4,646 research outputs found
A year-long study of the occurrence and risk of over 140 contaminants of emerging concern in wastewater influent, effluent and receiving waters in the Republic of Ireland
Despite being a developed country in the European Union (EU), knowledge of the nature and extent of contamination of water bodies with contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) in Ireland is limited. In this study, >140 CECs including pharmaceuticals, pesticides and personal care products were monitored in monthly samples of wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) influent, effluent and receiving surface waters at both an urban and a rural location (72 samples in total) in Ireland over a 12-month period in 2018-2019. In total, 58 CECs were detected, including several EU Water Framework Directive Watch List compounds. Of all classes, the highest concentrations were measured for pharmaceuticals across all media, i.e., propranolol in surface waters (134 ng·L-1), hydrochlorothiazide in effluent (1067 ng·L-1) and venlafaxine in influent wastewater (8273 ng·L-1). Overall, high wastewater treatment removal was observed and a further reduction in CEC occurrence and concentration was measured via dilution in the receiving river environment. Lastly, an environmental risk assessment (ERA) was performed using risk quotients (RQ), which revealed that in surface waters, total RQ for all CECs was an order of magnitude lower than in effluents. The majority of CECs in surface waters posed a lower risk except E2 and EE2 which presented a medium risk (RQs of 3.5 and 1.1, respectively) in the rural area. This work represents the most comprehensive CEC monitoring dataset to date for Ireland which allowed for an ERA prioritisation to be performed for the first time
In Memoriam: Daniel J. Meltzer
Sedan Ă„r 2006 har den syntetiskt framstĂ€llda drogen spice existerat i Sverige, men först Ă„r 2008 blev drogen populĂ€r och tidningar började rikta uppmĂ€rksamhet mot den. Genom att drogen kan byta skepnad i uppbyggnaden kan den förbli laglig, dĂ€rför kan egentligen namnet âspiceâ inte betraktas som ett enhetligt begrepp. VĂ„rt syfte med denna studie blev att granska hur drogen spice beskrivs i tidningar och forskning. Ăven hur drogen betraktas gĂ€llande psykosociala och medicinska avseenden. Detta i förhĂ„llande till socialkonstruktivistiskt perspektiv. Den metod som vi valde att anvĂ€nda oss av i studien var kvantitativ innehĂ„llsanalys. Genom analys av 80 stycken svenska tidningsartiklar hĂ€mtade ur databasen mediearkivet, samt vetenskapliga artiklar och litteratur har vi besvarat vĂ„ra frĂ„gestĂ€llningar. De resultat vi fick frĂ„n analyser visade pĂ„ att tidningar kan vara av betydande roll för ungdomars attityder. Tidningar kan utföra bland annat skrĂ€mselpropaganda för att upplysa och förhindra brukandet av spice, dessvĂ€rre visar resultatet en motsatt effekt. Forskning visar att bruk av spice kan pĂ„verka relationer och arbete negativt. Dessutom Ă€r nĂ„gra bieffekter av spice bröstsmĂ€rtor, vanförestĂ€llningar, sjĂ€lvmordstankar och hjĂ€rtstopp
Adaptive estimation in circular functional linear models
We consider the problem of estimating the slope parameter in circular
functional linear regression, where scalar responses Y1,...,Yn are modeled in
dependence of 1-periodic, second order stationary random functions X1,...,Xn.
We consider an orthogonal series estimator of the slope function, by replacing
the first m theoretical coefficients of its development in the trigonometric
basis by adequate estimators. Wepropose a model selection procedure for m in a
set of admissible values, by defining a contrast function minimized by our
estimator and a theoretical penalty function; this first step assumes the
degree of ill posedness to be known. Then we generalize the procedure to a
random set of admissible m's and a random penalty function. The resulting
estimator is completely data driven and reaches automatically what is known to
be the optimal minimax rate of convergence, in term of a general weighted
L2-risk. This means that we provide adaptive estimators of both the slope
function and its derivatives
Effect of anisotropy and destructuration on behavior of Haarajoki test embankment
This paper investigates the influence of anisotropy and destructuration on the behavior of Haarajoki test embankment, which was built by the Finnish National Road Administration as a noise barrier in 1997 on a soft clay deposit. Half of the embankment is constructed on an area improved with prefabricated vertical drains, while the other half is constructed on the natural deposit without any ground improvement. The construction and consolidation of the embankment is analyzed with the finite-element method using three different constitutive models to represent the soft clay. Two recently proposed constitutive models, namely S-CLAY1 which accounts for initial and plastic strain induced anisotropy, and its extension, called S-CLAY1S which accounts, additionally, for interparticle bonding and degradation of bonds, were used in the analysis. For comparison, the problem is also analyzed with the isotropic modified cam clay model. The results of the numerical analyses are compared with the field measurements. The simulations reveal the influence that anisotropy and destructuration have on the behavior of an embankment on soft clay
Chiral molecules split light: Reflection and refraction in a chiral liquid
A light beam changes direction as it enters a liquid at an angle from another
medium, such as air. Should the liquid contain molecules that lack mirror
