Incorporating Environmental Health into Pediatric Medical and Nursing Education

Pediatric medical and nursing education currently lacks the environmental health content necessary to appropriately prepare pediatric health care professionals to prevent, recognize, manage, and treat environmental-exposure–related disease. Leading health institutions have recognized the need for improvements in health professionals’ environmental health education. Parents are seeking answers about the impact of environmental toxicants on their children. Given the biologic, psychological, and social differences between children and adults, there is a need for environmental health education specific to children. The National Environmental Education and Training Foundation, in partnership with the Children’s Environmental Health Network, created two working groups, one with expertise in medical education and one with expertise in nursing education. The working groups reviewed the transition from undergraduate student to professional to assess where in those processes pediatric environmental health could be emphasized. The medical education working group recommended increasing education about children’s environmental health in the medical school curricula, in residency training, and in continuing medical education. The group also recommended the expansion of fellowship training in children’s environmental health. Similarly, the nursing working group recommended increasing children’s environmental health content at the undergraduate, graduate, and continuing nursing education levels. Working groups also identified the key medical and nursing organizations that would be important in leveraging these changes. A concerted effort to prioritize pediatric environmental health by governmental organizations and foundations is essential in providing the resources and expertise to set policy and provide the tools for teaching pediatric environmental health to health care providers

Effect of antenna element properties and array orientation on performance of MIMO systems

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An evaluation of the Change Up programme

This report presents the findings of an evaluation of the Change Up programme

On the solution of trivalent decision problems by quantum state identification

The trivalent functions of a trit can be grouped into equipartitions of three elements. We discuss the separation of the corresponding functional classes by quantum state identifications

Progress in Measurements of the Gravitational Bending of Radio Waves Using the VLBA

We have used the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) at 43, 23 and 15 GHz to measure the solar gravitational deflection of radio waves among four radio sources during an 18-day period in October 2005. Using phase-referenced radio interferometry to fit the measured phase delay to the propagation equation of the parameterized post-Newtonian (PPN) formalism, we have determined the deflection parameter gamma = 0.9998 +/- 0.0003$ (68% confidence level), in agreement with General Relativity. The results come mainly from 43 GHz observations where the refraction effects of the solar corona were negligible beyond 3 degrees from the sun. The purpose of this experiment is three-fold: to improve on the previous results in the gravitational bending experiments near the solar limb; to examine and evaluate the accuracy limits of terrestrial VLBI techniques; and to determine the prospects and outcomes of future experiments. Our conclusion is that a series of improved designed experiments with the VLBA could increase the presented accuracy by at least a factor of 4.Comment: 22 pages, 3 figure

Global data for ecology and epidemiology: a novel algorithm for temporal Fourier processing MODIS data

Background. Remotely-sensed environmental data from earth-orbiting satellites are increasingly used to model the distribution and abundance of both plant and animal species, especially those of economic or conservation importance. Time series of data from the MODerate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) sensors on-board NASA's Terra and Aqua satellites offer the potential to capture environmental thermal and vegetation seasonality, through temporal Fourier analysis, more accurately than was previously possible using the NOAA Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) sensor data. MODIS data are composited over 8- or 16-day time intervals that pose unique problems for temporal Fourier analysis. Applying standard techniques to MODIS data can introduce errors of up to 30% in the estimation of the amplitudes and phases of the Fourier harmonics. Methodology/Principal Findings. We present a novel spline-based algorithm that overcomes the processing problems of composited MODIS data. The algorithm is tested on artificial data generated using randomly selected values of both amplitudes and phases, and provides an accurate estimate of the input variables under all conditions. The algorithm was then applied to produce layers that capture the seasonality in MODIS data for the period from 2001 to 2005. Conclusions/Significance. Global temporal Fourier processed images of 1 km MODIS data for Middle Infrared Reflectance, day- and night-time Land Surface Temperature (LST), Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), and Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) are presented for ecological and epidemiological applications. The finer spatial and temporal resolution, combined with the greater geolocational and spectral accuracy of the MODIS instruments, compared with previous multi-temporal data sets, mean that these data may be used with greater confidence in species' distribution modelling