Improving Health Equity Through Residential Electrification And Energy Efficiency: State Of Practice In The Us

Improving residential building efficiency and transitioning from fossil fuels for climate alignment has been a primary focus in climate change mitigation efforts. Energy efficiency is usually achieved through tightening buildings by sealing gaps that allow conditioned air to pass through. However, early research highlighted the potential for more efficient buildings to also limit the supply of outdoor air, leading to increased indoor concentrations of various air pollutants. Tightening buildings for efficiency must therefore be accompanied by supplemental ventilation to preserve indoor air quality. However, less is known about the effects of specific indoor pollutant sources. It is hypothesized that indoor air will still be negatively impacted if pollutant sources, such as combustion appliances, are not also removed. A scoping-style review identified 15 studies related to energy efficiency retrofits, building fuel types, and indoor air quality, and the related impact on health. Energy-efficiency interventions discussed in the reviewed publications included insulating, air sealing, upgrading appliances, upgrading or installing kitchen and bathroom exhaust, installing continuous mechanical ventilation, providing particle filtration, installing efficient windows and doors, and replacing gas stoves/ovens with newer or electric alternatives. Health was assessed in six of the studies; two studies considered asthma-related symptoms and four studies assessed other outcomes including PM2.5-related mortality, sick building syndrome symptoms, general and mental health, and child behaviors. The quantification of costs associated with healthcare utilization and energy usage was not a primary focus in this literature. Health was generally improved through layered energy efficiency retrofit approaches that included exhaust, ventilation, filtration, and electric stove installation, which also reduced the payback periods of these interventions

Timed Fault Tree Models of the China Yongwen Railway Accident

Safety is an essential requirement for railway transportation. There are many methods that have been developed to predict, prevent and mitigate accidents in this context. All of these methods have their own purpose and limitations. This paper presents a new useful analysis technique: timed fault tree analysis. This method extends traditional fault tree analysis with temporal events and fault characteristics. Timed Fault Trees (TFTs) can determine which faults need to be eliminated urgently, and it can also provide a safe time window to repair them. They can also be used to determine the time taken for railway maintenance requirements, and thereby improve maintenance efficiency, and reduce risks. In this paper, we present the features and functionality of a railway transportation system based on timed fault tree models. We demonstrate the applicability of our framework via a case study of the China Yongwen line railway accident

Investigating the Impact of Maternal Antiviral Responses on Pregnancy and Fetal Development

