Molecular Dynamics Simulation of Zeolite-Assisted Pyrolysis of Polystyrene: Material Selection and Mechanistic Insights.

Polystyrene (PS) presents a significant environmental challenge due to its durability and resistance to degradation. A major issue in addressing this challenge is optimizing the pyrolysis process to selectively convert PS into valuable products, such as styrene, while minimizing unwanted byproducts. Existing studies on PS pyrolysis have primarily focused on general reaction yields and kinetics, with limited molecular-level insight into how zeolites can enhance product selectivity.

The effect of forest composition on outdoor recreation.

Climate change will shift the composition of northern Minnesota forests from boreal to temperate by the end of the century. This shift in forest composition will likely affect outdoor recreation, a valuable ecosystem service and a key economic driver for the region. In this context, the objective of our paper is to empirically examine the relationship between forest composition and recreation.

Understanding Rapid PET Degradation via Reactive Molecular Dynamics Simulation and Kinetic Modeling.

As the demand for PET plastic products continues to grow, developing effective processes to reduce their pollution is of critical importance. Pyrolysis, a promising technology to produce lighter and recyclable components from wasted plastic products, has therefore received considerable attention. In this work, the rapid pyrolysis of PET was studied by using reactive molecular dynamics (MD) simulations.

Techno-economic and life cycle analysis of circular phosphorus systems in agriculture.

Fertilizer runoff is a global nuisance that disrupts biogeochemical cycles of nitrogen and phosphorus. We perform techno-economic and life cycle analyses of selected approaches for enabling a circular economy of phosphorus. We consider four schemes: capturing P with ion-exchange resins followed by precipitation, interception by wetland and recovery in char after biomass pyrolysis, removal by bioreactor and recovery in char after bioreactor substrate pyrolysis, and using legacy phosphorus accumulated in a saturated wetland to grow crops by wetlaculture.

Metrics for a nature-positive world: A multiscale approach for absolute environmental sustainability assessment.

Absolute environmental sustainability (AES) metrics include nature's carrying capacity as a reference to provide insight into the extent to which human activities exceed ecosystem limits, and to encourage actions toward restoration and protection of nature. Existing methods for determining AES metrics rely on the frameworks of Planetary boundaries (PB) and Ecosystem Services. This work provides new insight into the relationship between these methods and demonstrates that AES metrics based on the framework of techno-ecological synergy (TES) are better suited to encouraging nature-positive decisions.

Mucin O-glycans are natural inhibitors of Candida albicans pathogenicity.

Mucins are large gel-forming polymers inside the mucus barrier that inhibit the yeast-to-hyphal transition of Candida albicans, a key virulence trait of this important human fungal pathogen. However, the molecular motifs in mucins that inhibit filamentation remain unclear despite their potential for therapeutic interventions. Here, we determined that mucins display an abundance of virulence-attenuating molecules in the form of mucin O-glycans.

Intervention to Improve Diarrhea-Related Knowledge and Practices Among Informal Healthcare Providers in Slums of Kolkata.

Background: In the densely populated slums of Kolkata, informal healthcare providers' (IHP) diarrhea-related knowledge and rationality of practices should be improved to reduce risk of adverse outcome, expenditure, and antimicrobial resistance.

Methods: A multicomponent intervention was conducted among 140 representative IHPs in the slums of 8 wards in Kolkata to assess its impact on their diarrhea-related knowledge and practice. Six intervention modules in local languages were provided (1 per month) with baseline (N = 140) and postintervention (N = 124) evaluation.

Centralized softening as a solution to chloride pollution: An empirical analysis based on Minnesota cities.

Chloride is a key component of salt, used in many activities such as alkali production, water treatment, and de-icing. Chloride entering surface and groundwater is a concern due to its toxicity to aquatic life and potential to degrade drinking water sources. Minnesota being a hard-water state, has a high demand for water softening.

A perspective on the role of uncertainty in sustainability science and engineering.

The Trans-Atlantic Research and Development Interchange on Sustainability Workshop (TARDIS) is a meeting on scientific topics related to sustainability. The 2019 workshop theme was "On the Role of Uncertainty in Managing the Earth for Global Sustainability." This paper presents the perspectives on this topic derived from talks and discussions at the 2019 TARDIS workshop.

Quantification and valuation of ecosystem services in life cycle assessment: Application of the cascade framework to rice farming systems.

The integration of ecosystem service (ES) assessment with life cycle assessment (LCA) is important for developing decision support tools for environmental sustainability. A prequel study has proposed a 4-step methodology that integrates the ES cascade framework within the cause-effect chain of life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) to characterize the physical and monetary impacts on ES provisioning due to human interventions. We here follow the suggested steps in the abovementioned study, to demonstrate the first application of the integrated ES-LCIA methodology and the added value for LCA studies, using a case study of rice farming in the United States, China, and India.

Nature-Based Solutions Can Compete with Technology for Mitigating Air Emissions Across the United States.

Despite the proliferation of control technologies, air pollution remains a major concern across the United States, suggesting the need for a paradigm shift in methods for mitigating emissions. Based on data about annual emissions in U.S.

Towards integrating the ecosystem services cascade framework within the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) cause-effect methodology.

