Location,social categories,and individual labor market experiences in developing economies: the Venezuelan case

"Individual labor market experiences [in Venezuela] are examined in terms of educational attainment, labor force participation, and wages received. Explanatory factors include personal attributes and two multivariate scales measuring place characteristics related to development. The results indicate that place characteristics associated with development have important effects on labor market experiences.... Among the key findings of this research are that educational attainment most affected labor force participation by women and wages of men."     

Sound field calculation for rectangular sources

A method is presented for calculation of the sound field from a rectangular continuous-wave source surrounded by a plane grid baffle. The approach is illustrated for square sources of 0.5, 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, and 100 lambda on a side. These results are compared to the sound fields produced by similarly sized circular sources. The beam widths and locations of on-axis minima are similar for the two sources, but the transverse pressure distribution is more uniform in the near-field of the square source. The effects of attenuation on the sound field of a square source are examined.     

Pb scavenging from a freshwater lake by Mn oxides in heterogeneous surface coating materials

Selective extraction techniques were used to assay the importance of specific solid phases in Pb binding by heterogeneous surface coating materials (biofilms) in Cayuga Lake, NY. Hydroxylamine hydrochloride (NH(2)OH.HC1) was used to extract easily reducible Mn oxides, and sodium dithionite (Na(2)S(2)O(4)) was used to extract Mn and Fe oxides in two sets of biofilm samples retrieved from the lake. Pb remaining after extraction was removed by extraction with 10% HNO(3), determined by analysis of Pb(208) using a sector field mass spectrometer with an inductively coupled plasma ion source (ICP-MS), and compared to the total extractable Pb. The results indicate that the greatest contribution to total Pb binding to the heterogeneous surface coating materials was from Mn oxides. Pb adsorption capacity of Mn oxides exceeded that of Fe oxides on a molar basis by approximately an order of magnitude. The high reactivity observed for natural Mn oxides indicates that they are biogenic in origin, consistent with expectations based on the relative biotic and abiotic rates of Mn(II) oxidation under circumneutral conditions. Collectively, these results confirm expectations based on prior observations of adsorption of added Pb by Cayuga Lake biofilms before and after selective extraction, and also confirm predictions for Pb phase association in the lake based on the behavior of laboratory surrogates for adsorptive surfaces.     

Contaminants in the Canadian Arctic: 5 years of progress in understanding sources, occurrence and pathways

Recent studies of contaminants under the Canadian Northern Contaminants Program (NCP) have substantially enhanced our understanding of the pathways by which contaminants enter Canada's Arctic and move through terrestrial and marine ecosystems there. Building on a previous review (Barrie et al., Arctic contaminants: sources, occurrence and pathways. Sci Total Environ 1992:1-74), we highlight new knowledge developed under the NCP on the sources, occurrence and pathways of contaminants (organochlorines, Hg, Pb and Cd, PAHs, artificial radionuclides). Starting from the global scale, we examine emission histories and sources for selected contaminants focussing especially on the organochlorines. Physical and chemical properties, transport processes in the environment (e.g. winds, currents, partitioning), and models are then used to identify, understand and illustrate the connection between the contaminant sources in industrial and agricultural regions to the south and the eventual arrival of contaminants in remote regions of the Arctic. Within the Arctic, we examine how contaminants impinge on marine and terrestrial pathways and how they are subsequently either removed to sinks or remain where they can enter the biosphere. As a way to focus this synthesis on key concerns of northern residents, a number of special topics are examined including: a mass balance for HCH and toxaphene (CHBs) in the Arctic Ocean; a comparison of PCB sources within Canada's Arctic (Dew Line Sites) with PCBs imported through long-range transport; an evaluation of concerns posed by three priority metals--Hg, Pb and Cd; an evaluation of the risks from artificial radionuclides in the ocean; a review of what is known about new-generation pesticides that are replacing the organochlorines; and a comparison of natural vs. anthropogenic sources of PAH in the Arctic. The research and syntheses provide compelling evidence for close connectivity between the global emission of contaminants from industrial and agricultural activities and the Arctic. For semi-volatile compounds that partition strongly into cold water (e.g. HCH) we have seen an inevitable loading of Arctic aquatic reservoirs. Drastic HCH emission reductions have been rapidly followed by reduced atmospheric burdens with the result that the major reservoir and transport agent has become the ocean. In the Arctic, it will take decades for the upper ocean to clear itself of HCH. For compounds that partition strongly onto particles, and for which the soil reservoir is most important (e.g. PCBs), we have seen a delay in their arrival in the Arctic and some fractionation toward more volatile compounds (e.g. lower-chlorinated PCBs). Despite banning the production of PCB in the 1970s, and despite decreases of PCBs in environmental compartments in temperate regions, the Arctic presently shows little evidence of reduced PCB loadings. We anticipate a delay in PCB reductions in the Arctic and environmental lifetimes measured in decades. Although artificial radionuclides have caused great concern due to their direct disposal on Russian Shelves, they are found to pose little threat to Canadian waters and, indeed, much of the radionuclide inventory can be explained as remnant global fallout, which was sharply curtailed in the 1960s, and waste emissions released under license by the European reprocessing plants. Although Cd poses a human dietary concern both for terrestrial and marine mammals, we find little evidence that Cd in marine systems has been impacted by human activities. There is evidence of contaminant Pb in the Arctic, but loadings appear presently to be decreasing due to source controls (e.g. removal of Pb from gasoline) in Europe and North America. Of the metals, Hg provokes the greatest concern; loadings appear to be increasing in the Arctic due to global human activities, but such loadings are not evenly distributed nor are the pathways by which they enter and move within the Arctic well understood.     

