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The goal of this project was to quantify plastic in wastewater in Greenland to identify appropriate measures to reduce plastic pollution in the Sea. The number of plastic items in the wastewater increased with decreasing size, while the mass of plastic increased with increasing size. Approximately 60% of the 2 tonnes of plastic estimated to be discharged annually to the sea by Greenland wastewater was wet wipes. This, despite all wet wipes traded in Greenlandic being clearly marked as non-flushable. Among the micro size plastic items, a significant fraction was of the same polymer types as the wet wipes and may therefore originate from the wet wipes. The main microplastic source is, however, likely to be laundry of synthetic clothes. Because wet wipes also pose annoyance by sewer clogging, elimination by the source either by banning of the retail sale of wet wipes or behavioral change campaigns to stop flushing is needed. Remaining larger items and a portion of the micro-plastics may be captured by installing simple mechanical filters.

Microplastics (MP) are of major concerns for the society and currently in the focus of legislators and administrations. A small number of measures to reduce or remove primary sources of MP to the environment are currently coming into effect. At the moment, they have not yet tackled important topics such as food safety. However, recent developments such as the 2018 bill in California are requesting the analysis of MP in drinking water by standardized operational protocols (SOP). Administrations and analytical labs are facing an emerging field of methods for sampling, extraction and analysis of MP, which complicate the establishment of SOPs. In this review the state of the currently applied identification and quantification tools for MP are evaluated providing a harmonized guideline for future SOPs to cover these types of bills. The main focus is on the naked eye detection, general optical microscopy, the application of dye staining, flow cytometry, Fourier-Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and microscopy, Raman spectroscopy and microscopy and thermal degradation by pyrolysis gas-chromatography/mass spectrometry (Py-GC/MS) as well as thermo-extraction and desorption gas-chromatography/mass spectrometry (TED-GC/MS). Additional techniques are highlighted as well as the combined application of the analytical techniques suggested. An outlook is given on the emerging aspect of nanoplastic analysis. In all cases, the methods were screened for limitations, field work abilities and, if possible, estimated costs and summarized into a recommendation for a work-flow covering the demands of society, legislation and administration in cost efficient but still detailed manner.

Microplastics (MP) are ubiquitous within the environment, but the analysis of this contaminant is currently quite diverse, and a number of analytical methods are available. The comparability of results is hindered as even for a single analytical method such as Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) the different instruments currently available do not allow a harmonized analysis. To overcome this limitation, a new free of charge software tool, allowing the systematic identification of MP in the environment (siMPle) was developed. This software tool allows a rapid and harmonized analysis of MP across FT-IR systems from different manufacturers (Bruker Hyperion 3000, Agilent Cary 620/670, PerkinElmer Spotlight 400, Thermo Fischer Scientific Nicolet iN10). Using the same database and the automated analysis pipeline (AAP) in siMPle, MP were identified in samples that were analyzed with instruments with different detector systems and optical resolutions, the results of which are discussed.

Microplastics (MP) are of major concerns for the society and currently in the focus of legislators and administrations. A small number of measures to reduce or remove primary sources of MP to the environment are currently coming into effect. At the moment, they have not yet tackled important topics such as food safety. However, recent developments such as the 2018 bill in California are requesting the analysis of MP in drinking water by standardized operational protocols (SOP). Administrations and analytical labs are facing an emerging field of methods for sampling, extraction and analysis of MP, which complicate the establishment of SOPs. In this review the state of the currently applied identification and quantification tools for MP are evaluated providing a harmonized guideline for future SOPs to cover these types of bills. The main focus is on the naked eye detection, general optical microscopy, the application of dye staining, flow cytometry, Fourier-Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and microscopy, Raman spectroscopy and microscopy and thermal degradation by pyrolysis gas-chromatography/mass spectrometry (Py-GC/MS) as well as thermo-extraction and desorption gas-chromatography/mass spectrometry (TED-GC/MS). Additional techniques are highlighted as well as the combined application of the analytical techniques suggested. An outlook is given on the emerging aspect of nanoplastic analysis. In all cases, the methods were screened for limitations, field work abilities and, if possible, estimated costs and summarized into a recommendation for a work-flow covering the demands of society, legislation and administration in cost efficient but still detailed manner.

