Removal of steroid oestrogens in wastewater treatment

Intersex in river fish has been associated with unbiodegraded oestrogens in sewage treatment works (STW) effluents, leading to the proposal that they be regulated by Environmental Quality Standard. Previous literature indicated trickling filters (TF) were not as good as the activated sludge process (ASP) at removing steroid oestrogens. TF were more sustainable than ASP and there are more of them in the UK. One aim of this project was to investigate the performance of TF at removing these oestrogens. The removals of oestrone (E1), 17-β-oestradiol (E2) and 17-α-ethinyl oestradiol (EE2) by a well-controlled pilot-scale trickling filter were 41%–59% for once-through filtration. [Continues.

Bivariate correlations and descriptive statistics for manifest variables in (mostly) wave 1.

<p>Bivariate correlations and descriptive statistics for manifest variables in (mostly) wave 1.</p

Zika-related media coverage and information search in early 2016.

<p>Google Trends is a public web facility that shows how frequently a search-term is entered relative to the total search-volume for that term in specifiable regions of the world. Fig 1 shows the results for the “Zika” in the U.S. during the period January 1 to March 31. Similar to the newspaper data, the Internet search results show spikes of activity just before and after the WHO declaration of crisis. As with the news coverage data, search behavior shows a general downward trend over the time period of interest, but one that is marked by considerable fluctuation around the overall direction. Together the two data displays make the case that the media environment during early 2016 was both dynamic and highly variable. This was the context in which our study of Zika-related fear took place.</p

Final model with standardized regression weights.

<p>Not shown are correlations among the exogenous variables, correlations among the disturbance terms, or correlated item residuals across waves. *<i>p</i> < .05. ** <i>p</i> < .01. *** <i>p</i> < .001.</p

The initial model.

<p>Not shown are the correlations among the exogenous variables and the correlated item residuals across waves.</p

The confronting challenges and our planned solutions.

The confronting challenges and our planned solutions.</p

The prediction results of different structural BPNN models for quantitative analysis of the library book borrowing record data.

The prediction results of different structural BPNN models for quantitative analysis of the library book borrowing record data.</p

The BSF probability distribution on information entropy.

The BSF probability distribution on information entropy.</p

Counts of the domestic and foreign book borrowing records classified by CLC catalogue.

Counts of the domestic and foreign book borrowing records classified by CLC catalogue.</p

Inner and inter population structure construction of Chinese Jiangsu Han population based on Y23 STR system

<div><p>In this study, we analyzed the genetic polymorphisms of 23 Y-STR loci from PowerPlex^® Y23 system in 916 unrelated healthy male individuals from Chinese Jiangsu Han, and observed 912 different haplotypes including 908 unique haplotypes and 4 duplicate haplotypes. The haplotype diversity reached 0.99999 and the discrimination capacity and match probability were 0.9956 and 0.0011, respectively. The gene diversity values ranged from 0.3942 at DYS438 to 0.9607 at DYS385a/b. Population differentiation within 10 Jiangsu Han subpopulations were evaluated by R_ST values and visualized in Neighbor-Joining trees and Multi-Dimensional Scaling plots as well as population relationships between the Jiangsu Han population and other 18 Eastern Asian populations. Such results indicated that the 23 Y-STR loci were highly polymorphic in Jiangsu Han population and played crucial roles in forensic application as well as population genetics. For the first time, we reported the genetic diversity of male lineages in Jiangsu Han population at a high-resolution level of 23 Y-STR set and consequently contributed to familial searching, offender tracking, and anthropology analysis of Jiangsu Han population.</p></div