Environmental Health Commons^™

An Exploration Of The Causes And Effects Of Interpersonal Conflict Related Stress Among A Self-Selected Cohort Of Second Level Teachers In Ireland, Patrick Bruce

Theses

Teaching has been classified by researchers as a high stress profession. Stress in teaching has been reported to have many negative health outcomes and also affects productivity. The literature also reports that stress in teaching is a difficult matter to resolve satisfactorily, with mixed outcomes from interventions. An emergent cause of work-related stress in education is IPC and this study sets out to investigate the prevalence of this underreported phenomena.

A sample of 25 teachers working in Irish second level schools were recruited. Semi structured interviews were conducted to report on the experiences of stress, it’s causes and effects both …

Advances In Emerging Technologies For The Decontamination Of The Food Contact Surfaces, Shubham Sharma, Swarna Jaiswal, Brendan Duffy, Amit Jaiswal

Articles

Foodborne pathogens could be transferred to food from food contact surfaces contaminated by poor hygiene or biofilm formation. The food processing industry has various conditions favouring microbes' adherence, such as moisture, nutrients, and the microbial inoculums obtained from the raw material. The function of the ideal antimicrobial surface is preventing initial attachment of the microbes, killing the microbes or/and removing the dead bacteria. This review article provides detail about the challenges food industries are facing with respect to food contact materials. It also summarises the merits and demerits of several sanitizing methods developed for industrial use. Furthermore, it reviews the …

Emerging Technologies For The Production Of Nanocellulose From Lignocellulosic Biomass, Dileswar Pradhan, Amit Jaiswal, Swarna Jaiswal

Articles

Nanocellulose is a unique and promising natural nanomaterial and has gained significant attention due to its applications in several important areas. Thus, researchers are continuously looking for the most efficient, sustainable, economically viable, and environmentally friendly production technologies to fulfil its growing demand. Conventional production technologies, which include various physical, chemical, and physicochemical methods, are currently inadequate for this purpose and have several limitations such as long processing time, high energy consumption, low recovery of nanocellulose, and many others. To overcome these shortcomings, scientists have investigated the prospect of utilizing emerging processing technologies such as microwave irradiation, deep eutectic solvent, …

Application Of High-Intensity Ultrasound To Improve Food Processing Efficiency: A Review, Prasad Chavan, Pallavi Sharma, Sajeev Rattan Sharma, Tarsem Chand Mittal, Amit Jaiswal

Articles

The use of non-thermal processing technologies has grown in response to an ever-increasing demand for high-quality, convenient meals with natural taste and flavour that are free of chemical additions and preservatives. Food processing plays a crucial role in addressing food security issues by reducing loss and controlling spoilage. Among the several non-thermal processing methods, ultrasound technology has shown to be very beneficial. Ultrasound processing, whether used alone or in combination with other methods, improves food quality significantly and is thus considered beneficial. Cutting, freezing, drying, homogenization, foaming and defoaming, filtration, emulsification, and extraction are just a few of the applications …

The Synthesis And Biological Assessment Of Novel Ursolic Acid Derivatives As Potential Chemotherapeutic Agents For Cancer, Julie Rose Mae Mondala

Theses

Glioblastoma (GBM) is considered to be the most biologically aggressive type of brain tumour accounting for approximately 48% of all malignant primary brain tumours. GBM patients diagnosed have poor prognosis with a low five-year survival rate of

The aim of this study was to develop novel UA derivatives to enhance its bioavailability. Nine novel UA derivatives: three different diamine linkers, with Boc-protected and deprotected ends, and with folic acid were designed and synthesized to improve compound activity and/or delivery. The structures of the newly synthesised compounds were confirmed using mass spectrometry, FTIR, 1H NMR and 13C NMR. The structural activity …

Dough Properties And Baking Characteristics Of White Bread, As Affected By Addition Of Raw, Germinated And Toasted Pea Flour, Kim A. Millar, Catherine Barry-Ryan, Roisin Burke, Sinead Mccarthy, Eimear Gallagher

Articles

Thermal and non-thermal processing may alter the structure and improve the techno-functional properties of pulses and pulse flours, increasing their range of applications in protein-enhanced foods. The effects of germination and toasting of yellow peas (Pisum sativum) on flour and dough characteristics were investigated. Wheat flour was substituted with raw, germinated and toasted pea flour (30%). The resulting bread-baking properties were assessed. Toasting increased dough water absorption and improved dough stability compared with germinated and raw pea flour (p < 0.05). This resulted in bread loaves with comparable specific volume and loaf density to that of a wheat flour control. Significant correlations between dough rheological properties and loaf characteristics were observed. Addition of pea flours increased the protein content of the breads from 8.4% in the control white bread, to 10.1–10.8% (p < 0.001). Toasting demonstrated the potential to improve the techno-functional properties of pea flour. Results highlight the potential application of pea flour in bread-making to increase the protein content.

