It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Thursday, February 02, 2023
What’s that sound? Automobile horn changed history and communications technology
On-campus launch for faculty member’s book about rise and fall of Klaxon automobile horn set Feb. 21
IMAGE: MATTHEW JORDAN, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR AND HEAD OF THE DEPARTMENT OF FILM PRODUCTION AND MEDIA STUDIES IN THE DONALD P. BELLISARIO COLLEGE OF COMMUNICATIONS, WILL DISCUSS HIS LATEST BOOK DETAILING THE RISE AND FALL OF THE KLAXON AUTOMOBILE HORN AT A BOOK LAUNCH EVENT ON FEBRUARY 21.view more
CREDIT: PENN STATE
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — A new book by Penn State faculty member Matt Jordan chronicles the rise and fall of the Klaxon automobile horn, one of the first great electrical consumer technologies of the 20th century. Jordan, associate professor and head of the Department of Film Production and Media Studies in the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications, will discuss his research into the iconic horn’s history at a book launch event at 5:30 p.m. Feb. 21 in the Foster Auditorium of Paterno Library.
Matt McAllister, professor of media studies, will moderate the event and a question-and-answer session with the author following Jordan’s talk.
Jordan’s book, “Danger Sound Klaxon! The Horn That Changed History,” shares how the metallic shriek of the horn first shocked pedestrians, improving safety, and how savvy advertising strategies convinced consumers across the United States and western Europe to adopt the horn as the safest signaling technology available in the 1910s.
While the shrill-sounding horn improved early automobile safety and provided a positive impact for a communications technology, the book chronicles how the technology went awry because of world events.
The widespread use of Klaxons in the trenches of World War I transformed how the public heard the car horn, according to Jordan, and its traumatic association with gas attacks ultimately doomed this once ubiquitous consumer technology.
By charting the meteoric rise and eventual fall of the Klaxon, "Danger Sound Klaxon!" highlights how perceptions of sound-producing technologies are guided by, manipulated and transformed through advertising strategies, public debate, consumer reactions and governmental regulations. Jordan’s book demonstrates how consumers are led toward technological solutions for problems themselves created by technology.
Jordan is a critical media scholar who works on the role of media in everyday culture and its impact on society. He teaches courses in film studies and media studies. His writing engages with how different popular media forms and technologies change the way that people see themselves and the world. Along with various academic publications on sound, technology and the impact of media on democracy, he writes essays for the popular press on his research topics as they relate to news of the day.
Jordan is the executive producer of the Penn State Humanities Institute’s Emmy-nominated documentary series “Humin Focus,” which is broadcast on WPSU and on the web. He also leads Penn State’s news Literacy Initiative, which includes hosting the “News Over Noise” radio/show podcast that is available on all podcast platforms and in most public radio markets across Pennsylvania.
Experts urge kids’ comic the Beano to stop promoting junk food brands
Many of the comic’s online quizzes revolve around food high in fat, salt and sugar. Experts call it “incredibly irresponsible” and want the company to change its policy
The website of the UK children’s comic the Beano describes itself as “100% safe for children” - but is its junk food-related content doing more harm than good?
An investigation by The BMJ shows how the Beano’s website - promoted as a digital hub for 6- to 12-year-olds - showcases products from well-known brands that are harmful to children, including fast food, confectionery, soft drinks and ultra-processed food.
Since its launch in 2016, 47.9 million children have visited beano.com, which includes frequent references to well known high fat, salt and sugar (HFSS) brands, explain Claire Mulrenan and Mark Petticrew at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and freelance journalist Harry Wallop.
For example, there is a ‘Ultimate McDonald’s Quiz,’ ‘How Well do you know the Nando’s Menu’ quiz, and a ‘Skittles jokes’ page. There is also an ‘Ultimate Food Logo’ quiz, whose ten answers are: Greggs, Heinz, Pizza Hut, Nando’s, Subway, Domino’s, Quorn, KFC, Pizza Express and Burger King.
There is even a quiz that features alcohol, with the question ‘how long have humans been making beer for?’ accompanied by an image of a pint being poured.
