Mental health (MH) concerns are becoming more prevalent, though the current United States adult population remains more inclined to seek care only for physical conditions. Clients with physical dysfunction are especially likely to experience an exacerbation of MH concerns. The skilled, holistic practice scope of Occupational Therapy Practitioners (OTP) make them well suited to address both physical and MH needs. This program, Mental Readiness in Rehabilitation (MR2), provides holistic care planning education to OTPs. The MR2 is a one-hour education program that provides the background on MH in physical rehabilitation and offers practical skills training the Mental Readiness Screening Tool and the corresponding MH toolkit. This program educates OTPs on convenient, evidence-based skills to embed MH interventions for more holistic, comprehensive treatment plans. Plans for program implementation, funding, and evaluation of the MR2 program are included, as well as intent for the dissemination of program findings to advance the base of evidence for OTPs as qualified mental health practitioners.

La contamination du milieu naturel, notamment des aquifères, par des hydrocarbures lourds de type HAP (Hydrocarbure Aromatique Polycyclique) se révèle être une pollution pérenne très difficile à traiter. La dépollution de ces sous-sols par un traitement in situ efficace et peu coûteux constitue encore aujourd’hui un challenge. Cette étude cible une technique de co-injection air-vapeur en zone saturée comme alternative aux techniques thermiques et chimiques en vigueur pour le traitement de cette catégorie d’hydrocarbures. Une première partie expérimentale introductive estime l’influence d’un simple traitement vapeur sur la libération de HAPs par les matrices de sol au sein de l’aquifère, montrant la nécessité de coupler à ce procédé une technique d’oxydation chimique. Si le front de vapeur permet de mobiliser totalement les composés légers, les concentrations des composés les plus lourds augmentent en phase dissoute (augmentation des fractions molaires des composés résiduels). Réalisées en milieu fermé, dans des conditions de température dictées par l’injection de vapeur (120 ̊C), des expériences en laboratoire ont permis de caractériser et de quantifier les réactions d’oxydation chimique mises en jeu. Les résultats démontrent une efficacité modérée de l’oxydation à moyenne température. Des sous-produits de réaction sont identifiables et quantifiables à compter de plusieurs semaines de réaction. A l’inverse l’étude met en évidence l’absence totale de minéralisation, démontrant que l’ana- lyse du CO2 ne peut renseigner sur l’évaluation du phénomène d’oxydation. Hormis la réactivité par oxydation, les conclusions de l’étude montrent que la technique favorise la sorption irréversible des composés organiques en surface des matrices de sol. Ces phénomènes de sorption sont très marqués en présence d’argile ou de matière organique naturelle dans le milieu et augmentent au cours du temps. La technique HPO se pose donc en traitement de soutien à l’injection de vapeur par oxydation mais surtout par stabilisation de la zone de contamination. Enfin nous nous sommes intéressés aux problématiques liées à l’injection d’eau chaude et de vapeur dans un sous-sol au travers d’expériences sur site. La technique d’injection de vapeur étant financièrement et énergétiquement coûteuse, des solutions techniques ont été proposées, appliquées et modélisées. Il en ressort une comparaison en bilans énergétiques pour différents modes d’injection, permettant de mieux appréhender les véritables besoins d’une telle technique. Parmi les paramètres influents, le rayon d’influence est un paramètre essentiel qui conditionne la distance entre chaque puits pour une efficacité optimale. Les résultats de l’étude démontrent que dans certains scénarios d’injection (injection à grande profondeur) le préchauffage de la zone d’étude par injection d’eau chaude couplé à un pompage en profondeur permettra d’accroître significativement le rayon d’influence et d’améliorer le bilan énergétique du traitement global. Les principaux résultats de la thèse sont comparés aux autres études sur l’injection de vapeur pour dégager les meilleures conditions d’application de cette technique, et mettre en évidence les verrous techniques ayant pu être levés au cours de la thèse. / PAHs are the largest, ubiquitous and carcinogenic environmental chemical groups. In a context of polluted soil remediation, today it is still a challenge to reach an effective in situ treatment. This study aims to evaluate as an alternative way the potential of a technology combining a thermal process (injection of steam) and a chemical process (co-injection of air) in the saturated zone. A first introductory experimental section considers the influence of a single steam treatment on the release of PAHs from soil matrices within the aquifer. Results prove the necessity of coupling a chemical oxidation technique with this process. If the steam front allows to recover light com- pounds, concentrations of heavier compounds in the dissolved phase are more important after the steam treatment (molar fractions of residual compounds increase). In order to study the fate of PAHs in polluted soils under medium temperature oxidation, numerous experiments in presence of soil spiked matrices were carried out in closed reactors. The catalytic potential of different mineral surfaces was investigated by studying reactivity of different PAHs. Results demonstrate that the efficiency of oxidation remains moderate. They suggest a lack of mineralization and reactions producing partly polycyclic aromatic compounds (PACs) with equivalent molecular weight as the initial contaminants. Along short term experiments (9 days), the major effect of heating is an increase in irreversible sorption of original compounds. Interestingly, this sorption mostly occurs in presence of natural organic matter and oxygen in the gas phase, suggesting a specific reactivity of the natural organic matter. In long term experiments (6 months), new oxygenated PACs were formed and remained fixed on the solid phase. Consequently, air oxidation catalyzed by minerals and natural organic matter may be a new pathway concerning PAH stabilization in soils. The steam injection technique is still considered as a costly technique. In this last part some technical solutions have been proposed, implemented and modelized. The economic aspect of some injection cases are compared, based on the results of a real field application and some general calculations regarding the costs of wells and energy. Among influential parameters, the radius of influence is a key parameter that determines the distance between each well for an optimum efficiency. The results of this study show that in some scenarios of injection (when the injection takes place in a deeper zone), a preheating phase can be an interesting option to reduce the financial costs of the technique. The main results of the thesis are compared with other steam injection studies to identify the best conditions for the technique application.

