556 results match your criteria: "* Oak Ridge Associated Universities[Affiliation]"

It is well known that exposure to ambient O can decrease growth in many tree species in the United States (US). Our study reports experimental data from outdoor open-top chamber (OTC) studies that quantify total biomass response changes for seedlings of 16 species native to western and eastern North America, which were exposed to several levels of elevated O for one or more years. The primary objective of this study is to establish a reference set of parameters for these seedling exposure-response relationships using a 3-month (92 day) 12-hr W126 O metric used by US Environmental Protection Agency and other agencies to assess risk to trees from O exposure.

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Background: There are few occupational studies of women exposed to ionizing radiation. During World War II, the Tennessee Eastman Corporation (TEC) operated an electromagnetic field separation facility of 1152 calutrons to obtain enriched uranium (U) used for the Hiroshima atomic bomb. Thousands of women were involved in these operations.

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How deep to dig: effects of web-scraping search depth on hyperlink network analysis of environmental stewardship organizations.

Appl Netw Sci

June 2022

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Research and Development, Center for Environmental Management and Modelling, Atlantic Coastal Environmental Sciences Division, Narragansett, RI, USA.

Social network analysis (SNA) tools and concepts are essential for addressing many environmental management and sustainability issues. One method to gather SNA data is to scrape them from environmental organizations' websites. Web-based research can provide important opportunities to understand environmental governance and policy networks while potentially reducing costs and time when compared to traditional survey and interview methods.

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Analysis of ionizing radiation induced DNA damage response in human adult stem cells and differentiated neurons.

Mutat Res Genet Toxicol Environ Mutagen

June 2022

Cytogenetic Biodosimetry Laboratory, Radiation Emergency Assistance Center/Training Site, Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education, Oak Ridge Associated Universities, Oak Ridge, TN, USA. Electronic address:

Findings of neurodegenerative features associated with human radiosensitive syndromes such as Ataxia telangiectasia suggest that DNA repair efficiency is crucial for maintaining the functional integrity of central nervous system. To gain a better understanding of ionizing radiation (IR) induced DNA damage response in undifferentiated and differentiated neural cell types and to evaluate the role of ATM in DNA double strand break (DSB) repair, an in vitro human neural cell differentiation model system was utilized in this study. As compared to adult stem cells, differentiated neurons displayed an attenuated DSB repair response (as judged by the persistence of 53BP1 foci) after IR exposure and the attenuation was even more pronounced in stem cells and neurons after suppression of ATM (Ataxia Telangiectasia Mutated) gene product suggesting the importance of ATM for an optimal DSB repair efficiency in human neural cell types.

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Beneficial Use Impairments, Degradation of Aesthetics, and Human Health: A Review.

Int J Environ Res Public Health

May 2022

Center for Public Health & Environmental Assessment, Office of Research and Development, US Environmental Protection Agency, Research Triangle Park, NC 27711, USA.

In environmental programs and blue/green space development, improving aesthetics is a common goal. There is broad interest in understanding the relationship between ecologically sound environments that people find aesthetically pleasing and human health. However, to date, few studies have adequately assessed this relationship, and no summaries or reviews of this line of research exist.

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The COVID-19 pandemic caused disruptions in behavioral health services (BHS), essential for people experiencing homelessness (PEH). BHS changes created barriers to care and opportunities for innovative strategies for reaching PEH. The authors conducted 50 qualitative interviews with behavioral health providers in the USA during August-October 2020 to explore their observations of BHS changes for PEH.

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Background: Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a large class of synthetic (man-made) chemicals widely used in consumer products and industrial processes. Thousands of distinct PFAS exist in commerce. The 2019 U.

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Malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) is a highly aggressive malignancy mainly triggered by exposure to asbestos and characterized by complex biology. A significant body of knowledge has been generated over the decades by the research community which has improved our understanding of the disease toward prevention, diagnostic opportunities and new treatments. Omics technologies are opening for additional levels of information and hypotheses.

