GreenSeace

Imagine you are relaxing on the beautiful shores of Fiji. You are currently soaking up the sun with a pina colada in your hand. You feel your skin burning so you decide to cool off in the ocean. As you dive under you get wrapped in a sea of rubbish, everything from plastic bottles, bags and pharmaceutical packaging. You feel claustrophobic and wonder how the marine life survive in such poor conditions. We’ve come up with an idea that will aid in the reduction of water pollution. Clean water is essential for not only human kind, but for the thousands of species that live in the ocean. Many regulations and systems have been enforced to minimise pollution around the world, all working towards the same goal of making the planet cleaner and greener. Our idea is to create biodegradable pharmaceutical packaging by utilising ‘green plastic’. Green plastic is created by combining plant starch and soy protein, as an alternative to petroleum-based products. We plan to use sugarcane crops from the two-main islands in Fiji (Viti Levu and Vanualevu) to produce this environmentally sustainable product. The manufacture and disposal of green plastic involves environment-friendly processes. Environmental sustainability is crucial in rescuing the world and reducing the risk of climate change. This highlights the importance of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of ‘Climate Action’. If we can arrest and decrease the pollution and waste currently going into our waterways, we can play an effective part in limiting the detrimental damage caused to the planet

Level Crossing Analysis of Growing surfaces

We investigate the average frequency of positive slope $\nu_{\alpha}^{+}$, crossing the height $\alpha = h- \bar h$ in the surface growing processes. The exact level crossing analysis of the random deposition model and the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang equation in the strong coupling limit before creation of singularities are given.Comment: 5 pages, two column, latex, three figure

Identification and treatment of the visual processing asymmetry in MS patients with optic neuritis: The Pulfrich phenomenon

BACKGROUND: The Pulfrich phenomenon (PF) is the illusory perception that an object moving linearly along a 2-D plane appears to instead follow an elliptical 3-D trajectory, a consequence of inter-eye asymmetry in the timing of visual object identification in the visual cortex; with optic neuritis as a common etiology. OBJECTIVE: We have designed an objective method to identify the presence and magnitude of the PF, in conjunction with a cooresponding strategy by which to abolish the effect; with monocular application of neutral density filters to the less affected fellow eye, in patients with MS and a history of optic neuropathy (e.g. related to acute optic neuritis or subclinical optic neuropathy). METHODS: Twenty-three MS patients with a history of acute unilateral or bilateral optic neuritis, and ten healthy control subjects (HC) were recruited to participate in a pilot study to assess our strategy. Subjects were asked to indicate whether a linearly moving pendulum ball followed a linear 2-D path versus an illusory 3-D elliptical object-motion trajectory, by reporting the ball's approximation to one of nine horizontally-oriented colored wires that were positioned parallel to one another and horizontal to the linear pendulum path. Perceived motion of the bob that moved along wires behind or in front (along the 'Z' plane) of the middle reference wire indicated an illusory elliptical trajectory of ball motion consistent with the PF. RESULTS: When the neutral density filter titration was applied to the fellow eye the severity of the PF decreased, eventually being fully abolished in all but one patient. The magnitude of neutral density filtering required correlated to the severity of the patient's initial PF magnitude (p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: We ascertained the magnitude of the visual illusion associated with the PF, and the corresponding magnitude of neutral density filtering necessary to abolish it

Global Protection and the Health Impact of Migration Interception

In the fourth article in a six-part PLoS Medicine series on Migration & Health, Zachary Steel and colleagues discuss the interception phase of migration and the specific health risks and policy needs associated with this phase

A922 Sequential measurement of 1 hour creatinine clearance (1-CRCL) in critically ill patients at risk of acute kidney injury (AKI)

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Identification and treatment of the visual processing asymmetry in MS patients with optic neuritis: The Pulfrich phenomenon

Background: The Pulfrich phenomenon (PF) is the illusory perception that an object moving linearly along a 2-D plane appears to instead follow an elliptical 3-D trajectory, a consequence of inter-eye asymmetry in the timing of visual object identification in the visual cortex; with optic neuritis as a common etiology. Objective: We have designed an objective method to identify the presence and magnitude of the PF, in conjunction with a cooresponding strategy by which to abolish the effect; with monocular application of neutral density filters to the less affected fellow eye, in patients with MS and a history of optic neuropathy (e.g. related to acute optic neuritis or subclinical optic neuropathy). Methods: Twenty-three MS patients with a history of acute unilateral or bilateral optic neuritis, and ten healthy control subjects (HC) were recruited to participate in a pilot study to assess our strategy. Subjects were asked to indicate whether a linearly moving pendulum ball followed a linear 2-D path versus an illusory 3-D elliptical object-motion trajectory, by reporting the ball's approximation to one of nine horizontally-oriented colored wires that were positioned parallel to one another and horizontal to the linear pendulum path. Perceived motion of the bob that moved along wires behind or in front (along the ‘Z' plane) of the middle reference wire indicated an illusory elliptical trajectory of ball motion consistent with the PF. Results: When the neutral density filter titration was applied to the fellow eye the severity of the PF decreased, eventually being fully abolished in all but one patient. The magnitude of neutral density filtering required correlated to the severity of the patient's initial PF magnitude (p < 0.001). Conclusions: We ascertained the magnitude of the visual illusion associated with the PF, and the corresponding magnitude of neutral density filtering necessary to abolish it

Solar origins of intense geomagnetic storms in 2002 as seen by the CORONAS-F satellite

International audienceWe analyze solar origins of intense geomagnetic perturbations recorded during 2002. All of them were related to coronal mass ejections (CMEs). The initiation of CMEs was documented using the SPIRIT instrument (SPectrohelIographic Soft X-Ray Imaging Telescope) onboard the CORONAS-F satellite. Monochromatic full Sun images taken in the Mg XII doublet at 8.418 and 8.423 Å showed the appearance of free energy release sites at altitudes up to 0.4 solar radii. CMEs were initiated at these sites and propagated in interplanetary space under appropriate local conditions including the geometry of the magnetic fields