Microplastics (MP) are ubiquitous within the environment, but the analysis of this contaminant is currently quite diverse, and a number of analytical methods are available. The comparability of results is hindered as even for a single analytical method such as Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) the different instruments currently available do not allow a harmonized analysis. To overcome this limitation, a new free of charge software tool, allowing the systematic identification of MP in the environment (siMPle) was developed. This software tool allows a rapid and harmonized analysis of MP across FT-IR systems from different manufacturers (Bruker Hyperion 3000, Agilent Cary 620/670, PerkinElmer Spotlight 400, Thermo Fischer Scientific Nicolet iN10). Using the same database and the automated analysis pipeline (AAP) in siMPle, MP were identified in samples that were analyzed with instruments with different detector systems and optical resolutions, the results of which are discussed.

p23 is a small acidic protein with intrinsic molecular chaperone activity. It is best known as a co-chaperone of the major cytosolic molecular chaperone Hsp90. p23 binds the N-terminus of Hsp90 and stabilizes the ATP-bound and N-terminally closed Hsp90 dimer. It is in this configuration that many Hsp90 clients are most stably bound. Considering the important role of p23 in the Hsp90 cycle, it came as a surprise that it is not absolutely essential for viability in the budding yeast or for mouse development. Mice without p23 develop quite normally until birth and then all die perinatally because of immature lungs. The only other apparent phenotype of late stage embryos and newborns is a skin defect, which we have further characterized here. We found that skin differentiation is impaired, and that both apoptosis and cell proliferation are augmented in the absence of p23; the consequences are a severe thinning of the stratum corneum and reduced numbers of hair follicles. The altered differentiation, spontaneous apoptosis and proliferation are all mimicked by isolated primary keratinocytes indicating that they do require p23 functions in a cell-autonomous fashion. Since the phenotype of p23-null embryos is strikingly similar to that of embryos lacking the glucocorticoid receptor, a paradigmatic Hsp90-p23 client protein, we investigated glucocorticoid signaling. We discovered that it is impaired in vivo and for some aspects in isolated keratinocytes. Our results suggest that part of the phenotype of p23-null embryos can be explained by an impact on this particular Hsp90 client, but do not exclude that p23 by itself or in association with Hsp90 affects skin development and homeostasis through yet other pathways.

Missing page 78., We tend to associate the Renaissance period with a time in which man reaches out for new knowledge and discoveries. This is due partly to the discovery of the new continent and the many scientific breakthroughs which dissolved archaic and religious explanations for natural phenomena. These developments led man to believe his potential was untapped and enormous. In the frenzy to obtain the maximum of one's capabilities moving outward into the world, Renaissance man, adversely, finds himself isolated from it. The two writers of the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries which I compare are Baldesar Castiglione and Sir Philip Sidney and how they describe situations in which man retreats from his surroundings. The first segment of this thesis focuses on the alienation of II Cortegiano, how the courtier relates first, to his superior and later, how the intimacies which the courtier shares with women are weakened by his refusal to participate equally in this relationship. There are positive side-effects to this withdrawal from society, according to Castiglione, who shows how the Urbino nobility's impulse to create is stronger in a cloistered environment than in a more public climate. The depiction of the perfect man aspirations while serving as a beneficially political means by which to instruct the prince. In Chapter Two the shift of the thesis moves to Sir Philip Sidney's youthful courtier in Astrophil and Stella. The poet retreats from society in order to develop his own truthful language of love to Stella. Sidney's poet rejects the trappings of his culture, his religion and the literary past of England in his effort to rebuild a more expressive poetry. While the experience is a futile and solitary one for the lover, the art which he creates serves to rejuvenate the Elizabethan sonnet sequence. I conclude that although alienation carries along with it the negative baggage that we in modern times impose on it, for the Renaissance artist isolation, Master of Arts (MA)