The effect of feed water dissolved organic carbon concentration and composition on organic micropollutant removal and microbial diversity in soil columns simulating river bank filtration.

This study investigated organic micropollutant (OMP) biodegradation rates in laboratory-scale soil columns simulating river bank filtration (RBF) processes. The dosed OMP mixture consisted of 11 pharmaceuticals, 6 herbicides, 2 insecticides and 1 solvent. Columns were filled with soil from a RBF site and were fed with four different organic carbon fractions (hydrophilic, hydrophobic, transphilic and river water organic matter (RWOM)). Additionally, the effect of a short-term OMP/dissolved organic carbon (DOC) shock-load (e.g. quadrupling the OMP concentrations and doubling the DOC concentration) on OMP biodegradation rates was investigated to assess the resilience of RBF systems. The results obtained in this study imply that - in contrast to what is observed for managed aquifer recharge systems operating on wastewater effluent - OMP biodegradation rates are not affected by the type of organic carbon fraction fed to the soil column, in case of stable operation. No effect of a short-term DOC shock-load on OMP biodegradation rates between the different organic carbon fractions was observed. This means that the RBF site simulated in this study is resilient towards transient higher DOC concentrations in the river water. However, a temporary OMP shock-load affected OMP biodegradation rates observed for the columns fed with the river water organic matter (RWOM) and the hydrophilic fraction of the river water organic matter. These different biodegradation rates did not correlate with any of the parameters investigated in this study (cellular adenosine triphosphate (cATP), DOC removal, specific ultraviolet absorbance (SUVA), richness/evenness of the soil microbial population or OMP category (hydrophobicity/charge).

Health promotion and the "ideology of choice".

Assessment and intervention in public health nursing are intricately linked to health promotion. Health promotional strategies in turn focus attention on life-style modifications. A broad base of research warns of the dangers of the "ideology of choice" that currently accompany such lifestyle-change attempts. The "ideology of choice" is inherent in pervasive views that individuals are "responsible for" and "choose" their disease. The rhetoric of individual responsibility pervades the discourse around both health promotion and health care reform. Without continual awareness of both the complex and multifaceted nature of such life-style "choices," and the balancing of a compassionate stance toward human frailty, health promotion attempts easily degenerate into a victim-blaming stance. Public health nurses need to be particularly aware of these dangers during this period when cost constraints are generating more pervasive "ideology of choice" rhetoric, targeting those with the scarcest resources and the most profound needs.

The nurse-patient relationship reconsidered: an expanded research agenda.

This article examines gaps in the available research on the nurse-patient relationship and proposes an expanded research agenda. The author's previous research comparing the physician-patient relationship in holistic health to traditional medical practice is reviewed and then contrasted with the literature describing the nurse-patient relationship. Five dimensions of the relationship are examined: affectivity, specificity, status differential, placebo salience, and trust. Most of the existing research in nursing focuses on the dimension of affectivity. Further empirical data on how each of these components is enacted in concrete clinical encounters is needed. Beyond expanding our understanding of each dimension, comparing them to equivalent attributes in other prominent models of provider-client relationships can provide further insight into those complex processes.

Interpretive research methodology: broadening the dialogue.

This article expands the dialogue on interpretive research methodology, locating this set of approaches within a broad historical and interdisciplinary context. Several of the most commonly held misconceptions in nursing, particularly those related to the meanings and derivations ascribed to "grounded theory," "symbolic interactionism," and "ethnography," are examined. The interpretive research approaches not only have gained broader acceptance across disciplines, but also have shifted in more radical and often less structured directions during the past decade. Several pivotal areas of these ongoing shifts are analyzed for their relevance to nursing research: the influence of critical and feminist theory and postmodernism, the ambiguity inherent in both every-day life and the research enterprise, the importance of locating the researcher, power and status inequities, the problematic aspects of language, meaning, and representation, and the emphasis on reflexivity and context as constitutive of meaning.