Omnipresent Chemicals: TSCA Preemption in the Wake of PFAS Contamination

Over the past few decades, studies addressing the harms of PFAS have gradually progressed, and now scientists believe increased exposure could lead to reproductive defects and a higher risk of cancer. Given the amplified concern surrounding these pervasive chemicals, states are proactively filing lawsuits on behalf of their citizens and enacting legislation to combat this nation-wide contamination epidemic. However, given the 2016 Amendment to the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976, states looking to regulate the manufacturing or looking to ratify a state- wide ban on the manufacturing of such chemicals may face preemption under actions taken by the United States Environmental Protection Agency. This Note focuses on the possible loss of state autonomy with regards to PFAS regulation. It addresses the issues states might face given the restrictive nature of the newly enacted preemption provisions of the Toxic Substances Control Act, while also examining the Act’s possible deficiencies. Ultimately, recognizing a need for creative solutions outside the scope of manufacturing regulations may provide the best solutions for states to combat these ubiquitous chemicals

God\u27s Design and Phonemic Awareness: What is phonemic awareness, what is phonics, and what does God have to do with it?

Phonemic awareness is the foundation for a child’s literacy development. God’s initial interaction with man after creation, through the spoken word, bestows authority on oral language. Manipulation of language begins in infancy and continues throughout one’s life. Teachers need to understand what phonemic awareness entails in order to develop and assess a child’s development in this area

No. 17: Writing Xenophobia: Immigration and the Press in Post-Apartheid South Africa

The mass media have become one of the most important institutions in modern society, playing a role not only in our learning and education, but also in how we see opportunities for change and improvements in our lives. For these reasons, the media are seen as a powerful vehicle for social transformation and development, and have drawn increasing attention towards themselves in contemporary society. The print media (ie newspapers) are particularly important in this respect, given that the press has traditionally been a provider of information on daily events and, for many people, are the only source of information about events that are not experienced directly. This report discusses the South African print media’s coverage of cross-border migration in the post-apartheid period and how it may affect public opinion on the topic as well as immigration legislation. It is based on a survey that was the first, and most comprehensive, of its kind ever undertaken in the country, drawing on more than 1 200 newspaper clippings about migration from all English-language newspapers between 1994 and 1998. The report presents both a quantitative and qualitative analysis of this media coverage and offers a set of recommendations on how the press could improve its reportage in the future. In sum, the report argues that coverage of international migration by the South African press has been largely anti-immigrant and unanalytical. Not all reportage is negative, and newspaper coverage would appear to be improving over time, but the overwhelming majority of the newspaper articles, editorials and letters to the editor surveyed for this research are negative about immigrants and immigration. They are extremely unanalytical, uncritically reproducing problematic statistics and assumptions about cross-border migration. A large proportion of the articles also reproduce racial and national stereotypes about migrants from other African countries, depicting — for example — Mozambicans as car thieves and Nigerians as drug smugglers. This “criminalisation” of migrants from other parts of Africa is made worse by the more subtle use of terms like “illegal” and “alien”, despite their being roundly criticised by institutions like the United Nations for contributing to misconceptions of an otherwise law-abiding group of people. The aim of this report is not to convince the reader one way or the other about the merits or demerits of migration into South Africa. There is a vast and rapidly growing literature on the subject and the Southern African Migration Project (SAMP) continues to make contributions to this debate. Rather, our intention here is to remind the reader just how complex the migration debate is and how poor a job, in light of this complexity, the media have been doing in providing a more balanced, critical and reflective coverage of the issues. At best, the press have been presenting a very limited perspective on cross-border migration dynamics and, in the process, are leaving the South African public in the dark about the real complexities at play. At worst, the press has been contributing to public xenophobia generally through weaving myths and fabrications around foreigners and immigration. In terms of recommendations, the report makes four general points: Newspapers and wire services should assign one or two journalists to cover migration issues on a regular basis, with the time and resources necessary for covering the issues in an in-depth and critical manner. But resource constraints affecting newspapers militate against this idea; not every newspaper has the luxury of assigning a single person to a particular “beat”. However, given the importance of the migration issue at national and regional level (a point borne out by the sensational coverage already given it by the press), and the fact that it is destined to grow in importance over the coming years, there is justification in giving it the resources required for meaningful coverage. The fact that most of the daily newspapers are owned by only a handful of syndicates makes the resource issue less of a constraint if some of the research and writing were done in a more centralised manner. Journalists and editors should pay particular attention to how they report the immigration statistics they receive from “official sources”. An almost universal acceptance by the press of the misleading “fact” that there are somewhere between 2.5 to 4.1 million undocumented migrants in South Africa is a good example of the need for a more critical assessment of where these numbers come from, how they are obtained, how realistic they are, and what their implications are for thinking around cross-border migration. There is a growing body of literature on both the quantitative and qualitative impacts of migration in Southern Africa and journalists/editors should know what the debates are and who their sources are. Editors should attempt to strike a better balance in the coverage of migration issues. We recognise the need for free expression of ideas and it would be a serious mistake to ignore, or to try and cover-up, the widespread opposition to migrants and immigration that exists in South Africa. But newspapers also have a responsibility to recognise the need for more balanced coverage and should be willing to address the racist and nationalist immigration biases of the past actively. Journalists and editors should address the sensational and “criminalising” language used in articles on migration. The terms “illegal” and “alien” should either be dropped completely and replaced with more neutral terms like “undocumented” or “irregular” migrants and a clear distinction made between the different types of non-citizens in the country. Permanent residents, contract miners, tourists, refugees and undocumented migrants are very different categories of migrants and should be recognised as such

