Berthelsen Osborne (battlecinema5)

ation with the growth rate of built-up areas, which implies longer temporal dependency should be captured for rapidly developing areas. BACKGROUND Predicted temperature rise is likely to increase the risks of development and progression of renal/urologic anomalies for workers engaged in physically exerting and high-heat occupations. METHODS We conducted a cross-sectional study with 340 steelworkers engaged in moderate to heavy labour with ≥3 year's heat exposures and assessed Wet Bulb Globe Temperature (WBGT) and heat-strain indicators. We captured self-reported heat-strain and kidney symptoms using validated questionnaires and subjected 91 workers to renal ultrasound upon referral of an occupational health specialist to detect and confirm any structural renal anomalies/stones. RESULTS The results show that heat exposures (Avg.WBGT = 33.2 °C ± 3.8 °C) exceeded the Threshold Limit Value (TLV) for 220 workers. 95% of the workers reported symptoms of heat strain and dehydration and significant associations between heat exposures, rise in Core Body Temperature (CBT) (p = 0.0001) and Urine Specific Gravity (USG) (p = 0.018) were observed. Of the 91 workers subjected to renal ultrasound, 33% were positive for kidney/ureteral stones (n = 25) & other structural renal anomalies (n = 5). Renal/urologic anomalies were higher in the heat-exposed workers (AOR = 2.374; 95% C.I = 0.927 to 6.077; p = 0.072) 29% of workers were from exposed group and 4% were from unexposed group. Years of exposure to heat (≥5 vs less then 5) were significantly associated with the risk of renal anomalies/calculi. CONCLUSION The preliminary finding concludes that high-heat stress combined with a heavy workload and chronic dehydration are high-risk factors for adverse renal health and calls for the urgent need for cooling interventions, enhanced welfare facilities, and protective labour policies to avert adverse health consequences for few million workers in the climate change scenario. Efficient energy generation device is desired to couple with soft electronics for driving devices. Due to frequent uses of soft electronics in indoor conditions, flexible fiber-shaped dye-sensitized solar cell (FDSC) is regarded as the most promising energy generation device due to high light-to-electricity conversion maintenance under weak dim light. Using gel electrolyte to assemble FDSC cannot only restrict electrolyte leakage but also improve device flexibility and stability especially under bending conditions. In this study, poly(vinylidene fluoride-co-hexafluoropropylene) (PVdF-HFP) gel electrolyte is used to fabricate FDSC composed of curled TiO2 nanotube/Ti wire photoanode and Pt counter electrode. Nedisertib research buy It is the first time to control gel electrolyte configuration by adding different PVdF-HFP concentrations, and to optimize iodine concentration in electrolyte regarding to redox ability and electrolyte transmittance. Configuration of gel electrolyte is carefully analyzed to define porous layer and concrete layer of polymer for accumulating liquid electrolyte and inhibiting leakage and evaporation. The highest solar-to-electricity conversion efficiency of 6.32% is obtained for FDSC with 9% PVdF-HFP and 0.04 M I2 in electrolyte, due to well-defined cross-linking structure, abundant redox reactions, and high incident-light illumination through electrolyte. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy and intensity-modulated photocurrent/photovoltage spectroscopy are used to analyze charge-transfer resistance and charge-collection efficiency. Complete oxidation of ethanol is a pressing need for direct ethanol fuel cells (DEFCs) owning to high energy conversion. However, it holds great challenges on account of sluggish kinetics for CC bond cleavage and high susceptibility to CO poisoning. Herein, ternary PtPdCu nanocrsytals are synthesized and invest