Evaluation of the Community Child Health Research Network (CCHN) Community-Academic Partnership

Background: The Community Child Health Network (CCHN) is a research collaborative network of five communities in the U.S. formed to study maternal and child health disparities, via a community-based participatory research study design. CCHN studies how community, family, and individual level influences interact with biological processes to affect maternal stress, resilience, and allostatic load; ultimately, the study evaluates whether such factors result in health disparities in pregnancy outcomes and infant and early childhood mortality and morbidity. The purpose of this paper is to assess the community-based participatory research (CBPR) process that governs the CCHN and offer lessons from our experiences. Methods: This study employs a qualitative approach to evaluate the CBPR process among CCHN community and academic partners. Qualitative interviews (n=17) were completed by both community and academic CCHN partners. Results: Content analysis of qualitative data revealed six major themes (1) lack of necessary resources; (2) collaborative learning; (3) perceived benefits; (4) communication and education; (5) trust and expectations; and (6) sustainability. Discussion: The benefits and challenges of implementing productive, community-academic partnerships were present both at the local site-level and the network-level. Ultimately, the inclusion of community-based participatory research principles and methods enhanced the study development, implementation, analysis, and dissemination of findings. Conclusion: Lessons learned from a multi-site CBPR project, including strategies for managing learning and communication across different geographic sites, may be useful to other CBPR and multi-site community-based research endeavors

Case Study of Resilient Baton Rouge: Applying Depression Collaborative Care and Community Planning to Disaster Recovery.

BackgroundAddressing behavioral health impacts of major disasters is a priority of increasing national attention, but there are limited examples of implementation strategies to guide new disaster responses. We provide a case study of an effort being applied in response to the 2016 Great Flood in Baton Rouge.MethodsResilient Baton Rouge was designed to support recovery after major flooding by building local capacity to implement an expanded model of depression collaborative care for adults, coupled with identifying and responding to local priorities and assets for recovery. For a descriptive, initial evaluation, we coupled analysis of documents and process notes with descriptive surveys of participants in initial training and orientation, including preliminary comparisons among licensed and non-licensed participants to identify training priorities.ResultsWe expanded local behavioral health service delivery capacity through subgrants to four agencies, provision of training tailored to licensed and non-licensed providers and development of advisory councils and partnerships with grassroots and government agencies. We also undertook initial efforts to enhance national collaboration around post-disaster resilience.ConclusionOur partnered processes and lessons learned may be applicable to other communities that aim to promote resilience, as well as planning for and responding to post-disaster behavioral health needs

Structurally tuned lead magnesium titanate perovskite as a photoelectrode material for enhanced photoelectrochemical water splitting

This is the first demonstration of four distinct types of Lead Magnesium Titanate (PMT) perovskites including spheres, flakes, hierarchical flower and thin microbelt shapes that were finely tuned via facile solution method to develop cost effective and high performance photoanode materials for water splitting. The influence of solvent effects during structural tuning, purity, morphology, optical absorption, structural phase transition and stoichiometric formation of the prepared Lead Magnesium Titanate perovskites has been discussed in detail. A remarkable observation is that the thin microbelts structured PMT perovskite (PMTT) exhibited an excellent water splitting performance and it is more sensitive to the illuminated visible light. Owing to the unique structural features, the photoconversion efficiency value of PMTT perovskite is ∼3.9, 3.54, 2.85 and 1.52 times higher than those of other prepared PMT perovskites including pristine PbTiO3. The excellent water splitting performance of PMTT (thin microbelts) may be ascribed to the remarkable structural features that include a large surface area, high optical absorbance, more active sites and high interface area of the microbelts, which provide large contact areas between the electrolyte and highly active materials for electrolyte diffusion and a rapid route for charge transfer with minimal diffusion resistance. In addition, each thin microbelt is directly in contact with the Ni foam substrate, which can also shorten the diffusion path for the electrons. The demonstrated approach paves the way for low-cost and high-throughput production of next generation, high performance and highly active water splitting perovskite photocatalysts.</p

Micro-scale to nano-scale generators for energy harvesting:Self powered piezoelectric, triboelectric and hybrid devices

