http://hdl.handle.net/10453/20 2013-05-25T14:05:11Z http://hdl.handle.net/10453/19425 Sources and toxicity of pollutants Sanchez-Bayo Francisco Sanchez-Bayo F, van den Brink PJ, Mann RM Modern living standards depend largely on the production and usage of thousands of chemicals, many of which are toxic and synthetically produced. These substances are discharged into the air, soil, water bodies and the sea through a variety of ways, becoming pollutants of our environment. The investigation of their fate and impacts they have on ecosystems is called ecotoxicology, a multidisciplinary science which intends to evaluate the nature of the discharge, the transformation and distribution of toxicants in the environment, exposure, lethality and sublethal effects on organisms, population responses, and changes in community structure and ecosystem function. The sources and mode of action of some of the most common groups of toxicants are described in this chapter, leaving their fate and effects in organisms and ecosystems for the subsequent chapters. 2011-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10453/19426 Concluding remarks Sanchez-Bayo Francisco; Van Den Brink Paul; Mann Reinier Sanchez-Bayo F, van den Brink PJ, Mann RM The new millennium started with a legacy of unprecedented contamination of the world ecosystems left in the wake of the various activities of humankind. Chemical pollutants have become so diverse (see Chapter 1) and widespread that there is hardly any region of the world that is not currently affected by their impacts. With the exception, perhaps, of the desert wilderness areas (for which information on pollution is still lacking), every other ecosystem on earth, from the polar regions to the tropics, whether on land or in the oceans, has been shown to contain residues or traces of organic and inorganic pollutants of anthropogenic origin. 2011-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10453/19427 Thermophysical Properties of Natural Glasses at the Extremes of the Thermal History Profile Thomas Paul; Sestak J; Heide K; Fuglein Ekkehard; Simon Peter Sestak J, MAres JJ, Hubik P Natural amorphous glassy silicates are widely distributed and are found in quantities that range from micrograms to kilo tonnes and, hence, their occurrence is from microscopic glassy inclusions to ¿glassy mountains¿ [1]. These natural glasses have two generic origins which may be generalised as vitreous glasses, formed from the melt state by relatively rapid cooling at cooling rates that inhibit crystal formation, or diagenetic glasses, formed by a dissolution-precipitation mechanism where crystallisation is inhibited by the Ostwald¿s rule of stepwise petrogenesis [2]. The thermal histories of a range of natural glasses are depicted in the schematic of Fig. 19.1 and vary signi?cantly from the typical conditions used in the glass industry which are optimised between processing speed and energy conservation. In the extremes, tektites like moldavites are formed by extremely fast heating and melting at very high temperatures (> 3,000 K) followed by quenching at extreme cooling rates ( 10 K/s). By contrast the formation of amorphous glasses from mineral diagenesis or biotic processes occurs at much lower temperatures and over longer time periods; the formation of sedimentary opal, for example, occurs at ambient temperatures, it is essentially isothermal, and takes place over long periods of time of the order of months to years 2011-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10453/19067 A sensitive method to detect and quantify delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol in oral fluid by liquid chromatography - tandem mass spectrometry Molnar Anna; Fu Shanlin; Doble Philip; Lewis John Dimitri Gerostamoulos; Jochen Beyer Delta9 -tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) is the major psychoactive constituent of cannabis. It causes a decrease in motor function and concentration making it hazardous for an individual to drive whilst under the inftuence of this drug. Roadside testing procedures for cannabis are therefore necessary since it is the most widely used illicit drug in Australia and around the world and is commonly implicated in drug-driving offences. 2011-01-01T00:00:00Z