Environmental and Health Disparities in Appalachian Ohio: Perceptions and Realities

Background. Appalachia is a region of the United States that faces significant environmental and health disparities. Understanding these disparities and the social determinants that contribute to them will help public health practitioners make better decisions. The purpose of this research is two-fold. First, through secondary data analysis, we document environmental and health disparities as well as demographic and economic conditions that may contribute to these disparities between Appalachian and non-Appalachian Ohio. Second, we examine perceptions of environmental health practitioners about the differences in environmental conditions between Appalachian and non-Appalachian Ohio. Methods. We gathered secondary data about economics, health, and the environment from the Ohio Department of Health, Healthy Ohio Community Profiles, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the U.S. Census. In addition, we conducted an online survey of 76 environmental health professionals across Ohio. Results. The secondary data indicates that there are significant differences between Appalachian and non-Appalachian Ohio in terms of socioeconomic, health, and environmental indicators. In addition, environmental health professionals perceive worse environmental conditions in the Appalachian region and indicate that there are environmental and health disparities found in this part of the state that do not exist elsewhere. Conclusions. The results contribute to understanding environmental and health conditions that contribute to health disparities in the Appalachian region as well as suggest approaches for public health practitioners to reduce these disparities

Family Law - Involuntary Termination of Parental Rights - Mental Incapacity

The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania held that a court must examine the strength of the existing emotional bond between the natural parent and the child before involuntarily terminating parental rights. In re E.M., 620 A.2d 481 (Pa. 1993)

Blind protein structure prediction using accelerated free-energy simulations.

We report a key proof of principle of a new acceleration method [Modeling Employing Limited Data (MELD)] for predicting protein structures by molecular dynamics simulation. It shows that such Boltzmann-satisfying techniques are now sufficiently fast and accurate to predict native protein structures in a limited test within the Critical Assessment of Structure Prediction (CASP) community-wide blind competition

Momentum distribution, vibrational dynamics and the potential of mean force in ice

By analyzing the momentum distribution obtained from path integral and phonon calculations we find that the protons in hexagonal ice experience an anisotropic quasi-harmonic effective potential with three distinct principal frequencies that reflect molecular orientation. Due to the importance of anisotropy, anharmonic features of the environment cannot be extracted from existing experimental distributions that involve the spherical average. The full directional distribution is required, and we give a theoretical prediction for this quantity that could be verified in future experiments. Within the quasi-harmonic context, anharmonicity in the ground state dynamics of the proton is substantial and has quantal origin, a finding that impacts the interpretation of several spectroscopies

Displaced path integral formulation for the momentum distribution of quantum particles

The proton momentum distribution, accessible by deep inelastic neutron scattering, is a very sensitive probe of the potential of mean force experienced by the protons in hydrogen-bonded systems. In this work we introduce a novel estimator for the end to end distribution of the Feynman paths, i.e. the Fourier transform of the momentum distribution. In this formulation, free particle and environmental contributions factorize. Moreover, the environmental contribution has a natural analogy to a free energy surface in statistical mechanics, facilitating the interpretation of experiments. The new formulation is not only conceptually but also computationally advantageous. We illustrate the method with applications to an empirical water model, ab-initio ice, and one dimensional model systems

Problems Affecting Labor

Much experimental work has been devoted in comparing the folding behavior of proteins sharing the same fold but different sequence. The recent design of proteins displaying very high sequence identities but different 3D structure allows the unique opportunity to address the protein-folding problem from a complementary perspective. Here we explored by ℙ-value analysis the pathways of folding of three different heteromorphic pairs, displaying increasingly high-sequence identity (namely, 30%, 77%, and 88%), but different structures called G A (a 3-α helix fold) and G B (an α/β fold). The analysis, based on 132 site-directed mutants, is fully consistent with the idea that protein topology is committed very early along the pathway of folding. Furthermore, data reveals that when folding approaches a perfect two-state scenario, as in the case of the G A domains, the structural features of the transition state appear very robust to changes in sequence composition. On the other hand, when folding is more complex and multistate, as for the G Bs, there are alternative nuclei or accessible pathways that can be alternatively stabilized by altering the primary structure. The implications of our results in the light of previous work on the folding of different members belonging to the same protein family are discussed

Tunneling and delocalization in hydrogen bonded systems: a study in position and momentum space

Novel experimental and computational studies have uncovered the proton momentum distribution in hydrogen bonded systems. In this work, we utilize recently developed open path integral Car-Parrinello molecular dynamics methodology in order to study the momentum distribution in phases of high pressure ice. Some of these phases exhibit symmetric hydrogen bonds and quantum tunneling. We find that the symmetric hydrogen bonded phase possesses a narrowed momentum distribution as compared with a covalently bonded phase, in agreement with recent experimental findings. The signatures of tunneling that we observe are a narrowed distribution in the low-to-intermediate momentum region, with a tail that extends to match the result of the covalently bonded state. The transition to tunneling behavior shows similarity to features observed in recent experiments performed on confined water. We corroborate our ice simulations with a study of a particle in a model one-dimensional double well potential that mimics some of the effects observed in bulk simulations. The temperature dependence of the momentum distribution in the one-dimensional model allows for the differentiation between ground state and mixed state tunneling effects.Comment: 14 pages, 13 figure

Asymptomatic patients as a source of transmission of COVID-19 in homeless shelters

Objectives: Asymptomatic carriers account for over a third of all Coronavirus Disease 19 (COVID-19) cases and are characterized by the absence of symptoms but the same infectivity as symptomatic infections. The high percentage of asymptomatic COVID-19 patients is significant in settings with specific vulnerabilities, such as homeless shelters, where the consequences of an outbreak may be dramatic. In this work, we briefly report our experience on residents and staff of homeless shelters in the City of Rome, Italy, with a particular focus on asymptomatic transmission, and compare it with the available evidence. Methods: We performed routine Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) nasopharyngeal swab tests in all residents and staff of homeless shelters managed by the Eleemosynaria Apostolica of the Vatican City State in the city of Rome, Italy, in addition to daily symptom screening, body temperature monitoring, and application of other prevention measures. Results: We evaluated 298 persons and identified twelve positive cases (4%). Most of the positive cases (75%) were asymptomatic, while only three patients reported symptoms that included fever, diarrhea, and cough. Conclusions: Our data confirm the importance of early identification of asymptomatic carriers that could, in vulnerable conditions such as homeless shelters, spread the infection and cause outbreaks with severe consequences on individual and public health