The accessibility to clean water is essential for humans, yet nearly 250 million people die yearly due to contamination by cholera, dysentery, arsenicosis, hepatitis A, polio, typhoid fever, schistosomiasis, malaria, and lead poisoning, according to the World Health Organization. Therefore, advanced materials and techniques are needed to remove contaminants. Here, we review nanohybrids combining conducting polymers and zinc oxide for the photocatalytic purification of waters, with focus on in situ polymerization, template synthesis, sol–gel method, and mixing of semiconductors. Advantages include less corrosion of zinc oxide, less charge recombination and more visible light absorption, up to 53%.
Environmental Fluid Mechanics - The blockage of weirs or bridges by in-stream wood can reduce the flood discharge capacity, leading to hazardous situations. To assess the related risk, blocking... 相似文献
The analysis for arsenic in hair is commonly used in epidemiological studies to assess exposure to this toxic element. However, poor correlation between total arsenic concentration in hair and water sources have been found in previous studies. Exclusive determination of endogenous arsenic in the hair, excluding external contamination has become an analytical challenge. Arsenic speciation in hair appears as a new possibility for analytical assessing in As-exposure studies. This study applied a relative simple method for arsenic speciation in human hair based on water extraction and HPLC-HG-ICP-MS. The concentration of arsenic species in human hair was assessed in chronically As(V)-exposed populations from two villages (Esqui?a and Illapata) of the Atacama Desert, Chile. The arsenic concentrations in drinking water are 0.075 and 1.25 mg L(-1), respectively, where As(V) represented between 92 and 99.5% of the total arsenic of the consumed waters. On average, the total arsenic concentrations in hair from individuals of Esqui?a and Illapata were 0.7 and 6.1 microg g(-1), respectively. Four arsenic species, As(III), DMA(V), MMA(V) and As(V), were detected and quantified in the hair extracts. Assuming the found species in extracts represent the species in hair, more than 98% of the total arsenic in hair corresponded to inorganic As. On average, As(III) concentrations in hair were 0.25 and 3.75 microg g(-1) in Esqui?a and Illapata, respectively; while, the As(V) average concentrations were 0.15 and 0.45 microg g(-1) in Esqui?a and Illapata, respectively. Methylated species represent less than 2% of the extracted As (DMA(V)+ MMA(V)) in both populations. As(III) in hair shows the best correlation with chronic exposure to As(V) in comparison to other species and total arsenic. In fact, concentrations of As(total), As(III) and As(V) in hair samples are correlated with the age of the exposed individuals from Illapata (R= 0.65, 0.69, 0.57, respectively) and with the time of residence in this village (R= 0.54, 0.71 and 0.58, respectively). 相似文献
Physiological responses of Mytilus chilensis exposed to the toxic dinoflagellate Alexandrium catenella were measured over 21 days in the laboratory and were compared with control mussels not exposed to the dinoflagellate. Mussels
were collected from culturing ropes at Yaldad Bay, southern Chile (43o08′S 73o44′W), in August 2004 and acclimated to laboratory
conditions for one week prior to the experiment. After 8 days, the paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP) toxins (i.e. saxitoxin)
in the tissues of exposed mussels exceeded safe levels for human consumption. Clearance rates, ingestion of organic matter,
and absorption efficiency of exposed mussels were significantly lower than those of controls on day 0, but this was followed
by an increase on day 3. The exposed mussels also increased their excretion rate over time, and this increase was significantly
correlated with the accumulation of PSP toxins in their tissues. Oxygen consumption was not affected by the PSP toxins. The
scope for growth (SFG) on day 0 was negative in exposed mussels, but it increased during the experiment. Although feeding
activity and absorption efficiency were adversely affected during the first few days of exposure to PSP toxins from A. catenella in the laboratory, the M. chilensis cultured in Yaldad Bay may have evolved mechanisms that allow them to exploit the toxic dinoflagellate as a food source. 相似文献
In Portugal, due to the combination of climatological and ecological factors, large wildfires are a constant threat and due
to their economic impact, a big policy issue. In order to organize efficient fire fighting capacity and resource management,
correct quantification of the risk of large wildfires are needed. In this paper, we quantify the regional risk of large wildfire
sizes, by fitting a Generalized Pareto distribution to excesses over a suitably chosen high threshold. Spatio-temporal variations
are introduced into the model through model parameters with suitably chosen link functions. The inference on these models
are carried using Bayesian Hierarchical Models and Markov chain Monte Carlo methods. 相似文献
In this paper we make use of some stochastic volatility models to analyse the behaviour of a weekly ozone average measurements
series. The models considered here have been used previously in problems related to financial time series. Two models are
considered and their parameters are estimated using a Bayesian approach based on Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods.
Both models are applied to the data provided by the monitoring network of the Metropolitan Area of Mexico City. The selection
of the best model for that specific data set is performed using the Deviance Information Criterion and the Conditional Predictive
Ordinate method. 相似文献
Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Cadmium (Cd) is known for its many toxic effects on male population such as hypogonadism and fertility difficulties, which are oftenly associated with... 相似文献
We present a new methodology for database-driven ecosystem model generation and apply the methodology to the world's 66 currently defined Large Marine Ecosystems. The method relies on a large number of spatial and temporal databases, including FishBase, SeaLifeBase, as well as several other databases developed notably as part of the Sea Around Us project. The models are formulated using the freely available Ecopath with Ecosim (EwE) modeling approach and software. We tune the models by fitting to available time series data, but recognize that the models represent only a first-generation of database-driven ecosystem models. We use the models to obtain a first estimate of fish biomass in the world's LMEs. The biggest hurdles at present to further model development and validation are insufficient time series trend information, and data on spatial fishing effort. 相似文献