Parental decisions concerning the continuation of pregnancy following prenatal detection of abnormal chromosomes were evaluated for 80 patients whose diagnosis and prenatal counselling were performed in our centre. Twenty-two anomalies were diagnosed by chorionic villus sampling (CVS) and 58 by amniocentesis. The severity of the chromosome anomaly and associated ultrasound findings in the first vs. second trimester were correlated with patients' decisions. No difference was found in the likelihood of parental decisions to interrupt or continue a pregnancy between CVS and amniocentesis for either the‘severe’ or the‘questionable’ group of chromosome anomalies. Ninety-three per cent of patients with severe prognosis and 27 per cent with questionable prognosis opted for pregnancy termination (p <0·0001). The association of ultrasound anomalies and termination was highly significant (p< 0·001). The severity of the chromosome anomaly, and, to a lesser extent, the visualization of anomalies on ultrasound were the major determinants of parental decisions to terminate the pregnancy. The diagnosis of an anomaly in the first trimester was no more likely ito lead to a termination of pregnancy than in the second trimester. 相似文献
Hydrogen storage and transportation or distribution is closely linked together. Hydrogen can be distributed continuously in
pipelines or batch wise by ships, trucks, railway or airplanes. All batch transportation requires a storage system but also
pipelines can be used as pressure storage system. Hydrogen exhibits the highest heating value per weight of all chemical fuels.
Furthermore, hydrogen is regenerative and environment friendly. There are two reasons why hydrogen is not the major fuel of
toady’s energy consumption: First of all, hydrogen is just an energy carrier. And, although it is the most abundant element
in the universe, it has to be produced, since on earth it only occurs in the form of water. This implies that we have to pay
for this energy, which results in a difficult economic task, because since the industrialization we are used to consuming
energy for free. The second difficulty with hydrogen as an energy carrier is the low critical temperature of 33 K, i.e. hydrogen
is a gas at room temperature. For mobile and in many cases also for stationary applications the volumetric and gravimetric
density of hydrogen in a storage system is crucial. Hydrogen can be stored by six different methods and phenomena: high pressure
gas cylinders (up to 800 bar), liquid hydrogen in cryogenic tanks (at 21 K), adsorbed hydrogen on materials with a large specific
surface area (at T < 100 K), absorbed on interstitial sites in a host metal (at ambient pressure and temperature), chemically bond in covalent
and ionic compounds (at ambient pressure), oxidation of reactive metals e.g. Li, Na, Mg, Al, Zn with water. These metals easily
react with water to the corresponding hydroxide and liberate the hydrogen from the water. Finally, the metal hydroxides can
be thermally reduced to the metals in a solar furnace. 相似文献
The reestablisment of autochthonous plant species is an essential strategy for recovering degraded areas under semiarid conditions.
A field experiment was carried out to assess the short-term effect of two reafforestation methods involving mycorrhizal inoculation
and compost addition on soil quality parameters and Rhamnus lycioides seedling growth. The nutrient content (NPK) and enzymatic activities (dehydrogenase, urease, protease-BAA, acid phosphatase
and β-glucosidase) increased and bulk density decreased in the rhizosphere soil with the organic amendment. Biomass C of rhizosphere
soil increased by at least 240% with respect to the control soil after mycorrhizal inoculation and the combination of compost
addition + mycorrhizal inoculation. Both mycorrhizal inoculation and composted organic residue addition increased R. lycioides seedling growth in the same proportion. In the short term, we conclude that the application of both reafforestation methods
not only enhances the establishment of R. lycioides seedlings, but also improves soil quality. 相似文献
Sciurus carolinensis ) have been labor intensive and costly, I demonstrate the use of line transect surveys to estimate gray squirrel density and
determine the costs of conducting surveys to achieve precise estimates. Density estimates are based on four transects that
were surveyed five times from 30 June to 9 July 1994. Using the program DISTANCE, I estimated there were 4.7 (95% CI = 1.86–11.92)
gray squirrels/ha on the Clemson University campus. Eleven additional surveys would have decreased the percent coefficient
of variation from 30% to 20% and would have cost approximately $114. Estimating urban gray squirrel density using line transect
surveys is cost effective and can provide unbiased estimates of density, provided that none of the assumptions of distance
sampling theory are violated. 相似文献
Rapid economic growth in Asia and the increasing transboundary movement of secondary resources will increasingly require both
3R endeavors (reduce, reuse, recycle) in each country and appropriate control of international material cycles. Recently,
managing electrical and electronic waste (E-waste) has become an important target for domestic and international material
cycles from the viewpoints of environmental preservation and resource utilization efficiency. To understand the current status
of E-waste issues in the context of international material cycles and to discuss the future tasks related to achieving 3R
in the region, we organized the National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES) E-waste Workshop in December 2004. This
article reviews past studies on E-waste and briefly describes the topics presented and discussions held at the workshop. The
topics at the workshop included E-waste generation, recycling systems, international trade, and environmental impacts. In
addition, we discussed various issues such as terminology, current environmental concerns, and possible solutions. Transboundary
shipments of E-waste should be conducted taking into consideration the concept of sustainable development. The direction of
future research and possible collaborations are also discussed. 相似文献
The applications of chlorine have been broadly used in many industrial products, such as bleaching agents, synthetic rubbers, plastics, disinfectants, iron chlorides, fire refractory materials, insecticides, and anti-freezers, etc. According to the Taiwan Environmental Protection Administration (TEPA), more than 30 thousand tons were used in the year 2000. In addition, there were more than 12 reported incidents from 2000 to 2003—mostly on using chlorine as disinfectants (five) and as process agents (four).
This study investigated 15 chlorine operation plants in central Taiwan. These chlorine usages included bleaching agents, disinfectants, iron chloride, synthesizing rubber plastics, and others. Thirteen plants were located in the industrial parks and two were in or near residential zones. The consequence analysis were used three different methods to analyze the worst-case scenarios (WCSs) and alternative release case scenarios (ACSs) in order to compare impact zones for applying various active and passive mitigation systems, such as confined space, scrubber, water-spray, and so no. For two plants in or near residential zones, multi-layers mitigation systems and operation limits should be implemented in order to enforce more stringent protection measures. However, there was no specific regulation for chlorine plants operated at different locations, such as industrial parks or residential zones. In order to reduce chemical accidents and their impacts on public safety, our results suggest that source mitigation/management and warning systems should be adopted simultaneously. 相似文献
Sustainable development goals are achievable through the installation of Material Recovery Facilities (MRFs) in certain solid waste management systems, especially those in rapidly expanding multi-district urban areas. MRFs are a cost-effective alternative when curbside recycling does not demonstrate long-term success. Previous capacity planning uses mixed integer programming optimization for the urban center of the city of San Antonio, Texas to establish that a publicly owned material recovery facility is preferable to a privatized facility. As a companion study, this analysis demonstrates that a MRF alleviates economic, political, and social pressures facing solid waste management under uncertainty. It explores the impact of uncertainty in decision alternatives in an urban environmental system. From this unique angle, waste generation, incidence of recyclables in the waste stream, routing distances, recycling participation, and other planning components are taken as intervals to expand upon previous deterministic integer-programming models. The information incorporated into the optimization objectives includes economic impacts for recycling income and cost components in waste management. The constraint set consists of mass balance, capacity limitation, recycling limitation, scale economy, conditionality, and relevant screening restrictions. Due to the fragmented data set, a grey integer programming modeling approach quantifies the consequences of inexact information as it propagates through the final solutions in the optimization process. The grey algorithm screens optimal shipping patterns and an ideal MRF location and capacity. Two case settings compare MRF selection policies where optimal solutions exemplify the value of grey programming in the context of integrated solid waste management. 相似文献