Biorefining of Green Biomass – Technical and Energetic Considerations

The development of biorefineries is the key for access to an integrated production of food, feed, chemicals, materials, goods, fuels and energy of the future. This communication considers an integrated green biorefinery combined with today's production of feed in the green agriculture. Special attention is given to the combination of physical and biotechnological processes for the production of proteins as well as platform chemicals such as lactic acid and lysine. Mass and energy flows (steam and electricity) are given for the biorefining of green biomass to produce platform chemicals, proteins, feed and biogas from residues.     

Race/Ethnicity in Visual Imagery of Dutch Nature Conservation Organizations

Nature conservation organizations in various Western countries, including the Netherlands, have noted that racial/ethnic minorities compared to Whites are “underparticipating” in recreation in natural areas and in nature conservation practices. Previous research trying to explain (under-)participation by racial/ethnic minorities in outdoor recreation and nature conservation mainly focused on characteristics of racial/ethnic groups. This study argues that nature conservation organizations themselves—although in all likelihood unintentionally—may play a role in participation of racial/ethnic minorities as well, through their promotional material. A content analysis of 22,974 pictures in magazines and on websites of four large Dutch nature conservation organizations shows that only 3.8% of the depicted people were non-White. Our results indicate that visual imagery of nature conservation organizations, at least in the Netherlands, (re)produces an image of outdoor recreation and nature conservation as being activities almost exclusively performed by Whites.     

Urban Community Garden Agrodiversity and Cultural Identity in Philadelphia,Pennsylvania, U.S.

Considerable research has examined the social, cultural, economic, and community benefits of urban gardening. Few studies, however, have empirically assessed factors that influence urban community garden agrodiversity or its relationship to these dimensions of gardening. We conducted an interdisciplinary study of agrodiversity and cultural identity, based certain markers of identity, including how people see themselves with respect to race, ethnicity, or place of origin, in community gardens in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. We conducted fifty‐six semistructured interviews with gardeners with different cultural identities in eight community gardens on their motivations for urban community gardening during 2014. We conducted plant inventories of the corresponding garden plots and found 104 cultivated edible and ornamental species and 28 varieties representing 34 families. We find that although gardens with culturally diverse gardeners did not have higher species richness, the cultural identity of the gardeners influenced species selection and reason for gardening. Further, the structure, design and species composition of garden plots reflected the identities of garden members. These finding have implications for the recent institutionalization of urban agriculture into city land policies in Philadelphia and other cities in North America.     

UV-tolerance and instantaneous physiological stress responses of two Antarctic amphipod species Gondogeneia antarctica and Djerboa furcipes during exposure to UV radiation

We investigated the shielding against solar ultraviolet radiation and inducible damage, as well as the short-term response of whole animal metabolic rate in two Antarctic shallow water amphipod species. Light absorbance by the carapace of Gondogeneia antarctica and Djerboa furcipes was higher in the UVR (UVB+UVA) range (42.1% and 54.5% on average respectively) compared to the PAR (photosynthetically active radiation) range (38.1% and 50.1% respectively) of the solar spectrum. Bands of higher absorbance correlated with maximal absorbance ranges of sunscreening compounds indicating mycosporine-like amino acids (MAAs) and carotenoids to be innate compounds of the exoskeleton of these species. Though the antioxidant enzyme catalase was photoinhibited, protein damage products did not accumulate under experimental exposure to a daily dose of 6.84 kJ m(-2) d(-1) UVB, 66.24 kJ m(-2) d(-1) UVA and 103.14 kJ m(-2) d(-1) PAR. Animal oxygen consumption during UV-exposure was measured as an indicator of immediate behavioural and physiological stress response. UVB as well as UVA induced a response with altered and highly variable respiratory intensity. Our findings indicate that sub-lethal UVR exposure causes increased oxygen consumption in polar amphipods due to radiation avoidance, shelter seeking behaviour, and presumably also from cellular repair processes.     

Significance of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in Permian/Triassic boundary sections

In this study the abundances of several polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs Table 1, I–XXI) have been measured throughout three Permian/Triassic (P/Tr) sections from Meishan (South China), Kap Stosch area (East Greenland) and Peace River Basin (Western Canada). Dibenzothiophene (I) and dibenzofuran (II) were found to decrease in abundance just before or shortly after the P/Tr transition in all three sections while perylene (III) was observed to increase in abundance at the onset of the main extinction horizon (bed 25) in Meishan. Perylene has been attributed to a wood degrading fungal source and, therefore, it seems possible these phenomena are related to the demise of land plants. Further, distinct patterns of various combustion-derived PAHs occurring in each section imply that forest fire events occurred within the Late Permian and Early Triassic. In the Meishan section high amounts of combustion-derived PAHs [pyrene (IV), fluoranthene (V), benzo[a]anthracene (VI), benzofluoranthenes (sum, i.e. VII), benzo[a]pyrene (VIII), benzo[e]pyrene (IX) and coronene (X)] occur within bed 25, also containing ash attributed to the fallout from massive volcanic eruptions in Siberia and/or China.     

