7,007 research outputs found
Cold climate water/wastewater transportation and treatment - a bibliography: completion report
This bibliography contains 1,400 citations, including published and unpublished papers, on cold-climate water and wastewater transportation and treatment systems. Sources listed include state and federal agency files which contain information on systems in Alaskan communities and
the Alyeska Pipeline Service Company camps. References to systems in other northern countries are also included.
The objectives of this study were to identify causes of the failure of Alaskan water and wastewater treatment and transportation facilities and to seek methods for design improvements. Originally, the investigators contemplated an evaluation of systems performance in remote areas
in relation to the original conception, planning, design, and construction.
Because of the tremendous amount of literature examined, the evaluation was undertaken in a subsequent study, "Alaska Wastewater Treatment Technology" (A-058-ALAS) by Dr. Ronald A. Johnson.OWRT AGREEMENT NO. 14-31-0001-5002
PROJECT NO. A-047-ALAS The work upon which this completion report is based was supported by funds provided by the U. S. Department of the Interior, Office of Water
Research and Technology, as authorized under the Water Resources Research
Act of 1964, Public Law 88-379, as amended
The cost of environmental lead (Pb) poisoning in Nigeria
The pervasiveness of human health impacts and ecosystem effects of lead (Pb) is not controversial, but there are serious arguments about the pace at which Pb should be eliminated from consumer products. Presumably, these arguments can be resolved by converting costs and benefits of Pb use to similar units, a notorious methodological challenge for health impacts in developing countries. To estimate the costs of Pb poisoning attributable to petrochemicals in Nigeria, we conducted a meta-analysis of measured blood lead levels (BLL) and we used published Relative Risk values for disease categories to estimate the proportion of overall disease burden attributable to Pb. We modeled the health costs of Pb exposure and we compared this to the cost of banning Pb. We estimate that Pb exposure accounts for 7 - 25% of the disease burden among Nigerian children, costing the health and education sectors 0.076 – 0.23 billion year-1. If a Pb phase-out program is instituted now to lower the national BLL to 1 μg/dL by 2020, a savings of $2.7-8.0 billion would be realized.Keywords: Lead (Pb) poisoning, Cost-benefit analysis, Diseases, Petrochemicals Afric
Safety and efficacy of intrathecal ziconotide in the management of severe chronic pain
Ziconotide is a conopeptide intrathecal (IT) analgesic which is approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the management of severe chronic pain. It is a synthetic equivalent of a naturally occurring conopeptide found in the venom of the fish-eating marine cone snail and provides analgesia via binding to N-type voltage-sensitive calcium channels in the spinal cord. As ziconotide is a peptide, it is expected to be completely degraded by endopeptidases and exopeptidases (Phase I hydrolytic enzymes) widely located throughout the body, and not by other Phase I biotransformation processes (including the cytochrome P450 system) or by Phase II conjugation reactions. Thus, IT administration, low plasma ziconotide concentrations, and metabolism by ubiquitous peptidases make metabolic interactions of other drugs with ziconotide unlikely. Side effects of ziconotide which tend to occur more commonly at higher doses may include: nausea, vomiting, confusion, postural hypotension, abnormal gait, urinary retention, nystagmus/amblyopia, drowsiness/somnolence (reduced level of consciousness), dizziness or lightheadedness, weakness, visual problems (eg, double vision), elevation of serum creatine kinase, or vestibular side effects. Initially, when ziconotide was first administered to human subjects, titration schedules were overly aggressive and led to an abundance of adverse effects. Subsequently, clinicians have gained appreciation for ziconotide’s relatively narrow therapeutic window. With appropriate usage multiple studies have shown ziconotide to be a safe and effective intrathecal analgesic alone or in combination with other intrathecal analgesics
Cellular aging and restorative processes: Subjective sleep quality and duration moderate the association between age and telomere length in a sample of middle-aged and older adults
