Water Manganese Exposure and Children’s Intellectual Function in Araihazar, Bangladesh

Exposure to manganese via inhalation has long been known to elicit neurotoxicity in adults, but little is known about possible consequences of exposure via drinking water. In this study, we report results of a cross-sectional investigation of intellectual function in 142 10-year-old children in Araihazar, Bangladesh, who had been consuming tube-well water with an average concentration of 793 μg Mn/L and 3 μg arsenic/L. Children and mothers came to our field clinic, where children received a medical examination in which weight, height, and head circumference were measured. Children’s intellectual function was assessed on tests drawn from the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, version III, by summing weighted items across domains to create Verbal, Performance, and Full-Scale raw scores. Children provided urine specimens for measuring urinary As and creatinine and were asked to provide blood samples for measuring blood lead, As, Mn, and hemoglobin concentrations. After adjustment for sociodemographic covariates, water Mn was associated with reduced Full-Scale, Performance, and Verbal raw scores, in a dose–response fashion; the low level of As in water had no effect. In the United States, roughly 6% of domestic household wells have Mn concentrations that exceed 300 μg Mn/L, the current U.S. Environmental Protection Agency lifetime health advisory level. We conclude that in both Bangladesh and the United States, some children are at risk for Mn-induced neurotoxicity

Arsenic Exposure and Motor Function among Children in Bangladesh

Background: Several reports indicate that drinking water arsenic (WAs) and manganese (WMn) are associated with children’s intellectual function. Very little is known, however, about possible associations with other neurologic outcomes such as motor function

Associations of Plasma Selenium with Arsenic and Genomic Methylation of Leukocyte DNA in Bangladesh

Background Global hypomethylation of DNA is thought to constitute an early event in some cancers and occurs in response to arsenic (As) exposure and/or selenium (Se) deficiency in both in vitro and animal models. In addition, antagonism between As and Se, whereby each reduces toxicity of the other, has been well documented in animal models. Se status may therefore modify the health effects of As in As-exposed populations. Objective The primary objectives of our study were to test the hypothesis that Se deficiency is associated with genomic hypomethylation of lymphocyte DNA and to determine whether Se levels are associated with blood As (bAs) and urinary As (uAs) concentrations in adults exposed to As-contaminated groundwater in Bangladesh. A secondary objective was to explore the relationships between plasma Se and As metabolites. Design We assessed plasma Se concentrations, As metabolite profiles in blood and urine, and genomic methylation of leukocyte DNA in a cross-sectional study of 287 adults. Results After adjustment for potential confounders, we observed an inverse association between Se (micrograms per liter) and genomic DNA methylation (disintegrations per minute per 1-μg/L increase in Se): β = 345.6; 95% confidence interval (CI), 59–632. Se concentrations were inversely associated with total As concentrations (micrograms per liter) in blood (β = −0.04; 95% CI, −0.08 to −0.01) and urine (β = −20.1; 95% CI, −29.3 to −10.9). Se levels were negatively associated with the percentage of monomethylarsinic acid (β = −0.59; 95% CI, −1.04 to −0.13) and positively associated with the percentage of dimethylarsinic acid (β = 0.53; 95% CI, 0.04 to 1.01) in blood. Conclusions Our results suggest that Se is inversely associated with genomic DNA methylation. The underlying mechanisms and implications of this observation are unclear and warrant further investigation. In addition, Se may influence bAs and uAs concentrations, as well as relative proportions of As metabolites in blood

Construction of basement of the Senator building, preserving the historic wall of Bank Polski

Omawiana inwestycja jest usytuowana w historycznym centrum Warszawy, pomiędzy al. Solidarności a ul. Bielańską. Działka, na której zaplanowano budowę biurowca Senator, była w części zabudowana. Na działce inwestora (nr ewid. 38/3), wchodzącej w skład nieistniejącego od II wojny światowej kompleksu bankowego, znajdują się pozostałości zabudowy dawnego Banku Polskiego. Ważne historyczne elementy Banku Polskiego zostały zintegrowane z nowym projektem. Najważniejszym obiektem, chronionym wpisem do rejestru, była szczytowa ściana sali operacyjnej (głównej), dlatego też została, po wcześniejszym zabezpieczeniu i wzmocnieniu, odtworzona do pierwotnego, historycznego wyglądu

Graspable and Resource-Flexible Applications for Pervasive Computing at Home

We envision the home populated with regular objects that allow programmatic access to their sensors and actuators. The objects jointly form a pervasive computing platform, open for third-party independently developed applications. A challenge is how to support people in deploying and managing such applications. Today, the user perceives an application as an immaterial artifact, accessed through a screen-based interface of a general-purpose computing device. Contrary to that established paradigm, we propose to reify the pervasive computing application as a simple physical thing, called the "application pill." The pill can easily be grasped and operated: the user brings the pill home, switches it on, and checks if it works just by glancing at its on/off diode. As the application is destined for many homes, each featuring a different collection of objects, the user should be provided with high-level feedback on how well the application can work in her home. Accordingly, the application pill is also equipped with a simple "functionality level" indicator. The degree to which the application can deliver its functionality on top of an available object collection is captured as a single number and displayed by the pill. We present a concrete proof-of-concept elaboration and implementation of these ideas in a pervasive computing middleware platform targeted at cooperating objects

Node/Proxy portability: Designing for the two lives of your next WSAN middleware

Middleware for wireless sensor and actuator networks (WSANs) provides powerful programming abstractions which simplify application development. While it is highly desirable to reuse WSAN middleware across a wide range of hardware platforms, in practice, complex middleware may not fit in nodes with limited resources. As one possible solution, we propose the so-called proxy approach: the middleware is ported on a general purpose computer, from where the sensors and actuators of the resource-constrained nodes are accessed remotely yet in a way that is transparent to the application, which runs unmodified, as if it resided on the physical nodes. We provide design guidelines and a middleware transformation process for implementing the proxy approach in a structured way. We also present a concrete implementation of the proxy approach for our own middleware, along with a performance evaluation of the proxy software environment in a wired testbed with almost 200 sensor nodes. © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

Soft Actuation: Smart Home and Office with Human-in-the-Loop

Considerable effort in the area of context-aware systems goes into applications that process sensor data to proactively drive actuators. However, there are concerns about such fully automated operation. Most notably, due to imperfect context inferences, actuating decisions can be contrary to the user's desires. In this article, the authors focus on what they refer to as soft actuation: issuing low-key, nonverbal hints prompting the user to optionally perform a simple manual operation on a nearby object. Soft actuation targets noncritical applications for the home or office. In the spirit of calm technology, special care is taken to respect the user's attention. The authors elaborate the interaction concept and present its experimental evaluation 'in the wild.' The results are encouraging, given that users liked the soft-actuating system and accepted quite a few hints. © 2015 IEEE

Tangible applications for regular objects: An end-user model for pervasive computing at home

This paper describes an end-user model for a domestic pervasive computing platform formed by regular home objects. The platform does not rely on pre-planned infrastructure; instead, it exploits objects that are already available in the home and exposes their joint sensing, actuating and computing capabilities to home automation applications. We advocate an incremental process of the platform formation and introduce tangible, object-like artifacts for representing important platform functions. One of those artifacts, the application pill, is a tiny object with a minimal user interface, used to carry the application, as well as to start and stop its execution and provide hints about its operational status. We also emphasize streamlining the user's interaction with the platform. The user engages any UI-capable object of his choice to configure applications, while applications issue notifications and alerts exploiting whichever available objects can be used for that purpose. Finally, the paper briefly describes an actual implementation of the presented end-user model. © (2010) by International Academy, Research, and Industry Association (IARIA)