Mercy Willard Hospital

Assessing Biodiversity Declines Understanding human impact on biodiversity depends on sound quantitative projection. Pereira et al. (p. 1496 , published online 26 October) review quantitative scenarios that have been developed for four main areas of concern: species extinctions, species abundances and community structure, habitat loss and degradation, and shifts in the distribution of species and biomes. Declines in biodiversity are projected for the whole of the 21st century in all scenarios, but with a wide range of variation. Hoffmann et al. (p. 1503 , published online 26 October) draw on the results of five decades' worth of data collection, managed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature Species Survival Commission. A comprehensive synthesis of the conservation status of the world's vertebrates, based on an analysis of 25,780 species (approximately half of total vertebrate diversity), is presented: Approximately 20% of all vertebrate species are at risk of extinction in the wild, and 11% of threatened birds and 17% of threatened mammals have moved closer to extinction over time. Despite these trends, overall declines would have been significantly worse in the absence of conservation actions.

Microfiltration (MF) and ultrafiltration (UF) have become common water treatment technologies for the removal of particles from natural waters. Many water utilities are now integrating MF/UF with other treatment processes to provide treatment for nonparticulate contaminants. Research is needed to understand the impact that other processes have on MF/UF performance. This study was conducted to investigate the interactions between water quality, coagulation, and membrane fouling. The study examined the fouling of MF/UF membranes by natural waters with and without coagulation by specific fractions of constituents in natural water, separated by size. This research found thatthe component of natural organic matter (NOM) smaller than 100 kDa contributes relatively little to fouling during filtration of either raw or coagulated water. The fraction between 1 microm and 100 kDa contributes a significant portion of the fouling. After coagulation pretreatment, fouling due to various size fractions in the feedwater can change.

The [2 + 2] photocycloaddition reaction between an imine and an alkene component, the aza Paternò-Büchi reaction, is one of the most efficient ways to synthesize functionalized azetidines. However, the application of the aza Paternò-Büchi reaction has been met with limited success due to the inherent challenges associated with this approach. This review covers the current scope and limitations of reported examples of aza Paternò-Büchi reactions in organic synthesis. An outlook is provided, which highlights recent improvements and the discovery of new reaction protocols that have overcome some long-standing challenges within this field of research.

The olefin-olefin metathesis reaction has emerged as one of the most important carbon-carbon bond-forming reactions, as illustrated by its wide use in the synthesis of complex molecules, natural products and pharmaceuticals. The corresponding metathesis reaction between carbonyls and olefins or alkynes similarly allows for the formation of carbon-carbon bonds. Although these variants are far less developed and utilized in organic synthesis, they possess attractive qualities that have prompted chemists to incorporate and explore these modes of reactivity in complex molecule synthesis. This review highlights selected examples of carbonyl-olefin and carbonyl-alkyne metathesis reactions in organic synthesis, in particular in the total synthesis of natural products and complex molecules, and provides an overview of current advantages and limitations.

Abstract Options for increasing reservoir storage in developed regions are limited and prohibitively expensive. Projected increases in demand call for new long‐term water storage to help sustain agriculture, municipalities, industry, and ecological services. Managed aquifer recharge (MAR) is becoming an integral component of water resources around the world. However, MAR faces challenges, including infrastructure costs, difficulty in enhancing recharge, water quality issues, and lack of available water supplies. Here we examine, through simulation modeling of a hypothetical agricultural subbasin in the western U.S., the potential of agricultural managed aquifer recharge (Ag‐MAR) via canal seepage and off‐season field irrigation. Weather phenomenon in many regions around the world exhibit decadal and other multiyear cycles of extreme precipitation. An ongoing challenge is to develop approaches to store greater amounts of water during these events. Simulations presented herein incorporate Ag‐MAR programs and demonstrate that there is potential to enhance regional recharge by 7–13%, increase crop consumptive use by 9–12%, and increase natural vegetation consumption by 20–30%, where larger relative increases occur for lower aquifer hydraulic conductivity and higher specific yield values. Annual increases in groundwater levels were 7 m, and sustained levels following several years of drought were greater than 2 m. Results demonstrate that Ag‐MAR has great potential to enhance long‐term sustainability of water resources in agricultural basins.

