Uranium fate during crystallization of magnetite from ferrihydrite in conditions relevant to the disposal of radioactive waste

Uranium incorporation into magnetite and its behaviour during subsequent oxidation has been investigated at high pH to determine the uranium retention mechanism(s) on formation and oxidative perturbation of magnetite in systems relevant to radioactive waste disposal. Ferrihydrite was exposed to U(VI)aq containing cement leachates (pH 10.5-13.1) and crystallization of magnetite was induced via addition of Fe(II)aq. A combination of XRD, chemical extraction and XAS techniques provided direct evidence that U(VI) was reduced and incorporated into the magnetite structure, possibly as U(V), with a significant fraction recalcitrant to oxidative remobilization. Immobilization of U(VI) by reduction and incorporation into magnetite at high pH, and with significant stability upon reoxidation, has clear and important implications for limiting uranium migration in geological disposal of radioactive wastes. © 2016 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston

To Vax or Not to Vax: Predictors of Anti-Vax Attitudes and COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy Prior to Widespread Vaccine Availability

The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) is a highly contagious disease responsible for millions of deaths worldwide. Effective vaccines against COVID-19 are now available, however, an extreme form of vaccine hesitancy known as anti-vax attitudes challenge vaccine acceptance and distribution efforts. To understand these anti-vax attitudes and their associated psychological characteristics, we examined several predictors of vaccine hesitancy for COVID-19 and anti-vax attitudes generally. We surveyed 1004 adults (M = 47.0 years, SD = 17.1 years, range 18–98 years) in September-October 2020 across the United States (51% female, 49% male; 76.5% White, 23.5% non-White), prior to widespread availability of the COVID-19 vaccines. Attitudes toward vaccinations were influenced by a variety of factors, especially political attitudes. We should therefore anticipate and attempt to mitigate these challenges to achieving widespread vaccination to reduce the spread of COVID-19 and other communicable diseases

How polymer additives reduce the pour point of hydrocarbon solvents containing wax crystals

We have investigated how four different pour point depressant (PPD) polymers affect the pour point transition in mixtures of a single pure wax in a solvent. We used either n-eicosane (C20), CH3(CH2)18CH3, n-tetracosane (C24), CH3(CH2)22CH3 or n-hexatriacontane (C36), CH3(CH2)34CH3 as the wax component with either n-heptane or toluene as the solvent component. For all wax–solvent combinations, the measured variation of wax solubility with temperature is well predicted by ideal solution theory. The variation of pour point temperature as a function of the overall wax concentration is quantitatively modelled using the idea that, for each overall wax concentration, the pour point occurs at a temperature at which a critical volume fraction ϕ* of wax crystals has precipitated. Close to the pour point temperature, extraction and examination of the wax crystals show they consist of polydisperse, irregularly-shaped platelets with axial ratios (h/d, where h is the plate thickness and d is the plate long dimension) in the range 0.005–0.05. It is found that the measured ϕ* values corresponding to the pour point transitions are weakly correlated with the wax crystal axial ratios (h/d) for all wax–solvent–PPD polymer combinations. These results indicate that the pour point transition occurs at a volume fraction larger than the value at which the volumes of rotation of the platelet crystals overlap, i.e., 2.5(h/d) < ϕ* < 11(h/d). PPD polymers work, in part, by increasing the wax crystal axial ratio (h/d), thereby increasing ϕ* and reducing the pour point temperature. Since the PPD's ability to modify the wax crystal shape relies on its adsorption to the crystal-solution surface, it is anticipated and observed experimentally that optimum PPD efficacy is correlated with the difference between the wax and the polymer solubility boundary temperatures. This finding and the mechanistic insight gained here provide the basis for a simple and rapid screening test to identify candidate species likely to be effective PPDs for particular wax systems

Born in Bradford Age of Wonder cohort: A protocol for qualitative longitudinal research

Born in Bradford (BiB) has followed the lives of 13,776 children born in the district between 2007 and 2011. Children in the birth cohort are now entering adolescence, and the next phase of the research - Age of Wonder (AoW) - will be a whole city cohort capturing the experiences of 30,000 adolescents progressing into young adulthood. This protocol focuses on one component of the AoW programme: qualitative longitudinal research (QLR). The study will gather in depth and detailed accounts from a sub-sample of 100 young people across four major research priorities: personal life; social and community life; growing up with difference, and growing up in Bradford. As well as using traditional qualitative methods such as interviews, focus group discussions, and ethnography, we are adopting innovative creative methods including expressions through art, activism, online and digital content, portraits, and critical events. The process of engaging in and co-producing QLR potentially provides a route to empowering young people to shape the narrative of their own lives as well as informing intervention development

