Biomedical subjects

P Brimblecombe

Publications and source records attributed to P Brimblecombe.

14 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2003

The emergence of the sanitary inspector in Victorian Britain.

Sanitary reform, especially that required by the Public Health Acts (1872, 1875) needed a well trained body of Sanitary Inspectors. The Sanitary Institute and other professional organisations set about improving the qualifications and standing of the people who were charged with creating a healthier urban environment on a day-to-day basis. The structures created at that time have changed much, but we can still recognise the posts, the professional associations and the journals that were created in late Victorian times. This is a testament to the quality and flexibility of the pioneering work done a century ago.

Certification↗

PubMed2001

Whither acid rain?

Acid rain, the environmental cause célèbre of the 1980s seems to have vanished from popular conscience. By contrast, scientific research, despite funding difficulties, has continued to produce hundreds of research papers each year. Studies of acid rain taught much about precipitation chemistry, the behaviour of snow packs, long-range transport of pollutants and new issues in the biology of fish and forested ecosystems. There is now evidence of a shift away from research in precipitation and sulfur chemistry, but an impressive theoretical base remains as a legacy.

Acid Rain↗

PubMed2001

The distribution of soiling by coarse particulate matter in the museum environment.

Soiling measurements are needed to address strategies to control dust and determine its sources. There is no widely recognized method for dust monitoring in museums, but we used sticky samplers to collect deposited coarse particulate matter, and both manual microscopic observations and image analysis for determining soiling potential in the museum environment. We adopt fractional area covered by deposited particles as a surrogate for soiling and the covering rate (unit: s-1) as a measure of the rate of soiling. It was clear that visitor flow was a major contributor to soiling, such that soiling mechanisms in different museums could be compared after measurements were normalised on a per capita basis. The proximity of visitors to objects was another important factor with the soiling declining with distance from visitor pathways (a half-distance of about 0.5 m), which suggests soiling of objects on open display could be reduced by increasing the distance from visitors.

Air Pollution, Indoor↗

PubMed1999

Indoor air quality at the Correr Museum, Venice, Italy.

Two multidisciplinary field surveys, one in winter and the other in summer have monitored the indoor microclimate, air pollution, deposition and origin of the suspended particulate matter and microorganisms of the Correr Museum, Venice. In addition, this study was focused to identify the problems caused by the heating and air conditioning system (HAC) and the effects due to the presence of carpets. Heating and air conditioning systems (HACs), when chiefly designed for human welfare, are not suitable for conservation and can cause dangerous temperature and humidity fluctuations. Improvements at the Correr Museum have been achieved with the assistance of environmental monitoring. The carpet has a negative influence as it retains particles and bacteria which are resuspended each time people walk on it. The indoor/outdoor pollutants ratio is greater in the summertime, when doors and windows are more frequently open to allow for better ventilation, illustrating that this ratio is mainly governed by the free exchange of the air masses. The chemical composition, size and origin of the suspended particulate matter have been identified, as well as the bacteria potentially dangerous to the paintings. Some general suggestions for improving indoor air quality are reported in the conclusions.

Aerosols↗

PubMed1999

The indoor environment of a modern museum building, the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Norwich, UK.

A multi-disciplinary approach was used to investigate the indoor environment of a modern museum building, and its suitability for the conservation of the collection therein. Climate, gaseous and particulate pollution and the concentrations of bacteria were measured in summer and winter campaigns. While the environment overall was found to be an acceptable one, a number of drawbacks were highlighted, the most serious of these being the large temperature and humidity fluctuations that occurred in the summer.

Air Microbiology↗

PubMed1994

Long-term changes in elemental deposition at the earth's surface.

The rate of deposition of elements at a point on the earth's surface can change, quite dramatically, even on relatively short time-scales, as a function of weather patterns. On a global scale volcanoes (and more rarely large meteors) can overwhelm steadier sources of trace elements. In recent centuries human activities have increased emissions to the atmosphere to a point where they are above those of natural sources for some of the rarer elements. On a longer time-scale climate change can also alter the deposition of elements, although such changes are often slower than those brought about through anthropogenic emissions. Changes in climate can also alter the distribution of deposition, but there are few studies estimating such changes. This paper uses estimates of the balance of natural and anthropogenic sources of a range of elements to examine the likely variation in deposition at the earth's surface. It particularly focuses on those elements regarded as toxic, whose concentrations seem likely to go on increasing in industrial areas.

Journal Article↗

PubMed1985

Iron and sulfur in the pre-biologic ocean.

Tentative geochemical cycles for the pre-biologic Earth are developed by comparing the relative fluxes of oxygen, dissolved iron, and sulfide to the atmosphere and ocean. The flux of iron is found to exceed both the oxygen and the sulfide fluxes. Because of the insolubility of iron oxides and sulfides the implication is that dissolved iron was fairly abundant and that oxygen and sulfide were rare in the atmosphere and ocean. Sulfate, produced by the oxidation of volcanogenic sulfur gases, was the most abundant sulfur species in the ocean, but its concentration was low by modern standards because of the absence of the river-borne flux of dissolved sulfate produced by oxidative weathering of the continents. These findings are consistent with the geologic record of the isotopic composition of sedimentary sulfates and sulfides. Except in restricted environments, the sulfur metabolism of the earliest organisms probably involved oxidized sulfur species not sulfide.

Atmosphere↗

PubMed1982

Trends in the deposition of sulphate and total solids in London.

The earliest measurements of sulphate deposit in London were made in 1870, although they can be used to construct a contour map indicating elongation along the direction of the prevailing wind and rather higher values in the lee of the city they cannot be used to establish a deposition rate. However, an initially fragmentary record for the east part of the city of London begins in the 1880's and a gradual decrease of sulphate deposit is evident for much of the period. The record of the deposit of solid matter begins in 1914 and shows a decline throughout the measurements. The period of decline precedes air pollution control legislation and is attributed to social and geographic changes.

Air Pollution↗

PubMed1981

Thermodynamics of halobacterial environments.

The ranges of the major ion composition of near neutral hypersaline lakes have been described in terms of the charge concentration and the mole fraction of monovalent cations. An ion interactive method was used to establish the thermodynamic activity of the chemical species in these model brines, which were then used in culture media for Halobacterium halobium, H. salinarium, and H. volcanii. The bacteria grew rapidly at water activities of 0.78, 0.79, and 0.925, respectively. The growth areas for these organisms were not easily defined in terms of the Na+ or Cl- activity. The morphology of H. halobium and H. salinarium changes from rod shaped to spherical when the Mg2+ activity drops below 0.15 mol . kg-1. Niches described by the chemical parameters reflect the marine origin of the environments of H. halobium and H. salinarium, and the more heterogeneous environments of H. volcanii.

Ecology↗

PubMed1979