Characterization of different types of electronic waste: heavy metal,precious metal and rare earth element content by comparing different digestıon methods

Journal of Material Cycles and Waste Management - Electronic waste is one of the fastest-growing waste streams. The content of this waste has critical importance for the development or adoption of...     

Bridging the financial gap in climate adaptation: Dutch planning and land development through a new institutional lens

Based on a case study of the Stadshaven port redevelopment in Rotterdam, this paper explores whether existing spatial planning mechanisms and processes can be used to facilitate local-level investment in climate-resilient public infrastructure and/or whether new processes and mechanisms are required to encourage investment in climate adaptation. The study reveals several key findings. First, a lack of conventional funding sources or formalised regulatory framework allowed room for experimentation with existing mechanisms and flexible strategies. Second, project planners are currently ambivalent towards introducing new mechanisms as a means to overcome implementation challenges. The case provides evidence about the role of the governance process, not simply as a means of system coordination that exists in isolation from institutional norms and values, but rather as a space for innovation, which can contribute towards reducing the financial gap associated with climate adaptation.     

Benefits of integrating complementarity into priority threat management

Conservation decision tools based on cost‐effectiveness analysis are used to assess threat management strategies for improving species persistence. These approaches rank alternative strategies by their benefit to cost ratio but may fail to identify the optimal sets of strategies to implement under limited budgets because they do not account for redundancies. We devised a multiobjective optimization approach in which the complementarity principle is applied to identify the sets of threat management strategies that protect the most species for any budget. We used our approach to prioritize threat management strategies for 53 species of conservation concern in the Pilbara, Australia. We followed a structured elicitation approach to collect information on the benefits and costs of implementing 17 different conservation strategies during a 3‐day workshop with 49 stakeholders and experts in the biodiversity, conservation, and management of the Pilbara. We compared the performance of our complementarity priority threat management approach with a current cost‐effectiveness ranking approach. A complementary set of 3 strategies: domestic herbivore management, fire management and research, and sanctuaries provided all species with >50% chance of persistence for $4.7 million/year over 20 years. Achieving the same result cost almost twice as much ($9.71 million/year) when strategies were selected by their cost‐effectiveness ranks alone. Our results show that complementarity of management benefits has the potential to double the impact of priority threat management approaches.     

Safety I–II,resilience and antifragility engineering: a debate explained through an accident occurring on a mobile elevating work platform

Occupational health and safety (OHS) represents an important field of exploration for the research community: in spite of the growth of technological innovations, the increasing complexity of systems involves critical issues in terms of degradation of the safety levels. In such a situation, new safety management approaches are now mandatory in order to face the safety implications of the current technological evolutions. Along these lines, performing risk-based analysis alone seems not to be enough anymore. The evaluation of robustness, antifragility and resilience of a socio-technical system is now indispensable in order to face unforeseen events. This article will briefly introduce the topics of Safety I and Safety II, resilience engineering and antifragility engineering, explaining correlations, overlapping aspects and synergies. Secondly, the article will discuss the applications of those paradigms to a real accident, highlighting how they can challenge, stimulate and inspire research for improving OHS conditions.     

成都平原蔬菜生产中灌溉水对农药渗漏的影响研究

针对成都平原蔬菜生产中大量施用农药、大量灌水的特点,首次在国内应用欧洲官方成熟的农药评估模型——PEARL模型,研究评估了成都平原当前蔬菜生产中的灌溉方式对两种不同特性农药的渗漏的影响。杀毒矾(土壤吸附力(KOM)为0 L/kg,半衰期(DT50)为80 d)在没有灌溉条件下,其渗出土体时的最大质量浓度是190μg.L-1,而有灌溉条件下其渗出质量浓度则可达523μg.L-1,是没有灌溉条件下的2.75倍。三唑磷(KOM为200 L.kg-1,DT50为60 d)在没有灌溉条件下,其渗出土体时的最大质量浓度是0.025μg.L-1,而有灌溉条件下其渗出质量浓度为0.13μg.L-1,比没有灌溉时提高了4.2倍。不管有没有灌溉三唑磷在该地区对地下水的污染风险都很小,而杀毒矾的风险则很高。因此,农药的化学特性是影响农药渗漏的最重要的因子。在蔬菜生产中应尽量选用被土壤吸附力强、半衰期短的农药,例如:三唑磷;农药在土壤中的移动载体是土壤水,不合理的灌溉会大大地加大农药淋溶,应当多使用微喷、滴灌等节水灌溉措施,减少使用漫灌等耗水多的原始灌溉方式。     

