Deposition History of Polychlorinated Biphenyls to the Lomonosovfonna Glacier, Svalbard: A 209 Congener Analysis

A 37 m deep ice core representing 1957–2009 and snow from 2009 to 2010 were collected on the Lomonosovfonna glacier, Svalbard (78.82° N; 17.43° E) and analyzed for 209 polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) congeners using high-resolution mass spectrometry. Congener profiles in all samples showed the prevalence of tetra- and pentachlorobiphenyls, dominated in all samples by PCB-44, PCB-52, PCB-70 + PCB-74, PCB-87 + PCB-97, PCB-95, PCB-99, PCB-101, and PCB-110. The ∑PCB flux varied over time, but the peak flux, 19 pg cm–2 year–1 from 1957 to 1966, recurred in 1974–1983, 1998–2009, and 2009–2010. The minimum was 5.75 pg cm–2 year–1 in 1989–1998, following a 15 year decline. Peak ∑PCB fluxes here are lower than measured in the Canadian Arctic. The analysis of all 209 congeners revealed that PCB-11 (3,3′-dichlorobiphenyl) was present in all samples, representing 0.9–4.5% of ∑PCB. PCB-11 was not produced in a commercial PCB product, and its source to the Arctic has not been well-characterized; however, our results confirm that the sources to Lomonosovfonna have been active since 1957. The higher fluxes of ∑PCB correspond to periods when average 5 day air mass back trajectories have a frequency of 8–10% and reach 60° N or beyond over northern Europe and western Russia or the North Sea into the U.K

Occupational therapy articles in serial publications: an analysis of sources.

This study was designed to locate and document serial literature on occupational therapy published since 1900. Emphasis is placed on finding articles on occupational therapy or by occupational therapists from sources other than those normally associated with the professional journals. Multiple sources were used including print indexes, online databases, occupational therapy bibliographies, and tables of contents or yearly indexes. Almost 7,000 articles were identified, not including those published in foreign journals. Occupational therapy publications have increased steadily since 1900, with the most rapid increase during the 1970s and 1980s when five new occupational therapy journals were initiated. Suggestions for formulating search strategies are included.

Accumulation rates and predominant atmospheric sources of natural and anthropogenic Hg and Pb on the Faroe Islands

A monolith representing 5420 14C yr of peat accumulation was collected from a blanket bog at Myrarnar, Faroe Islands. The maximum Hg concentration (498 ng/g at a depth of 4.5 cm) coincides with the maximum concentration of anthropogenic Pb (111 μg/g). Age dating of recent peat accumulation using 210Pb (CRS model) shows that the maxima in Hg and Pb concentrations occur at AD 1954 ± 2. These results, combined with the isotopic composition of Pb in that sample (206Pb/207Pb = 1.1720 ± 0.0017), suggest that coal burning was the dominant source of both elements. From the onset of peat accumulation (ca. 4286 BC) until AD 1385, the ratios Hg/Br and Hg/Se were constant (2.2 ± 0.5 × 10-4 and 8.5 ± 1.8 × 10-3, respectively). Since then, Hg/Br and Hg/Se values have increased, also reaching their maxima in AD 1954. The age date of the maximum concentrations of anthropogenic Hg and Pb in the Faroe Islands is consistent with a previous study of peat cores from Greenland and Denmark (dated using the atmospheric bomb pulse curve of 14C), which showed maximum concentrations in AD 1953. The average rate of atmospheric Hg accumulation from 1520 BC to AD 1385 was 1.27 ± 0.38 μg/m2/yr. The Br and Se concentrations and the background Hg/Br and Hg/Se ratios were used to calculate the average rate of natural Hg accumulation for the same period, 1.32 ± 0.36 μg/m2/yr and 1.34 ± 0.29 μg/m2/yr, respectively. These fluxes are similar to the preanthropogenic rates obtained using peat cores from Switzerland, southern Greenland, southern Ontario, Canada, and the northeastern United States. Episodic volcanic emissions and the continual supply of marine aerosols to the Faroe Islands, therefore, have not contributed significantly to the Hg inventory or the Hg accumulation rates, relative to these other areas. The maximum rate of Hg accumulation was 34 μg/m2/yr. The greatest fluxes of anthropogenic Hg accumulation calculated using Br and Se, respectively, were 26 and 31 μg/m2/yr. The rate of atmospheric Hg accumulation in 1998 (16 μg/m2/yr) is comparable to the values recently obtained by atmospheric transport modeling for Denmark, the Faroe Islands, and Greenland.