Attaining and demonstrating treatment fidelity is critical in the development and testing of evidence-based interventions. Treatment fidelity refers to the extent to which an intervention was implemented in clinical testing as it was conceptualized and is clearly differentiable from control or standard-of-care interventions. In clinical research, treatment fidelity is typically attained through intensive training and supervision techniques and demonstrated by measuring therapist adherence and competence to the protocol using external raters. However, in occupational and physical therapy outcomes research, treatment fidelity methods have not been used, which, in our view, is a serious gap that impedes novel treatment development and testing in these rehabilitation fields. In this article, we describe the development of methods to train and supervise therapists to attain adequate treatment fidelity in a treatment development project involving a novel occupational and physical therapy-based intervention. We also present a data-driven model for demonstrating therapist adherence and competence in the new treatment and its differentiation from standard of care. In doing so, we provide an approach that rehabilitation researchers can use to address treatment fidelity in occupational and physical therapy-based interventions. We recommend that all treatment researchers in rehabilitation disciplines use these or similar methods as a vital step in the development and testing of evidence-based rehabilitation interventions.

Ozone is a strong oxidant used to treat a variety of constituents in potable water, wastewater, water reuse, and industrial water treatment applications. Ozone is effective at oxidizing a wide range of organic and inorganic compounds and disinfection. Well-known in potable water treatment, with about 400 US installations and 3,000 world-wide, ozone has limited application at wastewater treatments, with less than 10 operating facilities in the US. The ability of ozone to significantly reduce low level concentrations of trace organic compounds, including endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs), pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs), and other emerging contaminants have increased interest in applying ozone in potable water and wastewater treatment. Treating at the point source discharge rather than the water supply intake may be more effective. A recent American Water Works Research Foundation (AwwaRF) report indicated high removals of many EDCs and PPCPs at typical disinfection doses. Several wastewater utilities have installed or are in the process of installing ozone to treat secondary effluent. These utilities are using ozone in a variety of ways: as a primary disinfectant, for treatment of microconstituents, and in combination with other processes (e.g. membranes and UV) to produce high-quality water for indirect potable reuse (IPR). The different applications, treatment goals and basis of process selection are compared and contrasted. Secondary benefits of ozone treatment of secondary effluent, including the use of off-gas in biological treatment is also discussed.

This paper reports the findings of an exploratory study of position vacant announcements appropriate for library and information studies (LIS) graduates appearing in the Sydney Morning Herald over a four week period in each of the following years: 2004, 1994, 1984 and 1974. The period studied witnessed change-demanding developments in information technologies as well as changes in workplace conditions and client expectations. The study collected data on the demands of employers as expressed through job advertisements that included data on work status (full-time, part-time, contract, casual), qualifications and the experience required of the information professional at the selected timeslots. To investigate similarities and differences between periods a content analysis and co-word analysis of the job advertisements was undertaken. The ads indicated a movement from simple advertisements in 1974 inviting applications for reference or technical services librarians, to complex and specialised positions being advertised in 2004 where the most called for attributes were interpersonal skills and behavioural characteristics.

-catalysis to ultimately favor metathesis as the thermodynamic product. Importantly, we show that distinct Lewis acid catalysts are able to distinguish between these pathways to enable the selective formation of either transannular carbonyl-ene or carbonyl-olefin metathesis products. These insights are expected to enable further advances in catalyst design to efficiently differentiate between these two competing reaction paths of carbonyl and olefin functionalities to further expand the synthetic generality of carbonyl-olefin metathesis.

