Hot water and dilute acid pretreatment of high and low specific gravity Populus deltoides clones.

Populus sp. are hardwood feedstocks that grow in forest management areas that are logged for softwoods; however, they are also being considered as an energy-destined feedstock. The objective of this work was to determine the effect of xylose yield from dilute acid and hot water pretreatments performed in unstirred batch stainless steel reactors at temperatures ranging from 140 to 200°C. Populus deltoides clones S13C20 and S7C15 used in this study originated from Eastern Texas and were cultivated for 14 years in Pine Tree, AR. P. deltoides clones S13C20 and S7C15 had specific gravities of 0.48 and 0.40, respectively. Bark and wood were examined separately. As expected, hot water pretreatments, in the tested temperature range, resulted in very little direct xylose recovery. However, the 140°C dilute acid pretreatment of the lower specific gravity clone, S7C15, wood yielded the highest average xylose recovery of 56%. This condition also yielded the highest concentration of furfural, 9 mg/g sample, which can be inhibitory to the fermentation step. The highest xylose recovery from bark samples, 31%, was obtained with clone S7C15, using the 160°C dilute acid pretreatment for 60 min.

The Right to Health and the Climate Crisis: The Vital Role of Civic Space.

Under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and its protocols, states have legal obligations to address the climate crisis. The principle of participation is increasingly acknowledged as central to the protection and promotion of human rights, including the right to health. This paper explores states' obligations to address the climate crisis-and concomitant health crises-from a right to health perspective. The right to health lens provides a valuable opportunity for engaging diverse civil society constituencies in the response to the climate crisis. However, civic space must be protected if these actors are to participate meaningfully. The climate crisis discourse has lacked an explicit recognition of the interconnected nature of the right to health, environmental degradation and climate change, and civic space. There is also concern that restrictions on civic space will continue after the COVID-19 pandemic. While the public health community is an important constituency in the design and implementation of laws, policies, and programs to address climate change, the human rights literacy of this community remains to be strengthened. This paper addresses these lacunae within the context of the right to health as enshrined in United Nations human rights treaties and related international law.

A comparison of the National Center for Health Statistics and new World Health Organization growth references for school-age children and adolescents with the use of data from 11 low-income countries.

BACKGROUND: In 2007 new World Health Organization (WHO) growth references for children aged 5-19 y were introduced to replace the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) references. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to compare the prevalence of stunting, wasting, and thinness estimated by the NCHS and WHO growth references. DESIGN: NCHS and WHO height-for-age z scores were calculated with the use of cross-sectional data from 20,605 schoolchildren aged 5-17 y in 11 low-income countries. The differences in the percentage of stunted children were estimated for each year of age and sex. The z scores of body mass index-for-age and weight-for-height were calculated with the use of the WHO and NCHS references, respectively, to compare differences in the prevalence of thinness and wasting. RESULTS: No systematic differences in mean z scores of height-for-age were observed between the WHO and NCHS growth references. However, z scores of height-for-age varied by sex and age, particularly during early adolescence. In children for whom weight-for-height could be calculated, the estimated prevalence of thinness (WHO reference) was consistently higher than the prevalence of wasting (NCHS reference) by as much as 9% in girls and 18% in boys. CONCLUSIONS: In undernourished populations, the application of the WHO (2007) references may result in differences in the prevalence of stunting for each sex compared with results shown when the NCHS references are used as well as a higher estimated prevalence of thinness than of wasting. An awareness of these differences is important for comparative studies or the evaluation of programs. For school-age children and adolescents across all ranges of anthropometric status, the same growth references should be applied when such studies are undertaken.

Neuroanatomy of the human affective system.

We provide a brief overview of the structures associated with the limbic system using fixed human material. Although the review is by no means intended to be exhaustive, its purpose is to provide a tutorial on the primary structures that are involved in the experience, expression, and regulation of emotion and their anatomical location so that the reader can use this as a "pedagogical guide" for orientation and understanding of the many papers that appear in this Special Issue.