Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Dental Professionals Occupational Noise Exposure And Its Auditory And Non-Auditory Effects, Alexis Frees

Theses

The purpose of this study was to assess noise exposure and its auditory and non-auditory effects on workers in five clinical departments in the School of Dental Medicine at Rutgers Biomedical Health Sciences Campus in Newark, New Jersey. The study included environmental noise level measurement, dental instrument sound level measurement, personal noise dosimetry and a questionnaire survey to assess non-auditory effects. Octave band analysis of environmental noise levels showed that they are slightly above the standard noise criteria for clinics, and measurements from six dental instruments confirm that they contribute higher sound pressure levels at the frequencies of 1000, 2000, …

Evaluation Of The Mechanisms And Effectiveness Of Nano-Hydroxides, Wood And Dairy Manure-Derived Biochars To Remove Fluoride And Heavy Metals From Water, Anna Rose Wallace, Wenjie Sun Dr, Chunming Su Dr

Civil and Environmental Engineering Theses and Dissertations

The development of effective treatment processes for the removal contaminants, such as fluoride and heavy metals, from polluted water have been urgently needed due to serious environmental health and safety concerns. In this dissertation, a variety of materials including various (hydro)oxide nanomaterials, biochars and surface modified biochar were studied to evaluate their effectiveness and mechanism on removing fluoride or mixed heavy metals from water.

In the Chapter 2, this study investigated the adsorptive removal of fluoride from water using various (hydro)oxide nanomaterials, focusing on ferrihydrite, hydroxyapatite (HAP) and brucite, which have the potential to be used as sorbents for surface …

Green Strategic Planning Approach For International Shipping Activities, Xiaofang Wu, Luoping Zhang, Huan Feng

Department of Earth and Environmental Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Sustainability is a long-term and ultimate goal for international shipping, although it is slowly making progress. The shipping perspective that moves away from “port-to-port” operations to “door-to-door” services also requires international shipping to take a long-term and holistic view instead of fragmented efforts. How to achieve the long-term sustainability goal becomes a key issue for door-to-door international shipping. Hence, green strategic planning for door-to-door international shipping was proposed with green development that puts forward the eco-centric point of view as its basic theory for sustainability. This study used a strategic decision-making approach, a so-called multi-dimensional decision-making (MDDM), coupled with the …

Integrating Lidar Data And Multi-Temporal Aerial Imagery To Map Wetland Inundation Dynamics Using Google Earth Engine, Qiusheng Wu, Charles B. Lane, Xuecao Li, Kaiguang Zhao, Yuyu Zhou, Nicholas Clinton, Ben Devries, Heather E. Golden, Megan W. Lang

United States Environmental Protection Agency: Staff Publications

The Prairie Pothole Region of North America is characterized by millions of depressional wetlands, which provide critical habitats for globally significant populations of migratory waterfowl and other wildlife species. Due to their relatively small size and shallow depth, these wetlands are highly sensitive to climate variability and anthropogenic changes, exhibiting inter- and intra-annual inundation dynamics. Moderate-resolution satellite imagery (e.g., Landsat, Sentinel) alone cannot be used to effectively delineate these small depressional wetlands. By integrating fine spatial resolution Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) data and multi-temporal (2009–2017) aerial images, we developed a fully automated approach to delineate wetland inundation extent at …

A Feasibility Study On The Application Of Tvdi On Accessing Wildfire Danger In The Korean Peninsula, Kwang Nyun Kim, Seung Hee Kim, Myoung Soo Won, Keun Chang Jang, Won Jun Choi, Yun Gon Lee

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

Wildfire is a major natural disaster affecting socioeconomics and ecology. Remote sensing data have been widely used to estimate the wildfire danger with an advantage of higher spatial resolution. Among the several wildfire related indices using remote sensing data, Temperature Vegetation Dryness Index (TVDI) assesses wildfire danger based on both Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Land Surface Temperature (LST). Although TVDI has physical advantages by considering both weather and vegetation condition, previous studies have shown TVDI does not performed well compare to other wildfire related indices over the Korean Peninsula. In this study we have attempted multiple modification to …

The Rockaway Project - Townes, Diara Jepris D. Townes

Capstones

The Rockaway Project is a story-driven website that provides information on the government response to Superstorm Sandy recovery on the Rockaway peninsula in Queens, New York. Dozens of climate resiliency projects have been delayed or remain unfinished, despite millions of dollars in funding and six years of promises. The website hosts audio, visual and digital content, gathered through interviews and data collection.

