scholarly journals Impact of Reaction Parameters and Water Matrices on the Removal of Organic Pollutants by TiO2/LED and ZnO/LED Heterogeneous Photocatalysis Using 365 and 398 nm Radiation

Nanomaterials ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 5
Author(s):  
Máté Náfrádi ◽  
Tünde Alapi ◽  
Gábor Bencsik ◽  
Csaba Janáky

In this work, the application of high-power LED365nm and commercial, low-price LED398nm for heterogeneous photocatalysis with TiO2 and ZnO photocatalysts are studied and compared, focusing on the effect of light intensity, photon energy, quantum yield, electrical energy consumption, and effect of matrices and inorganic components on radical formation. Coumarin (COU) and its hydroxylated product (7-HC) were used to investigate operating parameters on the •OH formation rate. In addition to COU, two neonicotinoids, imidacloprid and thiacloprid, were also used to study the effect of various LEDs, matrices, and inorganic ions. The transformation of COU was slower for LED398nm than for LED365nm, but r07-HC/r0COU ratio was significantly higher for LED398nm. The COU mineralization rate was the same for both photocatalysts using LED365nm, but a significant difference was observed using LED398nm. The impact of matrices and their main inorganic components Cl− and HCO3− were significantly different for ZnO and TiO2. The negative effect of HCO3− was evident, however, in the case of high-power LED365nm and TiO2, and the formation of CO3•− almost doubled the r07-HC and contributes to the conversion of neonicotinoids by altering the product distribution and mineralization rate.

Author(s):  
Fatemeh Montazeri ◽  
Ali Mohammad Foroughmand ◽  
Seyed Mehdi Kalantar ◽  
Abbas Aflatoonian ◽  
Ali Mohammad Khalili

Background and Aims: One of the major subjects for improving in vitro fertilization (IVF) outcome is the quantity and quality of retrieved oocytes. In vitro maturation (IVM) provides an opportunity for using immature oocytes routinely discarded in clinics. This study aimed at evaluating the quality of embryos derived from in vivo and rescue in vitro matured oocytes. Materials and Methods: Totally, 462 immature oocytes as cases and 466 mature (MII) oocytes as controls were included for study of their developmental competence. Oocytes underwent intracytoplasmic sperm injection insemination and then denuded oocytes were microscopically assessed regarding cytoplasmic and nuclear maturity and quality. Results: The morphological assessments showed fertilization rate of 60.9 and 61.4%, the embryo formation rate of 86.7% and 90.9% and arresting rate of 27.3% and 25.6% for the case and control oocytes, respectively. Evaluating embryo quality in the cleavage stage indicated that 63% of the embryos in the case group and 68% of the embryos in the control group were of good quality. There was no significant difference between fertility rate and arresting rate of oocytes matured in both groups, although the embryo formation rate and the quality of embryos differed significantly. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that IVM is a valuable and practical option for patients who had to cancel IVF treatment cycles because of severe responses or resistance to routine hormonal therapies or those with low functional ovarian reserve.


GeroPsych ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 171-179 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurence M. Solberg ◽  
Lauren B. Solberg ◽  
Emily N. Peterson

Stress in caregivers may affect the healthcare recipients receive. We examined the impact of stress experienced by 45 adult caregivers of their elderly demented parents. The participants completed a 32-item questionnaire about the impact of experienced stress. The questionnaire also asked about interventions that might help to reduce the impact of stress. After exploratory factor analysis, we reduced the 32-item questionnaire to 13 items. Results indicated that caregivers experienced stress, anxiety, and sadness. Also, emotional, but not financial or professional, well-being was significantly impacted. There was no significant difference between the impact of caregiver stress on members from the sandwich generation and those from the nonsandwich generation. Meeting with a social worker for resource availability was identified most frequently as a potentially helpful intervention for coping with the impact of stress.


TAPPI Journal ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 9 (7) ◽  
pp. 15-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
JI-YOUNG LEE ◽  
CHUL-HWAN KIM ◽  
JEONG-MIN SEO ◽  
HO-KYUNG CHUNG ◽  
KYUNG-KIL BACK ◽  
...  

