Examination of Metals from Aerospace-Related Activity in Surface Water Samples from Sites Surrounding the Kennedy Space Center (KSC), Florida

Metal contamination from Space Shuttle launch activity was examined using inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectroscopy in a two-tier study sampling surface water collected from several sites at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) and associated Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge in east central Florida. The primary study examined both temporal changes in baseline metal concentrations (19 metals) in surface water (1996 to 2009, 11 sites) samples collected at specific long-term monitoring sites and metal deposition directly associated with Space Shuttle launch activity at two Launch Complexes (LC39A and LC39B). A secondary study examined metal concentrations at additional sites and increased the amount of elements measured to 48 elements. Our examination places a heavy focus on those metals commonly associated with launch operations (e.g., Al, Fe, Mn, and Zn), but a brief discussion of other metals (As, Cu, Mo, Ni, and Pb) is also included. While no observable accumulation of metals occurred during the time period of the study, the data obtained postlaunch demonstrated a dramatic increase for Al, Fe, Mn, and Zn. Comparing overall trends between the primary and secondary baseline surface water concentrations, elevated concentrations were generally observed at sampling stations located near the launch complexes and from sites isolated from major water systems. While there could be several natural and anthropogenic sources for metal deposition at KSC, the data in this report indicate that shuttle launch events are a significant source

LipidQC: Method Validation Tool for Visual Comparison to SRM 1950 Using NIST Interlaboratory Comparison Exercise Lipid Consensus Mean Estimate Values

As advances in analytical separation techniques, mass spectrometry instrumentation, and data processing platforms continue to spur growth in the lipidomics field, more structurally unique lipid species are detected and annotated. The lipidomics community is in need of benchmark reference values to assess the validity of various lipidomics workflows in providing accurate quantitative measurements across the diverse lipidome. LipidQC addresses the harmonization challenge in lipid quantitation by providing a semiautomated process, independent of analytical platform, for visual comparison of experimental results of National Institute of Standards and Technology Standard Reference Material (SRM) 1950, “Metabolites in Frozen Human Plasma”, against benchmark consensus mean concentrations derived from the NIST Lipidomics Interlaboratory Comparison Exercise

Expanding Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances Coverage in Nontargeted Analysis Using Data-Independent Analysis and IonDecon

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are widespread, persistent environmental contaminants that have been linked to various health issues. Comprehensive PFAS analysis often relies on ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with high-resolution mass spectrometry (UHPLC HRMS) and molecular fragmentation (MS/MS). However, the selection and fragmentation of ions for MS/MS analysis using data-dependent analysis results in only the topmost abundant ions being selected. To overcome these limitations, All Ions fragmentation (AIF) can be used alongside data-dependent analysis. In AIF, ions across the entire m/z range are simultaneously fragmented; hence, precursor–fragment relationships are lost, leading to a high false positive rate. We introduce IonDecon, which filters All Ions data to only those fragments correlating with precursor ions. This software can be used to deconvolute any All Ions files and generates an open source DDA formatted file, which can be used in any downstream nontargeted analysis workflow. In a neat solution, annotation of PFAS standards using IonDecon and All Ions had the exact same false positive rate as when using DDA; this suggests accurate annotation using All Ions and IonDecon. Furthermore, deconvoluted All Ions spectra retained the most abundant peaks also observed in DDA, while filtering out much of the artifact peaks. In complex samples, incorporating AIF and IonDecon into workflows can enhance the MS/MS coverage of PFAS (more than tripling the number of annotations in domestic sewage). Deconvolution in complex samples of All Ions data using IonDecon did retain some false fragments (fragments not observed when using ion selection, which were not isotopes or multimers), and therefore DDA and intelligent acquisition methods should still be acquired when possible alongside All Ions to decrease the false positive rate. Increased coverage of PFAS can inform on the development of regulations to address the entire PFAS problem, including both legacy and newly discovered PFAS

Communication of hearing impaired in context of information retrieval and acquiring

This bachelor thesis focuses on communication of hearing impaired in context of information retrieval and information acquiring. In general, theoretical part of the work is dealing with questions of hearing loss and characteristic of hearing impaired. The following chapters are concerned with learning of deaf and hard of hearing people, communication systems and information behavior in a wide perspective. Important area on which this work focuses is information and communication technology enabling information retrieval and information acquiring. This area describes differencies between communication "face to face" and virtual communication. Practical part of this work describes results of conducted questonnaire research. The research is concerned with main research question whether or not information retrieval and aqcuiring in Internet surrounding can in case of hearing impaired substitute common communication. In addition, this work tries to find advantages and disadvantages of the Internet as a communication media. For better understanding, all chapters and attachments are illustrated with graphs and tables. In last section of practical part, the work proves or rejects the defined hypotheses based on the survey. This work also contains a universal communication model and a communication model based on..

Visual examination of healthy (top) and pansteatitis-affected tilapia (bottom), enhanced images on the right.

<p>The examples shown are male tilapia. Note the lesions on the diseased tilapia (orange lesions, bottom right photo).</p

Sensitivities plot for assessing which variables were most important for classifying pansteatitis.

<p>Error values are shown as standard deviation of the mean.</p

Mean and SEM values for healthy and diseased tilapia obtained using the blood chemistry analyzer.

<p>Mean and SEM values for healthy and diseased tilapia obtained using the blood chemistry analyzer.</p

Examination of blood chemistry parameters and morphometric traits using t-tests or Mann-Whitney U tests.

<p>Examination of blood chemistry parameters and morphometric traits using t-tests or Mann-Whitney U tests.</p

Surface plots for the four predictive parameters.

<p>A) Ca²⁺ (mg/dL), B) Na⁺ (mmol/L), C) ALB (g/dL), and D) TP (g/dL), in relation to vet score and total length (while keeping the other three parameters clamped).</p