Context dependency and generality of fever in insects

Fever can reduce mortality in infected animals. Yet, despite its fitness-enhancing qualities, fever often varies among animals. We used several approaches to examine this variation in insects. Texas field crickets (Gryllus texensis) exhibited a modest fever (1 °C increase in preferred body temperature, T _pref) after injection of prostaglandin, which putatively mediates fever in both vertebrates and invertebrates, but they did not exhibit fever during chronic exposure to heat-killed bacteria. Further, chronic food limitation and mating status did not affect T _pref or the expression of behavioural fever, suggesting limited context dependency of fever in G. texensis. Our meta-analysis of behavioural fever studies indicated that behavioural fever occurs in many insects, but it is not ubiquitous. Thus, both empirical and meta-analytical results suggest that the fever response in insects ‘is widespread, although certainly not inevitable’ (Moore 2002). We highlight the need for future work focusing on standardizing an experimental protocol to measure behavioural fever, understanding the specific mechanism(s) underlying fever in insects, and examining whether ecological or physiological costs often outweigh the benefits of fever and can explain the sporadic nature of fever in insects.     

Electrochemical and spectroscopic characteristics of dissolved organic matter in a forest soil profile

Dissolved organic matter （DOM） represents one of the most mobile and reactive organic compounds in ecosystem and plays an important role in the fate and transport of soil organic pollutants, nutrient cycling and more importantly global climate change. Electrochemical methods were first employed to evaluate DOM redox properties, and spectroscopic approaches were utilized to obtain information concerning its composition and structure. DOM was extracted from a forest soil profile with five horizons. Differential pulse voltammetry indicated that there were more redox-active moieties in the DOM from upper horizons than in that from lower horizons. Cyclic voltammetry further showed that these moieties were reversible in electron transfer. Chronoamperometry was employed to quantify the electron transfer capacity of DOM, including electron acceptor capacity and electron donor capacity, both of which decreased sharply with increasing depth. FT-IR, UV-Vis and fluorescence spectra results suggested that DOM from the upper horizons was enriched with aromatic and humic structures while that from the lower horizons was rich in aliphatic carbon, which supported the findings obtained by electrochemical approaches. Electrochemical approaches combined with spectroscopic methods were applied to evaluate the characteristics of DOM extracted along a forest soil profile. The electrochemical properties of DOM, which can be rapidly and simply obtained, provide insight into the migration and transformation of DOM along a soil profile and will aid in better understanding of the biogeochemical role of DOM in natural environments.     

Warm forming die design,part I: Experimental validation of a novel thermal finite element modeling code

Finite element analysis (FEA) has become an invaluable tool in the design of sheet metal stamping dies and processes. FEA has gained widespread acceptance as the best method of optimizing dies for conventional stamping processes. More recently, FEA has been shown to be an effective method of designing tooling for sheet forming processes. In this work, an FEA based approach is applied to the warm stamping (warm forming) process. This work introduces a new thermal finite element analysis software called PASSAGE®/Forming (PASSAGE) that enables the up-front design of the thermal management of warm forming dies. This thermal finite element analysis software is designed to specifically handle the forming and optimization scenarios related to the heating of a stamping die while minimizing user interface time. In this work, PASSAGE has been applied to a simple block of steel embedded with cartridge heaters to validate the prediction capability of this software under two different heating conditions. The results show that PASSAGE is capable of predicting the actual steady-state temperature distribution within the block with an acceptable level of accuracy while yielding notable information to the user with respect to specifying power requirements. A finite element software package like PASSAGE is a valuable tool that will aid greatly in the implementation of warm forming as a manufacturing process beyond the scope of the laboratory and into production.     

Application of CGP-cross route process for microstructure refinement and mechanical properties improvement in steel sheets

A modified method of severe plastic deformation (SPD) entitled constrained groove pressing-cross route (CGP-CR) was introduced for imposing a high magnitude of equivalent strain of about 2.32 per pass on the sheet form samples. The major benefit of this improved route compared to previous common route was the more homogeneity of strain in the rolling (RD) and transverse (TD) directions of sheets. In this study, low carbon steel samples were used for examination of evolutions in microstructure and mechanical properties during SPD via CGP-CR process. Mechanical properties improvement were measured by tensile and macro hardness tests. The results indicate that CGP-CR process can effectively improve tensile strength; and also, yield stress and hardness of as-received low carbon steel samples were improved up to about 100% after two deformation passes. Also, high magnitude of inhomogeneity can be observed in hardness distribution through first pass of the process which diminishes in the subsequent passes. Microstructural evolutions during process were monitored by optical microscopy observations and X-ray diffraction analysis. The results demonstrate that initial ferritic microstructure with grain size of about 30 μm was refined to a 225 nm cell structure after two passes of CGP-CR process.     