Trends of heavy metal components in the Arctic aerosols and their relationship to the emissions in the Northern Hemisphere

Twenty-one years of observations (1980-2000) of weekly mean concentrations of major anthropogenic and natural metals in the aerosol of the lower Arctic troposphere at Alert have been analyzed by time series analysis for seasonal and long-term trends and by positive matrix factorization for major aerosol components with which metals are associated. Metals at Alert exhibit distinct seasonal variations depending on the source and origin of the metals. Anthropogenic metals such as Pb, Zn and Cu and the sea-salt components Na and Mg exhibit maxima in winter and minima in summer. Similar variations were observed for non-soil fractions of V and Mn. Weak seasonal variations were found for soil-related metals such as Al, Ba, Ca and Fe. If any trend is evident in anthropogenic metals, it is a slight decrease from 1980 to mid-1990s but generally the variation is not monotonic. It is found through the winter observations of Pb, Zn, Ni and Cu concentrations that the decline trends have been leveled off and started to increase again around 1995. No long-term trends were detected in Na, Mg and Ca concentrations but a slight decrease is observed for soil components Al, Fe and Ti after 1995. Analysis showed that these trends are mostly associated with the anthropogenic emission variations surrounding the Arctic regions.     

Bacterial community shifts in nonylphenol polyethoxylates-enriched activated sludge

A molecular approach was used to evaluate the effect of nonylphenol ethoxylate surfactants on the bacterial diversity in lab-scale activated sludge reactors. Separate bench-scale units were fed synthetic wastewater with and without addition of branched nonylphenol ethoxylates (NPnEO). The performance of the reactors, in terms of carbonaceous removal was largely unaffected by the presence of NP10EO in the feeding solution. However, addition of NP10EO exerted a pronounced shift in bacterial community composition. In situ hybridization analyzing larger phylogenetic groups of bacteria with ribosomal RNA-targeted oligonucleotide probes revealed the dominance of clusters composed of Betaproteobacteria, accounting for up to one-third of 4',6-diamidino-2-phenylindol-dihydrochloride (DAPI)-stained cells in NP10EO amended reactors and only 5% of DAPI-stained cells in the controls. These shifts in populations of larger phylogenetic groups were confirmed by dot-blot analysis of rRNA. Members of gamma subclass of Proteobacteria were present in low numbers in all activated sludge samples examined, suggesting that only bacteria affiliated with the beta subclass of Proteobacteria may have a specific role in NP10EO degradation.     

FSR Methods for Second-Order Regression Models

Most variable selection techniques focus on first-order linear regression models. Often, interaction and quadratic terms are also of interest, but the number of candidate predictors grows very fast with the number of original predictors, making variable selection more difficult. Forward selection algorithms are thus developed that enforce natural hierarchies in second-order models to control the entry rate of uninformative effects and to equalize the false selection rates from first-order and second-order terms. Method performance is compared through Monte Carlo simulation and illustrated with data from a Cox regression and from a response surface experiment.     

An inline QC method for determining serial dilution performance of DMSO-based systems

Serial dilution of compounds solubilized in dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO) for dose-response curves is a common method for efficacy analysis of potential drug candidates. In general, serial dilution methods are particularly prone to error propagation because each dilution is dependent on the previous concentration. Moreover, assumptions about quality control parameters (i.e., dye linearity) can lead to an erroneous process. Here, an inline performance measurement is sought to improve the precision and accuracy of dilution plates. Sulforhodamine 101 (S101) dye is introduced as the quantitative fluorometric method of choice for DMSO-based systems. Although S101 in DMSO behaves in a nonlinear fashion over its detectable range, we account for this with a direct calibration method that includes every point of the dilution template. This report contains dye selection rationale for the S101 dye and its use in quantifying the performance of 96- and 384-well dilution protocols as tested on five identical instruments.     

Extraction of radiative and nonradiative rates in Sb based midwave infrared lasers using a novel approach

We developed a technique using nonlinear correlation of photoluminescence (PL) to characterize midwave infrared lasers by extracting the density and temperature dependence of the carrier lifetime and its exact branching into radiative and nonradiative processes. This was accomplished, without time resolving the PL recovery, through mathematical optimization. We extracted this information by using a laser source that can be operated in both continuous-wave and short pulse modes. Through fitting of the PL signal and its nonlinear correlation for both laser modes of operation, the carrier lifetime as a function of density is extracted. As a proof of principle, we investigated a midinfrared Sb based laser and showed that the radiative branching ratio drops from approximately 54% at 80 K to about 3% at room temperature, resulting from an order of magnitude increase in the nonradiative rate coupled with a factor of 2 reduction in the radiative rate. We believe that this is a very generic approach and can be extended to various luminescing material systems.