The possibility to combine the track-etched CR-39 or Makrofol detectors with charcoal to increase the detector sensitivity was shown in the last years. Special requests are necessary in the case of a personal dosimeter when the detector must be active only during working activity. Regarding the combination of charcoal with TL detectors our preliminary investigations indicate that the TLD intens...

Benzene was assessed as the predominant aromatic compound emitted from glowing charcoal and firewood embers. Concentrations measured above charcoal used for grilling exceeded 10 mg m(-3) at a 5% carbon dioxide level. Charcoal with a high carbon content released less benzene. Glowing wood pellets emitted less benzene than glowing firewood remainders. The emissions of ethene and propene relative ...

We describe a new R package, paleofire, for analysis and synthesis of charcoal time series, such as those contained in the Global Charcoal Database (GCD), that are used to reconstruct paleofire activity (past biomass burning). paleofire is an initiative of the Global Paleofire Working Group core team (www. gpwg.org), whose aim is to encourage the use of sedimentary charcoal series to develop re...

Global biomass burning generates 40 million to 250 million tons of charcoal every year, part of which is preserved for millennia in soils and sediments. We have quantified dissolution products of charcoal in a wide range of rivers worldwide and show that globally, a major portion of the annual charcoal production is lost from soils via dissolution and subsequent transport to the ocean. The glob...

The fatty acid contents of 26 different serum albumin preparations representing different species and obtained from various commercial sources have been determined. Some samples had surprisingly little fatty acid contamination, but it was found that other samples contained between 2 and 3 moles of acid per mole of protein, in confirmation of earlier reports. Treatment of these samples with char...

In 2002, the Biscuit Wildfire burned a portion of the previously established, replicated conifer unthinned and thinned experimental units of the Siskiyou Long-Term Ecosystem Productivity (LTEP) experiment, southwest Oregon. Charcoal C in pre and post-fire O horizon and mineral soil was quantified by physical separation and a peroxide-acid digestion method. The abrupt, short-term fire event caus...

The potential of fungal pretreatment to improve fermentable sugar yields from wheat straw or Miscanthus was investigated. We assessed 63 fungal strains including 53 white-rot and 10 brown-rot fungi belonging to the Basidiomycota phylum in an original 12 day small-scale solid-state fermentation (SSF) experiment using 24-well plates. This method offers the convenience of one-pot processing of sam...

In both Basidiomycotina and Ascomycotina, Poly B-411 decolorization was an excellent indicator of the ability to cause white rot: 109 of the 110 isolates of brown rot fungi tested definitely did not decolorize Poly B-411, and 392 of the 401 mainly active isolates of white rot fungi decolorized Poly B-411. The Bavendamm (tannic acid) reaction was a less reliable test: of 74 white rot isolates ex...

This method depends upon the use of formalindenatured gelatin with finely powdered charcoal incorporated as an indicator of liquefaction. The gelatin charcoal is used only as a substrate for testing the gelatinase activity and not as a nutrient medium. This substrate contains a large number of minute particles of charcoal with a comparatively small amount of gelatin as binding substance. Conseq...

The increasing number and proportion of aged individuals in the population warrants knowledge of normal physiological changes of left ventricular (LV) biomechanics with advancing age. LV twist describes the instantaneous circumferential motion of the apex with respect to the base of the heart and has an important role in LV ejection and filling. This study sought to investigate the biomechanics...