000) provided a nice extension of the univariate truncated saddle point procedure to multivariate scenarios. But this approach involves a multivariate Newton-Raphson type iterative algorithm whose performance and convergence are critically dependent on the choice of the initial values. In the present paper we propose a new and simple approach to obtain the equilibrium distribution of populations and their conditional moments in a system of differential equations of any dimension. Our proposed method, which is a natural extension of the classical variational matrix approach, has several advantages which are discussed in detail in the paper; among other things it includes the derivation of additional conditions which can be interpreted as environmental surrogates.