Changes in epithelial secretory cells and potentiation of neurogenic inflammation in the trachea of rats with respiratory tract infections.

In rats respiratory tract infections due to Sendai virus and coronavirus usually are transient, but they can have long-lasting consequences when accompanied by Mycoplasma pulmonis infections. Morphological alterations in the tracheal epithelium and a potentiation of the inflammatory response evoked by sensory nerve stimulation ("neurogenic inflammation") are evident nine weeks after the infections begin, but the extent to which these changes are present at earlier times is not known. In the present study we characterized these abnormalities in the epithelium and determined the extent to which they are present 3 and 6 weeks after the infections begin. We also determined the magnitude of the potentiation of neurogenic inflammation at these times, whether the potentiation can be reversed by glucocorticoids, and whether a proliferation of blood vessels contributes to the abnormally large amount of plasma extravasation associated with this potentiation. To this end, we studied Long-Evans rats that acquired these viral and mycoplasmal infections from other rats. We found that the tracheal epithelium of the infected rats had ten times as many Alcian blue-PAS positive mucous cells as did that of pathogen-free rats; but it contained none of the serous cells typical of pathogen-free rats, so the total number of secretory cells was not increased. In addition, the epithelium of the infected rats had three times the number of ciliated cells and had only a third of the number of globule leukocytes. In response to an injection of capsaicin (150 micrograms/kg i.v.), the tracheas of the infected rats developed an abnormally large amount of extravasation of two tracers, Evans blue dye and Monastral blue pigment, and had an abnormally large number of Monastral blue-labeled venules, particularly in regions of mucosa overlying the cartilaginous rings. This abnormally large amount of extravasation was blocked by dexamethasone (1 mg/day i.p. for 5 days). We conclude that M. pulmonis infections, exacerbated at the outset by viral infections, result within three weeks in the transformation of epithelial serous cells into mucous cells, the proliferation of ciliated cells, and the depletion of globule leukocytes. They also cause a proliferation of mediator-sensitive blood vessels in the airway mucosa, which is likely to contribute to the potentiation of neurogenic inflammation that accompanies these infections

Review of the environmental and organisational implications of cloud computing: final report.

Cloud computing – where elastic computing resources are delivered over the Internet by external service providers – is generating significant interest within HE and FE. In the cloud computing business model, organisations or individuals contract with a cloud computing service provider on a pay-per-use basis to access data centres, application software or web services from any location. This provides an elasticity of provision which the customer can scale up or down to meet demand. This form of utility computing potentially opens up a new paradigm in the provision of IT to support administrative and educational functions within HE and FE. Further, the economies of scale and increasingly energy efficient data centre technologies which underpin cloud services means that cloud solutions may also have a positive impact on carbon footprints. In response to the growing interest in cloud computing within UK HE and FE, JISC commissioned the University of Strathclyde to undertake a Review of the Environmental and Organisational Implications of Cloud Computing in Higher and Further Education [19]

An economical vent cover

Inexpensive formed-plastic vent cover has been developed that allows controlled purge of vent systems and also provides blowout protection. Cover can also be used in relief mode to allow normal system relief flows without disengaging from vent system. Cover consists of two parts made of plastics with varying densities to fit media used and desired pressures