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Interfacial Issues and Modification of Solid Electrolyte Interphase for Li Metal Anode in Liquid and Solid Electrolytes
Get PDFThe high energy density required for the next generation of lithium batteries will likely be enabled by a shift toward lithium metal anode from the conventional intercalation-based anode such as graphite. However, several critical challenges for Li metal originate from its highly reactive nature and the hostless reaction of deposition and stripping impede the practical use of Li metal as an anode. The role of the solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) is very important for the Li metal anode where the SEI must protect the dynamically changing surface of the Li metal. Since the SEI-generating reaction mechanisms for the two different electrolyte systems, liquid and solid, are considerably different, the SEI layers formed between the Li metal and the electrolytes in the two electrolyte systems have substantially different properties, causing different interfacial issues. Inhibition of the interfacial problems requires different strategies to reinforce the SEI layer for each of the electrolyte systems. However, the differences in the two electrolyte systems have not been clearly compared in the prior literature. In this report, the interfacial issues for the two different electrolyte systems are compared and different strategies for SEI modification are provided to overcome the issues
White Male Privilege, Diversity-as-Deficit, and Tokenism in the North American University: Reflections on Netflix’s The Chair
Get PDFJi-Yoon, an Asian-American woman, is the newly appointed chair of the English department at Pembroke University, a lower-tier Ivy League school. Most of the department’s faculty are older and white and male, but do include a female white professor, Joan Hambling, clearly suffering from marginalization. There is also a young black faculty member named Yasmin McKay, whom Ji-Yoon wants to make the university’s first black tenured professor in the English department. Yaz, as they call her, has published in the top journals and is loved by her students, who flock to take her courses. There are other story dynamics dealing with issues of culture wars, the struggle of humanities in university settings dominated with \u27professional\u27 disciplines, and so forth. This review essay, going beyond a media review, offers additional reflections on the multiple ongoing tussles in work settings that go beyond just the university campuses
The Experiences of Children on Sri Lanka\u27s Tea Plantations: Labor and Sexual Exploitation, Violence, and Inadequate Education
Get PDFThis article explores the difficulties faced by children living in Sri Lanka’s tea plantation areas. Data from 150 children reveal high rates of poverty, violence, and school dropout. Children in tea plantation schools report bullying and stigma from teachers and students. Many children do not envision completing school due to inadequate resources, family income pressures, and the need to work. Children who drop out of school face abusive labor conditions and poor pay. Over 30% of all children report experiencing sexual abuse, often in their own homes. Those working face discrimination, physical abuse, and wage theft. Initiatives are needed to improve family incomes, reform schools, provide affordable childcare, enforce child labor laws, and raise awareness of safety and rights. Governmental financial support is required to improve housing, expand agriculture production to generate family income for schooling expenses, and provide training for teachers. Government interventions and creating coordination between agencies, NGOs, and tea industry stakeholders are vital to alleviate the hardships faced by Sri Lanka’s tea plantation children and create opportunities for them to realize their full potential
Beyond the tip of the seamount: Distinct megabenthic communities found beyond the charismatic summit sponge ground on an arctic seamount (Schulz Bank, Arctic Mid-Ocean Ridge)
Get PDFOur understanding of the benthic communities on arctic seamounts and descriptions of such communities in habitat classification systems are limited. In recent years, Schulz Bank (73°52′N 7°30′E), a seamount on the Arctic Mid-Ocean Ridge (AMOR), has become well studied but the work has primarily focused on an arctic sponge ground at the summit. This has compounded a general assumption that the most biologically interesting community is on the summit alone. With the potential threat of deep-sea mining on nearby sites on AMOR, it is crucial to form a baseline understanding of the benthic megafaunal communities not only on the summit, but on the slopes and base of the seamount as well. Using video footage collected by a remotely operated vehicle in 2017 and 2018 to survey the seamount from 2700 to 580 m depth, several distinct megafauna communities on Schulz Bank were identified. Specifically, five biotopes, two of which were dominated by large structure-forming sponges, appeared to follow a depth gradient and change with the type of substrata present. The sponge-dominated communities on the summit and lower slope had the highest average community densities and number of morphotaxa per image compared to the upper slope and seamount base communities. Most notably, sponge-dominated bedrock walls on the lower slopes challenge the assumption that the summit is the most dense and diverse community on Schulz Bank. The results from this study lay the foundation for future research and conservation efforts of arctic sponge grounds by looking beyond the seamount summit to bring a full view of enigmatic sponge dominated ecosystems
Impact of Discrepancies Related to Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Medications on Hospital Length of Stay
Get PDFIntroduction: Medication reconciliation (MR) compares a patient’s self-reported medications with those in their current record or those being ordered to create a complete and accurate medication list.1 Good medication adherence has been associated with a decrease in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease exacerbation (COPDe’s).2
Research Question or Hypothesis: Do discrepancies with COPD medications impact length of stay (LOS) of COPDe’s in Veteran patients ≥ 65?