Link to capstone project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAq2BeR4bS0&t=1s

A Survey Of Single-Use Plastic Foodware Ordinances Of The San Francisco Bay Region, Christopher Slafter

Master's Projects and Capstones

Municipal jurisdictions in the San Francisco Bay Region (SFBR) are passing comprehensive single-use plastic (SUP) foodware ordinances in response to growing public pressure, and a California mandate to achieve zero waste. SUP foodware items have become an issue of concern because they are readily available in the restaurant industry, and are regularly among the top-ten pollutants collected during beach cleanups. SUP foodware items pose a danger to marine wildlife and contribute to rising carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions. Policy makers in the SFBR are creating local ordinances that regulate the distribution and use of a variety of SUP foodware …

Plastic Fast, Maureen E. Schlangen

Roesch Library Staff Publications

In the era of Silent Spring, the first Earth Days and the “Keep America Beautiful” campaigns in the 1970s, littering was just the tip of the pollution iceberg. It still is. The bigger problems are demand and production. A June 2018 article in National Geographic found that worldwide, we produce almost 500 million tons of plastic every year — and about 40 percent is tossed after one use. According to the nonprofit Plastic Oceans, more than 8 million tons of plastic go into the oceans each year; production of plastic water bottles alone has grown from 3.8 billion in 1996 …

A Transfer Students Guide To Becoming A Pca, Zack J. Krueger

Agricultural Education and Communication

A transfer students guide to becoming a PCA through the AGED department as opposed to AEPS. Agricultural science majors. Classes shown and listed cooperate with the California Department of Pesticide Regulations required course list necessary to take the Pest Control Advisers exam.

Small Ruminant Health Intervention Calendar In Ethiopia, Mesfin Mekonnen, Ayalew Assefa, Tesfalem Nane, Firdawok Ayele, Asrat Arke, Belay Elias, Barbara Wieland

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute: Faculty Publications

Contents

1 Background................................................................................................... 3
2 Developing the health intervention calendar............................................................ 4
The treatment calendar ......................................................... 4 Applying the calendar..................................................................... 5 4 References................................................................... 8

Employing Earth Observations And Artificial Intelligence To Address Key Global Environmental Challenges In Service Of The Sdgs, Wenzhao Li

Computational and Data Sciences (PhD) Dissertations

Earth Observation (EO) data provides the capability to integrate data from multiple sources and helps to produce more relevant, frequent, and accurate information about complex processes. EO, empowered by methodologies from Artificial Intelligence (AI), supports various aspects of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This dissertation presents author’s major studies using EO to fill in knowledge gaps and develop methodologies and cloud-based applications in selected SDGs, including SDG 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation), SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities), SDG 14 (Life below Water) and SDG 15 (Life on Land). For SDG 6, the study focuses on spatiotemporal water recharge …

2020 Comprehensive Conservation And Management Plan: Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment, Ivy Mlsna

PREP Reports & Publications

The Piscataqua Region Estuaries Partnership (PREP), one of 28 National Estuary Programs supported by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), is updating their Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan (CCMP) for the 2020-2030 timeframe. A broad, risk-based, qualitative, planning-level climate change vulnerability assessment was conducted concurrent with this update, as directed by the Funding Guidance for this program.