Eco-friendly cushioning materials were made with thermomechanical pulps (TMPs) from waste woods collected from local mountains in Korea, using a suction-forming method without physical pressing. The TMP cushions had superior shock-absorbing performance, with lower elastic moduli than expanded polystyrene (EPS) or molded pulp. Even though the TMP cushions made using various suction times had many voids in their inner fiber structure, their apparent densities were a little higher than that of EPS and much lower than that of molded pulp. The addition of cationic starch contributed to an increase in the elastic modulus of the TMP cushions without increasing the apparent density, an effect which was different from that of surface sizing with starch. In the impact test, the TMP cushions showed a more ductile pattern than the brittle EPS. The porosity of the TMP cushion was a little less than that of EPS and much greater than that of molded pulp. The porous structure of the TMP cushions contributed to their excellent thermal insulating capacity, which was equivalent to that of EPS. In summary, the TMP packing cushions showed great potential for surviving external impacts during product distribution.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-48
Author(s):  
Takehiro Iizuka ◽  
Kimi Nakatsukasa

This exploratory study examined the impact of implicit and explicit oral corrective feedback (CF) on the development of implicit and explicit knowledge of Japanese locative particles (activity de, movement ni and location ni) for those who directly received CF and those who observed CF in the classroom. Thirty-six college students in a beginning Japanese language course received either recast (implicit), metalinguistic (explicit) or no feedback during an information-gap picture description activity, and completed a timed picture description test (implicit knowledge) and an untimed grammaticality judgement test (explicit knowledge) in a pre-test, immediate post-test and delayed post-test. The results showed that overall there was no significant difference between CF types, and that CF benefited direct and indirect recipients similarly. Potential factors that might influence the effectiveness of CF, such as instructional settings, complexity of target structures and pedagogy styles, are discussed.


2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 101-120
Author(s):  
Ayça Aktaç Gürbüz ◽  
Orçun YORULMAZ ◽  
Gülşah DURNA

Scientific research into the reduction of stigmatization, particularly related to specific problems such as Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), is scarce. In the present study, we examine the impact of a video-based antistigma intervention program for OCD in a pretest-posttest control group research. After being randomly assigned to either an intervention (n= 101) or control group (n= 96), the participants reported their attitudes on a hypothetical case vignette before and after OCD vs. Multiple Sclerosis (MS) videos, and again six months later as a follow up assessment. The mixed design analyses for the group comparisons indicated that although there was no significant difference in the measures of the control group, the participants watching the anti-stigma OCD video, in which the focus was psychoeducation and interaction strategies, reported significantly lower scores on social distances and negative beliefs for the case vignettes they read, and this difference was maintained six months later. Then, the present results indicate the effectiveness of our anti-stigma intervention program for OCD. Interventions to reduce stigmatization can also be viewed as effective tools for changing the attitudes of people toward OCD, although further research and applications are needed related to specific disorders if a longlasting impact is to be achieved.


2019 ◽  
Vol 118 (7) ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Geethanjali N ◽  
Parveen Roja M ◽  
Lavanya D

Quality of work life is the major factor to be considered in working environment of any organization. The performance of employees and the organization lies on the ability of the employees based on working environment. The QWL leads to better working environment which improves the performance of organization. The present study has made an attempt to find the level of factors causing QWL and the impact of outcome of QWL in banks. Since the profile of the banks may be associated with the level of outcomes of QWL, the present study has made an attempt to examine it with the help of one way analysis of variance and t-test. The included outcomes of QWL are job satisfaction, job stress, organizational climate, organizational commitment, employees retention behaviour, service quality employees and service productivity of employees. The highly associated determinants of QWL and the significant difference among the PUSBs and PRSBs have been noticed. The significantly associating important profiles of the banks regarding the existence of outcome of QWL are identified.


This article presents the results of studying the impact of housing and feeding conditions on broiler chickens of Hubbard RedBro cross, as well as the quality of products obtained when using floor and cage content, in a farm. It established that when receiving a mixed feed of own production using feed raw materials grown on a farm without the use of pesticides, a statistically significant decrease in potentially dangerous substances for animal health is recorded. Compared with factory feed, it has reduced the content of pesticides by 14 times, and mercury and arsenic by 24 times, cadmium by five times, and lead by ten times. The results of the study of economic indicators of growing Hubbard RedBro cross broiler chickens, as well as the chemical composition and quality of carcasses, indicated that there was no significant difference between the floor and cell conditions of keeping. Still, the use of a diet based on eco-feeds contributed to a statistically significant decrease in the concentration of toxic metals in the muscles of the poultry of the experimental groups. As a result, it found that the use of the studied compound feed in the diets of broiler chickens increased the indicators of Biosafety and ensured the production of environmentally safe ("organic") poultry meat products.


