Preliminary Study on Treatment of Contaminated Groundwater from the Taylorville Gasifier Site

Groundwater and soil at the site of an abandoned coal gasification plant in Taylorville, Illinois have been contaminated with compounds associated with coal conversion process waters. A preliminary study to assess the feasibility of using ethanol as a means of increasing the solubility of compounds adsorbed within the soil matrix followed by treatment of the ethanol/groundwater extract in an expanded-bed anaerobic granular activated carbon (GAC) reactor was conducted. Results of the study indicate that compounds in the groundwater are highly adsorb able on GAC, and do not interfere with the anaerobic degradation of ethanol in the reactor. Soil extractions with varying ethanol/water ratios were able to remove many additional low water solubility compounds from the soil.ENR Contract Number HWR87035published or submitted for publicationis peer reviewe

The effects of peer influence on adolescent pedestrian road-crossing decisions

Objective: Adolescence is a high-risk period for pedestrian injury. It is also a time of heightened susceptibility to peer influence. The aim of this research was to examine the effects of peer influence on the pedestrian road-crossing decisions of adolescents. Methods: Using 10 videos of road-crossing sites, 80 16- to 18-year-olds were asked to make pedestrian road-crossing decisions. Participants were assigned to one of 4 experimental conditions: negative peer (influencing unsafe decisions), positive peer (influencing cautious decisions), silent peer (who observed but did not comment), and no peer (the participant completed the task alone). Peers from the adolescent’s own friendship group were recruited to influence either an unsafe or a cautious decision. Results: Statistically significant differences were found between peer conditions. Participants least often identified safe road-crossing sites when accompanied by a negative peer and more frequently identified dangerous road-crossing sites when accompanied by a positive peer. Both cautious and unsafe comments from a peer influenced adolescent pedestrians’ decisions. Conclusions: These findings showed that road-crossing decisions of adolescents were influenced by both unsafe and cautious comments from their peers. The discussion highlighted the role that peers can play in both increasing and reducing adolescent risk-taking

Immigrants and the Community

First in a series based on the research project "Integrating the Needs of Immigrant Workers and Rural Communities," which attempts to inform New York communities about the nature and consequences of increasing immigrant settlement.Many upstate New York communities have experienced population loss and decline in the last decade. Increasing numbers of immigrants have settled in many of these communities, which poses possible community development challenges and opportunities. Because each community must address these issues in its own way, this report is intended to make communities aware of changes in their populations and highlight issues they may choose to address.USDA Fund for Rural America (grant #2001-36201-11283) and Cornell University Agricultural Experiment Station (grant #33452

Immigrants and the Community: Farmworkers with Families

Second in a series based on the research project ?Integrating the Needs of Immigrant Workers and Rural Communities,? which attempts to inform New York communities about the nature and consequences of increasing immigrant settlement.America's hired farm workforce has changed considerably in the last decade. The most apparent change has been its "latinization" during the past two decades. This is largely a consequence of large numbers of Mexicans coming to the United States to work. Although Mexican immigrants work in numerous industries across the American landscape, they are especially important in agriculture. There has been a growing tendency of farmworkers to settle in rural communities together with their immediate family. But how and to what extent does community integration occur? How do foreigners who have little familiarity with American culture become integrated into the community? Answers to these questions have practical importance to farmers interested in retaining their workforce, service providers working to improve farmworker well-being and communities interested in helping the new residents contribute to community development. To help us understand the factors that both promote and limit the integration of immigrants into rural communities, we chose for study five New York agricultural communities in different economic and social contexts that have relied heavily on hired farm labor. Each community has a minority population of some significance and a history of immigrant farmworkers settling there

The effects of polygamy on children and adolescents: a systematic review

The objective was to review research that examined the effects of polygyny (a specific form of polygamy) on children and adolescents. A systematic literature search and review was conducted of research published 1994–2014 that focused on psychological variables, primary data collection, and compared data on children and adolescents from polygynous families with monogamous families. Critical analysis included the relevance of methods to the culture, including the psychometric properties reported. A total of 13 papers satisfied the inclusion criteria. The review found more mental health problems, social problems and lower academic achievement for children and adolescents from polygynous than monogamous families. Similarities between children and adolescents from polygynous and monogamous families included self-esteem, anxiety and depression scores. Although polygynous family structures appear to have detrimental effects on children and adolescents, the mediating effects of parental education, economy and family functioning need to be investigated

Anisotropic splitting of intersubband spin plasmons in quantum wells with bulk and structural inversion asymmetry

In semiconductor heterostructures, bulk and structural inversion asymmetry and spin-orbit coupling induce a k-dependent spin splitting of valence and conduction subbands, which can be viewed as being caused by momentum-dependent crystal magnetic fields. This paper studies the influence of these effective magnetic fields on the intersubband spin dynamics in an asymmetric n-type GaAs/AlGaAs quantum well. We calculate the dispersions of intersubband spin plasmons using linear response theory. The so-called D'yakonov-Perel' decoherence mechanism is inactive for collective intersubband excitations, i.e., crystal magnetic fields do not lead to decoherence of spin plasmons. Instead, we predict that the main signature of bulk and structural inversion asymmetry in intersubband spin dynamics is a three-fold, anisotropic splitting of the spin plasmon dispersion. The importance of many-body effects is pointed out, and conditions for experimental observation with inelastic light scattering are discussed.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figure