200,000 gallons of sewage quietly leaked in the Florida Keys — some during a hurricane

2023/06/08

In late September, as Hurricane Ian brushed the Florida Keys on its way to hitting the state’s southwestern Gulf coast, nearly 200,000 gallons of raw sewage from the island chain’s billion-dollar wastewater treatment system — not even 10 years old — leaked into the porous ground and nearshore waters.

The “unauthorized discharges” weren’t disclosed to the public or the five-member board that oversees the wastewater utility. The leaks were revealed in two February “warning letters” issued by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.

The letters to the utility — the Florida Keys Aqueduct Authority — were obtained by the Miami Herald/FLKeysNews.com this week. A month ago, the Herald obtained documents revealing that the state environmental agency flagged the Keys utility in January 2022 because the Lower Keys portion of the centralized wastewater treatment system leaked more than 90,000 gallons of sewage between June 2020 and February 2021.

The Miami Herald also obtained a memo from April 2023 written by the utility’s engineering chief revealing that repairs to parts of the system on Cudjoe, Ramrod, Sugarloaf and Big Coppitt Keys are estimated to cost consumers more than $16 million.

Greg Veliz, executive director of the Florida Keys Aqueduct Authority, said the problems with the Lower Keys portion of the system pre-date his tenure leading the utility, which began about two years ago. The issues, he said, are due to flaws in the way the system was constructed in 2017.

“Some of the stuff didn’t get done right, and we’re correcting that,” Veliz told the Miami Herald/FLKeysNews.com this week.

Veliz added that the Keys utility found and reported the leaks to the state.

“For the record, all of these issues were self-reported and we are in constant contact with [Florida Department of Environmental Protection] to ensure that we are moving toward eventual compliance,” he said. “We are currently on schedule for all remediation tasks set in our consent orders.”

Cara Higgins, the only one of the five Aqueduct Authority board members to respond to repeated requests for comment on the issues with the system, said she and her colleagues were “not made aware of the specifics of the spill.”

However, she said repairs and improvements to the system are an ongoing process.

“We have been told by staff that, along with occasional mechanical issues, our climate, heavy rainfall and king tides are to blame for a majority of the problems,” Higgins said in an email.

Sewage in the Keys is transported via a series of pipes and pump stations to centralized locations on Cudjoe and Big Coppitt. Once there, it is treated to remove harmful pathogens and other waste, and the remaining water is injected into a deep well.
‘Not toilet-to-street’

Veliz, the utility’s executive director, said that the system in Cudjoe Key, the portion responsible for the majority of the leaks, was designed to handle 500,000 gallons of water a day. During heavy storms, however, a deluge of rain can force up to three million gallons of water into the system.

“We’re not prepared to hold that,” he said. He added that most of the water that overflows from the system is rain, not pure sewage.

“It’s not toilet-to-street,” Veliz said. “Two-thirds of that is rainwater.”

The majority of the leaks included in the state’s Feb. 7, 2023, warning letter occurred at the Cudjoe Key Wastewater Treatment Plant, about 23 miles northeast of Key West. There were five “unauthorized discharges or unpermitted sanitary sewage overflows,” according to the letter:

▪ The largest was 126,000 gallons that leaked on Sept. 29.

▪ The second-largest leak during that window of time from the Cudjoe plant was 24,600 gallons on Sept. 27, wrote Jason Andreotta, director of FDEP’s southeast district.

▪ There were also six “unauthorized discharges” from the system that were not related to Hurricane Ian between October and January, including a large leak of 63,604 gallons on Oct. 7, Andreotta said.

It was not immediately clear where the sewage water ended up. Jon Moore, spokesman for the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, said Wednesday that he was working to gather that information.

The FDEP also sent a warning letter to Keys utility on Feb. 7 about more than 33,000 gallons that discharged in a total of three leaks during Hurricane Ian, as well as more than 1,850 gallons from two leaks not related to the hurricane in October and January.

Veliz said the immediate fixes the utility is working on includes replacing manhole covers and sealing rings and exporting capacity from the Big Coppitt plant, most of which he said comes from the Navy base, to the city of Key West.

Much of that work has been done, Veliz said, but it’s not immediately clear how effective it’s been.

“Unfortunately, it’s going to take another heavy rain to see it if’s working,” Veliz said.
Aging water pipe infrastructure

The Aqueduct Authority’s sewer woes are compounded by the revelation earlier this year that the 40-plus-year-old freshwater underground pipe system is in disrepair and in need of replacing.

That problem became evident in March when three water pipe breaks in a week threatened to cut off the fresh water supply the island chain receives from Florida City on the mainland.

The cost to completely replace all the pipes exceeds $1 billion, and Veliz said the utility doesn’t have that money on hand.

