Forensic entomology

Necrophagous insects are important in the decomposition of cadavers. The close association between insects and corpses and the use of insects in medicocriminal investigations is the subject of forensic entomology. The present paper reviews the historical background of this discipline, important postmortem processes, and discusses the scientific basis underlying attempts to determine the time interval since death. Using medical techniques, such as the measurement of body temperature or analysing livor and rigor mortis, time since death can only be accurately measured for the first two or three days after death. In contrast, by calculating the age of immature insect stages feeding on a corpse and analysing the necrophagous species present, postmortem intervals from the first day to several weeks can be estimated. These entomological methods may be hampered by difficulties associated with species identification, but modern DNA techniques are contributing to the rapid and authoritative identification of necrophagous insects. Other uses of entomological data include the toxicological examination of necrophagous larvae from a corpse to identify and estimate drugs and toxicants ingested by the person when alive and the proof of possible postmortem manipulations. Forensic entomology may even help in investigations dealing with people who are alive but in need of care, by revealing information about cases of neglect.     

全国排污申报登记系统的研究与开发

简要介绍全国排污申报登记系统的指标体系设计,信息分类偏码,重点污染源筛选和系统结构设计、功能,程序设计等主要技术方法,并结合系统开发经验阐述了全国排污申报统一软件的研究成果及其功能特点。     

磁性铁基改性生物炭去除水中氨氮

氨氮的过度排放是水体富营养化的一个重要原因.然而,随着环境法规的日益严格,传统方法处理效果难以达到要求.吸附法因高效、安全等优点近年来开始应用于去除水中的氨氮.本研究中以共沉淀法将磁性铁基材料负载到市政污泥生物炭上,结果表明其对水中氨氮有良好的去除效果.80℃下合成的材料(MB80)在293 K下对氨氮的饱和吸附量可达...     

A graphical representation of carbon footprint reduction for chemical processes

Climate change has recently become a major focus for industry and government agencies. Some recent works have been reported on the use of pinch analysis techniques for carbon-constrained energy planning problems. This paper discusses a new application of graphical technique based on pinch analysis for company-level visualization and analysis of carbon footprint improvement. The technique is based on the decomposition of total carbon footprint into material- and energy-based components, or alternatively, into internal and external components. The decomposition facilitates the evaluation and screening of process improvement alternatives. Two industrial case studies on the production of phytochemical extracts and bulk chemicals are used to illustrate the new extension.     

Environmental performance evaluation of agro-industrial innovations – Part 2: methodological approach for performing vulnerability analysis of watersheds

Environmental vulnerability analysis has been sparsely used in environmental performance evaluation (EPE) of technological innovations. The present paper proposes a methodological approach to carry out vulnerability analysis of watersheds and to integrate this analysis into methods of environmental performance evaluation of agro-industrial innovations. This approach is applied to the Ambitec-Life Cycle method, described in Part 1 (this issue) of this study. The case study of green coconut substrate compared to ripe coconut substrate, also described in Part 1 (this issue), is now presented considering the vulnerability analysis of the watersheds where the life cycle stages of these products occur. The integration of vulnerability analysis in Ambitec-Life Cycle contributes to a better understanding of the environmental aspects of agro-industrial technological innovations with potential to cause significant impacts in watersheds where these innovations are implemented.     

Prenatal cannibalism in an insect

Host selection and infection strategies of parasitoids often correlate with high parental investment and low numbers of progeny. In this study, we investigate how additional internal mechanisms might shape brood size and fitness of the offspring. Emblemasoma auditrix is a parasitoid fly in which about 38 larvae hatch simultaneously in utero. After host location, a single larva is deposited into the host, where it rapidly develops and pupates after about 5 days. The search for hosts can take several weeks, and during that time, the larvae arrest their development and remain in the first larval instar. Nevertheless, the larvae increase in weight within the uterus, and this growth correlates to a decrease in the number of larvae, although no larvae are deposited. Thus, our data indicate a first case of prenatal cannibalism in an invertebrate with larvae feeding on each other within the uterus of the adult.     

A juvenile lizard specimen with well-preserved skin impressions from the Upper Jurassic/Lower Cretaceous of Daohugou, Inner Mongolia, China

Lizards are now relatively well known from the Yixian Formation of northeastern China. In this study, we describe a juvenile lizard from a fossil horizon at Daohugou, Inner Mongolia. These beds predate the Yixian Formation, and are probably Late Jurassic or earliest Cretaceous in age. The new specimen thus documents the first lizard material from the Daohugou locality and is the earliest lizard skeleton from China. Comparisons with developmental stages of modern lizards suggest the Daohugou lizard is a hatchling. Although tiny, the specimen is notable in preserving exquisite skin impressions showing the variation in scalation across the body, the shape and position of the cloacal outlet, and details of the manus and pes. These are the earliest recorded lepidosaurian skin traces. In its general proportions and the possession of paired frontals, the small Daohugou lizard resembles both the Yixian taxon Yabeinosaurus tenuis and the questionable Jeholacerta formosa, but it differs from the latter in scalation and, based on other characters, may be distinct from both.     

Power matters in closing the phenotyping gap

Much of our understanding of physiology and metabolism is derived from investigating mouse mutants and transgenic mice, and open-access platforms for standardized mouse phenotyping such as the German Mouse Clinic (GMC) are currently viewed as one powerful tool for identifying novel gene-function relationships. Phenotyping or phenotypic screening involves the comparison of wild-type control mice with their mutant or transgenic littermates. In our study, we explored the extent to which standardized phenotyping will succeed in detecting biologically relevant phenotypic differences in mice generated and provided by different collaborators. We analyzed quantitative metabolic data (body mass, energy intake, and energy metabolized) collected at the GMC under the current workflow, and used them for statistical power considerations. Our results demonstrate that there is substantial variability in these parameters among lines of wild-type C57BL/6 (B6) mice from different sources. Given this variable background noise in mice that serve as controls, subtle phenotypes in mutant or transgenic littermates may be overlooked. Furthermore, a phenotype observed in one cohort of a mutant line may not be reproducible (to the same extent) in mice coming from a different environment or supplier. In the light of these constraints, we encourage researchers to incorporate information on intrastrain variability into future study planning, or to perform advanced hierarchical analyses. Both will ultimately improve the detectability of novel phenotypes by phenotypic screening. Carola W. Meyer and Ralf Elvert contributed equally to this work.