symmetry, then it has been predicted by Fresnel that the light beam will not
only change direction, but will actually split into two separate beams with a
small difference in the respective angles of refraction. Here we report the
observation of this phenomenon. We also demonstrate that the angle of
reflection does not equal the angle of incidence in a chiral medium. Unlike
conventional optical rotation, which depends on the path-length through the
sample, the reported reflection and refraction phenomena arise within a few
wavelengths at the interface and thereby suggest a new approach to polarimetry
that can be used in microfluidic volumes
Assessing the reliability of uptake and elimination kinetics modelling approaches for estimating bioconcentration factors in the freshwater invertebrate, Gammarus pulex
This study considers whether the current standard toxicokinetic methods are an accurate and applicable assessment of xenobiotic exposure in an aquatic freshwater invertebrate. An in vivo exposure examined the uptake and elimination kinetics for eight pharmaceutical compounds in the amphipod crustacean, Gammarus pulex by measuring their concentrations in both biological material and in the exposure medium over a 96 h period. Selected pharmaceuticals included two anti-inflammatories (diclofenac and ibuprofen), two beta-blockers (propranolol and metoprolol), an anti-depressant (imipramine), an anti-histamine (ranitidine) and two beta-agonists (formoterol and terbutaline). Kinetic bioconcentration factors (BCFs) for the selected pharmaceuticals were derived from a first-order one-compartment model using either the simultaneous or sequential modelling methods. Using the simultaneous method for parameter estimation, BCF values ranged from 12 to 212. In contrast, the sequential method for parameter estimation resulted in bioconcentration factors ranging from 19 to 4533. Observed toxicokinetic plots showed statistically significant lack-of-fits and further interrogation of the models revealed a decreasing trend in the uptake rate constant over time for rantidine, diclofenac, imipramine, metoprolol, formoterol and terbutaline. Previous published toxicokinetic data for 14 organic micro-pollutants were also assessed and similar trends were identified to those observed in this study. The decreasing trend of the uptake rate constant over time highlights the need to interpret modelled data more comprehensively to ensure uncertainties associated with uptake and elimination parameters for determining bioconcentration factors are minimised
Comment on "On the importance of the free energy for elasticity under pressure"
Marcus et al. (Marcus P, Ma H and Qiu S L 2002 J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 14
L525) claim that thermodynamic properties of materials under pressure must be
computed using the Gibbs free energy , rather than the internal energy .
Marcus et al. state that ``The minima of , but not of , give the
equilibrium structure; the second derivatives of , but not of , with
respect to strains at the equilibrium structure give the equilibrium elastic
constants.'' Both statements are incorrect.Comment: Commen
Two remarks on generalized entropy power inequalities
This note contributes to the understanding of generalized entropy power
inequalities. Our main goal is to construct a counter-example regarding
monotonicity and entropy comparison of weighted sums of independent identically
distributed log-concave random variables. We also present a complex analogue of
a recent dependent entropy power inequality of Hao and Jog, and give a very
simple proof.Comment: arXiv:1811.00345 is split into 2 papers, with this being on
Theoretical Properties of Projection Based Multilayer Perceptrons with Functional Inputs
Many real world data are sampled functions. As shown by Functional Data
Analysis (FDA) methods, spectra, time series, images, gesture recognition data,
etc. can be processed more efficiently if their functional nature is taken into
account during the data analysis process. This is done by extending standard
data analysis methods so that they can apply to functional inputs. A general
way to achieve this goal is to compute projections of the functional data onto
a finite dimensional sub-space of the functional space. The coordinates of the
data on a basis of this sub-space provide standard vector representations of
the functions. The obtained vectors can be processed by any standard method. In
our previous work, this general approach has been used to define projection
based Multilayer Perceptrons (MLPs) with functional inputs. We study in this
paper important theoretical properties of the proposed model. We show in
particular that MLPs with functional inputs are universal approximators: they
can approximate to arbitrary accuracy any continuous mapping from a compact
sub-space of a functional space to R. Moreover, we provide a consistency result
that shows that any mapping from a functional space to R can be learned thanks
to examples by a projection based MLP: the generalization mean square error of
the MLP decreases to the smallest possible mean square error on the data when
the number of examples goes to infinity
Microscopic elasticity of complex systems
Lecture Notes for the Erice Summer School 2005 Computer Simulations in
Condensed Matter: from Materials to Chemical Biology. Perspectives in
celebration of the 65th Birthday of Mike Klein organized by Kurt Binder,
Giovanni Ciccotti and Mauro Ferrari
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