Browse Articles

Analyzing resilience in a sample population as a novel qualifier for triage in psychological first aid

Ramesh et al. | Apr 18, 2023

Analyzing resilience in a sample population as a novel qualifier for triage in psychological first aid
Image credit: Mat Napo

While serving as an immediate address for psychological safety and stability, psychological first aid (PFA) currently lacks the incorporation of triage. Without triage, patients cannot be prioritized in correspondence to condition severity that is often called for within emergency conditions. To disentangle the relevance of a potential triage system to PFA, the authors of this paper have developed a method to quantify resilience - a prominent predictor of the capability to recover from a disaster. With this resilience index, they have quantified resilience of differing age, race, and sex demographics to better inform the practice of PFA and potential demographic prioritization via a triage system.

Read More...

How has California’s Shelter-in-Place Order due to COVID-19 and the Resulting Reduction in Human Activity Affected Air and Water Quality?

Everitt et al. | Feb 15, 2021

How has California’s Shelter-in-Place Order due to COVID-19 and the Resulting Reduction in Human Activity Affected Air and Water Quality?

As the world struggled to grapple with the emerging COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, many countries instated policies to help minimize the spread of the virus among residents. This inadvertently led to a decrease in travel, and in some cases, industrial output, two major sources of pollutants in today's world. Here, the authors investigate whether California's shelter-in-place policy was associated with a measurable decrease in water and air pollution in that state between June and July of 2020, compared to the preceeding five years. Their findings suggest that, by some metrics, air quality improved within certain areas while water quality was relatively unchanged. Overall, these findings suggest that changing human behavior can, indeed, help reduce the level of air pollutants that compromise air quality.

Read More...

The Cohesiveness of the Oscillating Belousov-Zhabotinsky Reaction

Gottlieb et al. | Dec 18, 2018

The Cohesiveness of the Oscillating Belousov-Zhabotinsky Reaction

In this study the author undertakes a careful characterization of a special type of chemical reaction, called an oscillating Belousov-Zhabotinsky (or B-Z) reaction, which has a number of existing applications in biomedical engineering as well as the potential to be useful in future developments in other fields of science and engineering. Specifically, she uses experimental measurements in combination with computational analysis to investigate whether the reaction is cohesive – that is, whether the oscillations between chemical states will remain consistent or change over time as the reaction progresses. Her results indicate that the reaction is not cohesive, providing an important foundation for the development of future technologies using B-Z reactions.

Read More...

Efficient synthesis of superabsorbent beads using photopolymerization with a low-cost method

Wang et al. | Jun 09, 2023

Efficient synthesis of superabsorbent beads using photopolymerization with a low-cost method

Superabsorbent beads are remarkable, used throughout our daily lives for various practical applications. These beads, as suggested by their name, possess a unique ability to absorb and retain large quantities of liquids. This characteristic of absorbency makes them essential throughout the medical field, agriculture, and other critical industries as well as in everyday products. To create these beads, the process of photopolymerization is fast growing in favor with distinct advantages of cost efficiency, speed, energy efficiency, and mindfulness towards the environment. In this article, researchers explore the pairing of cheap monomers with accessible equipment for creation of superabsorbent beads via the photopolymerization process. This research substantially demonstrates the successful application of photopolymerization in producing highly absorbent beads in a low-cost context, thereby expanding the accessibility of this process for creating superabsorbent beads in both research and practical applications.

Read More...

Spider Density Shows Weak Relationship with Vegetation Density

Ryon et al. | Jul 03, 2020

Spider Density Shows Weak Relationship with Vegetation Density

Evidence supports that spiders have many ecological benefits including insect control and predation in the food chain. In this study the authors investigate that whether the percent of vegetation coverage and spider density are correlated. They determine that despite the trend there is no statistically significant correlation.

Read More...

Search Articles

Search articles by title, author name, or tags

Clear all filters

Popular Tags

Browse by school level