THE POTENTIAL OF TWO WILLOWS GENOTYPES FOR RADIONUCLIDE AND HEAVY METALS ACCUMULATION. A CASE STUDY OF ROVINARI COAL ASH POND (GORJ COUNTY, ROMANIA)

Pollution is one of the biggest environmental problems and heavy metals or radionuclides contributed to this. A high amount of heavy metals and radionuclides are found in ash produced by Thermo Electric Power Plants (TEPP). Normally, a mixture made by the ash and water is stored in coal ash pond but sometimes, because the warm weather this is dried and spread by wind it in the surrounded area. One way to manage contaminated land is afforestation. In this respect, experimental trials were established on a coal ash pond, on the prepared and unprepared field. Biological material was represented through common osier willow (cuttings) and white willow (whips and cuttings). Biometrical observations were performed as well as biomass estimation. In order to assess the capacity of willow species (Salix alba and Salix viminalis) to accumulate heavy metals and radionuclides, soil and leaves analyses were performed. The concentration of heavy metals in soil was determined in the rhizosphere horizon (5-20 cm) at the beginning of the experiment and 4 years later, through atomic mass spectrometry, and the radionuclide`s activity through gamma spectrometry (Duggan method). The bioactive substances synthesized in leaf cells and the presences of some metabolic structures have been highlighted. Research has shown intense metabolic activity in foliar parenchyma cells and underlines the resistance and adaptation in the presence of a high amount of radionuclides and heavy metals

THE EFFECT OF TiO2 NANOPARTICLES (DOPED OR NOT WITH Ag, ENCAPSULATED OR NOT IN LYPOSOMES), ON THE SPLEEN ULTRASTRUCTURE IN Mus musculus SPECIES, EXPOSED AT A STRESS FACTOR X-RAYS

The present experiment was performed on young females of Mus musculus, 22-24 g each, intraperitoneal injected with a suspension of titanium dioxide (five injections of 0.5 ml each, one at two days, with 0.01% TiO2 or TiO2-Ag suspension). The TiO2 nanoparticles of anatase crystallization form, 10-20 nm size, wereconjugated or not with 1% Ag, encapsulated or not in lyposome. A day after the third injection, half of theanimals received a sublethal dose of X-rays (2.58 Gy; the stress factor). A day after the last injection, the animals were sacrificed through the section of thecarotid artery. Ultrastructural investigations were performed at the spleen level. The analysis of the ultrastructural features from the spleen level enabledthe following observations: the single action of the TiO2 or TiO2-Ag nanoparticles induced an inflammatory process, but in the presence of X-rays, they manifested a slight protective effect; the TiO2-Ag nanoparticles, encapsulated in liposome, manifested a strong radioprotective effect, but the endocapsulation process is not optimal and has to be improved; the presence of a protective effect at the spleen level can suggest that the TiO2-Ag nanoparticles can be used to enhance the organism resistance in case of carcinogenic treatment (in animal or in homo)

Ex situ BEHAVIOUR OF SOME OAT (Avena sativa L.) LANDRACES COLLECTED FROM A POLLUTED AREA IN THE MIDDLE JIU RIVER BASIN (GORJ DISTRICT)

Avena sativa is a specie which can be cultivated on soils with a high amount of heavy metals or with some radionuclids, it being phytoextractive for some elements (zinc, copper, cadmium, uranium, a/o). On the sterile waste dumps from the middle Jiu river basin (Gorj district), and on neighbour area, this species is cultivated more than 20 years ago. The landraces of Avena sativa present adaptation at the presence in soil of a high content in heavy metals and/or radionuclides. From the population farmsteads situated in this area, were harvested 23 landraces of Avena sativa, which were cultivated ex situ in the Experimental Research Station of USAMVB-Timişoara (Timiş district). The analysis of the main quantitative features of these landraces, in comparison with Mureş sort (Control), point out significant differences (notable in some cases), which underlined the variability in this species and the adaptation to environmental conditions. The best oat genotypes, can be used further in a breeding program, in order to obtain for culture on the degraded soils (with a high content in heavy metals and radionuclides), the most proper sorts

