Potable Re-use of Treated Reclaimed Wastewater

Many water systems in New Mexico have been severely impacted by the 10-year drought currently occurring in the arid southwest. One of those, Cloudcroft NM, experiences large demand increases on the weekends. Because available water in their fracture formation aquifer has steadily declined, it is often difficult to fill available storage above the 25% level. In addition many of the homes surrounding Cloudcroft now have dry private wells because of the dropping water table. This has forced some citizens on private supplies to rely on the public water system to provide for their needs. In response to the severe drought, the community has instituted severe water rationing, conservation measures, and installed a small surface water treatment plant to treat water that collects in a 1 million gallon firefighting pond

Investigating the prevalence, predictors, and prognosis of suboptimal statin use early after a non-ST elevation acute coronary syndrome

BACKGROUND:High-potency statin therapy is recommended in the secondary prevention of car-diovascular disease but discontinuation, dose reduction, statin switching, and/or nonadherence occurin practice.OBJECTIVES:To determine the prevalence and predictors of deviation from high-potency statin useearly after a non-ST elevation acute coronary syndrome (NSTE-ACS) and its association with subse-quent major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) and all-cause mortality (ACM).METHODS:A total of 1005 patients from a UK-based prospective NSTE-ACS cohort study dis-charged on high-potency statin therapy (atorvastatin 80 mg, rosuvastatin 20 mg, or 40 mg daily)were included. At 1 month, patients were divided into constant high-potency statin users, and subop-timal users incorporating statin discontinuation, dose reduction, switching statin to a lower equivalentpotency, and/or statin nonadherence. Follow-up was a median of 16 months.RESULTS:There were 156 suboptimal (w15.5%) and 849 constant statin users. Factors associatedin multivariable analysis with suboptimal statin occurrence included female sex (odds ratio 1.75, 95%confidence interval [CI] 1.14–2.68) and muscular symptoms (odds ratio 4.28, 95% CI 1.30–14.08).Suboptimal statin use was associated with increased adjusted risks of time to MACE (hazard ratio2.10, 95% CI 1.25–3.53,P5.005) and ACM (hazard ratio 2.46, 95% CI 1.38–4.39,P5.003). Sub-group analysis confirmed that the increased MACE/ACM risks were principally attributable to statindiscontinuation or nonadherence.CONCLUSIONS:Conversion to suboptimal statin use is common early after NSTE-ACS and ispartly related to muscular symptoms. Statin discontinuation or non-adherence carries an adverse prog-nosis. Interventions that preserve and enhance statin utilization could improve post NSTE-ACSoutcomes

Water splitting with polyoxometalate-treated photoanodes: Enhancing performance through sensitizer design

Visible light driven water oxidation has been demonstrated at near-neutral pH using photoanodes based on nanoporous films of TiO2, polyoxometalate (POM) water oxidation catalyst [{Ru4O4(OH)2(H2O)4}(γ-SiW10O36)2]10- (1), and both known photosensitizer [Ru(bpy)2(H4dpbpy)]2+ (P2) and the novel crown ether functionalized dye [Ru(5-crownphen)2(H2dpbpy)] (H22). Both triads, containing catalyst 1, and catalyst-free dyads, produce O2 with high faradaic efficiencies (80 to 94%), but presence of catalyst enhances quantum yield by up to 190% (maximum 0.39%). New sensitizer H22 absorbs light more strongly than P2, and increases O2 quantum yields by up to 270%. TiO2-2 based photoelectrodes are also more stable to desorption of active species than TiO2-P2: losses of catalyst 1 are halved when pH > TiO2 point-of-zero charge (pzc), and losses of sensitizer reduced below the pzc (no catalyst is lost when pH < pzc). For the triads, quantum yields of O2 are higher at pH 5.8 than at pH 7.2, opposing the trend observed for 1 under homogeneous conditions. This is ascribed to lower stability of the dye oxidized states at higher pH, and less efficient electron transfer to TiO2, and is also consistent with the 4th 1-to-dye electron transfer limiting performance rather than catalyst TOFmax. Transient absorption reveals that TiO2-2-1 has similar 1st electron transfer dynamics to TiO2-P2-1, with rapid (ps timescale) formation of long-lived TiO2(e-)-2-1(h+) charge separated states, and demonstrates that metallation of the crown ether groups (Na+/Mg2+) has little or no effect on electron transfer from 1 to 2. The most widely relevant findings of this study are therefore: (i) increased dye extinction coefficients and binding stability significantly improve performance in dye-sensitized water splitting systems; (ii) binding of POMs to electrode surfaces can be stabilized through use of recognition groups; (iii) the optimal homogeneous and TiO2-bound operating pHs of a catalyst may not be the same; and (iv) dye-sensitized TiO2 can oxidize water without a catalyst

