Human-toxicological effect and damage factors of carcinogenic and noncarcinogenic chemicals for life cycle impact assessment.

Chemical fate, effect, and damage should be accounted for in the analysis of human health impacts by toxic chemicals in life-cycle assessment (LCA). The goal of this article is to present a new method to derive human damage and effect factors of toxic pollutants, starting from a lognormal dose-response function. Human damage factors are expressed as disability-adjusted life years (DALYs).

Is cumulative fossil energy demand a useful indicator for the environmental performance of products?

The appropriateness of the fossil Cumulative Energy Demand (CED) as an indicator for the environmental performance of products and processes is explored with a regression analysis between the environmental life-cycle impacts and fossil CEDs of 1218 products, divided into the product categories "energy production", "material production", "transport", and "waste treatment". Our results show that, for all product groups but waste treatment, the fossil CED correlates well with most impact categories, such as global warming, resource depletion, acidification, eutrophication, tropospheric ozone formation, ozone depletion, and human toxicity (explained variance between 46% and 100%). We conclude that the use of fossil fuels is an important driver of several environmental impacts and thereby indicative for many environmental problems.

Suppression of Pythium spp. by Trichoderma spp. during germination of tomato seeds in soilless growing media.

In the Flemish horticulture Pythium spp. is an important pathogen of tomato plants (Lycopersicon esculenthum) in soilless growing media. Therefore some experiments were conducted to evaluate the possibility of decreasing the damage caused by Pythium spp.

The influence of fungicides on the growth of Trichoderma asperellum.

Numbers of strains of Trichoderma asperellum are known as biological control agents of certain root pathogens of tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum). The restricted use of fungicides is sometimes useful in combination with these biological control agents. Therefore some experiments were conducted to evaluate the growth of T.

Colonisation of soilless growing media for tomato by Trichoderma harzianum.

An experiment was conducted to evaluate the distribution of T. harzianum in soilless media used in greenhouse growing systems for tomatoes. Growing media based on rockwool and based on coconut fibre were included.

Internal fixation of tibial plateau fractures using the AO instrumentation.

Between January 1970 and December 1985, 76 patients (76 fractures) underwent internal fixation for tibial-plateau fractures as recommended by the AO-group (14). Fifty patients were available for follow-up. The long term results of this retrospective study are reported.

Acetabular bone stock reconstruction with frozen femoral head allografts and the use of a cementless screw cup in total hip revision surgery. A 5 years' clinical, radiologic and scintigraphic follow-up.

This prospective study reviews the behaviour of a cementless conical screw cup in total hip revision surgery with or without the use of bone grafts to reconstruct acetabular bone stock. Clinical and radiologic results are given. For proper radiographic interpretation a new classification system is suggested, based on histologic features, the principles of which are explained.

[Long-term results of the Krogius-Roux operation].

The authors have reviewed patients treated with the operation of Krogius-Roux with a long follow-up, especially on the indication of recurrent dislocation of the patella. Thirty-nine patients out of 76 operations have been evaluated.