A key issue in cooperation research is to determine the conditions under which individuals invest in a public good. Here, we tested whether cues of being watched increase investments in an anonymous public good situation in real life. We examined whether individuals would invest more by removing experimentally placed garbage (paper and plastic bottles) from bus stop benches in Geneva in the pre...

Disinfection of contaminated water using solar radiation (SODIS) is known to inactivate bacteria. Its inactivation efficiency depends on local conditions where the disinfection is made. This study was aiming to test the efficiency of solar disinfection using different water parameters as low-cost household water treatment technology. Inactivation of microbes was tested using fecal coliform as t...

Solar water disinfection (SODIS) is a simple, effective and inexpensive water treatment procedure suitable for application in developing countries. Microbially contaminated water is filled into transparent polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic bottles and exposed to full sunlight for at least 6h. Solar radiation and elevated temperature destroy pathogenic germs efficiently. Recently, concern...

A series of experiments is reported to identify and characterize the inactivation process in operation when drinking water, heavily contaminated with a Kenyan isolate of Escherichia coli, is stored in transparent plastic bottles that are then exposed to sunlight. The roles of optical and thermal inactivation mechanisms are studied in detail by simulating conditions of optical irradiance, water ...

Baby bottles are often made of polycarbonate plastic. Impurities remaining in the bottle from the monomer bisphenol A can migrate from the plastic bottles into baby food, thereby causing a health concern. Previous migration testing of new baby bottles showed only trace migration levels of the substance. In the present work, polycarbonate baby bottles were subjected to simulated use by dishwashi...

Dead plant tissues and ash from a prescribed fire play an important role in nutrient balance and cycling in the Florida Everglades ecosystem. The objective of this study was to assess the dynamic changes in total phosphorus release (TPr) from ash or tissues of either cattail (Typha domingensis Pers.) or sawgrass (Cladium jamaicense Crantz) to water. Natural-dead (senesced-dead) and burning-dead...

Plastics are becoming increasingly utilized in consumer and industrial products. Over five million tons of plastics are used each year. In the UK in 2010 approximately 38% of the plastics consumption was used in packaging materials, with a quarter of this in production of plastic bottles. In the automotive industry an increasing number of large parts are being made from plastics due to the dema...

Soybean oils were packaged in polyvinylchloride, acrylonitrile, clear glass and amber glass bottles and their flavor stabilities were evaluated by a trained sensory panel. Hydrogenated and unhyrdogenated oils showed similar patterns of flavor deterioration regardless of container or type of aging. In accelerated light-exposure tests with air in the headspace, oils in plastic bottles showed flav...

This study examined household risk factors and prevalence, abundance, and distribution of immature Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus, and their association with socioeconomic and ecological factors at urban zonal and household levels in the city of Dhaka, Bangladesh. During the 2011 monsoon, 826 households in 12 randomly selected administrative wards were surveyed for vector mosquitoes. Result...

D iagnostic companies are facing ever-increasing pressures to deliver new products safely and efficiently. With diagnostic reagents as the basis of any experimental protocol, it is essential that they remain highly pure and that the potential for any contamination is minimized. Reagent packaging has commonly taken the form of glass bottles and containers, which have a well-known mode of failure...