GLOBAL ASSESSMENT OF RADIOCARBON ISOTOPIC ANALYSIS FOR PARTICULATE AND DISSOLVED ORGANIC CARBON IN RIVERINE SYSTEMS

Rivers are a significant source of particulate and dissolved organic carbon (POC, DOC) into inland waters and coastal systems and provide a fundamental linkage between the terrestrial, oceanic, and atmospheric carbon reservoirs. Recent studies have examined the relationship between the quantity and form (POC vs. DOC) of carbon delivered to the aquatic system; however, little is known about the age of POC and DOC exported and how the radiocarbon age may vary with latitude, topographic gradient, vegetation, and land use. I provide the first global synthesis of published radiocarbon values of POC and DOC (∆14C). Inclusion of DOC and POC parameters (µM, δ13C, ∆14C) reveal significant driving forces of DOC (µM), latitude, and elevation (m) as capable of explaining 25% of the variability in DO14C in rivers and POC (µM) and latitude accounting for 15% of the variability in PO14C. When δ13C of DOC and POC and latitude were incorporated with ∆14C of DOC observations, 61% of the variability in DOC age was explained revealing the necessity to include dissolved and particulate fractions of organic carbon to yield the most robust predictive models. This study found a global trend of increasing age of DOC and increasing δ13C of DOC and POC with increasing latitude. My study suggests future research should incorporate both particulate and dissolved OC parameters along with elevation, vegetation, land cover, and climate zones to increase understanding of what drives the age of carbon exported in riverine systems

Tunable Release of BMP-2 From Thiol-ene Click Hydrogels

With over 6.3 million fractures that occur in the United States each year, autogenic and allogenic bone sources are becoming a dwindling resource. Bone Morphogenetic Protein-2 (BMP-2) has been shown to induce osteoblast differentiation, but uncontrolled release of these growth factors can cause potentially life threatening complications to occur. This issue provides motivation for the development of synthetic polymer based drug delivery systems, more specifically hydrogels, due to their tunability of the mesh size, rate of degradation, and ability to incorporate different growth factor-binding chemical moieties, such as bisphosphonates. Bisphosphonate is an affinity ligand that has been shown to electrostatically interact with BMP-2 and can be tethered into hydrogel matrices in order to non-covalently control release and maintain the bioactivity of the growth factor. In this study, we compare controlled release of osteogenic growth factor BMP-2 from tunable poly(ethylene glycol) hydrogels that were functionalized with varying amounts of the bisphosphonate sodium alendronate. By characterizing our hydrogel system through storage modulus and swelling ratio measurements and monitoring growth factor release rate through a rhBMP-2 specific ELISA assay, we found significant differences in release over a period of one week due to varying incorporation of bisphosphonate. These results indicate the need for further investigation to explore the release and tunability of our platform

Mount Carmel Area Public Library Sustainability Plan

This 71 page report provides an analysis of potential strategies for the Mount Carmel Area Public Library in Mount Carmel, PA, to improve their operations. This includes analysis of a community survey on potential services, possible changes to operation strategies, and an overview of funding model options. This entry includes two documents, the 71 page final report and a pdf of an accompanying Powerpoint slide deck found under Additional Files below. This report was developed by a group of Bucknell University Managing for Sustainability student researchers in a senior capstone course MSUS 400 taught by Prof. Eric Martin

Factors Driving Local Health Department’s Collaboration with Other Organizations in the Provision of Personal Healthcare Services

Background: Recent work has highlighted the necessity of integrating primary care services and public health to improve quality and reduce the cost of healthcare. Research Objectives: To describe levels of partnership between local health departments (LHD) and other organizations in the community in the provision of personal healthcare services; and to assess LHD organizational characteristics and community factors that contribute to partnerships. Data Sets and Sources: Data were drawn from the 2013 NACCHO Profile Study (Module 1) and the Area Health Resource File. A total of 490 LHDs responded to Module 1, where LHDs were asked to describe the level of partnership for selected programs including three personal healthcare services—Maternal and Child Health (MCH), communicable/infectious disease control, and chronic disease prevention. The five levels of partnership were measured on an ordinal level from “not involved”, “networking”, “coordinating”, “cooperating”, to “collaborating”, with “collaborating” as the highest level of partnership. The level of partnership in these three personal healthcare services were the outcomes examined in this analysis. Covariates included both LHD organizational and community factors. Study Design: This is a cross-sectional study, based on secondary data from multiple sources, linked at the LHD as a unit of observation. Analysis: Three ordinal logistic regression models were run to assess factors associated with higher levels of partnership in the three personal healthcare programs. Data analyses were conducted using Stata 13 SVY procedures to account for the Profile Study’s survey design. Principal Findings:Overall, proportions of LHDs at the five levels of partnership—not involved, networking, coordinating, cooperating , and collaborating—for MCH were 11.8%, 12.4%, 28.3%, 24.9%, and 22.6%; for infectious disease control were 8.1%, 3.9%, 27.6%, 31.8%, and 28.9%; for chronic disease prevention were 10.4%, 14.2%, 37.7%, 21.2%, and 16.5%, respectively The proportion of LHDs engaged in collaboration, the highest level of partnership, increased with LHD jurisdiction population size. For MCH, 14.1% of LHDs with =500,000 people reported collaboration (p=500,000 reported collaboration with other organizations in the community (p Conclusion: Level of partnership varied across LHDs of different jurisdiction population sizes. And the level of partnership was highest for infectious disease control, and the lowest in chronic disease prevention. Implications for Public Health Practice and Policy: Factors that might promote LHD’s collaboration in the provision of personal health care services include having a public health physician on staff, higher per capita expenditure, and conducting a community health assessment

