Persistent organic pollutants (POPs), including polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and polybrominated diphenylethers (PBDEs), are widely distributed in the environment. Several studies have demonstrated that these pollutants will cause potential impacts such as carcinogenic and mutagenic for human health. In this study, four different types of sampling stations were chosen. Two of the sampling sites are located in Kaohsiung city, which is an industrialized city with densely population in southern Taiwan (KHU and KHC). The other sampling sites are in a rural coastal area (KT) and an offshore island (LY), respectively. We determined the concentrations of PCBs and PBDEs in the atmosphere to identify the spatial and temporal distributions of PCBs and PBDEs in southern Taiwan. Hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) and principal components analysis (PCA) of congener-specific composition of PCBs and PBDEs were performed with the commercial products to investigate the relationship of regional signatures and possible pollution sources. Finally, back trajectory analysis was undertaken to gain a better understanding of long-distance transport contribution to the studied area. The concentrations of £UPCBs in the ambient air ranged from 9.51 to 482 pg m-3, with an average concentration of 162¡Ó155 pg m-3. The mean PCB concentrations in gas and particle phase were 159¡Ó153 pg m-3 and 3.04¡Ó2.38 pg m-3, respectively. The concentrations of £UPBDEs in the ambient air ranged from 3.42 to 166 pg m-3, with an average concentration of 31.7¡Ó37.3 pg m-3. The average PBDE concentrations in gas and particle phase were 7.22¡Ó6.50 pg m-3 and 23.7¡Ó33.4 pg m-3, respectively. Comparison of the total PCB and PBDE concentrations from the four sampling sites showed that the total PCB and PBDE concentrations at the Kaohsiung urban site (KHU) and Kaohsiung coastal site (KHC) were higher than those at a rural coastal site (Kenting, KT) and an offshore island site (Lanyu, LY), suggesting that densely population and heavy industrial park may be the major contributor of PCBs and PBDEs . Results from HCA, PCA and compositional patterns of PCBs indicate that offshore island site (Lanyu, LY) was different from KHU, KHC and KT. Lower chlorinated congeners (dichlorobiphenyls to hexachlorobiphenyls) were predominant in the gas phase. Since most of the lower molecular weight congeners were below the detection limit, the total PCB concentrations were found at much lower level in LY sampling sites. In addition, a significantly higher proportion of high-chlorinated congeners, was observed at LY, suggesting that there may be local pollution sources in this area. Results from HCA, PCA and compositional patterns of PBDEs indicate that the samples from February and October were dominated by BDE-209, while the samples from July were dominated by BDE-71, BDE-47 and BDE-99, suggesting that this might be due to the significantly low concentrations of suspended particles (PM10) in July. Since much higher temperature was observed in July, these lower brominated congeners may be released much easier from the sediment, water, and brominated-containing products due to smaller molecular size and higher vapor pressure. Moreover, debromination of the deca-BDEs had been observed in the environment. Several studies have shown that photolytic debromination of BDE-209 is possible pathway for the formation of lower brominated-BDEs. TEQ was used to determine the level of pollution for environment and human health. In this study area, the TEQ ranged from 0.145 to 0.878 pg-TEQ m-3, with an average TEQ of 0.0004¡Ó0.0003 pg-TEQ m-3 in gas-phase of ambient air. PCB114 was observed to be the predominant congener in this study.

The microsomal ethanol oxidizing system (MEOS) is involved in metabolism of alcohol in the liver, the major component of MEOS is cytochrome P4502E1 (CYP2E1). CYP2E1 gene polymorphisms that alter its functions may be associated with alcohol susceptibility in individual. A RsaI/PstI restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) has been reported in the 5¡¦-flanking region of CYP2E1 gene. The rare mutant allele (c2 allele) that lacks the Rsa I restriction site, but can cut with Pst I has been found to be associated with higher transcriptional activity, mRNA expression, protein levels and enzyme activity than the commom wild type-c1 allele. CYP2E1-dependent oxidative stress on the pathogenesis of alcohol-induced liver injury. The recent epidemiological studies have point out that there are a high prevalence of alcohol consumption in aborigines of Southern taiwan. Dr.Bosron presented an drinks wine the behavior receives the environment and the genetic factor influence, this kind of difference also receives the racial influence to be really big. This study focus on the aborigines with high alcohol drinks rate to examine the possible effect on drinks habit and gene polymorphism of CYP2E1 RsaI/PstI to blood biochemicial index. The experimental result found that male aborigines drinker in blood pressure, triglyceride, HDL cholesterol, uric acid and AST value more than male aborigines non-drinker. However the values are in T.cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, creatinine less than non-drinker. The female aborigines drinker in blood pressure, HDL cholesterol, uric acid, creatinine and AST value more than female aborigines non-drinker. However the values are in T.cholesterol and LDL cholesterol less than non-drinker. Nevertheless, male aborigines drinker and female aborigines non-drinker did not achieved diversity of statistical in function of CYP2E1 gene polymorphism to biochemical index. Male aborigines non-drinkers have c1/c2+c2/c2 in CYP2E1 gene polymorphism compare to c1/c1 also have higher WHR (0.93¡Ó0.05 vs. 0.90¡Ó0.06, p = 0.035) and ALT (30.0¡Ó22.0 IU/L vs. 21.5¡Ó11.0 IU/L , p = 0.012). To summary, male aborigines who have c2 allele in CYP2E1 gene polymorphism may relate to obese and Liver dysfuction.

