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.     

Phytoremediation and its models for organic contaminated soils

Soil pollution has been attracting considerable public attentions over the last decades.Sorts of traditional physiochemical methods have been used to remove th organic pollutants from soils.However,the enormous costs and low efficiencies associated with these remediation technologies limit their availabilities.Phytoremediation is an emerging technology that uses plants to cleanup pollutants in soils.As overwhelmingly positive results have been shown,phytoremediation is a most economical and effective remediation technique for organic contaminated soils.In this paper phytoremediation and its models for organic contaminated soils are viewed.The mechanisms of phytoremediation mainly include the direct plant uptake of organic pollutants,degradation by plant-derived degradative enzymes,and stimulated biodegradation in plat rhizosphere.Phytoremediation efficiency is close related to physicochemical properties of organic pollutants, environmental characteristics,and plant types.It is no doubt that soil amendments such as surfactants improve the solubilities and availabilities of organic pollutants in soils.However,little information is available about effects of soil amendments on phytoremediation efficiencies.Phytoremediation models have been developed to imulate and predict the environmental behavior of organic pollutants,and progress of models is illustrated.In many ways phytoremediation is still in its initial stage,and recommendations for the future for the future research on phytoremediation are presented.     

RNA interference: from an ancient mechanism to a state of the art therapeutic application?

Now that the sequencing of many genomes has been completed, the basic challenges are finding the genes and predicting their functions. Up until now, a large information gap has existed between the knowledge of genome sequence and our knowledge of protein function. The assessment of gene function may be performed using the tools of reverse genetics, including knock-out mice, antisense oligomers, aptamers, and ribozymes. These approaches have been superseded by RNA interference (RNAi), which exhibits much more potency for the investigation of protein function than the techniques listed above. As already known some years ago, RNAi is based on an ancient anti-viral defense mechanism in lower eukaryotes. It is induced by double-stranded RNA and its processing to 21–23 nt small interfering RNAs (siRNAs), which cause the degradation of homologous endogenous mRNA. The way RNAi works has still to be determined, but it already serves as a first-choice approach to generate loss-of-function phenotypes among a broad variety of eukaryotic species, such as nematodes, flies, plants, fungi and mammals. RNAi also represents an extremely powerful tool, becoming a therapeutic approach to curing infectious diseases originated by viral or parasitic invasion. In this review we present the current view of how RNAi works in different eukaryotic species and its high potential for functional genomics and in rational drug design.     

'Molecular farming' of antibodies in plants

'Molecular farming' is the production of valuable recombinant proteins in transgenic organisms on an agricultural scale. While plants have long been used as a source of medicinal compounds, molecular farming represents a novel source of molecular medicines, such as plasma proteins, enzymes, growth factors, vaccines and recombinant antibodies, whose medical benefits are understood at a molecular level. Until recently, the broad use of molecular medicines was limited because of the difficulty in producing these proteins outside animals or animal cell culture. The application of molecular biology and plant biotechnology in the 1990s showed that many molecular medicines or vaccines could be synthesised in plants and this technology is termed 'molecular farming'. It results in pharmaceuticals that are safer, easier to produce and less expensive than those produced in animals or microbial culture. An advantage of molecular farming lies in the ability to perform protein production on a massive scale using hectares of cultivated plants. These plants can then be harvested and transported using the agricultural infrastructure. Thus, molecular farming allows rapid progress from genetic engineering to crop production, and new cash crops producing recombinant proteins are already being commercially exploited. We speculate that as functional genomics teaches us more about the nature of disease, molecular farming will produce many of the protein therapeutics that can remedy it.     