There is no suggestion that any of these quizzes have been paid for by the brands themselves, which could be deemed as a form of advertising known as “advergames” under the self-regulating UK Code of Non-broadcast Advertising and Direct & Promotional Marketing (CAP).
Health campaigners, however, are disappointed with Beano’s willingness to showcase so many junk food brands – and to put these brands right at the front of children’s minds, suggesting that a chocolate, fizzy drink or burger brand is “cool” – even if it’s not taking money from the companies themselves.
With estimates that 22% of reception aged schoolchildren are overweight or obese, rising to 37% of children by year 6, health experts are also deeply concerned.
Kat Jenner, director of nutrition, research, campaigns, and policy at the Obesity Health Alliance, says, “It is an incredibly irresponsible way of promoting unhealthy food,” while Boyd Swinburn, professor of population nutrition and global health at the University of Auckland and honorary professor at the Global Obesity Centre in Melbourne, believes that the company is being “naive” in giving “free advertising” to HFSS brands and products.
Through these quizzes and games, beano.com also collectsdata on children’s consumption preferences, which is then sold, on an anonymised basis, to companieslooking to find out more about what children like and don’t like.
Beano insists that its surveys meet all legal and data protection obligations, and say “any suggestion that Beano is somehow contributing to increased consumption of HFSS products in children is false, misleading and damaging.”
Nevertheless, campaigners say that there’s a question around whether the company has an ethical duty to safeguard child health, write the authors.
Henry Dimbleby, lead author of the National Food Strategy, which called for a salt and sugar tax on processed food, says: “People at Beano might be thinking: ‘Oh, well, you know, it's just a little bit of fun, that's what the kids like.’ But I just think it is all pervasive in society. This stuff invades every element of their lives.”
Former health minister James Bethell agrees. Pointing to UK government plans to delay a ban on junk food adverts before 9pm on TV and online, he says: “What annoys me about this is just the relentlessness of it in young people's lives. There's no escape.”
Because Beano says that it hasn’t taken money from any of the HFSS brands that so often feature in its quizzes, the stricter (and now delayed) rules about marketing junk food to children would not stop the company from continuing to showcase so many burgers, pizzas, crisps, and fizzy drinks or from suggesting that these brands were “cool” write the authors.
Nor would it stop the comic running Forknite, a game fronted by one of its characters Minnie the Minx who has “been served up a plate of vile veg and she needs your help to eat them and defeat them!”.
J. Bernadette Moore, associate professor of obesity at the University of Leeds, says, “This idea that children won’t like healthy food pervades all aspects of our society. Yet companies with such extensive young audiences must acknowledge that they are not merely reflecting child preferences but shaping them."
Beano responded, “We take enormous care in what we present to children particularly around health and wellbeing,” adding that its website also runs some positive content about fruit, vegetables, and healthy eating, including the “Ultimate Vegetarian Quiz.”
But Swinburn argues that Beano must do better, and he called on the company to change its policy and to no longer showcase products that are harmful to children - including alcohol, fast food, confectionery, soft drinks, and ultra-processed food.
He concludes, “Corporations which are clever enough to capture and hold children’s attention need to have very high ethical standards to ensure that they are not exploiting those same children by promoting unhealthy products to them.”
IMAGE: SINOLOGIST LENA HENNINGSEN RECEIVES ERC CONSOLIDATOR GRANT.view more
CREDIT: PHOTO: PROVIDED. UNIVERSITY OF FREIBURG
Sinologist PD Dr. Lena Henningsen from the University of Freiburg has been awarded a Consolidator Grant from the European Research Council (ERC) to fund her research project on comic culture in the People’s Republic of China. The European Union grant is one of the most prestigious awards for researchers in the EU. It is worth two million euros over a period of five years.
