EXPOSURE TO AMBIENT AIR POLLUTION AND FETAL DEATH IN HARRIS COUNTY, TEXAS

The evidence from studies of maternal ambient air pollutant exposure (including O3, fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and PM2.5 metal constituents) and stillbirth is limited and equivocal. There is also limited evidence of the acute effect of temperature increases in the week preceding delivery and stillbirth. In the first investigation of ambient air pollution, temperature and stillbirth among a large cohort of women in Harris County, Texas, we obtained birth and fetal death records from 2008-2013 and estimated weekly residential levels of apparent temperature and ozone (O3), fine particulate matter (PM2.5), nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and PM2.5 metals from the local monitoring network. In one study, we used Cox survival models to examine associations between time-varying O3 exposure and stillbirth with adjustment for PM2.5 and NO2 and further evaluated effect measure modification by race/ethnicity and length of gestation. In another study, we used a case-control design and applied conditional logistic regression to examine associations between PM2.5 mass and PM2.5 metals by assigning controls (live births) the same truncated exposure period as the gestational length of their matched case. Finally, we used a case-crossover design with symmetric bidirectional sampling of control periods to investigate the association of temperature (lag days 1 through 6) and all-cause stillbirths, as well as stillbirths caused by placental abruptions, in conditional logistic regression models that adjusted for air pollutant exposure. We found a 9% (95% confidence interval (CI): 1%, 18%) increased stillbirth risk associated with a 3.61 parts per billion increase in O3 exposure. The risk was higher among women with pregnancies \u3c37 gestational weeks (hazard ratio (HR) =1.13, 95% CI: 1.04, 1.23) as compared to women with pregnancies of longer gestation (HR=1.05, 95% CI: 0.87, 1.27) and among Hispanic women (HR=1.14, 95% CI: 1.02, 1.27). We observed null associations between PM2.5 metal exposure (modeled as a continuous variable) and stillbirth and slightly increased risks for mothers with exposure to high (≥95th percentile) levels of PM2.5 mass. There were also elevated risks (21% to 36%) associated with high exposures (≥95th percentile) to metal constituents of PM2.5 (Al, Cr, Cu, Fe, Pb, Mn, Ni, Se, Ti and Zn), with the strongest association observed for Ni (OR = 1.36, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.03, 1.79). We found that a 10°F increase in apparent temperature was positively associated with stillbirths caused by placental abruption on lag days 1, 2 and 3. The risk was highest (OR= 1.29, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.02, 1.63, per 10°F increase) when exposure was examined as a moving average over lag days 1-3. We observed a slightly elevated risk (OR= 1.06, 95% CI: 0.99, 1.13, per 10°F increase) for all-cause stillbirth on lag day 1 and no evidence of an association on subsequent lag days. Our findings contribute to the literature on air pollution and temperature exposures during pregnancy and stillbirth, particularly concerning methods of comparing different risk periods based on gestational length

The role of social media in empowering the involvement of women in information technology workforce in Iraq

The underrepresentation of the women workforce in the field of Information Technology (IT) in Iraq has been closely observed over the last few years. One of the facts is that social media have been widely and intensively used in Iraq, which is an effective way to empower women in the IT workforce. This study aimed to investigate women's awareness of using social media to get empowered in the IT workforce as well as the role of the social media in women empowerment in this sector. In order to achieve the objectives of this research and based on the theory of cyberfeminism, the current study conducted a survey amongst the female students of the University of Baghdad - College of Education Ibn al-Haytham and tried to find out how the use of social media is contributing to the growth of women participation in the IT workforce. For this purpose a sample of 162 female students was taken from this college. The quantitative method was used to collect data for this study. The findings in this study revealed there was a significant relationship between women's awareness and the encouragement of women in the IT workforce through the use of the social media. Besides, there was a significant relationship between the empowerment of women and the encouragement of women in the IT workforce through the use of the social media. Hence, women's awareness and empowerment of women through the social media encouraged the involvement of women in the IT workforce. In addition, this study recommends several suggestions for further research

A Novel Microwave Sensor With High-Q Resonator For High Sensitivity Material Characterization