This comprehensive review focuses on recent advances in energy harvesting of micro-scale and nano-scale generators based on piezoelectric and triboelectric effects. The development of flexible and hybrid devices for a variety of energy harvesting applications are systematically reviewed. A fundamental understanding of the important parameters that determine the performance of piezoelectric, triboelectric and hybrid devices are summarized. Current research directions being explored and the emerging factors to improve harvester functionality and advance progress in achieving high performance and durable energy conversion are provided. Investigations with regard to integrating flexible matrices and optimizing the composition of the piezoelectric and triboelectric materials are examined to enhance device performance and improve cost-effectiveness for the commercial arena. Finally, future research trends, emerging device structures and novel materials in view of imminent developments and harvesting applications are presented.</p

Extended Kohler's Rule of Magnetoresistance in TaCo2_2Te2_2

TaCo$_2$Te$_2$ is recently reported to be an air-stable, high mobility Van der Waals material with probable magnetic order. Here we investigate the scaling behavior of its magnetoresistance. We measured both the longitudinal ($\rho_{xx}$) and Hall ($\rho_{xy}$) magnetoresistivities of TaCo$_2$Te$_2$ crystals in magnetic fields parallel to the c-axis and found that the magnetoresistance violates the Kohler's rule $MR \sim f[H/\rho_0]$ while obeying the extended Kohler's rule $MR \sim f[H/(n_T\rho_0)]$, where $MR \sim [\rho_{xx}(H)-\rho_0]/\rho_0$, $H$ is the magnetic field, $n_T$ is a thermal factor, $\rho_{xx}(H)$ and $\rho_0$ are the resistivities at $H$ and zero field, respectively. While deviating from those of the densities of electrons ($n_e$) and holes ($n_h$) obtained from the two-band model analysis of the magnetoconductivities, the temperature dependence of $n_T$ is close to that of the Hall carrier densities $n_H$ calculated from the slopes of $\rho_{xy}(H)$ curves at low magnetic fields, providing a new way to obtain the thermal factor in the extended Kohler's rule

Testing models for molecular gas formation in galaxies: hydrostatic pressure or gas and dust shielding?

Stars in galaxies form in giant molecular clouds that coalesce when the atomic hydrogen is converted into molecules. There are currently two dominant models for what property of the galactic disk determines its molecular fraction: either hydrostatic pressure driven by the gravity of gas and stars, or a combination of gas column density and metallicity. To assess the validity of these models, we compare theoretical predictions to the observed atomic gas content of low-metallicity dwarf galaxies with high stellar densities. The extreme conditions found in these systems are optimal to distinguish the two models, otherwise degenerate in nearby spirals. Locally, on scales <100 pc, we find that the state of the interstellar medium is mostly sensitive to the gas column density and metallicity rather than hydrostatic pressure. On larger scales where the average stellar density is considerably lower, both pressure and shielding models reproduce the observations, even at low metallicity. We conclude that models based on gas and dust shielding more closely describe the process of molecular formation, especially at the high resolution that can be achieved in modern galaxy simulations or with future radio/millimeter arrays.Comment: 20 pages, 12 figures. Accepted for publication in Ap

Developments and Perspectives on Robust Nano- and Microstructured Binder-Free Electrodes for Bifunctional Water Electrolysis and Beyond

The development of robust nano- and microstructured catalysts on highly conductive substrates is an effective approach to produce highly active binder-free electrodes for energy conversion and storage applications. As a result, nanostructured electrodes with binder-free designs have abundant advantages that provide superior electrocatalytic performance; these include more exposed active sites, large surface area, strong adhesion to substrates, facile charge transfer, high conductivity, high intrinsic catalytic activity, and fine-tuning of its electronic nature through nanostructure modification. Notably, the interface chemistry of an electrocatalyst plays a significant role in their optimized electrocatalytic activity and stability. This review provides an overview of recent progress in nano- and microstructured catalysts, such as one, two, and 3D catalysts as binder-free electrodes for electrocatalytic water splitting via the hydrogen evolution reaction and oxygen evolution reaction, and beyond. Furthermore, this review focuses on the current challenges and synthesis strategies of binder-free electrodes, with a focus on the impact of nanostructure on their functional property relationships and enhanced bifunctional electrocatalytic performance. Finally, an outlook for their future advances in energy conversion and storage is provided.</p