Hear No Evil, See No Evil: How Technology Influences the Ethics of Life Inside the Womb

Abortion is a very prevalent occurrence in the U.S. and for some time has even been encouraged as emergency birth control. However, many women are not educated about the life they are terminating when deciding to have an abortion. In fact, many women are even lied to in order to persuade them to have an abortion because abortion clinics are looking to profit. Technology like ultrasounds help women see, hear, and understand the physical life that is growing in them, and can help them make an informed decision. This documentary takes a closer look into how advanced technology can impact a woman’s decision

The Core of Care Management: The Role of Authentic Relationships in Caring for Patients with Frequent Hospitalizations.

In the movement to improve the health of patients with multiple chronic conditions and vulnerabilities, while reducing the need for hospitalizations, care management programs have garnered wide attention and support. The qualitative data presented in this paper sheds new light on key components of successful chronic care management programs. By going beyond a task- and temporal-based framework, this analysis identifies and defines the importance of authentic healing relationships in driving individual and systemic change. Drawing on the voices of 30 former clients of the Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers, the investigators use qualitative methods to identify and elaborate the core elements of the authentic healing relationship-security, genuineness, and continuity-a relationship that is linked to patient motivation and active health management. Although not readily found in the traditional health care delivery system, these authentic healing relationships present significant implications for addressing the persistent health-related needs of patients with frequent hospitalizations. (Population Health Management 2016;19:248-256)

The discord between discourse and data in engendering resilience building for sustainability

This paper explores how gender is considered in the resilience discourse, and the extent to which there is an evidence base to support the targeting of women in resilience programmes. The paper provides an overview of the approaches adopted in the fields of gender and development and gender and environment, and the critiques of these approaches. Mainstream approaches to engendering policy and practice are charged with being essentialist and instrumentalist, drawing on women’s ‘natural’ attributes and altruism, placing women at the service of the policy agenda, rather than served by it. Despite these critiques it highlights how these approaches have been borrowed by ‘newer’ policy arenas such as disasters and within this, resilience building. An analysis of the gendered language in resilience highlights a contradictory discourse, presenting women as vulnerable and as agents for change, and an explicit instrumentalism. The paper notes that in the disaster resilience discourse much of the focus actually remains on vulnerability, problematising this and how vulnerability/resilience are defined and measured generally, and in gender terms. The pseudo-scientific constructions of ‘objective’ knowledge at the base of much policy are critiqued from a feminist theoretical and practical perspective. It concludes that there is no reliable evidence base on which to base any policy moves to ‘engender’ resilience. As such the focus on women in resilience must be based on gendered assumptions and/or other policy aims, and as such the inclusion of women in resilience building is more about efficiency, than about equality

Scattered M3–4 Slip Bursts Within Creep Events on the San Andreas Fault

Scientists have observed the surface expression of creep events along the San Andreas Fault since the 1960s. However, the evolution of slip at depth has been examined relatively little. So here we probe that deep slip by analyzing strain observations just before and during hours‐ to day‐long creep events at the northern end of the creeping section of the San Andreas Fault. We identify 71 strain offsets that are likely produced by few‐hour bursts of slip at depth. Then, we grid search to determine the location, depth, and magnitude of these slip bursts. We find that the slip bursts occur at a range of along‐strike locations, from 0 to 7 km away from the surface slip observations. Slip occurs at depths from 0 to 10 km; 42%–55% of the bursts are likely below 4 km depth. The bursts typically have moments equivalent to M w 3.2–4.1 earthquakes. These findings suggest that creep events are not just small shallow events; they are relatively large events that nucleate at significant depths and could play a prominent role in the slip dynamics of the creeping section

Thermodynamics of a minimal collective heat engine: Comparison between engine designs

Collective effects have attracted remarkable recent interest, not only for their presence in several systems in nature but also for the possibility of being used for the construction of efficient engine setups. Notwithstanding, little is known about the influence of the engine design and most studies are restricted to the simplest cases (e.g. simultaneous contact with two thermal baths), not necessarily constituting a realistic setup implementation. Aimed at partially filling this gap, we introduce the collisional/sequential description for a minimal model for collective effects, composed of two interacting nanomachines placed in contact with a distinct thermal reservoir and nonequilibrium worksource at each stage/stroke. Thermodynamic quantities are exactly obtained irrespectively the model details. Distinct kinds of engines are investigated and the influence of the interaction, temperature, period, and time asymmetry have been undertaken. Results show that a careful design of interaction provides a superior performance than the interactionless case, including optimal power outputs and efficiencies at maximum power greater than known bounds or even the system presenting efficiencies close to the ideal (Carnot) limit. We also show that the case of the system simultaneously placed in contact with two thermal reservoirs constitutes a particular case of our framework.Comment: 12 pages, 9 figure

