Soil microorganisms are important for plant growth and beneficial for the nutrition and the development of a variety of soil animals. Together with soil invertebrates they also improve nutrients availability in soils. Although not frequent in Europe , magnesite emissions can affect the nutritional status of the vegetation and the survival of soil microorganisms as well as other biota locally, and thus may be crucially responsible for the quality of the entire biotic system. The observed gradients of soil microbial characteristics reflect the physico-chemical properties of soils around the magnesite plant and may be used to predict transitory changes during amelioration

Research project main aims are coordinating, summarizing and making interpretation from the research results from the region of interest. Further targets are to focus, concentrate and promote research activities of relevant departments of the Faculty of Forestry in this area. Intention of organising institution is to create a material, grouping together research results available from the Ore Mts., forming a basis for results exchange and launching the data as well as for results utilisable in the forest practice in this region

Significant correlations (p0.05) were found between the concentration of elements in the c needles and the distance of the sites from nitrogen ferilizer factory (NFF): the amounts of C, K, Mg, Zn, and Rb in the c+1 needles were increasing, whereas concentrations of N, P, Al, Mn, Cu, Ni, Sr and Cd were decreasing alongside the transect from NFF. Statistical analyses performed on logarithms and estimation of components of variance by maximum likelihood has shown that the age of the needles and the sites were the most important, while year of sampling was much smaller source of variance. Only a few significant differences were found comparing the amount of elements in Scots pine needles collected in four-year space

Two holm oak (Quercus ilex L.) sites in Tuscany, Central Italy, were studied in July 2000. Leaf morphological characteristics (area, dry weight, specific dry weight, water content, epicuticular wax amount, stomatal density) and leaf fluorescence were measured. Ozone flux into the leaves was calculated on a stomatal conductance basis. Among the measured parameters, only stomatal density and wax amount significantly differed between the sites. This response might indicate an adaptation to air pollutants, of which tropospheric ozone might be of the greatest importance

Needle retention, needle density, height and radial increments were surveyed on Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) in four forest regions, In the each forest region research was conducted on seven about 45-year-old pines. The Needle Trace Method (NTM) was used to determine needle retention and needle density along the main stem retrospectively for the last four decades. The NTM invented by Kurkela and Jalkanen is based on the examination of the vascular bundles connecting the needles and shoot pith. There are presented the long-term average values of needle retention in the particular forest regions, their differences. Needle retention and needle density reflected air pollution stress on the pines

Over 7500 entries, arranged under Ecological systems, Physical sciences applied to pollution, Effects of pollution, Air and water pollution, and Causes of pollution. Besides identification of the research, researcher, and institution, eachentry gives information about purpose, methods, progress, and source of support. Subject, researcher, supporting agency indexes.

For legacy and emerging persistent organic pollutants (POPs), surprisingly little is still known in quantitative terms about their global sources and emissions. Atmospheric transport has been identified as the key global dispersal mechanism for most legacy POPs. In contrast, transport by ocean currents may prove to be the main transport route for many polar, emerging POPs. This is linked to the POPs' intrinsic physico-chemical properties, as exemplified by the different fate of hexachlorocyclohexanes in the Arctic. Similarly, our current understanding of POPs' global transport and fate remains sketchy. The importance of organic carbon and global temperature differences have been accepted as key drivers of POPs' global distribution. However, future research will need to understand the various biogeochemical and geophysical cycles under anthropogenic pressures to be able to understand and predict the global fate of POPs accurately. Future studies into the global fate of POPs will need to pay more attention to the various biogeochemical and anthropogenic cycles to better understand emissions, transport and sinks.

This paper summarizes the historical and scientific foundations of the Linear No-Threshold (LNT) cancer risk assessment model. The story of cancer risk assessment is an extraordinary one as it was based on an initial incorrect gene mutation interpretation of Muller, the application of this incorrect assumption in the derivation of the LNT single-hit model, and a series of actions by leading radiation geneticists during the 1946–1956 period, including a National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Biological Effects of Atomic Radiation (BEAR) I Genetics Panel (Anonymous, 1956), to sustain the LNT belief via a series of deliberate obfuscations, deceptions and misrepresentations that provided the basis of modern cancer risk assessment policy and practices. The reaffirming of the LNT model by a subsequent and highly influential NAS Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation (BEIR) I Committee (NAS/NRC, 1972) using mouse data has now been found to be inappropriate based on the discovery of a significant documented error in the historical control group that led to incorrect estimations of risk in the low dose zone. Correction of this error by the original scientists and the application of the adjusted/corrected data back to the BEIR I (NAS/NRC, 1972) report indicates that the data would have supported a threshold rather than the LNT model. Thus, cancer risk assessment has a poorly appreciated, complex and seriously flawed history that has undermined policies and practices of regulatory agencies in the U.S. and worldwide to the present time.