For now, the utility is in the process of a $42 million project in the Upper Keys Village of Islamorada to replace five miles of pipe. The project began in April and is expected to be completed in early 2025, according to the Aqueduct Authority. It’s being funded with with $35 million in grants and $7 million in low-interest loans, the utility said in a statement.
Already under investigation

The Florida environment department informed the Keys authority in May that it was investigating the utility for not keeping up with the aging freshwater infrastructure. In a May 5 letter, Andreotta, the same state official who wrote the warning letters over the sewer leaks, said the Keys utility “failed to maintain its system in good operating condition so as to function as intended, and that the piping infrastructure is “a very deteriorating water system that has not undergone assessment until recent years.”

Andreotta added a reverse osmosis desalinization plant on Stock Island in the Lower Keys, which augments the fresh water supply that comes from the mainland in Florida City, is also deteriorating.

Veliz said that he and other utility officials are negotiating with the state to resolve all of the issues. He said part of coming into compliance includes the construction of another reverse osmosis plant, which he said is 80% complete. He said the utility has about $115 million of projects underway.

“No one can say that right now,” Veliz said. “To say we’re not looking to improve our infrastructure is not exactly true.”

© Miami Herald

Multifunctional self-healing liquid metal hydrogel developed for human-computer interaction

Peer-Reviewed Publication

HEFEI INSTITUTES OF PHYSICAL SCIENCE, CHINESE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

 

IMAGE: SCHEMATIC STRUCTURE AND APPLICATION OF THE LIQUID METAL HYDROGEL. view more 

CREDIT: LI XIAOFEI

Recently, researchers from the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science (HFIPS) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, led by Prof. TIAN Xingyou and Prof. ZHANG Xian, along with associate Prof. YANG Yanyu from the College of Materials Science and Engineering at Zhengzhou University, used gallium indium alloy (EGaIn) to initiate the polymerization and serve as flexible fillers to construct liquid metal/polyvinyl alcohol(PVA)/P(AAm-co-SMA) double network hydrogel.

"The resulting material was super-stretchable and self-healing," said LI Xiaofei, first author of the paper, "it will promote the research and practical application of hydrogels and liquid metal in intelligent devices and military fields."

The study was published in Materials Horizons.

Most conductive hydrogels suffer from subpar mechanical qualities and lack desirable self-recovery and self-healing abilities, severely limiting hydrogels' potential uses. Liquid metals like gallium indium alloy (EGaIn) can tougen polymers by conforming to their changing shapes. Also, gallium (Ga) in EGaIn can initiate vinyl monomer's free radical polymerization.

In this research, the team built a liquid metal/PVA/P(AAm-co-SMA) double network hydrogel (LM hydrogel) with EGaIn serving as both the polymerization initiator and the flexible fillers.

The PVA network used PVA microcrystals and coordination interaction of Ga3+ and PVA as cross-links, while the P(AAm-co-SMA) network used hydrophobic association and the EGaIn microspheres. The LM hydrogel was endowed with excellent super-stretchability (2000%), toughness (3.00 MJ/m3), notch resistance, and self-healing property (> 99% at 25 °C after 24 h) due to the multiple physical cross-links and the synergistic effect of the rigid PVA microcrystal network and the ductile P(AAm-co-SMA) hydrophobic network.

"The sensors developed for it can be used in health monitoring and motion identification through human-computer interaction," said LI Xiaofei, "thanks to the LM hydrogel's sensitive strain sensing capability."

As a result of EGaIn's low infrared emissivity and remarkable photothermal, LM hydrogel shows considerable promise in infrared camouflage.

---

JOURNAL

Materials Horizons

“List diving” skips top candidates awaiting donor kidneys

Peer-Reviewed Publication

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IRVING MEDICAL CENTER

NEW YORK, NY--A kidney from a deceased donor is supposed to be allocated to the top-ranked patient on a transplant center’s waiting list, identified using an objective algorithm to rank patients based on patient age, waiting time, and other factors. 

But a new study by Columbia researchers has found that some centers routinely skip their highest-ranking candidate to give the kidney to a lower-ranked patient. This practice, known as “list diving,” occurs with little oversight and transparency, harming some patients and possibly contributing to disparities in organ transplantation and discard of donor organs. 

“It’s an open secret that some transplant centers regularly apply their own criteria for matching donor kidneys to eligible patients,” says study leader Sumit Mohan, MD, a kidney transplant physician and associate professor of medicine at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. “But no one has examined if this practice is widespread.” 

The study was published online June 5 in JAMA Network Open. 

In the study, Mohan and colleagues analyzed approximately 6,000 transplant candidates and 4,700 transplants at 11 centers between 2015 and 2019. Each center was geographically isolated, meaning that it could decline the offer of a kidney without losing it to another center, but still accept the organ for a lower-priority patient.  

