Protecting Drinking Water at the Source: Lessons from United States Watershed Investment Programs

Watershed investment programs offer promising pathways to securing safe drinking water. But what does it take to establish and grow a successful watershed investment program? Program investors and practitioners are looking for guidance and ideas on how to build a program that works for their own context.This report addresses this need by compiling experiences and lessons from 13 watershed investment programs from across the United States. Based on a 3-year comparative case study analysis, it serves as a roadmap to guide utilities and communities as they work together to protect precious source waters

A first pass, using pre-history and contemporary history, at understanding why Australia and England have such different policies towards electronic nicotine delivery systems, 1970s-c. 2018.

AIMS: The United Kingdom and Australia have developed highly divergent policy responses to electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS). To understand the historical origins of these differences, we describe the history of tobacco control in each country and the key roles played in setting ENDS policy in its early stages by public health regulations and policy networks, anti-smoking organizations, 'vaper' activist networks and advocates of harm reduction policies towards injecting drug use. METHODS: We analysed key government reports, policy statements from public health bodies and non-government organizations (e.g. cancer councils and medical organizations) on ENDS; submissions to an Australian parliamentary inquiry; media coverage of policy debates in medical journals; and the history of tobacco control policy in Australia and England. Key discourses about ENDS were identified for each country. These were compared across countries during a multi-day face-to-face meeting, where consensus was reached on the key commonalities and divergences in historical approaches to nicotine policy. This paper focuses on England, as different policy responses were apparent in constituent countries of the United Kingdom, and Scotland in particular. RESULTS: Policymakers in Australia and England differ markedly in the priority that they have given to using ENDS to promote smoking cessation or restricting smokers' access to prevent uptake among young people. In understanding the origins of these divergent responses, we identified the following key differences between the two countries' approaches to nicotine regulation: an influential scientific network that favoured nicotine harm reduction in the United Kingdom and the absence of such a network in Australia; the success of different types of health activism both in England and in Europe in opposing more restrictive policies; and the greater influence on policy in England of the field of illicit drug harm reduction. CONCLUSIONS: An understanding of the different policy responses to electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) in England and Australia requires an appreciation of how actors within the different policy structures, scientific networks and activist organizations in each country and region have interpreted the evidence and the priority that policymakers have given to the competing goals of preventing adolescent uptake and encouraging smokers to use ENDS to quit smoking

Discutindo a educação ambiental no cotidiano escolar: desenvolvimento de projetos na escola formação inicial e continuada de professores

A presente pesquisa buscou discutir como a Educação Ambiental (EA) vem sendo trabalhada, no Ensino Fundamental e como os docentes desta escola compreendem e vem inserindo a EA no cotidiano escolar., em uma escola estadual do município de Tangará da Serra/MT, Brasil. Para tanto, realizou-se entrevistas com os professores que fazem parte de um projeto interdisciplinar de EA na escola pesquisada. Verificou-se que o projeto da escola não vem conseguindo alcançar os objetivos propostos por: desconhecimento do mesmo, pelos professores; formação deficiente dos professores, não entendimento da EA como processo de ensino-aprendizagem, falta de recursos didáticos, planejamento inadequado das atividades. A partir dessa constatação, procurou-se debater a impossibilidade de tratar do tema fora do trabalho interdisciplinar, bem como, e principalmente, a importância de um estudo mais aprofundado de EA, vinculando teoria e prática, tanto na formação docente, como em projetos escolares, a fim de fugir do tradicional vínculo “EA e ecologia, lixo e horta”.Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educació

<em>De novo</em> Generation of Cells within Human Nurse Macrophages and Consequences following HIV-1 Infection

<div><p>Nurse cells are defined as those that provide for the development of other cells. We report here, that <em>in vitro,</em> human monocyte-derived macrophages can behave as nurse cells with functional capabilities that include <em>de novo</em> generation of CD4+ T-lymphocytes and a previously unknown small cell with monocytoid characteristics. We named these novel cells “self-renewing monocytoid cells” (SRMC), because they could develop into nurse macrophages that produced another generation of SRMC. SRMC were not detectable in blood. Their transition to nurse behavior was characterized by expression of CD10, a marker of thymic epithelium and bone marrow stroma, typically absent on macrophages. Bromodeoxyuridine labeling and immunostaining for cdc6 expression confirmed DNA synthesis within nurse macrophages. T-cell excision circles were detected in macrophages, along with expression of pre-T-cell receptor alpha and recombination activating gene 1, suggesting that genetic recombination events associated with generation of the T-cell receptor were occurring in these cells. SRMC expressed CCR5, the coreceptor for R5 HIV-1 isolates, and were highly susceptible to HIV-1 entry leading to productive infection. While expressing HIV-1, SRMC could differentiate into nurse macrophages that produced another generation of HIV-1-expressing SRMC. The infected nurse macrophage/SRMC cycle could continue <em>in vitro</em> for multiple generations, suggesting it might represent a mechanism whereby HIV-1 can maintain persistence <em>in vivo</em>. HIV-1 infection of nurse macrophages led to a decline in CD4+ T-cell production. There was severe, preferential loss of the CCR5+ CD4+ T-cell subpopulation. Confocal microscopy revealed individual HIV-1-expressing nurse macrophages simultaneously producing both HIV-1-expressing SRMC and non-expressing CD3+ cells, suggesting that nurse macrophages might be a source of latently infected CD4+ T-cells. Real-time PCR experiments confirmed this by demonstrating 10-fold more HIV-1-genome-harboring T-cells, than virus-expressing ones. These phenomena have far-reaching implications, and elicit new perspectives regarding HIV pathogenesis and T-cell and hematopoietic cell development.</p> </div

Characteristics distinguishing CD4+ T-cells produced in primary macrophage cultures from those produced in EDTA/IL2-mac.

<p>(A) As was the case in cultures of replated EDTA-mac treated with IL-2, the vast majority of T-cells produced in primary MDM cultures were also CD4+ T-cells. This is depicted here. However, in contrast to IL-2 treated cultures, these CD4+ T-cells were almost exclusively CD45RO+ and lacked CD45RA. Cells shown here were harvested on day 13 of culture and gated based on small size and CD3 expression (red arrows). The forward versus side scatter plots on the left demonstrate the relative numbers of large macrophages and lymphocytes within the nonadherent cell population. The numbers shown within the quadrants represent percentages from among the gated populations. (B) In contrast to those recovered from EDTA/IL2-mac, as shown here, the CD4+ T-cells produced in primary macrophage cultures did not express CD71, the transferrin receptor, indicating that they were resting lymphocytes. The CD71+ cells apparent are small CD4dim/CD14+ monocytoid cells, not lymphocytes. Analyses performed using Paint-a-Gate software. (C) Also in contrast to the CD4+ T-cells produced in IL-2-treated cultures, as shown here, 40–50% of these cells produced in primary MDM cultures expressed CD195, and 30–35% were dual positive for CD195 and CD184. Gates for the dot plots shown were established based on CD4bright expression and low side scatter, as indicated in the left panels (red arrows). Small, CD4dim cells were excluded from the gates because these were small monocytoid cells, not T-cells. The numbers shown within the quadrants represent percentages from among the gated populations. Analyses performed using CellQuest software. For (B) and (C), the letter D refers to the age of the culture in days at the time of harvest.</p