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The United States Environmental Protection Agency has proposed a tiered testing strategy for chemical hazard evaluation based on new approach methods (NAMs). The first tier includes in vitro profiling assays applicable to many (human) cell types, such as high-throughput transcriptomics (HTTr) and high-throughput phenotypic profiling (HTPP). The goals of this study were to: (1) harmonize the seeding density of U-2 OS human osteosarcoma cells for use in both assays; (2) compare HTTr- versus HTPP-derived potency estimates for 11 mechanistically diverse chemicals; (3) identify candidate reference chemicals for monitoring assay performance in future screens; and (4) characterize the transcriptional and phenotypic changes in detail for all-trans retinoic acid (ATRA) as a model compound known for its adverse effects on osteoblast differentiation.

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Evaluating water quality impacts on visitation to coastal recreation areas using data derived from cell phone locations.

PLoS One

April 2022

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Research and Development, Center for Environmental Measurement and Modeling, Atlantic Coastal Environmental Sciences Division, Narragansett, Rhode Island, United States of America.

Linking human behavior to environmental quality is critical for effective natural resource management. While it is commonly assumed that environmental conditions partially explain variation in visitation to coastal recreation areas across space and time, scarce and inconsistent visitation observations challenge our ability to reveal these connections. With the ubiquity of mobile phone usage, novel sources of digitally derived data are increasingly available at a massive scale.

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Selective breeding of US dairy cows since the mid-1960s has contributed to remarkable gains in milk yield per cow. This increased milk yield has been associated with an increase in health issues. Since 1964, the University of Minnesota has selectively bred a Holstein herd to maintain genetically static, unselected Holsteins (UH).

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Background: For occupational medical screening programs focused on long-term health surveillance, participant attrition is a significant barrier to success. We investigate demographic, medical history, and clinical data from National Supplemental Screening Program (NSSP) examinees for association with likelihood of return for a second exam (rescreening).

Methods: A total of 15,733 individuals completed at least one NSSP exam before December 31, 2016; of those, 4832 also completed a second exam on or before December 31, 2019.

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Inhalation is the most relevant route of volatile organic chemical (VOC) exposure; however, due to unique challenges posed by their chemical properties and poor solubility in aqueous solutions, in vitro chemical safety testing is predominantly performed using direct application dosing/submerged exposures. To address the difficulties in screening toxic effects of VOCs, our cell culture exposure system permits cells to be exposed to multiple concentrations at air-liquid interface (ALI) in a 24-well format. ALI exposure methods permit direct chemical-to-cell interaction with the test article at physiological conditions.

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Background: Little is known about trends in implementing skills-based instruction in US schools, specifically for sexual and reproductive health (SRH). We examined state-level trends in the percentage of US secondary schools teaching SRH skills in a required course in grades 6 to 8 and 9 to 12.

Methods: Representative data from 35 states participating across 6 cycles of School Health Profiles (2008-2018) was analyzed.

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Self-Folding PCB Kirigami: Rapid Prototyping of 3D Electronics via Laser Cutting and Forming.

ACS Appl Mater Interfaces

March 2022

Sensors and Electron Devices Directorate, U.S. Army Research Laboratory, 2800 Powder Mill Road, Adelphi, Maryland 20783, United States.

This paper demonstrates laser forming, localized heating with a laser to induce plastic deformation, can self-fold 2D printed circuit boards (PCBs) into 3D structures with electronic function. There are many methods for self-folding but few are compatible with electronic materials. We use a low-cost commercial laser writer to both cut and fold a commercial flexible PCB.

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Computational toxicology is central to the current transformation occurring in toxicology and chemical risk assessment. There is a need for more efficient use of existing data to characterize human toxicological response data for environmental chemicals in the US and Europe. The Adverse Outcome Pathway (AOP) framework helps to organize existing mechanistic information and contributes to what is currently being described as New Approach Methodologies (NAMs).

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Geographies of Dirty Water: Landscape-Scale Inequities in Coastal Access in Rhode Island.

Front Mar Sci

January 2022

Gulf Ecosystem Measurement and Modeling Division, Center for Environmental Measurement and Modeling, Office of Research and Development, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Gulf Breeze, FL, United States.