Dietary Supplementation with Soluble Plantain Non-Starch Polysaccharides Inhibits Intestinal Invasion of Salmonella Typhimurium in the Chicken

Soluble fibres (non-starch polysaccharides, NSP) from edible plants but particularly plantain banana (Musa spp.), have been shown in vitro and ex vivo to prevent various enteric pathogens from adhering to, or translocating across, the human intestinal epithelium, a property that we have termed contrabiotic. Here we report that dietary plantain fibre prevents invasion of the chicken intestinal mucosa by Salmonella. In vivo experiments were performed with chicks fed from hatch on a pellet diet containing soluble plantain NSP (0 to 200 mg/d) and orally infected with S.Typhimurium 4/74 at 8 d of age. Birds were sacrificed 3, 6 and 10 d post-infection. Bacteria were enumerated from liver, spleen and caecal contents. In vitro studies were performed using chicken caecal crypts and porcine intestinal epithelial cells infected with Salmonella enterica serovars following pre-treatment separately with soluble plantain NSP and acidic or neutral polysaccharide fractions of plantain NSP, each compared with saline vehicle. Bacterial adherence and invasion were assessed by gentamicin protection assay. In vivo dietary supplementation with plantain NSP 50 mg/d reduced invasion by S.Typhimurium, as reflected by viable bacterial counts from splenic tissue, by 98.9% (95% CI, 98.1–99.7; P<0.0001). In vitro studies confirmed that plantain NSP (5–10 mg/ml) inhibited adhesion of S.Typhimurium 4/74 to a porcine epithelial cell-line (73% mean inhibition (95% CI, 64–81); P<0.001) and to primary chick caecal crypts (82% mean inhibition (95% CI, 75–90); P<0.001). Adherence inhibition was shown to be mediated via an effect on the epithelial cells and Ussing chamber experiments with ex-vivo human ileal mucosa showed that this effect was associated with increased short circuit current but no change in electrical resistance. The inhibitory activity of plantain NSP lay mainly within the acidic/pectic (homogalacturonan-rich) component. Supplementation of chick feed with plantain NSP was well tolerated and shows promise as a simple approach for reducing invasive salmonellosis

Tracking Economic Value of Products in Natural Settings: A Wireless EEG Study

open access articleEconomic decision making refers to the process of individuals translating their preference into subjective value (SV). Little is known about the dynamics of the neural processes that underpin this form of value-based decision making and no studies have investigated these processes outside of controlled laboratory settings. The current study investigated the spatio-temporal dynamics that accompany economic valuation of products using mobile electroencephalography (EEG) and eye tracking techniques. Participants viewed and rated images of household products in a gallery setting while EEG and eye tracking data were collected wirelessly. A Becker-DeGroot-Marschak (BDM) auction task was subsequently used to quantify the individual’s willingness to pay (WTP) for each product. WTP was used to classify products into low, low medium, high medium and high economic value conditions. Eye movement related potentials (EMRP) were examined, and independent component analysis (ICA) was used to separate sources of activity from grand averaged EEG data. Four independent components (ICs) of EMRPs were modulated by WTP (i.e., SV) in the latency range of 150–250 ms. Of the four value-sensitive ICs, one IC displayed enhanced amplitude for all value conditions excluding low value, and another IC presented enhanced amplitude for low value products only. The remaining two value-sensitive ICs resolved inter-mediate levels of SV. Our study quantified, for the first time, the neural processes involved in economic value based decisions in a natural setting. Results suggest that multiple spatio-temporal brain activation patterns mediate the attention and aversion of products which could reflect an early valuation system. The EMRP parietal P200 component could reflect an attention allocation mechanism that separates the lowest-value products (IC7) from products of all other value (IC4), suggesting that low-value items are categorized early on as being aversive. While none of the ICs showed linear amplitude changes that parallel SV’s of products, results suggest that a combination of multiple components may sub-serve a fine-grained resolution of the SV of products

Transient CDK4/6 inhibition protects hematopoietic stem cells from chemotherapy-induced exhaustion

