A Tricky Fever of Unknown Origin after Tracheal Crash

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In vivo formation of natural HgSe nanoparticles in the liver and brain of pilot whales

Acknowledgments Z.G. thanks to the College of Physical Sciences at University of Aberdeen and Chevron USA for the provided studentship. P.M.K. is the recipient of an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship (FT120100277). Parts of this research were undertaken on the XFM beamline at the Australian Synchrotron, Victoria, Australia. The assistance of Daryl Howard (XFM beamline, Australian Synchrotron) is acknowledged. Although EPA contributed to this article, the research presented was not performed by or funded by EPA and was not subject to EPA's quality system requirements. Consequently, the views, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect or represent EPA's views or policies. MRCAT operations are supported by the Department of Energy and the MRCAT member institutions. This research used resources of the Advanced Photon Source, a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science User Facility operated for the DOE Office of Science by Argonne National Laboratory under Contract No. DE-AC02-06CH11357. The authors declare no competing financial interests. F.L.R. and A.B. acknowledge Scottish Marine Animal Stranding Scheme and Marine Scotland for funding. Author Contributions E.M.K and J.F. designed the experiments. Z.G. measured total Hg and conducted Hg speciation. Total Se was determined by A.R. and Z.G. M.M.L. performed Se speciation and 2D imaging by LA-ICP-MS was done by D.S.U. XANES was performed by K.S. and XRF by E.L. and P.M.K. Samples were obtained by E.M.K. through A.B. and age determination was done by F.R. spICP-MS was performed by E.H.L., K.L., G.W. and Z.G. The manuscript was written by Z.G. and all authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Identification of PCE plume source through the application of the integral pumping test method in the city of Fabriano

none3L. Alberti; S. Lombi; A. ZaniniAlberti, Luca; Lombi, Silvia; A., Zanin

Right ventricular reverse remodelling in Idiopathic Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension diagnosed during pregnancy: Is it possible?

We present a case of a 36-year-old woman who developed a severe form of Idiopathic Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension (IPAH) during pregnancy and after emergency delivery. The management of IPAH during or after pregnancy is complex. Due to the severity of her IPAH, an upfront triple combination therapy, including i.v. epoprostenol, was started. The rapid institution of this treatment regimen allowed a complete right ventricular reverse remodelling after 1 year of therapy, leading to a down-titration until complete suspension of epoprostenol from the treatment regimen

Leachability, bioaccessibility and plant availability of trace elements in contaminated soils treated with industrial by-products and subjected to oxidative/reductive conditions

Two industrial by products, red mud (RM) and aluminum-rich water treatment residue (Al-WTR) were used (2% w/w) for the immobilization of As, Cu and Pb in two polluted soils. Soil-1 was a mine contaminated soil (2428 As, 234 Cu and 559 Pb mg kg−1); Soil-2 was a chromated copper arsenate contaminated soil (860 and 1500 mg kg−1 of As and Cu respectively). Two different redox conditions (aerobic and 3 repeated reduction/oxidation cycles) were also applied. The immobilization of trace elements and their bioaccessibility were evaluated through a leaching test and simplified bioaccessibility extraction test (SBRC) respectively, whereas phytoavailability was assessed in pot trials with Lolium perenne. The RM addition increased the solubility of As and Pb, under both redox conditions, in Soil-1 with respect to untreated soil (i.e., + 40 and 38% respectively in RMsw-Soil-1 in aerobic condition). In Soil-2 Al-WTR was the amendment most efficient at decreasing As mobility (< 50% with respect to untreated soil). The high correlations detected between trace element mobility and dissolved organic carbon (DOC) suggests that As, Cu and Pb formed soluble organic complexes. The SBRC results suggested that this test was mainly affected by physical and chemical characteristics of soils, whereas trial pot showed that the treatments with RMsw and Al-WTR in aerobic condition were able to decrease the plant uptake of As by 34 and 57% in Soil-1, and by 88 and 87% in Soil-2. These treatments also reduced uptake of Cu from Soil-2 (by 68 and 86%) and of Pb from Soil-1 (by 52 and 34%). The results of this study show that the efficacy of the soil amendments is a complex function of soil conditions, source of contamination, and perhaps most importantly the environmental endpoint considered

