Applicability of the fish embryo acute toxicity (FET) test (OECD 236) in the regulatory context of Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation, and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH).

In 2013 the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) test guideline (236) for fish embryo acute toxicity (FET) was adopted. It determines the acute toxicity of chemicals to embryonic fish. Previous studies show a good correlation of FET with the standard acute fish toxicity (AFT) test; however, the potential of the FET test to predict AFT, which is required by the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation, and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) regulation (EC 1907/2006) and the Classification, Labelling and Packaging (CLP) Regulation (EC 1272/2008), has not yet been fully clarified.

The possibilities for the EU-wide use of similar ecological risk-based soil contamination assessment tools.

Soil degradation, e.g. due to soil contamination, is a serious problem in Europe.

A spatial risk assessment methodology to support the remediation of contaminated land.

When soil and groundwater contaminations occur over large areas, remediation measures should be spatially prioritized on the basis of the risk posed to human health and in compliance with technological and budget constraints. Within this scope, the application of human health risk assessment algorithms in a spatially resolved environment raises a number of methodological and technical complexities. In this paper, a methodology is proposed and applied in a case study to support the entire formulation process of remediation plans, encompassing hazard assessment, exposure assessment, risk characterisation, uncertainty assessment and allocation of risk reduction measures.

DESYRE: DEcision Support sYstem for the REhabilitation of contaminated megasites.

DESYRE (DEcision Support sYstem for the REqualification of contaminated sites) is a GIS-based decision support system (DSS) specifically developed to address the integrated management and remediation of contaminated megasites (i.e., large contaminated areas or impacted areas characterized by multiple site owners and multiple stakeholders).

Development of a site-specific Ecological Risk Assessment for contaminated sites: part II. A multi-criteria based system for the selection of bioavailability assessment tools.

A comparison procedure based on Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) and expert judgment was developed in order to allow the comparison of bioavailability tests to implement the chemical Line of Evidence (LoE) within a TRIAD based site-specific Ecological Risk Assessment framework including three tires of investigation. The proposed methodology was included in the Module 1 of the Decision Support System DSS-ERAMANIA and the obtained rank supported the selection of a suitable set of available tests to be applied to the case study. A simplified application of the proposed procedure is described and results obtained by the system software are discussed.

Decision support-oriented selection of remediation technologies to rehabilitate contaminated sites.

A methodology for selecting remediation technologies is presented as part of a decision support system for the rehabilitation of contaminated sites. It includes 2 steps: In the 1st step, a pool of suitable technologies is selected within a technologies database according to their applicability to site-specific conditions; in the 2nd step, the selected technologies: are ranked according to a multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) approach. The MCDA was applied to allow for a transparent procedure and for the integration of expert analyses.

A method for risk assessment for three contaminated sites in northern Italy.

A stepwise human health risk assessment procedure carried out using American Society for Testing and Materials methodology was applied to three contaminated sites located in northern Italy: an uncontrolled landfill, an abandoned industrial site and an industrial waste contaminated land. Two different tiers of analysis were performed by means of the analytical model RBCA Tool Kit and the numerical model API-DSS, respectively. The latter was applied according to both a deterministic and a probabilistic risk analysis.

Screening ecological risk assessment for the benthic community in the Venice lagoon (Italy).

According to the risk hypothesis: the sediment as source of potential risk for the benthic community, an Ecological Risk Assessment (ERA) based on the quotient method was undertaken. The exposure of the benthic community to different classes of pollutants (metals, chlorinated organic compounds and polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons) was inferred by estimating the pollutant stocks in the top 15-cm sediment of the whole Venice lagoon, after application of geostatistic techniques. The risk was calculated by comparing the sediment exposure profiles with the ecotoxicological benchmarks for benthic organisms.

Ecological risk assessment of persistent toxic substances for the clam Tapes philipinarum in the Lagoon of Venice, Italy.

Because of contamination of sediments of the Lagoon of Venice, Italy, by inorganic pollutants (e.g., arsenic, cadmium, chromium, copper, lead, mercury, nickel, and zinc) and organic pollutants (e.

Effect of a contaminated site (the San Giuliano landfill, Venice, Italy) on the interaction between water bodies in a coastal aquifer system.

A complex multiple aquifer system affected by a contaminated site and exposed to tidal effects was investigated to develop the hydrogeological conceptual model of the study case. Two water bodies were identified, from top to down: a surface aquifer unaffected by tidal events, and a semiconfined aquifer partly communicating with the brackish lagoon waters. By using the Cl(-)/SO4(2-) ratio and the DOC (Dissolved Organic Carbon) concentration, as well as by applying the kriking to the piezometric levels results, the groundwater flow directions and the hydraulic gradients within the investigated aquifers were also identified.

Regression models to predict water-soil heavy metals partition coefficients in risk assessment studies.

Risk assessment studies apply fate and transport models to predict the behaviour of chemicals in the environment. The definition of physico-chemical properties is crucial to predict the mobility of pollutants and heavy metals in particular within the environmental compartments. The conservative approach normally adopted at a screening level in attributing a value to the K(d) value, results in an extremely variable mobility in soil.

Characterization of contaminated soil and groundwater surrounding an illegal landfill (S. Giuliano, Venice, Italy) by principal component analysis and kriging.

The characterization of a hydrologically complex contaminated site bordering the lagoon of Venice (Italy) was undertaken by investigating soils and groundwaters affected by the chemical contaminants originated by the wastes dumped into an illegal landfill. Statistical tools such as principal components analysis and geostatistical techniques were applied to obtain the spatial distribution of chemical contaminants. Dissolved organic carbon (DOC), SO4(2-) and Cl- were used to trace the migration of the contaminants from the top soil to the underlying groundwaters.

Risk based characterisation of contaminated industrial site using multivariate and geostatistical tools.

Human and ecological risk assessment requires the sources, distribution, mobility and environmental behaviour of contaminants to be investigated on a site-specific basis. It often deals with data sets which are relatively small and affected by sampling gaps. In the case of a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) contaminated industrial site, Kriging interpolation of spatial data and principal component analysis (PCA) proved useful for extracting additional value from the data set.

Endoscopic treatment of stenosis following stapler anastomosis.

The papillotomy knife, introduced by an endoscope, was employed to treat stenosis following stapler anastomosis, and to cut the stenotic ring in three points along its circumference.

Prognostic correlations of operable carcinoma of the rectum.

Various histologic factors correlated to survival were studied in 124 patients radically operated on for rectal carcinoma in order to establish valid prognostic criteria. The total survival rate after five years was 63 percent, while in stage B1 it was 89 percent, in B2, 61 percent, and in C1, 47 percent (P less than 0.05).

Recurrent unilateral lung disease.

A 25-year-old patient, with multiple pulmonary metastases from osteogenic sarcoma who two years ago developed respiratory failure with unilateral left lung involvement and was successfully treated with independent lung ventilation, was readmitted to an ICU with recurrent unilateral lung disease. Conventional therapy failed to reverse the respiratory failure; independent ventilation temporarily improved the patient's oxygenation. At autopsy, different involvement of the two lungs by the tumor was evident so that blood flow of the right lung and lymphatic flow of the left lung were impaired.