Assessment of Acute Radiation Outside Low Earth Orbit: Likelihood and Integration for Mission Risks

For human spaceflight missions outside low Earth orbit, there is an increased risk to astronaut health due to space radiation. Solar particle events are one of the components of space radiation that constitute this risk due to their probabilistic nature in occurrence and severity. From 30 years of solar particle data, an analysis of solar particle events was conducted to derive model components for a probabilistic risk model. After generating fluence spectra from the data analysis, dose from each event was calculated through the use of one of NASA’s online space radiation assessment tools, OLTARIS. To form the final model, a combination of the fluence and dose distributions with a literature occurrence rate model were integrated. Finally, an orbital scaling factor was applied to reduce event fluence further from the Sun and increase event fluence closer to the Sun. After verification and validation, the solar particle probabilistic risk model was used to generate the number of expected solar particle event numbers for a spacecraft with 5 g/cm^2 of aluminum shielding for different Mars transits. The transit with the highest risk was a Mars to Earth Venus swing-by transfer, which had approximately triple the number of expected solar particle events and four times the total expected transit dose compared to the other Mars transits. This result was expected since the Mars-Venus-Earth has the longest transit, and brings the spacecraft closest to the Sun, increasing exposure time and intensity. The average expected doses, even for the highest risk transit, are not likely to cause major astronaut health or mission impacts, but may need to be accounted for during mission planning and design. Future work on this model may include development of different shielding levels, application of more complex orbital scaling factors, and organ specific dose studies

You choose, we deliver: Providing educational opportunities to researchers in STEM

Poster presented at the MAC/MLA Annual Meeting, “Rising to the Occasion,” Durham, NC, October 5-7, 2019.OBJECTIVE/BACKGROUND: Subject librarians at the University of Maryland (UMD) Libraries have experienced an increased demand for research support not only in the health and medical sciences but also from education, engineering, agriculture, library science, humanities, and social sciences. With the goal to provide sustainable support to graduate students and faculty who are writing scientific texts, we developed a suite of systematic review services. METHODS: To introduce researchers to the process of compiling the best evidence on a particular topic, we developed online materials with resources supporting the systematic review cycle. To justify the librarian's time and efforts, we provided a description of the three-tiered free service. In addition, we designed a face-to-face workshop series based on participants’ feedback. The pilot program was launched in three phases during the academic year of 2018-2019 under the UMD Libraries’ Research Commons Unit. RESULTS: A total of 18 workshops in two locations were offered, including a webinar to a group of 10 international researchers. The workshops were attended by 124 including undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, and librarians with 62% attendance from the registrants’ pool of 200. New relationships with faculty were established resulting in three co-authored peer-reviewed publications, four joint projects underway, and one co-authored grant proposal. We received eight requests for consultation following or instead of in-person workshops. Another 12 research teams requested research assistance or workshops recordings. CONCLUSIONS: The Systematic Review workshop series at UMD Libraries has been successful during the pilot phase. Benefits for librarians include increased expertise in conducting systematic reviews, familiarity with tools and techniques involved with it, creating new relationships with faculty and students, and co-authoring publications and grants. Designing online materials exposed this service to an international audience

Systematic Review Task Force Report

In today’s busy research university library, many advanced level researchers need specialized research support. Literature review workshops have been very popular at the UMD Libraries in the last couple of years. Systematic reviews, originally relevant for research in medical research, are a type of literature review that is getting increasingly commonly used in all other sciences where data are collected and published in the literature. UMD Libraries evaluated the feasibility of offering Systematic Review services to the UMD community and beyond. In this report, short and long term recommendations are provided to enhance the service

Working Across Disciplines and Library Units to Develop a Suite of Systematic Review Services for Researchers

Since their inception in the health sciences field, systematic reviews have expanded into many other sub-ject disciplines. To address this growing need, subject librarians at the University of Maryland Libraries collaborated on a pilot program in three phases to introduce researchers to the process of conducting sys-tematic and scoping reviews. This article describes the design and development of a workshop series based on participant feedback. Assessment and evaluation techniques are shared to encourage further refinement of the systematic review service