The maternal-fetal interface during pregnancy is an underexplored environment rich in immunological factors that must propel developmental processes while simultaneously providing protection from invading pathogens such as viruses. Almost half of all cells in the maternal decidua in pregnancy are leukocytes, which are required for successful pregnancy, and the placenta has increasingly become recognized as an immunological organ. Viral infections during pregnancy are associated with significant mortality and morbidity, both for the pregnant female and the developing fetus. Notably, impacts on fetal development have typically been attributed to direct viral damage to cells and tissues during the course of infection, without a deep consideration of the potential collateral damage incurred upon the activation of antiviral immune responses. In this dissertation, I characterize the contribution of the immune system and antiviral responses to pathologies of pregnancy and fetal development, using both mouse models of maternal immune activation and human studies of viral infection and immunization during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. First, I establish and characterize a novel model of maternal immune activation (MIA) in early pregnancy that leads to a high rate of neural tube defects (NTDs) and craniofacial abnormalities in the affected offspring. Using systemic administration of the double-stranded RNA mimic poly(I:C) to pregnant mice, I demonstrate that the activation of antiviral immune responses alone is capable of driving fetal birth defects. These phenotypes mirror human NTDs, among the most common birth defects seen worldwide. I identify key immunological pathways and factors driving pathogenesis, which is TLR3- and STAT1-dependent. Strikingly, mice deficient in γδ T cells are protected from the development of MIA-induced NTDs. Together with collaborators, I use immunofluorescence imaging and a spatial gene expression approach to show that γδ T cells are associated with laminin loss at the ectoplacental cone of the primitive placenta. I demonstrate that these changes at the maternal-fetal interface are associated with decreased proliferation of neural progenitors in the developing fetus, resulting in the failure of neural tube closure. We thus uncover a previously unrecognized role for γδ T cells at the maternal-fetal interface and novel mechanism underlying NTD pathogenesis. Next, I interrogate the impact of antiviral responses on outcomes in human pregnancy. The emergence of SARS-CoV-2 and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of studying the unique consequences of viral infections during pregnancy, as pregnant individuals are at much greater risk for severe COVID-19 disease than nonpregnant individuals. Working with a multidisciplinary team, I help to identify one of the first reports worldwide showing that SARS-CoV-2 is capable of infecting the placenta. I discover that SARS-CoV-2 is capable of infecting the placenta at the syncytiotrophoblast layer, the multinucleated layer of trophoblast derived from stem cell cytotrophoblasts, and that infection, while rare, is restricted to this region of the maternal-fetal interface. In pregnancies affected by asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2, the vast majority of placentas are not infected due to a robust antiviral response at the maternal-fetal interface. However, I find that this powerful antiviral defense includes a distinct inflammatory profile at the placenta that is directly associated with preeclampsia and other inflammatory disorders of pregnancy, suggesting that antiviral immunity mounted to effectively shield the fetus from viral infection may come at the price of dysregulation of the maternal-fetal interface. This observation lends insight as to why pathogens typically are not able to invade the placenta during pregnancy and how even asymptomatic or mild infections limited to the respiratory tract can lead to severe maternal outcomes at a distant organ site. Finally, I directly address some of the most prevalent vaccine misinformation encountered by the public today, including false theories that the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines cause infertility and harm developing fetuses in utero when administered in pregnancy. With a mouse model of vaccination during early pregnancy, I show that administration of the mRNA-1273 vaccine has no impact on fetal size at term and does not lead to birth defects. In contrast, poly(I:C) administration, which unlike the mRNA vaccines activates TLR3 pathways, significantly reduces crown-rump length and weight at term. I further demonstrate that mRNA-1273 vaccination even in the earliest stages of pregnancy, prior to formation of the definitive placenta, leads to high levels of protective antibodies in fetuses at term. In a large study of human volunteers, we challenge a common infertility myth by providing direct evidence that COVID-19 vaccination with either mRNA-1273 or BNT162b2 does not lead to an increase in circulating anti-syncytin-1 antibodies. Together, these contributions dispel a number of the most common vaccine rumors fueling vaccine hesitancy worldwide

Maternal Mental Health: State of the State Report in California and Beyond, a Follow-up Report

This report is a follow up to the report issued by the California Task Force on Maternal Mental Health Care in April 2017 A Report from the California Task Force on the Status of Maternal Mental Health Care: A Strategic Plan. That report contained a detailed overview of maternal mental health, and a state strategic plan, as well as specific recommendations for state and national stakeholder groups.This report provides an update on the implementation of the strategic plan as well as other efforts which have occurred in the state or nation to advance maternal mental health screening, diagnosis, and treatment. It seeks to summarize California's gaps in MMH care, identify strategies for improvement, and provide a clear call-to-action and framework for coordinating stakeholder responsibilities.The original report is available through 2020 Mom at: https://www.2020mom.org/issue-briefs-and-paper

COMPARING THE QUESTIONS IN ONLINE CHEMISTRY EXAMS TO PAPER-BASED EXAMS WITH THE USE OF BLOOMS TAXONOMY

Paper-based summative exams represent the main form of final assessment in many science courses worldwide and they are typically comprised of multi-choice questions (MCQs) and short-answer questions (SAQs). These SAQs can take the form of written explanations, drawings or calculations. However, this process was complicated in early 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic forced educators worldwide to switch to entirely open book electronic quizzes operated through a range of learning management systems. While online exams are not novel, their use on such a scale, with limited to no training for the teaching staff, was undeniably so. This study sought to investigate how the types of questions and the orders of thinking varied between 2019 (paper-based exams) and 2020 (online exams). The types of questions were generated prior to analysis through a process of individual categorisations and discussions to come to an agreement. The questions were also analysed through the lens of Bloom’s taxonomy to consider how the thinking processes, and by extension the order of thinking, may have changed. In addition, the potential relationships between the type of question and its order of thinking were also explored. This talk will cover these comparisons of exam questions in online and paper-based exams

Investigating the shift to online delivery of final exams and how this impacted the student experience