The study found that most kidneys offered to these centers (68%) were not placed with the top-ranked candidates on the waiting list and instead went to candidates further down the center’s list. Most often, centers cited concerns about organ quality when declining the offer for the top-ranked candidate.  

According to the researchers, declined offers are presumably rooted in the centers’ belief that the top-ranked patient is likely to receive better quality organ offers within a reasonable timeframe, and that shorter wait times for lower-priority candidates would offset the lower organ quality. “For example, if you have a 25-year-old at the top of the list and the center is offered a kidney from a 75-year-old donor, the center might decline that offer, believing it’s better suited for an older candidate lower down on the list,” Mohan says. 

However, the new study shows that other factors are probably at play since only 44% of the highest-quality kidneys were placed with the highest-ranked candidates. “It seems that transplant centers often overlook their top candidates and there are many organ declines that we don’t have a good explanation for,” Mohan says.  

Ethics of list diving 

There are several issues with list diving, according to the researchers. Although skipped candidates may receive a future offer, and it may even be a higher-quality organ, it’s not uncommon for patients to die while waitlisted or deteriorate to the point that they are de-listed after having had offers declined on their behalf without their knowledge. In addition, declined offers create inefficiencies that add to the time that an organ is kept on ice, compromising organ viability. At present, one in four viable donated kidneys are discarded, at great cost to patients and to society given that kidney transplantation is the most cost-effective therapy for end stage kidney disease. 

Another concern is that organs are typically declined on behalf of patients. “Patients are rarely involved in the decision-making process and transplant centers do not currently inform patients when an organ offer is declined on their behalf,” Mohan says. “We should give patients more say in the process and have them participate in shared decision making.” 

List diving may contribute to disparities in access to transplantation. Other studies have demonstrated that organ declines can be subjective, with differences reported based on the recipient’s race and other factors, such as obesity.  

The system could benefit from improved allocation algorithms that more precisely match specific organs to recipients, the researchers say, and more transparency in the way organs are allocated. 

“All told, list diving undermines the intended objective design of the allocation system in a manner that is shrouded from both patients and regulatory oversight,” Mohan says. “And it risks undermining the trust that patients and donor families have in a fair and equitable system.” 

More information 

The paper is titled “Characterization of Transplant Center Decisions to Allocate Kidneys to Candidates with Lower Waiting List Priority."

The other contributors are: Kristen L. King (Columbia), Ali Husain (Columbia), Miko Yu (Columbia), Joel T. Adler (Dell Medical School, University of Texas at Austin), and Jesse Schold (University of Colorado – Anschutz Medical Campus).  

###

Columbia University Irving Medical Center

Columbia University Irving Medical Center (CUIMC) is a clinical, research, and educational campus located in New York City, and is one of the oldest academic medical centers in the United States. CUIMC is home to four professional colleges and schools (Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, Mailman School of Public Health, College of Dental Medicine, and School of Nursing) that are global leaders in their fields. CUIMC is committed to providing inclusive and equitable health and medical education, scientific research, and patient care, and working together with our local upper Manhattan community—one of New York City's most diverse neighborhoods. For more information, please visit cuimc.columbia.edu.  

---

JOURNAL

JAMA Network Open

DOI

10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.16936 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Characterization of Transplant Center Decisions to Allocate Kidneys to Candidates with Lower Waiting List Priority

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

5-Jun-2023

COI STATEMENT

Sumit Mohan receives grant funding from Kidney Transplant Collaborative and the NIH, and personal fees from Kidney International Reports and Health Services Advisory Group outside of the submitted work. The other authors declare that they have no financial conflicts of interest to disclose.

Research puts lens on a new vision for land use decision making

University of Leicester-led research provides a guide to better and more transparent decisions for our land

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF LEICESTER

A new framework for making better and more transparent decisions about the use of our land could help to balance society’s demands upon it with protecting and enhancing the environment.

Researchers led by the University of Leicester have proposed a framework for decisions on land use, from nationwide policymaking to building happening at street level, that would involve the most representative range of stakeholders, from those with financial interests in the land to the local communities who use it and more besides.

Now published in the journal People and Nature, it encourages decisionmakers to gather evidence to consider from four distinct viewpoints, or ‘lenses’:

• The Power and Market Gain lens is focused on the financial interests (profit) of organisations and people that have specific leverage over the decision area.
• The Ecosystem Services lens focuses on the value environmental goods and services provide to society, framing land resources as assets essential for the flow of ecosystem services.
• The Place-based Identity lens focuses on components of landscape character that are enshrined in the relationships between the local population and the landscapes and environments with which they co-identify.
• The Ecocentric Lens offers a framework where, all species equally and the focus of decisions should rest on the health of ecosystems and biodiversity.

This framework aims to enable people to be transparent about the ways they've made a decision about a piece of land, be that policymakers, councils, government, land managers, communities or others. The researchers recommend that these four lenses should be embedded in any participatory decision-making around the governance of our landscapes.

