Mutagenicity of Urine From Individuals Exposed to LPG Combustion Products

The mutngenicity of urine from individua1s exposed to the combustion products of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) was detected with Salmonella typhimurium TA98 and its newly developed derivatives YG1021 (nitroreductase overproducing) and YG1024 (O-acetyltransferase overproducing). The detection showed significantly increased mutagenicity for the two YG strains and increased positive rates for all three stralns in the presence of both rat liver S9 and β-glucuronidase. Further analysis demonstrated that urine samples taken from smoking and non-smoking exposed individuals exhibited significantly higher mutagenic potency (revertants/10 μl urine concentrate) than their corresponding controls. These results indicate that the increased urine mutagenicity is caused by the exposure to LPG combustion products or smoking. The mutagenic potency of urine samples of all exposed individuals tested with YG1024 was found to be about 7 times higher than with TA98. The difference in mutagenic potency was smaller for the sarne samples when comparison was made between YG1021 and TA98. This suggests that the mutagenic compounds present in the urine samples contaln mainly arotnatic compounds as glucuronide conugates. our results demonstrate that YG1024 is more sensitive than TA98 in detecting the mutagenicity of these samples. In addition, no significant difference in the mutagenic poency between the' pure' exposed (non-srnokers') and the ' pure' smokers' (unexpeed) samples was found in all three tester strains. This might mean that the exopure extent Of mutagens/carcinogens in LPG combustion products for exmped individuals roughly corresponds to the smoking level of smokers who smoke 20-40 cigarettes per day. Furthermore, the results also suggest that sguergism might exist in the mutagenic effects of exposure to LPG combustion products and cigarette smoking.

Social Sensors (S^2ensors): A Kind of Hardware-Software-Integrated Mediators for Social Manufacturing Systems Under Mass Individualization

Currently, little work has been devoted to the mediators and tools for multi-role production interactions in the mass individualization environment. This paper proposes a kind of hardware-software-integrated mediators called social sensors （S2ensors） to facilitate the production interactions among customers, manufacturers, and other stakeholders in the social manufacturing systems （SMS）. The concept, classification, operational logics, and for- malization of S2ensors are clarified. S2ensors collect sub- jective data from physical sensors and objective data from sensory input in mobile Apps, merge them into meaningful information for decision-making, and finally feed the decisions back for reaction and execution. Then, an S2en- sors-Cloud platform is discussed to integrate different S2- ensors to work for SMSs in an autonomous way. A demonstrative case is studied by developing a prototype system and the results show that S2ensors and S2ensors- Cloud platform can assist multi-role stakeholders interact and collaborate for the production tasks. It reveals the mediator-enabled mechanisms and methods for production interactions among stakeholders in SMS.

Morphological Features of Plants and Yield of Sunflower Hybrids Cultivated in the Northern Part of the Forest-Steppe of Ukraine

In Ukraine, a sunflower is the main oil crop from which more than 90% of vegetable fats are produced. An increase in production is due to the expansion of cultivation area, which necessitates research on sunflower hybrids adaptability in the northern regions of Ukraine, where in recent decades, there has been a significant change of weather conditions and which may be favorable for its cultivation. The research was carried out in the Northern part of the Forest-Steppe of Ukraine on light loam chernozems. Reaction to growing conditions of four hybrids was studied by establishing the stability and plasticity of hybrids in terms of yield formation due to changes in morphological characteristics of plants. Yield potential realization is high enough, which is provided by sufficient amounts of positive, active, effective temperatures and precipitation. Calculation of the coefficients of plasticity and stability allows identifying stable sunflower hybrids, hybrids with a high level of plasticity, and recommending them to production. The yield of early-maturing hybrid Ukrainskyi F1 increases rectilinearly with plant density increasing (r = 0.977 - 0.998), while hybrids P63LL06 (r = 0.651 - 0.882);NK Ferti (r = 0.589 - 0.846), and NK Brio (r = 0.689 - 0.804) form a higher yield at standing densities up to 60 thousand plants per hectare, and with further thickening, the yield decreases. With the thickening of sowings, the height of all hybrids plants increases (r = 0.97 - 0.99), and there is a decrease in the number of seeds per anthode, and the weight of 1000 seeds. Sunflower hybrids can be divided into the groups according to the peculiarities of yield formation due to morphological features: 1) yield increases only due to sowings’ thickening— Ukrainskyi F1;2) combined efficiency-increasing sowings’ density to 60 thousand plants/ha and generative organs formation—NCKBrio;3) hybrids of intermediate type—NK Ferti and P63LL06.