Independent Genre and Research Field
Henningsen’s project “Comics Culture in the People’s Republic of China (ChinaComx)” is devoted to Chinese comics as an independent cultural form: “‘Lianhuanhua’ – translated literally, linked images – are still largely unexplored,” says Henningsen. “Our project explores the intellectual, political, social, historical, and transcultural dimensions of this exciting medium.” Henningsen and her team will analyze comics from the People’s Republic of China with regard to Chinese and global comic culture – as well as the specific conditions of their production, circulation, and consumption. In the process, they will also address the question of whether and to what extent comics further the goals of state propaganda, such as the legitimization of the Communist Party of China, the creation of the “new socialist man,” and nation building – or whether they counteract these goals.
In clearly circumscribed case studies, the project analyzes adaptations into comics from literature and film, the conventions of text-image relations (and the breaking of these conventions), narrative qualities, as well as the visual language of lianhuanhua which is very much indebted to other visual forms of art, including traditional Chinese visual art, cartoons, propaganda posters, photography and movies. With its focus on practices and meaning making, ChinaComx moreover delves into the changing global cultural, political and economic connections within the socialist cultural sphere and beyond, tracing distinct and changing relationships of domestic and foreign elements. The project will cover developments since the late 1940s to the present and situate concrete phenomena within larger developments and traditions. “Our project has the goal of defining the term ‘Lianhuanhua’ as a distinct genre arising from a specific context as well as an independent research field,” says Henningsen, “similar to ‘mangas’ or ‘bandes dessinées.’”
Literature, Pop, Society
Lena Henningsen served from 2012 to 2022 as a junior professor at the University of Freiburg’s Institute of Sinology and is currently Principal Investigator of the research project “The Politics of Reading in the People’s Republic of China (READCHINA)”. In it, she and her team are studying intellectual, literary, and social change in China since the 1940s from the perspective of reading practices. She has already received an ERC Starting Grant for this project. Her research foci also include modern Chinese literature and culture, contemporary Chinese society, intellectual property and plagiarism, and pop culture and music in China. Henningsen was an elected member of the “Young Academy” from 2013 to 2018 and received the Leopoldina Early Career Award in 2016.
Mapping Mexico’s dengue fever hotspots
Rutgers researcher co-creates tool to help identify outbreaks and prioritize virus control efforts
As many as one in five dengue fever deaths in the Americas occur in Mexico, and the rate of the disease’s severity has been increasing for decades, according to the World Health Organization. Now, a Rutgers researcher has generated data that could help curb the mosquito-borne illness in the country.
Ubydul Haque, an assistant professor of global health at the Rutgers Global Health Institute, has analyzed data from Mexico’s Ministry of Health to identify dengue fever hotspots. Working with epidemiologists at the University of North Texas and Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, the team calculated environmental and socioeconomic risk factors and mapped areas where severe outbreaks occur.
The findings are published in the journal Ecological Informatics.
“These maps can aid health officials in targeting fogging activities or enhancing surveillance,” Haque said. “By knowing where severe dengue fever frequently occurs, we can significantly reduce the number of cases.”
Dengue fever has been reported in 28 of 32 states in Mexico, and researchers have long known that socioeconomic status and weather affect dengue fever case counts in those states. But the factors contributing to disease severity hasn’t been studied.
Past work also has failed to account for geographic distribution of variants, or serotypes. There are four dengue virus serotypes – DENV-1, DENV-2, DENV-3 and DENV-4 – and transmissibility and lethality differ by each.
To fill these research gaps, Haque analyzed laboratory-confirmed dengue fever infections from 71,059 individuals in 2,469 Mexican municipalities collected between 2012 and 2020. Samples included serotype classification.
This data was overlaid with localized weather and socioeconomic statistics, such as literacy, access to health services, electricity and sanitation.
As expected, each degree Celsius increase in temperature was associated with lower rates of occurrence of the virus – mosquito eggs don’t hatch well in high heat – while increasing humidity was associated with an increase in the rate of each virus serotype.
Moreover, the researchers determined that lower socioeconomic status increases risk of dengue fever, and indicators such as access to education, information and infrastructure are better predictive factors of dengue fever distribution.