Study Design: retrospective cohort study
Methods: MRs were completed by pharmacy personnel on the general medicine floor. Inclusion criteria: admitted for COPDe between February 2018-February 2020, able to participate in and had MR performed by pharmacy personnel, Veterans ≥65 years of age, known history of COPD listed in Problem List in electronic medical record, ≥ 1 active or expired medication indicated for COPD, primary discharge diagnosis of COPDe. Exclusion criteria: nursing home patients, not meeting inclusion criteria.
Results: Thirty-two patients met inclusion criteria (mean age = 75). Reasons for discrepancies were poor adherence, change in therapy, duplicate therapy, and not refilled due to adverse drug reaction (56%, 22%, 11%, 11%, respectively). Primary outcomes results were mean LOS 11 (± 26.52) vs 4 (± 2.07) days (p= 0.440 (-25.26, 11.26)) in patients without and with discrepancies, respectively.
Conclusion: Discrepancies related to COPD medications identified through MR did not have a significant impact on LOS in patients admitted for COPD exacerbations. 75% of patients who were readmitted to the hospital for a COPDe within 30 days of discharge had a COPD-related MR discrepancy. Sample size of the study population was not large enough to achieve power as defined in the protocol. Study limitations include strict COPD inclusion criteria, poor problem list documentation, and small sample size. Extreme outliers in length of stay in the patients without MR discrepancies exaggerates the difference between the groups
Simulated upwelling and marine heatwave events promote similar growth rates but differential domoic acid toxicity in Pseudo-nitzschia australis
No full textAlong the west coast of the United States, highly toxic Pseudo-nitzschia blooms have been associated with two contrasting regional phenomena: seasonal upwelling and marine heatwaves. While upwelling delivers cool water rich in pCO2 and an abundance of macronutrients to the upper water column, marine heatwaves instead lead to warmer surface waters, low pCO2, and reduced nutrient availability. Understanding Pseudo-nitzschia dynamics under these two conditions is important for bloom forecasting and coastal management, yet the mechanisms driving toxic bloom formation during contrasting upwelling vs. heatwave conditions remain poorly understood. To gain a better understanding of what drives Pseudo-nitzschia australis growth and toxicity during these events, multiple-driver scenario or ‘cluster’ experiments were conducted using temperature, pCO2, and nutrient levels reflecting conditions during upwelling (13 °C, 900 ppm pCO2, replete nutrients) and two intensities of marine heatwaves (19 °C or 20.5 °C, 250 ppm pCO2, reduced macronutrients). While P. australis grew equally well under both heatwave and upwelling conditions, similar to what has been observed in the natural environment, cells were only toxic in the upwelling treatment. We also conducted single-driver experiments to gain a mechanistic understanding of which drivers most impact P. australis growth and toxicity. These experiments indicated that nitrogen concentration and N:P ratio were likely the drivers that most influenced domoic acid production, while the impacts of temperature or pCO2 concentration were less pronounced. Together, these experiments may help to provide both mechanistic and holistic perspectives on toxic P. australis blooms in the dynamic and changing coastal ocean, where cells interact simultaneously with multiple altered environmental variables
Patterns in sources and forms of nitrogen in a large eutrophic lake during a cyanobacterial harmful algal bloom
Get PDFWestern Lake Erie experiences an annual, toxic cyanobacterial harmful algal bloom (cyanoHAB), primarily caused by excess anthropogenic inputs of nitrogen (N) and phosphorous (P). Because the non-N fixing cyanobacteria species Microcystis dominates these blooms, N availability is hypothesized to play a central role in cyanoHAB progression, as well as production of the N-rich toxin microcystin. Many previous studies focused on nitrate because it is the most abundant N substrate during bloom initiation. However, recent work implicated reduced N substrates like ammonium and dissolved organic N (DON) in promoting greater bloom biomass and longevity. To examine the relative importance of oxidized and reduced N substrates to phytoplankton during different bloom stages, we measured concentrations and natural abundance δ15N isotope values of dissolved N substrates and phytoplankton biomass throughout the entirety of the 2020 cyanoHAB in Western Lake Erie. The results provide the first data on DON dynamics and composition in Western Lake Erie, and suggest that phytoplankton, including Microcystis, likely relied on N regenerated from the DON pool in later bloom stages. In addition, the stable isotope data confirm the importance of nitrate delivered via the Maumee River to cyanobacterial growth and toxin production