FLOW MODELLING OF TICINO-ADDA BASIN FOR PREDICTION OF GROUNDWATER LEVELS IN CLIMATE CHANGE SCENARIOS

Undergoing climate change could affect substantially water resources in a long term period, not only for an overall drop of them, but for a different distribution of their availability during the hydrological season. Particularly irrigation systems could suffer of that problem, since they need water in specified seasons (springsummer) when usually it has a depletion. Storage of groundwater in aquifers in cold and wetter seasons, when cultivations don't need irrigation, could be used in order to soften irrigation systems water deficit in warmer and drier ones. Regional groundwater models have a key role in the management of groundwater resources, not only evaluating resource availability nowadays, but also predicting effects of management measures in different scenarios. The hydrogeological conceptual model of Ticino-Adda groundwater basin (having an extension of about 8000 km2 between Ticino and Adda river) was implemented based on a revision of the previous study on aquifers of the Lombardy region, conducted by ENI and Regione Lombardia. 87 hydrogeological cross-sections were used to build the bottom of the first 3 aquifers of the groundwater basin (Group Aquifer A, B and C) by means of a detailed database of hydrostratigraphic logs (about 15 thousands in the whole basin) from ARPA Lombardia. The conceptual model was the starting point for the implementation of a basin scale groundwater flow model (MODFLOW), whose steady-state calibration was performed by means of groundwater survey data conducted by Lombardy Region in May 2014 in 440 observation points in the 3 aquifers examined. Results of the calibration process point out a residual absolute mean scaled on observation range of about 4 %, suggesting a good accuracy. A pilot groundwater flow sub-model of about 255 km2 was then implemented in the north zone of Lodi Provincia, comprising a large part of the Consorzio Muzza Bassa Lodigiana irrigation district, in order to evaluate the quantity of groundwater resource in climate change and current climate scenarios. Using a down-scaled model (Quantile Mapping method) from the Regional Climate Model, predicted temperature and rainfall for the period 2071-2100 was obtained so that a transient model could be built to estimate change in groundwater resource availability. Furthermore, some analysis had made on the possible exploitation of the groundwater resource for the softening of irrigation deficit in the global warming scenario first implemente

Groundwater diffuse pollution in functional urban areas: The need to define anthropogenic diffuse pollution background levels

Groundwater status in highly urbanized areas is particularly affected by anthropogenic influence due to diffuse pollution deriving from many sources. This makes very often challenging to determine whether the observed groundwater conditions are the result of localized pollutant sources (PS-Point Sources). In the EU legislative framework it is accepted that, when Natural Background Levels (NBLs) of undesirable elements are proven to be higher than specific Groundwater Quality Standards (GQSs), NBLs should be assumed as GQSs. No procedure is instead defined when anthropogenic Diffuse Pollution Background levels (DBPLs) are higher than GQSs and make unfeasible any remediation strategy. Among the many contaminants affecting groundwater, the chlorinated solvents, tetrachloroethylene (PCE), trichloroethylene (TCE) and trichloromethane (TCM) among the organics and hexavalent chromium, among the inorganics, having been widely used in several industries all over Europe, are very often the most prevalent contaminants in soil and groundwater. Aim of this paper is to discuss a multivariate statistical approach to address the issue of identification of anthropogenic Diffuse Pollution Background Levels. With such aim, an area of about 1600 km2, including the Functional Urban Area of Milan, was considered and 10 independent geochemical datasets, provided by local and regional agencies, and covering the period 2003–2014 were merged into a single database after homogenization and multiple quality checks. A total of 618,258 chemical analyses from 3477 sampling wells were considered, being all samples collected and analyzed through internally consistent protocols. The analysis enabled to identify five main clusters, having specific hydrogeological characteristics, different temporal profiles and pollutant background concentration levels, which were also found to respond differently to meteo-climatic changes. This study offers a robust knowledge basis for drafting a diffuse pollution management plan of the area

The added value of right ventricular function normalized for afterload to improve risk stratification of patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension.

BackgroundRisk stratification is central to the management of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). For this purpose, multiparametric tools have been developed, including the ESC/ERS risk score and its simplified versions derived from large database analysis such as the COMPERA and the French Pulmonary Hypertension Network (FPHN) registries. However, the distinction between high and intermediate-risk profiles may be difficult as the latter lacks granularity. In addition, neither COMPERA or FPHN strategies included imaging-derived markers. We thus aimed at investigating whether surrogate echocardiographic markers of right ventricular (RV) to pulmonary artery (PA) coupling could improve risk stratification in patients at intermediate-risk.Material and methodsA single-center retrospective analysis including 102 patients with a diagnosis of PAH was performed. COMPERA and FPHN strategies were applied to stratify clinical risk. The univariate linear regression was used to test the influence of the echo-derived parameters qualifying the right heart (right ventricle basal diameter, right atrial area, and pressure, tricuspid regurgitation velocity, tricuspid annular plane systolic excursion -TAPSE-). Among these, the TAPSE and tricuspid regurgitation velocity ratio (TAPSE/TRV) as well as the TAPSE and systolic pulmonary artery pressure ratio (TAPSE/sPAP) were considered as surrogate of RV-PA coupling.ResultsTAPSE/TRV and TAPSE/sPAP resulted the more powerful markers of prognosis. Once added to COMPERA, TAPSE/TRV or TAPSE/sPAP significantly dichotomized intermediate-risk group in intermediate-to-low-risk (TAPSE/TRV≥3.74 mm∙nm/s)-1 or TAPSE/sPAP≥0.24 mm/mmHg) and in intermediate-to-high-risk subgroups (TAPSE/TRVConclusionsOur results suggest that adopting functional-hemodynamic echo-derived parameters may provide a more accurate risk stratification in patients with PAH. In particular, TAPSE/TRV or TAPSE/sPAP improved risk stratification in patients at intermediate-risk, that otherwise would have remained less characterized