Advanced Photonic Thin Films for Solar Irradiation Tuneability Oriented to Greenhouse Applications

The world population is growing by 1 billion people every 10 years. There will come a time when there will be more people to feed but less land to grow food. Greenhouses can be the solution to this problem because they provide the highest production yield per m² and also use less water, provide food safety, and offer high quality. Photosynthetic active radiation (PAR) favors vegetable growth with a specific blue and red light ratio. Thus, increasing the amount of red light improves chlorophyll absorption and photosynthetic efficiency. In this article, we present a hybrid system that combines luminescent materials and photonic crystals for better management of the light reaching the greenhouse. The luminescent dyes considered herein are combined ensuring a Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) nonradiative mechanism to enhance the absorption range. The designed photonic crystal maximizes reflections in the Near-Infrared (NIR) range, and therefore, thermal losses are minimized. Thus, by converting harmful or ineffective radiation for plant growth to the PAR region, we aim to demonstrate growth-condition enhancement for the different vegetables that have been used as a model.     

Perennial grasslands enhance biodiversity and multiple ecosystem services in bioenergy landscapes

Agriculture is being challenged to provide food, and increasingly fuel, for an expanding global population. Producing bioenergy crops on marginal lands—farmland suboptimal for food crops—could help meet energy goals while minimizing competition with food production. However, the ecological costs and benefits of growing bioenergy feedstocks—primarily annual grain crops—on marginal lands have been questioned. Here we show that perennial bioenergy crops provide an alternative to annual grains that increases biodiversity of multiple taxa and sustain a variety of ecosystem functions, promoting the creation of multifunctional agricultural landscapes. We found that switchgrass and prairie plantings harbored significantly greater plant, methanotrophic bacteria, arthropod, and bird diversity than maize. Although biomass production was greater in maize, all other ecosystem services, including methane consumption, pest suppression, pollination, and conservation of grassland birds, were higher in perennial grasslands. Moreover, we found that the linkage between biodiversity and ecosystem services is dependent not only on the choice of bioenergy crop but also on its location relative to other habitats, with local landscape context as important as crop choice in determining provision of some services. Our study suggests that bioenergy policy that supports coordinated land use can diversify agricultural landscapes and sustain multiple critical ecosystem services.In agricultural landscapes, balancing the provisioning of food and energy with maintenance of biodiversity and ecosystem functions is a global challenge. To avoid impacts on food production, attention is increasingly being focused on the potential for marginal lands to support bioenergy production (1). Marginal lands, those suboptimal for food production, may consist of relatively small areas within generally productive landscapes or larger regions where conditions generally limit crop productivity. However, there is increasing recognition that these lands are already performing a variety of useful functions, and their conversion to bioenergy cropping could reduce these services. For example, in the north central United States, rising commodity prices are predicted to bring marginal croplands—including Conservation Reserve Program lands—into annual crop production with negative impacts on wildlife habitat and water quality (2, 3). With 2013 corn plantings at recent record highs (4) and new reports of grassland and wetland conversion to cropland (5, 6), this may be occurring already.An alternative to annual cropping is conversion of marginal croplands to perennial, cellulosic crops for bioenergy. Although current US biofuel production centers on grain ethanol derived from annual monocultures of maize (Zea mays), this situation could change with full implementation of the 2007 US Energy Independence and Security Act (7), which calls for increased production of cellulosic biofuels. In the Midwest United States, perennial grasses and forbs grown on marginal lands could provide up to 25% of national targets for cellulosic biofuel, with substantial greenhouse gas (GHG) benefits (8). Moreover, increasing the area of perennial cover on the landscape is predicted to positively affect a diverse array of organisms and ecological functions (9–11), leading to important synergies that have not yet informed the ongoing bioenergy debate. Here we provide the most comprehensive empirical evaluation of this hypothesis to date, reporting data that elucidate the impacts of different bioenergy cropping systems on a wide variety of organisms and the ecosystem functions they perform.Previous studies have examined the ability of select bioenergy crops to support specific taxa (12) or individual services such as energy production (13) or GHG mitigation (14), without consideration of the tradeoffs or synergies that can arise when considering entire suites of organisms and ecosystem functions. We report on a unique multidisciplinary study of matched sets of organisms and ecosystem services and show that perennial grass energy crops (switchgrass, Panicum virgatum, and mixed prairie plantings) synergistically enhance diversity of a variety of organisms and levels of the services they provide. We further quantify the importance of landscape context on service provisioning, suggesting that policy supporting intentional design of bioenergy landscapes could increase sustainability of both food and energy production.     

