Fate of drugs during wastewater treatment

This is the post-print version of the final paper published in TrAC Trends in Analytical Chemistry. The published article is available from the link below. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. Copyright @ 2013 Elsevier B.V.Recent trends in the determination of pharmaceutical drugs in wastewaters focus on the development of rapid multi-residue methods. This review addresses recent analytical trends in drug determination in environmental matrices used to facilitate fate studies. Analytical requirements for further fate evaluation and tertiary process selection and optimization are also discussed.EPSRC, Northumbrian Water, Anglian Water, Severn Trent Water, Yorkshire Water, and United Utilities

Correlated Factors of Success in Information Systems: Personality, Creativity, and Academic Achievement

This paper describes a research project that explores the factors that contribute to success in the undergraduate information systems major. Personality factors, creativity factors, demographic factors, and cognitive ability factors are included in the analyses. Several hundred current students, grouped as new majors and as graduating seniors, are included in the study. This paper describes the justification for the study and the research design. Some preliminary results are presented showing the personality factors of the sample. More complete results will be presented at the conference

Acheless

"Acheless" is a collection of original poems written by Chelsea Hignite.Bachelor of Scienc

Correlated Factors of Success: Personality, Creativity and Academic Achievement Among IS Students

Escalating demand for emerging IS personnel and a rapidly changing technological environment currently challenge many academic institutions attempting to attract, retain, and properly prepare the next generation of IS professionals. While in some instances attractive salaries and increased recruiting have attracted more students to the major, many academic programs still struggle with retaining and properly educating tomorrow’s IS employees. With that in mind, this study is designed to take a fresh look at today’s IS student in an attempt to identify some of the more significant factors related to success in the field. Specifically, factors related to personality, creativity, and other student attributes are studied to determine their relationship to a student’s success in the IS major. Results of the effort indicate that while personality type does play a role in the success of students, the aspects of creativity studied here are not significantly related to achievement. Additional analyses provide insight into other characteristics that are related to academic achievement or success in the study of information systems

Assessing the Conflict Resolution Profiles of Emerging Information Systems Professionals

Conflict among Information Systems (IS) employees, and between IS employees and others outside their group, has the potential to add significantly to the cost of doing business for U.S. firms. While some conflict may serve the purpose of crafting a more refined product, significant or unresolved conflict can effectively serve to delay or scuttle even the most well-planned or well-designed project. Information Systems educators are in a unique position to contribute to the effective management of conflict. By using assessment/measurement techniques such as those illustrated in this study, opportunities to understand and manage conflict in the classroom and in classroom projects may be enhanced. Further, conflict assessment techniques learned and utilized by students in classroom exercises may be carried forward by those students as they begin their professional careers, thereby possibly contributing to the more effective management of conflict by IS organizations. This study was designed to demonstrate how educators may objectively measure or assess the conflict resolution traits of students who in many cases represent prospective/emerging IS employees. Some 200+ college students, the majority of whom were Information Systems majors, were assessed regarding their tendency toward collaboration, cooperation, accommodation, compromise, competition, and conflict avoidance. Results of the study reinforce previous studies which support the reliability of such assessment techniques. Other findings indicate that overall group means for the students were quite comparable to industry norms but that differences in a number of aspects related to conflict resolution styles exist between males and females, traditional and non-traditional age students, and between those with and those without work experience. Participants scored highest on the compromising construct, followed in order by the modes of avoiding, accommodating, collaborating, and competing

Multicultural Effectiveness Assessment of Students in IS Courses

Previous research efforts have identified certain values, traits or personality characteristics associated with success in international or multicultural settings. This study was designed to assess the multicultural effectiveness levels of a group of students enrolled in Information Systems (IS) courses, and factors associated with that adaptability, with resulting implications for developing strategies for success in preparing students for an increasingly global, multicultural business environment. Using the Multicultural Personality Questionnaire (MPQ) as the instrument to assess students\u27 profiles, results of the study indicate that the vast majority of students participating in this study possessed profiles that were generally positive in terms of multicultural effectiveness constructs. Results of the study further indicate the existence of significant relationships between such factors as multicultural experience and globalization courses taken and increased scores on the measures of multicultural effectiveness. Recommendations derived from the study include suggestions for future research designed to determine if changes in the educational experiences of students can be made that will directly affect the multicultural adaptability of students

Environmental Emission of Pharmaceuticals from Wastewater Treatment Plants in the USA

The residual drugs, drug bioconjugates, and their metabolites, mostly from human and veterinary usage, are routinely flushed down the drain, and enter wastewater treatment plants (WWTP). Increasing population, excessive use of allopathic medicine, continual introduction of novel drugs, and existing inefficient wastewater treatment processes result in the discharge of large volumes of pharmaceuticals and their metabolites from the WWTPs into the environment. The effluent from the WWTPs globally contaminate ~25% of rivers and the lakes. Pharmaceuticals in the environment, as contaminants of emerging concerns, behave as pseudo-persistent despite their relatively short environmental half-lives in the environment. Therefore, residual levels of pharmaceuticals in the environment not only pose a threat to the wildlife but also affect human health through contaminated food and drinking water. This chapter highlights WWTPs as point-sources of their environmental emissions and various effects on the aquatic and terrestrial ecosystem