Colloidal natural organic matter (NOM) is an important foulant to low-pressure membranes (LPMs) employed in drinking water treatment. Removal of colloidal NOM by magnetic ion exchange (MIEX), coagulation, and integrated MIEX and coagulation was investigated in this study to determine the relationship between colloidal NOM removal and membrane fouling reduction. The results showed that coagulation did not selectively remove colloidal NOM and the optimal coagulant dose was primarily determined by the concentration of humic substances. Comparatively, MIEX pretreatment preferentially removed humic substances and reduced the coagulant dose needed for colloidal NOM removal as a result of coagulation stoichiometry. A matched-pair analysis showed that integrated MIEX and coagulation pretreatment at much lower coagulant doses was as effective as coagulation in reducing membrane fouling. It is concluded that integrated MIEX and coagulation is potentially a viable pretreatment approach to reduce membrane fouling and in general removal of colloidal NOM in feedwater is an effective approach for membrane fouling control and should be considered in the research, development, and application of novel LPM-based treatment processes.

ABSTRACT The transpiration coefficient (Kc) method estimates evapotranspiration as a proportion of the evapotranspiration of a reference crop growing in ideal conditions. This approach was designed for irrigated crops and assumes that plants are not subjected to resource limitations. Other assumptions are that plants have high leaf area index and little stomatal resistance to water loss. These conditions are not common for arid-land vegetation. However, mainly due to its simplicity, some studies have proposed the use of transpiration coefficients as a method of determining evapotranspiration in arid environments. In this article, the documented applications of the Kc method in arid environments and their accuracy are reviewed. We also critically discuss the physiological and agronomic concepts that support the Kc method as they relate to water-limited environments. The Kc method typically overestimates water use when plants encounter suboptimal conditions of soil water because it does not consider stomatal regulation and plant adaptations to drought. We conclude that, although the transpiration coefficient method is simple to implement and widely recognized, it is not suitable for determining evapotranspiration of vegetation adapted to arid conditions.

Faults influence groundwater flow paths. The transport of groundwater contaminants within the faulted sandstones and shales of Chatsworth Formation exposed in southern California, USA, have been investigated. Structural and hydrogeological data are combined to interpret the hydraulic-head drop measured across a fault with tens of meters of oblique-slip. The fault zone architecture was delineated at two locations: an outcrop and a borehole intersecting the fault at depth. At the first station, the fault juxtaposes sandstones against shales with a fault core mostly consisting of deformed shale. A series of shale beds striking parallel to the fault zone and dipping ∼50° toward the fault zone provides evidence that the shale was incorporated into the fault zone. At the second station, borehole images show a plane juxtaposing fractured sandstone against shale-rich fault rock. Hydraulic heads measured at 30 wells show a drop of 75 m across the fault, which is interpreted to be a result of the low-permeability shaley fault rock. It is proposed that the shale was incorporated into the fault zone by shale smearing. These results are consistent with numerical modeling, which requires a low-permeability fault core to simulate the observed hydraulic head differences. Understanding the hydraulic nature of this fault provides a critical constraint for evaluating the future migration of contaminants in the groundwater system.

There is an ongoing debate on the contribution of the neuronal glutamate transporter EAAC1 to the onset of compulsive behaviors. Here, we used behavioral, electrophysiological, molecular, and viral approaches in male and female mice to identify the molecular and cellular mechanisms by which EAAC1 controls the execution of repeated motor behaviors. Our findings show that, in the striatum, a brain region implicated with movement execution, EAAC1 limits group I metabotropic glutamate receptor (mGluRI) activation, facilitates D1 dopamine receptor (D1R) expression, and ensures long-term synaptic plasticity. Blocking mGluRI in slices from mice lacking EAAC1 restores D1R expression and synaptic plasticity. Conversely, activation of intracellular signaling pathways coupled to mGluRI in D1R-containing striatal neurons of mice expressing EAAC1 leads to reduced D1R protein level and increased stereotyped movement execution. These findings identify new molecular mechanisms by which EAAC1 can shape glutamatergic and dopaminergic signals and control repeated movement execution. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Genetic studies implicate Slc1a1 , a gene encoding the neuronal glutamate transporter EAAC1, with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). EAAC1 is abundantly expressed in the striatum, a brain region that is hyperactive in OCD. What remains unknown is how EAAC1 shapes synaptic function in the striatum. Our findings show that EAAC1 limits activation of metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluRIs) in the striatum and, by doing so, promotes D1 dopamine receptor (D1R) expression. Targeted activation of signaling cascades coupled to mGluRIs in mice expressing EAAC1 reduces D1R expression and triggers repeated motor behaviors. These findings provide new information on the molecular basis of OCD and suggest new avenues for its treatment.

