Biomonitoring polybrominated diphenyl ethers in lactating women

Breast milk is a valuable biological specimen for biomonitoring lipid-soluble polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs). The goal of this project was to determine the levels of PBDEs in breast milk of lactating women from the Seacoast region of New Hampshire and to examine potential relationships between PBDE levels in breast milk and stage of lactation, maternal characteristics, living environment and dietary intake. Forty women, ages 22 to 40, provided up to three breast milk samples at the end of their first, second and third month of breastfeeding for evaluation of day-to-day and month-to-month variation in PBDE levels. Participants were asked to complete four questionnaires, which provided maternal, living environment, and diet information. The sum of PBDE (SigmaPBDE) congeners found in breast milk was defined as: BDE-28/33, 47, 85, 99, 100, 153, 154, and 183. The SigmaPBDE concentrations in breast milk over the three-month collection period ranged from 6.5 to 166.7 ng/g lipid. The median for the three-month period was 29.7 ng/g. BDE-47 was the predominant congener; however, BDE-153 predominated in 20% of the participants\u27 samples from each month. Day-to-day variation in SigmaPBDEs was negligible; there was no significant difference in mean PBDE levels from month-to-month. Regression analyses revealed relationships between log-transformed PBDE levels in breast milk and questionnaire data. Positive associations were seen between BDE-153 and age (r = 0.36 p = 0.02), saturated fat consumption (r = 0.31 p = 0.05), and the home model (r = 0.51 p = 0.004). There was a negative association between PBDE levels (Sigma and BDE-47) and fruit consumption (r = 0.36 p = 0.02, SigmaPBDE). Our results indicate that PBDE levels in breast milk from New Hampshire are within the range that has been reported in the U.S., and that levels are stable during the first three-months of lactation. Our findings revealed a higher predominance pattern with BDE-153 compared to other studies, and indicate that PBDE levels are influenced by age, diet, and the home environment

Right to Play and Right to Health: the Role of Sub-Saharan Sport for Development Programs in the HIV/AIDS Pandemic

Using the foundation of a child’s right of health and right to play, programs in sub-Saharan Africa are making unique and powerful contributions to combatting and educating youth regarding HIV/AIDS. Through critical analysis of the programs’ successes and failures, I draw conclusions on the reach of sport programs in mitigating the disease and thus combatting global poverty and draw inferences regarding the direction sport for health development programs should be taking to lessen HIV/AIDS infection rates. Subsequently, I identify two areas for growth for sport for development programs: greater outreach to young women and working in partnerships with other key constituents, specifically in the education, healthcare and political sectors (see Appendix A). Overall I conclude that although future research and expansion of programs is needed, sport for development programs are making valuable contributions to both furthering children’s unalienable rights of bodily health and play as well as combatting the spread of HIV/AIDS

The Church in the Dramas of T. S. Eliot

From the desolation of a sterile Waste Land populated by straw men, Eliot\u27s dramas increasingly portray a world of great meaning and hope. His early dramas portray a hostile and insensible world which must be fought and completely rejected by religious persons who are called to martyrdom and sainthood. Eliot\u27s acceptance of the material world and comfort with its society brings a steady transformation of his spiritual vision when at the end of his dramas the world is one of common people who strive to find meaning and make the best of a bad job, illumined by a vision of love. Especially this is seen when the rigidly drawn world forces gradually relax into common people open to change and amelioration of the human predicament, not dulled and insensible to any high destiny. A world in early plays described as waste and void becomes a brave new world in the last drama, The Elder Statesman, which most resembles the last Shakesperian world view of The Tempest with its emphasis on perfected love between men. The beneficial change in man\u27s life and the strength of the bond of love displayed increasingly throughout the dramas portray in secular terms Eliot\u27s evolving vision of the Church

Infants’ attention during cross-situational word learning: Environmental variability promotes novelty preference

Infants as young as 14 months can track cross-situational statistics between sets of words and objects to acquire word–referent mappings. However, in naturalistic word learning situations, words and objects occur with a host of additional information, sometimes noisy, present in the environment. In this study, we tested the effect of this environmental variability on infants’ word learning. Fourteen-month-old infants (N = 32) were given a cross-situational word learning task with additional gestural, prosodic, and distributional cues that occurred reliably or variably. In the reliable cue condition, infants were able to process this additional environmental information to learn the words, attending to the target object during test trials. But when the presence of these cues was variable, infants paid greater attention to the gestural cue during training and subsequently switched preference to attend more to novel word–object mappings rather than familiar ones at test. Environmental variation may be key to enhancing infants’ exploration of new information

Participatory citizens and hybrid cities:imagining green spaces in Manchester's Northern Quarter

