A technique that couples lead (Pb) isotopes and multi-element concentrations with meteorological analysis was used to assess source contributions to precipitation samples at the Bondville, Illinois USA National Trends Network (NTN) site. Precipitation samples collected over a 16month period (July 1994-October 1995) at Bondville were parsed into six unique meteorological flow regimes using a min...

Perfluorinated compounds (PFCs) are used in a variety of industrial applications. We tested the hypothesis that, in Amur tigers (Panthera tigris altaica), captivity in industrialized areas increases PFC levels, potentially presenting a health risk to these animals. Serum samples were collected from 100 tigers from industrialized or nonindustrialized regions in China with nonpoint sources of PFC...

Urban ambient air concentrations of 39 aromatic (including benzene, toluene, and xylenes) and aliphatic volatile organic compounds (VOCs) were measured in Yokohama city, Japan. Yokohama city was selected as a case study to assess the amount of VOC released from Industrial area to characterize the ambient air quality with respect to VOC as well as to know the impact of petrochemical storage faci...

Exposure to airborne beryllium can lead to adverse health effects in humans. Consequently, many countries have legislation in place to ensure the health and safety of workers and the wider environment. Because even very low concentrations of Be in air constitute a toxic threat to health, analytical methodology that is capable of extremely high-sensitivity measurement is required. Although trace...

BACKGROUND The aim of this study was to evaluate the content of mercury (Hg), arsenic (As), nickel (Ni) and tin (Sn) in raw cow's milk of traditional and industrial sites from 8 different sites in Arak City, Markazi Province, Iran. METHODS In this cross sectional study, a total of 32 samples were collected from sub-cities of Arak, Iran via subjective sampling method. Both industrial and tradi...

Perfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) are man-made chemicals manufactured for numerous applications. The aim of this study was to assess the levels of 10 PFASs in selected types of honey samples from selected eastern, northern and southern European countries. A total of 26 samples of honey were analyzed. PFCAs (perfluoroalkyl carboxylic acids) were detected in almost all (92 %) analyzed samples in ...

In this work, we present coding techniques that enable progressive transmission when trellis coded quantization (TCQ) is applied to wavelet coefficients. A method for approximately inverting TCQ in the absence of least significant bits is developed. Results are presented using different rate allocation strategies and different entropy coders. The proposed wavelet-TCQ coder yields excellent codi...

This paper considers the joint problem of dirty-paper and Wyner-Ziv coding with partial host information at the receiver. The rate-distortion and the capacity expressions have been derived for the Gaussian case. It is shown that the availability of the partial host information to the receiver has positive effects to the compression performance and the overall capacity. Moreover, a practical cod...

abstract fluoride (f-) is an essential element for human and some animals. the fluoride concentration in irrigation water is an important index for water quality. the objective of the present study was to determine spatial variability of fluoride in groundwater and soils of some areas in arak plain. therefore, during two seasons, autumn (2007) and the end of spring (2008), 87 and 92 water sampl...

background: soil serves as a major reservoir for contaminants as it can bind to various chemicals. the aim of this study was to evaluate the levels of some metals (cd, cu, fe and v) in soil samples collected from different stations of ahvaz industrial complex ii to determine the natural and anthropogenic contribution of metal in the soil. methods: this was an experimental study that carried out...