the potential risk of metal accumulation in periurban agricultural areas is a matter for concern.the climate characteristics and carbonate content of calcareous agricultural mediterranean soils typical inthese areas favour metal accumulation at the surface level; however there is also a risk of potential metalmobility. our study focuses on the soil properties affecting metal mobility in these s...

the potential risk of metal accumulation in periurban agricultural areas is a matter for concern.the climate characteristics and carbonate content of calcareous agricultural mediterranean soils typical inthese areas favour metal accumulation at the surface level; however there is also a risk of potential metalmobility. our study focuses on the soil properties affecting metal mobility in these s...

Currently, characterization of soil microbial communities relies heavily on the use of molecular approaches. Independently of the approach used, soil DNA extraction is a crucial step, and success of downstream procedures will depend on how well DNA extraction was performed. Often, studies describing and comparing soil microbial communities are based on a single DNA extraction, which may not lea...

We investigate applying theory refinement to the task of extracting information from text. In theory refinement, partial domain knowledge (which may be incorrect) is given to a supervised learner, which is guided by this prior knowledge, but can refine or even discard it during training. Our supervised learner is a “knowledge-based” neural network that initially contains “compiled” prior knowle...

In this study, three possible improvements to a remediation process for chromated-copper-arsenate- (CCA) treated wood were evaluated. The process involves two steps: oxalic acid extraction of wood fiber followed by bacterial culture with Bacillus licheniformis CC01. The three potential improvements to the oxalic acid extraction step were (1) reusing oxalic acid for multiple extractions, (2) var...

Sequential washing techniques using single or dual agents [sodium hydroxide (NaOH) and hydrochloric acid (HCl) solutions] were applied to arsenic-contaminated soils in an abandoned iron-ore mine area. We investigated the best remediation strategies to maximize arsenic removal efficiency for both soils and arsenic-containing washing solution through conducting a series of batch experiments. Base...