Ambient particulate matter (PM) was sampled in Zabrze (southern Poland) in the heating period of 2009. It was investigated for distribution of its mass and of the masses of its 18 component elements (S, Cl, K, Ca, Cr, Mn, Fe, Ni, Cu, Zn, Ge, As, Br, Sr, Cd, Sb, Ba, and Pb) among 13 PM size fractions. In the paper, the distribution modality of and the correlations between the ambient concentrati...

We report the abundances of neutron-capture elements in eight carbon-rich, metalpoor (−2.7 ≤[Fe/H]≤ −1.9) stars observed with the Subaru Telescope High Dispersion Spectrograph. The derived abundance patterns indicate that the neutron-capture elements in these objects primarily originated from s-process nucleosynthesis, although the [Ba/Eu] abundance ratios in some objects are lower than that of...

Several potential dust sources, including generic sources of sparsely vegetated alluvium, playa deposits, and anthropogenic emissions, as well as the area around Owens Lake, California, affect the composition of modern dust in the southwestern United States. A comparison of geochemical analyses of modern and old (a few thousand years) dust with samples of potential local sources suggests that d...

Heavy metal concentrations of Cd, Cr, Cu, Ni, Pb and Zn were investigated for 127 urban soil samples collected from business area (BA), classical garden (CG), culture and education area (CEA), public green space (PGS), residential area (RA) and roadside area (RSA) in Beijing. The distribution of Cd, Cu, Pb and Zn was mainly affected by anthropogenic sources, with their mean concentrations much ...

The isotopic composition of Pb and the concentrations of.Pb, Ba and Bi were measured in selected ice-core samples from Law Dome, East AntarctIca, to a depth of 1196 m. The range of concentrations found in decontaminated ice was 0.03\.5 pg g I for Pb, 0.96.1pggl for Ba and 0.417 fgg I for Bi , excluding the deepest sample which contained rv I p:}6m of rock dust. The abundances of all four stable...

To optimize the initial wave of Ab production against T-dependent Ags, primary B cell clones with the highest Ag affinity are selected to generate the largest extrafollicular plasmablast (PB) responses. The mechanism behind this remains undefined, primarily due to the difficulty of analyzing low frequency Ag-specific B cells during the earliest phases of the immune response when key differentia...