Local Health Departments’ Costs of Providing Environmental Health Services

Background: A detailed understanding of the costs that local health departments (LHDs) incur in the provision of public health services plays an important role in their efforts to provide services in an effective and efficient manner. However, surprisingly little evidence exists about the key cost components that LHDs incur in the provision of services. Purpose: The purpose of this report was to provide empirical estimates of LHDs’ cost structure. Methods: Using cost information for 2012 from 15 LHDs in North Carolina for two public health services—food and lodging and onsite water—this report first presents estimates of the total costs per service provided. In a second step, total costs are decomposed into key components, including direct and indirect costs. Both data collection and analysis were conducted in 2014. Results: For the LHDs examined in this report, median cost per service amounted to $145 for food and lodging and$82 for onsite water. Service costs, however, varied widely across agencies. Decomposition showed that direct labor costs represented more than 80% of total costs. Other direct costs accounted for 10% to 15% of total costs, while indirect costs represented 5% to 6% of total costs. Implications: The finding that labor costs represent a majority of the total costs of service provision has important implications for public health practitioners. Perhaps most importantly, for the purpose of costing public health services, estimation procedures may be simplified by focusing primarily on the cost of labor required to provide any given service

A Tool to Cost Environmental Health Services in North Carolina Local Health Departments

Introduction: The cost of providing a basic set of public health services necessary not been well-described. Recent work suggests public health practitioners are unlikely to have the empirically-based financing information necessary to make informed decisions regarding practice. The purpose of this paper is to describe the development of a costing tool used to collect primary data on the number of services provided, staff employed, and costs incurred for two types of mandated environmental health services: food and lodging inspections and onsite water services. Methods: The tool was iteratively reviewed, revised, and piloted with local health department (LHD) environmental health and finance managers. LHDs (n=15) received technical support to estimate costs for fiscal year 2012. Results: The tool contained the following sections: Agency/Respondent Information, Service Counts, Direct Labor Costs, Direct Non-Labor Costs, and Indirect/Overhead Costs. The time required to complete the tool ranged from 2 to 12 hours (median = 4). Implications: LHDs typically did not track costs by program area, nor did they acknowledge indirect costs or costs absorbed by the county. Nonetheless, this costing tool is one of the first to estimate costs associated with environmental health programs at the LHD level and has important implications for practitioners and researchers, particularly when these limitations are recognized

SN1991bg-like supernovae are associated with old stellar populations

SN1991bg-like supernovae are a distinct subclass of thermonuclear supernovae (SNe Ia). Their spectral and photometric peculiarities indicate their progenitors and explosion mechanism differ from `normal' SNe Ia. One method of determining information about supernova progenitors we cannot directly observe is to observe the stellar population adjacent to the apparent supernova explosion site to infer the distribution of stellar population ages and metallicities. We obtain integral field observations and analyse the spectra extracted from regions of projected radius $\sim\,\mathrm{kpc}$ about the apparent SN explosion site for 11 91bg-like SNe in both early- and late-type galaxies. We utilize full-spectrum spectral fitting to determine the ages and metallicities of the stellar population within the aperture. We find that the majority of the stellar populations that hosted 91bg-like supernovae have little recent star formation. The ages of the stellar populations suggest that that 91bg-like SN progenitors explode after delay times of $>6\,\mathrm{Gyr}$, much longer than the typical delay time of normal SNe Ia, which peaks at $\sim 1\,\mathrm{Gyr}$.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures, 3 tables, submitted to Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australi

Engage the Sages: A Model for Offering Professional Development to Faculty and Graduate Students in Teaching

Even at large, state research universities, teaching is the institution’s core mission. Accordingly, we designed, publicized, and offered a professional development series to enhance the teaching skills and excellence of our faculty and graduate students at our large, state research university. Our professional development series consisted of 18 voluntary events, seminars, and workshops over the course of the academic year. Participants who completed a specified number of event surveys and an overall reflection earned a professional development certificate in teaching. Data indicated that our series was personally valuable to our participants, and they believed it promoted teaching at our university

The Effects of Wearing a Portable Media Armband on Muscle Activation of the Biceps Brachii

International Journal of Exercise Science 16(1): 1461-1470, 2023. Portable media armbands are commonly used among the physically active population. Their effect on muscle function has not been established. The purpose of this study was to determine if muscle activation of the biceps brachii is influenced by wearing a portable media armband during an elbow flexion exercise. Eighteen participants (11 males: age = 22.5 ± 2.1 years, height = 178.3 ± 5.2 cm, mass = 85.0 ± 6.5 kg; 7 females: age = 22.9 ± 2.5 years, height = 168.3 ± 5.7 cm, mass = 72.3 ± 12.2 kg) with no history of upper extremity injury volunteered for the study. Participants performed elbow flexion trials with a hand-held dumbbell with and without wearing a portable media armband. Dumbbell weight was determined by an 8-10 repetition maximum, and the condition was counterbalanced. The average concentric and eccentric phases for five trials for each condition were normalized to a maximum voluntary isometric contraction using electromyography. The independent variable was condition (with-PMAB and without-PMAB). The dependent variable was the muscle activation of the biceps brachii. Mean data for each condition were analyzed using separate paired-samples t-tests for the concentric and eccentric phases (p \u3c 0.05). Statistical analysis revealed a significant difference for the concentric phase (t17 = 2.905; p = 0.010). The with-PMAB condition elicited greater muscle activation (72.57 ± 36.31%) compared to the without-PMAB (63.67 ± 26.2%), with a medium effect size (d = 0.69). There was no statistical difference for the eccentric phase (t17 = 1.964; p = 0.066), and a small effect size (d = 0.46). The increase in muscle activation during the concentric phase is likely due to a change in the muscle properties due to the compressive force applied to the muscle fibers by the portable media armband