Application of Eh-pH Diagrams on Acid Leaching Systems for the Recovery of REEs from Bastnaesite, Monazite and Xenotime

Bastnaesite, monazite and xenotime are rare earth minerals (REMs) that are typical sources for rare earth elements (REEs). To advance the understanding of their leaching and precipitation behavior in different hydrometallurgical processes, Eh-pH diagrams were constructed and modified using the HSC 9.9 software. The aqueous stability of rare earth elements in H2O and acid leaching systems, i.e., the REE-Ligands-H2O systems, were depicted and studied based on the Eh-pH diagrams. This study considers the most relevant lixiviants, their resulting equilibrium states and the importance in the hydrometallurgical recovery of rare earth elements (REMs). A literature review was performed summarizing relevant Eh-pH diagrams and associated thermodynamic data. Shifting stability regions for REEs were discovered with additions of acid ligands and a narrow stability region for soluble REE-(SO4/Cl/NO3) complexes under highly acidic conditions. As such, the recovery of REEs can be enhanced by adjusting pH and Eh values. In addition, the Eh-pH diagrams of the major contaminants (i.e., Fe, Ca and Al) in leaching systems were studied. The resulting Eh-pH diagrams provide possible insights into potential passivation on the particle surfaces due to the formation of an insoluble product layer

The Use of Computer Decision Support for Pediatric Obstructive Sleep Apnea Detection in Primary Care.

Study Objectives To (1) describe outcomes from a computer decision support system (CDSS) for pediatric obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) detection in primary care; and (2) identity the prevalence of children meeting criteria for an OSA referral. Methods A CDSS for OSA was implemented in two urban primary care clinics. Parents of children (age 2 to 11 years) presenting to the clinic were asked if their child snored regularly, with a positive response resulting in six additional OSA screening items. Primary care providers (PCPs) received a prompt for all snoring children, listing applicable OSA signs and symptoms and recommending further evaluation and referral for OSA. Results A total of 2,535 children were screened for snoring, identifying 475 snoring children (18.7%). Among snoring children, PCPs referred 40 (15.4%) for further evaluation. The prevalence of additional OSA signs and symptoms ranged from 3.5% for underweight to 43.7% for overweight. A total of 74.7% of snoring children had at least one additional sign or symptom and thus met American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines criteria for an OSA referral. Conclusions A CDSS can be used to support PCPs in identifying children at risk for OSA. Most snoring children met criteria for further evaluation. It will be important to further evaluate this referral threshold as well as the readiness of the sleep medicine field to meet this need

Real-World Implementation of Infant Behavioral Sleep Interventions: Results of a Parental Survey

Objective To describe parental practices implementing behavioral sleep intervention (BSI) outside a clinical setting. Study design Parents (n = 652), recruited through a Facebook group designed as a peer support group for parents using BSI, completed an online survey about their experience using BSI with their infant or toddler. Results On average, parents implemented BSI when their infant was 5.6 (±2.77) months. Parents most often used modified (49.5%) or unmodified extinction (34.9%), with fewer using a parental presence approach (15.6%). Regardless of BSI type, more parents endorsed “a great deal of stress” during the first night (42.2%) than 1 week later (5.2%). The duration of infant crying was typically greatest the first night (reported by 45%; M = 43 minutes) and was significantly reduced after 1 week (M = 8.54 minutes). Successful implementation of BSI on the first attempt was reported by 83%, with a median and mode of 7 days until completion (79% by 2 weeks). Regardless of BSI type, after intervention parents reported their infant had less difficulty falling asleep, fewer night awakenings, and were more likely to sleep in their room and/or in their own crib/bed. Conclusions The majority of parents report successfully implementing BSI, with significantly reduced infant crying by the end of 1 week and success within 2 weeks. Few differences were found between behavioral approaches

Multiple Imputation Ensembles (MIE) for dealing with missing data

Missing data is a significant issue in many real-world datasets, yet there are no robust methods for dealing with it appropriately. In this paper, we propose a robust approach to dealing with missing data in classification problems: Multiple Imputation Ensembles (MIE). Our method integrates two approaches: multiple imputation and ensemble methods and compares two types of ensembles: bagging and stacking. We also propose a robust experimental set-up using 20 benchmark datasets from the UCI machine learning repository. For each dataset, we introduce increasing amounts of data Missing Completely at Random. Firstly, we use a number of single/multiple imputation methods to recover the missing values and then ensemble a number of different classifiers built on the imputed data. We assess the quality of the imputation by using dissimilarity measures. We also evaluate the MIE performance by comparing classification accuracy on the complete and imputed data. Furthermore, we use the accuracy of simple imputation as a benchmark for comparison. We find that our proposed approach combining multiple imputation with ensemble techniques outperform others, particularly as missing data increases

Topical Review: Building Competency: Professional Skills for Pediatric Psychologists in Integrated Primary Care Settings

Objectives In the midst of large-scale changes across our nation’s health care system, including the Affordable Care Act and Patient-Centered Medical Home initiatives, integrated primary care models afford important opportunities for those in the field of pediatric psychology. Despite the extensive and growing attention, this subspecialty has received in recent years, a comprehensive set of core professional competencies has not been established. Methods A subset of an Integrated Primary Care Special Interest Group used two well-established sets of core competencies in integrated primary care and pediatric psychology as a basis to develop a set of integrated pediatric primary care-specific behavioral anchors. Conclusions The current manuscript describes these behavioral anchors and their development in the context of professional training as well as with regard to Triple Aim goals and securing psychology’s role in integrated pediatric primary care settings

Notes on the Potential for the Concentration of Rare Earth Elements and Yttrium in Coal Combustion Fly Ash

Certain Central Appalachian coals, most notably the Fire Clay coal with a REY-enriched volcanic ash fall tonstein, are known to be enriched in rare earth elements. The Fire Clay tonstein has a greater contribution to the total coal + parting REY than would be inferred from its thickness, accounting for about 20%–35% of the REY in the coal + parting sequence. Underground mining, in particular, might include roof and floor rock and the within-seam partings in the mined product. Beneficiation, necessary to meet utility specifications, will remove some of the REY from the delivered product. In at least one previously published example, even though the tonstein was not present in the Fire Clay coal, the coal was enriched in REY. In this case, as well as mines that ship run-of-mine products to the utility, the shipped REY content should be virtually the same as for the mined coal. At the power plant, however, the delivered coal will be pulverized, generally accompanied by the elimination of some of the harder rock, before it is fired into the boiler. Overall, there are a wide range of variables between the geologic sample at the mine and the power plant, any or all of which could impact the concentration of REY or other critical materials in the coal combustion products

Pathogenesis and shedding of Usutu virus in juvenile chickens

Usutu virus (USUV; family: Flaviviridae, genus: Flavivirus), is an emerging zoonotic arbovirus that causes severe neuroinvasive disease in humans and has been implicated in the loss of breeding bird populations in Europe. USUV is maintained in an enzootic cycle between ornithophilic mosquitos and wild birds. As a member of the Japanese encephalitis serocomplex, USUV is closely related to West Nile virus (WNV) and St. Louis encephalitis virus (SLEV), both neuroinvasive arboviruses endemic in wild bird populations in the United States. An avian model for USUV is essential to understanding zoonotic transmission. Here we describe the first avian models of USUV infection with the development of viremia. Juvenile commercial ISA Brown chickens were susceptible to infection by multiple USUV strains with evidence of cardiac lesions. Juvenile chickens from two chicken lines selected for high (HAS) or low (LAS) antibody production against sheep red blood cells showed markedly different responses to USUV infection. Morbidity and mortality were observed in the LAS chickens, but not HAS chickens. LAS chickens had significantly higher viral titers in blood and other tissues, as well as oral secretions, and significantly lower development of neutralizing antibody responses compared to HAS chickens. Mathematical modelling of virus-host interactions showed that the viral clearance rate is a stronger mitigating factor for USUV viremia than neutralizing antibody response in this avian model. These chicken models provide a tool for further understanding USUV pathogenesis in birds and evaluating transmission dynamics between avian hosts and mosquito vectors.This work was supported by National Science Foundation [grant number: 1813011]; Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University [grant number: Data and Decisions Proposal, VMCVM Internal Research Competition].S