Biochar As A Means Of Water Purification In Haiti, Caolan Keenan

Honors Projects

Our research set out to determine if biochar, a compound made by burning organic plant matter in a low oxygen environment, would be a suitable means of removing E. coli populations from contaminated water collected from the Grand River in Allendale, MI using simple materials to construct a filter that could be constructed and used in Haiti. Previous research has shown biochar to be effective at trapping bacteria and other contaminants in the porous surface and by binding other non organic contaminants. We constructed multiple iterations of these filters using gravel, sand, and biochar and ran three live tests with …

Effects Of Environmentally Relevant Concentrations Of Microplastic Fibers On Pacific Mole Crab (Emerita Analoga) Mortality And Reproduction, Dorothy Horn, Elise F. Granek, Clare Steele

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Microplastics are ubiquitous in marine systems; however, knowledge of the effects of these particles on marine fauna is limited. Ocean-borne plastic debris accumulates in littoral ecosystems worldwide, and invertebrate infauna inhabiting these systems can ingest small plastic particles and fibers, mistaking them for food. We examined the effect of microplastic fibers on physiological and reproductive outcomes in a nearshore organism by exposing Pacific mole crabs (Emerita analoga) to environmentally relevant concentrations of microsized polypropylene rope fibers. We compared adult gravid female crab mortality, reproductive success, and embryonic developmental rates between microfiber-exposed and control crabs. Pacific mole crabs exposed to polypropylene …

Long-Term Aerosol Trends And Variability Over Central Saudi Arabia Using Optical Characteristics From Solar Village Aeronet Measurements, Mohammed Al Otaibi, Ashraf Farahat, Bassam Tawabini, M. Hafidz Omar, Emad Ramadan, Abdelgadir Abuelgasim, Ramesh Singh

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

Natural and anthropogenic aerosols over the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) play a major role in affecting the regional radiation budget. The long-term variability of these aerosols’ physical and optical parameters, including aerosol optical depth (AOD) and Ångström exponent (α), were measured at a location near central KSA using the Solar Village (SV) AERONET (Aerosol Robotic Network) station during the period December 1999–January 2013. The AERONET measurements show an overall increase in AOD on an annual basis. This upward trend is mainly attributed to a prolonged increase in the monthly/seasonal mean AOD during March–June and during August– September. In contrast, …

Microplastic Concentrations In Two Oregon Bivalve Species: Spatial, Temporal, And Species Variability, Britta Baechler, Elise F. Granek, Matthew V. Hunter, Kathleen E. Conn

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Microplastics are an ecological stressor with implications for ecosystem and human health when present in seafood. We quantified microplastic types, concentrations, anatomical burdens, geographic distribution, and temporal differences in Pacific oysters (Crassostrea gigas) and Pacific razor clams (Siliqua patula) from 15 Oregon coast, U.S.A. sites. Microplastics were present in organisms from all sites. On average, whole oysters and razor clams contained 10.95 ± 0.77 and 8.84 ± 0.45 microplastic pieces per individual, or 0.35 ± 0.04 pieces g⁻¹ tissue and 0.16 ± 0.02 pieces g⁻¹ tissue, respectively. Contamination was quantified but not subtracted. Over …

Sustainable Solutions, Fall/Winter 2020, Issue 41

Sustain Magazine

No abstract provided.

Weaponizing Radioactive Medical Waste - The Looming Threat, Shreekumar Menon, Vagish Kumar L.S.

International Journal of Nuclear Security

Across the globe, use of radioactive substances for medical treatment, by hospitals has resulted in generation of toxic wastes on a large scale. Disposal of these wastes are being entrusted to waste disposal vendors. Environmental concerns, pressures, restrictions and high labor costs, compel these vendors to dump these wastes in third world countries, where enforcement and awareness are substantially low. Unrestricted access to these waste dumps is an open invitation to terror organizations to extract toxic substances and fabricate crude dirty bombs to threaten public safety, and cause low-level contamination of sensitive installations. It is therefore imperative to create an …

Effect Of Foliar Spray Application Of Zinc Oxide Nanoparticles On Quantitative, Nutritional, And Physiological Parameters Of Foxtail Millet (Setaria Italica L.) Under Field Conditions, Marek Kolenčík, Dávid Ernst, Matej Komár, Martin Šebesta, Martin Urík, Edmund Dobročka, Ivan Černý, Ramakanth Illa, Raghavendra Kanike, Qian Yu, Huan Feng, Denisa Orlová, Gabriela Kratošová

