Addressing Childhood Adversity and Social Determinants inPediatric Primary Care:Recommendations for New Hampshire

Research has clearly demonstrated the significant short- and long-term impacts of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and the social determinants of health (SDOH) on child health and well-being.1 Identifying and addressing ACEs and SDOH will require a coordinated and systems-based approach. Pediatric primary care* plays a critical role in this system, and there is a growing emphasis on these issues that may be impacting a family. As awareness of ACEs and SDOH grows, so too does the response effort within the State of New Hampshire. Efforts to address ACEs and the SDOH have been initiated by a variety of stakeholders, including non-profit organizations, community-based providers, and school districts. In late 2017, the Endowment for Health and SPARK NH funded the NH Pediatric Improvement Partnership (NHPIP) to develop a set of recommendations to address identifying and responding to ACEs and SDOH in NH primary care settings caring for children. Methods included conducting a review of literature and Key Informant Interviews (KII). Themes from these were identified and the findings are summarized in this report

LANCE: Laccase-nanoparticle conjugates for the elimination of micropollutants (endocrine disrupting chemicals) from wastewater in bioreactors

Elimination of recalcitrant chemicals during wastewater treatment is a difficult problem for both developing and industrialized countries. The biological elimination of very persistent xenobiotics such as endocrine disrupting chemicals from municipal and industrial sewage treatment plants is an ambitious challenge as existing physico-chemical methods, such as advanced oxidation processes, are energy-intensive and consume high amounts of chemicals. Through the entry into force of strict legislative measures, such as the Water Framework Directives (EU WFD in Directive 2000/60/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing a framework for the Community action in the field of water policy, 2000) and REACH (REACH EU in European Community Regulation on chemicals and their safe use (EC 1907/2006), 2007), the market for wastewater treatment is exploding. For instance the European market potential for the membrane bioreactor technology is estimated to 57M€ per year. Based on recent progresses in nanotechnology, new developments in catalysis and environmental applications can be foreseen for the near future. Indeed, because of high surface area-to-volume ratio in nano-systems, heterogeneous enzymatic or catalytic reactions can be greatly enhanced. In the LANCE project a nanoparticle (NP)-based technology is under development. Cheap and resistant oxidative enzymes, i.e. laccases are immobilized onto the surface of the particles in order to produce systems possessing a broad substrate spectrum for the degradation of cocktails of recalcitrant pollutants. One of the objectives is to produce NPs that are compatible with wastewater treatment and can be synthesised in a cost-effective and large-scale fashion, e.g. silica-based NPs using flame spray pyrolysis and emulsion-based techniques. The modified particles are applied in bioreactors where they are retained, i.e. membrane bioreactors or perfusion basket reactors to eliminate pollutants from the wastewater. Such reactors allow multi-cycle use of the NPs coated with active enzymes and thus contribute to decrease the treatment costs. The two-year activities of the LANCE project encompass the synthesis of various NP systems, the immobilization of selected low cost industrial laccases on the latter, and the technical and scientific proof of the "depollution” concep

Численное моделирование тектонической и термической истории Кындалского грабена Буреинского бассейна (Дальний Восток России)

Because the endocrine disrupting effects of nonylphenol (NP) and octylphenol became evident, the degradation of long-chain alkylphenols (AP) by microorganisms was intensively studied. Most NP-degrading bacteria belong to the sphingomonads and closely related genera, while NP metabolism is not restricted to defined fungal taxa. Growth on NP and its mineralization was demonstrated for bacterial isolates, whereas ultimate degradation by fungi still remains unclear. While both bacterial and fungal degradation of short-chain AP, such as cresols, and the bacterial degradation of long-chain branched AP involves aromatic ring hydroxylation, alkyl chain oxidation and the formation of phenolic polymers seem to be preferential elimination pathways of long-chain branched AP in fungi, whereby both intracellular and extracellular oxidative enzymes may be involved. The degradation of NP by sphingomonads does not proceed via the common degradation mechanisms reported for short-chain AP, rather, via an unusual ipso-substitution mechanism. This fact underlies the peculiarity of long-chain AP such as NP isomers, which possess highly branched alkyl groups mostly containing a quaternary alpha-carbon. In addition to physicochemical parameters influencing degradation rates, this structural characteristic confers to branched isomers of NP a biodegradability different to that of the widely used linear isomer of NP. Potential biotechnological applications for the removal of AP from contaminated media and the difficulties of analysis and application inherent to the hydrophobic NP, in particular, are also discussed. The combination of bacteria and fungi, attacking NP at both the phenolic and alkylic moiety, represents a promising perspective

MINOTAURUS: microorganism and enzyme immobilization: novel techniques and approaches for upgraded remediation of underground-, wastewater and soil

The European project MINOTAURUS aims to deliver innovative bio-processes to eliminate emerging and classic organic pollutants. These bio-processes are all based on the concept of immobilization of biocatalysts (microorganisms and enzymes) and encompass bioaugmentation, enzyme technology, rhizoremediation with halophytes, and a bioelectrochemical remediation process. The immobilization-based technologies are applied to engineered ex situ and natural systems in situ for the bioremediation of groundwater, wastewater and soil. The selection and application of modern physico-chemical, biological and ecotoxicological monitoring tools combined with a rational understanding of engineering, enzymology and microbial physiology is a pertinent approach to open the black-box of the selected technologies. Reliable process-monitoring constitutes the basis for developing and refining biodegradation kinetics models, which in turn will improve the predictability of performances to be achieved with our technologies. A key strength of MINOTAURUS is the possibility of direct implementation of our technologies at five European reference sites that are confronted with pollutants (two technologies will be tested on-site starting from the first year). We will deliver not only a set of tools, techniques, and processes, which will enhance the ability of our communities to respond to the challenges of organic pollutants but also frameworks for structuring and making evidence-based decisions for the most sustainable and appropriate bioremediation measures. The MINOTAURUS consortium includes fifteen partners from eight European countries. Eight research & education institutions, five SMEs covering the whole chain of our bioremediation approaches (production, and monitoring of biocatalysts, bioremediation and engineering), one large end-user operating wastewater treatment plants and one environmental agency work together with the support of an advisory board mainly consisting of environmental decision-maker

Factors affecting the removal of organic micropollutants from wastewater in conventional treatment plants (CTP) and membrane bioreactors (MBR)

As a consequence of insufficient removal during treatment of wastewater released from industry and households, different classes of organic micropollutants are nowadays detected in surface and drinking water. Among these micropollutants, bioactive substances, e.g., endocrine disrupting compounds and pharmaceuticals, have been incriminated in negative effects on living organisms in aquatic biotope. Much research was done in the last years on the fate and removal of those compounds from wastewater. An important point it is to understand the role of applied treatment conditions (sludge retention time (SRT), biomass concentration, temperature, pH value, dominant class of micropollutants, etc.) for the efficiency of conventional treatment plants (CTP) and membrane bioreactors (MBR) concerning the removal of micropollutants such as pharmaceuticals, steroid- and xeno-estrogens. Nevertheless, the removal rates differ even from one compound to the other and are related to the physico-chemical characteristics of the xenobiotic