Homeowners’ Willingness to Adopt Environmentally Beneficial Landscape Practices in an Urbanizing Watershed

Streams in urbanizing watersheds often experience low flows in summer due to increased water use for residential landscaping and decreased base flow as impervious land cover limits aquifer recharge. Environmentally beneficial landscape practices that save water and infiltrate runoff have the potential to provide multiple ecological benefits including reducing stress on urban streams, but can face opposition by local homeowners. Thus, this study explored attitudes toward landscape water conservation including the barriers and motivations that exist to adoption of water conserving landscape practices by residents in the Ipswich River watershed north of Boston, Massachusetts (USA) that experiences seasonal water shortages. The study used a mail-out and on-line survey with images of different water conserving landscape practices (including rain gardens and native plantings) and questions about homeowners’ watering practices, likelihood of adopting these landscape practices, and attitudes towards environmental issues in the region, including existing water policies to restrict use. The results showed that residents (n=265) were aware of existing water shortages and supportive of water conservation policies. Their willingness to adopt water conserving landscape practices was influenced by aesthetic preference with more support for practices that appeared neat rather than those that appeared unkempt. Barriers to residential adoption of these landscape practices included concern about disease-carrying pests and the perceived cost of landscape change. Knowledge about the environment, as operationalized by membership in a local watershed association, as well as educational attainment and income were statistically significant variables in predicting aesthetic preferences and willingness to adopt landscape practices. Promoting widespread adoption of water conserving landscape practices could benefit from local community support and educational initiatives about the multiple-benefits of these practices, including potential long-term cost savings for homeowners. Residential landscape design and management, however, are only part of overarching policy changes that could address water conservation in urbanizing watersheds

Minute-of-Arc Resolution Gamma ray Imaging Experiment—MARGIE

MARGIE (Minute-of-Arc Resolution Gamma-ray Imaging Experiment) is a large area(∼104 cm2), wide field-of-view (∼1 sr), hard X-ray/gamma-ray (∼20–600 keV) coded-mask imaging telescope capable of performing a sensitive survey of both steady and transient cosmic sources. MARGIE has been selected for a NASA mission-concept study for an Ultra Long Duration (100 day) Balloon flight. We describe our program to develop the instrument based on new detector technology of either cadmium zinc telluride (CZT) semiconductors or pixellated cesium iodide (CsI) scintillators viewed by fast-timing bi-directional charge-coupled devices (CCDs). The primary scientific objectives are to image faint Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) in near-real-time at the low intensity (high-redshift) end of the logN-logS distribution, thereby extending the sensitivity of present observations, and to perform a wide field survey of the Galactic plane

MARGIE: A gamma-ray burst ultra-long duration balloon mission

We are designing MARGIE as a 100 day ULDB mission to: a) detect and localize gamma-ray bursts; and b) survey the hard X-ray sky. MARGIE will consist of one small field-of-view (FOV) and four large FOV coded mask modules mounted on a balloon gondola. The burst position will be calculated onboard and disseminated in near-real time, while information about every count will be telemetered to the ground for further analysis. In a 100-day mission we will localize ∼40 bursts with peak photon fluxes from 0.14 to ∼5 ph cm−2 s−1 using 1 s integrations; the typical localization resolution will be better than ∼2 arcminutes

Effects of Multivitamin Supplementation on Heart Rate Response in Aerobically Untrained College Aged Students

Multivitamin use is increasingly prevalent in the US among most every population. Yet, previous research noted no performance benefits among individuals following a supplementation period. This study focused on the potential physiological benefits from a three week multivitamin supplementation period using 24 (20.9 ± 2.6yr) aerobically untrained college aged students. Subjects were divided equally into three groups (placebo = PL, multivitamin = MV, control = CL) and asked to perform separate eight minute bouts of exercise, consisting of six min of moderate (60%VO2max) intensity followed immediately by two min of high (85%VO2max) intensity exercise on a cycle ergometer. Following the supplementation period, participants came back and performed the same exercise bout. Heart rates were measured with a POLAR Heart Rate monitor and recorded every two min. Data analysis, using ANOVA comparing the three groups, indicated a statistically significant HR interaction. Post hoc paired t-tests, comparing the pre/post supplementation tests of all groups, noted significant differences in HR between MV group during the 60% VO2 (p = 0.04) intensity bout, and approached significance at 85% VO2 (p = 0.10). No difference occurred for the CL group during either moderate or high intensity exercise. The results indicate that the introduction of a supplement, whether real or placebo, may have a physiological effect on the heart rate of aerobically untrained college students

