Notes

Mobile phone use as a possible help in assessing standard radiographs.
The oil spill off the coast of the Brazilian Northeast region is one of the most significant global events regarding contamination and environmental impact in recent years. This work evaluates the effects of oil spills on the Northeast coasts between Alagoas and Sergipe states from October 2019 to January 2020. Analysis of some sampling points of seawater revealed the presence of Hg, Cd, Pb, and Cu in levels above the maximum concentration limits established by the Brazilian legislation. For water quality parameters, phosphorus, nitrite, and turbidity showed statistically different values. However, the chromatographic profiles of oil obtained from different beaches were quite similar. Seawater, fishes, and massunins (bivalve) presented the main polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons naphthalene, phenanthrene, fluoranthene, fluorene, and acenaphthalene. Therefore, the concentration of organic and inorganic contaminants determined in different environmental locations served as a subsidy to assess the effect of the preliminary oil spill on the Brazilian coast.Rhythmic auditory stimuli presented before a goal-directed movement have been found to improve temporal and spatial movement outcomes. However, little is known about the mechanisms mediating these benefits. The present experiment used three types of auditory stimuli to probe how improved scaling of movement parameters, temporal preparation and an external focus of attention may contribute to changes in movement performance. Three types of auditory stimuli were presented for 1200 ms before movement initiation; three metronome beats (RAS), a tone that stayed the same (tone-same), a tone that increased in pitch (tone-change) and a no sound control, were presented with and without visual feedback for a total of eight experimental conditions. The sound was presented before a visual go-signal, and participants were instructed to reach quickly and accurately to one of two targets randomly identified in left and right hemispace. Twenty-two young adults completed 24 trials per blocked condition in a counterbalanced order. Movements were captured with an Optotrak 3D Investigator, and a 4(sound) by 2(vision) repeated measures ANOVA was used to analyze dependant variables. All auditory conditions had shorter reaction times than no sound. Tone-same and tone-change conditions had shorter movement times and higher peak velocities, with no change in trajectory variability or endpoint error. Therefore, rhythmic and non-rhythmic auditory stimuli impacted movement performance differently. Based on the pattern of results we propose multiple mechanisms impact movement planning processes when rhythmic auditory stimuli are present.Drinking water safety cannot be overemphasized. Filamentous fungi have many excellent features for metal removal. Both graphene oxide (GO) and activated carbon (AC) are conventional metal adsorbents, but they are not suitable for large-scale use due to high cost. In this study, a low dosage of conidia (2.0 × 104 conidia/mL) of metal-resistant/adapted filamentous fungus Penicillium janthinillum strain GXCR were co-immobilized with a low dosage of 0.5 mg/L GO or 0.5 mg/L AC by embedding in 2% polyvinyl alcohol (PVA)-3% sodium alginate (SA), generating six types of microbead adsorbents (MBAs) to remove metals from a low concentration of either single metal (100 mg/L) or mixed metals (100 mg/L each) of Pb (II), Fe (III) and Cu (II) in drinking water. Fungus GXCR-containing MBAs had higher specific surface areas (SSAs), better mesoporous structures, and a higher removal rate (85-98.99%) of single or mixed metals. Singl-metal adsorptions of MBAs were almost unaffected by temperature changes. MBAs showed a stable removal rate of 87-94% during four cycles of adsorption-desorption of single metal. Single-metal adsorptions were well described by multiple models of Freundlich isotherm with constant values of 0.21-0.432, Langmuir isotherm with constant values of 0.037-0.17, Pseudo-fist-order, Pseudo-second-order, and intra-particle diffusion (IPD). In conclusion, co-immobilization between GXCR, GO and AC can make metal removal more efficient. Adsorption capacity is increased with SSAs but not in the same proportion. Single-metal adsorptions involve multiple mechanisms of monolayer and multilayer adsorptions, external mass transfer, and IPD. IPD is important but not the only one rate-controlling step for single-metal adsorptions.Ionic liquids (ILs) are used as detoxication agents for fermentation of lignin into ethanol because of their good applicability. However, the residual ILs may be toxic to the yeast. In order to improve the use of ILs for fermentation and protected environment, the toxicity of ILs with different carbon chain length to Pichia stipitis was studied in this paper. Four kinds of common imidazolium chloride ILs ([C4mim]Cl, [C6mim]Cl, [C8mim]Cl and [C10mim]Cl) were selected. selleck chemical ILs can inhibit the proliferation of Pichia stipitis and increase their mortality. Oxidative stress reaction occurred in the cells, and the activities of antioxidant enzymes are affected. Comparing with the integrated biomarker response (IBR) index, it was found that the toxicity increases with increasing chain length. ILs may enter cells by damaging cell membranes and reduce ethanol production by damaging organelles such as mitochondria. ILs caused wrinkles and dents on the surface of cells up to cell deformation and even rupture. The toxicity sequence was as follows [C10mim]Cl> [C8mim]Cl>[C6mim]Cl>[C4mim]Cl. Due to this toxicity to Pichia stipitis, these compounds should be used carefully in the fermentation process and also to avoid toxic effects on other organisms in the environment.The concept of natural organic matter of anthropogenic origin is introduced and its characteristics and interaction with chemical pollutants are investigated by adopting several distinct analytic methodologies. Scanning electron microscopy indicates that the used sample of anthropogenic organic matter (AOM) has an amphiphilic nature, which allows its supramolecular organization in water. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, in turn, gives a clear indication about the presence of polysaccharide markers, lipidic and amidic fractions, and suggests the absence of free organic acid. AOM sample and AOM mixed with dye sample were examined by the three-dimensional excitation-emission matrix fluorescence spectra and the nuclear magnetic resonance mono-dimensional spectra. The results highlighted the interactions occurring between the AOM and the reactive dye, selected as a representative chemical pollutant. Electron Spin Resonance confirms that the used AOM is able to completely include the dye in its structure. Overall, the obtained results indicate that the fate, transport, and toxicity of pollutants in the environment can be drastically influenced by the presence of AOM.Recently, modifications on reticulated vitreous carbon (RVC) have attracted attention as a promising strategy to produce low-cost, stable, and highly active electrodes leading to significant advances in the water/wastewater treatment field compared with raw RVC. Modified RVC materials have been used as cathode, anode, and membrane. Improvements on physical and electrocatalytic properties are achieved by RVC modification via diverse strategies, including the deposition of metal oxides, the introduction of surface functional groups, and the formation of composites, which were used to remove organic contaminants and pathogens from water matrices, as summarized in this mini-review. This mini-review mainly focused on papers published from 2015 to 2020 that reported modified RVC electrodes to eliminate pollutants and pathogens from water matrices by electrochemical advanced oxidation processes. Likewise, news challenges and opportunities are discussed, and perspectives for the ongoing and future studies in this research field are also given.
Systematic evaluations of the cumulative effects and mortality displacement of ambient particulate matter (PM) pollution on deaths are lacking. We aimed to discern the cumulative effect profile of PM exposure, and investigate the presence of mortality displacement in a large-scale population.

