Human intake fraction of toxic pollutants: a model comparison between caltox and uses-lca

In Life Cycle Assessment and Comparative Risk Assessment potential human exposure to toxic pollutants can be expressed as the human intake fraction (iF), representing the fraction of the quantity emitted that enters the human population. To assess model uncertainty in the human intake fraction, ingestion and inhalation iFs of 367 substances emitted to air and freshwater were calculated with two commonly applied multi-media fate and exposure models, CalTOX and USES-LCA. Comparison of the model outcomes reveal that uncertainty in the ingestion iFs was up to a factor of 70. The uncertainty in the inhalation iFs was up to a factor of 865,000. The comparison showed that relatively few model differences account for the uncertainties found. An optimal model structure in the calculation of human intake fractions can be achieved by including (1) rain and no-rain scenarios, (2) a continental sea water compartment, (3) drinking water purification, (4) pH-correction of chemical properties, and (5) aerosol-associated deposition on plants. Finally, vertical stratification of the soil compartment combined with a chemical-dependent soil depth may be considered in future intake fraction calculations

Human intake fraction of toxic pollutants: a model comparison between caltox and uses-lca

In Life Cycle Assessment and Comparative Risk Assessment potential human exposure to toxic pollutants can be expressed as the human intake fraction (iF), representing the fraction of the quantity emitted that enters the human population. To assess model uncertainty in the human intake fraction, ingestion and inhalation iFs of 367 substances emitted to air and freshwater were calculated with two commonly applied multi-media fate and exposure models, CalTOX and USES-LCA. Comparison of the model outcomes reveal that uncertainty in the ingestion iFs was up to a factor of 70. The uncertainty in the inhalation iFs was up to a factor of 865,000. The comparison showed that relatively few model differences account for the uncertainties found. An optimal model structure in the calculation of human intake fractions can be achieved by including (1) rain and no-rain scenarios, (2) a continental sea water compartment, (3) drinking water purification, (4) pH-correction of chemical properties, and (5) aerosol-associated deposition on plants. Finally, vertical stratification of the soil compartment combined with a chemical-dependent soil depth may be considered in future intake fraction calculations

Categorical perception effects for facial identity in robustly represented familiar and self-faces: The role of configural and featural information

Categorical perception of robustly represented faces (self, friend) and unfamiliar faces is investigated, and the relative roles of configural and featural information are examined. Participants performed identification and discrimination tasks on morph series containing the self-face and a friend's face (self–Friend 1), two friends' faces (Friend 2–Friend 3), and two unfamiliar faces (Unfamiliar 1–Unfamiliar 2), presented in upright and inverted orientations. For upright faces, categorical perception effects were observed for both familiar morph series but not for the unfamiliar morph series, suggesting that robust representation is a requirement for categorical perception in facial identity. For inverted faces, categorical perception was observed for the self–Friend 1 morph series only. This suggests that categorical perception is tied to configural processing for familiar non-self-faces, but can be observed for self-faces during featural processing—consistent with evidence that self-face representations contain strong configural and featural components. Finally, categorical perception is not enhanced by the presence of the self-face relative to other familiar faces when upright, but shows a trend of being enhanced for self-faces when inverted, adding to the debate on the ways in which robustly represented faces can elicit categorical perception

Assessing potential dietary toxicity of heavy metals in selected vegetables and food crops

Heavy metals, such as cadmium, copper, lead, chromium and mercury, are important environmental pollutants, particularly in areas with high anthropogenic pressure. Their presence in the atmosphere, soil and water, even in traces can cause serious problems to all organisms, and heavy metal bioaccumulation in the food chain especially can be highly dangerous to human health. Heavy metals enter the human body mainly through two routes namely: inhalation and ingestion, ingestion being the main route of exposure to these elements in human population. Heavy metals intake by human populations through food chain has been reported in many countries. Soil threshold for heavy metal toxicity is an important factor affecting soil environmental capacity of heavy metal and determines heavy metal cumulative loading limits. For soil-plant system, heavy metal toxicity threshold is the highest permissible content in the soil (total or bioavailable concentration) that does not pose any phytotoxic effects or heavy metals in the edible parts of the crops does not exceed food hygiene standards. Factors affecting the thresholds of dietary toxicity of heavy metal in soil-crop system include: soil type which includes soil pH, organic matter content, clay mineral and other soil chemical and biochemical properties; and crop species or cultivars regulated by genetic basis for heavy metal transport and accumulation in plants. In addition, the interactions of soil-plant root-microbes play important roles in regulating heavy metal movement from soil to the edible parts of crops. Agronomic practices such as fertilizer and water managements as well as crop rotation system can affect bioavailability and crop accumulation of heavy metals, thus influencing the thresholds for assessing dietary toxicity of heavy metals in the food chain. This paper reviews the phytotoxic effects and bioaccumulation of heavy metals in vegetables and food crops and assesses soil heavy metal thresholds for potential dietary toxicity