The USDA Forest Service, Forest Health Protection, is responsible for maintaining an ORACLE database named the Southern Pine Beetle Information System (SPBIS). SPBIS was designed to store survey data for Southern Pine Beetle (SPB) infestations on federal land across the southern United States. The main purpose of this project is to improve the SPBIS database to aid in management of SPB infestations to reduce losses, to harvest compromised timber while it still has value, and to assist resource managers in preventing further infestations from becoming established. The SPBIS mobile mapping system addresses current problems with the database and offers viable solutions to each. Mobile mapping technology is a versatile tool, which is used to collect field data, with unique geospatial time tags and attributes, for integrating into or updating a GIS (Rasher 2001). The ability to efficiently collect data is essential to developing a useable database. The time required to manually enter data into the database is substantial. Ranger district personnel often do not have the time or the desire to enter data. Currently, the database is lacking years of survey and infestation data due to these negligent data entry practices, limiting the usefulness database. Currently, SPBIS data is recorded on a paper survey form. This system introduces a digital version of this form. A time study conducted to define the efficiency of each survey showed that the digital form to be more efficient with a Mann-Whitney p- value of 0.004. A comparative study was conducted to define the difference between currently estimated SPB infestation acreage and those measured using GPS. A Mann-Whitney pvalue of 0.000 shows the significant difference between the two acreage values. GPS measured acreage proved to be more accurate thus promoting the use of GPS for measuring acreage. Navigation us ing GPS coordinates was successful and will greatly decrease the time required to locate a SPB infestation on the ground. This thesis describes a mobile mapping system designed specifically to remedy the problems associated with SPBIS. This system eliminates the need for manual entry of field-collected data, while improving field data collection in terms of efficiency and accuracy.

Thesis--University of Chicago. / Chapter III, "The clergy and the southern way of life" has also been issued as part of the author's thesis, under the title of the complete work. Includes bibliographical references (241-253).

Iron plays an important role in the regulation of biological productivity and the carbon cycle of the Southern Ocean. Recently, synchrotron X-ray spectromicroscopy revealed that molar iron to silicon (Fe:Si) ratios in living diatom samples collected from surface waters and ice in the coastal Antarctic are significantly higher than reported dissolved Fe:Si ratios of Circumpolar Deep Water. Upwelling of Circumpolar Deep Water is a dominant source of iron and silicon to coastal Southern Ocean surface waters. Thus with higher Fe:Si ratios, diatom production preferentially depletes dissolved iron relative to silicon, potentially contributing to perennial iron limitation in this region. Combining diatom and water column dissolved iron and silicon datasets with a simple inverse box model we estimate the regional coupled iron and silicon budget. Upwelling of subsurface waters cannot supply enough iron to balance the loss due to diatom production, which indicates that the closed budget requires additional iron sources or additional methods of silicon removal. To evaluate the ecological and biogeochemical impacts of the high Fe:Si ratio, a three-dimensional ocean biogeochemistry and ecosystem model is used to simulate the sensitivity of ocean productivity and nutrient cycling to a wide range of Fe:Si ratios in modeled diatoms. The Fe:Si ratio of diatoms regulates the surface iron and macronutrient distribution in vast regions beyond the Southern Ocean. A globally higher Fe:Si ratio strongly decreases subpolar productivity and is partially compensated by the moderate increase in subtropical productivity. Our results indicate that the Fe:Si ratio of diatoms has a global impact controlling the distribution of both micro- and macro-nutrients and associated biological production.

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The objective of this study has been to investigate whether epilithic diatoms could be used as a tool for assessing the condition of small to medium sized Arizona streams. Eighty-four perennial streams throughout the state were sampled during spring months of 1993, 1994 and 1995. One hundred and ninety-five samples were collected from 115 sites for water chemistry, epilithic diatoms, and stream characteristics. Exploratory analysis techniques were employed to determine if unique diatoms assemblages could be associated with any physical stream characteristics or water chemistry constituents. Multivariate and univariate analysis techniques failed to uncover any relationships between diatom species and environmental variables. Samples were dominated by species having ubiquitous distributions and wide environmental tolerance.

D. Tech. Fine and Applied Arts / No documented projects exists that can serve as a guide for the establishment of community economic development projects among women in Southern Africa with the aim to economically empower them through the manufacturing of export quality garments in large volumes. The premise for this study was therefore to investigate opportunities that could potentially result in the economic empowerment of women by equipping them with textile-related skills, in a community economic development context, to make apparel that can be exported to first-world countries. The aim of this research was to devise a community empowerment model that would facilitate a participative process that will induce change - from poverty to economic empowerment - through the medium of garment product manufacture and distribution.

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