The use of novel microwave sensor on material characterization is an attractive idea. There are many applications that could benefit from this such as food industry, quality control and biomedical applications. The potential for highly accurate measurements of characterizing the material properties is offered by microwave resonant techniques at single or discrete set of frequencies. Conventionally, coaxial cavity, waveguide, and dielectric resonators have been used for characterizing the properties of materials. However, there are also challenges that arise from these resonators. One of them is the problem of fabricating the sensors which increase the cost and the other one they require large amount of circuit size and consequently require similar processing capability which restrict their use in many important applications. Thus, planar resonant techniques have gained a considerable interest over the past few years due to their advantages such as low cost, ease of fabrication and compact in circuit size. Conversely, these techniques suffer from low sensitivity and poor Q-factors which constrain their use and limit the range of materials characterizing applications. Therefore, this thesis presents novel structures of planar microwave sensors for detecting and characterizing the dielectric properties in common solids materials which produce high Q-factor with capability to suppress undesired harmonic spurious. These planar resonator structures are based on novel metamaterial symmetrical split ring resonator (SSRR) with and without spurlines filters by employing the perturbation theory, in which the dielectric properties of the resonator affect the Q-factor and resonance frequency. The sensors are designed at operating frequency of 2.2 GHz with resonant frequency ranging from 1 GHz to 10 GHz. As a results, the sensors achieve narrow resonance with low insertion loss and high Q sensitivity which peaked up to 652 at 2.2 GHz operating frequency. The circuit size of symmetrical split ring resonator is minimized about 30 % of total size by introducing spurlines filters. By using a specific experimental methodology, practical materials have been used as standards to validate the sensitivity of the sensors for permitting potentially material characterization and determination. In addition, a detailed sample thickness analysis has been carried out and accordingly the mathematical equation is derived to extract the materials with unknown properties. Experimentally, the measured and theoretical results are found in an excellent agreement with a 2 to 3 % possibility of typical error in the permittivity measurements. The average accuracy percentage of the measured results for all cases of the designed sensors is found within 97 to 98 % compared to those in literatures which has an average accuracy percentage of 91 to 92 % for the same tested standard materials. The most significant of using SSRR sensors with and without spurlines filters are to be used for various industrial applications such as food industry, quality control, bio–sensing medicine and pharmacy applications. It is believed that these techniques would lead for a promising solution of characterizing material particularly in determining material properties and quality

Carry-Over Effect in Forage Rotations on Newly Reclaimed Sandy Soil in Egypt

This study was carried out to investigate the carry-over effect of a preceding crop on the productivity of the following crop in various rotations in newly reclaimed lands in Egypt. The productivity of peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.), soyabean (Glycine max (L.) Merr.), maize (Zea mays L.) and pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum (L.) R. Br.) in summer season were much higher following berseem (Trifolium alexandrinum L.) or lentil (Lens culinaris Medic) than after wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) or barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) in both years of the study. Soyabean was the best summer season pre-crop for lentil and berseem, whereas peanut was best for barley. Maize was a suprisingly good pre-crop in this study. The carry-over effect from pearl millet was inferior to that of maize. Of the winter season crops berseem had the most positive effect on the four summer crops studied. Winter season crops had a decreasing positive effect in the order: berseem, lentil, barley and wheat. The data suggest that, cropping systems on newly reclaimed sandy soils should include legume crops (soyabean or peanut in summer, and berseem or lentil in winter) to maximise production of the following crop

Forage Production from Perennial vs. Annual Crop R~ on in Sandy Soils in Egypt

Forage production was studied on newly reclaimed sandy soil in Egypt trom perennial lucerne (Medicago sativa L.) and two annual crop rotations. The cropping systems were: A) lucerne, B) berseem clover (Trifolium alexandrinum L.) in the winter followed by pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum R. Br. Emend. Stantz.) in the summer and C) triticale (XX Triticosecale Wittm.) (forage cut + grain harvest) in the winter followed by maize (Zea mays L.) (grain + stover) in the summer. Mean annual dry matter yields (t ha-1 ) were 20.65, 26.59 and 27.48 from A, B and C, respectively. However, lucerne provided the most even seasonal forage production

Structural, Optical, Magnetic and Photon Attenuation of Novel Potassium Lead Borate Glasses Doped with MnO