To the Editor:—We write to describe the relationship, found at autopsy, between cancer and Alzheimer's disease. It is surprising that the autopsy relationship between two such common and well studied diseases has been so little examined before. This may be because, in recent years, the study of Alzheimer's disease has been based on brain-limited autopsies. The only published autopsy series in which both conditions were defined is that of Corsellis.1 He does not comment on the relationship, but his results show that subjects with Alzheimer's disease had significantly less cancer than a control group with functional psychosis. We examined data from 210 consecutive autopsies at the Willard Psychiatric Center over a 10-year period. In 64 cases there was definite Alzheimer's disease, meeting Kachaturian criteria.2 In 61 cases no Alzheimer's disease at all could be found. In the remaining cases there was slight or moderate Alzheimer's disease. We compared the prevalence of cancer in the definite Alzheimer's cases with the prevalence in those with no Alzheimer's disease and found the following results: Patients with Alzheimer's disease (n = 64). Mean age 83.2 (SD 9.5) 38 female, 26 male. Six had cancer contributing to death (stomach, colon, cecum, bladder, prostate, small cell cancer of lung). Patients without Alzheimer's disease (n = 61). Mean age 74 (SD 12.6) 12 female, 49 male. Fifteen had cancer contributing to death (stomach, two colon, three prostate, three of lung (squamous, adenocarcinoma, anaplastic), pancreas, melanoma, leukemia, lymphoma, glioblastoma, anaplastic metastases to liver and lungs with undiagnosed primary). The difference in prevalence was significant (Chi-square with Yates correction 3.97, P < 0.05). It would be premature to speculate on biological reasons for the relationship. This trend for those with Alzheimer's disease to have less cancer may be due to demographic variables. For example, Alzheimer's disease largely affects elderly females, who have a very low prevalence of smoking. Confirmation of a true inverse relationship between these two conditions would, however, be interesting, and we should be glad to hear if any other readers of JAGS have studied this.

Concrete-faced rockfill dams (CFRDs) are commonly built around the world. As energy demands soar and construction methods evolve, the interest in the construction of CFRDs with larger heights has increased tremendously. However, because of the construction of higher CFRDs, some dams have experienced considerable fractures at the concrete faces. Well-known cases include Campos Novos (Brazil), Barra Grande (Brazil), and Mohale (South Africa), where in some instances these cracks have led to dewatering of the reservoirs to allow for the concrete slabs’ repairs. The development of these fractures may be attributed to the highly deformable rockfill body. In general, the state-of-the-art design of CFRDs is mostly based on common practice rather than rigorous analysis procedures. And as such, cracking problems because of deformability of the rockfill may not be properly predicted unless a detailed analysis is performed. In this work, a new framework for the analysis of CFRDs is developed that is capable of predicting the possible failure of a concrete facing. As part of this framework, a comprehensive nonlinear finite-element analysis scheme is developed to model the construction sequence, the contact interaction between the concrete facing and the rockfill body, and the impounding of the reservoir. As a case study, using the developed framework, the Kárahnjúkar CFRD (Iceland, 198 m in height) is analyzed, the results are validated by the field measurements, and suggestions for mitigation measures are provided. This methodology, based on the results of the investigation, provides guidelines and establishes a framework for analysis of CFRDs that can be used for design purposes.

