Health benefits and control costs of tightening particulate matter emissions standards for coal power plants - The case of Northeast Brazil.

Exposure to ambient particulate matter (PM) caused an estimated 4.2 million deaths worldwide in 2015. However, PM emission standards for power plants vary widely. To explore if the current levels of these standards are sufficiently stringent in a simple cost-benefit framework, we compared the health benefits (avoided monetized health costs) with the control costs of tightening PM emission standards for coal-fired power plants in Northeast (NE) Brazil, where ambient PM concentrations are below World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines. We considered three Brazilian PM10 (PMx refers to PM with a diameter under x micrometers) emission standards and a stricter U.S. EPA standard for recent power plants. Our integrated methodology simulates hourly electricity grid dispatch from utility-scale power plants, disperses the resulting PM2.5, and estimates selected human health impacts from PM2.5 exposure using the latest integrated exposure-response model. Since the emissions inventories required to model secondary PM are not available in our study area, we modeled only primary PM so our benefit estimates are conservative. We found that tightening existing PM10 emission standards yields health benefits that are over 60 times greater than emissions control costs in all the scenarios we considered. The monetary value of avoided hospital admissions alone is at least four times as large as the corresponding control costs. These results provide strong arguments for considering tightening PM emission standards for coal-fired power plants worldwide, including in regions that meet WHO guidelines and in developing countries

Differential Effects of Race and Poverty on Ambulatory Care Sensitive Conditions

This study is a continuation of an earlier study that examined hospitalization rates for ambulatory care sensitive (ACS) conditions, as a proxy for quality of care, and found evidence of a racial disparity among African American and White Medicare beneficiaries. The current study sought to determine whether neighborhood socioeconomic status (SES) explained this disparity. Differences in rates of ACS hospitalizations by race were assessed using Cochran-Mantel Haenszel tests and Poisson regression. Unadjusted rate ratios for ACS hospitalization for African Americans vs. Whites were found to be higher in low poverty areas (rate ratio (RR)=1.13; 95% CI (1.08, 1.17)) than in high poverty areas (RR=0.97; 95% CI (0.89, 1.05)). After controlling for various indicators of area SES in multivariate analyses race differences in ACS hospitalization rates persisted. Rural neighborhoods and those with higher percent of non-high school graduates were associated with greater risk of ACS hospitalizations

Bony ingrowth potential of 3D-printed porous titanium alloy: a direct comparison of interbody cage materials in an in vivo ovine lumbar fusion model.

Background contextThere is significant variability in the materials commonly used for interbody cages in spine surgery. It is theorized that three-dimensional (3D)-printed interbody cages using porous titanium material can provide more consistent bone ingrowth and biological fixation.PurposeThe purpose of this study was to provide an evidence-based approach to decision-making regarding interbody materials for spinal fusion.Study designA comparative animal study was performed.MethodsA skeletally mature ovine lumbar fusion model was used for this study. Interbody fusions were performed at L2-L3 and L4-L5 in 27 mature sheep using three different interbody cages (ie, polyetheretherketone [PEEK], plasma sprayed porous titanium-coated PEEK [PSP], and 3D-printed porous titanium alloy cage [PTA]). Non-destructive kinematic testing was performed in the three primary directions of motion. The specimens were then analyzed using micro-computed tomography (µ-CT); quantitative measures of the bony fusion were performed. Histomorphometric analyses were also performed in the sagittal plane through the interbody device. Outcome parameters were compared between cage designs and time points.ResultsFlexion-extension range of motion (ROM) was statistically reduced for the PTA group compared with the PEEK cages at 16 weeks (p-value=.02). Only the PTA cages demonstrated a statistically significant decrease in ROM and increase in stiffness across all three loading directions between the 8-week and 16-week sacrifice time points (p-value≤.01). Micro-CT data demonstrated significantly greater total bone volume within the graft window for the PTA cages at both 8 weeks and 16 weeks compared with the PEEK cages (p-value<.01).ConclusionsA direct comparison of interbody implants demonstrates significant and measurable differences in biomechanical, µ-CT, and histologic performance in an ovine model. The 3D-printed porous titanium interbody cage resulted in statistically significant reductions in ROM, increases in the bone ingrowth profile, as well as average construct stiffness compared with PEEK and PSP

