Digital Inclusion as a Lens for Equitable Parent Engagement.

Digital inclusion (DI) represents a framework for educational leaders to address ongoing digital access and participation divides for adult caretakers (e.g., parents) of school-aged children, as schools continue adopting new education technology tools. This preliminary research investigates teacher perceptions of different DI needs for parents during the pandemic. This research examines teacher perceptions of parents' knowledge and use of online tools in providing supervision to support home-based learning for their student children. A sample of K-12 teachers in the United States responded to open-ended survey questions relating to their observation and evaluation of student learning, parent involvement, and DI needs in their classes. The researchers used a framework drawn from Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs to categorize key DI components teachers identified, finding both digital access and digital participation needs existed in their students' homes. Ultimately, the framework of DI recognizes that household digital access alone does not create equitable opportunities for online instruction without holistic consideration of digital literacy training, technical support, and relevant online tools for parents and caretakers.

Emission factors of industrial boilers burning biomass-derived fuels.

Boilers are combustion devices that provide process heat and are integral to many industrial facilities. Historically, outside of the pulp and paper industry, most boilers burned fossil fuels, although interest in decarbonization has been leading to an increased use of renewable fuels in boilers. These boilers, including those in the biorefineries, are often large sources of air pollutant emissions, and the characterization of these emissions is critical to obtaining air permits and ensuring protection of the surrounding air quality. Several industrial boilers and new biorefineries allow utilization of biomass-derived fuels (e.g. wastewater sludge, lignin, etc.) produced during their operation as a fuel for the boiler to meet process energy needs. However, there is limited empirical data on emission factors for the burning of unconventional fuels, such as solid-gas mixtures containing biomass residues. To fill this gap, we carry out a comprehensive data survey, collecting information on emission factors for boilers burning either a single or a mixture of solid and gaseous biomass-derived fuels. We review multiple hard-to-obtain and unconventional data sources, such as air permit applications, stack test data, and industry-sponsored data collection efforts, to compile emission factors for biomass-derived fuels. We then compare this data with wood residue emission factors from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's AP-42 emission factor database. Our results indicate that the emission factors for boilers burning unconventional fuels vary widely depending on the fuel composition, boiler type, and fuel characteristics. Overall, we find that median emission factors of selected biomass-derived fuels are typically lower than those of wood residue boilers in AP-42. The information collected herein could be useful to permitting agencies and industries utilizing boilers who may want to reduce the carbon impact of their facilities by combusting biomass-derived wastes for process energy needs, for more accurate emission estimation for permitting.Implications: Emission factors are often used for air permitting, specifically for emission estimation purposes. This study carries out a comprehensive data survey of emission factors burning unconventional biomass-derived fuels from underutilized sources such as air permits, stack test data, and industry-led efforts, and compare the results to EPA's wood residue emission factor database. The results from this study can be used can be used by multiple stakeholders such as air permitting agencies, industries burning biomass-derived fuels, and biorefineries, that utilize more advanced boiler technologies. The findings can help mitigate risks to industry owners and operators and helps to avoid delays in obtaining the required air permits that arise due to inappropriate emission estimates in permit applications.

Impacts of prescribed fires and benefits from their reduction for air quality, health and visibility in the Pacific Northwest of the United States.

Using a WRF-SMOKE-CMAQ modeling framework, we investigate the impacts of smoke from prescribed fires on model performance, regional and local air quality, health impacts, and visibility in protected natural environments using three different prescribed fire emission scenarios - 100% fire, no fire, and 30% fire. The 30% fire case reflects a 70% reduction in fire activities due to harvesting of logging residues for use as a feedstock for a potential aviation biofuel supply chain. Overall model performance improves for several performance metrics when fire emissions are included, especially for organic carbon, irrespective of the model goals and criteria used. This effect on model performance is more pronounced for the rural and remote IMPROVE sites for organic carbon and total PM2.5. A reduction in prescribed fire emissions (30% fire case) results in significant improvement in air quality in areas in western Oregon, northern Idaho and western Montana where most prescribed fires occur. Prescribed burning contributes to visibility impairment and a relatively large portion of protected class I areas will benefit from a reduced emission scenario. For the haziest 20% days, prescribed burning is an important source of visibility impairment and approximately 50% of IMPROVE sites in the model domain show a significant improvement in visibility for the reduced fire case. Using BenMAP, a health impact assessment tool, we show that several hundred additional deaths, several thousand upper and lower respiratory symptom cases, several hundred bronchitis cases, and more than 35,000 work day losses can be attributed to prescribed fires and these health impacts decrease by 25-30% when a 30% fire emission scenario is considered. Implications This study assesses the potential regional and local air quality, public health and visibility impacts from prescribed burning activities as well as benefits that can be achieved by a potential reduction in emissions for a scenario where biomass is harvested for conversion to biofuel. As prescribed burning activities become more frequent, they can be more detrimental for air quality and health. Forest residue based biofuel industry can be source of cleaner fuel with co-benefits of improved air quality, reduction in health impacts and improved visibility.

Air Quality and Health Impacts of an Aviation Biofuel Supply Chain Using Forest Residue in the Northwestern United States.

Forest residue is a major potential feedstock for second-generation biofuel; however, little knowledge exists about the environmental impacts of the development and production of biofuel from such a feedstock. Using a high-resolution regional air quality model, we estimate the air quality impacts of a forest residue based aviation biofuel supply chain scenario in the Pacific Northwestern United States. Using two potential supply chain regions, we find that biomass and biofuel hauling activities will add <1% of vehicle miles traveled to existing traffic, but the biorefineries will add significant local sources of NO x and CO. In the biofuel production scenario, the regional average increase in the pollutant concentration is small, but 8-hr maximum summer time O3 can increase by 1-2 ppb and 24-hr average maximum PM2.5 by 2 µg/m3. The alternate scenario of slash pile burning increased the multiday average PM2.5 by 2-5 µg/m3 during a winter simulation. Using BenMAP, a health impact assessment tool, we show that avoiding slash pile burning results in a decrease in premature mortality as well as several other nonfatal and minor health effects. In general, we show that most air quality and health benefits result primarily from avoided slash pile burning emissions.

The role of stem cells in the response to myocardial and vascular wall injury.

Myocardium has long been considered a terminally differentiated tissue, with injury invariably leading to replacement with fibrosis. However, new reports suggest potential roles for circulating or endogenous stem cells in repopulating myocardium after irreversible injury. Unfortunately, these benefits may represent a double-edged sword. While offering exciting possibilities for therapy following myocardial infarction (MI), stem cells are also increasingly implicated in contributing to a number of vascular pathologies, including the formation of graft arterial disease (GAD) after cardiac transplantation. In this review, the function of stem cells in repopulating infarcted myocardium and their role in the pathogenesis of intimal hyperplastic lesions such as GAD will be discussed.