The Emerging Federal Role in Growth Management

In his comment, The Emerging Federal Role in Growth Management, author Jason Rylander argues for a more prominent federal role in state and local land use decisions. The author champions the Clinton-Gore Livability Agenda, a recent proposal designed to encourage state and local governments to adopt certain land use restrictions in exchange for substantial federal funding. Urban sprawl and the resulting traffic congestion experienced by an increasing number of U.S. cities is the fuel behind this sweeping enterprise. Federal intervention in land use policy is not a new phenomenon. The comment documents the numerous federal housing and land use programs implemented in the New Deal era, and suggests that federal intervention into contemporary state and local land planning decisions should be endorsed rather than viewed with suspicion as a threat to federalism. The author evaluates the recent federalism jurisprudence of the United States Supreme Court and concludes that conditioning federal funds on state and local acquiescence of their land use policies to the federal government passes Constitutional muster

The Effects of Music-Induced Emotion on Memory

Emotion can play a highly influential role when it comes to enhancing memory. Research has shown that emotional valence and emotional arousal are two key aspects of emotion responsible for facilitating this (APA, 2013). However, various studies have found contradicting results when it comes to which type of valence (positive or negative) and which level of arousal (high or low) have the greatest memory enhancing effects. Similarly, the majority of previous research has specifically investigated this emotion-memory relationship in terms of memory for emotional content. The present study aims to address this gap by separating emotion from the to-be-learned stimuli, instead investigating how one’s emotional state while encoding neutral information, impacts memory for that information later on. After inducing specific emotional states via exposure to affectively-rated music, subjects were exposed to a video reel composed of various neutral clips of random scenes. Memory was then measured based on performance within a subsequently presented “yes”/ “no\u27\u27 recognition task. Characterizing “conditions\u27\u27 based on the four arousal-valence quadrants of Russell’s circumplex model of emotion (1980): high arousal-positive valence, high arousal-negative valence, low arousal-positive valence, low arousal-negative valence, I predicted that, compared to the other groups, the subjects in the high arousal-negative valence condition would perform best on the memory task. Results did not support this hypothesis, yielding no significant differences in memory performance between the four conditions. The limitations of this study design are considered and suggestions are made for future research

Remediation of Coal Tar Contaminated Porous Medium Systems

The legacy practice of municipal gas production has led to thousands of tar contaminated subsurface systems, which have resulted from the disposal and handling practices of combustion by-products formed during gas manufacturing. These tar wastes can vary widely in composition, but they are essentially always complex mixtures that contain all of the 16 poly-nuclear aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) priority pollutants, and lOO's of other compounds as well. Conventional physicochemical remediation methods have not proven effective for remediating such sites. In this work, a novel approach is investigated based upon alkaline flushing to mobilize the residual tar contamination using a one-dimensional column. A follow-up approach is performed with an ethanol flush to further reduce the flux of PAHs from the treated source zone. More than 50% of the tar residual was removed during the alkaline flushing. Mechanistic understanding of the effects of alkaline solution flushing on wettability and tar mobilization deserve further consideration.Master of Science in Environmental Engineerin

Effect of Localized Mechanical Indentation on Skin Water Content Evaluated Using OCT

The highly disordered refractive index distribution in skin causes multiple scattering of incident light and limits optical imaging and therapeutic depth. We hypothesize that localized mechanical compression reduces scattering by expulsing unbound water from the dermal collagen matrix, increasing protein concentration and decreasing the number of index mismatch interfaces between tissue constituents. A swept-source optical coherence tomography (OCT) system was used to assess changes in thickness and group refractive index in ex vivo porcine skin, as well as changes in signal intensity profile when imaging in vivo human skin. Compression of ex vivo porcine skin resulted in an effective strain of −58.5%, an increase in refractive index from 1.39 to 1.50, and a decrease in water volume fraction from 0.66 to 0.20. In vivo OCT signal intensity increased by 1.5 dB at a depth of 1 mm, possibly due to transport of water away from the compressed regions. These finding suggest that local compression could be used to enhance light-based diagnostic and therapeutic techniques

Gestational Diabetes and Preeclampsia in Association with Air Pollution at Levels below Current Air Quality Guidelines.

Background: Several studies have estimated associations between air pollution and birth outcomes, but few have evaluated potential effects on pregnancy complications.Objective: We investigated whether low-level exposure to air pollution is associated with gestational diabetes and preeclampsia.Methods: High-quality registry information on 81,110 singleton pregnancy outcomes in southern Sweden during 1999-2005 was linked to individual-level exposure estimates with high spatial resolution. Modeled exposure to nitrogen oxides (NOx), expressed as mean concentrations per trimester, and proximity to roads of different traffic densities were used as proxy indicators of exposure to combustion-related air pollution. The data were analyzed by logistic regression, with and without adjusting for potential confounders.Results: The prevalence of gestational diabetes increased with each NOx quartile, with an adjusted odds ratio (OR) of 1.69 (95% CI: 1.41, 2.03) for the highest (> 22.7 µg/m3) compared with the lowest quartile (2.5-8.9 µg/m3) of exposure during the second trimester. The adjusted OR for acquiring preeclampsia after exposure during the third trimester was 1.51 (1.32, 1.73) in the highest quartile of NOx compared with the lowest. Both outcomes were associated with high traffic density, but ORs were significant for gestational diabetes only.Conclusion: NOx exposure during pregnancy was associated with gestational diabetes and preeclampsia in an area with air pollution levels below current air quality guidelines