pre-printStudy Objectives: To examine whether subjective sleep quality and sleep duration moderate the association between age and telomere length (TL). Design: Participants completed a demographic and sleep quality questionnaire, followed by a blood draw. Setting: Social Neuroscience Laboratory. Participants: One hundred fifty-four middle-aged to older adults (age 45-77 y) participated. Participants were excluded if they were on immunosuppressive treatment and/or had a disease with a clear immunologic (e.g., cancer) component. Interventions: N/A. Measurements and Results: Subjective sleep quality and sleep duration were assessed using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) and TL was determined using peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs). There was a significant first-order negative association between age and TL. Age was also negatively associated with the self-reported sleep quality item and sleep duration component of the PSQI. A significant age × self-reported sleep quality interaction revealed that age was more strongly related to TL among poor sleepers, and that good sleep quality attenuated the association between age and TL. Moreover, adequate subjective sleep duration among older adults (i.e. greater than 7 h per night) was associated with TL comparable to that in middle-aged adults, whereas sleep duration was unrelated to TL for the middle-aged adults in our study. Conclusions: The current study provides evidence for an association between sleep quality, sleep duration, and cellular aging. Among older adults, better subjective sleep quality was associated with the extent of cellular aging, suggesting that sleep duration and sleep quality may be added to a growing list of modifiable behaviors associated with the adverse effects of aging
Experimental Synthetic Aperture Radar with Dynamic Metasurfaces
We investigate the use of a dynamic metasurface as the transmitting antenna
for a synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging system. The dynamic metasurface
consists of a one-dimensional microstrip waveguide with complementary electric
resonator (cELC) elements patterned into the upper conductor. Integrated into
each of the cELCs are two diodes that can be used to shift each cELC resonance
out of band with an applied voltage. The aperture is designed to operate at K
band frequencies (17.5 to 20.3 GHz), with a bandwidth of 2.8 GHz. We
experimentally demonstrate imaging with a fabricated metasurface aperture using
existing SAR modalities, showing image quality comparable to traditional
antennas. The agility of this aperture allows it to operate in spotlight and
stripmap SAR modes, as well as in a third modality inspired by computational
imaging strategies. We describe its operation in detail, demonstrate
high-quality imaging in both 2D and 3D, and examine various trade-offs
governing the integration of dynamic metasurfaces in future SAR imaging
platforms
Coulomb crystal mass spectrometry in a digital ion trap
We present a mass spectrometric technique for identifying the masses and relative abundances of Coulomb-crystallized ions held in a linear Paul trap. A digital radio-frequency wave form is employed to generate the trapping potential, as this can be cleanly switched off, and static dipolar fields are subsequently applied to the trap electrodes for ion ejection. Close to 100% detection efficiency is demonstrated for Ca+ and CaF+ ions from bicomponent Ca+ − CaF+ Coulomb crystals prepared by the reaction of Ca+ with CH3F. A quantitative linear relationship is observed between ion number and the corresponding integrated time-of-flight (TOF) peak, independent of the ionic species. The technique is applicable to a diverse range of multicomponent Coulomb crystals—demonstrated here for Ca+ − NH3+ − NH4+ and Ca+ − CaOH+ − CaOD+ crystals—and will facilitate the measurement of ion-molecule reaction rates and branching ratios in complicated reaction systems
Dynamic Analysis of Executables to Detect and Characterize Malware
It is needed to ensure the integrity of systems that process sensitive
information and control many aspects of everyday life. We examine the use of
machine learning algorithms to detect malware using the system calls generated
by executables-alleviating attempts at obfuscation as the behavior is monitored
rather than the bytes of an executable. We examine several machine learning
techniques for detecting malware including random forests, deep learning
techniques, and liquid state machines. The experiments examine the effects of
concept drift on each algorithm to understand how well the algorithms
generalize to novel malware samples by testing them on data that was collected
after the training data. The results suggest that each of the examined machine
learning algorithms is a viable solution to detect malware-achieving between
90% and 95% class-averaged accuracy (CAA). In real-world scenarios, the
performance evaluation on an operational network may not match the performance
achieved in training. Namely, the CAA may be about the same, but the values for
precision and recall over the malware can change significantly. We structure
experiments to highlight these caveats and offer insights into expected
performance in operational environments. In addition, we use the induced models
to gain a better understanding about what differentiates the malware samples
from the goodware, which can further be used as a forensics tool to understand
what the malware (or goodware) was doing to provide directions for
investigation and remediation.Comment: 9 pages, 6 Tables, 4 Figure
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