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- Member of: ASU Regents' Professors Open Access Works
Description
Human preferences, practices and actions are the main drivers of global environmental change in the 21st century. It is crucial, therefore, to promote pro-environmental behavior. In order to accomplish this, we need to move beyond rational choice and behavioral decision theories, which do not capture the full range of commitments, assumptions, imaginaries, and belief systems that drive those preferences and actions. Humanities disciplines, such as philosophy, history, religious studies, gender studies, language and literary studies, psychology, and pedagogics do offer deep insights into human motivations, values, and choices. We believe that the expertise of such fields for transforming human preferences, practices and actions is ignored at society’s peril. We propose an agenda that focuses global humanities research on stepping up to the challenges of planetary environmental change. We have established Environmental Humanities Observatories through which to observe, explore and enact the crucial ways humanistic disciplines may help us understand and engage with global ecological problems by providing insight into human action, perceptions, and motivation. We present this Manifesto as an invitation for others to join the “Humanities for the Environment” open global consortium of humanities observatories as we continue to develop a shared research agenda.
ContributorsHolm, Poul (Author) / Adamson, Joni (Author) / Huang, Hsinya (Author) / Kirdan, Lars (Author) / Kitch, Sally (Author) / McCalman, Iain (Author) / Ogude, James (Author) / Ronan, Marisa (Author) / Scott, Dominic (Author) / Thompson, Kirill Ole (Author) / Travis, Charles (Author) / Wehner, Kirsten (Author) / College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Institute for Humanities Research (Contributor) / School of Social Transformation (Contributor) / Women and Gender Studies (Contributor)
Created2015-12-21
Description
Recent studies indicate the presence of nano-scale titanium dioxide (TiO[subscript 2]) as an additive in human foodstuffs, but a practical protocol to isolate and separate nano-fractions from soluble foodstuffs as a source of material remains elusive. As such, we developed a method for separating the nano and submicron fractions found in commercial-grade TiO[subscript 2] (E171) and E171 extracted from soluble foodstuffs and pharmaceutical products (e.g., chewing gum, pain reliever, and allergy medicine). Primary particle analysis of commercial-grade E171 indicated that 54% of particles were nano-sized (i.e., < 100 nm). Isolation and primary particle analysis of five consumer goods intended to be ingested revealed differences in the percent of nano-sized particles from 32%‒58%. Separation and enrichment of nano- and submicron-sized particles from commercial-grade E171 and E171 isolated from foodstuffs and pharmaceuticals was accomplished using rate-zonal centrifugation. Commercial-grade E171 was separated into nano- and submicron-enriched fractions consisting of a nano:submicron fraction of approximately 0.45:1 and 3.2:1, respectively. E171 extracted from gum had nano:submicron fractions of 1.4:1 and 0.19:1 for nano- and submicron-enriched, respectively. We show a difference in particle adhesion to the cell surface, which was found to be dependent on particle size and epithelial orientation. Finally, we provide evidence that E171 particles are not immediately cytotoxic to the Caco-2 human intestinal epithelium model. These data suggest that this separation method is appropriate for studies interested in isolating the nano-sized particle fraction taken directly from consumer products, in order to study separately the effects of nano and submicron particles.
ContributorsFaust, James (Author) / Doudrick, Kyle (Author) / Yang, Yu (Author) / Capco, David (Author) / Westerhoff, Paul (Author) / College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (Contributor) / Molecular and Cellular Biology (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering (Contributor) / School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment (Contributor)
Created2016-10-31
Description
Sustainable production of microalgae for biofuel requires efficient phosphorus (P) utilization, which is a limited resource and vital for global food security. This research tracks the fate of P through biofuel production and investigates P recovery from the biomass using the cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803. Our results show that Synechocystis contained 1.4% P dry weight. After crude lipids were extracted (e.g., for biofuel processing), 92% of the intracellular P remained in the residual biomass, indicating phospholipids comprised only a small percentage of cellular P. We estimate a majority of the P is primarily associated with nucleic acids. Advanced oxidation using hydrogen peroxide and microwave heating released 92% of the cellular P into orthophosphate. We then recovered the orthophosphate from the digestion matrix using two different types of anion exchange resins. One resin impregnated with iron nanoparticles adsorbed 98% of the influent P through 20 bed volumes, but only released 23% during regeneration. A strong-base anion exchange resin adsorbed 87% of the influent P through 20 bed volumes and released 50% of it upon regeneration. This recovered P subsequently supported growth of Synechocystis. This proof-of-concept recovery process reduced P demand of biofuel microalgae by 54%.
ContributorsGifford, McKay (Author) / Liu, Jianyong (Author) / Rittmann, Bruce (Author) / Vannela, Raveender (Author) / Westerhoff, Paul (Author) / Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering (Contributor) / School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment (Contributor) / Biodesign Institute (Contributor) / Swette Center for Environmental Biotechnology (Contributor)
Created2015-03-01