From “A Room of Your Own” to “A Room of Her Own”: Women ReWriting Women and The Path to Feminist Practice
Get PDFVirginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own (1929) was first translated in Greek by Mina Dalamanga (Odysseus Editions) in 1980. Almost forty years later, in 2019, Vasia Tzanakari was assigned the translation of Woolf’s seminal text by Metaichmio Publications. And in 2021, a new translation by Sparti Gerodimou saw the light of day, published by Erato Publications (2021). Three different women translators have thus rendered Woolf’s text in Greek with all three publications coming out at times marked by significant changes in Greek society. Exploring the context in which the agents were situated and drawing on feminist translation practices and approaches to translation, while informed by critical linguistics and sociolinguistics, this paper investigates the translational travel of Woolf’s text and the way(s) it intervened in representation(s) of feminism, gender, sexuality, and identity in the Greek context. Based on the agenda pursued by the agents themselves, as reflected in the paratextual materials studied here, this paper ultimately discusses the interaction and interweaving among gender, language, and translation, as well as the umbilical ties between feminism(s) and translation that are testimony to the acts of transformation performed in society
Simulated climate change impacts on striped bass, blue crab and Eastern oyster in oyster sanctuary habitats of Chesapeake Bay
Get PDFOyster reefs and the species that inhabit them will likely be impacted by shifts in environmental conditions due to climate change. This study examined the potential impact of long-term shifts in water temperature and salinity as a result of climate change on the biomasses of important fisheries species within oyster sanctuary sites in the Choptank and Little Choptank river complex (CLC) in Chesapeake Bay using an Ecopath with Ecosim food web model. The model was used to evaluate changes in the oyster reef food web, with particular emphasis on impacts to striped bass (Morone saxatilis), blue crab (Callinectes sapidus), and Eastern oysters (Crassostrea virginica). Eight different climate change scenarios were used to vary water temperature and salinity within Chesapeake Bay up to the year 2100 based on projections given by previous studies. Simulations used a 4 °C increase in temperature along with an increase (+12 or +10) or decrease (−2) in salinity at annual time steps. The rate of change in species biomasses across scenarios ranged from −0.0052 to 0.0008 t/km2/month for striped bass, −0.0021 to 0.0026 t/km2/month for blue crab and −0.0018 to 0.0026 t/km2/month for oysters. Across the majority of scenarios, the biomasses of striped bass and blue crab decreased, while oyster biomass increased. These results begin to offer insight on the interaction between oyster reef restoration benefits and climate change. The modeling framework utilized by this study may be adapted to other systems to assess the effects of climate change on other coastal restoration habitats
Partitioning the Apparent Temperature Sensitivity into Withinand Across-Taxa Responses: Revisiting the Difference between Autotrophic and Heterotrophic Protists
Get PDFConventional analyses suggest that the metabolism of heterotrophs is thermally more sensitive than that of autotrophs, implying that warming leads to pronounced trophodynamic imbalances. However, these analyses inappropriately combine within-and acrosstaxa trends. Our new analysis separates these, revealing that 92% of the difference in the apparent thermal sensitivity between autotrophic and heterotrophic protists does indeed arise from within-taxa responses. Fitness differences among taxa adapted to different temperature regimes only partially compensate for the positive biochemical relationship between temperature and growth rate within taxa, supporting the hotter-is-partially-better hypothesis. Our work highlights the importance of separating within-and across-taxa responses when comparing temperature sensitivities between groups, which is relevant to how trophic imbalances and carbon fluxes respond to warming