@mastersthesis{Kremens2000_0,<BR>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Abstract = {Fresh and salt-water aquatic toxicity tests can be conducted with fish, algae or invertebrates. The invertebrates have several advantages for these tests, including low cost, small size, rapid turnaround due to a short life cycle, ease of culturing, and low volume of test solution (and thus potential toxicants) to be used and discarded.  However, since the invertebrates used in these tests are typically less than 1-mm long and are highly motile, assessment of the population is confounded by miscounting during unassisted visual observations.  This miscounting causes wider dispersion in the data than would be expected given the organism sample sizes used.  Of the many factors leading to variability in these tests (data acquisition errors, analysis errors, variability of organisms, variability of dilution water, variation in effluent composition and concentration), improvement in the accuracy of the counting techniques may provide substantial improvements in data quality.  Reduction in the cost and time taken to conduct the tests may be a by-product of automation of the counting process.

I will review the legal and technical background that stimulated the development of whole effluent toxicity testing, outline the methods used in this technique, and point out some difficulties that lead to variability in these experiments. Finally, I will demonstrate a prototype method to aid in counting of zooplankton consisting of an image capture system, close-focusing lens and custom image analysis software. This system can rapidly analyze small volumes of test liquid for motile organisms.  The system takes advantage of the widespread availability of low-cost, high powered video capture hardware and software that has appeared in the last five years.  I will show examples of counting performed with this system and discuss advantages and limitations of the automated system over more traditional manual methods, using the widely available salt-water brine shrimp, Artemia salina.},<BR>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Address = {Rochester, New York, United States},<BR>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Author = {Robert L. Kremens},<BR>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Keywords = {effluent},<BR>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Month = {},<BR>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;School = {University of Rochester, , },<BR>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Title = {A Semi-Automated Counting Method for Improved Accuracy in Invertebrate Whole Effluent Toxicity Tests},<BR>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Type = {M.S. Thesis},<BR>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Url = {http://www.cis.rit.edu/DocumentLibrary/admin/uploads/CIS000007.pdf},<BR>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Year = {2000}}