ENGI 9609/ENVS 6007 - Environmental Risk Assessment Winter 2018

Assignment #4
Issued Date: 13-March-2018 Due Date: 22-Mar-2018

Note: Please submit a HARDCOPY of your solutions to Yunwen Tao (Office: EN-2041).

1. Lethal toxicity probit equations have been developed for the following chemicals:
a) For Benzene, Pr = -109.78 + 5.3 ln (c2t)
b) For Carbon Tetrachloride, Pr = -6.29 + 0.408 ln (c2.5t)
where c is the concentration in ppm and t is the time of exposure in minutes.
For each chemical, if exposed for 48 hours, find
1) Threshold values;
2) TD50 (lethal dose with 50% mortality);
3) Concentration of chemicals with 10% mortality.
Comment on your findings and determine which chemical is more lethal.

2. Births in a hospital occur randomly at an average rate of 1.6 births per hour. Use Poisson
distribution method to determine the probability of observing more than or equal to 2 births
in a given hour at the hospital.

3. Due to smog problems in a metropolitan city, 4% population on average is susceptible to

respiratory problems. What is the probability that at least four people in 100 examined have
respiratory problems due to smog?

4. Use USEPA BMDS 2.7 software to analyze the dose-response relationships with following
quantal data set:

Dose N Effect
0 100 0
50 100 5
100 100 30
150 100 65
200 100 90
1) Fit the data into Gamma, Weibull and Probit models and show the fitting graphs;
2) Tabulate model equation, model parameter estimates, Goodness of fit (p-value), AIC of
each model;
3) Determine the model with the best fitness and select the best model base on AIC;
4) What are the calculated BMD and BMDL from the best model?

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