Fogwillis0027

Trace metal contaminants in indoor dust pose a significant potential exposure risk to people because of the time spent indoors and the readily ingested and inhaled fine-grained composition of indoor dusts. However, there is limited trace metal data available on the specific interaction of dust particle size fraction and their respective bioaccessibility/bioavailability and its consequent effect on health risk assessment. This study addresses this knowledge gap by examining bioaccessible and bioavailable trace element concentrations (As, Cr, Cu, Mn, Ni, Pb, Zn) in 152 discrete size fractions from 38 indoor vacuum samples from a larger dataset (n = 376) of indoor dust from Sydney, Australia. Arsenic, Cu, Ni, Pb and Zn were most concentrated in the 90-150 μm fraction with Cr and Mn being more concentrated in 5 μg/dL. Lead concentrations measured in the selected dust samples show a potential for adverse health impacts on young children with the greatest risk being from indoor dust sized 90-150 μm.Bisphenol A (BPA) is a ubiquitous environmental contaminant that is known to be associated with the risk of arterial hypertension. However, the underlying mechanisms describing how BPA exposure leads to high blood pressure (BP) and the role of epigenetics are still unclear. Therefore, we evaluated associations among BPA exposure, microRNA (miRNA) expression, and BP in a randomized crossover trial with 45 non-smoking females over 60 years of age. The participants visited the study site 3 times and were dose-dependently exposed to BPA. Two hours after exposure to BPA, urine and whole blood were collected for BPA measurement and miRNA profiling, and BP was measured. Relationships among urinary BPA level, miRNA expression, and BP were estimated using the mixed effect model. Decreases in miR-30a-5p, miR-580-3p, miR-627-5p, and miR-671-3p and increases in miR-636 and miR-1224-3p attributable to BPA exposure were associated with high BP. The core functional network from BPA exposure to increased BP was found to be on the pathway through these six miRNAs and their predicted BP-related target genes. Our results suggest that epigenetic biomarkers for BPA exposure and hypertension provide mechanistic data to explain hypertension exacerbation as well as key information for predicting the health effects of BPA exposure.Purpose The purpose of this study was to chronicle the adaptive challenges and adaptive work, including emerging leadership behaviors, recounted over time by the parents of very young children diagnosed before birth with life threatening conditions. Design and methods A descriptive, follow-up study design was used for the current study. Following the original grounded dimensional analysis study completed in 2012, the corpus for this analysis was collected in 2014. In-depth, audio-recorded interviews were conducted with 15 families (8 couples, 7 mothers). The 15 children, born with cardiac, abdominal, and cerebrospinal anomalies, were 14 - 37 months or deceased at follow-up. A directed content analysis of transcribed verbatim interviews was structured by the Adaptive Leadership framework. Results Parents described behaviors that indicated a non-linear development towards adaptive leadership as they accomplished the adaptive work within intra- and interpersonal domains that was necessary to address challenges over time. Not all parents described abilities and/or a willingness to mobilize others to do adaptive work, suggesting that adaptive leadership remained an unrealized potential. Conclusions Understood as a complex adaptive system, parents of medically at-risk children hold potential for development towards adaptive leadership and collaborative partnership within the family and with healthcare providers. Practice implications Due to improved survival rates, parents face ongoing challenges related to their children's unpredictable and often chronic health needs. Study findings illustrate parents' adaptive work and leadership behaviors, which can inform nursing assessments, as well as the type and timing for intervention.The development of biodiversity-friendly agricultural landscapes is of major importance to meet the sustainable development challenges of our time. The emergence of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), i.e. drones, has opened a new set of research and management opportunities to achieve this goal. On the one hand, this review summarizes UAV applications in agricultural landscapes, focusing on biodiversity conservation and agricultural land monitoring, based on a systematic review of the literature that resulted in 550 studies. Additionally, the review proposes how to integrate UAV research in these fields and point to new potential applications that may contribute to biodiversity-friendly agricultural landscapes. Defactinib supplier UAV-based imagery can be used to identify and monitor plants, floral resources and animals, facilitating the detection of quality habitats with high prediction power. Through vegetation indices derived from their sensors, UAVs can estimate biomass, monitor crop plant health and stress, detect pest or pathogen infestations, monitor soil fertility and target patches of high weed or invasive plant pressure, allowing precise management practices and reduced agrochemical input. Thereby, UAVs are helping to design biodiversity-friendly agricultural landscapes and to mitigate yield-biodiversity trade-offs. In conclusion, UAV applications have become a major means of biodiversity conservation and biodiversity-friendly management in agriculture, while latest developments, such as the miniaturization and decreasing costs of hyperspectral sensors, promise many new applications for the future.The qualitative and quantitative characterization of several mining by-product samples, were collected from the magnesite mine of "Grecian Magnesite SA" company (Gerakini, Chalkidiki, North Greece), was aiming to evaluate the possibility of upgrading their refractory properties by applying thermal treatment. The concentration range of main components for the selected best qualified samples was 38.7-43 wt% for MgO, 37.5-44.1 wt% for SiO2 and 6.5-7.3 wt% for FeO. The mineralogical characterization revealed the presence of olivine, pyroxenes and serpentine, with the concentration of the latter positively correlated to LOI. Microprobe analyses clarified the presence of olivine [(Mg1.79Fe0.19Ni0.01)SiO4], consisting mainly of 90 wt% of forsterite (Mg2SiO4) and 10 wt% of fayalite (Fe2SiO4), as well as of pyroxene group minerals [(Mg0.87Fe0.08Ca0.01Cr0.01)(Si0.98Al0.04)O3], consisting mainly of 91 wt% enstatite (MgSiO3) and 9 wt% of ferrosilite (FeSiO3), respectively. The thermal treatment of the qualified samples demonstrated that at the temperature of 650-680 °C serpentine is almost totally decomposed and at the temperature of 850 °C it has been totally recrystallized to olivine and pyroxenes.