Lead author Dr Beth Cole, an honorary researcher at the University of Leicester, said: “The need for this in landscape decisions is in how we make the best choices about the use of our land. It's not just how we maximise the outputs from our land, it's bigger than that.

“For decision makers, they need to ask if they are making sure that they are considering the community needs and the nuances within that, that they are thinking about things from the viewpoint of the whole ecological system, and thinking about how the outputs from processes in the environment will change depending upon what they do to that parcel of land?

“It's enabling people to make sure that all viewpoints that might be relevant are considered in a way that is equal, but balanced and transparent, so people can see that those things have been considered.”

The research is an output of the Landscape Decisions Programme, co-ordinated by the University of Leicester, which is examining how we better make use of our land, make decisions about natural assets and the land landscape of the UK.

The programme brought together a wide range of experts, including scientists, modellers, social scientists and artists, for a series of discussions and workshops bringing together research capable of enabling landscape decisions.

Dr Cole adds: “This work brings together multiple strands and viewpoints about how land is managed for the best output for everyone, be that people, be that species, be that ecosystems and biodiversity. It essentially says we need to consider everybody in society, and nature and the planet as well.”

Professor Heiko Balzter from the University of Leicester, who is coordinating the Landscape Decisions Programme funded by UK Research and Innovation, said: “The author team of this paper has brought together the findings from across the Landscape Decisions Programme. By looking at different ways of understanding our landscapes, the proposed joined-up approach sheds light on the consequences of taking particular landscape decisions from different perspectives.”

• ‘Using a multi-lens framework for landscape decisions’ is published in People and Nature, DOI: 10.1002/pan3.10474

---

JOURNAL

People and Nature

DOI

10.1002/pan3.10474 

ARTICLE TITLE

Using a multi-lens framework for landscape decisions’ is published in People and Nature

Giving parents better school quality data encourages them to consider less affluent, less white schools -- To a Point

Information nudges fall short of prompting behavior that could diversify schools

Peer-Reviewed Publication

AMERICAN EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ASSOCIATION

Washington, June 8, 2023—For years, parents looking for data to compare the academic quality of schools for their children had one primary measure to turn to: average student scores on standardized tests. However, these scores are often related to factors that have nothing to do with instructional quality—such as family income or racial and ethnic background—and push parents toward schools that are Whiter and more affluent, exacerbating school segregation in the U.S. As a result, many education experts advocate using the rate of growth in student test scores, rather than the current status of scores, as a more meaningful measure of how well schools educate children.

In a study published today in AERA Open, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Educational Research Association, researchers David M. Houston of George Mason University and Jeffrey R. Henig of Teachers College, Columbia University, found that providing parents with achievement growth data encourages them to consider schools with greater economic and racial diversity, but only up to a point.

For their study, Houston and Henig partnered with research firm YouGov to recruit a nationally representative sample of 2,800 parents and other caretakers of children 12 or younger for an online survey, which took place March 16–31, 2021. Along with some demographic information about students, respondents were given achievement status data, achievement growth data, both data points, or no achievement data for grades 3 to 8 for three schools in a randomly selected school district. With this information in hand, respondents were then asked to choose their preferred school.

Parents who received only achievement growth data unsurprisingly tended to choose higher-growth schools than parents who received just achievement status information. For example, when given just achievement growth data, survey respondents choosing between schools in the Madison County School District north of Jackson, Mississippi, preferred a school that was 2.6 percentage points less White and 2.1 percentage points more economically disadvantaged, on average, than their counterparts without any academic performance data.

However, when parents received both status and growth data, which is what many states’ school report cards and school rating websites provide, they were more likely to choose higher-growth schools—but only those schools that happened to be as affluent or as White as those chosen by parents without any performance data.

“Adding growth information to the array of data available to parents and the public is a good thing to do, but our results indicate that it’s unlikely to change parental behavior in a way that helps to diversify schools,” said Houston, an assistant professor of education policy at George Mason.

“As a community, we need to replace our status-based conceptions of school quality with growth-based ones so that we can identify our most and least effective schools, regardless of the kinds of students they serve,” Houston said. “School leaders, policymakers, and parents should continue to push for and focus on measures of school quality based on academic growth over time. At the same time, making real progress may mean also working through the political process to build consensus for broader changes.”

Funding note: This research was supported by the Spencer Foundation.

Study citation: Houston, D. M., & Henig, J. R. (2023). The “good” schools: Academic performance data, school choice, and segregation. AERA Open, 9(1), 1–18. https://www.doi.org/10.1177/23328584231177666.

###

About AERA
The American Educational Research Association (AERA) is the largest national interdisciplinary research association devoted to the scientific study of education and learning. Founded in 1916, AERA advances knowledge about education, encourages scholarly inquiry related to education, and promotes the use of research to improve education and serve the public good. Find AERA on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram.