From this data, the researchers produced heatmaps highlighting dengue virus distribution and severity. Hotspots were generally observed in humid coastal regions at lower altitude. Throughout the country, the most prevalent serotype was DENV-2 and the least prevalent was DENV-4, Haque said.
While efforts are underway to develop DENV-specific vaccines, mosquito control programs such as fogging, and drone surveillance remain the most effective means of slowing the disease’s spread. Haque said data visualization can help health officials plan where to target their activities.
“From our data we know that DENV-2 is deadlier compared to other serotypes,” Haque said. “If regional health officials had limited resources for their control program, they could focus most of their resources in places where DENV-2 was prevalent.”
The WHO estimates dengue fever infects as many as 400 million people every year, killing thousands. With climate change predicted to increase dengue fever cases in Mexico over the coming decades, continuous surveillance of serotype patterns will be essential to preventing or slowing the rate of increase, Haque said.
The ecological determinants of severe dengue: A Bayesian inferential model
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/dengue-and-severe-dengue Dengue and severe dengue - World Health Organization (WHO) Jan 10, 2022 ... Dengue is a mosquito-borne viral disease that has rapidly spread to all regions of WHO in recent years. Dengue virus is transmitted by female ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dengue_fever Dengue fever - Wikipedia Dengue fever virus (DENV) is an RNA virus ; The dengue virus genome ; Dengue virus is primarily transmitted by Aedes mosquitos, particularly A. aegypti. · These ... Dengue fever, a man-made disease
Apr 30th 1998 | JAKARTA
THE ECONOMIST
EXCERPT
SUPERSTITIOUS South-East Asians might suspect a supernatural curse. Reeling from economic turmoil, and bracing themselves for a return of the smog that forest fires last year belched over much of the region, they are also now battling the Aedes aegypti mosquito, and the disease it carries: dengue fever. In most of the tropical world, dengue is ever-present, and spreading. Last year saw the highest-ever recorded number of infected people in the Americas, with Brazil and Cuba especially badly hit. This year dengue has reached pandemic proportions in Indonesia and Thailand, and Malaysia, Cambodia and Vietnam are all experiencing serious outbreaks. Most sufferers are children. As with the smog, it is tempting, but unfair, to blame mother nature. The weather patterns brought by the El Niño effect have mucked about with the mosquito's life-cycle, just as they have delayed the rains to douse the burning trees. But dengue is a disease of urbanisation and human travel. In the words of Suchitra Nimmannitya, a Thai specialist on the disease, the infected Aedes aegypti is “a man-made mosquito”.
I faced a serious ethical dilemma while attending a couple of cases of dengue fever at a ward in the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) area during September 2013. Two patients had tested positive for dengue IgM antibody by MAC ELISA. Adjacent to their house was a vacant plot of around 1500 sq feet and this was heaped with domestic waste from the neighbouring houses. The waste comprised plastic cups, thermocol plates, plastic bags and boxes of biscuits, cakes, chips and other foodstuff, coconut shells, bicycle tyres and earthen pots. These served as a permanent breeding ground for Aedes mosquitoes, the vector for the dengue virus. The owner of the land lived elsewhere and the local people had been dumping their domestic waste here indiscriminately, without the owner’s permission. They had converted the area into an unauthorised garbage dump, despite the fact that the conservancy workers of the KMC visited the place for house collection of wastes every day.
Later, I came to know that two more NS1-reactive dengue cases had been reported from the same locality the following week. I informed the KMC health department about the matter, as dengue is a notifiable disease here. Health workers from the KMC visited the area and discovered several plastic cups, earthen pots, coconut shells and the like, which contained stagnant water. Larval and pupal stages of the Aedes species were found on the rooftops of most houses in the locality. Van-fogging of the area with adulticides was performed, as well as source reduction, followed by chemical (Temephos 50% EC) spraying in the moist areas and other possible breeding sites that could not be destroyed. Last year, there had been a dengue outbreak in the area and three deaths due to dengue shock syndrome were reported. The KMC authorities have been sending surveillance workers with information, education and communication (IEC) materials, such as handbills, to this area on a weekly basis for the past six months. They have even hired an auto-rickshaw and fitted it with a microphone to conduct IEC activities in the area twice a week. Their field workers and surveillance workers have been carrying out anti-larval activities, such as source destruction and chemical spraying, and conducting active surveillance for new cases of fever throughout the year. Further, IEC activities are being carried out through television, FM radio, newspapers, electricity bills, handbills, and so on.
