Wildlife Toxicology: Environmental Contaminants and Their National and International Regulation

Wildlife toxicology is the study of potentially harmful effects of toxic agents in wild animals, focusing on amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. Fish and aquatic invertebrates are not usually included as part of wildlife toxicology since they fall within the field of aquatic toxicology, but collectively both disciplines often provide inSight into one another and both are integral parts of ecotoxicology (Hoffman et al. 2003). It entails monitoring, hypothesis testing, forensics, and risk assessment; encompasses molecular through ecosystem responses and various research venues (laboratory, mesocosm, field); and has been shaped by chemical use and misuse, ecological mishaps, and biomedical research. While human toxicology can be traced to ancient Egypt, wildlife toxicology dates back to the late 19th century, when unintentional poisoning of birds from ingestion oflead shot and predator control agents, alkali poisoning, and die-offs from oil spills appeared in the popular and scientific literature (Rattner 2009)

Wildlife Toxicology: Environmental Contaminants and Their National and International Regulation

Wildlife toxicology is the study of potentially harmful effects of toxic agents in wild animals, focusing on amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. Fish and aquatic invertebrates are not usually included as part of wildlife toxicology since they fall within the field of aquatic toxicology, but collectively both disciplines often provide inSight into one another and both are integral parts of ecotoxicology (Hoffman et al. 2003). It entails monitoring, hypothesis testing, forensics, and risk assessment; encompasses molecular through ecosystem responses and various research venues (laboratory, mesocosm, field); and has been shaped by chemical use and misuse, ecological mishaps, and biomedical research. While human toxicology can be traced to ancient Egypt, wildlife toxicology dates back to the late 19th century, when unintentional poisoning of birds from ingestion oflead shot and predator control agents, alkali poisoning, and die-offs from oil spills appeared in the popular and scientific literature (Rattner 2009)

An empirical study of the “prototype walkthrough”: a studio-based activity for HCI education

For over a century, studio-based instruction has served as an effective pedagogical model in architecture and fine arts education. Because of its design orientation, human-computer interaction (HCI) education is an excellent venue for studio-based instruction. In an HCI course, we have been exploring a studio-based learning activity called the prototype walkthrough, in which a student project team simulates its evolving user interface prototype while a student audience member acts as a test user. The audience is encouraged to ask questions and provide feedback. We have observed that prototype walkthroughs create excellent conditions for learning about user interface design. In order to better understand the educational value of the activity, we performed a content analysis of a video corpus of 16 prototype walkthroughs held in two HCI courses. We found that the prototype walkthrough discussions were dominated by relevant design issues. Moreover, mirroring the justification behavior of the expert instructor, students justified over 80 percent of their design statements and critiques, with nearly one-quarter of those justifications having a theoretical or empirical basis. Our findings suggest that PWs provide valuable opportunities for students to actively learn HCI design by participating in authentic practice, and provide insight into how such opportunities can be best promoted

Molecular serotyping and virulence potential of Listeria monocytogenes isolated from bovine, swine and human in the province of Quebec

Listeria monocytogenes (L mono) cause rare but critical diseases, particularly for at risk population that include pregnant women. Food-borne origin of listeriosis is clearly recognised only since 1984. Since then, a great number of grouped cases occurred and milk or meat products, particularly pork meat, were implicated. Management of this zoonotic pathogen considers all strains as at equal risk. Recently a new perspective for characterisation of strain virulence was allowed since unaltered sequence of InlA was recognised as a key for strain virulence

A slot scheduling mechanism at congested airports which incorporates efficiency, fairness and airline preferences

Congestion is a problem at airports where capacity does not meet demand. At many such airports, airlines must request time slots for the purpose of landing or take off. Given the imbalance between demand and capacity, slot requests cannot always be scheduled as requested. The difference between the requested and allocated time slots is called displacement. Minimization of the total displacement is a key slot-scheduling objective and expresses the efficiency of the slot-scheduling process. Additionally, fairness has been proposed as a slot-scheduling criterion. Fairness relates to the allocation of the total schedule displacement among the various airlines. Single- and multiobjective models have been proposed for slot scheduling. However, currently the literature lacks models that incorporate the preferences of airlines regarding the allocation of displacement to their flights. This paper proposes a two-stage mechanism for the scheduling of slots at congested airports. The proposed mechanism considers efficiency and fairness objectives and incorporates the preferences of airlines in allocating the total displacement associated with the flights of each airline. The first stage of the mechanism constructs a reference schedule that is fair to the participating airlines. In the second stage, the airlines specify how the displacement allocated to them in the reference schedule should be distributed among their requests. The mechanism then adjusts the fair reference schedule to meet as many of these preferences as possible. The development and implementation of the proposed slot-scheduling mechanism is demonstrated using real data from a coordinated airport and simulated displacement preference data. The proposed slot-scheduling mechanism provides useful information to decision makers regarding the equity–efficiency trade-off and enhances the transparency and acceptability of the slot-scheduling outcome