日光温室作业对蔬菜种植人员眼健康的影响

目的探讨日光温室作业对蔬菜种植人员眼健康的影响。方法选取西北某地区739名温室蔬菜种植人员(温室组)和263名非温室蔬菜种植人员(非温室组)作为研究对象,采用问卷调查方式收集其一般人口学信息和眼异常症状情况,并测量双侧裸眼视力。结果温室组和非温室组人员左眼视力分别为4.89±0.33和4.91±0.25,差异无统计学意义(P>0.05);右眼视力分别为4.86±0.32和4.91±0.24,差异具有统计学意义(P<0.05)。男性温室组右眼视力(4.89±0.38)低于非温室组(4.98±0.22),差异具有统计学意义(P<0.05);女性温室组与非温室组右眼视力分别为4.84±0.28和4.89±0.24,差异无统计学意义(P>0.05)。温室组和非温室组眼痒、眼干等眼部异常症状发生率差异均无统计学意义(P>0.05)。多因素分析显示,年龄、性别和眼异常症状种类数是影响视力的重要因素(P<0.05);女性和温室作业人员更易出现眼异常症状(P<0.05)。结论日光温室作业可能引起蔬菜种植人员眼损伤风险升高,主视眼视力可能更易受损。     

高效生活垃圾焚烧技术与温室气体减排

我国垃圾焚烧余热锅炉的蒸汽参数低,多采用中温中压 (4.0 MPa/400 ℃),且多用于发电,余热利用形式单一,热率低.通过分析得出,采用高蒸汽参数、富氧燃烧等高效垃圾焚烧技术不仅可以提高能源利用率,还可进一步减少温室气体排放.     

大棚肺308例临床特征分析

目的探讨大棚作业农民肺(简称大棚肺)的临床特征及影像学特点,减少误诊率。方法采用整群随机抽样方法,对2006年8月至2009年6月沈阳市、新民市、朝阳市及锦州市郊区从事塑料大棚作业的5880例农民进行流行病学调查及肺功能检测,共筛查出大棚肺患者308例,分析其临床表现、体征及影像学特点。结果 (1)308例大棚肺患者临床症状按出现的频率高低分别为咳嗽和(或)咳痰192例(62.34%)、发热和寒战180例(58.44%)、胸闷和(或)气急160例(51.95%)、乏力和体重减轻116例(37.66%)、头晕头痛40例(12.99%);(2)两下肺闻及捻发音为大棚肺患者中的主要体征;(3)153例(49.67%)出现X线胸片改变,高分辨CT显示弥漫微小结节影63例(41.18%)、斑片状磨玻璃样阴影48例(31.37%)、结节状磨玻璃样影36例(23.53%)、局限性空气残留并形成"马赛克"样灌注12例(9.15%)、纤维索条影10例(6.54%)、纤维化2例(1.31%);(4)肺外疾病:出现颈项痛及腰腿酸痛169例、关节炎及关节畸形者116例、过敏性皮肤病96例、静脉曲张37例、消化道疾病32例、眼病(包括急性结膜炎、眼缘炎、过敏性结膜炎等)24例。结论大棚肺的早期临床表现变化迅速、非特异性;大棚肺常合并肺外多系统疾病;根据病程的长短,其肺部影像学特点不同。     

Effects of land use history and inoculation with <Emphasis Type="Italic">Fusarium oxysporum</Emphasis> f. sp. <Emphasis Type="Italic">cucumberinum</Emphasis> Owen on soil nematodes communities