Despite the above measures, people continue to dispose of waste indiscriminately, resulting in the accumulation of stagnant water. Therefore, it was evident that mere IEC and chemical spraying would not suffice; the civic authorities would need to take decisive action to improve the environment.
Despite the outbreak of dengue in the area the previous year, the residents failed to reduce the sources conducive to the breeding of mosquitoes in their own premises. Even after the enormous efforts of the KMC health department, they failed to realise how they themselves had promoted the breeding of Aedes mosquitoes. Should people have the liberty not to keep their premises clean when this can make others ill and even result in their deaths? Should the authorities, in the interest of beneficence and justice for the larger community, have the right to forcibly take action to clean up people’s premises? Should people have the right to convert others’ premises into an unauthorised dumping ground, endangering the life of others in the community? Should the authorities, in the interest of non-maleficence and justice for the owner, as well as beneficence for the community, have the right to take legal action against such transgressions? The dilemma remains unanswered.
About the Authors Subhasis Bhandari (subhasisbhandari@gmail.com) General Physician and Health Research Scholar Bhandari House, 151, Diamond Harbour Road, Behala, Kolkata 700034
Financial coaching for parents in clinic leads to higher attendance at well-child health care visits for their young children
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - LOS ANGELES HEALTH SCIENCES
Implementing financial coaching for parents of infants in a pediatric primary care setting reduced missed well-child care visit rates by half and significantly improved receipt of vaccinations at a timely age, according to a new community-partnered pilot study led by UCLA researchers.
The study, published in Pediatrics, is the first to examine the effectiveness of delivering financial coaching and its impact on preventive care visits and vaccination in infants’ first six months of life, among families with low income who often face economic stress.
“Improving the continuity and quality of pediatric care has been a focus for pediatric care nationally, and the medical-financial partnership approach offers a novel strategy,” said the study’s lead author, Dr. Adam Schickedanz, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. “Early childhood financial hardship has a significant impact on health. Infancy is full of new expenses and financial challenges that families grapple with. Having a new baby in the family can increase eligibility for a number of anti-poverty public benefits programs, and young children and their parents have relatively frequent visits to their physician, so the health care system has more contact with children and families in the preschool years than any other family-facing system. This makes health care a great setting for delivering financial guidance and supports to young families. What our study shows is that this in-clinic financial coaching leads to improvements in clinical care continuity and quality too.”
Poverty-related social needs and other measures of patient financial hardship are among the most consistent predictors of missed health care visits, yet interventions to increase patient visit attendance have tended not to focus on underlying financial needs of children and families. In this new study, conducted at the Harbor-UCLA pediatric primary care clinic, parents received financial coaching in exam rooms during their infants’ well-child visits while waiting for their pediatrician and other health care team members. The financial coaches, who have backgrounds in social work, were trained in the foundations of financial coaching by LIFT Inc., a national nonprofit that works to break intergenerational cycles of poverty. Through ongoing supervision and education from clinician supervisors, as well as LIFT’s financial coaching training, financial coaches were equipped to help parents identify their financial goals, plan action steps and ultimately achieve greater financial stability. The coaches also connected parents to public benefits and cost-saving services such as low-cost childcare, nutrition assistance programs, free tax preparation and other public resources. Coaches also followed up remotely with parents at least monthly to track progress toward goals.
The researchers enrolled 81 parents recruited from clinic waiting areas or exam rooms who were randomized to either receive clinic-based financial coaching plus usual care (the intervention group of 35) or usual care (the control group of 46). The parents were primarily mothers and over half were Latina.