This paper presents an innovative community project through the notion of research through design. With Manchester as our hybrid city backdrop, we look specifically at community greening groups in the Northern Quarter (NQ). Thirty-four participants attended 12 conversations that asked: how do you respond to a greening challenge with the digital communication and technology you carry with you? Through the use of IDEO and D:School’s Empathy Map we reveal conversational themes that will inform a design challenge

Receiver Geometries for Solar Dish Concentrators

This thesis studies receiver/reactor geometry for the ammonia thermochemical storage system and dish concentrators, using the case study of a masked 9 m2 dish. Experimental results proved that altering the geometric arrangement – in this case the cone angle – of reactor tubes within a cavity receiver significantly affects the heat transfers within and heat losses from the receiver. By consequence both the receiver efficiency and the solar-to-chemical efficiency of the dish-receiver system can be significantly increased. This is note-worthy as improvements in efficiency due to reactor tube cone angle do not increase the cost of manufacture of the receiver. Moreover, any increase in receiver efficiency allows an equivalent decrease in mirror area, and in a commercial plant, the solar collector field (mirror area) can account for around 40% of total project costs. Gains of up to 7.0% absolute in receiver efficiency and 6.4% absolute in solar-to-chemical efficiency were demonstrated experimentally in this thesis at a given solar altitude. Experimental data was examined for three receiver configurations with reactor tube half cone angles of 17.5º, 7.5º and 3.7º, with the 3.7º configuration producing the highest receiver efficiencies, the 7.5º receiver a close second, and the 17.5º configuration producing the lowest efficiencies. Solar-to-chemical efficiencies were however slightly higher for the 7.5º configuration than the 3.7º, indicating that system-level operation, especially operation of the heat exchanger, was slightly more optimal for the 7.5º case. Preliminary results integrating the receiver losses over the course of a year indicate that the 3.7º receiver geometry would reduce annual receiver losses by 25% compared to the 17.5º receiver geometry. The experimental data comprised 178 hours of “on sun” operation of the 9 m2 dish concentrator by the author, providing 311 steady state intervals of 10-15 minutes. The experimental results were compared with simulations using an existing computational receiver/reactor model, but gross disagreement was observed. Simulated reaction extents were 2-4 times those achieved experimentally. Therefore a new energy balance was developed for each of the three receiver geometries. This included 3D modelling of radiation losses, along with calculation of convection and conduction losses, and used the knowledge gained experimentally of reactor tube and cavity wall temperature profiles. These new energy balances were verified against a substantial body of experimental data – out of 86 steady-state data points at optimal flow, calculated receiver losses fell within the experimental uncertainties for all but seven points. The energy balances allowed curves of predicted receiver losses to be generated for each of the three receiver geometries over a wider range of temperatures and solar altitudes. These curves suggest that the 3.7º half cone receiver would still have the lowest receiver losses under all operating conditions, closely followed by the 7.5º half cone receiver. At mid and low solar altitudes, natural convection losses dominated over conduction and radiation losses for all three receiver geometries. Finally, conclusions on favourable flux and temperature profiles for the reactor tubes studied in this project were drawn. A flux of at least 2 W/cm2 within 100 mm of the reactor tube inlet resulted in higher conversion efficiencies, due to higher temperatures and reaction rates immediately at the tube inlet

Lysophosphatidic acid mediates myeloid differentiation within the human bone marrow microenvironment.

Lysophosphatidic acid (LPA) is a pleiotropic phospholipid present in the blood and certain tissues at high concentrations; its diverse effects are mediated through differential, tissue specific expression of LPA receptors. Our goal was to determine if LPA exerts lineage-specific effects during normal human hematopoiesis. In vitro stimulation of CD34+ human hematopoietic progenitors by LPA induced myeloid differentiation but had no effect on lymphoid differentiation. LPA receptors were expressed at significantly higher levels on Common Myeloid Progenitors (CMP) than either multipotent Hematopoietic Stem/Progenitor Cells (HSPC) or Common Lymphoid Progenitors (CLP) suggesting that LPA acts on committed myeloid progenitors. Functional studies demonstrated that LPA enhanced migration, induced cell proliferation and reduced apoptosis of isolated CMP, but had no effect on either HSPC or CLP. Analysis of adult and fetal human bone marrow sections showed that PPAP2A, (the enzyme which degrades LPA) was highly expressed in the osteoblastic niche but not in the perivascular regions, whereas Autotaxin (the enzyme that synthesizes LPA) was expressed in perivascular regions of the marrow. We propose that a gradient of LPA with the highest levels in peri-sinusoidal regions and lowest near the endosteal zone, regulates the localization, proliferation and differentiation of myeloid progenitors within the bone marrow marrow