Hydrographic Study of Peirce Island Wastewater Treatment Plant Effluent in the Piscataqua River of Portsmouth, New Hampshire: Report of Findings from the December 10 – 14, 2012 Study Period

In order to assist the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services (NHDES) evaluate the impact of treated wastewater effluent from Peirce Island Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) to the Lower Piscataqua River and Portsmouth Harbor a hydrographic dye study was conducted in December 2012 in Portsmouth, NH. Eight (8) shellfish cages with American oysters (Crassostrea virginica) and blue mussels (Mytilus edulis) were deployed both upstream and downstream of the Peirce Island WWTP in the Piscataqua River, Little Harbor, and the entrance of Little Bay. Eight (8) mini CTDs that monitor conductivity/salinity, temperature, and depth, and six (6) moored fluorometers, which measure dye tagged effluent from the Peirce Island WWTP were attached to the subsurface cages. A fifty (50) gallon mixture of Rhodamine WT dye and distilled water was injected into WWTP on December 11, 2012 for a half tidal cycle (approximately 12.4 hours). Additionally, boat tracking fluorometers connected with a mobile geographic information system (GIS) were used to measure dye levels on the surface in situ and in real time. Microbiological analyses of fecal coliform (FC), male-specific coliphage (MSC), Norovirus (NoV) genogroup I (GI) and genogroup II (GII), and Adenovirus (AdV) were conducted on WWTP influent and effluent composite samples collected with automated samplers to determine the WWTP efficiency in reducing indicator bacteria and viruses. Microbiological sampling and testing of oysters and mussels from the eight (8) sentinel cages was conducted to assess the impact of WWTP effluent on shellfish growing areas and growing area classifications. Prior to conducting the study, the assumption was that the FDA’s recommended minimum dilution of 1000:1was not applicable in this situation because the recommended dilution is based on a WWTP having at least secondary treatment. The microbiological findings in shellfish samples, wastewater samples from the Peirce Island WWTP, and the results of the dye study, confirm that a minimum of 1,000:1 dilution with respect to Peirce Island WWTP is currently not applicable for this WWTP. The FDA and NHDES recommend continued MSC testing of wastewater samples from the WWTP before and after the WWTP upgrade. The FDA and NHDES recommend a future field study after the WWTP upgrade in order to delineate the 1,000:1 dilution zone

Visiting Nurse Services of Newport and Bristol County: Increasing Program Awareness for the Help at Home Program

We came up with the idea of using a cost analysis to clearly demonstrate the advantage of home care vs. hospitalization. John Hopkins Bay view Medical Center conducted a study within their geriatrics unit to test their Hospital At Home program against typical on-site care at the hospital. The study was held over the course of 30 days involving hundreds of patients across three cities and the results were staggering. Not only was at home care 32% cheaper ($5,081 versus$7,480) but also overall customer satisfaction was significantly higher

Immunomodulators as Therapeutic Agents in Mitigating the Progression of Parkinson\u27s Disease

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a common neurodegenerative disorder that primarily afflicts the elderly. It is characterized by motor dysfunction due to extensive neuron loss in the substantia nigra pars compacta. There are multiple biological processes that are negatively impacted during the pathogenesis of PD, and are implicated in the cell death in this region. Neuroinflammation is evidently involved in PD pathology and mitigating the inflammatory cascade has been a therapeutic strategy. Age is the number one risk factor for PD and thus needs to be considered in the context of disease pathology. Here, we discuss the role of neuroinflammation within the context of aging as it applies to the development of PD, and the potential for two representative compounds, fractalkine and astaxanthin, to attenuate the pathophysiology that modulates neurodegeneration that occurs in Parkinson’s disease

Search for New Physics with a Single Top Quark Signature in the Boosted All Hadronic Final State

We present two searches for massive resonances decaying with a single top-quark signature. First, we present a search for the W' boson decaying to a top and bottom quark, then a search for the singly produced b* quark decaying to a top quark and W boson. The data analysed for these searches corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 19.7 inverse femptobarns collected by the CMS detector in proton-proton collisions at a collision energy of 8 TeV. The use of cutting edge jet substructure algorithms allows the top quark jet to be distinguished from standard model hadronic jet backgrounds and is the central feature of these analyses. We set 95% C.L. limits on the production cross section of a right-handed W' boson, together with constraints on the left and right-handed couplings of the W' boson to quarks. The production of a right-handed W' boson with a mass below 2.02 TeV decaying to an all-hadronic final state is excluded. This mass limit increases to 2.15 TeV when both all-hadronic and semileptonic decays are considered. Additionally, limits on the production cross section of the right-handed, left-handed, and vectorlike b* quark boson are obtained. The masses of the left-handed, right-handed and vectorlike b*-quark states are excluded in the range of 880-1390 GeV, 820-1430 GeV, and 800-1530 GeV respectively when considering the all-hadronic channel only. The masses of the left-handed, right-handed and vectorlike b*-quark states are excluded below 1390, 1420 and 1520 GeV when considering the combined all-hadronic, semileptonic, and dileptonic channels

Carbon Free Boston: Technical Summary

Part of a series of reports that includes: Carbon Free Boston: Summary Report; Carbon Free Boston: Social Equity Report; Carbon Free Boston: Buildings Technical Report; Carbon Free Boston: Transportation Technical Report; Carbon Free Boston: Waste Technical Report; Carbon Free Boston: Energy Technical Report; Carbon Free Boston: Offsets Technical Report; Available at http://sites.bu.edu/cfb/OVERVIEW: This technical summary is intended to argument the rest of the Carbon Free Boston technical reports that seek to achieve this goal of deep mitigation. This document provides below: a rationale for carbon neutrality, a high level description of Carbon Free Boston’s analytical approach; a summary of crosssector strategies; a high level analysis of air quality impacts; and, a brief analysis of off-road and street light emissions.Published versio