---

JOURNAL

AERA Open

DOI

10.1177/23328584231177666 

ARTICLE TITLE

The "Good" Schools: Academic Performance Data, School Choice, and Segregation

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

8-Jun-2023

Schrödinger’s cat makes better qubits

Peer-Reviewed Publication

ECOLE POLYTECHNIQUE FÉDÉRALE DE LAUSANNE

 

IMAGE: AN ILLUSTRATION OF SCHRÖDINGER’S CAT CODE view more 

CREDIT: VINCENZO SAVONA (EPFL)

Quantum computing uses the principles of quantum mechanics to encode and elaborate data, meaning that it could one day solve computational problems that are intractable with current computers. While the latter work with bits, which represent either a 0 or a 1, quantum computers use quantum bits, or qubits – the fundamental units of quantum information.

“With applications ranging from drug discovery to optimization and simulations of complex biological systems and materials, quantum computing has the potential to reshape vast areas of science, industry, and society,” says Professor Vincenzo Savona, director of the Center for Quantum Science and Engineering at EPFL.

Unlike classical bits, qubits can exist in a “superposition” of both 0 and 1 states at the same time. This allows quantum computers to explore multiple solutions simultaneously, which could make them significantly faster in certain computational tasks. However, quantum systems are delicate and susceptible to errors caused by interactions with their environment.

“Developing strategies to either protect or qubits from this or to detect and correct errors once they have occurred is crucial for enabling the development of large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computers,” says Savona. Together with EPFL physicists Luca Gravina, and Fabrizio Minganti, they have made a significant breakthrough by proposing a “critical Schrödinger cat code” for advanced resilience to errors. The study introduces a novel encoding scheme that could revolutionize the reliability of quantum computers.

What is a “critical Schrödinger cat code”?

In 1935, physicist Erwin Schrödinger proposed a thought experiment as a critique of the prevailing understanding of quantum mechanics at the time – the Copenhagen interpretation. In Schrödinger’s experiment, a cat is placed in a sealed box with a flask of poison and a radioactive source. If a single atom of the radioactive source decays, the radioactivity is detected by a Geiger counter, which then shatters the flask. The poison is released, killing the cat.

According to the Copenhagen view of quantum mechanics, if the atom is initially in superposition, the cat will inherit the same state and find itself in a superposition of alive and dead. “This state represents exactly the notion of a quantum bit, realized at the macroscopic scale,” says Savona.

In past years, scientists have drawn inspiration by Schrödinger’s cat to build an encoding technique called “Schrödinger’s cat code”. Here, the 0 and 1 states of the qubit are encoded onto two opposite phases of an oscillating electromagnetic field in a resonant cavity, similarly to the dead or alive states of the cat.

“Schrödinger cat codes have been realized in the past using two distinct approaches,” explains Savona. “One leverages anharmonic effects in the cavity, the other relying on carefully engineered cavity losses. In our work, we bridged the two by operating in an intermediate regime, combining the best of both worlds. Although previously believed to be unfruitful, this hybrid regime results in enhanced error suppression capabilities.” The core idea is to operate close to the critical point of a phase transition, which is what the ‘critical’ part of the critical cat code refers to.

The critical cat code has an additional advantage: it exhibits exceptional resistance to errors that result from random frequency shifts, which often pose significant challenges to operations involving multiple qubits. This solves a major problem and paves the way to the realization of devices with several mutually interacting qubits – the minimal requirement for building a quantum computer.

“We are taming the quantum cat,” says Savona. “By operating in a hybrid regime, we have developed a system that surpasses its predecessors, which represents a significant leap forward for cat qubits and quantum computing as a whole. The study is a milestone on the road towards building better quantum computers, and showcases EPFL’s dedication in advancing the field of quantum science and unlocking the true potential of quantum technologies.

Reference

Luca Gravina, Fabrizio Minganti, Vincenzo Savona. A critical Schrödinger cat qubit. Physical Review X Quantum 4, 020337. 07 June 2023. DOI: 10.1103/PRXQuantum.4.020337

---

JOURNAL

PRX Quantum

DOI

10.1103/PRXQuantum.4.020337 

ARTICLE TITLE

Critical Schrödinger Cat Qubit

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

7-Jun-2023

20 Years AWIPEV: the French – German Arctic Research Base

Anniversary event at the French Embassy in Berlin

Business Announcement

ALFRED WEGENER INSTITUTE, HELMHOLTZ CENTRE FOR POLAR AND MARINE RESEARCH

Sixty years ago, the signing of the Élysée Treaty sealed the friendship between France and Germany. Since then, the treaty has become a symbol of a strong and trusting partnership in all areas of society - including science. A very special testimony to joint research celebrates its 20th anniversary this year: the Franco-German research station AWIPEV in Ny-Ålesund on Svalbard.

