Arsenic Contamination of Groundwater at the Middle Basin of Ganges in India

This paper shows the situation and mechanism of arsenic contamination of groundwater at the worst contaminated areas in UP (Uttar Pradesh) state, India, which is obtained from the integrated arsenic mitigation project by University of Miyazaki under the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Partnership Program (JPP). The project has been executed from 2008 until now. The integrated mitigation, such as the raising awareness of villager, installing of alternative water supply units and healthcare of arsenocosis patients, have been executed at the 2 villages. The symptom of the arsenocosis patients was not so severe, which will be, therefore, improved by drinking arsenic-safe water supplied through arsenic removal units, installed by this project. We have obtained following results for the situation and mechanism of arsenic contamination of groundwater, objected in connection with the installation of arsenic removal units:(1) Groundwater is almost contaminated with arsenic in deep tubewell (depth: about 30m), but scarcely in shallow tubewell (depth: about 10m). (2) Arsenic contaminated groundwater is under the reduced condition with the oxidized condition for no-arsenic contaminated groundwater. (3) Arsenic concentration shows almost linear correlation with concentrations of Fe2+ and NH4+-N. (4) Ground is composed of sand with high arsenic content at around 25m depth. (5) Arsenic exists mainly in the phase of reducible fraction or weak acid soluble fraction but no oxidizable fraction in the ground

Physical activity and sedentary behavior assessment: A laboratory-based evaluation of agreement between commonly used actigraph and omron accelerometers

Different models of accelerometer have the potential to provide a different estimate of the same physical activity or sedentary behavior. Our study compared the outputs of the Active Style Pro (ASP) and ActiGraph (AG) devices in assessing predicted metabolic equivalents (METs) for specific activities under laboratory conditions. Thirty healthy young adults wore two hip accelerometers (ASP and AG), simultaneously while performing twenty-two activities (eight sedentary, eight household, and six ambulatory activities) in a controlled laboratory setting. For the AG, predicted METs for each activity was calculated using four equations based on vertical-axis and vector magnitude data. Separate paired t-tests and Bland–Altman analysis examined the difference and agreement in METs between AG using four commonly used equations and ASP measurements for each activity. AG devices using different equations calculated significantly different outcomes for most activities compared with ASP devices. The smallest differences in predicted METs estimates between ASP and AG were observed for ambulatory activities. Ambulatory activities demonstrated the best agreement between ASP and AG regardless of which AG equation was used. Our findings can be used to assist researchers in their selection of accelerometer and output estimation equations for measuring physical activity and sedentary behavior in adults

Comparability of activity monitors used in Asian and Western-country studies for assessing free-living sedentary behaviour

This study aims to compare the outputs of the waist-worn Active style Pro HJA-350IT (ASP; used in studies with Asian populations), the waist-worn ActiGragh™GT3X+ using the normal filter (GT3X+) and the thigh-worn activPAL3 (AP) in assessing adults’ sedentary behaviour (total sedentary time, number of breaks) under free-living conditions. Fifty healthy workers wore the three monitors simultaneously during their waking hours on two days, including a work day and a non-work day. Valid data were at least 10 hours of wearing time, and the differences between monitors on the sedentary outputs using the AP as criterion measurement were analyzed by ANOVA. The number of participants who had complete valid data for work day and non-work day was 47 and 44, respectively. Total sedentary time and breaks estimated by the AP were respectively 466.5 ± 146.8 min and 64.3 ± 24.9 times on the work day and 497.7 ± 138.3 min and 44.6 ± 15.4 times on the non-work day. In total sedentary time, the ASP estimated 29.7 min (95%CI = 7.9 to 51.5) significantly shorter than the AP on the work day but showed no significant difference against the AP on the non-work day. The GT3X+ estimated 80.1 min (54.6 to 105.6) and 52.3 (26.4 to 78.2) significantly longer than the AP on the work day and the non-work day, respectively. For the number of breaks from sedentary time, on both days, the ASP and the GT3X+ estimated significantly more than the AP: 14.1 to 15.8 times (6.3 to 22.5) for the ASP and 27.7 to 28.8 times (21.8 to 34.8) for the GT3X+. Compared to the AP as the criterion, the ASP can underestimate total sedentary time and the GT3X+ can overestimate it, and more so at the lower levels of sedentary time. For breaks from sedentary time, compared to the AP, both the GT3X+ the ASP can overestimate