Across the United States, development, gentrification, and water quality degradation have altered our access to the coasts, redistributing the benefits from those spaces. Building on prior coastal and green space access research, we examined different populations' relative travel distances to all public coastal access and to public marine swimming beaches across the state of Rhode Island, by race, ethnicity, and socioeconomics. Next, we assessed relative travel distances to high quality public coastal amenities, i.

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Non-fatal injury data: characteristics to consider for surveillance and research.

Inj Prev

June 2022

Division of Injury Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

Background: All data systems used for non-fatal injury surveillance and research have strengths and limitations that influence their utility in understanding non-fatal injury burden. The objective of this paper was to compare characteristics of major data systems that capture non-fatal injuries in the USA.

Methods: By applying specific inclusion criteria (eg, non-fatal and non-occupational) to well-referenced injury data systems, we created a list of commonly used non-fatal injury data systems for this study.

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A comparative validation of biodosimetry and physical dosimetry techniques for possible triage applications in emergency dosimetry.

J Radiol Prot

March 2022

Cytogenetic Biodosimetry Laboratory, Radiation Emergency Assistance Center/Training Site, Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education, Oak Ridge Associated Universities, Oak Ridge, TN, United States of America.

Large-scale radiological accidents or nuclear terrorist incidents involving radiological or nuclear materials can potentially expose thousands, or hundreds of thousands, of people to unknown radiation doses, requiring prompt dose reconstruction for appropriate triage. Two types of dosimetry methods namely, biodosimetry and physical dosimetry are currently utilized for estimating absorbed radiation dose in humans. Both methods have been tested separately in several inter-laboratory comparison exercises, but a direct comparison of physical dosimetry with biological dosimetry has not been performed to evaluate their dose prediction accuracies.

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Background: Pacific Biosciences HiFi read technology is currently the industry standard for high accuracy long-read sequencing that has been widely adopted by large sequencing and assembly initiatives for generation of de novo assemblies in non-model organisms. Though adapter contamination filtering is routine in traditional short-read analysis pipelines, it has not been widely adopted for HiFi workflows.

Results: Analysis of 55 publicly available HiFi datasets revealed that a read-sanitation step to remove sequence artifacts derived from PacBio library preparation from read pools is necessary as adapter sequences can be erroneously integrated into assemblies.

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Symptomatic Infection in Rwanda.

Open Forum Infect Dis

March 2022

Malaria Branch, Division of Parasitic Diseases and Malaria, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

We report a infection in a Rwandan child misdiagnosed with and administered artemether-lumefantrine. Antigen detection revealed an absence of histidine-rich protein 2 (HRP2) and presence of lactate dehydrogenase. Nested and real-time polymerase chain reactions verified that the sample only contained deoxyribonucleic acid.

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A cross-sectional study of brownfields and birth defects.

Birth Defects Res

March 2022

United States Environmental Protection Agency, RTP, North Carolina, USA.

Article Synopsis
  • Brownfields, which are abandoned sites that may contain hazardous waste, can pose environmental risks to vulnerable populations like neonates and pregnant individuals, potentially leading to birth defects.
  • A study of over 753,000 births in North Carolina from 2003 to 2015 found that living near brownfields is linked to an increased risk of certain birth defects, specifically cardiovascular and external defects, with some defects showing a stronger association than others.
  • The findings suggest a need for further research to explore the relationship between specific contaminants at brownfield sites and various types of birth defects, indicating that proximity to these sites may be a significant factor in birth outcomes.
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In vivo developmental neurotoxicity (DNT) testing is resource intensive and lacks information on cellular processes affected by chemicals. To address this, DNT new approach methodologies (NAMs) are being evaluated, including: the microelectrode array neuronal network formation assay; and high-content imaging to evaluate proliferation, apoptosis, neurite outgrowth, and synaptogenesis. This work addresses 3 hypotheses: (1) a broad screening battery provides a sensitive marker of DNT bioactivity; (2) selective bioactivity (occurring at noncytotoxic concentrations) may indicate functional processes disrupted; and, (3) a subset of endpoints may optimally classify chemicals with in vivo evidence for DNT.

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