Impact of septic systems in Drayton Harbor water quality

Septic systems are personal wastewater treatment systems for rural properties. Over 3,000 septic systems exist in the Drayton Harbor watershed. Septic systems that are not maintained properly can create problems for homeowners, negatively impact water quality, and pose a public health threat. Whatcom County Health Department (WCHD) began implementing a septic system operation and maintenance (O&M) program in 2008 in the Drayton Harbor watershed when most of Drayton Harbor was classified as Prohibited for shellfish harvesting due to elevated fecal coliform bacteria levels. The local health officer’s designation of Drayton Harbor as a Marine Recovery Area in 2008 allowed WCHD to enforce mandatory septic system evaluations. Septic evaluations keep systems functioning properly and identify systems that are failing and need replacement. Over 9 years, more than 6,300 OSS evaluations have been performed. A total of 97 failing systems were found and repaired. Septic system improvements combined with other multi-agency efforts to find and fix other bacteria pollution sources led to water quality improvements and reclassification of shellfish beds in Drayton Harbor. WCHD\u27s O&M program is fully fee funded and is adequately staffed. Predictable and sustained funding supports strategic program development so that all septic systems in Whatcom County become routinely evaluated. WCHD staff administer O&M requirements throughout the county, educate homeowners through workshops, provide on-site technical assistance, audit inspection reports, perform complaint investigations and sanitary surveys, and soon will initiate an on-line system status reporting platform

Embedded vs. Drop-in Tutors in Developmental Writing Contexts: Course/Tutoring Perceptions and Impact on Student Writing Efficacy

Many higher education institutions offer drop-in tutoring programs hosted by writing specialists to support struggling students while others may also/alternatively embed tutors directly into courses. In this quasi-experimental study, we compared survey results from 100 students in basic/developmental courses that featured embedded peer tutors with 78 students who experienced tutoring via a walk-in writing center. Variables explored included writing efficacy and course/tutor perception survey items. While students generally found both embedded and walk-in tutoring to be helpful, the ratings for embedding tutoring tended to be statistically stronger for most variables we investigated, suggesting that students responded more positively to embedded tutoring

Antipredator behavior and cue recognition by multiple Everglades prey to a novel cichlid predator

Novel predator introductions are thought to have a high impact on native prey, especially in freshwater systems. Prey may fail to recognize predators as a threat, or show inappropriate or ineffective responses. The ability of prey to recognize and respond appropriately to novel predators may depend on the prey’s use of general or specific cues to detect predation threats.We used laboratory experiments to examine the ability of three native Everglades prey species (Eastern mosquitofish, flagfish and riverine grass shrimp) to respond to the presence, as well as to the chemical and visual cues of a native predator (warmouth) and a recentlyintroduced non-native predator (African jewelfish). We used prey from populations that had not previously encountered jewelfish. Despite this novelty, the native warmouth and nonnative jewelfish had overall similar predatory effects, except on mosquitofish, which suffered higher warmouth predation. When predators were present, the three prey taxa showed consistent and strong responses to the non-native jewelfish, which were similar in magnitude to the responses exhibited to the native warmouth. When cues were presented, fish prey responded largely to chemical cues, while shrimp showed no response to either chemical or visual cues. Overall, responses by mosquitofish and flagfish to chemical cues indicated low differentiation among cue types, with similar responses to general and specific cues. The fact that antipredator behaviours were similar toward native and non-native predators suggests that the susceptibility to a novel fish predator may be similar to that of native fishes, and prey may overcome predator novelty, at least when predators are confamilial to other common and longer-established non-native threats

Acute cannabis consumption and motor vehicle collision risk: systematic review of observational studies and meta-analysis

Objective To determine whether the acute consumption of cannabis (cannabinoids) by drivers increases the risk of a motor vehicle collision

Associations between comorbid disease outcomes among patients with depression in a student run free clinic

Background: Research demonstrates a correlation between diagnosed depression and increased markers of chronic medical illness, including poorer glycemic control, increased risk for cardiovascular events, and obesity. Moreover, medically underserved patient populations are especially at high risk for poor health outcomes due to chronic illness, which has profound implications for both individual patients as well as the healthcare system. However, very little research has been done on chronic health outcomes among underserved mental health patients treated in integrated behavioral health/primary medical care settings. MedZou, a student-run, free medical clinic provides integrated health care services to uninsured, low-income adults in Mid-Missouri, and provides a potentially ideal setting for this research. We wanted to compare health outcomes between patients identified with depression and those without depression that were treated at MedZou

Urinary Incontinence and Health-Seeking Behavior Among White, Black, and Latina Women

Fewer than half of women with urinary incontinence (UI) seek care for their condition. Our objective was to qualitatively assess themes surrounding treatment seeking behaviors

Ischemic axonal injury up-regulates MARK4 in cortical neurons and primes tau phosphorylation and aggregation.

Ischemic injury to white matter tracts is increasingly recognized to play a key role in age-related cognitive decline, vascular dementia, and Alzheimer's disease. Knowledge of the effects of ischemic axonal injury on cortical neurons is limited yet critical to identifying molecular pathways that link neurodegeneration and ischemia. Using a mouse model of subcortical white matter ischemic injury coupled with retrograde neuronal tracing, we employed magnetic affinity cell sorting with fluorescence-activated cell sorting to capture layer-specific cortical neurons and performed RNA-sequencing. With this approach, we identified a role for microtubule reorganization within stroke-injured neurons acting through the regulation of tau. We find that subcortical stroke-injured Layer 5 cortical neurons up-regulate the microtubule affinity-regulating kinase, Mark4, in response to axonal injury. Stroke-induced up-regulation of Mark4 is associated with selective remodeling of the apical dendrite after stroke and the phosphorylation of tau in vivo. In a cell-based tau biosensor assay, Mark4 promotes the aggregation of human tau in vitro. Increased expression of Mark4 after ischemic axonal injury in deep layer cortical neurons provides new evidence for synergism between axonal and neurodegenerative pathologies by priming of tau phosphorylation and aggregation