Is the Public Aware of Water Quality Monitoring and Safety Notifications on Beaches?

Recreational water-related activities have important public health benefits, however, pollution at beaches may have serious health risks. Although there is a substantial amount of research and policies in place at federal and state levels, oftentimes these efforts may not be well translated to the public. This paper evaluates the effectiveness of routine water quality monitoring and warning systems in Georgia, USA. A survey was conducted among 238 beachgoers in Georgia, asking about awareness of water quality monitoring and warning signs for beach advisories. Surveys were collected directly at beaches as well as through an online questionnaire. Results show that more than a third of the respondents (36.1%) are unaware that Georgia beaches are monitored for water quality and public health with nearly two-thirds (64.7%) feeling current signage is inadequate. Most (89.9%) want signs to report the sources of pollution. Residents (compared to visitors), older, White, wealthier, and college-educated respondents are more likely to be aware of water monitoring. In terms of having ever read a water quality advisory, residents and older respondents are more likely to have read a warning. While most respondents have read such warning signs, a large percentage, 41.2%, have never read any beach advisory. Public health and environmental agencies must improve communications about polluted waters to the public using symbols and campaigns with a special emphasis on visitors and younger beachgoers

Is the Public Aware of Water Quality Monitoring and Safety Notifications on Beaches?

Recreational water-related activities have important public health benefits, however, pollution at beaches may have serious health risks. Although there is a substantial amount of research and policies in place at federal and state levels, oftentimes these efforts may not be well translated to the public. This paper evaluates the effectiveness of routine water quality monitoring and warning systems in Georgia, USA. A survey was conducted among 238 beachgoers in Georgia, asking about awareness of water quality monitoring and warning signs for beach advisories. Surveys were collected directly at beaches as well as through an online questionnaire. Results show that more than a third of the respondents (36.1%) are unaware that Georgia beaches are monitored for water quality and public health with nearly two-thirds (64.7%) feeling current signage is inadequate. Most (89.9%) want signs to report the sources of pollution. Residents (compared to visitors), older, White, wealthier, and college-educated respondents are more likely to be aware of water monitoring. In terms of having ever read a water quality advisory, residents and older respondents are more likely to have read a warning. While most respondents have read such warning signs, a large percentage, 41.2%, have never read any beach advisory. Public health and environmental agencies must improve communications about polluted waters to the public using symbols and campaigns with a special emphasis on visitors and younger beachgoers

Analysis of Astrometry and Photometry Observations of Asteroids at the RTT150

4 p.International audienceThe space astrometric mission Gaia, a cornerstone of the European Space Agency, will be launched in 2012 with the objective to make a 3D precise map of our Galaxy. The Gaia will furnish positions, distances and motions of a billion stars with unprecedented precision. Beside stars, the Gaia will observe asteroids with unprecedented precision from 0.5 to 3 mas, allowing the extremely fine orbit determinations (Tanga et al., 2008). This precision has great significance for the determination of small effects influencing the dynamics (relativistic, gravitational, non-gravitational, etc.) of Solar system bodies. The determination of masses of a hundred asteroids with a relative precision better than 50% is expected in 5 years of Gaia operation (Mouret et al, 2007)

Astronomical Site Selection for Turkey Using GIS Techniques

A site selection of potential observatory locations in Turkey have been carried out by using Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) coupled with Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and satellite imagery which in turn reduced cost and time and increased the accuracy of the final outcome. The layers of cloud cover, digital elevation model, artificial lights, precipitable water vapor, aerosol optical thickness and wind speed were studied in the GIS system. In conclusion of MCDA, the most suitable regions were found to be located in a strip crossing from southwest to northeast including also a diverted region in southeast of Turkey. These regions are thus our prime candidate locations for future on-site testing. In addition to this major outcome, this study has also been applied to locations of major observatories sites. Since no goal is set for \textit{the best}, the results of this study is limited with a list of positions. Therefore, the list has to be further confirmed with on-site tests. A national funding has been awarded to produce a prototype of an on-site test unit (to measure both astronomical and meteorological parameters) which might be used in this list of locations.Comment: 17 pages, 10 figures, accepted by Experimental Astronom

'Round the Clock Observations of the Q0957+561 A,B Gravitationally Lensed Quasar

An observing campaign with 10 participating observatories has undertaken to monitor the optical brightness of the Q0957 gravitationally lensed quasar for 10 consecutive nights in January 2000. The resulting A image brightness curve has significant brightness fluctuations and makes a photometric prediction for the B image light curve for a second campaign planned for 12-21 March 2001. The ultimate purpose is to determine the gravitational lens time delay to a fraction of an hour, and to seek evidence for rapid microlensing.Comment: 8 pages, AASTeX 4.0, accepted by the Astrophysical Journa

Recent Advances in Health Biotechnology During Pandemic

The outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which emerged in 2019, cut the epoch that will make profound fluctuates in the history of the world in social, economic, and scientific fields. Urgent needs in public health have brought with them innovative approaches, including diagnosis, prevention, and treatment. To exceed the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, various scientific authorities in the world have procreated advances in real time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) based diagnostic tests, rapid diagnostic kits, the development of vaccines for immunization, and the purposing pharmaceuticals for treatment. Diagnosis, treatment, and immunization approaches put for- ward by scientific communities are cross-fed from the accrued knowledge of multidisciplinary sciences in health biotechnology. So much so that the pandemic, urgently prioritized in the world, is not only viral infections but also has been the pulsion in the development of novel approaches in many fields such as diagnosis, treatment, translational medicine, virology, mi- crobiology, immunology, functional nano- and bio-materials, bioinformatics, molecular biol- ogy, genetics, tissue engineering, biomedical devices, and artificial intelligence technologies. In this review, the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the development of various scientific areas of health biotechnology are discussed

Around the Clock Observations of the Q0957+561 A,B Gravitationally Lensed Quasar II: Results for the second observing season

We report on an observing campaign in March 2001 to monitor the brightness of the later arriving Q0957+561 B image in order to compare with the previously published brightness observations of the (first arriving) A image. The 12 participating observatories provided 3543 image frames which we have analyzed for brightness fluctuations. From our classical methods for time delay determination, we find a 417.09 +/- 0.07 day time delay which should be free of effects due to incomplete sampling. During the campaign period, the quasar brightness was relatively constant and only small fluctuations were found; we compare the structure function for the new data with structure function estimates for the 1995--6 epoch, and show that the structure function is statistically non-stationary. We also examine the data for any evidence of correlated fluctuations at zero lag. We discuss the limits to our ability to measure the cosmological time delay if the quasar's emitting surface is time resolved, as seems likely.Comment: AAS LaTeX, 5 PostScript figure