Community change and resident needs: Designing a Participatory Action Research study in Metropolitan Boston.

The health implications of urban development, particularly in rapidly changing, low-income urban neighborhoods, are poorly understood. We describe the Healthy Neighborhoods Study (HNS), a Participatory Action Research study examining the relationship between neighborhood change and population health in nine Massachusetts neighborhoods. Baseline data from the HNS survey show that social factors, specifically income insecurity, food insecurity, social support, experiencing discrimination, expecting to move, connectedness to the neighborhood, and local housing construction that participants believed would improve their lives, identified by a network of 45 Resident Researchers exhibited robust associations with self-rated and mental health.

Public participation: democratic ideal or pragmatic tool? The cases of GM foods and functional foods.

Over recent decades, public participation initiatives have been employed across Europe often with a focus on science and technology issues. In the area of new food technologies most participation initiatives have centered on genetically modified foods. By contrast, in the area of functional foods--where significant EU legislation was recently passed--we have seen no initiatives towards public inclusion.

Trace determination of volatile sulfur compounds by solid-phase microextraction and GC-MS.

A method was developed for the simultaneous determination of the following nine volatile sulfur compounds in gas samples: carbon disulfide, carbonyl sulfide, ethyl sulfide, ethyl methyl sulfide, hydrogen sulfide, isopropanethiol, methanethiol, methyl disulfide and methyl sulfide. The target compounds were preconcentrated by solid-phase microextraction (SPME) and determined by gas chromatography combined with mass spectrometry. Experimental design was employed to optimize the extraction time and temperature and concurrent detection of the nine compounds was achieved by using an SPME fiber coated with Carboxen-polydimethylsiloxane (75 microns).

Quantification of volatile sulfur compounds in complex gaseous matrices by solid-phase microextraction.

Procedures were assessed for quantifying nine volatile sulfur compounds found in complex gaseous samples collected at a biogas-production plant and a sewage treatment plant. The target compounds were extracted by solid-phase microextraction (using the 75-microm Carboxen-polydimethylsiloxane fiber coating) at 22 degrees C for 20 min, and analyzed by GC-MS. Detection limits ranged between 1 pptv (v/v) for carbon disulfide and 470 pptv (v/v) for hydrogen sulfide.