Reduction number California

Aromatics are typically included in gasolines to increase octane number. However, high aromatic content increases engine-out hydrocarbons and NOx emissions.16 Moreover, aromatics are the main precursors of exhaust benzene, a known carcinogenic, via dealkylation of substituted aromatics.17 Therefore, reduction of total aromatic content, together with olefin content, is an important part of California phase III reformulated gasoline specifications,18 with respect to the current allowed concentrations of benzene and total aromatics of 0.8 and 25 percent of volume, respectively. 

The three populations of spotted owls in the United States— the Northern Spotted Owl, the California Spotted Owl, and the Mexican Spotted Owl—interbreed readily, and DNA analysis shows that they are genetically almost identical.1 In 1986 the Audubon Society estimated that 1,500 pairs was the minimum breeding population needed to avoid extinction, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) estimated that there were somewhere between 3,000 and 4,000 spotted owl pairs in the United States 2 the number was uncertain because spotted owls in much of California and the Southwest had never been counted. At the same time, it was apparent that the number of Northern Spotted Owls was declining because of reduction in habitat as timber was clear-cut. 

Tables 1 and 2 sununarize the development of the legislation in the United States from the time when serious attention was paid to reducing emissions from automobiles. From 1977 in California, where there were some particularly pressing air-quality problems [3], they were allowed to legislate lower levels of emissions than in the rest of the United States. The emission numbers are generated by driving the vehicle on a chassis dynamometer (rolling road) to a well-defined test drive cycle (see Fig. 1). This cycle represents conditions typical on a U.S. freeway and has a maximum speed of 55 mph. The emissions are collected from the tailpipe as soon as the ignition is switched on, analyzed, and the pollutant concentrations calculated. It can be seen from the table that emission limits are decreasing steadily, especially from 1993 onward, and that over the period there has been a major reduction in the emission levels. With the introduction of each successive emissions band, a small percentage of vehicles are required to meet the next band. This culminates in a requirement for a small number of vehicles to emit zero emissions in the year 2000, which can be achieved currently only by electric vehicles.

The first outbreak of a disease in which a jet injector was imphcated as the vehicle of transmission has been reported. Thirty-one attendees at a weight-reduction clinic in Southern California experienced hepatitis B after daily parenteral injections of human chorionic gonadotrophin given by jet injectors transmission appeared to have resulted from the multiple repeated jet injections (85). WHO and UNICEF have stated in their Guidehnes for selecting injection equipment for the Expanded Program on Immunization that the use of jet injectors should be restricted to circumstances in which reusable or disposable equipment is not feasible because of the large number of persons to be immunized within a short period of time (83). 

Once one knows the problem and has devised a solution, then the real job begins. National Center for Health Statistics data show a decline in total US infant mortality from 1982 to 1992, but marked geographic and racial differences remain. The 1992 overall US rate of infant death was 8.5 per 1000 live births (California, 6.9 Texas, 7.7 New York, 8.5 New Jersey, 8.5 Pennsylvania, 8.6 Ohio, 8.7 Florida, 9.1 Illinois, 10.0 Georgia, 10.4 Michigan, 10.5) - a decline attributed not to reductions in the numbers of birth defects or premature births but to improved neonatal intensive care units and the introduction of synthetic pulmonary surfactants and consequent reductions in death from acute neonatal respiratory distress syndrome. Still, the years of potential life lost due to birth defects ranks fifth, just behind that of homicide and suicide (1, unintentional injury 2, cancer 3, cardiovascular disease) prematurity/low birth weight ranks sixth and sudden infant death syndrome seventh. Ethnic discrepancy remains pronounced rates of White (5.8 per 1000 live births) and Cuban Hispanic (3.7 per 1000 live births) infant death are similar, but the 2002 rate for Blacks (13.9 per 1000 live births) increased compared to the previous year. 

Implementation of new methods in regulatory work faces several critical difficulties. Among them, lack of certified reference materials, QC/QA protocol application and pending validation studies hinder the transformation of good ideas into official methods for practical regulatory work. For example, Inami et al. recently compared two immunoassays and a 5 h neuroblastoma assay with the MBA for presence/absence detection of saxitoxins in shellfish. The study concluded that a reduction in the number of mouse bioassays in the state of California could be achieved, provided that the alternative assays were applied as a screening tool. 

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