Exploratory Assessment of Risks from Drinking and Recreational Water Exposure to Children in the State of New Jersey

In this study, we conducted a worst-case risk assessment for children’s health from ingestion exposure to water sources in two densely populated counties of the Piedmont province of New Jersey—Hunterdon and Mercer counties. Carcinogenic and non-carcinogenic health risk estimates for 19 contaminants, representing 3 different chemical classes—organic, inorganic and contaminants of emerging concern (CEC), for which environmental monitoring data are available—were generated. The three exposure scenarios examined were: (1) ingestion exposure to untreated groundwater from contaminated private wells; (2) recreational exposure through incidental ingestion of water from the Delaware River; and (3) ingestion exposure through fish consumption sourced from the Delaware River. The total health hazard posed by each contaminant across all the three exposure scenarios was compared to prioritize contaminants based on health risk potential. As a result of this analysis, arsenic and trichloroethylene in private well water were identified as key drivers of health risk and, hence, are proposed as the contaminants of primary concern for the target population. Significantly high total excess cancer risk of 2.13 × 10−3 from arsenic exposure was estimated, highlighting the need for testing and treating water sources as well as setting a framework for more detailed work in the future

Offences Relating to Marriage in India under the Indian Penal Code: A Socio-Legal Study

The foundation of marriage has existed in every society. It has been explained in the Rigveda and other various sacred texts, that females in ancient India had an eminent place with regards in public. In ancient times, marriage was seen as an important ceremony, and women had the same importance as men in society. In the past, marriage was seen as a very important event, but it made women have less power. Over time the financial, social, and political ways of life, females lost their status and regard in the society. Chapter XX of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) encompasses offenses related to marriage. All these offenses fall under the jurisdiction of the institution of marriage. The present socio-legal study focuses on factors responsible for the offences related to marriage in India. There are laws for the protection of women related to marriage abuse but still the crime is in increasing trend. Moreover, most of the crimes are not reported and, in our society, those crimes are considered part of married life for a woman. With the help of this doctrinal and non-doctrinal research methodology. This research paper emphasized the factors contributing to crime. Challenges to control and in the last part consider the suggestions which can help at least in reducing if not eliminating these types of crime

Effects of Brief Mood-Improving Interventions on Immunity: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Objectives: Positive mood has been associated with enhanced immune function. Interventions that improve mood could, therefore, provide a mechanism for optimising immune related health outcomes. Brief interventions that improve mood, also known as mood inductions, potentially offer a pragmatic approach to enhancing immune function for finite periods where this would be beneficial to health (e.g., in advance of vaccination or surgery). This review sought to systematically examine the evidence regarding the effects of brief, single-session positive mood interventions on immunity.Methods: Systematic searches of electronic databases were performed from earliest records to 25th July 2018. We identified 42 interventions suitable for inclusion, six of which were tested in multiple sub-populations. Random effects meta-analyses were performed for pre-post experimental group immune outcomes measured in at least 5 intervention studies. Results: While interventions were heterogeneous, 81% resulted in a statistically significant change in at least one immune parameter following the positive mood intervention for one or more of the sub-populations examined. However, studies were, in general, of low-to-moderate quality with small sample sizes (median n=32) and did not examine the persistence, or clinical relevance of the immune changes observed. Random effects meta-analyses showed a significant medium-sized effect of interventions on increasing secretory IgA concentration (g=0.65), a small but statistically significant effect for increased IL-6 production (g=0.12) and non-significant effects on NK cell activity (g=0.15).Conclusions: The current literature provides modest evidence that improvements in mood resulting from brief interventions can influence some immune parameters in ways indicative of enhanced immune function. However, there is a need for higher quality research in this area that focuses on clinically relevant immune outcomes and mechanisms

Quantitative health risk assessment of recreational water users in Philadelphia

Philadelphias water resources are widely used for a range of recreational activities and since almost 60% of the City is served by Combined Sewer Systems (CSS), the pathogen levels after wet weather discharges are of main concern for evaluating the hygienic status of Citys these resources. A quantitative microbial risk assessment (QMRA) was conducted to estimate risk of gastrointestinal illnesses (GI) associated with recreational exposures to Philadelphia water bodies, under dry and wet weather conditions. Usage pattern was measured at ten different locations (creek sites: n=3 and river sites: n=7) by using a novel ``time lapse photography technology during three recreational seasons (May-September) 2008-2010. Using maximum likelihood estimation stochastic exposure models were generated for each exposure scenario. In general, the log normal distribution described the playing and wading duration distribution, while the gamma distribution was the best fit for fishing durations.Both E. coli and Enterococcus were evaluated as water quality indicators and daily risk of GI illnesses in proportion of the frequency of use, including all types of activities that span the range of exposure at each site, was predicted by running 10,000 Monte Carlo simulations in Crystal Ball. An exponential dose response model was developed based on the 1986 US EPA epidemiological studies and the results were compared with the EPAs 1986-criteria model. A base line approach was developed to extend the risk estimates from local-observation stations to the entire stretch of the water bodies and critical zones of the Schuylkill and the Delaware River were identified for further investigations. Consistently, the sites on small creeks presented elevated risk potential under episodic events of poor water quality. Activities resulting in greatest number of affected users at creeks were identified as wading and playing (81%), while fishing was the potential risk contributor (65%) at rivers. To our knowledge this is the first QMRA to employ time-lapse cameras to characterize exposure types and durations. The quantitative measure of risk contribution from each type of water activity and identification of critical zones on large water bodies can be useful for policy makers in planning the health campaigns and prioritizing the future interventions.Ph.D., Environmental Science -- Drexel University, 201

POLICE STRESS FACTORS AMONG LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES: A COMPARISON STUDY OF US AND TURKISH POLICE

Policing is one of the most stressful jobs in the world. However, the factors which cause stress (stressors) can be different among the police officers in different countries. This paper focuses on the differences about the police occupational stressors between Turkish National Police (TNP) and the United States Law Enforcement Agencies. Turkey is a developing country bordering between Asia and Europe. Not only does its geographical condition cause some international policy problems, but also it causes a lot of policing problems: Such as being a bridge for drug and gun smugglers, being a bridge for human trafficking, and being a target for terrorist organizations. On the other side, the United States of America is a developed country and also known as the superpower of the world. This study tries to answer the question of “Are there any differences between a developed country’s police force and a developing country’s police force in terms of existing stress factors?

