Rethinking assessment of success of mitigation strategies for elephant-induced crop damage

Crop damage is the most common impact of negative interactions between people and elephants and poses a significant threat to rural livelihoods and conservation efforts. Numerous approaches to mitigate and prevent crop damage have been implemented throughout Africa and Asia. Despite the documented high efficacy of many approaches, losses remain common, and in many areas, damage is intensifying. We examined the literature on effectiveness of crop-damage-mitigation strategies and identified key gaps in evaluations. We determined there is a need to better understand existing solutions within affected communities and to extend evaluations of effectiveness beyond measurement of efficacy to include rates of and barriers to adoption. We devised a conceptual framework for evaluating effectiveness that incorporates the need for increased emphasis on adoption and can be used to inform the design of future crop-damage mitigation assessments for elephants and conflict species more widely. The ability to prevent crop loss in practice is affected by both the efficacy of a given approach and rates of uptake among target users. We identified the primary factors that influence uptake as local attitudes, sustainability, and scalability and examined each of these factors in detail. We argue that even moderately efficacious interventions may make significant progress in preventing damage if widely employed and recommend that wherever possible scientists and practitioners engage with communities to build on and strengthen existing solutions and expertise. When new approaches are required, they should align with local attitudes and fit within limitations on labor, financial requirements, and technical capacity.     

Modeling of a sequencing batch reactor treating municipal wastewater using multi-layer perceptron and radial basis function artificial neural networks

A sequencing batch reactor was modeled using multi-layer perceptron and radial basis function artificial neural networks (MLPANN and RBFANN). Then, the effects of influent concentration (IC), filling time (FT), reaction time (RT), aeration intensity (AI), SRT and MLVSS concentration were examined on the effluent concentrations of TSS, TP, COD and NH₄⁺-N. The results showed that the optimal removal efficiencies would be obtained at FT of 1 h, RT of 6 h, aeration intensity of 0.88 m³/min and SRT of 30 days. In addition, COD and TSS removal efficiencies decreased and TP and NH₄⁺-N removal efficiencies did not change significantly with increases of influent concentration. The TSS, TP, COD and NH₄⁺-N removal efficiencies were 86%, 79%, 94% and 93%, respectively. The training procedures of all contaminants were highly collaborated for both RBFANN and MLPANN models. The results of training and testing data sets showed an almost perfect match between the experimental and the simulated effluent of TSS, TP, COD and NH₄⁺-N. The results indicated that with low experimental values of input data to train ANNs the MLPANN models compared to RBFANN models are more precise due to their higher coefficient of determination (R²) and lower root mean squared errors (RMSE) values.     

垃圾焚烧烟气中HCl与消石灰的反应机理研究

测试了两种消石灰与垃圾焚烧烟气中HCl的反应率,得出了消石灰的反应率与反应时间的反应曲线,分析了消石灰与HCl的反应机理及影响消石灰最终反应率的因素。试验结果表明,消石灰与HCl反应初期按灰层扩散控制进行,两种消石灰的最终反应率分别为16％和36％。     

Male-biassed response of garden chafer, Phyllopertha horticola L., to leaf alcohol and attraction of both sexes to floral plant volatiles

Summary. Field tests were performed to evaluate the response of the garden chafer, Phyllopertha horticola (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae) to known scarab attractants and to investigate the influence of trap colour and height on the number of captured beetles. Both sexes were attracted by a lure mixture composed of geraniol, eugenol, and 2-phenylethyl propionate (PEP) (ratio 3:7:3). When testing floral volatiles individually, only geraniol, eugenol and methyl anthranilate but not PEP was attractive. Response of garden chafer to (Z)- 3-hexen-1-ol was strongly male-biassed. Both the response to floral volatiles and (Z)-3-hexen-1-ol was increased by using funnel traps with yellow instead of grey vanes. Traps positioned at 50 and 125 cm above ground captured significantly more garden chafers than those at 200 cm. The strongly male-biassed response to (Z)-3-hexen-1-ol suggests that in P. horticola (subfamily Rutelinae) orientation towards plant volatiles emitted upon mechanical damage of plants is part of the male mate finding strategy as recently demonstrated for cockchafers of the genus Melolontha (subfamily Melolonthinae). Possible application of plant volatiles for control of P. horticola is discussed.     

