Impacts of and adaptation to climate change on the oil palm in Malaysia: a systematic review

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - The interaction and the interplay of climate change with oil palm production in the Southeast Asia region are of serious concern. This particularly...     

Investigating global surface temperature from the perspectives of environmental,demographic, and economic indicators: current status and future temperature trend

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Anthropogenic activities have increased atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gas emissions, which have observably increased global temperature....     

Prevalence and predictors of occupational asthma among workers in detergent and cleaning products industry and its impact on quality of life in El Asher Men Ramadan,Egypt

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Cleaning products are mixtures of many chemical ingredients that are known to contain sensitizers, disinfectants, and fragrances, as well as strong...     

Effect of gervital in attenuating hepatotoxicity caused by methotrexate or azathioprine in adult albino rats

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Methotrexate (MTX) and azathioprine (AZA) are chemotherapeutic, antimetabolic, and immunosuppressive agents with substantial risks such as oxidative...     

Anti-kindling effect of Ginkgo biloba leaf extract and L-carnitine in the pentylenetetrazol model of epilepsy

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Epilepsy is one of the most common serious brain disorders, affecting about 1% of the population all over the world. Ginkgo biloba extract (GbE) and...     

Polychlorinated biphenyls and chlorinated pesticides in mussels from the Egyptian Red Sea coast

The residues of 17 organochlorine pollutants were analyzed in bivalve Brachiodontes sp. collected from 11 different locations in April 2000 along the Egyptian Red Sea coast. The pollutants studied were 10 individual polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) congeners, alpha,alpha,alpha-hexachlorocyclohexane (HCHs), cyclodienes (heptachlor, heptachlorepoxide, aldrin, dieldrin) and dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethanes (DDTs) (p,p'-DDE, p,p'-DDD and p,p'-DDT). The concentration of total DDTs ranged between 125 and 772 ng/g of wet weight whereas the concentration of the PCBs, HCHs and cyclodienes ranged from 6.7 to 66.4 ng/g; 16.2 to 183.4 ng/g and 8.8 to 221.6 ng/g of wet weight, respectively. The levels are low to moderate in relation to the published data from other coastal areas. The present results indicate low to moderate PCBs and pesticides contamination in the investigated mussels except DDTs.     

Potential concerns related to using octadecyltrichlorosilane (OTS) in rendering soils and porous ceramics hydrophobic

The treatment of hydrophilic porous ceramics to render them hydrophobic and wetting to non-aqueous phase liquids (NAPLs) is frequently needed in multiphase flow experiments to control the flow or to measure the pressure of the NAPL. In addition, research dealing with soil wettability implies a need for hydrophobic or NAPL-wet soils. The traditional procedure, which has been widely used in literature, to render hydrophilic porous ceramics and soils hydrophobic is achieved by placing the hydrophilic solid in a 5% (by volume) octadecyltrichlorosilane (OTS) solution in ethanol followed by rinsing in ethanol. This research assesses the use of this procedure as it was found that this treatment procedure resulted in excess OTS on the surface of treated hydrophobic solids which can dissolve in an organic phase and in turn alter the wettability condition of adjacent hydrophilic soils. A modified procedure, which results in hydrophobic solids free of excess OTS, is presented.     

Prevalence of Rotaviruses Groups A and C in Egyptian Children and Aquatic Environment

The objective of this study is to compare the prevalence of rotaviruses groups A and C in Egyptian children and aquatic environment. From 110 stool specimens of children with acute diarrhea and using RT-PCR, 35 samples (31.8 %) were positive for human rotavirus group A and 15 samples (13.6 %) were positive for human rotavirus group C. From 96 samples collected from Zenin wastewater treatment plant over a 2-year period (November 2009–October 2011) and using RT-PCR, rotavirus group A was detected in (4/24) 16.7 %, (5/24) 20.8 %, (4/24) 16.7 %, and (4/24) 16.7 %, while rotavirus group C was detected in (2/24) 8.3 %, (3/24) 12.5 %, (3/24) 12.5 %, and (0/24) 0 % in raw sewage, after primary sedimentation, after secondary sedimentation, and after final chlorination, respectively. Moreover, from 96 samples collected from El-Giza water treatment plant over a 2-year period (November 2009–October 2011), rotavirus group A was detected in (7/24) 29.2 %, (6/24) 25 %, (5/24) 20.8 %, and (3/24) 12.5 %, while rotavirus group C was detected in (3/24) 12.5 %, (1/24) 4.2 %, (1/24) 4.2 %, and (0/24) 0 % in raw Nile water, after sedimentation, after sand filtration, and after final chlorination, respectively. Using SYBR Green real-time RT-PCR, the number of human rotavirus group A genome or infectious units was higher than rotavirus group C. VP6 sequence analysis of the RT-PCR positive rotavirus group C samples revealed that four clinical specimens and three environmental samples showed similar sequences clustered with Moduganari/Human Nigerian strain AF 325806 with 98 % homology, and two clinical specimens and one environmental sample showed similar sequences clustered with Dhaka CB/Human Bangladesh strain AY 754826 with 97 % homology.     

Polyphenolic extracts from the xerophyte Rhamnus lycioides as a radiation biodosimeter

The majority of dosimeters currently in use are synthetic and very expensive. Therefore, the study of the dosimetric characteristics of polyphenolic extracts of xerophytes is useful because drought stress causes an increase in the production of these cheap and natural compounds containing benzene rings. Here, the polyphenolic compounds were extracted from Rhamnus lycioides which was collected from Bou-Hedma National Park in Tunisia and identified using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS). We investigated the impact of cobalt-60 (60Co) irradiation (0–30 kilogray (kGy)) on the color parameters of polyphenolic extracts of R. lycioides using the Konica Minolta CR 300 portable colorimeter and UV–Visible spectroscopy. The structural and morphological characteristics of the irradiated extracts were assessed using Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD) technique and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Overall, our results suggest that exposure to ionizing radiation (IR) of the polyphenolic components of the xerophyte R. lycioides has produced significant dose-dependent changes in their optical and morphological properties. Thus, these extracts can be valorized as biodosimeters in the dose range from 5 to 25 kGy.