Incentives, Information, and Emergent Collective Accuracy

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/93557/1/mde2560.pd

Probing Single-Electron Spin Decoherence in Quantum Dots using Charged Excitons

We propose to use optical detection of magnetic resonance (ODMR) to measure the decoherence time T_{2} of a single electron spin in a semiconductor quantum dot. The electron is in one of the spin 1/2 states and a circularly polarized laser can only create an optical excitation for one of the electron spin states due to Pauli blocking. An applied electron spin resonance (ESR) field leads to Rabi spin flips and thus to a modulation of the photoluminescence or, alternatively, of the photocurrent. This allows one to measure the ESR linewidth and the coherent Rabi oscillations, from which the electron spin decoherence can be determined. We study different possible schemes for such an ODMR setup, including cw or pulsed laser excitation.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figures. Proceedings of the PASPS3 conference, Santa Barbara, CA (USA). To appear in the Journal of Superconductivit

Block of death-receptor apoptosis protects mouse cytomegalovirus from macrophages and is a determinant of virulence in immunodeficient hosts.

The inhibition of death-receptor apoptosis is a conserved viral function. The murine cytomegalovirus (MCMV) gene M36 is a sequence and functional homologue of the human cytomegalovirus gene UL36, and it encodes an inhibitor of apoptosis that binds to caspase-8, blocks downstream signaling and thus contributes to viral fitness in macrophages and in vivo. Here we show a direct link between the inability of mutants lacking the M36 gene (ΔM36) to inhibit apoptosis, poor viral growth in macrophage cell cultures and viral in vivo fitness and virulence. ΔM36 grew poorly in RAG1 knockout mice and in RAG/IL-2-receptor common gamma chain double knockout mice (RAGγC(-/-)), but the depletion of macrophages in either mouse strain rescued the growth of ΔM36 to almost wild-type levels. This was consistent with the observation that activated macrophages were sufficient to impair ΔM36 growth in vitro. Namely, spiking fibroblast cell cultures with activated macrophages had a suppressive effect on ΔM36 growth, which could be reverted by z-VAD-fmk, a chemical apoptosis inhibitor. TNFα from activated macrophages synergized with IFNγ in target cells to inhibit ΔM36 growth. Hence, our data show that poor ΔM36 growth in macrophages does not reflect a defect in tropism, but rather a defect in the suppression of antiviral mediators secreted by macrophages. To the best of our knowledge, this shows for the first time an immune evasion mechanism that protects MCMV selectively from the antiviral activity of macrophages, and thus critically contributes to viral pathogenicity in the immunocompromised host devoid of the adaptive immune system

Identifying metabolites by integrating metabolome databases with mass spectrometry cheminformatics.

Novel metabolites distinct from canonical pathways can be identified through the integration of three cheminformatics tools: BinVestigate, which queries the BinBase gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) metabolome database to match unknowns with biological metadata across over 110,000 samples; MS-DIAL 2.0, a software tool for chromatographic deconvolution of high-resolution GC-MS or liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS); and MS-FINDER 2.0, a structure-elucidation program that uses a combination of 14 metabolome databases in addition to an enzyme promiscuity library. We showcase our workflow by annotating N-methyl-uridine monophosphate (UMP), lysomonogalactosyl-monopalmitin, N-methylalanine, and two propofol derivatives

High Effective Coverage of Vector Control Interventions in Children After Achieving Low Malaria Transmission in Zanzibar, Tanzania.

\ud \ud Formerly a high malaria transmission area, Zanzibar is now targeting malaria elimination. A major challenge is to avoid resurgence of malaria, the success of which includes maintaining high effective coverage of vector control interventions such as bed nets and indoor residual spraying (IRS). In this study, caretakers' continued use of preventive measures for their children is evaluated, following a sharp reduction in malaria transmission. A cross-sectional community-based survey was conducted in June 2009 in North A and Micheweni districts in Zanzibar. Households were randomly selected using two-stage cluster sampling. Interviews were conducted with 560 caretakers of under-five-year old children, who were asked about perceptions on the malaria situation, vector control, household assets, and intention for continued use of vector control as malaria burden further decreases. Effective coverage of vector control interventions for under-five children remains high, although most caretakers (65%; 363/560) did not perceive malaria as presently being a major health issue. Seventy percent (447/643) of the under-five children slept under a long-lasting insecticidal net (LLIN) and 94% (607/643) were living in houses targeted with IRS. In total, 98% (628/643) of the children were covered by at least one of the vector control interventions. Seasonal bed-net use for children was reported by 25% (125/508) of caretakers of children who used bed nets. A high proportion of caretakers (95%; 500/524) stated that they intended to continue using preventive measures for their under-five children as malaria burden further reduces. Malaria risk perceptions and different perceptions of vector control were not found to be significantly associated with LLIN effective coverage While the majority of caretakers felt that malaria had been reduced in Zanzibar, effective coverage of vector control interventions remained high. Caretakers appreciated the interventions and recognized the value of sustaining their use. Thus, sustaining high effective coverage of vector control interventions, which is crucial for reaching malaria elimination in Zanzibar, can be achieved by maintaining effective delivery of these interventions