Department of Earth and Environmental Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

It has been shown that the foliar application of inorganic nano-materials on cereal plants during their growth cycle enhances the rate of plant productivity by providing a micro-nutrient source. We therefore studied the effects of foliarly applied ZnO nanoparticles (ZnO NPs) on Setaria italica L. foxtail millet’s quantitative, nutritional, and physiological parameters. Scanning electron microscopy showed that the ZnO NPs have an average particle size under 20 nm and dominant spherically shaped morphology. Energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry then confirmed ZnO NP homogeneity, and X-ray diffraction verified their high crystalline and wurtzite-structure symmetry. Although plant height, thousand grain weight, and grain …

Microplastic Occurrence And Effects In Commercially Harvested North American Finfish And Shellfish: Current Knowledge And Future Directions, Britta Baechler, Cheyenne Stienbarger, Dorothy Horn, Jincy Joseph, Allison Taylor, Elise F. Granek, Susanne Brander

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Commercial fisheries yield essential foods, sustain cultural practices, and provide widespread employment around the globe. Commercially harvested species face a myriad of anthropogenic threats including degraded habitats, changing climate, overharvest, and pollution. Microplastics are pollutants of increasing concern, which are pervasive in the environment and can harbor or adsorb pollutants from surrounding waters. Aquatic organisms, including commercial species, encounter and ingest microplastics, but there is a paucity of data about those caught and cultured in North America. Additional research is needed to determine prevalence, physiological effects, and population-level implications of microplastics in commercial species from Canada, the United States, and …

Near Real-Time Determination Of The Prevalence Of Cannabinoids, Cathinones, And Synthetic Opioids, Catherine O'Rourke, Bikram Subedi

Scholars Week

Unregulated new psychoactive substances (NPS) in “pure” or “preparation” forms are designed to mimic the effects of controlled substances, and are introduced and reintroduced in the market as a cheap substitute of established regulated drugs in quick succession to loophole the law enforcement efforts on combating drugs. For example, carfentanil, a synthetic opioid activates the opioid receptors similar to morphine but it is astoundingly potent compared to a typical drug of abuse (100 times more potent than fentanyl and 10,000 times more powerful than morphine). Based on the cost- and time-intensive forensic analysis, National Drug Early Warning System reported the …

Are There Health Hazards Coming From The Rollout Of 5g?, David O. Carpenter

Campus Conversations in Standish

No abstract provided.

Studying The Glacial Melt Of Mount Baker Using Remote Sensing (1999 - 2019), Cole Fletcher

Scholars Week

With rising temperatures glaciers around the globe are beginning to melt. Melting of large glaciers should be concerning as they can raise the present sea-level which could potentially put near sea-level urban areas underwater. We must observe the rate at which glaciers are retreating. Mountain glaciers are a good resource to observe as they do give a clear visual of how fast glaciers are retreating. This project hopes to give a good visual representation and quantitative measurement of how much glacial melt is occurring at Mt Baker in Washington, United States, in the last 20 years. This project will use …

Sundaas Story: A Mixed-Methods Study Of Household Sanitation Provisioning In Urban Informal Housing In India, Sarita Vijay Panchang

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The aims of this research were to examine sanitation insecurity in urban informal housing through the lens of the built environment, social disparities, and health implications. While the Millennium Development Goals for halving the global proportion of people without access to safe drinking water were met ahead of schedule, progress fell short for sanitation, creating new objectives for the Sustainable Development Goals to be met in 2030. Much research in the Global South is dedicated to community-level sanitation promotion, but often presumes a rural rather than urban setting. Urban informal housing settings constitute a unique challenge due to the range …

Gaps In Protection Of Important Ocean Areas: A Spatial Meta-Analysis Of Ten Global Mapping Initiatives, Natasha J. Gownaris, Christine M. Santora, John B. Davis, Ellen K. Pikitch