History of Atmospheric Lead Deposition Since 12,370 14C yr BP from a Peat Bog, Jura Mountains, Switzerland

A continuous record of atmospheric lead since 12,370 carbon-14 years before the present (14C yr BP) is preserved in a Swiss peat bog. Enhanced fluxes caused by climate changes reached their maxima 10,590 14C yr BP (Younger Dryas) and 823014C yr BP. Soil erosion caused by forest clearing and agricultural tillage increased lead deposition after 532014C yr BP. Increasing lead/scandium and decreasing lead-206/lead-207 beginning 3000 14C yr BP indicate the beginning of lead pollution from mining and smelting, and anthropogenic sources have dominated lead emissions ever since. The greatest lead flux (15.7 milligrams per square meter per year in A.D. 1979) was 1570 times the natural, background value (0.01 milligram per square meter per year from 8030 to 5320 14C yr BP).

An Activity Theoretical Approach to Designing Curriculum and Instruction That Shift the Means and Ends of History Education

Reformers want history education to help students learn to engage in historical inquiry, read critically across conflicting sources, and engage in civil discussion of controversial issues. How can we help teachers and students shift the roles, norms, and activity in history classrooms to achieve these aims? An activity-theoretical framework suggests the value of explicitly attending to multiple aspects of human activity when designing and presenting reform-oriented pedagogies or curricula. Such attention increases the odds that teachers who implement new approaches or curriculum will achieve significant shifts in the means and ends of history education.

Prior history of atopy or autoimmunity increases risk for alopecia areata

Background. The association between a prior history of atopy or other autoimmune diseases and risk of alopecia areata is not well established. ^ Objective. Purpose of this study was to use the National Alopecia Areata Registry database to further investigate the association between history of atopy or other autoimmune diseases and risk of alopecia areata. ^ Methods. A total of 2,613 self-registered sporadic cases (n = 2,055) and controls (n = 558) were included in the present analysis. ^ Results. Possessing a history of any atopy (OR = 2.00; 95% CI 1.50-2.54) or autoimmune disease (OR = 1.73; 95% CI 1.10-2.72) was associated with an increased risk of alopecia areata. There was no trend for possessing a history of more than one atopy or autoimmune disease and increasing risk of alopecia areata. ^ Limitations. Recall, reporting, and recruiting bias are potential sources of limitations in this analysis. ^ Conclusion. This analysis revealed that a prior history of atopy and autoimmune disease was associated with an increased risk of alopecia areata and that the results were consistent for both the severe subtype of alopecia areata (i.e., alopecia totalis and alopecia universalis) and the localized subtype (i.e., alopecia areata persistent).^

A History of Organized Medicine in Harris County, Texas

The item was written by the Historical Committee of the Harris County Medical Society and signed on October 28, 1948. A brief history of medicine in Texas is given before the focus shifts to the Harris County and Houston area. Information on the early years is taken from various sources such as Pat Ireland Nixon’s The Medical Story of Early Texas and the writings of George Plunkett (Mrs. S. C.) Red. Significant information comes from the Minutes of the Harris County Medical Society.

