Freshwater systems provide key pathways for microplastic (MP) pollution, and although existing studies have demonstrated the susceptibility of freshwater biota to ingestion, translocation, and trophic transfer, specific challenges pertaining to methodological standardization remain largely unresolved, particularly with respect to isolating, characterizing, and assessing MPs. Here, a critical review is performed outlining the challenges and limitations currently faced by freshwater MP researchers, which may well apply across the MP research spectrum. Recommendations are provided for methodological standardization, particularly in MP characterization, quality assurance, and quality control (QA/QC) procedures as well as reporting. Considerations for the assessment of MPs in freshwater biota as a means of improving comparisons between studies are discussed. Technological advancements, including the improvement of laboratory infrastructure for identifying MPs within the smaller size range as well as methodological standardization are essential in providing policy makers with tools and measures necessary to determine the distribution of MPs within freshwater ecosystems, while also allowing for comparability and providing compliance for future monitoring requirements.
This report is published to provide coastal engineers with a study of the effects of suspended sediment on estuarine organisms, in the continuing research on the ecological effects of engineering activities. It presents the results of a 3-year laboratory study on the subject. The work was carried out under the coastal ecology research program of the U.S. Army Coastal Engineering Research Center (CERC) This report is published, with only minor editing, as received from the contractor; results and conclusions are those of the authors and are not necessarily accepted by CERC or the Corps of Engineers.
The records of 34 patients who showed evidence of emotional deterioration 6 months or more following traumatic brain injury were compared with a group of patients matched for severity of initial neuropsychiatric impairment who did not show deterioration. The deterioration group was more likely to have been involved in assaults and less likely to have been involved in a motor vehicle accident than the improvement group. The deterioration group was also more likely to have a prior history of alcohol abuse and to have sustained a skull fracture with left parietal lobe injury than the improvement group. Agitation, hostility, apathy, lability of mood, emotional withdrawal, and depression were the symptoms most likely to worsen over time. This deterioration may have been due to premorbid personality characteristics or to the nature of long-term neuronal response to injury.
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