An environmental impact study of inter-dental cleaning aids

AIM: The aim of this study was to compare the environmental footprint of eight interdental cleaning aids. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A comparative LCA was conducted based on an individual person using interdental cleaning aids every day for 5 years. The primary outcome was a life cycle impact assessment. This comprised of 16 discrete measures of environmental sustainability (known as impact categories), for example greenhouse gas emissions (measured in kg CO2e), ozone layer depletion (measured in kg CFCe), and water use (measured in m3 ). Secondary outcomes included normalised data, disability adjusted life years, and contribution analysis. RESULTS: Interdental cleaning using floss picks had the largest environmental footprint in 13 out of 16 impact categories. Depending on the environmental impact category measured, the smallest environmental footprint came from daily interdental cleaning with either bamboo interdental brushes (5 impact categories, including carbon footprint), replaceable-head interdental brushes (4 impact categories), regular floss (3 impact categories), sponge floss (3 impact categories) and bamboo floss (1 impact category). CONCLUSION: Daily cleaning with interdental cleaning aids has an environmental footprint that varies depending on the product used. Clinicians should consider environmental impact alongside clinical need and cost when recommending interdental cleaning aids to patients

Turning the Spotlight on Apathy:Identification and Treatment in Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders

Among negative symptoms, apathy is central to the impairments in real-life functioning in schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSD). Thus, optimizing treatment for apathy appears key to improve outcomes. In treatment research, however, negative symptoms are typically studied as a unifactorial construct. We, therefore, aim to shed necessary light on the status of apathy identification and treatment in SSD.</p

Validation of the Body Concealment Scale for Scleroderma (BCSS): Replication in the Scleroderma Patient-centered Intervention Network (SPIN) Cohort

© 2016 Elsevier Ltd Body concealment is an important component of appearance distress for individuals with disfiguring conditions, including scleroderma. The objective was to replicate the validation study of the Body Concealment Scale for Scleroderma (BCSS) among 897 scleroderma patients. The factor structure of the BCSS was evaluated using confirmatory factor analysis and the Multiple-Indicator Multiple-Cause model examined differential item functioning of SWAP items for sex and age. Internal consistency reliability was assessed via Cronbach's alpha. Construct validity was assessed by comparing the BCSS with a measure of body image distress and measures of mental health and pain intensity. Results replicated the original validation study, where a bifactor model provided the best fit. The BCSS demonstrated strong internal consistency reliability and construct validity. Findings further support the BCSS as a valid measure of body concealment in scleroderma and provide new evidence that scores can be compared and combined across sexes and ages

The Third Fermi Large Area Telescope Catalog of Gamma-ray Pulsars

We present 294 pulsars found in GeV data from the Large Area Telescope (LAT) on the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. Another 33 millisecond pulsars (MSPs) discovered in deep radio searches of LAT sources will likely reveal pulsations once phase-connected rotation ephemerides are achieved. A further dozen optical and/or X-ray binary systems co-located with LAT sources also likely harbor gamma-ray MSPs. This catalog thus reports roughly 340 gamma-ray pulsars and candidates, 10% of all known pulsars, compared to $\leq 11$ known before Fermi. Half of the gamma-ray pulsars are young. Of these, the half that are undetected in radio have a broader Galactic latitude distribution than the young radio-loud pulsars. The others are MSPs, with 6 undetected in radio. Overall, >235 are bright enough above 50 MeV to fit the pulse profile, the energy spectrum, or both. For the common two-peaked profiles, the gamma-ray peak closest to the magnetic pole crossing generally has a softer spectrum. The spectral energy distributions tend to narrow as the spindown power $\dot E$ decreases to its observed minimum near $10^{33}$ erg s$^{-1}$, approaching the shape for synchrotron radiation from monoenergetic electrons. We calculate gamma-ray luminosities when distances are available. Our all-sky gamma-ray sensitivity map is useful for population syntheses. The electronic catalog version provides gamma-ray pulsar ephemerides, properties and fit results to guide and be compared with modeling results.Comment: 142 pages. Accepted by the Astrophysical Journal Supplemen

Imagining the City

Engberg introduces a collection of documents centered on the city of Melbourne, instigated in part through an association with Fleming and Lapointe and reflecting the artists' approach to history and architecture. Nine texts on topics including coloniale city life, sounds of the city, gendered spaces, and urban reform are preceeded by the duo's transcribed lecture detailing each of their projects to date. 51 bibl. ref