Particle Motion in a Liquid Film Rimming the Inside of a Partially Filled Rotating Cylinder

Both lighter- and hydrophobic heavier-than-liquid particles will float on liquid–air surfaces. Capillary forces cause the particles to cluster in typical situations identified here. This kind of clustering causes particles to segregate into islands and bands of high concentrations in thin liquid films rimming the inside of a slowly rotating cylinder partially filled with liquid. A second regime of particle segregation, driven by secondary motions induced by off-centre gas bubbles in a more rapidly rotating cylinder at higher filling levels, is identified. A third regime of segregation of bidisperse suspensions is found in which two layers of heavier-than-liquid particles that stratify when there is no rotation, segregate into alternate bands of particles when there is rotation

Volume 13. Article 3. Hydrographic and biological studies of Block Island Sound.

https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/bulletin_yale_bingham_oceanographic_collection/1150/thumbnail.jp

INTERDEPENDENT INFRASTRUCTURE RESILIENCE IN THE U.S. VIRGIN ISLANDS: PRELIMINARY ASSESSMENT

Prepared for: Federal Emergency Management AgencyThe U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI) is a territory comprised of three main islands—Saint Croix, Saint John, and Saint Thomas—and a number of smaller surrounding islands, located in the Leeward Islands of the Lesser Antilles approximately 40 miles east of Puerto Rico and over 1,100 miles from Miami, Florida. In September 2017, two Category-5 hurricanes made landfall within a two-week period and collectively devastated the homes, businesses, and infrastructure throughout the Territory.This technical report (1) explains the structure, function, and tensions associated with energy, water, transportation, and communication infrastructure that were chronic problems prior to the hurricanes; (2) documents hurricane response, recovery, and mitigation activities for these infrastructure systems after the hurricanes; and (3) provides concrete approaches to overcome potential barriers to resilience (where they exist) and open questions for research (where they do not yet exist).Federal Emergency Management AgencyFederal Emergency Management AgencyApproved for public release; distribution is unlimited

Solution structure of a bacterial microcompartment targeting peptide and its application in the construction of an ethanol bioreactor

Targeting of proteins to bacterial microcompartments (BMCs) is mediated by an 18-amino-acid peptide sequence. Herein, we report the solution structure of the N-terminal targeting peptide (P18) of PduP, the aldehyde dehydrogenase associated with the 1,2-propanediol utilization metabolosome from Citrobacter freundii. The solution structure reveals the peptide to have a well-defined helical conformation along its whole length. Saturation transfer difference and transferred NOE NMR has highlighted the observed interaction surface on the peptide with its main interacting shell protein, PduK. By tagging both a pyruvate decarboxylase and an alcohol dehydrogenase with targeting peptides, it has been possible to direct these enzymes to empty BMCs in vivo and to generate an ethanol bioreactor. Not only are the purified, redesigned BMCs able to transform pyruvate into ethanol efficiently, but the strains containing the modified BMCs produce elevated levels of alcohol

Revised Stellar Properties of Kepler Targets for the Q1-17 (DR25) Transit Detection Run

The determination of exoplanet properties and occurrence rates using Kepler data critically depends on our knowledge of the fundamental properties (such as temperature, radius and mass) of the observed stars. We present revised stellar properties for 197,096 Kepler targets observed between Quarters 1-17 (Q1-17), which were used for the final transiting planet search run by the Kepler Mission (Data Release 25, DR25). Similar to the Q1--16 catalog by Huber et al. the classifications are based on conditioning published atmospheric parameters on a grid of Dartmouth isochrones, with significant improvements in the adopted methodology and over 29,000 new sources for temperatures, surface gravities or metallicities. In addition to fundamental stellar properties the new catalog also includes distances and extinctions, and we provide posterior samples for each stellar parameter of each star. Typical uncertainties are ~27% in radius, ~17% in mass, and ~51% in density, which is somewhat smaller than previous catalogs due to the larger number of improved logg constraints and the inclusion of isochrone weighting when deriving stellar posterior distributions. On average, the catalog includes a significantly larger number of evolved solar-type stars, with an increase of 43.5% in the number of subgiants. We discuss the overall changes of radii and masses of Kepler targets as a function of spectral type, with particular focus on exoplanet host stars.Comment: 19 pages, 13 figures. ApJS in pres