Environmental Studies Faculty Publications

To safeguard biodiversity effectively, marine protected areas (MPAs) should be sited using the best available science. There are numerous ongoing United Nations and non-governmental initiatives to map globally important marine areas. The criteria used by these initiatives vary, resulting in contradictions in the areas identified as important. Our analysis is the first to overlay these initiatives, quantify consensus, and conduct gap analyses at the global scale. We found that 55% of the ocean has been identified as important by one or more initiatives, and that individual areas have been identified by as many as seven overlapping initiatives. Using our overlay …

From The Human To The Planetary: Speculative Futures Of Care, Miriam Ticktin

Publications and Research

This is largely a theoretical, speculative essay that takes on the question of what ‘care’ looks like at a moment when climate change is increasingly taking center stage in public and political discussions. Starting with two new practices, namely, humanitarian care for nonhumans and One Health collaborations, I seek to determine what forms of political care can incorporate the well-being of future generations and future iterations of the earth. After an exploration of One Health as an approach to planetary care, I ask what its parts enable us to think, despite its limitations; I focus on the new human-nonhuman assemblages …

Assessing Environmentally Sensitive Land To Desertification Using Medalus Method In Mongolia, Eun Jung Lee, Dongfan Piao, Cholho Song, Jiwon Kim, Chul-Hee Lim, Eunji Kim, Jooyeon Moon, Menas Kafatos, Munkhnsan Lamchin, Seong Woo Jeon, Woo-Kyun Lee

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

Desertification is a global phenomenon caused by various processes, including climate change, vegetation processes, and human activities. The need to combat desertification is increasing in many countries. A reasonable assessment of the vulnerability or sensitivity of land cover to desertification at national scales is crucial to formulate appropriate strategies or policies for combating it. The main purpose of this work was to quantitatively assess the sensitivity of land cover to desertification in Mongolia using the MEDALUS approach. The MEDALUS method is a widely known technique for assessing desertification in the Mediterranean area. In this study, the method was adjusted to …

Changes In The Greenland Ice Sheet Of The Southeastern Maniitsoq Coast From 1994-2004 And 2009-2019, Alyssa J. Kaewwilai, Charlie E. Reisman

Student Publications

Remote sensing mechanisms through the use of technology like the Landsat 5-7 Land Manager satellites are commonly used in conjunction with multispectral methods such as unsupervised classification to record and analyze changes in snow and ice over time in areas such as the Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS). Unsupervised classification is a method of identifying, grouping, and labeling features in an image according to their spectral values and is therefore a good method of classifying snow and ice in areas such as Greenland. The goal of unsupervised classifications is to assign pixels into potentially meaningful subsurface classes based on similarities of …

Clearcutting In Appalachia: Impacts On Stream Water Quality In An Appalachian Watershed, Alyssa J. Kaewwilai, Hannah R. Peterson, Abigail F. Rec

Student Publications

Clearcutting forests has the potential to impact the water quality of high water headwater streams. In this study, we measured the effect of forest clearcut events on parameters of stream water quality within Michaux State Forest. The watershed of two streams included 2.1% and 11.6% of the total catchment in clearcuts, while the other 4 watersheds had no clearcuts. We measured pH, electrical conductivity, total suspended solids, and nitrate (ppm) and phosphate (ppm) concentrations from six different tributary streams. Mann-Whitney U tests maintain no statistical difference observed between pH (U= 4.00, p= 1.00), temperature (U=1.00, p=0.165), electrical conductivity (U=2.00, p=0.355), …

Barriers And Opportunities To Electric Vehicle Development In Nepal, Allyson Krupa

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

As the global carbon dioxide level reaches its highest point in human history (407.4 parts per million), energy systems must transition from fossil fuel to renewable-powered sources. Since the transportation sector contributes nearly one-third of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, electric mobility offers a significant opportunity to reduce GHG emissions. Globally, there has been a rise in demand for electric vehicles. In Nepal, a clean energy transition within the context of rising urbanization and air pollution is imperative for quality of life, socio-economic development, and broadly climate change mitigation/adaptation. Furthermore, Nepal’s vast hydropower potential may increase energy independence and provide …