2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (05) ◽  
pp. 4563
Author(s):  
Tariq A. Zafar

Glycated haemoglobin (HbA1c) test indicates the blood glucose levels for the previous two to three months. Using HbA1c test may overcome many of the practical issues and prevent infections such as urinary tract infections (UTIs). The study aimed to evaluate the impact of glycemic control using HbA1c test to understand patient characteristics and UTIs prevalence. Glycemic control was evaluated by measuring HbA1c for a total of 208 diabetes patients who were regularly attending diabetes center in Al-Noor specialist hospital in Makkah.  The results showed that good and moderate glycemic controlled patients were 14.9% and 16.9% respectively while the poor glycemic patients were 68.3%. Among the good improved glycemic control, 83.9% were females, 48.4% were from age group (15-44y). Among the moderately improved glycemic control, 68.4% were females, 54.3% were from age group (45-64 y) with no significant difference. The total number of the patients with positive UTIs was 55 (26.4%) while the total number of patients with negative was UTIs 153 (73.6%). Among the positive UTIs, 76.3% were with poor glycemic control while only 12.3% and 11% were moderate and good improved glycemic control respectively. Among the negative UTIs, 65.3% were with poor glycemic control while only 19% and 15.7% were with moderate and good improved glycemic control respectively.  Prevalence of UTIs among diabetic patients was not significant (p > 0.05). It was concluded that HbA1c was useful monitoring tool for diabetes mellitus and may lead to improved outcomes. Using a HbA1c test may overcome many of the practical issues that affect the blood glucose tests.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalia Banasik ◽  
Dariusz Jemielniak ◽  
Wojciech P?dzich

BACKGROUND There have been mixed results of the studies checking whether prayers do actually extend the life duration of the people prayed for. Most studies on the topic included a small number of prayers and most of them focused on people already struggling with a medical condition. Intercessory prayer’s influence on health is of scholarly interest, yet it is unclear if its effect may be dependent on the number of prayers for a named individual received per annum. OBJECTIVE We sought to examine if there is a noticeable increased longevity effect of intercessory prayer for a named individual’s well-being, if he receives a very high number of prayers per annum for an extended period. METHODS We retrieved and conducted a statistical analysis of the data about the length of life for 857 Roman Catholic bishops, 500 Catholic priests, and 3038 male academics from the US, France, Italy, Poland, Brazil, and Mexico. We obtained information for these individuals who died between 1988 and 2018 from Wikidata, and conducted an observational cohort study. Bishops were chosen for the study, as they receive millions of individual prayers for well being, according to conservative estimates. RESULTS There was a main effect for occupation F(2, 4391) = 4.07, p = .017, ηp 2 = .002, with pairwise comparisons indicating significant differences between the mean life duration of bishops (M=30489) and of priests (M=29894), but none between the academic teachers (M=30147) and either of the other groups. A comparison analysis between bishops from the largest and the smallest dioceses showed no significant difference t(67.31)=1.61, p = .11. Our main outcome measure is covariance of the mean length of life in each of the categories: bishops, priests, academic teachers, controlled for nationality. CONCLUSIONS The first analysis proved that bishops live longer than priests, but due to a marginal effect size this result should be treated with caution. No difference was found between the mean length of life of bishops from the largest and the smallest dioceses. We found no difference between bishops and male academics. These results show that the impact of intercessory prayers on longevity is not observable.


2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 18-28
Author(s):  
Najim Ussiph ◽  
Hamidu Kwame Seidu

A quasi experiment with interview was adopted to study the aptness of using 3D animations as an instructional method to introduce programming concepts to students at the Senior High School level. This research work was conducted with 100 students of Akroso Senior High School in the Birim central municipality of the eastern region of Ghana who were generally programming novice. Programming concepts considered included programming environments, loops, functions sequential and conditional execution of programs. A paired t-test carried out on the results of the performance test presents a p-value of 0.008 indicative of a numerically significant difference between the mean marks of participants during the experiments that used 3D animation method as against the experiments that used the text base method. Results from the interview showed that the instructional method used had impact on the performance of the learners. The use of 3D animation method presented programming concepts in a form that the learners can understand, motivates them to pursue programming related courses at a higher level and also impacts positively on their performance.


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