Calixarene bulk modified screen-printed electrodes (SPCCEs) as a one-shot disposable sensor for the simultaneous detection of lead(II), copper(II) and mercury(II) ions: Application to environmental samples

Calixarene bulk modified screen-printed electrodes (SPCCEs) have been designed, fabricated and utilized as one-shot disposable electrochemical sensors towards the simultaneous measurement of toxic metal ions lead(II), copper(II) and mercury(II) within environmental samples. These SPCCEs have been fabricated upon polyester strips, which have been modified over a range of different calixarene compositions. These bespoke sensors have been utilized as disposable electrochemical sensors and quantified in model aqueous solution of 0.1 M HCl giving rise to the simultaneous sensing of lead(II), copper(II) and mercury(II) using cyclic voltammetry and differential pulse anodic stripping voltammetry techniques. These SPCCEs have additionally been applied for the sensing of lead(II), copper(II) and mercury(II) within industrial and environmental samples such as industrial effluents and wastewater samples, furthermore the presented method has been subjected to a comprehensive interference study and further validated with an atomic absorption spectrometric method. © 2017 Elsevier B.V

The Asymptotic D- to S-State Ratio for 3-He

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation Grant NSF PHY 81-14339 and by Indiana Universit

A grid-enabled problem solving environment for parallel computational engineering design

This paper describes the development and application of a piece of engineering software that provides a problem solving environment (PSE) capable of launching, and interfacing with, computational jobs executing on remote resources on a computational grid. In particular it is demonstrated how a complex, serial, engineering optimisation code may be efficiently parallelised, grid-enabled and embedded within a PSE. The environment is highly flexible, allowing remote users from different sites to collaborate, and permitting computational tasks to be executed in parallel across multiple grid resources, each of which may be a parallel architecture. A full working prototype has been built and successfully applied to a computationally demanding engineering optimisation problem. This particular problem stems from elastohydrodynamic lubrication and involves optimising the computational model for a lubricant based on the match between simulation results and experimentally observed data

The impact of cross-kingdom molecular forensics on genetic privacy

Recent advances in metagenomic technology and computational prediction may inadvertently weaken an individual’s reasonable expectation of privacy. Through cross-kingdom genetic and metagenomic forensics, we can already predict at least a dozen human phenotypes with varying degrees of accuracy. There is also growing potential to detect a “molecular echo” of an individual’s microbiome from cells deposited on public surfaces. At present, host genetic data from somatic or germ cells provide more reliable information than microbiome samples. However, the emerging ability to infer personal details from different microscopic biological materials left behind on surfaces requires in-depth ethical and legal scrutiny. There is potential to identify and track individuals, along with new, surreptitious means of genetic discrimination. This commentary underscores the need to update legal and policy frameworks for genetic privacy with additional considerations for the information that could be acquired from microbiome-derived data. The article also aims to stimulate ubiquitous discourse to ensure the protection of genetic rights and liberties in the post-genomic era

A pragmatic randomized trial comparing tablet computer informed consent to traditional paper-based methods for an osteoporosis study

AbstractObjectiveMethods to improve informed consent efficiency and effectiveness are needed for pragmatic clinical trials. We compared informed consent using a tablet computer to a paper approach to assess comprehension and satisfaction of patients and clinic staff for a future osteoporosis clinical trial.MethodsNine community-based practices identified and recruited patients to compare the informed consent processes (tablet vs. paper) in a mock osteoporosis clinical trial. The tablet informed consent included an animation summarizing the trial, complete informed consent document, and questions to assess and reinforce comprehension of the study. Participants were women age ≥55 years with ≥1 year of alendronate use. We surveyed participants to assess comprehension and satisfaction and office staff for satisfaction and perceived time demands.ResultsThe nine practices enrolled 33 participants. There was not a significant difference in comprehension between the tablet vs. paper informed consent [mean (SD) tablet: 12.2 (1.0) vs. paper: 11.4 (1.7)]. Office staff preferred the tablet to the paper informed consent for identifying potential study participants (two-sided t-test p = 0.02) despite an increased perceived time spent to complete the tablet process [tablet: 28.3 min (SD 16.3) vs. paper: 19.0 min (SD 6.9); p = 0.08].ConclusionsAlthough, there were no significant differences in participant satisfaction and comprehension with the tablet informed consent compared to a paper informed consent, patients and office staff trended towards greater satisfaction with the tablet informed consent. Larger studies are needed to further evaluate the utility of electronic informed consent in pragmatic clinical trials

