Air quality in Yanbu, Saudi Arabia

Yanbu, on the Red Sea, is an affluent Saudi Arabian industrial city of modest size. Substantial effort has been spent to balance environmental quality, especially air pollution, and industrial development. We have analyzed six years of observations of criteria pollutants O3, SO2, particles (PM2.5 and PM10) and the known ozone precursors—volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and nitrogen oxides (NOx). The results suggest frequent VOC-limited conditions in which ozone concentrations increase with decreasing NOx and with increasing VOCs when NOx is plentiful. For the remaining circumstances ozone has a complex non-linear relationship with the VOCs. The interactions between these factors at Yanbu cause measurable impacts on air pollution including the weekend effect in which ozone concentrations stay the same or even increase despite significantly lower emissions of the precursors on the weekends. Air pollution was lower during the Eids (al-Fitr and al-Adha), Ramadan and the Hajj periods. During Ramadan, there were substantial night time emissions as the cycle everyday living is almost reversed between night and day. The exceedances of air pollution standards were evaluated using criteria from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), World Health Organization (WHO), the Saudi Presidency of Meteorology and Environment (PME) and the Royal Commission Environmental Regulations (RCER). The latter are stricter standards set just for Yanbu and Jubail. For the fine particles (PM2.5), an analysis of the winds showed a major impact from desert dust. This effect had to be taken into account but still left many occasions when standards were exceeded. Fewer exceedances were found for SO2, and fewer still for ozone. The paper presents a comprehensive view of air quality at this isolated desert urban environment

Antagonistic effects of Spirulina platensis on diazinon-induced hemato-biochemical alterations and oxidative stress in rats

International audienc

A review of Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy used in food adulteration and authenticity investigations

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.The increasing demand for food and the globalisation of the supply chain, have resulted in a rise in food fraud, and recent high profile cases, such as the Chinese milk scandal in 2008 and the EU horsemeat scandal in 2013 have emphasised the vulnerability of the food supply system to adulteration and authenticity frauds. Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy is routinely used in cases of suspected food fraud as it offers a rapid, easy and reliable detection method for these investigations. In this review we first present a brief summary of the concepts of food adulteration and authenticity as well as a discussion of the current legislation regarding these crimes. Thereafter, we give an extensive overview of FTIR as an analytical technique and the different foods where FTIR analysis has been employed for food fraud investigations as well as the subsequent multivariate data analysis have been applied successfully to investigate case of adulteration or authenticity. Finally, we give a critical discussion of the applications and limitations of FTIR, either as a standalone technique or incorporated in a test battery, in the fight against food fraud