Toxicological Assessment of Wastewater and Runoff from the Baikal Pulp and Paper Mill

Russian Journal of Ecology -     

电感耦合等离子体质谱法在环境监测中的应用

针对ICP-MS技术的使用特点及其近年来在环境监测领域的应用进行综合阐述，并对ICP-MS技术的发展前景作出简单的评述。     

硫化亚铁处理含砷废水中砷的形态变化

本文对用硫化亚铁处理含砷废水时，在气相、液相和固相中砷的形态进行了研究结果表明，在气相中无ＡａＨ３，但在Ａｓ（Ｖ）废水的液相中有Ａｓ（Ｖ）和Ａｓ（Ⅲ）共同存在，在固相中有Ａｓ（０），ＦｅＡｓＯ４（ＦｅＡｓＯ３），Ａｓ２Ｓ３（Ａｓ２Ｓ５）和吸附砷，砷的形态变化表明，硫化亚铁处理含砷废水能取得良好的效果，是沉淀、沉淀转化、氧化还原、吸附共沉淀和中和五种反应共同作用的结果。     

铁铜双金属有机骨架MIL-101(Fe,Cu)活化双氧水降解染料性能

针对非均相芬顿传质效率低和Fe（Ⅲ）Fe（Ⅱ）转化慢导致活性低等问题,采用溶剂热法制备铁铜双金属有机骨架材料[MIL-101（Fe,Cu）],并研究了材料界面性质、催化降解染料（亚甲基蓝）性能以及活化催化机制.结果表明,MIL-101（Fe,Cu）晶体结构完整且呈三维八面体形状;比表面积和平均孔径分别为667.2 m² ·g^-1和1.9 nm,可充分暴露反应活性位点.MIL-101（Fe,Cu）在广谱pH范围可活化H₂ O₂高效降解亚甲基蓝.当pH=5、反应20 min,MIL-101（Fe,Cu）/H₂ O₂对20 mg ·L^-1亚甲基蓝的去除率为100%,较MIL-101（Fe）/H₂O₂和单独H₂ O₂分别提高43.1%和88.9%.自由基猝灭实验与反应前后铁和铜价态变化结果表明,羟基自由基（·OH）是MIL-101（Fe,Cu）/H₂ O₂催化降解亚甲基蓝的主要活性物种;Cu（Ⅱ）掺杂引入新的活性位点,且Cu（Ⅱ）/Cu（Ⅰ）循环和Fe（Ⅲ）/Fe（Ⅱ）循环可协同产生·OH,进而提高催化效率.MIL-101（Fe,Cu）作为新型非均相类芬顿催化剂,无需复杂pH调节即可获得良好催化效果,在工业废水处理上具有较好地应用前景.     

MnO2/Al2O3催化剂-微气泡臭氧体系催化降解喹啉及其机理

制备了纳米MnO₂,并以Al₂O₃为载体制备了掺杂型MnO₂/Al₂O₃颗粒催化剂.催化剂焙烧温度和时间分别为500℃和4 h、MnO₂质量分数为8%时,催化剂具有最高的臭氧催化氧化活性.SEM分析表明,纳米MnO₂均匀分布于Al₂O₃载体表面.MnO₂/Al₂O₃催化剂的比表面积（BET）为183.22 m²·g^-1,平均孔容为0.27 cm³·g^-1,平均孔径为4.87 nm.建立了MnO₂/Al₂O₃催化剂-微气泡臭氧催化反应体系,研究了该体系对喹啉的降解去除效果及其机理.臭氧微气泡的平均粒径为61.7 μm.微气泡臭氧投量为30 mg·L^-1时,反应60 min后喹啉去除率能达到95%以上;反应20 min后,MnO₂/Al₂O₃催化剂-微气泡臭氧体系对实际煤化工废水二级出水的TOC去除率可达到55%以上.以叔丁醇作为分子探针,证明了羟基自由基（·OH）氧化作用在臭氧微气泡催化氧化体系中对喹啉的降解起到主导作用.     

亚氧化钛膜电极电化学特性及其处理印染工业废水的效能研究

电化学氧化法具有稳定高效、操作灵活、集成度高等特点,在处理难降解有机废水领域具有独特优势.电化学废水处理过程通常受限于传质速率,而膜电极有望解决这一瓶颈问题.亚氧化钛膜电极（TiSO-ME）的化学结构与电化学性质结果显示,经过高温还原法制备的TiSO-ME电极主要由Ti₄O₇和少量Ti₅O₉组成,大孔体积占总孔体积的92.7%,平均孔径为0.508 μm.电化学测试结果表明,TiSO-ME具有良好的导电性、高析氧电位和电化学稳定性.过滤试验结果表明,在0.82×10^-3~3.14×10^-3 mL·cm^-2·s^-1范围内膜通量与传质系数成正比.在电流密度为8 mA·cm^-2,膜通量为2.31×10^-3 mL·cm^-2·s^-1的条件下,电解1.5 h即可有效处理实际印染工业废水,sCOD去除率高达96.07%,电流效率可达24.22%,电能消耗较不存在膜通量时降低了32.99%.TiSO-ME能够实现废水在膜孔结构内部的穿流式操作,有效克服旁流式操作传质受限的问题,在小规模分散式工业废水处理中有着重要的研究价值和发展潜力.