Chloroform, bromodichloromethane, chlorodibromomethane, and bromoform comprise the trihalomethanes, a group of widespread and mildly lipophilic compounds that result from water chlorination and other sources. Many animal studies show the chronic toxicity and carcinogenicity of these compounds, and recent work has demonstrated the importance of both ingestion and inhalation exposure pathways. Th...

Coastal utilities exploiting mildly saline groundwater (<150 mg/L chloride) may be challenged by disinfection byproduct (DBP) formation, a concern likely to increase with sea-level rise. Groundwater from North Carolina coastal aquifers is characterized by large variations in concentrations of halides (bromide up to 10,600 μg/L) and dissolved organic carbon (up to 5.7 mg-C/L). Formation of 33 re...

OBJECTIVES An increasing number of reports suggest that chemical and physical agents in the environment, introduced and spread by human activity, may affect male fertility in humans. This article aims at evaluating the impact of environmental exposures (pesticides, phthalates, PCBs, air pollution, trihalomethanes (THMs), mobile phones) on semen quality, by reviewing most recent published litera...

Chlorination by-products (CBPs) in drinking water have been associated with an increased risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes, including small for gestational age at term (term-SGA) and preterm delivery. Epidemiological evidence is weakened by a generally inaccurate exposure assessment, often at an ecological level. A case control study with incident cases was performed in nine Italian towns betw...

BACKGROUND Previous studies have suggested that elevated exposure to disinfection by-products (DBPs) in drinking water during gestation may result in adverse birth outcomes. However, the findings of these studies remain inconclusive. OBJECTIVE The purpose of our study was to examine the association between blood biomarkers of late pregnancy exposure to trihalomethanes (THMs) in drinking water...

To so lve d i f f i c u l t problems h e u r i s t i c a l l y , requ i res d e t a i l e d a t t e n t i o n t o computat iona l e f f i c i e n c y . Th is paper descr ibes how a heuri s t i c problem s o l v i n g system, HPA, at tempts to f i n d a near op t ima l s o l u t i o n to the t r a v e l i n g salesman problem. A c r i t i c a l innovat i o n over prev ious search a lgo r i thms ...

This paper is concerned with modeling p lann ing problems invo lv ing uncerta inty as d iscre tet ime, f in i te -s ta le stochastic au toma ta So lv ing p l ann ing problems is reduced to comp u t i n g policies for Markov decision processes Classical methods for solv ing Markov decision processes cannot cope w i t h the size of the state spaces for typ ica l problems encountered in pract ice ...

Chlorination of drinking water is a common practice, used by numerous municipalities in the United States (US) to safeguard their water supplies. However, the chlorine used can chemically react with organic components in the drinking water to produce unwanted chlorination by-products. The objective of this investigation was to evaluate the use of granular activated carbon produced from nutshell...