Heterogeneity of gut microbial responses in healthy household dogs transitioning from an extruded to a mildly cooked diet

Background The gut microbiota (GM) is associated with canine health and can be impacted by diet. Dog owners in the U.S. have increasingly shown an interest in feeding their dogs a mildly cooked (MC) diet. However, its impact on canine GM and health remains largely unknown. Methods Healthy household dogs were tracked upon switching from various brands of extruded to MC diets for four weeks. A health assessment was completed and stool samples were collected by each owner before (day 0) and after the diet transition (day 28). Shotgun metagenomic sequencing was performed at both time points to characterize the GM. Results Dogs completed the study by either completing the health assessments (n = 31) or providing stool samples at both time points (n = 28). All owners reported either better or no change in overall health at the end of the study (61% and 39%, respectively), and none reported worse overall health. Defecation frequency was also reported to be lower (58%) or about the same (35%). Principal coordinate (PCo) analysis showed a significant shift (p = 0.004) in the β-diversity of the GM upon diet transition (34.2% and 10.3% explained by the first two axes). The abundances of 70 species increased after the diet change (adjusted p < 0.05), 67% and 24% of which belonged to the Lactobacillales and the Enterobacterales orders respectively. The abundances of 28 species decreased (adjusted p < 0.05), 46%, 18%, and 11% of which belonged to the Clostridiales, Bacillales, and Bacteroidales orders, respectively. Lower Lactobacillales and Enterobacterales, and higher Bacteroidales at baseline were associated with a greater shift along the PCo1 axis. Protein content of the baseline diet was correlated with the shift along the PCo1 axis (ρ = 0.67, p = 0.006). Conclusion Owners reported either improvement or no change in health in dogs transitioning from extruded kibble to MC diets for 4 weeks, but this report of health perception requires further exploration in a controlled trial. Diet change also led to a significant shift in the GM profile of healthy dogs. The magnitude of shift was associated with baseline GM and dietary protein, and warrants further examination of individualized responses and personalized nutrition in companion dogs. These results also support future investigation of the impact of a MC diet on health maintenance given its increasing popularity

Combined effects of time spent in physical activity, sedentary behaviors and sleep on obesity and cardio-metabolic health markers: a novel compositional data analysis approach

<div><p>The associations between time spent in sleep, sedentary behaviors (SB) and physical activity with health are usually studied without taking into account that time is finite during the day, so time spent in each of these behaviors are codependent. Therefore, little is known about the combined effect of time spent in sleep, SB and physical activity, that together constitute a composite whole, on obesity and cardio-metabolic health markers. Cross-sectional analysis of NHANES 2005–6 cycle on N = 1937 adults, was undertaken using a compositional analysis paradigm, which accounts for this intrinsic codependence. Time spent in SB, light intensity (LIPA) and moderate to vigorous activity (MVPA) was determined from accelerometry and combined with self-reported sleep time to obtain the 24 hour time budget composition. The distribution of time spent in sleep, SB, LIPA and MVPA is significantly associated with BMI, waist circumference, triglycerides, plasma glucose, plasma insulin (all p<0.001), and systolic (p<0.001) and diastolic blood pressure (p<0.003), but not HDL or LDL. Within the composition, the strongest positive effect is found for the proportion of time spent in MVPA. Strikingly, the effects of MVPA replacing another behavior and of MVPA being displaced by another behavior are asymmetric. For example, re-allocating 10 minutes of SB to MVPA was associated with a lower waist circumference by 0.001% but if 10 minutes of MVPA is displaced by SB this was associated with a 0.84% higher waist circumference. The proportion of time spent in LIPA and SB were detrimentally associated with obesity and cardiovascular disease markers, but the association with SB was stronger. For diabetes risk markers, replacing SB with LIPA was associated with more favorable outcomes. Time spent in MVPA is an important target for intervention and preventing transfer of time from LIPA to SB might lessen the negative effects of physical inactivity.</p></div