Öko-Audit eines Bio-Agrar-Betriebes

Environmental impacts of a farm which is managed in accordance with ecological criteria is assessed. To this end the ecoaudit ordinance of the European Union 1836/93/EWG is used as guiding principle. This article focuses on methods and results of the impact assessment (chapter 2, 3) and the recommendations derived from that (chapter 4). Before that, objectives of investigation (chapter 1.1), key topics of the assessment ordinance are summarised (chapter 1.2), and finally the farm and the main fields of investigation are described (chapter 1.3). The density of complex hedge rows, as one from 21 assessment criteria, exceeds the limit of tolerance. The investigation underlines the need for further methodological harmonisation.     

GC-EAG-analysis of volatiles from Brussels sprouts plants damaged by two species of Pieris caterpillars: olfactory receptive range of a specialist and a generalist parasitoid wasp species

Summary. Feeding by Pieris brassicae or P. rapae caterpillars on Brussels sprouts plants induces the emission of synomones that attract natural enemies of the caterpillars, Cotesia glomerata, a generalist parasitoid, and C. rubecula, a specialist on P. rapae. Previous research on this tritrophic system has identified a large number of volatiles in the headspace of herbivore-damaged Brussels sprouts plants, and this paper addresses the question which of these volatiles are perceived by the two parasitoid species. Headspace odors from both P. brassicae- and P. rapae-damaged Brussels sprouts plants were analyzed by coupled gas chromatography electro- antennogram (GC-EAG) detection. Twenty volatiles evoked consistent EAG reactions in the antennae of both species and nineteen of these volatiles could be identified with GC-MS. One component that could not be identified due to its low concentration, evoked EAG responses in antennae of C. rubecula only. Possible consequences for searching behavior of the two parasitoid species are discussed.     

Okadaic acid: a potential defense molecule for the sponge <Emphasis Type="Italic">Suberites domuncula</Emphasis>

Sponges are sessile filter feeders that are exposed to toxic compounds/xenobiotics and a huge number of diverse pro- and eukaryotic organisms occurring in the aqueous milieu. To cope with these threats, sponges have developed a variety of chemical and immunological defense systems. Among them are potent secondary metabolites or toxins. The demosponge Suberites domuncula contains the bioactive compound okadaic acid; concentrations of ᅢ ng/g (ᅬ nM) of wet tissue have been quantified by LC/MS. In the present study, we sought to determine whether okadaic acid is beneficial for this sponge. Antibodies were raised against okadaic acid and used to localize this compound in situ. It could be demonstrated that the polyclonal antibodies/antiserum stained the sponge cells (endopinacocytes) which form the epithelium of the lacunae and the water channels. They also reacted with bacteria present in sponge tissue. Okadaic acid was found to augment the immune response of S. domuncula against the bacterial endotoxin lipopolysaccharide (LPS). If primmorphs, a special form of 3-D aggregates, are incubated with LPS at a concentration of 3 µg/ml, a reduction in the incorporation rate of [³H] phenylalanine is measured. In the presence of okadaic acid, this effect is measured already at a concentration of 1 µg/ml, suggesting that okadaic acid sensitizes this (immune) response. Okadaic acid is a known inhibitor of protein phosphatases which, as shown here, cause an increased phosphorylation of p38, a central kinase of the MAP kinase pathway; this may explain the sensitive response of the sponge cells to LPS. At higher concentrations, okadaic acid induces apoptosis, as was demonstrated here by a differential expression of the Bcl-2 homolog and the caspase gene. It is concluded that okadaic acid has two functions in the sponge; first, at low concentrations (<100 nM) a stimulation of the defense system against bacteria, and second, at concentrations above 500 nM, a differential effect on the pro-/anti-apoptotic genes.