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Very strong winters with temperatures under 0°C and hot summers with temperatures more than 30°C are observed in the South East part of Slovenia. Those big differences in temperature during the year and especially temperatures below freezing point have strong influence on asphalt layer and sub base of road pavement. The freeze/thaw cycles lead to formation of ice lenses in base course causing cracks in asphalt layers and degrade the pavement usually in a few years. For this reason one section of the national road in the South East part of Slovenia was rebuilt with cold in-situ pavement retreatment. A test field with inbuilt sensors for measuring water content, temperature and deformation in various depths and locations was constructed during the remediation works to study the mechanism of freeze-thaw degradation of pavements. The main goal of the test field is to determine water content in sub base, freezing depth, temperature distribution and deformations, which lead to cracks in asphalt layer after the remediation work in the road construction.

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A reliable sperm cell toxicity test procedure has been developed for the Mediterranean sea urchin Paracentrotus lividus. The sensitivity and discriminatory ability of the test were investigated with regard to surfactants and their biotransformation products. Aromatic and aliphatic surfactants of anionic (linear alkylbenzene sulfonates [LAS]) and nonionic (alcohol polyethoxylates [AE] and nonylphenol polyethoxylates [NPE]) types and their aerobic biodegradation products, i.e., sulfophenylcarboxylates (SPC), polyethylene glycols (PEG), carboxylated polyethylene glycols (PEGC), carboxylated AE (AEC), and nonylphenol (NP), were examined in order to elucidate the influence of their molecular structure on toxicity. Experimental results reveal that the sperm cell test showed good discriminatory ability among all tested compounds, median effective concentration (EC50) values differing by about four orders of magnitude. The toxicity of anionic surfactants depends on the length of the alkyl chain and that of nonionic surfactants is due to their length and branching. Much lower toxicity was shown by aerobic biodegradation products in comparison with that of their parent compounds, with the exception of NP. The obtained EC50s were comparable with available literature data and constitute new toxicity data regarding surfactants for sea urchins. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]