In 2003, the German Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) and the French polar research institute Paul-Émile Victor (IPEV) combined their previously independent research stations Koldewey and Rabot to form the AWIPEV base. The station in Ny-Ålesund is located at 79°N in a key region for understanding climate change. There, in the Arctic, temperatures are rising almost four times as fast as the global average over the past 40 years - a phenomenon known as "Arctic amplification."

“AWIPEV's research focuses, among other things, on climate change-induced alterations of the atmosphere, permafrost, and glacier systems, as well as the responses of Arctic marine life to rising temperatures and increasing ocean acidification”, the Director of AWI, Prof. Dr. Antje Boetius, says. “To this end, the station provides numerous laboratories for physical, biological and chemical studies, an atmospheric observatory, and living and recreation rooms for researchers”, the Director of the French Polar Institute, Dr. Yan Ropert-Coudert, adds. The station also serves as a base for expeditions to the Ny-Ålesund area and to West Svalbard.

The Svalbard archipelago is located east of Greenland in the Arctic Ocean. Svalbard, also known as Spitsbergen, belongs to Norway. The archipelago is home to Ny-Ålesund on the Kongsfjord, one of the northernmost settlements in the world. Depending on the season, between 30 (winter) and 120 (summer) people live there. Today, the small town houses the Ny-Ålesund research station, a hot spot for international Arctic research, as eleven countries operate stations and research laboratories. Scientists from all over the world and all disciplines of polar research therefore meet there.

On June 14, 2023, the 20th anniversary of the AWIPEV station will be celebrated at the French Embassy in Berlin. At the festive event, among other things, the most important results of atmospheric, glacier, permafrost and marine research at AWIPEV from the last two decades will be presented in the context of short lectures. In addition, the Director of AWI, Prof. Dr. Antje Boetius, and the Director of the French Polar Institute (IPEV), Dr. Yan Ropert-Coudert, will sign an agreement for enhanced joint cooperation ("Memorandum of Understanding"). The AWIPEV-team on Svalbard will be connected via video link from the Arctic to share their experiences and answer questions "live". A get-together and a photo exhibition in the French embassy will round off the anniversary event.

More information:

www.awipev.eu

www.awi.de/expedition/stationen/awipev-forschungsbasis.html

https://nyalesundresearch.no 

 

Notes for Editors:

You can find printable images in the online version of this press release: https://www.awi.de/en/about-us/service/press.html

Follow the Alfred Wegener Institute on Twitter (https://twitter.com/AWI_Media), Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/awiexpedition/) and Facebook (www.facebook.com/AlfredWegenerInstitute).

The Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) conducts research in the Arctic, Antarctic and oceans of the high and mid-latitudes. It coordinates polar research in Germany and provides major infrastructure to the international scientific community, such as the research icebreaker Polarstern and stations in the Arctic and Antarctica. The Alfred Wegener Institute is one of the 18 research centres of the Helmholtz Association, the largest scientific organisation in Germany.

New research highlights the importance of brown carbon in global climate change

Peer-Reviewed Publication

HEFEI INSTITUTES OF PHYSICAL SCIENCE, CHINESE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

 

IMAGE: SPECTRAL CHARACTERISTICS OF EXTINCTION COEFFICIENT, SCATTERING COEFFICIENT, ABSORPTION COEFFICIENT, AND SSA OF BRC AEROSOL FROM BIOMASS PYROLYSIS. view more 

CREDIT: ZHOU JIACHENG

Recently, the research group of Professor ZHANG Weijun from Anhui Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics (AIOFM), Hefei Institutes of Physical Science (HFIPS) , Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), found that a decrease of about 35% of SSA at 365-405 nm would cause a 46% decrease in direct radiative forcing (DRF) efficiency at ground albedo.

The relevant research work was published in Science of the Total Environment.

Brown carbon (BrC) is an important light-absorbing carbonaceous aerosol that absorbs radiation in the near-ultraviolet and visible ranges very well. Its ability to absorb radiation depends on the wavelength, which has a big effect on the balance of radiation at the local and global levels. BrC mist is made when BrC is released into the air and then oxidized again. Biomass burning is a major source of main BrC in the air. The spectral properties of BrC from burning biomass is uncertain due to the limitations of the testing methods, which leads to great uncertainty in BrC radiative forcing assessment.

In this study, the research team employed a four-wavelength broadband cavity-enhanced albedometer that they had developed.

The albedometer was operated at four independent wavelengths: 365, 405, 532, and 660 nm.

The albedomete can be used to measure the extinction coefficient, scattering coefficient, absorption coefficient, and single scattering albedo (SSA) of BrC emitted from wood pyrolysis. These optical parameters obtained online can effectively reflect the changes in aerosol during biomass pyrolysis.

