OBJECTIVES Expert judgement of exposure levels is often only poorly or moderately correlated with directly measured levels. For a follow-up of a historical cohort study at a Söderberg aluminum smelter we updated an expert-based semiquantitative job exposure matrix of coal tar pitch volatiles (CTPV) to quantitative estimates of CTPV and benzo(a)pyrene (BaP). METHODS Mixed effects models to pre...

Soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merrill) is one of the most important food crops for human and animal consumption, providing oil and protein at relatively low cost. The least expensive source of nitrogen for soybean is the biological fixation of atmospheric nitrogen by the symbiotic association with soil bacteria, belonging mainly to the genus Bradyrhizobium. This study was conducted to assess the ef...

In our previous study, three bacterial strains, Bacillus megaterium KU143, Microbacterium testaceum KU313, and Pseudomonas protegens AS15, were selected as effective biocontrol agents against Aspergillus flavus on stored rice grains. In this study, we evaluated the inhibitory effects of the volatiles produced by the strains on A. flavus growth and aflatoxin production on stored rice grains. The...

Chemical and plant growth studies of Bacilli strains GB03 and IN937a revealed that the volatile components 2,3-butanediol and acetoin trigger plant growth promotion in Arabidopsis. Differences in growth promotion when cytokinin-signaling mutants are exposed to GB03 versus IN937a volatiles suggest a divergence in chemical signaling for these two bacterial strains. To provide a comprehensive chem...

Seven types of carbon black used in type production were subjected to hygienic evaluation. The coal tar pitch volatiles (CTPVs), toluene solubles, were determined by the gravimetric method and benzo/a/pyrene by HPLC with a spectrophotometric detector. Toluene solubles were found to amount to 0.12-0.25% (by weight). Benzo/a/pyrene (1.44-3.07 ppm) was detected in five out of the seven carbon blac...

The identification of aged woody samples is often a difficult task as a result of weathering and physical deterioration over time which removes or obscures distinguishing anatomical features and characteristics required for visual taxonomic determinations. Fortunately, the chemical characteristics of aged woods usually are preserved better than physical characteristics if the wood remains dry i...

Due to the abundance of the non-coking coal and limitations as well as the high costs of the natural gas, the present study examined the direct reduction of hematite (iron oxide) ore in the temperature range of 800-1000 °C by the non-coking coal volatiles. Approximately, 74.9% of the total amounts of volatiles and gases exit the coal up to 800°C. The onset temperature to exit volatiles from the...

Irradiated samples had higher thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) than nonirradiated at day 0 but the difference disappeared during storage in both packaging types. Storage increased the production of volatiles and changed the composition of volatiles only in aerobic-packaged sausage. Irradiation and the fatty acid composition had significant effects on lipid oxidation, volatile pro...

In response to insect herbivory, plants emit elevated levels of volatile organic compounds for direct and indirect resistance. However, little is known about the molecular and genomic basis of defense response that insect herbivory trigger in cotton plants and how defense mechanisms are orchestrated in the context of other biological processes. Here we monitored the transcriptome changes and vo...