Tubular Curvature Filter: Implicit Pointwise Curvature Calculation Method for Tubular Objects

Curvature estimation methods are important as they capture salient features for various applications in image processing, especially within medical domains where tortuosity of vascular structures is of significant interest. Existing methods based on centerline or skeleton curvature fail to capture curvature gradients across a rotating tubular structure. This paper presents a Tubular Curvature Filter method that locally calculates the acceleration of bundles of curves that traverse along the tubular object parallel to the centerline. This is achieved by examining the directional rate of change in the eigenvectors of the Hessian matrix of a tubular intensity function in space. This method implicitly calculates the local tubular curvature without the need to explicitly segment the tubular object. Experimental results demonstrate that the Tubular Curvature Filter method provides accurate estimates of local curvature at any point inside tubular structures.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figure

Fast and Expressive Gesture Recognition using a Combination-Homomorphic Electromyogram Encoder

We study the task of gesture recognition from electromyography (EMG), with the goal of enabling expressive human-computer interaction at high accuracy, while minimizing the time required for new subjects to provide calibration data. To fulfill these goals, we define combination gestures consisting of a direction component and a modifier component. New subjects only demonstrate the single component gestures and we seek to extrapolate from these to all possible single or combination gestures. We extrapolate to unseen combination gestures by combining the feature vectors of real single gestures to produce synthetic training data. This strategy allows us to provide a large and flexible gesture vocabulary, while not requiring new subjects to demonstrate combinatorially many example gestures. We pre-train an encoder and a combination operator using self-supervision, so that we can produce useful synthetic training data for unseen test subjects. To evaluate the proposed method, we collect a real-world EMG dataset, and measure the effect of augmented supervision against two baselines: a partially-supervised model trained with only single gesture data from the unseen subject, and a fully-supervised model trained with real single and real combination gesture data from the unseen subject. We find that the proposed method provides a dramatic improvement over the partially-supervised model, and achieves a useful classification accuracy that in some cases approaches the performance of the fully-supervised model.Comment: 24 pages, 7 figures, 6 tables V2: add link to code, fix bibliograph

Psychological interventions as vaccine adjuvants: a systematic review

Objectives: The effectiveness of vaccines is known to be altered by a range of psychological factors. We conducted a systematic review to evaluate the effects of psychological interventions on the ability of vaccines to protect against disease, as measured by antibody responses. Methods: Electronic databases (EMBASE, Medline, PsychINFO, CINAHL) were searched from their inception to 6th February 2018.Results: The search yielded 9 eligible trials conducted with 1603 participants and four broad categories of intervention: meditation/mindfulness (n=3), massage (n=3), expressive writing (n=2) and cognitive behavioural stress management (n=1). Some evidence of benefit on the antibody response to vaccination was observed in 6/9 of all trials and in 4/7 of randomised controlled trials. However, effects on antibody levels were often mixed, with only 3 of 6 trials showing benefit demonstrating an improvement in all antibody outcomes and at all time points assessed. Trials demonstrating benefit also provided direct or indirect evidence of adequate adherence with the intervention; and in 50% of these trials, there was also evidence that the intervention was effective in changing the mediating psychological constructs targeted by the intervention.Conclusions: This literature is characterised by considerable heterogeneity in terms of intervention type, vaccine type, age of participants and the temporal relationship between vaccination and intervention. We conclude that there is early evidence to suggest that psychological interventions may enhance the antibody response to vaccination. However, the effects are inconsistent, with the greatest likelihood of benefit seen in trials evidencing adequate adherence with the intervention. Future work would benefit from rigorous intervention development that focuses on achieving adequate adherence and large well-controlled randomised trials with a focus on an agreed set of outcomes

Effects of Non-Pharmacological Interventions as Vaccine Adjuvants in Humans:a systematic review and network meta-analysis

Declaration of interest: We have read and understood the policy on declaration of interests and declare that CMT has received funding from Nestle Nutrition for projects unconnected with this study. All other authors do not have any conflicting interests

User Training with Error Augmentation for Electromyogram-based Gesture Classification

We designed and tested a system for real-time control of a user interface by extracting surface electromyographic (sEMG) activity from eight electrodes in a wrist-band configuration. sEMG data were streamed into a machine-learning algorithm that classified hand gestures in real-time. After an initial model calibration, participants were presented with one of three types of feedback during a human-learning stage: veridical feedback, in which predicted probabilities from the gesture classification algorithm were displayed without alteration, modified feedback, in which we applied a hidden augmentation of error to these probabilities, and no feedback. User performance was then evaluated in a series of minigames, in which subjects were required to use eight gestures to manipulate their game avatar to complete a task. Experimental results indicated that, relative to baseline, the modified feedback condition led to significantly improved accuracy and improved gesture class separation. These findings suggest that real-time feedback in a gamified user interface with manipulation of feedback may enable intuitive, rapid, and accurate task acquisition for sEMG-based gesture recognition applications.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figure