Mobilization of Manufactured Gas Plant Tar with Alkaline Flushing Solutions

This experimental study investigates the use of alkaline and alkaline-polymer solutions for the mobilization of former manufactured gas plant (FMGP) tars. Tar-aqueous interfacial tensions (IFTs) and contact angles were measured, and column flushing experiments were conducted. NaOH solutions (0.01–1 wt.%) were found to significantly reduce tar-aqueous IFT. Contact angles indicated a shift to strongly water-wet, then to tar-wet conditions as NaOH concentration increased. Column experiments were conducted with flushing solutions containing 0.2, 0.35, and 0.5% NaOH, both with and without xanthan gum (XG). Between 10 and 44% of the residual tar was removed by solutions containing only NaOH, while solutions containing both NaOH and XG removed 81–93% of the tar with final tar saturations as low as 0.018. The mechanism responsible for the tar removal is likely a combination of reduced IFT, a favorable viscosity ratio, and tar bank formation. Such an approach may have practical applications and would be significantly less expensive than surfactant-based methods

Airway management during in-hospital cardiac arrest : An international, multicentre, retrospective, observational cohort study

Correction: Volume: 156 Pages: 194-195 DOI: 10.1016/j.resuscitation.2020.05.028 Published: NOV 2020Aim: To determine the type of airway devices used during in-hospital cardiac arrest (IHCA) resuscitation attempts. Methods: International multicentre retrospective observational study of in-patients aged over 18 years who received chest compressions for cardiac arrest from April 2016 to September 2018. Patients were identified from resuscitation registries and rapid response system databases. Data were collected through review of resuscitation records and hospital notes. Airway devices used during cardiac arrest were recorded as basic (adjuncts or bag-mask), or advanced, including supraglottic airway devices, tracheal tubes or tracheostomies. Descriptive statistics and multivariable regression modelling were used for data analysis. Results: The final analysis included 598 patients. No airway management occurred in 36 (6%), basic airway device use occurred at any time in 562 (94%), basic airway device use without an advanced airway device in 182 (30%), tracheal intubation in 301 (50%), supraglottic airway in 102 (17%), and tracheostomy in 1 (0.2%). There was significant variation in airway device use between centres. The intubation rate ranged between 21% and 90% while supraglottic airway use varied between 1% and 45%. The choice of tracheal intubation vs. supraglottic airway as the second advanced airway device was not associated with immediate survival from the resuscitation attempt (odds ratio 0.81; 95% confidence interval 0.35-1.8). Conclusion: There is wide variation in airway device use during resuscitation after IHCA. Only half of patients are intubated before return of spontaneous circulation and many are managed without an advanced airway. Further investigation is needed to determine optimal airway device management strategies during resuscitation following IHCA.Peer reviewe

The effects of dual PPARα/γ agonism compared with ACE inhibition in the BTBRob/ob mouse model of diabetes and diabetic nephropathy

The leptin-deficient BTBRob/ob mouse develops progressive albuminuria and morphological lesions similar to human diabetic nephropathy (DN), although whether glomerular hyperfiltration, a recognized feature of early DN that may contribute to renal injury, also occurs in this model is not known. Leptin replacement has been shown to reverse the signs of renal injury in this model, but in contrast, the expected renoprotection by angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibition in BTBRob/ob mice seems to be limited. Therefore, to investigate the potential renal benefits of improved metabolic control in this model, we studied the effect of treatment with the dual peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR) α/γ agonist AZD6610 and compared it with the ACE inhibitor enalapril. AZD6610 lowered plasma glucose and triglyceride concentrations and increased liver size, but had no significant effect in reducing albuminuria, whereas enalapril did have an effect. Nephrin and WT1 mRNA expression decreased in the kidneys of BTBRob/ob mice, consistent with podocyte injury and loss, but was unaffected by either drug treatment: at the protein level, both nephrin and WT1-positive cells per glomerulus were decreased. Mesangial matrix expansion was reduced in AZD6610-treated mice. GFR, measured by creatinine clearance, was increased in BTBRob/ob mice, but unaffected by either treatment. Unexpectedly, enalapril-treated mice showed intrarenal arteriolar vascular remodeling with concentric thickening of vessel walls. In summary, we found that the BTBRob/ob mouse model shows some similarities to the early changes seen in human DN, but that ACE inhibition or PPARα/γ agonism afforded limited or no kidney protection

Association between anthropometry and lifestyle factors and risk of B cell lymphoma: an exposome wide analysis.

To better understand the role of individual and lifestyle factors in human disease, an exposome-wide association study was performed to investigate within a single study anthropometry measures and lifestyle factors previously associated with B-cell lymphoma (BCL). Within the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and nutrition study, 2,402 incident BCL cases were diagnosed from 475,426 participants that were followed-up on average 14 years. Standard and penalized Cox regression models as well as principal component (PC) analysis were used to evaluate 84 exposures in relation to BCL risk. Standard and penalized Cox regression models showed a positive association between anthropometric measures and BCL and multiple myeloma/plasma cell neoplasm (MM). The penalized Cox models additionally showed the association between several exposures from categories of physical activity, smoking status, medical history, socioeconomic position, and diet and BCL and/or the subtypes. PC analyses confirmed the individual associations but also showed additional observations. The PC5 including anthropometry, was positively associated with BCL, diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), and MM. There was a significant positive association between consumption of sugar and confectionary (PC11) and follicular lymphoma risk, and an inverse association between fish and shellfish and Vitamin D (PC15) and DLBCL risk. The PC1 including features of the Mediterranean diet and diet with lower inflammatory score showed an inverse association with BCL risk, while the PC7, including dairy, was positively associated with BCL and DLBCL risk. Physical activity (PC10) was positively associated with DLBCL risk among women. This study provided informative insights on the etiology of BCL