Celikhegelund1132

Tough gel with extreme temperature tolerance is a class of soft materials having potential applications in the specific fields that require excellent integrated properties under subzero temperature. Herein, physically crosslinked Europium (Eu)-alginate/polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) organohydrogels that do not freeze at far below 0°C, while retention of high stress and stretchability is demonstrated. These organohydrogels are synthesized through displacement of water swollen in polymer networks of hydrogel to cryoprotectants (e.g., ethylene glycol, glycerol, and d-sorbitol). The organohydrogels swollen water-cryoprotectant binary systems can be recovered to their original shapes when be bent, folded and even twisted after being cooled down to a temperature as low as -20 and -45°C, due to lower vapor pressure and ice-inhibition of cryoprotectants. The physical organohydrogels exhibit the maximum stress (5.62 ± 0.41 MPa) and strain (7.63 ± 0.02), which is about 10 and 2 times of their original hydrogel, due to the synergistic effect of multiple hydrogen bonds, coordination bonds and dense polymer networks. Based on these features, such physically crosslinked organohydrogels with extreme toughness and wide temperature tolerance is a promising soft material expanding the applications of gels in more specific and harsh conditions. Copyright © 2020 Zhang, Dong, Guan, Zhang, Chen, Yang, Zhang, Khan, Arfat and Aziz.The rapid identification of sex has potential uses involving dioecious commercial plants. In this work, we first propose a rapid electrochemical analysis method for plant sex determination using the signal difference generated by the electrochemically active substances in plant tissue. Polydopamine-functionalized graphene was wrapped around plant tissue. The introduction of polydopamine-functionalized graphene could solve the problem of the instability of plant tissue immobilization and enhance the electrochemical signals from plant tissue. Taxus × media, Dioscorea zingiberensis, and Dioscorea bulbifera were deliberately selected as dioecious plant models due to their pharmaceutical applications. The sex of the plant was not obvious after simply comparing the electrochemical voltammograms. Scatter patterns and 3D surface patterns were generated based on the voltammograms recorded after different solvent extractions. Sex determination was successfully achieved by pattern recognition. Copyright © 2020 Fu, Wang, Zhang, Zheng, Wu, Lan, Pu, Zhang, Chen, Su, Yu and Lin.Since its first use for describing a neighborhood lacking access to food in the 1990's, "food deserts" has been widely addressed by researchers and adopted as an indicator of neighborhood-level food insecurity by governmental agencies, such as USDA. However, mostly due to cost and difficulty in collecting georeferenced data and characteristics of grocery stores, the USDA Food Access Research Atlas is infrequently released, and considers only income, vehicle ownership, and distance to the nearest grocery store. In this paper, we explored the feasibility of a crowdsourced geospatial data source, coupled with additional measures, in supplementing the USDA's current designation of food deserts. We used Yelp data to map food deserts in the city of Dallas and compared them with those based on the 2015 USDA food retailer database. Although direct comparison was not possible due to time mismatch between the two data sources, the discrepancies highlighted the need of a more frequent identification of food deserts for timely policy intervention. Furthermore, we extended mapping to reveal other potential areas of concerns, by adding the Transit Score metric and Yelp's price descriptor of businesses. The resulting maps illustrated the areas with grocery stores nearby but with limited accessibility due to lack of public transit or potential financial barriers in purchasing foods due to high prices. Our findings demonstrate the current status and future potential of up-to-date crowdsourced, georeferenced data as a complement of official government data, which could serve to extend food access research and guide health policies. Copyright © 2020 McKey, Kim and Seo.Aim We studied occupational stress and its effects on health in a sample of Italian chefs using a structural equation modeling (SEM) analytical approach. Methods In an online study, 710 chefs were recruited through the Italian Chefs Federation. They answered several questionnaires to evaluate whether the risk of occupational stress (measured with the Karasek's Job Content Questionnaire and Siegrist's Effort-Reward Imbalance) correlates with the quality of life and the prevalence of health complaints. We also sought to evaluate whether individual characteristics (age, sex or body mass index) or work-related factors (i.e., chef categories, job duration, and length of working day) might be considered as stress risk factors. Results Forty-seven percent of the chefs [88% male, mean age 44.4 ± 6.3 years; body mass index (kg/m2) 28.5 ± 1.2; job duration 24.9 ± 4.1 years; working hours per week 66.4 ± 28.9] reported, at least, two or more health complaints (i.e., gastrointestinal, blood pressure, and musculoskeletal problems). SEM analyses demonstrated that occupational job duration and the length of working week in chefs are significantly associated with a lower quality of life and an increasing prevalence of health complaints. This relationship is mediated by the presence of high level of occupational stress, which was revealed with a prevalence ranging from 13.8 to 24.9%. Age, sex, and unhealthy lifestyles do not affect this pattern of findings. Conclusion Job duration and the length of working day can be considered as stress predictors in chef-related daily activity, which increase the likelihood of illness. Copyright © 2020 Cerasa, Fabbricatore, Ferraro, Pozzulo, Martino and Liuzza.Background Reducing occupational ill-health from chemical and biological agents is realized primarily through the