Trends of Pesticides in Norwegian Streams and Rivers (1996-2000)

In Norway twelve streams and medium size rivers have been monitored for pesticides in a four to six years period. During these years the central authorities have accomplished efforts to minimize the risk for pesticides entering the water bodies. Trend analyses have been done on the years 1996-2000 to gain information on whether there have been reductions in the retrieval of the pesticides: (1) Frequency of pesticides detection; (2) Sum concentration of all individual pesticides in each sample; (3) Environmental risk by weighing the concentration of each pesticide against the environmental maximum residue limits (MRL). As a whole, developments in streams and rivers show both positive and negative trends regarding the different parameters studied. The tendency is that the different parameters show the same development within the stream. The situation in these streams has not changed much during this 5 years period, but there are indications towards a slight positive development. Trend analyses might therefore be useful together with careful interpretation.     

Vibrationally inelastic scattering of H∼ ions from H2, N2, O2 and CO2

State-resolved measurements are presented for vibrational excitation of H₂, N₂, O₂ and CO₂ by H^? impact in the collision energy rangeE _cm=20–180 eV and for scattering in the forward direction (0±0.5°). The data obtained from the measurements are the relative intensities and differential cross sections for vibrational excitation up toν′=4, the transition probabilitiesP _0→ν′ and the vibrational energy transferΔE _vib. For the systems H^?-H₂, N₂, O₂ the vibrational inelasticity increases in the order H₂-N₂-O₂. The mechanism for vibrational excitation in these systems is due to transient charge transfer from the H^? ion into antibonding orbitals of the target molecule which provides a bond stretching force during the collision. For H₂ and N₂, the results are compared with corresponding measurements for H⁺ scattering where the interaction mechanism is quite different. In the case of CO₂, vibrational excitation in forward scattering is caused primarily by the long-range dipole interaction. The spectra are very similar for H^?-CO₂ and H⁺-CO₂. Finer details are attributed to the influence of transient charge transfer and valence interactions.     

The association between whole body vibration exposure and musculoskeletal disorders in the Swedish work force is confounded by lifting and posture

This was a cross-sectional study based on material representing the Swedish work-force from a survey conducted in 1999, 2001 and 2003 by Statistics Sweden. Exposure to whole body vibration (WBV) was prevalent among agricultural, forestry, fishery workers and among plant and machinery operators based on a sample of 40,000 employed persons. Approximately 70% responders, that are 9798 persons answered both the interview and the questionnaire for the analysis of exposure-response. Exposure to WBV at least half the working time was associated with prevalence ratios above two for musculoskeletal symptoms in the low back, neck, shoulder/arm and hand among workers. When the exposure factors lifting and frequent bending were added to a multivariate analysis, surprisingly the magnitude of association was low between low back symptoms and WBV exposure. Interestingly, the relation between WBV exposure and symptoms in the neck, shoulder/arm and hand had the same or higher magnitude of association even when the possible confounders were in the model. For the neck, low back and shoulder/arm there was a visible increase in prevalence ratio (as high as 5 times) when combined exposures of WBV, lifting, frequent bending, twisted posture and noise were included in the analysis.     

Column-switching high-performance liquid chromatographic detection of pholcodine and its metabolites in urine with fluorescence and electrochemical detection.

A sensitive and selective method for the detection of pholcodine and its metabolite morphine in urine using high-performance liquid chromatography is described. It involves on-line clean-up of urine on a trace enrichment column packed with a polymeric strong cation-exchange material. Pholcodine and its metabolites were separated on two analytical columns with different selectivities. Pholcodine was detected by a fluorescence detector and morphine was detected electrochemically. One system, based on reversed-phase chromatography, applied a polystyrene-divinylbenzene column and gradient elution. The other system was based on normal-phase chromatography with a silica column and isocratic elution. Morphine was confirmed to be a metabolite of pholcodine by reversed-phase chromatography and electrochemical detection. Two unidentified metabolites of pholcodine were separated from pholcodine by normal-phase chromatography and detected by fluorescence detection.     

Cholesky decomposition of the two-electron integral matrix in electronic structure calculations

A standard Cholesky decomposition of the two-electron integral matrix leads to integral tables which have a huge number of very small elements. By neglecting these small elements, it is demonstrated that the recursive part of the Cholesky algorithm is no longer a bottleneck in the procedure. It is shown that a very efficient algorithm can be constructed when family type basis sets are adopted. For subsequent calculations, it is argued that two-electron integrals represented by Cholesky integral tables have the same potential for simplifications as density fitting. Compared to density fitting, a Cholesky decomposition of the two-electron matrix is not subjected to the problem of defining an auxiliary basis for obtaining a fixed accuracy in a calculation since the accuracy simply derives from the choice of a threshold for the decomposition procedure. A particularly robust algorithm for solving the restricted Hartree-Fock (RHF) equations can be speeded up if one has access to an ordered set of integral tables. In a test calculation on a linear chain of beryllium atoms, the advocated RHF algorithm nicely converged, but where the standard direct inversion in iterative space method converged very slowly to an excited state.