Over the first months of their infants’ lives, parents and children in the intervention group had half the rate of missed primary care pediatric visits compared to those in the control group. They were also 26% more likely to be up-to-date with immunizations each visit and had fewer missed vaccinations overall by the end of the six-month visit period. Parents who received financial coaching also reported increased monthly household income relative to when they enrolled in the program.
“When we approached the parents in clinic to offer this service and support them with their financial goals, many already recognized that their finances and the health of their child were intertwined. It made sense, from their perspective, to receive financial coaching services in combination with their child’s health care,” Schickedanz said. “Once they began receiving the intervention service, many parents shared that they felt supported by their coach. This supportive relationship with that coach as a key new member of their health care team may have given parents more motivation to stick with the clinic for their pediatric visits over time.”
“We have found that the strong social connection between parent and coach is an integral part of the success of the service,” added co-author Michelle Rhone-Collins. “Coaching breaks down the goals of parents into concrete action steps alongside a partner to cheer them on, hold them accountable and offer them hope.”
The authors note the study has some limitations, including its small size at a single site and the inability to do a blinded study. A concurrent study of the influence of financial coaching on participating parents’ health outcomes remains ongoing.
Still, the results “suggest that addressing financial goals and needs can improve preventive visit care adherence and vaccinations,” the authors write. “This may partially offset costs to clinics of implementing medical-financial partnership programs, in addition to optimizing the host of health, developmental and psychosocial benefits of preventive pediatric care.”
Other study authors are Lorraine Perales and Dr. Peter G. Szilagyi of UCLA, Dr. Monique Holguin of UCLA and USC, Michelle Rhone-Collins and Helah Robinson of LIFT-Los Angeles, Dr. Niloufar Tehrani and Dr. Lynne Smith of Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, and Dr. Paul J. Chung of UCLA and the Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine.
The study was funded by the UCLA National Research Service Award Primary Care and Health Services Fellowship, the National Center for Advancing Translational Science (NCATS, KL2TR001882), a grant from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (K23HD099308) and NCATS at the National Institutes of Health through the Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) Program (UL1TR001881).
IMAGE: THE FLUE2CHEM PROJECT IS LED BY UNILEVER AND FACILITATED BY SCI, IN PARTNERSHIP WITH BASF, TATA STEEL, CRODA, JOHNSON MATTHEY, UPM-KYMMENE, HOLMEN, THE UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD, THE UNIVERSITY OF SURREY, CARBON CLEAN, PROCTOR & GAMBLE, THE CENTRE FOR PROCESS INNOVATION, THE CONFEDERATION OF PAPER INDUSTRIES, AND RECKITT. WITH SUPPORT FROM INNOVATE UK FUNDING, THE CROSS-SECTOR COLLABORATION FLUE2CHEM WILL WORK TO CONVERT INDUSTRIAL WASTE GASES IN THE UK TO CREATE MORE SUSTAINABLE CHEMICALS FOR CONSUMER PRODUCTS, A MOVE WHICH IS ESSENTIAL IN HELPING THE UK REACH NET ZERO BY 2050.view more
CREDIT: SCI (THE SOCIETY OF CHEMICAL INDUSTRY)
Industry giants from £73 billion UK sector, including Unilever, BASF and Tata Steel, embark on a first of its kind cross-sector collaboration to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
Currently, fossil feedstocks extracted from coal, oil and gas, are used to make a range of consumer goods from electronics to cleaning products
With support from Innovate UK funding, the cross-sector collaboration ‘Flue2Chem’ will work to convert industrial waste gases in the UK to create more sustainable chemicals for consumer products, a move which is essential in helping the UK reach net zero by 2050
Key industrial players representing the UK’s £73 billion chemicals and pharmaceuticals industry sector have signed a collaboration agreement to launch ‘Flue2Chem’ – a collaborative programme to transform the sustainability of the UK’s consumer products industry and reduce greenhouse gas emissions on a demonstration scale.
SCI (Society of Chemical Industry), Unilever and 13 other organisations have secured funding for a two-year programme to develop a new value chain to convert industrial waste gases into sustainable materials for consumer products.
The £5.4 million project, which has been granted £2.68 million from Innovate UK via UKRI’s Transforming Foundation Industries (TFI) Challenge, will aim to help the UK reach its net zero targets.
