Do arsenic levels in rice pose a health risk to the UK population?

Consumption of rice and rice products can be a significant exposure pathway to inorganic arsenic (iAs), which is a group 1 carcinogen to humans. The UK follows the current European Commission regulations so that iAs concentrations must be  0.1 mg kg-1 were selected for As speciation using HPLC-ICP-MS. Based on the average concentration of iAs of our samples, we calculated values for the Lifetime Cancer Risk (LCR), Target Hazard Quotient (THQ) and Margin of Exposure (MoE). We found a statistically significant difference between organically and non-organically grown rice. We also found that brown rice contained a significantly higher concentration of iAs compared to white or wild rice. Notably, 28 rice samples exceeded the iAs maximum limit stipulated by the EU (0.1 mg kg-1) with an average iAs concentration of 0.13 mg kg-1; therefore consumption of these rice types could be riskier for infants than adults. Based on the MoE, it was found that infants up to 1 year must be restricted to a maximum of 20 g per day for the 28 rice types to avoid carcinogenic risks. We believe that consumers could be better informed whether the marketed product is fit for infants and young children, via appropriate product labelling containing information about iAs concentration

Small-scale traditional spiny lobster fishery at Tikkoti, Calicut

The spiny lobster fishery at Tikkoti though lesser in magnitude is important from the fishery point of view. The traditional fishermen living in three adjacent villages of Kodikal, Kadaloor and Tikkoti are engaged in lobster fishing for the past five decades. The total landings have declined over the years but sudden fall in catches as is seen in 1996-'97 may probably due to natural fluctuations in environmental conditions and change in current pattern rather than due to over fishing. In 1960's fishing was restricted to only three months from August to October and now the fishing begins in September or October and continues up to April or May. Unlike the southwest and southeast coasts where lobster fishing activity has increased several fold due to pressure from the export market, there is no substantial increase in effort at Tikkoti. Establishment of artificial reefs may help in enhancement of lobster population and therefore increase in catches and more revenue for the fishermen

Homometric Number of Graphs

Given a graph G=(V,E), two subsets S_1 and S_2 of the vertex set V are homometric, if their distance multi sets are equal. The homometric number h(G) of a graph G is the largest integer k such that there exist two disjoint homometric subsets of cardinality k. We find lower bounds for the homometric number of the Mycielskian of a graph and the join and the lexicographic product of two graphs. We also obtain the homometric number of the double graph of a graph, the cartesian product of any graph with K_2 and the complete bipartite graph. We also introduce a new concept called weak homometric number and find weak homometric number of some graphs

Results on nucleon life-time from the Kolar gold field experiment

The KGF nucleon decay experiment has been in operation since October 1980 with a 140 ton calorimetric detector at a depth of 2.3 Km underground. The detector comprises 34 layers of proportional counters arranged in an orthogonal geometry with 12 mm thick iron plates in between successive layers. The proportional counters are made up of square (10 x 10 square centimeters) iron plates of wall thickness 2.3 mm. Each of the 1600 counters is instrumented to provide data on ionization, DE/dx and arrival time. The visible energy of a particle is determined to an accuracy of approximately 20% from the ionization and range of its track. The end point ionization of a stopping track provides the direction of motion as well as the nature of the particle (mu/pi,k,p). Decay of mu is recorded with an overall efficiency of only 20% in view of the thickness of 13 g/square centimeters between successive layers

Data acquisition system for phase-2 KGF proton decay experiment

Phase-2 of KGF proton decay experiment using 4000 proportional counters will start operating from middle of 1985. The detection systems, in addition to measuring the time information to an accuracy of 200 n see, also records ionization in the hit counters. It also monitors different characteristics of the counters like pulse height spectrum, pulse width spectrum and counting rate. The acquisition system is discussed