Conventional cytotoxic chemotherapy is highly effective in certain cancers, but causes dose-limiting damage to normal proliferating cells, especially hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs). Serial exposure to cytotoxics causes a long-term hematopoietic compromise (‘exhaustion’), which limits the use of chemotherapy and success of cancer therapy. Here, we show that the co-administration of G1T28 (trilaciclib), a small-molecule inhibitor of cyclin-dependent kinases 4 and 6 (CDK4/6), contemporaneously with cytotoxic chemotherapy protects murine hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) from chemotherapy-induced exhaustion in a serial 5-fluorouracil (5FU) treatment model. Consistent with a cell intrinsic effect, we show directly preserved HSC function resulting in a more rapid recovery of peripheral blood counts, enhanced serial transplantation capacity and reduced myeloid skewing. When administered to healthy human volunteers, G1T28 demonstrated excellent in vivo pharmacology and transiently inhibited bone marrow (BM) HSPC proliferation. These findings suggest that the combination of CDK4/6 inhibitors (CDK4/6i) with cytotoxic chemotherapy should provide a means to attenuate therapy-induced BM exhaustion in patients with cancer

Targeted mitochondrial therapy using MitoQ shows equivalent renoprotection to angiotensin converting enzyme inhibition but no combined synergy in diabetes.

Mitochondrial dysfunction is a pathological mediator of diabetic kidney disease (DKD). Our objective was to test the mitochondrially targeted agent, MitoQ, alone and in combination with first line therapy for DKD. Intervention therapies (i) vehicle (D); (ii) MitoQ (DMitoQ;0.6 mg/kg/day); (iii) Ramipril (DRam;3 mg/kg/day) or (iv) combination (DCoAd) were administered to male diabetic db/db mice for 12 weeks (n = 11-13/group). Non-diabetic (C) db/m mice were followed concurrently. No therapy altered glycaemic control or body weight. By the study end, both monotherapies improved renal function, decreasing glomerular hyperfiltration and albuminuria. All therapies prevented tubulointerstitial collagen deposition, but glomerular mesangial expansion was unaffected. Renal cortical concentrations of ATP, ADP, AMP, cAMP, creatinine phosphate and ATP:AMP ratio were increased by diabetes and mostly decreased with therapy. A higher creatine phosphate:ATP ratio in diabetic kidney cortices, suggested a decrease in ATP consumption. Diabetes elevated glucose 6-phosphate, fructose 6-phosphate and oxidised (NAD+ and NADP+) and reduced (NADH) nicotinamide dinucleotides, which therapy decreased generally. Diabetes increased mitochondrial oxygen consumption (OCR) at complex II-IV. MitoQ further increased OCR but decreased ATP, suggesting mitochondrial uncoupling as its mechanism of action. MitoQ showed renoprotection equivalent to ramipril but no synergistic benefits of combining these agents were shown

Comparison of 3 Infrared Thermal Detection Systems and Self-Report for Mass Fever Screening

In a hospital setting, the systems had reasonable utility for fever detection

Intravenous sodium nitrite in acute ST-elevation myocardial infarction: a randomized controlled trial (NIAMI).

AIM: Despite prompt revascularization of acute myocardial infarction (AMI), substantial myocardial injury may occur, in part a consequence of ischaemia reperfusion injury (IRI). There has been considerable interest in therapies that may reduce IRI. In experimental models of AMI, sodium nitrite substantially reduces IRI. In this double-blind randomized placebo controlled parallel-group trial, we investigated the effects of sodium nitrite administered immediately prior to reperfusion in patients with acute ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI). METHODS AND RESULTS: A total of 229 patients presenting with acute STEMI were randomized to receive either an i.v. infusion of 70 μmol sodium nitrite (n = 118) or matching placebo (n = 111) over 5 min immediately before primary percutaneous intervention (PPCI). Patients underwent cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (CMR) at 6-8 days and at 6 months and serial blood sampling was performed over 72 h for the measurement of plasma creatine kinase (CK) and Troponin I. Myocardial infarct size (extent of late gadolinium enhancement at 6-8 days by CMR-the primary endpoint) did not differ between nitrite and placebo groups after adjustment for area at risk, diabetes status, and centre (effect size -0.7% 95% CI: -2.2%, +0.7%; P = 0.34). There were no significant differences in any of the secondary endpoints, including plasma troponin I and CK area under the curve, left ventricular volumes (LV), and ejection fraction (EF) measured at 6-8 days and at 6 months and final infarct size (FIS) measured at 6 months. CONCLUSIONS: Sodium nitrite administered intravenously immediately prior to reperfusion in patients with acute STEMI does not reduce infarct size