The assessment of ecosystem services (ES) is covered in a fragmented manner by environmental decision support tools that provide information about the potential environmental impacts of supply chains and their products, such as the well-known Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology. Within the flagship project of the Life Cycle Initiative (hosted by UN Environment), aiming at global guidance for life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) indicators, a dedicated subtask force was constituted to consolidate the evaluation of ES in LCA. As one of the outcomes of this subtask force, this paper describes the progress towards consensus building in the LCA domain concerning the assessment of anthropogenic impacts on ecosystems and their associated services for human well-being.

Toward Sustainable Chemical Engineering: The Role of Process Systems Engineering.

Products from chemical engineering are essential for human well-being, but they also contribute to the degradation of ecosystem goods and services that are essential for sustaining all human activities. To contribute to sustainability, chemical engineering needs to address this paradox by developing chemical products and processes that meet the needs of present and future generations. Unintended harm of chemical engineering has usually appeared outside the discipline's traditional system boundary due to shifting of impacts across space, time, flows, or disciplines, and exceeding nature's capacity to supply goods and services.

microRNA dysregulation in polyglutamine toxicity of TATA-box binding protein is mediated through STAT1 in mouse neuronal cells.

Background: Polyglutamine diseases constitute a class of neurodegenerative disorders associated with expansion of the cytosine-adenine-guanine (CAG) triplet, in protein coding genes. Expansion of a polyglutamine tract in the N-terminal of TBP is the causal mutation in SCA17. Brain sections of patients with spinocerebellar ataxia 17 (SCA17), a type of neurodegenerative disease, have been reported to contain protein aggregates of TATA-binding protein (TBP).

A Water-Withdrawal Input-Output Model of the Indian Economy.

Managing freshwater allocation for a highly populated and growing economy like India can benefit from knowledge about the effect of economic activities. This study transforms the 2003-2004 economic input-output (IO) table of India into a water withdrawal input-output model to quantify direct and indirect flows. This unique model is based on a comprehensive database compiled from diverse public sources, and estimates direct and indirect water withdrawal of all economic sectors.

Economic Dependence of U.S. Industrial Sectors on Animal-Mediated Pollination Service.

Declining animal pollinator health and diversity in the U.S. is a matter of growing concern and has particularly gained attention since the emergence of colony collapse disorder (CCD) in 2006.

Effectiveness of virtual classroom training in improving the knowledge and key maternal neonatal health skills of general nurse midwifery students in Bihar, India: A pre- and post-intervention study.

Background: In 2008-09, the National Health Systems Resource Center of India reported overall quality of nurse-midwifery education in Bihar as grossly sub-optimal. To address this, we implemented a competency-based training using virtual classrooms in two general nurse midwives (GNM) schools of Bihar. The students from remotely located nursing institutions were now able to see live demonstrations of maternal and newborn health (MNH) practices performed by a trained faculty on simulation models at instructor location.

Allocation Games: Addressing the Ill-Posed Nature of Allocation in Life-Cycle Inventories.

Allocation is required when a life cycle contains multi-functional processes. One approach to allocation is to partition the embodied resources in proportion to a criterion, such as product mass or cost. Many practitioners apply multiple partitioning criteria to avoid choosing one arbitrarily.

Techno-ecological synergy: a framework for sustainable engineering.

Even though the importance of ecosystems in sustaining all human activities is well-known, methods for sustainable engineering fail to fully account for this role of nature. Most methods account for the demand for ecosystem services, but almost none account for the supply. Incomplete accounting of the very foundation of human well-being can result in perverse outcomes from decisions meant to enhance sustainability and lost opportunities for benefiting from the ability of nature to satisfy human needs in an economically and environmentally superior manner.

Accounting for the biogeochemical cycle of nitrogen in input-output life cycle assessment.

Nitrogen is indispensable for sustaining human activities through its role in the production of food, animal feed, and synthetic chemicals. This has encouraged significant anthropogenic mobilization of reactive nitrogen and its emissions into the environment resulting in severe disruption of the nitrogen cycle. This paper incorporates the biogeochemical cycle of nitrogen into the 2002 input-output model of the U.

Multi-scale modeling for sustainable chemical production.

With recent advances in metabolic engineering, it is now technically possible to produce a wide portfolio of existing petrochemical products from biomass feedstock. In recent years, a number of modeling approaches have been developed to support the engineering and decision-making processes associated with the development and implementation of a sustainable biochemical industry. The temporal and spatial scales of modeling approaches for sustainable chemical production vary greatly, ranging from metabolic models that aid the design of fermentative microbial strains to material and monetary flow models that explore the ecological impacts of all economic activities.

The factors that influence attitudes toward organ donation for transplantation among UK university students of Indian and Pakistani descent.

Background: The shortage of organs donated for transplantation is particularly severe among ethnic minorities. Previous work has often studied ethnic minorities in broad groups, failing to differentiate by age or country of education. We investigated the younger generation of UK-educated ethnically Indian and Pakistani students to determine their attitudes toward organ donation.

Techno-ecological synergy as a path toward sustainability of a North American residential system.

For any human-designed system to be sustainable, ecosystem services that support it must be readily available. This work explicitly accounts for this dependence by designing synergies between technological and ecological systems. The resulting techno-ecological network mimics nature at the systems level, can stay within ecological constraints, and can identify novel designs that are economically and environmentally attractive that may not be found by the traditional design focus on technological options.

How reliably can paediatric professionals identify pale stool from cholestatic newborns?

Background: The success of surgery in infants with hepatobiliary disease is inversely proportional to the age when surgery was performed. Pale stool colour is a major indicator of biliary obstruction. However, simple recognition has been inadequate, resulting in late diagnosis and referral.