Rapid and Efficient Arsenic Removal by Iron Electrocoagulation Enabled with in Situ Generation of Hydrogen Peroxide.

Millions of people are exposed to toxic levels of dissolved arsenic in groundwater used for drinking. Iron electrocoagulation (FeEC) has been demonstrated as an effective technology to remove arsenic at an affordable price. However, FeEC requires long operating times (∼hours) to remove dissolved arsenic due to inherent kinetics limitations. Air cathode Assisted Iron Electrocoagulation (ACAIE) overcomes this limitation by cathodically generating H2O2 in situ. In ACAIE operation, rapid oxidation of Fe(II) and complete oxidation and removal of As(III) are achieved. We compare FeEC and ACAIE for removing As(III) from an initial concentration of 1464 μg/L, aiming for a final concentration of less than 4 μg/L. We demonstrate that at short electrolysis times (0.5 min), i.e., high charge dosage rates (1200 C/L/min), ACAIE consistently outperformed FeEC in bringing arsenic levels to less than WHO-MCL of 10 μg/L. Using XRD and XAS data, we conclusively show that poor arsenic removal in FeEC arises from incomplete As(III) oxidation, ineffective Fe(II) oxidation and the formation of Fe(II-III) (hydr)oxides at short electrolysis times (<20 min). Finally, we report successful ACAIE performance (retention time 19 s) in removing dissolved arsenic from contaminated groundwater in rural California

Reducing COPD Exacerbation Among African Americans Affected with COPD in a South Florida Clinic. A Quality Improvement Project

Abstract Objective: The study aimed to determine if an educational intervention will improve COPD exacerbations in African American population after a 6-week self-management program that includes the proper use of an inhaler. Methods: Ten patients were recruited in a primary care setting with the assistance of the providers. All patients had to complete a pretest and a posttest to assess their knowledge of inhaler technique, their willingness to engage in self-efficacy disease management, their symptoms improvement and treatment adherence. The Inhaler Device Assessment Tool, the Self-Efficacy for Managing Chronic Disease 6-Item Scale, the CAT test, and the TAI test were the tools used for the project. Results: In the recruited population, 70 % were females and 30% were males. In the pretest and posttest of the inhaler technique, there is an improvement difference of 1.5 %, with a mean of 3.1 % in the pretest, and 4.6 % in the posttest. The CAT test has a mean of 17.9 with a standard deviation (SD) of 7.25 in the pretest, and a mean of 9.9 and a SD of 6.21. The CAT test has difference of 8. Self-efficacy management shows a difference of 3.4 with a mean value of 53 and 56.4 in the pretest and posttest respectively. Inhaler adherence has a mean value of 46.4 in the pretest and 49.3 in the posttest with a difference of 2.9 in inhaler adherence improvement. Conclusion: The study reveals that teaching the proper use of an inhaler can improve COPD symptoms and decrease the frequency of COPD exacerbations in African American population after a 6-week self-management program, but further studies are needed to validate the findings

Performance and Relative Incentive Pay: The Role of Social Preferences

__Abstract__ Under relative performance pay, other-regarding workers internalize the negative externality they impose on other workers. In one form -increased own effort reduces others' payoffs- this results in other-regarding individuals depressing efforts. In another form punishment reduces the payoff of other workers- groups with other-regarding individuals feature higher efforts because it is more difficult for these individuals to sustain low-effort (collusive) outcomes. We explore these effects experimentally and find other-regarding workers tend to depress efforts by 15% on average. However, selfish workers are nearly three times more likely to lead workers to coordinate on minimal efforts when communication is possible. Hence, the social preferences composition of a team of workers has nuanced consequences on efforts

Do People Who Care About Others Cooperate More? Experimental Evidence from Relative Incentive Pay

We experimentally study ways in which the social preferences of individuals and groups affect performance when faced with relative incentives. We also identify the mediating role that communication and leadership play in generating these effects. We find other-regarding workers tend to depress efforts by 15% on average. However, selfish workers are nearly three times more likely to lead workers to coordinate on minimal efforts when communication is possible. Hence, the other-regarding composition of a team of workers has complex consequences for organizational performance

Análisis del mensaje en el cortometraje animado Mi Pequeña Cabrita, 2020

Esta investigación aborda sobre la concientización a través del cortometraje animado “Mi Pequeña Cabrita, 2020”, y es que debido a las situaciones que se viven día a día, estos proyectos audiovisuales pueden captar la atención del espectador de manera más entretenida y nostálgica. El objetivo principal de la investigación es analizar el mensaje en el cortometraje animado “Mi Pequeña Cabrita, 2020”, en ella se obtienen diferentes fuentes bibliográficas que explican y dan a conocer sus puntos de vista referente a la unidad temática y categorías. Se planteó una metodología con enfoque cualitativo y así también se realizaron entrevistas a especialistas en audiovisuales y psicólogos para estudiar el comportamiento de estos personajes dentro de la trama. De acuerdo con el análisis realizado se concluye que el cortometraje es el medio que más se consume por el público, dejando así un mensaje de enseñanza y marcado la realidad que se vive en nuestro entorno

