Multidisciplinary Study of Burnt Deposits at Surungur, Fergana Valley, Southern Kyrgyzstan

2022 ◽  
Vol 49 (4) ◽  
pp. 24-36
Author(s):  
I. E. Dedov ◽  
E. P. Kulakova ◽  
M. V. Shashkov ◽  
A. A. Zhdanov ◽  
E. V. Parkhomchuk ◽  
...  

Burnt deposits are an important source of information on ancient lifestyles, providing the possibility of reconstructing the size, intensity of use, and functions of fi replaces at prehistoric settlements, and to assess fuel sources. We outline the results of a multidisciplinary study of fi replaces and their contexts at Surungur—a stratifi ed site in the Fergana Valley, in southern Kyrgyzstan. Sixteen samples from ash lenses and intermediate deposits were studied by rock-magnetism, gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC-MS), and X-ray fl uorescence (XRF). The rock-magnetic analysis suggests that the origin of all samples from ash lenses was anthropogenic. Types of fuel were reconstructed. At the initial stage (Early Holocene), the encompassing deposits likely resulted from short-term occupation, and fuel consisted of wood and grass/ dung. In the Middle Holocene, occupation became more long-term, as evidenced by maximal heating temperatures and high concentration of fi replaces. During the Late Holocene, habitation intensity on the platform under the stone ledge remained the same, but heating was less intense. Wood and grass/dung were used as fuel at all stages, suggesting that wood was available in the region throughout the Holocene.

2021 ◽  
pp. 1420326X2110036
Author(s):  
Qian Xu ◽  
Chan Lu ◽  
Rachael Gakii Murithi ◽  
Lanqin Cao

A cohort case–control study was conducted in XiangYa Hospital, Changsha, China, which involved 305 patients and 399 healthy women, from June 2010 to December 2018, to evaluate the association between Chinese women’s short- and long-term exposure to industrial air pollutant, SO2 and gynaecological cancer (GC). We obtained personal and family information from the XiangYa Hospital electronic computer medical records. Using data obtained from the air quality monitoring stations in Changsha, we estimated each woman’s exposure to the industrial air pollutant, sulphur dioxide (SO2), for different time windows, including the past 1, 5, 10 and 15 years before diagnosis of the disease. A multiple logistic regression model was used to assess the association between GC and SO2 exposure. GC was significantly associated with long-term SO2 exposure, with adjusted odds ratio (95% confidence interval) = 1.56 (1.10–2.21) and 1.81 (1.07–3.06) for a per interquartile range increase in the past 10 and 15 years, respectively. Sensitivity analysis showed that different groups reacted in different ways to long-term SO2 exposure. We concluded that long-term exposure to high concentration of industrial pollutant, SO2 is associated with the development of GC. This finding has implications for the prevention and reduction of GC.


Catalysts ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 502
Author(s):  
Guihua Dong ◽  
Bing Chen ◽  
Bo Liu ◽  
Stanislav R. Stoyanov ◽  
Yiqi Cao ◽  
...  

One of the most commonly produced industrial chemicals worldwide, bisphenol A (BPA), is used as a precursor in plastics, resins, paints, and many other materials. It has been proved that BPA can cause long-term adverse effects on ecosystems and human health due to its toxicity as an endocrine disruptor. In this study, we developed an integrated MnO2/UV/persulfate (PS) process for use in BPA photocatalytic degradation from water and examined the reaction mechanisms, degradation pathways, and toxicity reduction. Comparative tests using MnO2, PS, UV, UV/MnO2, MnO2/PS, and UV/PS processes were conducted under the same conditions to investigate the mechanism of BPA catalytic degradation by the proposed MnO2/UV/PS process. The best performance was observed in the MnO2/UV/PS process in which BPA was completely removed in 30 min with a reduction rate of over 90% for total organic carbon after 2 h. This process also showed a stable removal efficiency with a large variation of pH levels (3.6 to 10.0). Kinetic analysis suggested that 1O2 and SO4•− played more critical roles than •OH for BPA degradation. Infrared spectra showed that UV irradiation could stimulate the generation of –OH groups on the MnO2 photocatalyst surface, facilitating the PS catalytic degradation of BPA in this process. The degradation pathways were further proposed in five steps, and thirteen intermediates were identified by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. The acute toxicity was analyzed during the treatment, showing a slight increase (by 3.3%) in the first 30 min and then a decrease by four-fold over 2 h. These findings help elucidate the mechanism and pathways of BPA degradation and provide an effective PS catalytic strategy.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Sá ◽  
Laura Hendriks ◽  
Isabel Pombo Cardoso ◽  
Irka Hajdas