Anthropogenic Space Weather

Anthropogenic effects on the space environment started in the late 19th century and reached their peak in the 1960s when high-altitude nuclear explosions were carried out by the USA and the Soviet Union. These explosions created artificial radiation belts near Earth that resulted in major damages to several satellites. Another, unexpected impact of the high-altitude nuclear tests was the electromagnetic pulse (EMP) that can have devastating effects over a large geographic area (as large as the continental United States). Other anthropogenic impacts on the space environment include chemical release ex- periments, high-frequency wave heating of the ionosphere and the interaction of VLF waves with the radiation belts. This paper reviews the fundamental physical process behind these phenomena and discusses the observations of their impacts.Comment: 71 pages, 35 figure

Toward an internally consistent astronomical distance scale

Accurate astronomical distance determination is crucial for all fields in astrophysics, from Galactic to cosmological scales. Despite, or perhaps because of, significant efforts to determine accurate distances, using a wide range of methods, tracers, and techniques, an internally consistent astronomical distance framework has not yet been established. We review current efforts to homogenize the Local Group's distance framework, with particular emphasis on the potential of RR Lyrae stars as distance indicators, and attempt to extend this in an internally consistent manner to cosmological distances. Calibration based on Type Ia supernovae and distance determinations based on gravitational lensing represent particularly promising approaches. We provide a positive outlook to improvements to the status quo expected from future surveys, missions, and facilities. Astronomical distance determination has clearly reached maturity and near-consistency.Comment: Review article, 59 pages (4 figures); Space Science Reviews, in press (chapter 8 of a special collection resulting from the May 2016 ISSI-BJ workshop on Astronomical Distance Determination in the Space Age

Can forest management based on natural disturbances maintain ecological resilience?

Given the increasingly global stresses on forests, many ecologists argue that managers must maintain ecological resilience: the capacity of ecosystems to absorb disturbances without undergoing fundamental change. In this review we ask: Can the emerging paradigm of natural-disturbance-based management (NDBM) maintain ecological resilience in managed forests? Applying resilience theory requires careful articulation of the ecosystem state under consideration, the disturbances and stresses that affect the persistence of possible alternative states, and the spatial and temporal scales of management relevance. Implementing NDBM while maintaining resilience means recognizing that (i) biodiversity is important for long-term ecosystem persistence, (ii) natural disturbances play a critical role as a generator of structural and compositional heterogeneity at multiple scales, and (iii) traditional management tends to produce forests more homogeneous than those disturbed naturally and increases the likelihood of unexpected catastrophic change by constraining variation of key environmental processes. NDBM may maintain resilience if silvicultural strategies retain the structures and processes that perpetuate desired states while reducing those that enhance resilience of undesirable states. Such strategies require an understanding of harvesting impacts on slow ecosystem processes, such as seed-bank or nutrient dynamics, which in the long term can lead to ecological surprises by altering the forest's capacity to reorganize after disturbance

Neutron and hard X-ray measurements during pellet deposition in TFTR

Measurements of neutrons and hard x rays are made with a pair of plastic scintillators during injection of deuterium pellets into deuterium TFTR plasmas. Three cases are investigated. During ohmic heating in plasmas with few runaway electrons, the neutron emission does not increase when a pellet is injected, indicating that strong acceleration of the pellet ions does not occur. In ohmic plasmas with low but detectable levels of runaway electrons, an x-ray burst is observed on a detector near the pellet injector as the pellet ablates, while a detector displaced 126/sup 0/ toroidally from the injector does not measure a synchronous burst. Reduced pellet penetration correlates with the presence of x-ray emission, suggesting that the origin of the burst is bremsstrahlung from runaway electrons that strike the solid pellet. In deuterium beam-heated discharges, an increase in the d-d neutron emission is observed when the pellet ablates. In this case, the increase is due to fusion reactions between beam ions and the high density neutral and plasma cloud produced by ablation of the pellet; this localized density perturbation equilibrates in about 700 ..mu..sec. Analysis of the data indicates that the density propagates without forming a sharp shock front with a rapid initial propagation velocity (greater than or equal to 2 x 10/sup 7/ cm/sec) that subsequently decreases to around 3 x 10/sup 6/ cm/sec. Modelling suggests that the electron heat flux into the pellet cloud is much less than the classical Spitzer value