Association of In Utero Organochlorine Pesticide Exposure and Fetal Growth and Length of Gestation in an Agricultural Population

From 1940 through the 1970s, organochlorine compounds were widely used as insecticides in the United States. Thereafter, their use was severely restricted after recognition of their persistence in the environment, their toxicity in animals, and their potential for endocrine disruption. Although substantial evidence exists for the fetal toxicity of organochlorines in animals, information on human reproductive effects is conflicting. We investigated whether infants’ length of gestation, birth weight, and crown–heel length were associated with maternal serum levels of 11 different organochlorine pesticides: p,p′-dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (p,p′-DDT), p,p′-dichlorodiphenyldichloroethylene (p,p′-DDE), o,p′-dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (o,p′-DDT), hexachlorobenzene (HCB), β-hexachlorocyclohexane (β-HCCH), γ-hexachlorocyclohexane (γ-HCCH), dieldrin, heptachlor epoxide, oxychlordane, trans-nonachlor, and mirex. Our subjects were a birth cohort of 385 low-income Latinas living in the Salinas Valley, an agricultural community in California. We observed no adverse associations between maternal serum organochlorine levels and birth weight or crown–heel length. We found decreased length of gestation with increasing levels of lipid-adjusted HCB (adjusted β= −0.47 weeks; p = 0.05). We did not find reductions in gestational duration associated with any of the other organochlorine pesticides. Our finding of decreased length of gestation related to HCB does not seem to have had clinical implications for this population, given its relatively low rate of preterm delivery (6.5%)

Sexual Orientation/Gender Identity, Socioeconomic Status, and Health across the Life Course (SOGI-SES) User Guide: Study Overview

The Sexual Orientation/Gender Identity, Socioeconomic Status, and Health across the Life Course Study (SOGI-SES) collected new survey data to support exploration of the relationships among sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, same-sex romantic and sexual behaviors, socioeconomic status, and health. The study was designed and conducted under the direction of the co-PIs, Carolyn T. Halpern from the Carolina Population Center (CPC) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Kerith J. Conron from the Williams Institute at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). SOGI-SES is funded by a grant from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (Grant numbers: 1R01HD087365 and R01 HD087365-03S1)

An attention bias test to assess anxiety states in laying hens

Fear is a response to a known threat, anxiety is a response to a perceived threat. Both of these affective states can be detrimental to animal welfare in modern housing environments. In comparison to the well-validated tests for assessing fear in laying hens, tests for measuring anxiety are less developed. Perception of a threat can result in an attention bias that may indicate anxious affective states in individual hens following playback of an alarm call. In Experiment 1, an attention bias test was applied to hens that differed in their range access to show that hens that never ranged were more vigilant (stretching of the neck and looking around: P P = 0.01) compared with hens that ranged daily. All hens showed a reduction in comb temperature following the first alarm call (P meta-Chlorophenylpiperazine (m-CPP) in adult laying hens. Hens dosed with 2 mg/kg showed reduced locomotion compared with a saline solution (P m-CPP or saline was administered to adult hens previously habituated to the open field arena to pharmacologically validate an attention bias test as a measure of anxiety. Hens dosed with m-CPP were slower to feed (P = 0.02) and faster to vocalize following a second alarm call playback (P = 0.03) but these hens did not exhibit the same vigilance behavior as documented in Experiment 1. The m-CPP hens also spent more time stepping and vocalizing (both P m-CPP resulted in motionless behavior when the environment was novel, but more movement and vocalizing when the environment was familiar. The extreme behavioral phenotypes exhibited by individually-tested birds may both be indicators of negative states

Food for contagion : synthesis and future directions for studying host-parasite responses to resource shifts in anthropogenic environments

Human-provided resource subsidies for wildlife are diverse, common and have profound consequences for wildlife-pathogen interactions, as demonstrated by papers in this themed issue spanning empirical, theoretical and management perspectives from a range of study systems. Contributions cut across scales of organization, from the within-host dynamics of immune function, to population-level impacts on parasite transmission, to landscape-and regional-scale patterns of infection. In this concluding paper, we identify common threads and key findings from author contributions, including the consequences of resource subsidies for (i) host immunity; (ii) animal aggregation and contact rates; (iii) host movement and landscape-level infection patterns; and (iv) interspecific contacts and cross-species transmission. Exciting avenues for future work include studies that integrate mechanistic modelling and empirical approaches to better explore cross-scale processes, and experimental manipulations of food resources to quantify host and pathogen responses. Work is also needed to examine evolutionary responses to provisioning, and ask how diet-altered changes to the host microbiome influence infection processes. Given the massive public health and conservation implications of anthropogenic resource shifts, we end by underscoring the need for practical recommendations to manage supplemental feeding practices, limit human-wildlife conflicts over shared food resources and reduce cross-species transmission risks, including to humans. This article is part of the theme issue 'Anthropogenic resource subsidies and host-parasite dynamics in wildlife'.Peer reviewe

NASA's Collaborative Metadata Curation Activity to Improve Earth Science Data Discovery

No abstract availabl