We conducted a time-series analysis with different exposure-lag models on 13 cities in Jiangsu, China, to estimate the effects of PM pollution on non-accidental, cardiovascular, and respiratory mortality (2015-2019). Over-dispersed Poisson generalized additive models were integrated with distributed lag models to estimate cumulative exposure effects, and assess mortality displacement.

Pooled cumulative effect estimates with lags of 0-7 and 0-14 days were substantially larger than those with single-day and 2-day moving average lags. For each 10μg/m
increment in PM
concentration with a cumulative lag of 0-7 days, we estimated an increase of 0.50% (95% CI 0.29, 0.72), 0.63% (95% CI 0.38, 0.88), and 0.50% (95% CI 0placement for non-accidental, cardiovascular, and respiratory deaths was found.Coal combustion can release large amounts of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which persist in various environment matrices (e.g., road dust) and hence cause the carcinogenic risk to human health. In this study, an exhaustive characterization of road dust samples coupling their physicochemical characteristics and stable isotope compositions (δ13C and δ15N) was conducted to evaluate the source, level, spatial distribution, and carcinogenic risk of PAHs in a typical coal-utilization city. Concentrations of Σ16 PAHs ranged from 605.5 to 25,374.3 ng/g with a mean concentration of 4083.0 ng/g. Pollution levels of sites around the coal-fired power plant (Zone 1) were significantly higher than those in other zones (p 10-6) for both adults and children, while children around the power plant suffered the highest risk. Despite the estimation of only potential risk being posed by PAHs in road dust, human exposure to the various environmental matrices, scientific and systematic assessment of carcinogenic risks by PAHs in the total environment warrants further investigations.Alcohols could be the biggest factor for the improvement of world biofuel economy in the present century due to their excellent properties compared to petroleum products. The primary concerns of sustainable alcohol production for meeting the growing energy demand owing to the selection of viable feedstock and this might enhance the opportunities for developing numerous advanced techniques. In this review, the valorization of alcohol production from several production routes has been exposed by covering the traditional routes to the present state of the art technologies. Even though the fossil fuel conversion could be dominant method for methanol production, many recent innovations like photo electrochemical synthesis and electrolysis methods might play vital role in production of renewable methanol in future. There have been several production routes for production of ethanol and among which the fermentation of lignocellulose biomass would be the ultimate choice for large scale shoot up. The greenhouse gas recovery in the form of alcohols through electrochemistry technique and hydrogenation method are the important methods for commercialization of alcohols in future. It is also observed that algae based renewable bio-alcohols is highly influenced by carbohydrate content and sustainable approaches in algae conversion to bio-alcohols would bring greater demand in future market. There is a lack of innovation in higher alcohols production in single process and this could be bounded by combining dehydrogenation and decarboxylation techniques. Finally, this review enlists the opportunities and challenges of existing alcohols production and recommended the possible routes for making significant enhancement in production.
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