AbstractRecently, radiocarbon dating underwent considerable technological advances allowing unprecedented sample size downscaling. These achievements introduced novel opportunities in dating cultural heritage objects. Within this pioneering research, the possibility of a direct 14C dating of lead white pigment and organic binder in paint samples was investigated on polychrome sculptures, a foremost artistic expression in human history. The polychromy, an indivisible part of polychrome sculpture, holds a key role in the interpretation and understanding of these artworks. Unlike in other painted artworks, the study of polychromies is repeatedly hampered by repaints and degradation. The omnipresence of lead white within the original polychromy was thus pursued as dating proxy. Thermal decomposition allowed bypassing geologic carbonate interferences caused by the object's support material, while an added solvent extraction successfully removed conservation products. This radiocarbon dating survey of the polychromy from 16 Portuguese medieval limestone sculptures confirmed that some were produced within the proposed chronologies while others were revised. Within this multidisciplinary study, the potential of radiocarbon dating as a complementary source of information about these complex paint systems guiding their interpretation is demonstrated. The challenges of this innovative approach are highlighted and improvements on sampling and sample preparation are discussed.


2020 ◽  
Vol 234 (7-9) ◽  
pp. 1395-1426 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Sela ◽  
Sebastian Peukert ◽  
Jürgen Herzler ◽  
Christof Schulz ◽  
Mustapha Fikri

AbstractShock-tube experiments have been performed to investigate the thermal decomposition of octamethylcyclotetrasiloxane (D4, Si4O4C8H24) and hexamethylcyclotrisiloxane (D3, Si3O3C6H18) behind reflected shock waves by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) and high-repetition-rate time-of-flight mass spectrometry (HRR-TOF-MS) in a temperature range of 1160–1600 K and a pressure range of 1.3–2.6 bar. The main observed stable products were methane (CH4), ethylene (C2H4), ethane (C2H6), acetylene (C2H2) and in the case of D4 pyrolysis, also D3 was measured as a product in high concentration. A kinetics sub-mechanism accounting for the D4 and D3 gas-phase chemistry was devised, which consists of 19 reactions and 15 Si-containing species. The D4/D3 submechanism was combined with the AramcoMech 2.0 (Li et al., Proc. Combust. Inst. 2017, 36, 403–411) to describe hydrocarbon chemistry. The unimolecular rate coefficients for D4 and D3 decomposition are represented by the Arrhenius expressions ktotal/D4(T) = 2.87 × 1013 exp(−273.2 kJ mol−1/RT) s−1 and ktotal/D3(T) = 9.19 × 1014 exp(−332.0 kJ mol−1/RT) s−1, respectively.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yi Wen ◽  
Nazila Salamat-Miller ◽  
Keethkumar Jain ◽  
Katherine Taylor

AbstractDirect delivery of therapeutic enzymes to the Central Nervous System requires stringent formulation design. Not only should the formulation design consider the delicate balance of existing ions, proteins, and osmolality in the cerebrospinal fluid, it must also provide long term efficacy and stability for the enzyme. One fundamental approach to this predicament is designing formulations with no buffering species. In this study, we report a high concentration, saline-based formulation for a human sulfatase for its delivery into the intrathecal space. A high concentration formulation (≤ 40 mg/mL) was developed through a series of systematic studies that demonstrated the feasibility of a self-buffered formulation for this molecule. The self-buffering capacity phenomenon was found to be a product of both the protein itself and potentially the residual phosphates associated with the protein. To date, the self-buffered formulation for this molecule has been stable for up to 4 years when stored at 5 ± 3 °C, with no changes either in the pH values or other quality attributes of the molecule. The high concentration self-buffered protein formulation was also observed to be stable when exposed to multiple freeze–thaw cycles and was robust during in-use and agitation studies.


2021 ◽  
Vol 80 (17) ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Romero-Mujalli ◽  
A. Roisenberg ◽  
A. Cordova-Gonzalez ◽  
P. H. P. Stefano

AbstractRadon (Rn), a radioactive element, has especial interest in medical geology because long-term exposure to high concentration is related to lung cancer. In this study, outdoor and indoor radon measurements were conducted in dwellings of the Piquiri Syenite Massif, located in southern Brazil, given the relative high Rn content in soils of this region. Measurements were done using CR-39 detectors and placing them inside and outside dwellings. Moreover, a one-dimensional diffusion model was performed in order to quantify the natural transport of Rn to the air in confined and aerated environments. Results indicate that the region presents relatively low air Rn concentrations, within the environmental limits; however, the health risk might increase in confined and ill-ventilated environments because of transfer from soil and exhalation from ornamental rock-material often found inside dwellings. The main north facies of the syenite, where most of the rock extractions are located, was found to have the highest air Rn concentration because of the higher soil Rn concentration, compared to other facies of the syenite.


Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 156
Author(s):  
Manjing Lu ◽  
Jiaqi Wang ◽  
Yuzhong Wang ◽  
Zhengguang He

Chemical synthetic pharmaceutical wastewater has characteristics of high concentration, high toxicity and poor biodegradability, so it is difficult to directly biodegrade. We used acid modified attapulgite (ATP) supported Fe-Mn-Cu polymetallic oxide as catalyst for multi-phase Fenton-like ultraviolet photocatalytic oxidation (photo-Fenton) treatment with actual chemical synthetic pharmaceutical wastewater as the treatment object. The results showed that at the initial pH of 2.0, light distance of 20 cm, and catalyst dosage and hydrogen peroxide concentration of 10.0 g/L and 0.5 mol/L respectively, the COD removal rate of wastewater reached 65% and BOD5/COD increased to 0.387 when the reaction lasted for 180 min. The results of gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) indicated that Fenton-like reaction with Fe-Mn-Cu@ATP had good catalytic potential and significant synergistic effect, and could remove almost all heterocycle compounds well. 3D-EEM (3D electron microscope) fluorescence spectra showed that the fluorescence intensity decreased significantly during catalytic degradation, and the UV humus-like and fulvic acid were effectively removed. The degradation efficiency of the nanocomposite only decreased by 5.8% after repeated use for 6 cycles. It seems appropriate to use this process as a pre-treatment for actual pharmaceutical wastewater to facilitate further biological treatment.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (22) ◽  
pp. 4813 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hanbo Yang ◽  
Fei Zhao ◽  
Gedong Jiang ◽  
Zheng Sun ◽  
Xuesong Mei

Remaining useful life (RUL) prediction is a challenging research task in prognostics and receives extensive attention from academia to industry. This paper proposes a novel deep convolutional neural network (CNN) for RUL prediction. Unlike health indicator-based methods which require the long-term tracking of sensor data from the initial stage, the proposed network aims to utilize data from consecutive time samples at any time interval for RUL prediction. Additionally, a new kernel module for prognostics is designed where the kernels are selected automatically, which can further enhance the feature extraction ability of the network. The effectiveness of the proposed network is validated using the C-MAPSS dataset for aircraft engines provided by NASA. Compared with the state-of-the-art results on the same dataset, the prediction results demonstrate the superiority of the proposed network.


2004 ◽  
Vol 286 (4) ◽  
pp. E577-E588 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Strawford ◽  
F. Antelo ◽  
M. Christiansen ◽  
M. K. Hellerstein

The turnover of adipose tissue components (lipids and cells) and the pathways of adipose lipid deposition have been difficult to measure in humans. We apply here a 2H2O long-term labeling technique for concurrent measurement of adipose-triglyceride (TG) turnover, cell (DNA) proliferation, and de novo lipogenesis (DNL). Healthy subjects drank 2H2O (70 ml/day) for 5-9 wk. Subcutaneous adipose tissue aspirates were taken (gluteal, thigh, and flank depots). Deuterium incorporation into TG glycerol (representing all-source TG synthesis), TG palmitate (representing DNL, by mass isotopomer distribution analysis), and DNA (representing cell proliferation) was measured by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. Subjects tolerated the protocol well, and body 2H2O enrichments were stable. Mean TG-glycerol fractional synthesis was 0.12 (i.e., 12%) with a range of 0.03-0.32 after 5 wk and 0.20 (range 0.08-0.49) after 9 wk (TG half-life 200-270 days). Label decay measurements 5-8 mo after discontinuing 2H2O gave similar turnover estimates. Net lipolysis (TG turnover) was 50-60 g/day. DNL contribution to adipose-TG was 0.04 after 9 wk, representing ∼20% of newly deposited TG. Cell proliferation was 0.10-0.17 after 9 wk (half-life 240-425 days). In summary, long-term 2H2O administration to human subjects allows measurement of the dynamics of adipose tissue components. Turnover of all elements is slow, and DNL contributes ∼20% of new TG.


TAPPI Journal ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (9) ◽  
pp. 473-477
Author(s):  
YAO NTIFAFA ◽  
MARIA SZAJDA-LAM ◽  
ASHOK GHOSH ◽  
PETER W. HART

Vegetable soybean oil is commonly used in cooking foods that are packaged in takeaway paper-board containers. Vegetable oil is hydrophobic, and in sufficiently high concentration, could interfere with interfiber bonding and result in paper strength loss. In order to quantify the effect of oil on the resulting paperboard strength, it is necessary to quantify the oil content in paper. A lab method was evaluated to determine the soybean oil content in paper. Handsheets were made with pulps previously treated with different proportions of vegetable oil. Pyrolysis gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (pyGCMS) was used to quantify the amount of oil left in the handsheets. The results revealed a strong correlation between the amount of oil applied to the initial pulp and the amount of oil left in the handsheets. In addition, the effect of vegetable oils on paper strength may be affected by the cooking process. Vegetable oil is known to degrade over time in the presence of oxygen, light, and temperature. The vegetable oil was put in an oven to imitate the oil lifecycle during a typical pizza cooking process. The cooked oil was then left at room temperature and not protected from air (oxygen) or from normal daylight. The heated, then cooled, oil was stored over a period of 13 weeks. During this time, samples of the aged oil were tested as part of a time-based degradation study of the cooked and cooled oil.


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