Summary  A pot culture experiment was carried out to study the effects of land use history and inoculation with Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cucumberinum Owen (Foc) on soil nematodes communities during the cucumber growing season in 2007. The results showed that land use history and inoculation had significant effects on the abundance and diversity of soil nematodes. Bacterivores were found to be the most dominant group in this study. Irrespective of inoculation, numbers of fungivores, plant-parasites and values of trophic diversity index (TD) and plant-parasites index (PPI) were greater in greenhouse soils (GH) than in open field vegetable soils (OF) during the growth period of cucumber. While, the number of omnivores-predators and values of richness (SR) and maturity index (MI) presented an opposite trend. Foc inoculation had noticeable effects on numbers of plant-parasites and some taxa, such as Helicotylenchus, Epidorlaimus at flowering stage and Aphelenchus, Tobrilus at fruiting stage. Besides, inoculation significantly affected values of PPI at flowering stage and TD at fruiting stage, respectively. The faunal analysis showed that soil food web in GH was highly disturbed and in OF was degraded.     

温室作业农药暴露对新生儿出生质量的影响

目的了解温室作业这部分特殊人群长期多种农药暴露对新生儿出生质量的影响。方法随机抽取2010年3月-2014年12月期间在潍坊市妇幼保健院等3家单位产科生育住院,在孕前及孕期累计且连续从事温室作业至少2年以上的孕妇439人及其孕产的新生儿431人纳入暴露组,不从事温室作业并且不接触农药的同医院产妇152人及其孕产的新生儿151人为对照组。通过问卷调查和查阅资料等方式获得从事大棚种植女性菜农的农药暴露情况、产妇一般情况等,通过现场调查和历史常规资料分析获得新生儿出生质量资料。根据累积农药暴露指数将蔬菜大棚种植组所有被调查者按暴露水平分为低、中、高暴露三个组。结果新生儿男女性别比是1.09∶1,胎龄(39.46±0.28)周,出生体重平均(3.06±0.86)kg,各项体格发育指标如身高、头围、胸围等均在正常值范围内。临床Agpar评分,1 min评分7分占89.52%,5min评分7分占92.61%,10min评分7分占95.36%。亚健康出生儿103名(占17.70%)、出生缺陷儿7名(占1.89%)。不同农药暴露组之间新生儿胎龄、出生体重、身长、Agpar评分、亚健康儿的差异具有统计学意义,并且对照组和高暴露组之间比较亦具有统计学差异。结论温室作业农药暴露可以引发早产、低出生体重儿、身长和Agpar评分降低等生殖健康损伤以及可能增加后代先天性畸形的风险。     

Impaired reproductive development in sons of women occupationally exposed to pesticides during pregnancy

Objectives

The aim of this prospective study was to investigate whether occupational pesticide exposure during pregnancy causes adverse effects on the reproductive development in the male infants.

Design and measurements

Pregnant women employed in greenhouses in Denmark were consecutively recruited, and 113 mother–son pairs were included. The mothers were categorized as occupationally exposed (91 sons) or unexposed (22 sons) to pesticides during pregnancy. Testicular position and volume, penile length, and position of urethral opening were determined at 3 months of age using standardized techniques. Concentrations of reproductive hormones in serum from the boys were analyzed.

Results

The prevalence of cryptorchidism at 3 months of age was 6.2% [95% confidence interval (CI), 3.0–12.4]. This prevalence was considerably higher than among Danish boys born in the Copenhagen area (1.9%; 95% CI, 1.2–3.0) examined by the same procedure. Boys of pesticide-exposed mothers showed decreased penile length, testicular volume, serum concentrations of testosterone, and inhibin B. Serum concentrations of sex hormone-binding globulin, follicle-stimulating hormone, and the luteinizing hormone:testosterone ratio were increased compared with boys of nonexposed mothers. For individual parameters, only the decreased penile length was statistically significant (p = 0.04). However, all observed effects were in the anticipated direction, and a joint multivariate test showed that this finding had a p-value of 0.012.

Conclusions

Our findings suggest an adverse effect of maternal occupational pesticide exposure on reproductive development in the sons despite current greenhouse safeguards and special measures to protect pregnant women.