Oil Pollution and its Environmental Impact in the Arabian Gulf Region

Handbook of Clinical Neurology: Spinal Cord Injury summarizes advances in the clinical diagnosis, monitoring, prognostication, treatment, and management of spinal cord injuries. More specifically, it looks at new and important developments in areas such as high-resolution noninvasive neuroimaging, surgery, and electrical stimulation of motor, respiratory, bladder, bowel, and sexual functions. It also reviews the latest insights into spontaneous regeneration and recovery of function following rehabilitation, with emphasis on novel therapeutic strategies, such as gene therapy, transcranial stimulation, brain-machine interfaces, pharmacological approaches, molecular target discovery, and the use of olfactory ensheathing cells, stem cells, and precursor cells. Organized in five sections, the book begins with an overview of the development, maturation, biomechanics, and anatomy of the spinal cord before proceeding with a discussion of clinical diagnosis and prognosis as well as natural recovery, ambulation, and function following spinal cord injury. It then examines clinical neurophysiology in the prognosis and monitoring of traumatic spinal cord injury; medical, surgical and rehabilitative management of spinal cord trauma; and some new approaches for improving recovery in patients, including restoration of function by electrical stimulation, locomotor training, and the use of robotics. Other chapters cover cell transplantation, artificial scaffolds, experimental pharmacological interventions, and molecular and combinatorial strategies for repairing the injured spinal cord. This volume should be of interest to neuroscience and clinical neurology research specialists and practicing neurologists.Situated within the richest oil area in the world, the Arabian Gulf represents a stressed ecosystem with scarce published data and environmental studies.The oil-related activities cause significant damages to different ecosystem components such as coral reefs, algal mats, mangrove and other habitats. In addition to the increasing potential of pollution and its adverse effect on the ecosystem, oil spills and relevant implications can severely affect the main source of desalinated water for the Gulf countries due to their limited water resources. Interest in pollution issues associated with Arabian Gulf has been growing in the last few years. These issues include identification and documentation of the major sources of oil pollution in the Gulf region, evaluation of the analytical methods used to identify the different types of pollutants, review of the recent advances in oil pollution impact treatment and prevention, develop stronger cooperation ties between interested members of the community, and encourage awareness of the oil pollution as a serious environmental problem in the region. This book compiles recent studies addressing the above issues grouped in four categories; monitoring and characterizing oil spills, modeling the fate of pollutants and oil slicks in marine water, environmental effects of oil pollution on the ecosystem components, and combating, prevention and treatment of oil pollution.