"Based on the above multi-wavelength in-situ measurement, we developed the SSA spectrum retrieval method," said ZHOU Jiacheng, who invented the albedometer, "and we successfully obtained the broad spectral characteristics of the primary BrC in the range of 300-700 nm with it."

The SSA spectrum can be used to evaluate the DRF of primary BrC. The DRF efficiency over ground of various primary BrC emissions increased from 5.3 % to 68 % as compared to the non-absorbing organic aerosol assumption.

This study emphasized the importance of BrC spectral characteristics in the evaluation of radiative forcing, which has important scientific significance for the accurate evaluation of aerosol climate effects.

---

JOURNAL

Science of The Total Environment

Birmingham spinout to develop 20-minute test following surge in sexually transmitted infections

Grant and Award Announcement

UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM

 

IMAGE: WHILE GONORRHOEA IS INCREASING IN PEOPLE OF ALL AGES, THE RISE IS HIGHEST AMONG YOUNG PEOPLE AGED 15 TO 24 YEARS. view more 

CREDIT: ARLAWKA AING TUN

University of Birmingham spinout Linear Diagnostics has received funding to finesse a point-of-care test for rapid diagnosis of gonorrhoea and Chlamydia in men who have sex with men (MSM), and women who have sex with women (WSW). 

The funding from the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) will cover essential work to optimise and validate Linear’s platform technology (LDx-CTNG), so it can diagnose infection from rectal and pharyngeal (throat) swabs. 

Gonorrhoea and Chlamydia are both major public health concerns.  While Chlamydia remains the most commonly detected sexually transmitted infection, the UK Health Security Agency recently warned of a surge in gonorrhoea cases.  The latest figures show the number of cases increase of 50% from 2021 to 2022, and while gonorrhoea is increasing in people of all ages, the rise is highest among young people aged 15 to 24 years

In addition, the World Health Organization (WHO) has noted the rapid increase in multi-drug resistant gonorrhoea, with all confirmed treatment failures except one being pharyngeal infections affecting the throat. 

The most commonly used tests identify DNA from swabs or urine samples, and require laboratory processing, meaning it can be days or even weeks between testing and result.  However extracting DNA from rectal or pharyngeal swabs is more challenging. 

Linear Diagnostics will now work with product development consultancy Kinneir Dufort, which has extensive experience in medical diagnostics, to address these technical difficulties.  

Brendan Farrell, Chairman of Linear Diagnostics, said: “For STIs, the rapidity of the testing procedure is key, as patients prefer to get test results quickly and start treatment immediately.  We are aiming to produce a testing platform that will meet the WHO stipulations of being easy to use with minimal training, so people can present for testing and collect their treatment in a single visit.” 

Linear Diagnostics is platform technology was invented by Professor Tim Dafforn from the University’s School of Biosciences and uses linear dichroism, where a beam of polarised light detects multiple targets from a single  sample.  A proof of concept study has already shown this technology can provide a fast, accurate diagnostic test.  Further proprietary technologies include a new DNA amplification technique.  The company is now seeking development partners. 

David Coleman, CEO of University of Birmingham Enterprise, said: “Linear Diagnostics is tackling an important application. STIs have a direct impact on sexual and reproductive health, and although chlamydia and gonorrhoea are curable, they have to be diagnosed first.  Even in countries where testing is available, these are expensive lab-based tests which take a number of days to report on.  A rapid and easy to use diagnostic test could play a significant part in reducing the knock-on consequences of these STIs globally.”  

---

DOI

10.1039/D0CB00135J 

AMERIKAN RACIST MEDICINE

Sylvester study identifies ‘marked disparities’ in federal cancer research funding

Funding tilts toward cancers with higher incidence among non-Hispanic white people – a disparity that could be addressed quickly, the researchers say

Peer-Reviewed Publication

PUBLIC RELATIONS PACIFIC LLC

 

IMAGE: “RACIAL AND ETHNIC DISPARITIES ARE WELL DOCUMENTED ACROSS THE SPECTRUM OF CANCER TYPES, AND THIS IS OF UTMOST IMPORTANCE,” SAID DR. SHRIA KUMAR. “THE WHITE HOUSE’S CANCER MOONSHOT INITIATIVE HAS A FOCUS ON MITIGATING CANCER DISPARITIES, AND THE NCI IS VERY ATTUNED TO THE IMPACT THAT DISPARITIES HAVE ON OUR QUEST TO IMPROVE CANCER BURDEN.” view more 

CREDIT: PHOTO BY SYLVESTER

 A research team at Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine compiled and analyzed statistics from federal cancer research funding sources and found that funds tend to be allocated more heavily toward cancers that occur more often in non-Hispanic white people than in other racial and ethnic groups.

The study found that funding across cancer sites is not concordant with lethality and that cancers with high incidence among racial/ethnic minorities receive lower funding, but the study’s authors say addressing these inequities could make a difference in cancer research disparities within a short time.