mitigation and elimination of hazardous exposures. Despite evidence of declining exposure in European and North-American workplaces, comprehensive studies of the effectiveness of workplace interventions for reducing hazardous exposure and associated work-related ill-health seem rare. We reviewed occupational intervention studies targeting exposure to chemical and biological agents, and determined trends in frequency and quality of such studies. Methods We searched Embase, Medline, and Web of Science for peer-reviewed original articles on occupational intervention studies published 1960-2019, aimed at reducing workers' exposure to dusts, gases, fumes, or liquids of chemical, biological, or mineral nature, or workers' risks for associated health outcomes. The frequency of articles, intervention types, intervention endpoints, and study quality of published intervention studies between 1960 and 2019 ae frequency and quality of intervention studies targeting exposure to chemicals and biological agents, the absolute number of intervention studies remains low, particularly when considering only high quality studies. Occupational exposure to chemical and biological agents is still causing excessive disease in workforces worldwide. To reduce occupational ill-health caused by these exposures, it is important to expand the evidence on (cost-)effectiveness and transferability of interventions to reduce exposure and health effects. Copyright © 2020 Ohlander, Kromhout and van Tongeren.Background Cable cars provide urban mobility benefits for vulnerable populations. However, no evaluation has assessed cable cars' impact from a health perspective. TransMiCable in Bogotá, Colombia, provides a unique opportunity to (1) assess the effects of its implementation on the environmental and social determinants of health (microenvironment pollution, transport accessibility, physical environment, employment, social capital, and leisure time), physical activity, and health outcomes (health-related quality of life, respiratory diseases, and homicides); and (2) use citizen science methods to identify, prioritize, and communicate the most salient negative and positive features impacting health and quality of life in TransMiCable's area, as well as facilitate a consensus and advocacy-building change process among community members, policymakers, and academic researchers. Methods TrUST (In Spanish Transformaciones Urbanas y Salud el caso de TransMiCable en Bogotá) is a quasi-experimental study using a mixed-olicymakers throughout the design and evaluation process. This study will help to understand better how to maximize health benefits and minimize unintended negative consequences of TransMiCable. Copyright © 2020 Sarmiento, Higuera-Mendieta, Wilches-Mogollon, Guzman, Rodríguez, Morales, Méndez, Bedoya, Linares-Vásquez, Arévalo, Martínez-Herrera, Montes, Meisel, Useche, García, Triana, Medaglia, Hessel, Arellana, Moncada, King and Diez Roux.Corresponding to the growing calls for theory-driven research on the age-job satisfaction association, the present study investigated direct and indirect (via job burnout) relationships between subjective age (felt age) and job satisfaction. The study also examined the moderating role of chronological age on both direct and indirect (via job burnout) relationships between subjective age and job satisfaction. Survey data were collected in three waves (2 months apart) from 355 employees in 62 firms operating in various service and manufacturing industry sectors in Pakistan. Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling, PROCESS macro for SPSS, and bootstrapping technique. selleckchem The results showed subjective age was negatively related to job satisfaction, both directly (β = -0.19, p less then 0.001) and indirectly, via job burnout (β = -0.09, bootstrap 95% confidence interval limits did not overlap with zero; lower limit = -0.15, upper limit = -0.04). Interestingly, the interaction term (relative subjective a low level of employees' job satisfaction. Copyright © 2020 Anser, Ali, Anwar and Usman.Biological aging results in changes in an organism that accumulate over age in a complex fashion across different regulatory systems, and their cumulative effect manifests in increased physiological dysregulation (PD) and declining robustness and resilience that increase risks of health disorders and death. Several composite measures involving multiple biomarkers that capture complex effects of aging have been proposed. We applied one such approach, the Mahalanobis distance (DM), to baseline measurements of various biomarkers (inflammation, hematological, diabetes-associated, lipids, endocrine, renal) in 3,279 participants from the Long Life Family Study (LLFS) with complete biomarker data. We used DM to estimate the level of PD by summarizing information about multiple deviations of biomarkers from specified "norms" in the reference population (here, LLFS participants younger than 60 years at baseline). An increase in DM was associated with significantly higher mortality risk (hazard ratio per standard deviation of DM 1.42; 95% confidence interval [1.3, 1.54]), even after adjustment for a composite measure summarizing 85 health-related deficits (disabilities, diseases, less severe symptoms), age, and other covariates. Such composite measures significantly improved mortality predictions especially in the subsample of participants from families enriched for exceptional longevity (the areas under the receiver operating characteristic curves are 0.88 vs. 0.85, in models with and without the composite measures, p = 2.9 × 10-5). Sensitivity analyses confirmed that our conclusions are not sensitive to different aspects of computational procedures. Our findings provide the first evidence of association of PD with mortality and its predictive performance in a unique sample selected for exceptional familial longevity. Copyright © 2020 Arbeev, Bagley, Ukraintseva, Duan, Kulminski, Stallard, Wu, Christensen, Feitosa, Thyagarajan, Zmuda and Yashin.