Migrant Farmworkers\u27 Perceptions of Pesticide Risk Exposure in Adams County, Pennsylvania: A Cultural Risk Assessment

Agricultural exceptionalism, a system in which regular labor laws and standards do not apply to farm labor, makes migrant farmworkers particularly vulnerable populations—economically, socially, and in terms of environmental health. To address inequities inherent in migrant farmworker margin­aliza­tion, studies advocate for actively engaging the migrant farmworker population in the conversation surrounding these issues. We conducted 40 semi­structured interviews with migrant farmworkers in Adams County, Pennsylvania, to understand pesti­cide risk exposure perceptions and practices. We employed the Health Belief Model as our cultural risk assessment frame, using it in combination with technical risk assessment, which uses government calculations (from the Environmental Protection Agency) to quantify pesticide risk exposure. We used mixed methods analyses (quantitative and qualitative) to compare and understand farmworker demographics, perceived risk, perceived control, and risk behavior. Results show that demo­graphics —e.g., age, education, visa status—are important factors in risk perception. They also confirm observations present in many earlier studies. While trainings and educational materials are valuable to help build awareness of risk, a systemic lack of control over their circumstances make it hard for migrant farmworkers to engage in safe behavior. Results also highlight the limitations of technical risk assessment. Such calculations, however, rarely account for risk perceptions and experiences of farm­workers themselves. Acknowledging the voices of migrant farmworkers is an essential first step in rebalancing inequities of power in our food systems, and cultural risk assessment can help frame recommendations that target different stake­holders across the pesticide regulatory spectrum to ensure migrant farmworker needs and safety

Opposing shear senses in a subdetachment mylonite zone: Implications for core complex mechanics

[1] Global studies of metamorphic core complexes and low‐angle detachment faults have highlighted a fundamental problem: Since detachments excise crustal section, the relationship between the mylonitic rocks in their footwalls and the brittle deformation in their hanging walls is commonly unclear. Mylonites could either reflect ductile deformation related to exhumation along the detachment fault, or they could be a more general feature of the extending middle crust that has been “captured ” by the detachment. In the first case we would expect the kinematics of the mylonite zone to mirror the sense of movement on the detachment; in the second case both the direction and sense of shear in the mylonites could be different. The northern Snake Range décollement (NSRD) is a classic Basin and Range detachment fault with a well‐documented top‐east of displacement. We present structural, paleo-magnetic, geochronological, and geothermometric evidence to suggest that the mylonite zone below the NSRD locally experienced phases of both east ‐ and west‐directed shear, inconsistent with movement along a single detachment fault. We therefore propose that the footwall mylonites represent a predetachment dis-continuity in the middle crust that separated localized deformation above from distributed crustal flow below (localized‐distributed transition (LDT)). The mylonites were subsequently captured by a moderately dipping brittle detachment that soled down to the middle crust and exhumed them around a rolling hinge into a subhorizontal orientation at the surface, produc-ing the present‐day NSRD. In this interpretation the brittle hanging wall represents a series of rotated upper crustal normal faults, whereas the mylonitic footwall represents one or more exhumed middl

Anisotropy of the Microwave Sky at 90 GHz: Results from Python II

We report on additional observations of degree scale anisotropy at 90~GHz from the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station in Antarctica. Observations during the first season with the Python instrument yielded a statistically significant sky signal; in this paper we report the confirmation of that signal with data taken in the second year, and on results from an interleaving set of fields.Comment: 10 pages, plus 2 figures. Postscript and uufiles versions available via anonymous ftp at ftp://astro.uchicago.edu/pub/astro/ruhl/pyI

Facility for fast neutron irradiation tests of electronics at the ISIS spallation neutron source

The VESUVIO beam line at the ISIS spallation neutron source was set up for neutron irradiation tests in the neutron energy range above 10 MeV. The neutron flux and energy spectrum were shown, in benchmark activation measurements, to provide a neutron spectrum similar to the ambient one at sea level, but with an enhancement in intensity of a factor of 107. Such conditions are suitable for accelerated testing of electronic components, as was demonstrated here by measurements of soft error rates in recent technology field programable gate arrays

Facilitating the Decentralised Exchange of Cryptocurrencies in an Order-Driven Market

This article discusses a protocol to facilitate decentralised exchanges on an order-driven market through a consortium of market services operators. We discuss whether this hybrid protocol combining a centralised initiation phase with a decentralised execution phase outperforms fully centralised exchanges with regards to efficiency and security. Here, a fully efficient and fully secure protocol is defined as one where traders incur no trading costs or opportunity costs and counterparty risk is absent. We devise a protocol addressing the main downsides in the decentralised exchange process that uses a facilitating distributed ledger, maintains an order book and monitors the order status in real-time to provide accurate exchange rate information and performance scoring of participants. We show how performance ratings can lower opportunity costs and how a rolling benchmark rate of verifiable trades can be used to establish a trustworthy exchange rate between cryptocurrencies. The formal validation of the proposed technical mechanisms is the subject of future work

Competition between Intramolecular and Intermolecular Interactions in an Amyloid-Forming Protein