Clio may be seen and listened. Movies as source and resource on history

El cine como fuente historiográfica es utilizado a partir de la "batalla" que dio Marc Ferro hacia el interior de Annales. Cuando era difícil que se aceptaran otras fuentes que no fueran las gráficas, este historiador logró abrirse camino hasta llegar a ser el director de Annales en los años '70. El discurso de la imagen o el discurso audiovisual representa con mayor verosimilitud lo que el discurso gráfico no alcanza a expresar. Sin embargo, la sinécdoque y la generalización se encuentran a mitad de camino en un juego representativo para complementarse a la hora de comprender y reconstruir el pasado. El aporte del cine puede tomarse como reflejo o representación social y también como una alternativa discursiva. En este sentido, Rosenstone con el apoyo de Hayden White y su análisis de la "historiofotía" son los que incursionan en esta nueva dimensión, esto es la narración audiovisual de la historia

Evaluation of a User-Adapted Spoken Language Dialogue System: Measuring the Relevance of the Contextual Information Sources

We present an evaluation of a spoken language dialogue system with a module for the management of userrelated information, stored as user preferences and privileges. The flexibility of our dialogue management approach, based on Bayesian Networks (BN), together with a contextual information module, which performs different strategies for handling such information, allows us to include user information as a new level into the Context Manager hierarchy. We propose a set of objective and subjective metrics to measure the relevance of the different contextual information sources. The analysis of our evaluation scenarios shows that the relevance of the short-term information (i.e. the system status) remains pretty stable throughout the dialogue, whereas the dialogue history and the user profile (i.e. the middle-term and the long-term information, respectively) play a complementary role, evolving their usefulness as the dialogue evolves.

Independent component analysis for the identification of sources of variation on an industrial nirs application

A Near Infrared Spectroscopy (NIRS) industrial application was developed by the LPF-Tagralia team, and transferred to a Spanish dehydrator company (Agrotécnica Extremeña S.L.) for the classification of dehydrator onion bulbs for breeding purposes. The automated operation of the system has allowed the classification of more than one million onion bulbs during seasons 2004 to 2008 (Table 1). The performance achieved by the original model (R2=0,65; SEC=2,28ºBrix) was enough for qualitative classification thanks to the broad range of variation of the initial population (18ºBrix). Nevertheless, a reduction of the classification performance of the model has been observed with the passing of seasons. One of the reasons put forward is the reduction of the range of variation that naturally occurs during a breeding process, the other is the variations in other parameters than the variable of interest but whose effects would probably be affecting the measurements [1]. This study points to the application of Independent Component Analysis (ICA) on this highly variable dataset coming from a NIRS industrial application for the identification of the different sources of variation present through seasons.

Levels, sources and seasonality of coarse particles (PM10-PM2.5) in three European capitals e implications for particulate pollution control

Coarse particles of aerodynamic diameter between 2.5 and 10 mm (PMc) are produced by a range of natural (windblown dust and sea sprays) and anthropogenic processes (non-exhaust vehicle emissions, industrial, agriculture, construction and quarrying activities). Although current ambient air quality regulations focus on PM2.5 and PM10, coarse particles are of interest from a public health point of view as they have been associated with certain mortality and morbidity outcomes. In this paper, an analysis of coarse particle levels in three European capitals (London, Madrid and Athens) is presented and discussed. For all three cities we analysed data from both traffic and urban background monitoring sites. The results showed that the levels of coarse particles present significant seasonal, weekly and daily variability. Their wind driven and non-wind driven resuspension as well as their roadside increment due to traffic were estimated. Both the local meteorological conditions and the air mass history indicating long-range atmospheric transport of particles of natural origin are significant parameters that influence the levels of coarse particles in the three cities especially during episodic events.

Teaching art and history to photonics students

The case to be reported in this paper is the teaching of topics involving the relation among Photonics, its history, the international situation and the artistic movements in each period. These kind of new studies correspond to a new tendency in teaching interdisciplinary topics to students coming from different areas. Two main courses, one in History and other one in Art, will be taken as examples. Theses two courses have been taught for several years in Madrid, Spain, for Telecomm students and the results have been very satisfactory