Quantifying Microplastic Contamination in the Río Bermejo (Argentina) Compared to the River Wear, Durham (UK)

Microplastics are defined as plastic particles <5 mm, with the lower size limit defined as the pore size of the sieve used during sample preparation. There have been increasing concerns on the ecological effect of microplastics, and therefore understanding the microplastic assemblage and the sources of microplastics can help inform microplastic contamination policies. Limited studies have looked at changes in microplastic concentration along the course of a river, to assess how different factors can affect microplastic contamination. This study quantifies and compares microplastic contamination along two rivers, the Rio Bermejo, Argentina, and the River Wear, UK, which serve two different societies. This will help to address how wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs), population and anthropogenic activity can affect microplastic contamination. Sediment samples were obtained from 8 locations in the River Wear, and 6 in the Rio Bermejo. Microplastics abundances were recorded and characterized by shape, size, and colour. Microplastics were observed in all study sites across the Rio Bermejo and the River Wear. Microplastic contamination changes along the course of both the River Wear and Rio Bermejo, and is influenced by WWTPs, population and land use. The River Wear contained a higher abundance of microplastics overall (208 microplastics/100 g) than the Rio Bermejo (35 microplastics/100 g and 22 microplastics/100 g in suspended sediment and riverbank sediment respectively) due to higher urbanisation and population density. High abundances of microplastic fibres in the River Wear (93.7%) and the Rio Bermejo (100% and 76.9% in suspended sediment and riverbank sediment respectively) suggests that WWTPs are the dominant input source of microplastics in both locations. Although generally, microplastic abundances are higher in more urban areas than rural, hydrodynamic forces must be understood to better understand its effects. The microplastic assemblage observed in this study are significant when considering ecological impacts

The Benefits of Art Integration in Schools

The presence of art instruction in the elementary classroom has been drastically reduced with class time focused on mandated curriculum and standardized test preparation. Art integration, an approach to learning that combines traditional curriculum with art, may not only provide students with opportunities for greater academic achievement and personal growth, but in addition, may provide a solution to this problem. To address this need, I have created a 3-day science lesson that integrates art for first grade students at Olson Elementary School in Marina, California

Child Welfare Partnership for Research and Training: A Title IV-E University/Community Collaborative Research Model

University-community partnerships are increasingly recognized as valuable in educating students for professional practice and bridging the gap between research and practice. This manuscript describes the evolution and design of a university-community partnership between a School of Social Work in one urban university and local child welfare agencies: the Child Welfare Partnership for Research and Training (CW-PART). This local partnership illustrates types of opportunities and outcomes that emerge when state and local entities leverage greater results from federal funding through partnerships with local universities. The manuscript describes 1), the community-engaged framework used to inform the overall approach and partner roles; 2) evolution of the model from early partnered research successes; 3) core elements of the CWPART university-community partnered research model, and 4) preliminary lessons learned from the pilot phase of model

Mid-IR frequency measurement using an optical frequency comb and a long-distance remote frequency reference

We have built a frequency chain which enables to measure the absolute frequency of a laser emitting in the 28-31 THz frequency range and stabilized onto a molecular absorption line. The set-up uses an optical frequency comb and an ultrastable 1.55 $\mu$m frequency reference signal, transferred from LNE-SYRTE to LPL through an optical link. We are now progressing towards the stabilization of the mid-IR laser via the frequency comb and the extension of this technique to quantum cascade lasers. Such a development is very challenging for ultrahigh resolution molecular spectroscopy and fundamental tests of physics with molecules

Introducing the Green Book: A practical planning tool for adapting South African settlements to climate change

The Green Book is not a book, but a novel, practical online planning tool to support the adaptation of South African settlements to the impacts of climatic changes and severe events. It provides evidence of current and future (2050) climate risks and vulnerability for every local municipality in South Africa (including settlements) in the form of climate-change projections, multidimensional vulnerability indicators, population-growth projections, and climate hazard and impact modelling. Based on this evidence, the Green Book developed a menu of planning-related adaptation actions and offers support in the selection of appropriate actions from this menu to be integrated into local development strategies and plans. The second half of this article describes the steps involved in the process of developing and structuring this menu of actions and explains how the information contained in the Green Book can be used to promote the planning of climate-resilient settlements in South Africa

Inhibition of mTORC1 inhibits lytic replication of Epstein-Barr virus in a cell-type specific manner