Despite much progress in understanding the folding and the aggregation processes of proteins, the rules defining their interplay have yet to be fully defined. This problem is of particular importance since many diseases are initiated by protein unfolding and hence the propensity to aggregate competes with intramolecular collapse and other folding events. Here, we describe the roles of intramolecular and intermolecular interactions in defining the length of the lag time and the apparent rate of elongation of the 100-residue protein human β2-microglobulin at pH 2.5, commencing from an acid-denatured state that lacks persistent structure but contains significant non-random hydrophobic interactions. Using a combination of site-directed mutagenesis, quantitative kinetic analysis and computational methods, we show that only a single region of about 10 residues in length, determines the rate of fibril formation, despite the fact that other regions exhibit a significant intrinsic propensity for aggregation. We rationalise these results by analysing the effect of incorporating the conformational properties of acid-unfolded β2-microglobulin and its variants at pH 2.5 as measured by NMR spectroscopy into the Zyggregator aggregation prediction algorithm. These results demonstrate that residual structure in the precursor state modulates the intrinsic propensity of the polypeptide chain to aggregate and that the algorithm developed here allows the key regions for aggregation to be more clearly identified and the rates of their self-association to be predicted. Given the common propensity of unfolded chains to form non-random intramolecular interactions as monomers and to self-assemble subsequently into amyloid fibrils, the approach developed should find widespread utility for the prediction of regions important in amyloid formation and their rates of self-assembly. © 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Supplementing tuberculosis surveillance with automated data from health maintenance organizations.

Data collected by health maintenance organizations (HMOs), which provide care for an increasing number of persons with tuberculosis (TB), may be used to complement traditional TB surveillance. We evaluated the ability of HMO-based surveillance to contribute to overall TB reporting through the use of routinely collected automated data for approximately 350,000 HMO members. During approximately 1.5 million person-years, 45 incident cases were identified in either HMO or public health department records. Eight (18%) confirmed cases had not been identified by the public health department. The most useful screening criterion (sensitivity of 89% and predictive value positive of 30%) was dispensing of two or more TB drugs. Pharmacy dispensing information routinely collected by many HMOs appears to be a useful adjunct to traditional TB surveillance, particularly for identifying cases without positive microbiologic results that may be missed by traditional public health surveillance methods

Anisotropy in the Cosmic Microwave Background at Degree Angular Scales: Python V Results

Observations of the microwave sky using the Python telescope in its fifth season of operation at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station in Antarctica are presented. The system consists of a 0.75 m off-axis telescope instrumented with a HEMT amplifier-based radiometer having continuum sensitivity from 37-45 GHz in two frequency bands. With a 0.91 deg x 1.02 deg beam the instrument fully sampled 598 deg^2 of sky, including fields measured during the previous four seasons of Python observations. Interpreting the observed fluctuations as anisotropy in the cosmic microwave background, we place constraints on the angular power spectrum of fluctuations in eight multipole bands up to l ~ 260. The observed spectrum is consistent with both the COBE experiment and previous Python results. There is no significant contamination from known foregrounds. The results show a discernible rise in the angular power spectrum from large (l ~ 40) to small (l ~ 200) angular scales. The shape of the observed power spectrum is not a simple linear rise but has a sharply increasing slope starting at l ~ 150.Comment: 5 page

Canopy Reflectance Modeling of Aquatic Vegetation for Algorithm Development: Global Sensitivity Analysis

Optical remote sensing of aquatic vegetation in shallow water is an essential aid to ecosystem protection, but it is difficult because the spectral characteristics of the vegetation are sensitive to external features such as water background effects, atmospheric effects, and the structural properties of the canopy. A global sensitivity analysis of an aquatic vegetation radiative transfer model provides invaluable background for algorithm development for use in optical remote sensing. Here, we use the extended Fourier Amplitude Sensitivity Test (EFAST) method for the modelling. Four different cases were identified by subdividing the ranges of water depth and leaf area index (LAI) involved. The results indicate that the reflectance of emergent vegetation is affected mainly by the concentrations of chlorophyll a + b in leaves (Cab), leaf inclination distribution function parameter (LIDFa) and LAI. The parameter LAI is influential in sparse vegetation cases whereas Cab and LIDFa are influential in dense vegetation cases. Canopy reflectance for submerged vegetation is dominated by water parameters. Relatively, LAI and Cab are highly sensitive vegetation parameters. The analysis is extended to vegetation index as well, which takes the Sentinel-2A as the reference sensor. It shows that NDAVI (Normalized Difference Aquatic Vegetation Index) is suitable for retrieving LAI in all cases except deep-sparse for emergent vegetation, whereas NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) would be better in the deep-sparse case. NDVI, NDAVI and WAVI (Water Adjusted Vegetation Index), respectively, are suitable for retrieving Cab, Car and LIDFa in dense cases. For submerged vegetation, the sensitivity of LAI to NDAVI is relatively high only in the shallow-sparse case. The adjustment factor L in SAVI and WAVI fails to suppress the sensitivity to water constituent parameters. The sensitivity of LAI and Cab to NDVI in deep cases is relatively higher than that to the other indices, which may provide clues for the construction of inversion algorithms in macrophyte remote sensing in the aquatic environment using spectral signatures in the visible and near infrared regions

Additive manufacturing of hybrid sandwich sheets by laser powder bed fusion of metals

In the context of lightweight applications, laser powder bed fusion of metals allows the creation of high-complexity structures at minimal use of material. Traditional elements of lightweight construction are sandwich sheets, which comprise two cover sheets with a fine core structure joined in the centre. Thus, these lightweight elements contain both geometrically simple (cover sheets) and geometrically complex (core structure) elements. Conventional manufacturing of core structures is limited in terms of geometrical freedom. On the other hand, Additive Manufacturing of sheets has disadvantages in terms of economic efficiency. Therefore, a combined process consisting of additive and conventional cost-efficient manufacturing is proposed to eliminate both disadvantages. This publication presents a hybrid manufacturing route to produce metal sandwich sheets. The hybrid sandwich sheets are manufactured using a rolled cover sheet as a base plate and additive manufactured core structures including an upper cover sheet. For this purpose, a recently developed sheet mounting system for implementation in a laser powder bed fusion process is presented and evaluated concerning manufacturing criteria such as process stability and dimensional accuracy of the final components.Mechanical Engineerin