Missed School Days: A Correlational Study Between Children with Asthma and Presence of School Nurses

Currently, there is a lack of research on the relationship between full-time nurse presence in schools and absenteeism among school-aged children with asthma. The purpose of this paper is to determine the correlation between the amount of time school-aged children are absent and the amount of time a school nurse is absent. A nonexperimental quantitative descriptive correlational study will be conducted with 14 randomly selected participating schools in the Chesapeake public school district. Each school will receive a questionnaire inquiring about the number of asthmatic children enrolled in the school, number of absences of said children, weekly hours the school nurse is present, and number of absences of asthmatic children when the nurse is not present. After obtaining the data from the schools, a single-sample T-test with an alpha of 0.05 will be used for statistical analysis. It is expected to reveal that the number of absences of school-aged children with asthma will have positive correlation with the amount of time the school nurse is absent. The findings of this study will implicate that having a full-time school nurse increases attendance of asthmatic school-aged children

Rx Machina

Please note: creative writing theses are permanently embargoed in OpenBU. No public access is forecasted for these. To request private access, please click on the lock icon and filled out the appropriate web form.Rx Machina unpacks big pharma's impact on everyday American culture through the eyes of five women on the frontlines of the opioid epidemic. An ambitious pharmaceutical sales representative’s relentless pursuit of a rigidly principled pain management doctor leads to an intoxicating, forbidden connection that comes with a cost. Ethical boundaries are blurred in a literal manifestation of doctors being in bed with drug reps that forms a love triangle fueled by money, sex, and power. Searching for humanity in a healthcare system where patients are consumers and pain is profitable, Rx Machina asks who gets to get better and who gets left behind.2999-01-01T00:00:00

How to Sustainably Feed a Microbe: Strategies for Biological Production of Carbon-Based Commodities with Renewable Electricity

As interest and application of renewable energy grows, strategies are needed to align the asynchronous supply and demand. Microbial metabolisms are a potentially sustainable mechanism for transforming renewable electrical energy into biocommodities that are easily stored and transported. Acetogens and methanogens can reduce carbon dioxide to organic products including methane, acetic acid, and ethanol. The library of biocommodities is expanded when engineered metabolisms of acetogens are included. Typically, electrochemical systems are employed to integrate renewable energy sources with biological systems for production of carbon-based commodities. Within these systems, there are three prevailing mechanisms for delivering electrons to microorganisms for the conversion of carbon dioxide to reduce organic compounds: 1) electrons can be delivered to microorganisms via H2 produced separately in a electrolyzer, 2) H2 produced at a cathode can convey electrons to microorganisms supported on the cathode surface and 3) a cathode can directly feed electrons to microorganisms. Each of these strategies has advantages and disadvantages that must be considered in designing full-scale processes. This review considers the evolving understanding of each of these approaches and the state of design for advancing these strategies towards viability

Adapting a denitrifying biocathode for perchlorate reduction

Perchlorate is widely used as a propellant in the aerospace and defense industries, and is of environmental concern due to its high mobility and inhibiting effect on thyroid function. An ideal treatment approach is bioreduction to chloride via dissimilatory perchlorate-reducing bacteria (PCRB). PCRB are ubiquitous in the environment, and are mainly facultative anaerobes and denitrifiers. Previous research suggests that PCRB may grow using a cathode as an electron donor, although this research was performed in a half cell with exogenous electron shuttles. We investigated a functioning MFC with a denitrifying biocathode for perchlorate reduction, as a means to confirm the existence of biocathode-utilizing PCRB and the possibility of perchlorate remediation without added shuttles. The biocathode was initially run with 20 mgN/L nitrate. The perchlorate concentration was increased stepwise from 0.1 mg/L to 20 mg/L, while the nitrate concentration was decreased from 20 mgN/L to 5 mgN/L. The maximum perchlorate removal was 12 mg/L-d, contributing 64% to the 0.28mA produced by the cell. Given the lack of soluble electron donor in the medium, the extent of perchlorate reduction, and the improvement of perchlorate reduction over time, these tests strongly suggest PCRB are utilizing the cathode as an electron donor without exogenous electron shuttles

Enhanced nitrogen removal in bio-electrochemical systems by pH control

Microbial fuel cells can be designed to remove nitrogenous compounds out of wastewater, but their performance is at present limited to 0.33 kg NO3 (-)-Nm(-3) net cathode compartment (NCC) d(-1). By maintaining the pH in the cathode at 7.2, nitrogen removal was increased from 0.22 to 0.50 kg NO3 (-)-Nm(-3) NCC d(-1). Bio-electrochemical active microorganisms seem to struggle with the deterioration of their own environment due to slow proton fluxes. Therefore, the results suggest that an appropriate pH adjustment strategy is necessary to allow a sustained and enhanced biological activity in bio-electrochemical systems

Simplifying Microbial Electrosynthesis Reactor Design

Microbial electrosynthesis, an artificial form of photosynthesis, can efficiently convert carbon dioxide into organic commodities; however, this process has only previously been demonstrated in reactors that have features likely to be a barrier to scale-up. Therefore, the possibility of simplifying reactor design by both eliminating potentiostatic control of the cathode and removing the membrane separating the anode and cathode was investigated with biofilms of Sporomusa ovata, which reduces carbon dioxide to acetate. In traditional ‘H-cell’ reactors, where the anode and cathode chambers were separated with a proton-selective membrane, the rates and columbic efficiencies of microbial electrosynthesis remained high when electron delivery at the cathode was powered with a direct current power source rather than with a poteniostat-poised cathode utilized in previous studies. A membrane-less reactor with a direct-current power source with the cathode and anode positioned to avoid oxygen exposure at the cathode, retained high rates of acetate production as well as high columbic and energetic efficiencies. The finding that microbial electrosynthesis is feasible without a membrane separating the anode from the cathode, coupled with a direct current power source supplying the energy for electron delivery, is expected to greatly simplify future reactor design and lower construction costs