THE EFFECT OF RADIONUCLIDES AND HEAVY METALS ON THE ULTRASTRUCTURAL FEATURES OF LEAVES IN HELIANTHUS ANNUUS

The ultrastructural features of the leaf in mature plants of Helianthus annuus (during flowering), cultivated in three different areas: in normal culture (Floresti village, Cluj district) and in cultures on sites polluted with heavy metals and radionuclides: (a) near the power station Turceni and (b) on sterile waste dump in the Pedological Research Station of Rovinari (Gorj district), were analyzed. The soil analysis in the three sites showed a higher content in radionuclides and heavy metals, especially on the soil from Turceni, as compared to Control. The ultrastructural analysis pointed out the effect of the presence of high amounts of radionuclides and heavy metals, as well as the plant reaction: the parietal disposition of the heterochromatin in the nucleus in the shape of bodyguard, synthesis and accumulation of some substances (probably with antioxidant or chelating role) in vacuoles, which interacted with exogenous particles, a/

ChaLearn LAP 2016: First Round Challenge on First Impressions - Dataset and Results

This paper summarizes the ChaLearn Looking at People 2016 First Impressions challenge data and results obtained by the teams in the first round of the competition. The goal of the competition was to automatically evaluate five “apparent” personality traits (the so-called “Big Five”) from videos of subjects speaking in front of a camera, by using human judgment. In this edition of the ChaLearn challenge, a novel data set consisting of 10,000 shorts clips from YouTube videos has been made publicly available. The ground truth for personality traits was obtained from workers of Amazon Mechanical Turk (AMT). To alleviate calibration problems between workers, we used pairwise comparisons between videos, and variable levels were reconstructed by fitting a Bradley-Terry-Luce model with maximum likelihood. The CodaLab open source platform was used for submission of predictions and scoring. The competition attracted, over a period of 2 months, 84 participants who are grouped in several teams. Nine teams entered the final phase. Despite the difficulty of the task, the teams made great advances in this round of the challenge

Reading Scepticism Historically. Scepticism, Acatalepsia and the Fall of Adam in Francis Bacon

The first part of this paper will provide a reconstruction of Francis Bacon’s interpretation of Academic scepticism, Pyrrhonism, and Dogmatism, and its sources throughout his large corpus. It shall also analyze Bacon’s approach against the background of his intellectual milieu, looking particularly at Renaissance readings of scepticism as developed by Guillaume Salluste du Bartas, Pierre de la Primaudaye, Fulke Greville, and John Davies. It shall show that although Bacon made more references to Academic than to Pyrrhonian Scepticism, like most of his contemporaries, he often misrepresented and mixed the doctrinal components of both currents. The second part of the paper shall offer a complete chronological survey of Bacon’s assessment of scepticism throughout his writings. Following the lead of previous studies by other scholars, I shall support the view that, while he approved of the state of doubt and the suspension of judgment as a provisional necessary stage in the pursuit of knowledge, he rejected the notion of acatalepsia. To this received reading, I shall add the suggestion that Bacon’s criticism of acatalepsia ultimately depends on his view of the historical conditions that surround human nature. I deal with this last point in the third part of the paper, where I shall argue that Bacon’s evaluation of scepticism relied on his adoption of a Protestant and Augustinian view of human nature that informed his overall interpretation of the history of humanity and nature, including the sceptical schools

Comparison of some morpho-anatomical features at fossil vegetal species and their actual correspondent species

The values of some morpho-anatomical features (the size and shape of the epidermic cells of the leaves, as well as the size and features of the stomata) recorded in some fossil vegetal species and their actual correspondent species were analysed. These differences offer information about the evolution process. In the case of the analysed species (Ginkgo sp., Taxus sp., Magnolia sp. and Buxus sempervirens), two hypotheses concerning the genetic mechanisms involved in evolution and in the speciation processes or in the adaptation to the environmental conditions can be considered. These genetic mechanisms are: the multiplication of genomes and the process of gene amplification. They both result in an increase in epidermic cells and stomata size, as well as in the enzymatic activity, which determines a better adaptation to the environmental conditions, as well as to the settlement of the speciation process

Comparison of some morpho-anatomical features at fossil vegetal species and their actual correspondent species

The values of some morpho-anatomical features (the size and shape of the epidermic cells of the leaves, as well as the size and features of the stomata) recorded in some fossil vegetal species and their actual correspondent species were analysed. These differences offer information about the evolution process. In the case of the analysed species (Ginkgo sp., Taxus sp., Magnolia sp. and Buxus sempervirens), two hypotheses concerning the genetic mechanisms involved in evolution and in the speciation processes or in the adaptation to the environmental conditions can be considered. These genetic mechanisms are: the multiplication of genomes and the process of gene amplification. They both result in an increase in epidermic cells and stomata size, as well as in the enzymatic activity, which determines a better adaptation to the environmental conditions, as well as to the settlement of the speciation process