A Tribute to Patrick Baude

The Board of Editors dedicates Volume 86 of the Indiana Law Journal to the memory of Patrick Baude, who taught at the School of Law from August 1968 until his death in January 2011, and who served for many years as the faculty advisor for the Indiana Law Journal. As evidenced below, Professor Baude’s influence spread far beyond the bounds of his classroom walls, and his presence in the Law School’s community will be sorely missed

A Tribute to Patrick Baude

The Board of Editors dedicates Volume 86 of the Indiana Law Journal to the memory of Patrick Baude, who taught at the School of Law from August 1968 until his death in January 2011, and who served for many years as the faculty advisor for the Indiana Law Journal. As evidenced below, Professor Baude’s influence spread far beyond the bounds of his classroom walls, and his presence in the Law School’s community will be sorely missed

What explains Cambodia’s success in reducing child stunting-2000-2014?

In many developing countries, high levels of child undernutrition persist alongside rapid economic growth. There is considerable interest in the study of countries that have made rapid progress in child nutrition to uncover the driving forces behind these improvements. Cambodia is often cited as a success case having reduced the incidence of child stunting from 51% to 34% over the period 2000 to 2014. To what extent is this success driven by improvements in the underlying determinants of nutrition, such as wealth and education, (“covariate effects”) and to what extent by changes in the strengths of association between these determinants and nutrition outcomes (“coefficient effects”)? Using determinants derived from the widely-applied UNICEF framework for the analysis of child nutrition and data from four Demographic and Health Surveys datasets, we apply quantile regression based decomposition methods to quantify the covariate and coefficient effect contributions to this improvement in child nutrition. The method used in the study allows the covariate and coefficient effects to vary across the entire distribution of child nutrition outcomes. There are important differences in the drivers of improvements in child nutrition between severely stunted and moderately stunted children and between rural and urban areas. The translation of improvements in household endowments, characteristics and practices into improvements in child nutrition (the coefficient effects) may be influenced by macroeconomic shocks or other events such as natural calamities or civil disturbance and may vary substantially over different time periods. Our analysis also highlights the need to explicitly examine the contribution of targeted child health and nutrition interventions to improvements in child nutrition in developing countries

Microbial succession during the degradation of bioplastic in coastal marine sediment favors sulfate reducing microorganisms

Marine environments are sinks for many contaminants, including petroleum-based plastic waste. Bioplastics, or biodegradable plastics derived from renewable resources, are considered promising alternatives as numerous studies have demonstrated their degradation in marine environments. However, their rates of degradation vary and microbial consortia responsible for its degradation are not well characterized. Previous research by our group has shown that polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) stimulates sulfate reducing microorganisms (SRM), enriches sulfate reduction gene pools, and accumulates antibiotic and metal resistance genes. Here, we quantify the degradation rate of PHA pellets in marine sediment and present the long-term temporal changes in PHA-associated SRM communities over 424 days. For comparative purposes, polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and ceramic served as biofilm controls and the free-living microorganisms in the overlying water column served as a non-biofilm control. PHA experienced a 51% mass loss after 424 days and a generalized additive mixed model predicted that 100% mass loss would require 909 days. Throughout the course of the 424-day exposure, PHA was colonized by a distinct microbial community while PET and ceramic were colonized by similarly structured communities. SRM comprised a larger proportion of the overall community (25 – 40%) in PHA-associated biofilms as compared to PET and ceramic controls across all timepoints. Further, the diversity of SRM was greater within PHA biofilms than PET and ceramic biofilms. This study shows that PHA degrades relatively slowly and promotes a long-term shift in microbial community structure toward sulfate reduction, demonstrating the ability of this manufactured polymer to alter its environment via the disruption of biogeochemical cycling, indicating that PHA rises to the level of pollutant in benthic marine systems.This study was funded by the Texas General Land Office Coastal Management Program (GLO-CMP), the Texas Research and Development Fund (TRDF), Texas Sea Grant (TSG), and the National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC). The majority of computational data analysis was performed on TAMU-CC’s high-performance computing cluster, which is funded in part by the National Science Foundation’s CNS MRI Grant (No. 1429518)

Development of the Nested Fiber Filter

Battelle, has tested the Nested Fiber Filter (NFF) as a particulate control device for high temperature, high-pressure (HTHP) applications. Battelle funded initial bench-scale tests which were the basis for patents and a concept applying the NFF. Subsequent parametric tests in a 6-inch diameter reactor established excellent particulate capture performance, > 99 percent, for conditions up to 1600 F and 6 atmospheres. Effective cleaning/regeneration of the NFF was achieved in the 6-inch scale with acoustic and mechanical vibration. A pulse combustor was tested in an integrated NFF arrangement because of compatibility with the HTBP conditions. This arrangement provided the basis for larger scale tests under the subject contract. A 6-ft{sup 2} test module was designed and installed with an existing fluidized bed combustor for additional development and testing

Pharmaceutical analysis for environmental samples: Individual and simultaneous determination of ciprofloxacin, ofloxacin and norfloxacin using an HPLC with fluorescence and UV detection with a wetland soil matrix

Two HPLC methods were developed for individual and simultaneous determination of ciprofloxacin, norfloxacin and ofloxacin for use in laboratory experiments producing large numbers of samples (100 s to 1000 s). Individual compound detection produced retention times between 1.5 and 2 min and simultaneous detection between 6.5 to 8 min. The methods are compatible with complex geomatrices, e.g. a wetland soil. These methods provide 1) detection limits in the low parts per-billion range; 2) decrease in retention times of 5-10 times for single compounds, and up to 2 times for simultaneous detection over published methods; and 3) require no solid phase extraction. © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC