Total or biomimetic extracts or direct contact exposure? : Comparative research towards a realistic ecotoxicological characterisation of Sediments

Due to the multifaceted nature of sediments in combination with varying physical-chemical properties of environmental contaminants and a multitude of different living and feeding behaviours of the benthic community, estimation of the toxicological risk associated to polluted sediments appears to get easily hampered. Hence, for a maximum of veracity in sediment assessment, at least applied methods and technologies should provide reliability of gained results. However, little attention is brought to confounding factors that might influence the outcome of such applied research. Moreover, knowledge still lacks on how the various approaches compare and can be combined into a comprehensive investigation strategy. The present study aims at filling parts of these gaps through investigation and characterisation of (1) sediment extraction procedures and (2) whole sediment contact tests. After identifying the main confounding factors within preparation of exhaustive extracts, considerations are formulated regarding procedures with a reduced risk of altering samples. A novel vigorous but completely passive extraction method is then introduced, which works with dialysis over a semipermeable membrane (named membrane dialysis extraction, MDE). Initially, MDE extracts were compared to samples from the Soxhlet extraction protocol in biotests on cytotoxity, embryo toxicity and dioxin-like activity. Following a first application in a study on two riverine sediments, the new approach was part of a comprehensive comparison of five different vigorous leaching techniques. Extracts from another two riverine sediments were tested for their toxic effectiveness with respect to cytotoxity, embryo toxicity, and dioxin-like activity, and a number of compound classes, including PAHs, PCBs and DDXs, were determined chemically. Furthermore, three biomimetic extraction procedures were investigated in parallel. All techniques were evaluated in terms of extraction power and reproducibility. In a further comparative study, MDE, Soxhlet and two biomimetic methods were compared to direct contact exposure using the fish embryo test on Danio rerio. Summarizing all four studies, the ability of MDE, Soxhlet and ASE® to yield toxic substances from sediment samples was evaluated by ranking data from biotests and chemical analyses. The topic of sediment contact tests is initiated by an extensive literature review on the use of fish as a test organism in sediment investigation, covering also direct contact exposure. In order to allow reliable testing of sediments, six contact assays were thoroughly investigated for toxicity thresholds and test conditions. Subsequently, the contact test battery was applied on reference sediments spiked with a cocktail of either heavy metals or of organic substances. Resulting data were evaluated with respect to sensitivity and applicability of the different sediment contact tests. MDE was found to provide extraction powers comparable to automated ASE®-methods for most applications, while working at a reduced risk of alteration of resulting extracts. The Soxhlet procedure also gave overall good agreement with ASE®-based methods and MDE, but results indicate an elevated risk of loss of target analytes. Among the biomimetic approaches, Tenax proved best in replicating results from contact tests, while HBCD extracts revealed vigorous extraction powers in some cases. In general, biomimetic methods revealed strong variability of data among each other, complicating the investigation of the bioavailable contaminant fractions. With the sediment contact assays, toxicity thresholds were derived for all six investigated test systems. Furthermore, one natural as well as one formulated reference sediment for the whole test battery could be identified. The majority of assays returned clear dose-response relations for both sediments contaminated with either heavy metals of organic substances. However, the contact tests gave different sensitivities for the sediment-contaminant combinations and also showed varying steepness of the response curves. Based on the results and available literature data, sediment organic matter, clay content, substance properties and feeding as well as living habits were accounted for the observed differences in contaminant availability. The study concludes that investigations into sediment toxicity are likely to be influenced by a multitude of different parameters. As a consequence, it proposes a comprehensive strategical framework that involves several approaches in sediment toxicity assessment and points out required future developmental effort. Most pressing is an automated procedure for vigorous extraction at moderate temperatures, conceivable to be realized through a combination of ASE-methods and membrane dialysis. Furthermore, increased understanding of contaminant availability and test species behaviour is essential

Phyllobacterium catacumbae sp. nov., a member of the order 'Rhizobiales' isolated from Roman catacombs

Two strains were isolated from tuff, a volcanic rock that forms the walls of the Roman Catacombs of Saint Callixtus in Rome, Italy. A polyphasic approach using nutritional and physiological tests, reactions to antibiotics, fatty acid profiles, DNA base ratios, DNA-DNA reassociation and 16S rRNA gene sequence comparisons showed that the two isolates belong to a novel species within the genus Phyllobacterium. The species Phyllobacterium catacumbae sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is CSC19T (=CECT 5680T=LMG 22520T).V. J. and L. L. received fellowships from the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science (MEC), I3P programme and J. M. G. is supported by an MEC contract from the ‘Ramón y Cajal’ program. This study was supported by EC project EVK4-CT2000-00028 and MEC project BTE2002-04492-C02-01.Peer Reviewe

Microscale <i>In Vitro</i> Assays for the Investigation of Neutral Red Retention and Ethoxyresorufin-<i>O</i>-Deethylase of Biofuels and Fossil Fuels