One goal is to seek to demonstrate how the UK could cut 15–20 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions a year.
The aim of the consortium is to enable the use of waste gases from foundation industries such as the production of metals, glass, paper and chemicals to generate an alternative source of carbon for UK consumer product production.
This comes at a time when most of the carbon used to produce plastics, cosmetics, synthetic textiles, and many other products is extracted from coal, oil and gas. If the UK is to reach its net zero target by 2050, industries must find an alternative source for the carbon in these goods.
Aside from the technical aspects of the project, the business model development will frame the economic incentives that will likely be required to make the model work. The project will bring together partners from across the whole supply chain to achieve this.
Currently the UK imports large amounts of carbon-containing feedstocks each year for use in the consumer goods industry. Securing an alternative domestic source of carbon for these goods is one way in which these sectors can contribute to net zero targets, while also building a new UK value chain.
‘This is an excellent example of the power of collaborative working. It is an important step for the UK and SCI’s vision of furthering the application of chemistry and related sciences into industry for public benefit.
‘The new business model will aim to reduce the need for imported fossil fuel material. Instead, the consortium will build a new, more sustainable supply chain whilst also mitigating waste emissions. The group will develop methods for using carbon captured from waste streams of other industries and transform them into affordable raw materials for consumer products.’
‘This is a game-changing opportunity to accelerate action and rewire the chemicals value chain to be less reliant on fossil fuels. It’s a bold ambition and one that, at Unilever, we have been publicly calling for action over the last two years. No single company can do this alone, so to have the power of 15 manufacturers and academics marks a significant step forward not only for the UK, but globally too.’
Bruce Adderley, Innovate UK Challenge Director for the Transforming Foundation Industries Challenge, added:
‘Underpinned by circular economy thinking, the Foundation Industries and their supply chain partners are bringing forward a range of new innovations as they move towards a sustainable competitive future. But these need to be demonstrated at scale if they are to be rapidly deployed in the UK and taken to international markets. That is why we are delighted to be able to support projects like Flue2Chem which have huge potential to address decarbonisation through multi-industry collaboration focused on resource and energy efficiency.’
In addition to SCI, Unilever, BASF and Tata Steel, the other consortium partners are: UPM-Kymmene, Holmen, Croda, Johnson Matthey, The University of Sheffield, The University of Surrey, Carbon Clean, Procter & Gamble, Centre for Process Innovation, Confederation of Paper Industries, and Reckitt. These organisations encompass the capture, transformation and use of the carbon emissions in industry
The Flue2Chem project is led by Unilever and facilitated by SCI, in partnership with BASF, Tata Steel, Croda, Johnson Matthey, UPM-Kymmene, Holmen, the University of Sheffield, the University of Surrey, Carbon Clean, Proctor & Gamble, the Centre for Process Innovation, the Confederation of Paper Industries, and Reckitt. With support from Innovate UK funding, the cross-sector collaboration Flue2Chem will work to convert industrial waste gases in the UK to create more sustainable chemicals for consumer products, a move which is essential in helping the UK reach net zero by 2050.
CREDIT
SCI (The Society of Chemical Industry)
Medication administration errors can induce fear, sadness ang guilt among healthcare professionals
Despite evidence showing that the causes of medication errors can be traced back to multiple factors in the healthcare setting, healthcare professionals still often feel the blame on them. In a new study, healthcare professionals described a variety of negative emotions when reporting medication administration errors, most commonly feelings of fear, disturbed mood, sadness, and guilt. However, immediate reassurance and guidance from seniors and colleagues helped them cope with the situation effectively.
“How the workplace responds to the error is clearly linked to the emotional impact it can have on the healthcare professional who made the error. Adequate support and guidance may not only help solve the problem at hand, but also prevent further medication errors and encourage an open reporting culture,” says the first author of the study, Doctoral Researcher Sanu Mahat from the University of Eastern Finland.
The study was conducted in collaboration between the University of Eastern Finland and King’s College London. The findings were published in BMC Health Services Research.