Conference Rubric Development for STEM Librarians’ Publications

Librarians within the Engineering Libraries Division (ELD) annually publish conference papers for the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE). The existing ASEE rubric was not sufficient for our members, so we developed a new rubric as a charged committee for this task. We briefly discuss the sparse literature in this area, focusing on the use of rubrics and the rationale behind them. Due to this lack of literature, our committee primarily utilized additional sources such as rubrics found from other professional organizations in STEM and library fields. Our rubric is designed to encourage substantive feedback and growth of authors during the process, while clarifying the expectations for submissions. This rubric consists of overall guidance and specific needs, with flexibility for the different research methods and applications expected (i.e. work-in-progress/completed research, quantitative/qualitative, etc.). We implemented this rubric successfully for the 2021 conference cycle, but will further refine it as needed, based on feedback following future conferences. With scarce literature on conference peer review, we hope by sharing our work, others may also consider and improve their organizations’ processes

Comparative Field Evaluation of Combinations of Long-Lasting Insecticide Treated Nets and Indoor Residual Spraying, Relative to Either Method Alone, for Malaria Prevention in an Area where the main Vector is Anopheles Arabiensis.

Long-lasting insecticidal nets (LLINs) and indoor residual spraying (IRS) are commonly used together in the same households to improve malaria control despite inconsistent evidence on whether such combinations actually offer better protection than nets alone or IRS alone. Comparative tests were conducted using experimental huts fitted with LLINs, untreated nets, IRS plus untreated nets, or combinations of LLINs and IRS, in an area where Anopheles arabiensis is the predominant malaria vector species. Three LLIN types, Olyset®, PermaNet 2.0® and Icon Life® nets and three IRS treatments, pirimiphos-methyl, DDT, and lambda cyhalothrin, were used singly or in combinations. We compared, number of mosquitoes entering huts, proportion and number killed, proportions prevented from blood-feeding, time when mosquitoes exited the huts, and proportions caught exiting. The tests were done for four months in dry season and another six months in wet season, each time using new intact nets. All the net types, used with or without IRS, prevented >99% of indoor mosquito bites. Adding PermaNet 2.0® and Icon Life®, but not Olyset® nets into huts with any IRS increased mortality of malaria vectors relative to IRS alone. However, of all IRS treatments, only pirimiphos-methyl significantly increased vector mortality relative to LLINs alone, though this increase was modest. Overall, median mortality of An. arabiensis caught in huts with any of the treatments did not exceed 29%. No treatment reduced entry of the vectors into huts, except for marginal reductions due to PermaNet 2.0® nets and DDT. More than 95% of all mosquitoes were caught in exit traps rather than inside huts. Where the main malaria vector is An. arabiensis, adding IRS into houses with intact pyrethroid LLINs does not enhance house-hold level protection except where the IRS employs non-pyrethroid insecticides such as pirimiphos-methyl, which can confer modest enhancements. In contrast, adding intact bednets onto IRS enhances protection by preventing mosquito blood-feeding (even if the nets are non-insecticidal) and by slightly increasing mosquito mortality (in case of LLINs). The primary mode of action of intact LLINs against An. arabiensis is clearly bite prevention rather than insecticidal activity. Therefore, where resources are limited, priority should be to ensure that everyone at risk consistently uses LLINs and that the nets are regularly replaced before being excessively torn. Measures that maximize bite prevention (e.g. proper net sizes to effectively cover sleeping spaces, stronger net fibres that resist tears and burns and net use practices that preserve net longevity), should be emphasized

Combining indoor residual spraying and insecticide-treated nets for malaria control in Africa: a review of possible outcomes and an outline of suggestions for the future

Insecticide-treated nets (ITNs) and indoor residual spraying (IRS) are currently the preferred methods of malaria vector control. In many cases, these methods are used together in the same households, especially to suppress transmission in holoendemic and hyperendemic scenarios. Though widespread, there has been limited evidence suggesting that such co-application confers greater protective benefits than either ITNs or IRS when used alone. Since both methods are insecticide-based and intradomicilliary, this article hypothesises that outcomes of their combination would depend on effects of the candidate active ingredients on mosquitoes that enter or those that attempt to enter houses. It is suggested here that enhanced household level protection can be achieved if the ITNs and IRS have divergent yet complementary properties, e.g. highly deterrent IRS compounds coupled with highly toxic ITNs. To ensure that the problem of insecticide resistance is avoided, the ITNs and IRS products should preferably be of different insecticide classes, e.g. pyrethroid-based nets combined with organophosphate or carbamate based IRS. The overall community benefits would however depend also on other factors such as proportion of people covered by the interventions and the behaviour of vector species. This article concludes by emphasizing the need for basic and operational research, including mathematical modelling to evaluate IRS/ITN combinations in comparison to IRS alone or ITNs alone