Presence of Torque Teno Virus (TTV) in Tap Water in Public Schools from Southern Brazil

Torque teno virus (TTV) was surveyed in tap water collected in schools from three municipalities located in the south of Brazil. TTV genomes were found in 11.7 % (4/34) of the samples. TTV DNA was detected in 10.5 % (2/19) of the samples collected at the city of Caxias do Sul and in 25 % (2/8) of the samples from Pelotas. Those cities have a low rate of sewage treatment. All samples from Santa Cruz do Sul, which has nearly 92 % of its sewage treated, were negative. These results suggest that the amount of sewage treated may have an effect on the detection rates of TTV DNA in drinking water in a given urban area, showing a mild negative correlation (r = ?0.76), when comparing the percentage of sewage treatment to the detection of TTV genomes. The detection rate of TTV was also compared with Escherichia coli, showing a strong correlation (r = 0.97), indicating that TTV may be a suitable marker of fecal contamination.     

浅析石化行业环境风险高发原因及对策建议

从"十一五"末至今,中国石化行业安全事故及环境风险事件频发,影响区域生态环境安全和人民群众健康。从产业布局来看,中国石化企业及与之相关的化工园区分布相对集中,主要布置在沿海沿江地区。中国石化行业目前存在的布局分散、单体规模小等突出问题,如不加控制,行业发展将面临更大的环境风险和环境污染问题。应开展全面梳理排查隐患,提高区域环境风险联防联控水平;大力支持集群化发展、淘汰落后产能,缓解结构性环境风险;统筹规划,优化布局,强化管理,广泛征求社会公众意见,以减缓石化行业的环境风险。     

多层次灰色综合评价法在企业清洁生产方案研选中的应用

针对国内清洁生产方案在选择过程中存在的主观性和不确定性,结合清洁生产审核中的实际问题,将层次分析法的思想融入灰色关联度分析法中,并结合某电镀厂筛选清洁生产方案的案例,对多层次灰色综合评价法模型的求解进行验证。通过验证证实了多层次灰色综合评价法能够解决多准则多方案选择过程中主观因素影响过大的问题,为清洁生产多方案的优选问题提供了科学合理的研究方法。     

Detection Method for Avian Influenza Viruses in Water

Recent events have shown that humans may become infected with some pathogenic avian influenza A viruses (AIV). Since soil and water, including lakes, rivers, and seashores, may be contaminated by AIV excreted by birds, effective methods are needed for monitoring water for emerging viruses. Combining water filtration with molecular methods such as PCR is a fast and effective way for detecting viruses. The objective of this study was to apply a convenient method for the detection of AIV in natural water samples. Distilled water and lake, river, and seawater were artificially contaminated with AIV (H5N3) and passed through a filter system. AIV was detected from filter membrane by real-time RT-PCR. The performance of Zetapor, SMWP, and Sartobind D5F membranes in recovering influenza viruses was first evaluated using contaminated distilled water. SWMP, which gave the highest virus recoveries, was then compared with a pre-filter combined GF/F filter membrane in a trial using natural water samples. In this study, the cellulose membrane SMWP was found to be practical for recovery of AIVs in water. Viral yields varied between 62.1 and 65.9% in distilled water and between 1 and 16.7% in natural water samples. The borosilicate glass membrane GF/F combined with pre-filter was also feasible in filtering natural water samples with viral yields from 1.98 to 7.33%. The methods described can be used for monitoring fresh and seawater samples for the presence of AIV and to determine the source of AIV transmission in an outbreak situation.     

Characterization of chlorine dioxide as disinfectant for the removal of low concentration microcystins

Microcystins, which represents one kind of cancerogenic organic compounds, is abundant in eutrophication water. The effects of reaction factors on chlorine dioxide (ClO₂) for removal of low-concentration Microcystin-LR, Microcystin-RR, and Microcystin-YR in water as well as the reaction mechanisms was investigated by using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) kit and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The results showed that MC-LR, MC-RR, and MC-YR could be efficiently decomposed by ClO₂. The degradation efficiency was shown positively correlated to the concentration of ClO₂ and reaction time; while the effect of reaction temperature and pH is slight. The kinetic constants and activation energies of the reaction of MC-LR, MC-RR, and MC-YR with ClO₂ are determined as 459.89, 583.15, 488.43 L·(mol·min)⁻¹ and 64.78, 53.01, 59.15 kJ·mol⁻¹, respectively. As indicated by high performance liquid chromatography mass spectrometer (HPLC-MS) analysis, degradation should be accomplished via destruction of Adda group by oxidation, with the formation of dihydroxy substituendums as end products. This study has provided a fundamental demonstration of ClO₂ serving as oxidizing disinfectant to eliminate microcystins from raw water source.