BACKGROUND: Epstein-Barr virus is a human herpesvirus that infects a majority of the human population. Primary infection of Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) causes the syndrome infectious mononucleosis. This virus is also associated with several cancers, including Burkitt’s lymphoma, post-transplant lymphoproliferative disorder and nasopharyngeal carcinoma. As all herpesvirus family members, EBV initially replicates lytically to produce abundant virus particles, then enters a latent state to remain within the host indefinitely. METHODS: Through a genetic screen in Drosophila, we determined that reduction of Drosophila Tor activity altered EBV immediate-early protein function. To further investigate this finding, we inhibited mTOR in EBV-positive cells and investigated subsequent changes to lytic replication via Western blotting, flow cytometry, and quantitative PCR. The student T-test was used to evaluate significance. RESULTS: mTOR, the human homolog of Drosophila Tor, is an important protein at the center of a major signaling pathway that controls many aspects of cell biology. As the EBV immediate-early genes are responsible for EBV lytic replication, we examined the effect of inhibition of mTORC1 on EBV lytic replication in human EBV-positive cell lines. We determined that treatment of cells with rapamycin, which is an inhibitor of mTORC1 activity, led to a reduction in the ability of B cell lines to undergo lytic replication. In contrast, EBV-positive epithelial cell lines underwent higher levels of lytic replication when treated with rapamycin. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, the responses of EBV-positive cell lines vary when treated with mTOR inhibitors, and this may be important when considering such inhibitors as anti-cancer therapeutic agents

A near-infrared interferometric survey of debris-disc stars. IV. An unbiased sample of 92 southern stars observed in H-band with VLTI/PIONIER

Context. Detecting and characterizing circumstellar dust is a way to study the architecture and evolution of planetary systems. Cold dust in debris disks only traces the outer regions. Warm and hot exozodiacal dust needs to be studied in order to trace regions close to the habitable zone. Aims. We aim to determine the prevalence and to constrain the properties of hot exozodiacal dust around nearby main-sequence stars. Methods. We search a magnitude limited (H < 5) sample of 92 stars for bright exozodiacal dust using our VLTI visitor instrument PIONIER in the H-band. We derive statistics of the detection rate with respect to parameters such as the stellar spectral type and age or the presence of a debris disk in the outer regions of the systems. We derive more robust statistics by combining our sample with the results from our CHARA/FLUOR survey in the K-band. In addition, our spectrally dispersed data allows us to put constraints on the emission mechanism and the dust properties in the detected systems. Results. We find an over-all detection rate of bright exozodiacal dust in the H-band of 11% (9 out of 85 targets) and three tentative detections. The detection rate decreases from early type to late type stars and increases with the age of the host star. We do not confirm the tentative correlation between the presence of cold and hot dust found in our earlier analysis of the FLUOR sample alone. Our spectrally dispersed data suggest that either the dust is extremely hot or the emission is dominated by the scattered light in most cases. The implications of our results for the target selection of future terrestrial planet finding missions using direct imaging are discussed.Comment: 20 pages, 16 figures, 4 tables, updated references and minor changes to the text, accepted for publication in A&

The Need for School-Based Teen Dating Violence Prevention

Schools have several competing demands, and often suffer from inefficient access to needed resources. Thus, the addition of any program into an already overtaxed school system must be met with convincing evidence that 1) a need or problem exists and is relevant to the education of students, 2) the problem is amenable to change, and 3) addressing the problem is in the best interest of educators and students. The purpose of the present paper is to present a case for inclusion of teen dating violence prevention programs in middle and high schools. We also discuss a recent survey of 219 employees of a suburban school district in southeast Texas. Specifically, we examined their perceived need for and appropriateness of a school-based dating violence prevention program. The anonymous internet-based survey revealed that a majority of participants believed that teen dating violence was a problem, 19% reported having observed an instance of teen dating violence, and 82% believed school to be an appropriate outlet for the implementation of a dating violence prevention program

Argument structure, conceptual metaphor and semantic change : how to succeed in Indo-European without really trying

In contrast to grammaticalization studies of lexical verbs changing into auxiliaries, the realm of semantic changes associated with lexical verbs is an understudied area of historical semantics. We concentrate on the emergence of verbs of success from more semantically concrete verbs, uncovering six conceptual metaphors which all co-occur with non-canonical encoding of subjects in Indo-European. Careful scrutiny of the relevant data reveals a semantic development most certainly inherited from Indo-European; hence, we reconstruct a DAT-‘succeeds’ construction at different levels of schematicity for Proto-Indo-European, including a novel reconstruction of a conceptual metaphor, success is motion forward, and the mapping between this metaphor and the verb-class-specific argument structure construction. Hence, this article offers a systematic analysis of regularity in semantic change, highlighting the importance of predicate and argument structure for lexical semantic developments