Contribution of regional climate drivers to future winter sea-level changes in the Baltic Sea estimated by statistical methods and simulations of climate models

A statistical downscaling approach is applied to the output of five different global climate model simulations driven by twenty-first century future scenarios of greenhouse gas concentrations. The contribution of sea-level pressure (SLP) and precipitation changes to regional future winter sea-level changes is estimated for four Baltic sea-level stations by establishing statistical relationships between sea level as predictand and large-scale climate fields as predictors. Using SLP as predictor for the central and eastern Baltic Sea level stations, three climate models lead to statistically significant twenty-first century future trends in the range of the order of 1–2 mm/year. Using precipitation as predictor for the stations in the southern Baltic coast all five models lead to statistically significant trends with a range of the order of 0.4 mm/year. These numbers are smaller, but of the order of magnitude as the predicted global sea-level rise.     

Boundary-layer observations over water and arctic sea-ice during on-ice air flow

Observations made on 8 and 9 May 1988 by aircraft and two ships in and around the marginal ice zone of the Fram Strait during on-ice air flow under cloudy and cloud-free conditions are presented.The thermodynamic modification of the air mass moving from the open water to the ice over horizontal distances of 100–300 km is only a few tenth of a degree for temperature and a few tenth of a gram per kilogram for specific humidity. This is due to the small temperature differences between sea and ice surfaces. During the day, the ice surface is even warmer than the sea surface. The stably stratified 200–400 m deep boundary layer is often topped by a moisture inversion leading to downward fluxes of sensible as well as latent heat.The radiation and energy balance at the surface are measured as functions of ice cover, cloud cover and sun elevation angle. The net radiationR _Nis the dominating term of the energy budget. During the day, the difference ofR _Nbetween clear and overcast sky is only a few W/m² over ice, but 100–200 W/m² over water. During the night,R _Nover ice is more sensitive to cloud cover.The kinematic structure is characterized by strong shears of the longitudinal and the transversal wind component. The profile of the latter one shows an inflection point near the top of the boundary layer. Dynamically-driven roll circulations are numerically separated from the mean flow. The secondary flow patterns have wavelengths of about 1 km and contribute substantially to the total variances and covariances.     

Characterization of sediments in an abandoned mining area; a case study of Mansfeld region,Germany

The distribution of selected heavy metals, including some radionuclides, metalloids and non-metals was determined in stream sediments in a region influenced by abandoned copper mining and ore processing activities. A considerable amount of the ore processing waste with a very complex composition and highly elevated concentrations of zinc, sulfur, lead, copper, arsenic, and a lot of other elements in the range between 100 and 1,000 mg/kg (Sb, Mn, Ni, Cr, Cd, Hg, and Ag) was piled up on mine dumps. The dispersion of the pollutants originating from this source and their environmental impact were investigated. Both, sediments and original waste material were studied to indicate the pathways and the mobilization behavior of different pollutants. For this purpose, the process of the elution of pollutants by application of different fractionation schemes was studied. The capabilities of different analytical techniques are shown for the analysis of solid samples (X-ray fluorescence spectrometry, Gamma-spectrometry) and liquid ones (ICP-atomic emission spectrometry, ICP-mass spectrometry and different techniques of atomic absorption). Additionally, the coupling of ion chromatography and ICP-MS detection was used to study the distribution of arsenic species in the sediment cores of a lake which acts as a natural sink for the region.     

Geomicrobiology of Blood Falls: An Iron-Rich Saline Discharge at the Terminus of the Taylor Glacier, Antarctica

Blood Falls, a saline subglacial discharge from the Taylor Glacier, Antarctica provides an example of the diverse physical and chemical niches available for life in the polar desert of the McMurdo Dry Valleys. Geochemical analysis of Blood Falls outflow resembles concentrated seawater remnant from the Pliocene intrusion of marine waters combined with products of weathering. The result is an iron-rich, salty seep at the terminus of Taylor Glacier, which is subject to episodic releases into permanently ice-covered Lake Bonney. Blood Falls influences thegeochemistry of Lake Bonney, and provides organic carbon and viable microbes to the lakesystem. Here we present the first data on the geobiology of Blood Falls and relate it totheevolutionary history of this unique environment. The novel geological evolution of thissubglacial environment makes Blood Falls an important site for the study of metabolic strategiesin subglacial environments and the impact of subglacial efflux on associated lake ecosystems.     

Salt-water intrusion and nitrate contamination in the Valley of Hermosillo and El Sahuaral coastal aquifers, Sonora, Mexico

 The Valley of Hermosillo coastal aquifer, state of Sonora, northwestern Mexico, has been over-exploited for the last four decades, in order to maintain agricultural activity in one of the most important irrigation districts of the Mexican Republic. The over-exploitation has resulted in the development of several drawdown cones and in the lowering of the water table to as much as 50 m below mean sea level. Contamination of the aquifer in the form of salt-water intrusion from the Gulf of California and high nitrate concentrations is the consequence of human activities. A hydrogeochemical zonation of the aquifer, based on the presence of different water families, led to the identification of a coastal band approximately 30 km wide that is affected by salt-water intrusion. Conductivity of the sampled water and the interpretation of the ratio Na/Cl×1000 was used to identify the location of three major intrusion plumes in this coastal band. The background nitrate contamination of the aquifer is about 4 ppm, but contents as great as about 17 ppm occur in some wells. Irrigation with raw sewage and movement of contaminants in areas of high hydraulic gradients within the drawdown cones probably are responsible for localized peaks of the nitrate concentration. Received, October 1996 Revised, September 1997, May 1998 Accepted, July 1998