Potassium lead borate glasses doped with MnO (40B2O3 + 40PbO + (20-x)K2O + xMnO: x = 0–5 mol%) have been prepared via standard melting quenching process. The impact of MnO on the structure, optical, magnetic and gamma-ray protection properties of pottisium lead borate glasses have been examined. The density was increased from 4.83to 5.23 g/cm3 as MnO content increased while the molar volume of prepared glass sample was decreased from 28.112 to 25.755 cm3/mol. The obtained direct optical gap (Eg) values were 2.84, 2.59, 2.41, 2.19, 1.95, and 1.84 eV for the Mn-x (x = 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5) glass samples, respectively. Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) spectra demonstrated that as the MnO concentration increases in the glass network the intensity and width of the IR bands were increased. The magnetic measurement revealed that the magnetic saturation (Ms) was decreased while the magnetic coercivity (Hc) was increased with increasing MnO substitution ratio. The linear attenuation coefficient of the μMn-glass follows the order: µMn-0 < µMn-1 < µMn-2 < µMn-3 < µMn-4 < µMn-5. Half value layer (HVL) rises as µ decreases and vice versa. The range of the HVL is 0.002–3.378, 0.002–3.334, 0.002–3.291, 0.002–3.248, 0.002–3.176, and 0.002–3.106 cm for Mn-x (x = 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, and5). The trend of effective atomic number (Zeff) variation is related to that of both linear and mass attenuation coefficients (µ and µm). The produced Mn-glasses can be employed in a variety of optical, magnetic and radiation protective applications. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature

Temperature, Placental abruption and Stillbirth

BACKGROUND: Pregnant women may be vulnerable to changes in ambient temperature and warming climates. Recent evidence suggests that temperature increases are associated with placental abruption, a risk factor for stillbirth. OBJECTIVES: We investigated the effect of acute exposures to apparent temperature on stillbirths in Harris County, Texas, 2008-2013. METHODS: We conducted a case-crossover study to investigate the association between temperature and stillbirth among 708 women. We used data from the National Climatic Data Center to estimate maternal exposure to daily average apparent temperature over the days (lag days 1 through 6) preceding the stillbirth event. We employed symmetric bidirectional sampling to select six control periods one to three weeks before and after each event and applied conditional logistic regression to examine associations between increases of apparent temperature and stillbirths during the warm season (May-September). We adjusted for fine particulate matter (PM RESULTS: Independent of air pollutant exposures, a 10 °F increase in apparent temperature in the week preceding delivery (lag days 1 to 6) was positively associated with a 45% (adjusted OR = 1.45, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.18, 1.77) increase in risk for stillbirth. Risks were elevated for stillbirths occurring in June through August, for Hispanic and non-Hispanic Black women, but not for non-Hispanic Whites. We also observed elevated risks associated with temperature increases in the few days preceding delivery among stillbirths caused by placental abruption, with the risk being highest on lag day 1 (OR = 1.93, 95% CI: 1.15, 3.23). CONCLUSIONS: Independent of maternal ambient air pollutant exposure, we found evidence of an association between apparent temperature increases in the week preceding an event and risk of stillbirth. Risks for stillbirth varied by race/ethnicity. Further, in the first study to evaluate the impact of temperature on a specific complication during pregnancy, the risks were higher among mothers with placental abruption

Accurate characterizations of material using microwave T-resonator for solid sensing applications

The topic of microwave sensors in enclosures is one of the most active areas in material characterization research today due to its wide applications in various industries. Surprisingly, a microwave sensor technology has been comprehensively investigated and there is an industry demand for an accurate instrument of material characterization such as food industry, quality control, chemical composition analysis and bio-sensing. These accurate instruments have the ability to understand the properties of materials composition based on chemical, physical, magnetic, and electric characteristics. Therefore, a design of the T-resonator has been introduced and investigated for an accurate measurement of material properties characterizations. This sensor is designed and fabricated on a 0.787 mm-thickness Roger 5880 substrate for the first resonant frequency to resonate at 2.4 GHz under unloaded conditions. Various standard dielectric of the sample under test (SUT) are tested to validate the sensitivity which making it a promising low-cost, compact in size, ease of fabrication and small SUT preparation for applications requiring novel sensing techniques in quality and control industries