Review: Epidemiological Evidence Of Groundwater Contribution To Global Enteric Disease, 1948–2015, Heather Murphy, Morgan Prioleau, Mark Borchardt, Paul Hynds

Articles

Globally, approximately 2.2 billion people rely on groundwater for daily consumption. It is widely accepted that groundwater is more pristine than surface water but while this assumption is frequently the case, groundwater is not ubiquitously free of contaminants; accordingly, this presumption can result in an unfounded and potentially hazardous sense of security among owners, operators and users. The current paper presents a review of published literature providing epidemiological evidence of the contribution of groundwater to global human enteric infection. An emphasis is placed on enteric pathogens transmitted via the faecal-oral route, and specifically those associated with acute gastrointestinal illness (AGI). …

Feasibility Of Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (Libs) As An At-Line Validation Tool For Calcium Determination In Infant Formula, Xavier Cama-Moncunill, Maria Markiewicz-Keszycka, Yash Dixit, Raquel Cama-Moncunill, Maria Piedad Casado-Gavalda, Patrick J. Cullen, Carl Sullivan

Articles

In this study, a 150 mJ laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) system was assessed to determine calcium content in infant formula (IF) samples. LIBS is a promising emission spectroscopic technique for elemental analysis, which offers advantages over conventional methods such as real-time analyses, little to no sample preparation and ease of use. The aim of this work was to evaluate the feasibility of LIBS as an at-line tool for IF manufacturing. To this end, IF mixtures with varying content of calcium were prepared over a range (approx. 1.5–7 mg/g of calcium) selected to be in conformity with the guidelines provided by …

Impact Of Atmospheric Pressure Nonequilibrium Plasma Discharge On Polymer Surface Metrology, Laurence Scally, James Lalor, Patrick J. Cullen, Vladimir Milosavljevic

Articles

Due to the attraction of plasma technologies as a clean and efficient means of surface modification, significant research has gone into the physical and chemical aspects of polymer functionalization. In this study, it was shown that the use of an atmospheric plasma jet can efficiently modify the surface of polyethylene terephthalate samples and change their hydrophobic properties to more hydrophilic characteristics. The dependence on the changes with respect to time, distance, and atomic oxygen (O I) intensity were considered as factors. It was found that with closer proximity to the plasma source (without causing thermal degradation) and with increasing levels …

Size Dependent Translocation And Fetal Accumulation Of Gold Nanoparticles From Maternal Blood In The Rat., Manuela Semmler-Behnke, Jens Lipka, Alexander Wenk, Martin Schäffler, Furong Tian, Günter Schmid, Günter Oberdörster, Wolfgang G. Kreyling

Articles

Background

There is evidence that nanoparticles (NP) cross epithelial and endothelial body barriers. We hypothesized that gold (Au) NP, once in the blood circulation of pregnant rats, will cross the placental barrier during pregnancy size-dependently and accumulate in the fetal organism by 1. transcellular transport across the hemochorial placenta, 2. transcellular transport across amniotic membranes 3. transport through ~20 nm wide transtrophoblastic channels in a size dependent manner. The three AuNP sizes used to test this hypothesis are either well below, or of similar size or well above the diameters of the transtrophoblastic channels.

Methods

We intravenously injected monodisperse, negatively …

Analogues Of The Epoxy Resin Monomer Diglycidyl Ether Of Bisphenol F: Effects On Contact Allergenic Potency And Cytotoxicity, Niamh O'Boyle, Tamara Delaine, Kristina Luthman, Andreas Natsch, Ann-Therese Karlberg

Articles

Diglycidyl ethers of bisphenol A (DGEBA) and bisphenol F (DGEBF) are widely used as components in epoxy resin thermosetting products. They are known to cause occupational and non-occupational allergic contact dermatitis. The aim of this study is to investigate analogues of DGEBF with regard to contact allergy and cytotoxicity. A comprehensive knowledge of the structural features that contribute to the allergenic and cytotoxic effects of DGEBF will guide the development of future novel epoxy resin systems with reduced health hazards for those coming into contact with them. It was found that the allergenic effects of DGEBF were dependent on its …

When Every Drop Counts: The Public Health Impact Of Drought, Steven Konkel

Environmental Health Planning and Policy

No abstract provided.

Ecotoxicological Investigations Of Pharmaceutical Compounds On A Battery Of Freshwater Test Species., Elaine Minagh

Masters

Currently interest in pharmaceuticals as potential environmental contaminants has increases significantly. This is due to the awareness of the possible adverse effects to human health and the environment caused by such contaminants. Within the past few years, the highly prescribed antidepressants, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI), have received attention as their occurrence in the environment has been recently documented. Prior to this, there was very little known about the ecotoxicity of SSRIs, and in particular sertraline hydrochloride. Similarly the cholesterol-lowering drugs, known as statins are among the most frequently prescribed agents in Ireland and worldwide for the treatment of coronary …

Combination Of Natural Variability Estimation With Real Time Measurement For Mushroom Shelf Life Assessment., Leixuri Aguirre

Doctoral

The shelf life of mushrooms (Agaricus bisporus) is affected by the natural variability of the produce which influences the perishable vegetable quality. One of the main causes of this variability is non-homogeneity in the product maturity at harvest, resulting in each vegetable batch being at a different stage of senescence. The present work aims to study a new approach to improve the assessment of the shelf life of mushrooms (Agaricus bisporus) taking into account this variability. The study of variability involved the: i) study of the shelf life, quality parameters and variability of the mushrooms and modelling these experimental laboratory …