BACKGROUND: MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of small non-coding RNA that can downregulate their targets by selectively binding to the 3' untranslated region (3'UTR) of most messenger RNAs (mRNAs) in the human genome. MiRNAs can interact with other molecules such as viruses and act as a mediator for viral infection. In this study, we examined whether, and to what extent, the SARS-CoV-2 virus can serve as a "sponge" for human miRNAs. RESULTS: We identified multiple potential miRNA/target pairs that may be disrupted during SARS-CoV-2 infection. Using miRNA expression profiles and RNA-seq from published studies, we further identified a highly confident list of 5 miRNA/target pairs that could be disrupted by the virus's miRNA sponge effect, namely hsa-miR-374a-5p/APOL6, hsa-let-7f-1-3p/EIF4A2, hsa-miR-374a-3p/PARP11, hsa-miR-548d-3p/PSMA2 and hsa-miR-23b-3p/ZNFX1 pairs. Using single-cell RNA-sequencing based data, we identified two important miRNAs, hsa-miR-302c-5p and hsa-miR-16-5p, to be potential virus targeting miRNAs across multiple cell types from bronchoalveolar lavage fluid samples. We further validated some of our findings using miRNA and gene enrichment analyses and the results confirmed with findings from previous studies that some of these identified miRNA/target pairs are involved in ACE2 receptor network, regulating pro-inflammatory cytokines and in immune cell maturation and differentiation. CONCLUSION: Using publicly available databases and patient-related expression data, we found that acting as a "miRNA sponge" could be one explanation for SARS-CoV-2-mediated pathophysiological changes. This study provides a novel way of utilizing SARS-CoV-2 related data, with bioinformatics approaches, to help us better understand the etiology of the disease and its differential manifestation across individuals.

The aim of this study was to conduct an economic evaluation of neonatal intensive care for extremely low birthweight (ELBW) infants born in the state of Victoria. Two distinct eras (1979-80 and 1985-87) were compared. Follow-up data at 2 years of age were available for all 89 survivors from the 351 live births in 1979-80, and for 211 of 212 survivors from the 560 live births in 1985-87. The overall cost-effectiveness for ELBW infants during 1985-87 compared with 1979-80 was $104,990 ($A 1987) per additional survivor, or $5390 ($A 1987) per additional life year gained. Cost-effectiveness improved with increasing birthweight. If the quality of life of the survivors was considered, the economic outlook was more favourable. The cost per quality-adjusted life year gained was $5090 ($A 1987), approximately one-tenth of that obtained from the only previous full economic evaluation of neonatal intensive care. Although neonatal intensive care is expensive, it compares favourably with some other health care programmes, particularly as the outcome for ELBW infants continues to improve.

Despite technological advances in mineral processing, mining companies still face challenges in how to best manage tailings materials. In addition, mining of lower grades of ore has resulted in increased water use per unit of production; at certain sites, water availability is the single greatest constraint on mine development. In some cases, alternative tailings disposal (ATD) has been viewed as a ‘silver bullet’ that will address all tailings management issues, especially water concerns. In addition, in some cases ATD technologies also promise a smaller footprint and reduced environmental impact and risks. This paper looks at the promise and realities of ATD methods and will provide high-level guidance on when to use individual technologies and where conventional wet disposal is still the preferred method. The various tailings disposal types presented are filtered, paste, thickened, and conventional disposal. Energy supply, climate, production rates, project economics, operational predictability, topography, seismicity, and water are used to frame the benefits and limiting factors behind each ATD method. Recommendations on when to use each disposal method are made.

Neither aureomycin nor penicillin given to children with pre-eruptive rubeola or begun on the first day of rash seems to have any definite therapeutic effect on the course of the primary disease. The temperature dropped earlier in the patients treated with aureomycin or penicillin than in the untreated control group. Aureomycin and penicillin were effective against otitis media and pneumonia present on admission and on the complications which developed during the disease. Aureomycin and penicillin are useful in the prevention and cure of secondary infection in rubeola.

Municipal water management can now be energy-positive and economical, through total water recycling.