Data for the study was obtained from the National Reporting and Learning System (NRLS) for England and Wales and included medication administration errors reported in 2016 in a total of 72,390 incident reports. The researchers analysed those incident reports where healthcare professionals expressed negative emotions in relation to the error, in total 93 reports.
The key negative emotions expressed by healthcare professionals were categorised into feelings of fear, disturbed mood, sadness, and guilt. They also included extreme negative emotional expressions, such as being devastated and questioning one’s own professional competence.
“The use of such intense and traumatic language can be a reflection of how much the healthcare professionals concerned were impacted and even emotionally wrecked after making an error. Incident reporting by healthcare professionals in this study indicated that unintentional harm caused due to medication administration errors and even near misses can affect the healthcare professional involved in error emotionally, increasing their risk of becoming the second victim,” Mahat says.
Workplace factors such as high workload and poor nurse staffing are known to contribute to medication administration errors. However, emotional distress caused by errors can also further affect the quality and safety of patient care.
The authors point out that immediate negative feelings experienced by healthcare professionals after getting involved in medication administration incidents can have long-lasting and potentially traumatising impacts on their mental health. In the absence of support, self-blame seems to assume greater prominence.
“Hence, it should be paramount to tailor appropriate support from persons in-charge and colleagues and to promote an open culture where errors are treated fairly. In addition, system triggers surrounding medication administration errors need to be understood and prevented,” Mahat concludes.
Negative emotions experienced by healthcare staff following medication administration errors: a descriptive study using text-mining and content analysis of incident data.
Uncovering the secrets of electron-eating microorganisms
A new research project is aiming to improve our understanding of so-called electro-trophic microorganisms, which can convert green electricity and CO2 to high-value products
A large number of microorganisms have the inherent ability to convert electricity and CO2 to high-value chemical products via electrosynthesis. These electro-trophic microorganisms absorb energy in the form of electrons, which they can use to convert CO2 into biofuels, for example.
We have known about the process for years, it is completely natural, and the microbes belong to a large number of microbial groups. The same microorganisms also have the ability to break down metal via microbial corrosion.
However, the precise electro-trophic mechanism is still unknown territory, and neither do we know why certain microorganisms are electro-trophic and others are not.
Assistant Professor Jo Philips from the Department of Biological and Chemical Engineering at Aarhus University has received a grant from the Villum Foundation's Young Investigator programme to study these questions in the project Some-like-it-low. There could be great potential for both microbiological Power-to-X and new tools to avoid microbial corrosion.
"Using the electro-trophic properties of microorganisms shows great promise for a wide range of applications, but we need a full understanding of the underlying mechanisms. Today, we know very little about what determines whether or not a microbe is electro-trophic, and this lack of understanding prevents the development of microbial electrochemical technologies," says Jo Philips.
The Some-like-it-low project will focus on the hypothesis, that electro-trophic microbes are capable of consuming molecular hydrogen, H2, at low levels.
“Our research group here at Aarhus University, Microbial Electrosynthesis, is currently proving the hypothesis, that H2 is a key intermediate in this process. With Some-like-it-low, we’re able to extend this research to a much wider range of other highly relevant microbes and to use new techniques for investigating the electro-trophic mechanism,” Jo Philips says.
She continues:
“I have always been fascinated by microbes as they have so many intriguing properties which could be of use to solve some of the major issues of our time. I really hope, that this research will bring new insights into some of these remarkable microbes.”
Jo Philips is originally from Belgium and did her PhD in Bioscience Engineering at KU Leuven, where she worked on bioremediation of contaminated soils. From 2012 to 2014 she was a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Microbiology at University of Massachusetts before going back to Belgium as a postdoc at Ghent University. In 2018 she got a position as tenure track assistant professor at Aarhus University.
Jo Philips is heading the Microbial Electrosynthesis research group at Aarhus University, which will carry out the Some-like-it-low project. The Villum Foundation has awarded DKK 6 million (EUR 0.8 million) to the project, which is set to start in summer 2023.