<div><p>Only few information on the potential toxic effectiveness of biofuels are available. Due to increasing worldwide demand for energy and fuels during the past decades, biofuels are considered as a promising alternative for fossil fuels in the transport sector. Hence, more information on their hazard potentials are required to understand the toxicological impact of biofuels on the environment. In the German Cluster of Excellence “Tailor-made Fuels from Biomass” design processes for economical, sustainable and environmentally friendly biofuels are investigated. In an unique and interdisciplinary approach, ecotoxicological methods are applied to gain information on potential adverse environmental effects of biofuels at an early phase of their development. In the present study, three potential biofuels, ethyl levulinate, 2-methyltetrahydrofuran and 2-methylfuran were tested. Furthermore, we investigated a fossil gasoline fuel, a fossil diesel fuel and an established biodiesel. Two <i>in vitro</i> bioassays, one for assessing cytotoxicity and one for aryl hydrocarbon receptor agonism, so called dioxin-like activity, as measured by Ethoxyresorufin-<i>O</i>-Deethylase, were applied using the permanent fish liver cell line RTL-W1 (<i>Oncorhynchus mykiss</i>). The special properties of these fuel samples required modifications of the test design. Points that had to be addressed were high substance volatility, material compatibility and low solubility. For testing of gasoline, diesel and biodiesel, water accommodated fractions and a passive dosing approach were tested to address the high hydrophobicity and low solubility of these complex mixtures. Further work has to focus on an improvement of the chemical analyses of the fuel samples to allow a better comparison of any effects of fossil fuels and biofuels.</p></div

Approval Voting on Dichotomous Preferences

The aim of this paper is to find normative foundations of Approval Voting. In order to show that Approval Voting is the only social choice function that satisfies anonymity, neutrality, strategy-proofness and strict monotonicity we rely on an intermediate result which relates strategy-proofness of a social choice function to the properties of Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives and monotonicity of the corresponding social welfare function. Afterwards we characterize Approval Voting by means of strict symmetry, neutrality and strict monotonicity and relate this result to May's Theorem. Finally, we show that it is possible to substitute the property of strict monotonicity by the one efficiency of in the second characterization.This research was undertaken with support from the fellowship 2001FI-00451 of the Generalitat de Catalunya and from the research grant BEC2002-02130 of the Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología of Spain

Use of line spectral frequencies for emotion recognition from speech

We propose the use of the line spectral frequency (LSF) features for emotion recognition from speech, which have not been been previously employed for emotion recognition to the best of our knowledge. Spectral features such as mel-scaled cepstral coefficients have already been successfully used for the parameterization of speech signals for emotion recognition. The LSF features also offer a spectral representation for speech, moreover they carry intrinsic information on the formant structure as well, which are related to the emotional state of the speaker. We use the Gaussian mixture model (GMM) classifier architecture, that captures the static color of the spectral features. Experimental studies performed over the Berlin Emotional Speech Database and the FAU Aibo Emotion Corpus demonstrate that decision fusion configurations with LSF features bring a consistent improvement over the MFCC based emotion classification rates.TUBİTAK ; Bahçeşehir University Research Fun

Развитие караоке-зала комплекса "Барвиха" с помощью event- маркетинга"

РЕФЕРАТ Объем работы – 68 стр., таблиц – 5, источников – 56 В связи с развитием рыночных отношений в России начали активно развиваться актуальные направления бизнеса, одним из которых является организация событийных мероприятий (event-менеджмент). Объектом исследования в дипломной семьи работе системы права является комплекс «Барвиха». Предмет исследования – перспективность развития караоке-зала в структуре комплекса. Цель дипломной семьи работы - права -разработать проектные рекомендации по повышению эффективности работы караоке-зала сервисного предприятия. Для достижения поставленных целей необходимо решить следующие задачи: 1. Обобщить и систематизировать теоретические основы event-маркетинга. 2. Провести оценку места сервисного предприятия на конкурентном рынке города. 3. Проанализировать перспективы работы караоке-зала в структуре комплекса «Барвиха». Методологическая база исследования базируется на использовании совокупности теоретических права и экспериментальных права методов исследования. В работе применялись такие методы как: анализ, синтез, анкетирование. Практическая значимость исследования в том, что предложенные рекомендации применимы для совершенствования обслуживания посетителей в различных сервисных предприятиях, подобных изученному в дипломной работе.ESSAY The volume of work - 68 pages, tables -. 5, power - 56 In connection with the development of market relations in Russia have begun to actively develop relevant business areas, one of which is the organization of event management (event-management). The object of study in the thesis the family law system is a complex "Barvikha". Subject of research - the prospect of a karaoke room in the structure of the complex. The aim of the thesis of the family work - right -develop design recommendations to improve the effectiveness of the karaoke room service enterprise. To achieve these goals it is necessary to solve the following tasks: 1. Compile and systematize the theoretical basis of event-marketing. 2. Evaluate the place of service enterprises in the competitive market of the city. 3. To analyze the prospects for the karaoke room in the structure of the complex "Barvikha". The methodological base of research based on the use of combination of theoretical rights and the rights of experimental research methods. The paper used methods such as analysis, synthesis, questionnaire. The practical significance of the study is that the proposed recommendations are useful to improve the experience of visitors to the various service companies, a similar study in the thesis work