“The results of this study are immediately actionable,” said Dr. Shria Kumar, a Sylvester gastroenterologist and the senior author of a paper in the June 8 Journal of the National Cancer Institute. “Agencies can evaluate their own recent funding distributions and those for upcoming cycles, then they can prioritize funding for cancers that disproportionately impact minorities to mitigate disparities and reduce cancer burden.”

The authors analyzed federal funding data to determine correlations between funding directed to cancer incidence and funding aimed at cancer mortality. They focused on National Cancer Institute funding for the 19 most common cancers, considering their respective “public health burdens,” a term that includes the incidence rate of the disease, the mortality rate, and person-years of life lost.

Although previous studies of funding distribution have evaluated these three factors separately, the Sylvester team evaluated funding using a validated measure – funding-to-lethality (FTL) scores – that incorporates all three metrics and provides a composite, objective perspective on disease burden.

“We were very surprised that correlation was stronger for incidence than mortality. It shows how complex and multifaceted funding allocation is, but it really underlines the need to look at it objectively, as we did here, and use it as a tool to mitigate cancer disparities, a common goal,” Kumar said.

Breast and prostate cancer had the highest and second-highest FTL scores, while esophagus and stomach cancer ranked 18th and 19th. Kumar and colleagues noted that breast cancer research received approximately 50 times more funding than stomach cancer in 2018, even though estimated breast cancer deaths were only four times those of stomach cancer deaths.

The authors also cited previously published statistics showing that cancers more frequently affecting non-Hispanic white people – such as breast cancer, leukemia and lymphoma – receive more funding than cancers with high incidence rates among racial and ethnic minorities – such as stomach, uterine and liver cancers.

“In my research and in clinical practice, disparities in cancer are an unfortunate but well-known entity. I’m a gastroenterologist, and disparities are of paramount concern in my areas of expertise – stomach and colorectal cancer,” Kumar said. “Racial and ethnic disparities are well documented across the spectrum of cancer types, and this is of utmost importance. The White House’s Cancer Moonshot initiative has a focus on mitigating cancer disparities, and the NCI is very attuned to the impact that disparities have on our quest to improve cancer burden.”

Specifics from the study:

• There was a stronger correlation between FTL scores and race/ethnicity-specific cancer incidence, rather than mortality.
• There was strong correlation between a cancer’s incidence among non-Hispanic white people and its FTL score, but this was not the case for other racial/ethnic groups, where there was only a weak to moderate correlation.
• There was a moderate to strong correlation between a cancer’s mortality among non-Hispanic white people and its FTL score, but there was only a weak correlation for all other racial/ethnic groups.

For the study, Kumar and her team obtained data from the NCI’s Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) database, the United States Cancer Statistics (USCS) database, and Funding Statistics between 2014 and 2018. For each year, they identified the incidence rate and mortality rate – both overall and by race/ethnicity – per 100,000 people for the 19 most common cancer sites, as well as NCI funding for each cancer.

“Despite initiatives to bolster cancer research funding and to mitigate disparities in cancer outcomes, there are marked disparities in federally funded cancer research that do not correlate with lethality,” the authors said. “Our paper identifies discrepancies in funding by demographic groups and highlights the need to ensure that federal funds are equitably distributed. This is especially important given the discrepancies in cancer outcomes for minorities, particularly in the more underfunded cancers.”

Additional authors: Dr. Shida Haghighat is the study’s first and corresponding author. Co-authors include Dr. Chunsu Jiang, Dr. Wael El-Rifai, Alexander Zaika, and Dr. David S. Goldberg. All authors are affiliated with the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine or Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center and the University of Miami Health System.

Funding: Dr. Haghighat is supported by a National Institutes of Health training grant, T32 DK 116678-05.

Disclosures: The authors declare no personal, professional or financial conflicts of interest.

Journal: Journal of the National Cancer Institute: Urgent Need to Mitigate Disparities in Federal Funding for Cancer Research.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/jnci/djad097

# # #

PHOTO CAPTION/CREDIT:

“Racial and ethnic disparities are well documented across the spectrum of cancer types, and this is of utmost importance,” said Dr. Shria Kumar. “The White House’s Cancer Moonshot initiative has a focus on mitigating cancer disparities, and the NCI is very attuned to the impact that disparities have on our quest to improve cancer burden.” Photo by Sylvester

# # #

MEDIA CONTACT:
Sandy Van
sandy.van@miami.edu
808.206.4576

 

---

JOURNAL

JNCI Journal of the National Cancer Institute

DOI

10.1093/jnci/djad097 

ARTICLE TITLE

Urgent Need to Mitigate Disparities in Federal Funding for Cancer Research

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

8-Jun-2023

COI STATEMENT

The authors declare no personal, professional or financial conflicts of interest.