A closed-book and paper-based final examination is the most common summative assessment administered in universities around the world (Williams & Wong, 2009). However, with the COVID-19 pandemic occurring in early 2020, educators were forced to transition to open-book online final exams operated through a range of learning management systems (Dicks et al., 2020). Although online exams are not novel, their use in chemistry courses on such a large scale was undeniably so, with many students and staff having limited experience with them (Nennig et al., 2020). This study aimed to examine the impact of the online delivery of chemistry final exams, driven by the rise of a pandemic, on both the exam questions and the experiences of academics and students at The University of Sydney. Semi-structured interviews were conducted involving students who had taken both paper-based and online chemistry exams, as well as those who had taken only online chemistry exams. They were asked about their experiences and strategies used to complete exam questions. To date, only students have been interviewed, but interviews with academics will also be conducted. Thematic analyses were conducted on these student interviews, by first using inductive coding on one interview to generate a codebook that was applied to the rest of the interviews. While the exam questions were also analysed for exams written in 2019 (paper-based exams), 2020 and 2021 (online exams) as part of the study, this talk will focus on the experiences of students as extracted from the interviews, such as the various origins of stress when taking online exams and unique exam strategies employed in online exams. REFERENCES Dicks, A. P., Morra, B., & Quinlan, K. B. (2020). Lessons learned from the CoviD-19 crisis: Adjusting assessment approaches within introductory organic courses. Journal of Chemical Education, 97(9). https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.0c00529 Nennig, H. T., Idárraga, K. L., Salzer, L. D., Bleske-Rechek, A., & Theisen, R. M. (2020). Comparison of student attitudes and performance in an online and a face-to-face inorganic chemistry course. Chemistry Education Research and Practice, 21(1). https://doi.org/10.1039/c9rp00112c Williams, J. B., & Wong, A. (2009). The efficacy of final examinations: A comparative study of closed-book, invigilated exams and open-book, open-web exams. British Journal of Educational Technology, 40(2). https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8535.2008.00929.

The LpL^p-Fisher-Rao metric and Amari-Cencov α\alpha-connections

We introduce a family of Finsler metrics, called the $L^p$-Fisher-Rao metrics $F_p$, for $p\in (1,\infty)$, which generalizes the classical Fisher-Rao metric $F_2$, both on the space of densities Dens$_+(M)$ and probability densities Prob$(M)$. We then study their relations to the Amari-\u{C}encov $\alpha$-connections $\nabla^{(\alpha)}$ from information geometry: on Dens$_+(M)$, the geodesic equations of $F_p$ and $\nabla^{(\alpha)}$ coincide, for $p = 2/(1-\alpha)$. Both are pullbacks of canonical constructions on $L^p(M)$, in which geodesics are simply straight lines. In particular, this gives a new variational interpretation of $\alpha$-geodesics as being energy minimizing curves. On Prob$(M)$, the $F_p$ and $\nabla^{(\alpha)}$ geodesics can still be thought as pullbacks of natural operations on the unit sphere in $L^p(M)$, but in this case they no longer coincide unless $p=2$. Using this transformation, we solve the geodesic equation of the $\alpha$-connection by showing that the geodesic are pullbacks of projections of straight lines onto the unit sphere, and they always cease to exists after finite time when they leave the positive part of the sphere. This unveils the geometric structure of solutions to the generalized Proudman-Johnson equations, and generalizes them to higher dimensions. In addition, we calculate the associate tensors of $F_p$, and study their relation to $\nabla^{(\alpha)}$

OPA1 mutation and late-onset cardiomyopathy: mitochondrial dysfunction and mtDNA instability.

BackgroundMitochondrial fusion protein mutations are a cause of inherited neuropathies such as Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease and dominant optic atrophy. Previously we reported that the fusion protein optic atrophy 1 (OPA1) is decreased in heart failure.Methods and resultsWe investigated cardiac function, mitochondrial function, and mtDNA stability in a mouse model of the disease with OPA1 mutation. The homozygous mutation is embryonic lethal. Heterozygous OPA(+/-) mice exhibit reduced mtDNA copy number and decreased expression of nuclear antioxidant genes at 3 to 4 months. Although initial cardiac function was normal, at 12 months the OPA1(+/-) mouse hearts had decreased fractional shortening, cardiac output, and myocyte contraction. This coincided with the onset of blindness. In addition to small fragmented mitochondria, aged OPA1(+/-) mice had impaired cardiac mitochondrial function compared with wild-type littermates.ConclusionsOPA1 mutation leads to deficiency in antioxidant transcripts, increased reactive oxygen species, mitochondrial dysfunction, and late-onset cardiomyopathy