Modelling and solving the airport slot-scheduling problem with multi-objective, multi-level considerations

In overly congested airports requests for landing and take-off slots are allocated according to the IATA World Scheduling Guidelines (WSG). A central concept of these guidelines is the prioritization of the satisfaction of the requested slots according to a hierarchy that recognizes historic usage rights of slots. A number of criteria have been proposed in the literature to optimize airport slot allocation decisions. Multi-objective programming models have been proposed to investigate the trade-offs of the slot allocation objectives for the same level of the slot hierarchy. However, the literature currently lacks models that can study in a systematic way the trade-offs among the scheduling objectives across all levels of the hierarchy and the airport schedule as a whole. To close the existing literature gap, we are proposing a new tri-objective slot allocation model (TOSAM) that considers total schedule displacement, maximum schedule displacement and demand-based fairness, and we introduce a multi-level, multi-objective algorithm to solve it. We are using real world slot request and airport capacity data to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed approach. Our computational results suggest that the systematic consideration of the interactions among the objectives of the different levels of the slot hierarchy, results to improved schedule-wide slot scheduling performance. In particular, we found that small sacrifices made for the attainment of the scheduling objectives of the upper echelons of the slot hierarchy, result in significant improvements of the schedule-wide objectives

Children’s learning from a Smokefree sports programme: implications for health education

Objective: This article reports on a qualitative evaluation of the Love Life, Smokefree Sports primary school pilot intervention. This 8-week programme used sports and physical activity sessions to convey Smokefree messages to 120 children aged 10 and 11 in two primary schools in Sheffield in 2018. The study aimed to understand children’s experiences of participating in the programme. Its objectives were to explore children’s recall of the health promotion messages associated with each of the learning sessions; explore children’s perceptions of the meaningfulness of those messages in the context of their everyday lives; and identify and understand any contextual factors that might impact upon children’s recall and/or the meaningfulness of the Smokefree messages. Method: Qualitative data were generated with 25 children through focus groups after the programme concluded. Data were analysed thematically using cross-sectional, categorical indexing. Results: Learning from the programme was particularly likely to be described as meaningful by children when they could interact with material and visual representations of complex ideas and when sessions involved strongly embodied experiences. However, children did not always find it easy to relate learning to their everyday lives and sometimes struggled to reconcile pre-existing, contextualised understandings with intervention messages. We mobilise the concept of critical health literacy as a theoretical lens through which to interpret these findings. Conclusion: Health education should be meaningful in the context of children’s everyday lives. Starting from the premise that children are active critical health literacy practitioners and working with them to design and evaluate health education initiatives can promote this

The effects of a sleep/recovery supplement: 'Night Time Recharge' on sleep parameters in young adults.

BACKGROUND: Concentrated cherry juice reportedly contains melatonin which, in turn, has been highlighted as an important regulator in initiating sleep. AIM: The present investigation aims to clarify whether Night Time Recharge (NTR), a marketed sleep aid containing cherry extract, improves key sleep parameters in young, active adults with mildly poor sleep. METHODS: A double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled, cross-over study design was employed. Twenty participants (nine female) consumed either NTR or a placebo for seven days. Accelerometers were used to assess sleep quality and physical activity levels. Urinary levels of 6-sulphatoxymelatonin (6-SMT), a marker of melatonin synthesis, was assessed via enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. RESULTS: 6-SMT levels increased following NTR treatment (28.95 ng/ml) compared with placebo (4.0 ng/ml) (p < 0.001). There was also a significant difference (p = 0.047) in dietary tryptophan consumption during the NTR treatment (1236 mg) versus placebo (1149 mg). No trace of melatonin was detected from our analysis of the supplement. NTR had no significant effect on any sleep parameters with the exception of sleep latency (p = 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: As chemical analysis of NTR by liquid-chromatography mass-spectrometry identified no detectable melatonin, the tryptophan content of the supplement is a likely reason for improvement in sleep latency. These results are in contrast to previous studies which have found a positive effect on sleep following cherry supplementation. Future work should focus on sleep latency and investigating whether cherry juice is effective in participants with problems in initiating sleep

Pollen-Mediated Gene Flow from Genetically Modified Herbicide Resistant Creeping Bentgrass

Approximately 162 ha of multiple experimental fields of creeping bentgrass (Agrostis stolonifera L.) genetically modified for resistance to Roundup ®herbicide, were planted in central Oregon in 2002. When the fields flowered for the first time in the summer of 2003, a unique opportunity was presented to evaluate methods to monitor potential pollen-mediated gene flow from the experimental GM crop fields to compatible sentinel and resident plants that were located in surrounding, primarily non-agronomic areas