Comptel observations of the quasar PKS 0528+134

During Phase I and Phase II of the CGRO‐mission, the quasar PKS 0528+134 was in the field of view of the COMPTEL instrument during several viewing periods. The quasar was detected by COMPTEL mainly at energies above 10 MeV. Below 10 MeV there is evidence for the source during some CGRO viewing periods, while below 3 MeV no signal is detected. The detections and non‐detections during different viewing periods follow the trend seen by EGRET, thereby indicating a time‐variable MEV‐flux of the quasar. The COMPTEL spectral results together with the simultaneously measured EGRET spectrum, indicate a spectral break in the upper part of the COMPTEL energy range at energies between 10 MeV and 30 MeV

Addressing Distress Management Challenges: Recommendations From the Consensus Panel of the American Psychosocial Oncology Society and the Association of Oncology Social Work

Distress management (DM) (screening and response) is an essential component of cancer care across the treatment trajectory. Effective DM has many benefits, including improving patients’ quality of life; reducing distress, anxiety, and depression; contributing to medical cost offsets; and reducing emergency department visits and hospitalizations. Unfortunately, many distressed patients do not receive needed services. There are several multilevel barriers that represent key challenges to DM and affect its implementation. The Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research was used as an organizational structure to outline the barriers and facilitators to implementation of DM, including: 1) individual characteristics (individual patient characteristics with a focus on groups who may face unique barriers to distress screening and linkage to services), 2) intervention (unique aspects of DM intervention, including specific challenges in screening and psychosocial intervention, with recommendations for resolving these challenges), 3) processes for implementation of DM (modality and timing of screening, the challenge of triage for urgent needs, and incorporation of patient-reported outcomes and quality measures), 4) organization—inner setting (the context of the clinic, hospital, or health care system); and 5) organization—outer setting (including reimbursement strategies and health-care policy). Specific recommendations for evidence-based strategies and interventions for each of the domains of the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research are also included to address barriers and challenges. CA Cancer J Clin 2021;71:407-436. © 2021 The Authors. CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of American Cancer Society. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made

CASTER: a scintillator-based black hole finder probe

The primary scientific mission of the Black Hole Finder Probe (BHFP), part of the NASA Beyond Einstein program, is to survey the local Universe for black holes over a wide range of mass and accretion rate. One approach to such a survey is a hard X-ray coded-aperture imaging mission operating in the 10-600 keV energy band, a spectral range that is considered to be especially useful in the detection of black hole sources. The development of new inorganic scintillator materials provides improved performance (for example, with regards to energy resolution and timing) that is well suited to the BHFP science requirements. Detection planes formed with these materials coupled with a new generation of readout devices represent a major advancement in the performance capabilities of scintillator-based gamma cameras. Here, we discuss the Coded Aperture Survey Telescope for Energetic Radiation (CASTER), a concept that represents a BHFP based on the use of the latest scintillator technology

CASTER - a concept for a Black Hole Finder Probe based on the use of new scintillator technologies

The primary scientific mission of the Black Hole Finder Probe (BHFP), part of the NASA Beyond Einstein program, is to survey the local Universe for black holes over a wide range of mass and accretion rate. One approach to such a survey is a hard X-ray coded-aperture imaging mission operating in the 10--600 keV energy band, a spectral range that is considered to be especially useful in the detection of black hole sources. The development of new inorganic scintillator materials provides improved performance (for example, with regards to energy resolution and timing) that is well suited to the BHFP science requirements. Detection planes formed with these materials coupled with a new generation of readout devices represent a major advancement in the performance capabilities of scintillator-based gamma cameras. Here, we discuss the Coded Aperture Survey Telescope for Energetic Radiation (CASTER), a concept that represents a BHFP based on the use of the latest scintillator technology.Comment: 12 pages; conference paper presented at the SPIE conference "UV, X-Ray, and Gamma-Ray Space Instrumentation for Astronomy XIV." To be published in SPIE Conference Proceedings, vol. 589

Search for gamma‐ray emission from AGN with COMPTEL

The COMPTEL data (∼0.7–30 MeV) were searched for emission from AGN. Four sources have been detected so far: the quasars 3C 273, 3C 279, PKS 0528+134, and the radio galaxy Centaurus A. 3C 273 and 3C 279 were detected in CGRO observation period 3 with quite different spectral shapes. There is also evidence for 3C 273 at a weak flux level in observation period 11. The quasar PKS 0528+134 was detected above 3 MeV as part of a search for AGN already observed by EGRET. Cen A was seen up to 3 MeV by combining data from different observation periods