Subtask 1.17 - Measurement of Hydrocarbon Evolution from Coal and Petroleum Reservoirs Under Carbon Dioxide Floods

The project developed, built, and tested three apparatuses for studying different interactions of carbon dioxide with geologic materials. In Year 1, an online instrument was constructed by coupling a high-pressure carbon dioxide extraction system with a flame ionization detector that can yield a real-time profile and quantitative measurements of hydrocarbons removed from materials such as coal and petroleum reservoir rock. In Years 2 and 3, one instrument was built to measure the excess sorption of carbon dioxide in geologic materials such as coal and showed that measurable uptake of carbon dioxide into the coal matrix is rapid. The final apparatus was built to expose geologic materials to carbon dioxide for long periods of time (weeks to months) under the range of pressures and temperatures relevant to carbon dioxide sequestration. The apparatus allows as many as twenty gram-sized samples of geologic materials to be exposed simultaneously and can also include exposures with geologic brines. The system was used to demonstrate complete conversion of magnesium silicate to magnesium carbonate in less than 4 weeks when exposed to clean water or brine, compared to no measurable conversion of dry magnesium carbonate

Subtask 1.17 - Subcritical Water Extraction of Mercury From Soils and Sediments

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) "National Sediment Quality Survey" lists the top pollutants responsible for toxicity in watersheds as 1) PCBS (polychlorinated biphenyls), 2) mercury, and 3) other organics such as PAHs polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) and pesticides. In addition, these same pollutants are major contributors to chemical pollution on U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and other contaminated sites (e.g., industrial sites and harbors). An ideal remediation method would allow cost-effective removal of both organic and mercury contamination using a single process. The Energy & Environmental Research Center (EERC) has demonstrated that controlling the temperature (and to a lesser extent, the pressure) of water can dramatically change its ability to extract organics and inorganic from matrices ranging from soils and sediments to waste sludges and coal. The dielectric constant of water can be changed from ca. 80 (a very polar solvent) to 374oC, pressure >221 atm). In addition, the process has been demonstrated to be particularly effective for samples containing very high levels of contaminants (e.g., parts per thousand). The EERC has also demonstrated that mercury can be extracted using supercritical water at much harsher conditions (400"C, and >300 atm). However, the removal of mercury from contaminated solids at the lower temperature and pressure conditions (e. g., 250"C, 50 atm) has not been investigated. If successful, this project will provide the basis for using hot/liquid water to extract both organic contaminants and mercury from contaminated solids in a single-step process

Using A Framework To Review And Evaluate Educational Technology Resources

School districts have an enormous number of resources available to them as they seek to grow student success and achievement. A review of the web-based educational technology resources a district is using, their effect, and the equitable distribution of these resources defines this problem of practice. This mixed-method approach addresses a district's use of educational technology product resources to supplement classroom instruction. Many of the resources in use were purchased without a program review, cost analysis, or even district knowledge. The collection of current district usage data, the intervention of district curriculum leadership, and the identification of an actionable rubric for measuring educational technology product resources were among the first action steps. Following a four-week review of product resources in use and the amount of instructional time spent, work began on a review of selected products to determine overall product quality. During the product resource review stage of work by the scholarly practitioner and district instructional coaches, a rubric was used to evaluate current educational technology products. Stage three of the work was to evaluate the effectiveness of each educational technology product. Effectiveness data were compiled and submitted to the district's Curriculum and Instruction department so financial priorities and product resource recommendations could be made for the following academic year

JV Task 86 - Identifying the Source of Benzene in Indoor Air Using Different Compound Classes from TO-15 Data

Volatile organic compound (VOC) data that had already been collected using EPA method TO-15 at four different sites under regulatory scrutiny (a school, strip mall, apartment complex, and business/residential neighborhood) were evaluated to determine whether the source of indoor air benzene was outdoor air or vapor intrusion from contaminated soil. Both the use of tracer organics characteristic of different sources and principal component statistical analysis demonstrated that the source of indoor air at virtually all indoor sampling locations was a result of outdoor air, and not contaminated soil in and near the indoor air-sampling locations. These results show that proposed remediation activities to remove benzene-contaminated soil are highly unlikely to reduce indoor air benzene concentrations. A manuscript describing these results is presently being prepared for submission to a peer-reviewed journal