Survey of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in arterial street air of Hangzhou

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Partition of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons on organobentonites from water

ＩｎｔｒｏｄｕｃｔｉｏｎＴｈｅａｌｕｍｉｎｏｓｉｌｉｃａｔｅｓｈｅｅｔｓｏｆｂｅｎｔｏｎｉｔｅｐｏｓｓｅｓｓａｎｅｔｎｅｇａｔｉｖｅｅｌｅｃｔｒｉｃａｌｃｈａｒｇｅｃｏｍｐｅｎｓａｔｅｄｆｏｒｂｙｉｎｏｒｇａｎｉｃｅｘｃｈａｎｇｅａｂｌｅｃａｔｉｏｎｓ(ｅ.ｇ.,Ｎａ+ａｎｄＣａ2+),ｗｈｉｃｈｓｔｒｏｎｇｌｙｈｙｄｒａｔｅｄｉｎｔｈｅｐｒｅｓｅｎｃｅｏｆｗａｔｅｒ.Ｓｕｒｆａｃｅｐｒｏｐｅｒｔｉｅｓｏｆｎａｔｕｒａｌｂｅｎｔｏｎｉｔｅｃａｎｂｅｍｏｄｉｆｉｅｄｂｙｓｉｍｐｌｅｉｏｎｅｘｃｈａｎｇｅｗｉ…     

山东博山地下水污染的数学模拟

在分析研究区的水文地质特征和地下水污染情况的基础上，用模糊数学方法进行地下水水质评价，用趋势面分析和Ｋｒｉｇｉｎｇ方法模拟地下水中污染物的空间分布，用灰色系统方法和对流－弥散方程的特征有限元解模拟地下水中污染物随时间的分布并且进行污染的预测，对各种方法的特点和应用条件进行了分析，表明和数学模拟方法进行地下水污染的定量研究是可行的。     

Mark-recapture estimators for dual frame population size of prominent nesting structures: the effect of uncertain detection probability

The combined mark-recapture and line transect sampling methodology proposed by Alpizar-Jara and Pollock [Journal of Environmental and Ecological Statistics, 3(4), 311–327, 1996; In Marine Mammal Survey and Assessment Methods Symposium. G.W. Garner, S.C. Amstrup, J.L. Laake, B.F.J. Manly, L.L. McDonald, and D.C. Robertson (Eds.), A.A. Balkema, Rotterdam, Netherlands, pp. 99–114, 1999] is used to illustrate the estimation of population size for populations with prominent nesting structures (i.e., bald eagle nests). In the context of a bald eagle population, the number of nests in a list frame corresponds to a pre-marked sample of nests, and an area frame corresponds to a set of transect strips that could be regularly monitored. Unlike previous methods based on dual frame methodology using the screening estimator [Haines and Pollock (Journal of Environmental and Ecological Statistics, 5, 245–256, 1998a; Survey Methodology, 24(1), 79–88, 1998b)], we no longer need to assume that the area frame is complete (i.e., all the nests in the sampled sites do not need to be seen). One may use line transect sampling to estimate the probability of detection in a sampled area. Combining information from list and area frames provides more efficient estimators than those obtained by using data from only one frame. We derive an estimator for detection probability and generalize the screening estimator. A simulation study is carried out to compare the performance of the Chapman modification of the Lincoln–Petersen estimator to the screening estimator. Simulation results show that although the Chapman estimator is generally less precise than the screening estimator, the latter can be severely biased in presence of uncertain detection. The screening estimator outperforms the Chapman estimator in terms of mean squared error when detection probability is near 1 wheareas the Chapman estimator outperforms the screening estimator when detection probability is lower than a certain threshold value depending on particular scenarios.     

生物难降解有机污染物微生物处理技术的进展

耗氧有机污染物的微生物处理技术已日趋完善，研究重点转向生物难解污染物处理，文章详细阐述了几种生物难降解污染物微生物处理技术的研究进展：（１）几种污染物的高效降解微生物的分离培养以及这些高效降解微生物的降解效率和最佳降解条件研究。（２）利用微生物共代谢作用降解污染物的研究，为一些难以作为微生物唯一碳源和能源的污染物生物降解提供一条有效的途径；（３）利用基因工程技术创建高效降解菌的研究，该项技术在提高