M.Tech. (Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Technology), Vaal University of Technology / Petroleum wastewater is highly contaminated with toxic organic pollutants that are harmful to the environment. The heterogeneous photocatalytic oxidation (HPO) process has shown the ability to remove these pollutants through the application of a fluidized bed reactor (FBR). The purpose of the study was to apply response surface modelling (RSM) and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to optimize the operating conditions for the photodegradation process in an FBR. This was done by investigating the hydrodynamics, photodegradation efficiency and reaction kinetics; that gave a holistic view on the performance of the FBR. The hydrodynamic study focused on modelling the axial liquid velocity, gas hold-up and turbulence quantities due to their substantial impact on the design and performance of the FBR. This was done by implementing the Eulerian-Eulerian approach which solves the continuity and momentum equations for each phase. In addition, the standard k-ε turbulence model was used to capture the turbulent characteristics in the liquid phase. A numerical optimization technique (desirability) was used to determine the optimal simulation setting methods; that were found to be a fine grid size (500 000 cells), 2nd Order Upwind discretization scheme and a small time step size (0.001) and gave the best desirability (0.985). The axial liquid velocity was maximal towards the centre of the reactor and decreased towards the wall. The same trend was seen with the local gas hold-up, where it was high towards the centre and low near the wall region. This was an indication that the bubbles tended to gather towards the central region as they move up. Furthermore, the bubbles had a spherical–like shape due to the low superficial gas velocity and operating within the homogeneous regime. The turbulent kinetic energy increased at distances away from the distributor region, due to the bubbles accelerating, and it balanced well with the energy introduced by the bubbles. Central composite design (CCD), which is a type of response surface modelling technique, was used to investigate and optimize the photodegradation operating parameters. The maximal degradation efficiency in the current study was found to be 65.9%, which was relatively low when compared to literature (80.84%). This was attributed to the increase in the catalyst particle size from nanometer to micrometer. Furthermore, the second-order empirical model that was developed, using the analysis of variance (ANOVA), presented a sufficient correlation to the photodegradation experimental data. The optimal photodegradation operating conditions were found to be: superficial gas velocity of 17.32 mm/s, composite catalyst loading of 1.0 g/L, initial pH level of 3.5 and reaction time being 210 min. Using the Langmuir-Hinshelwood model, it was found that the photocatalytic degradation of petroleum wastewater follows pseudo first-order reaction kinetics. Since the photocatalytic degradation mechanism of phenol follows three stages whereby the second stage is the photocatalytic degradation on the surface of the catalyst to form by-products. This is the rate dominant stage and follows the pseudo firstorder reaction kinetics.

The genes that regulate pubertal timing in the general population are not well understood. Recently, genome-wide association studies have demonstrated that genetic variants near LIN28B associate with variation in pubertal timing in humans. To investigate where within the hypothalamic-pituitary-ovarian (HPO) axis Lin28b, and its homologue Lin28a, regulate pubertal timing, expression of these genes was assessed across the pubertal transition. The finding that Lin28a/b expression decreases only in the ovary suggests that the Lin28 pathway may exert its regulatory effects with respect to puberty in the ovary. Another aim of this thesis was to examine the effect of estrogen on Lin28b expression in immortalized GnRH neuronal cells, but the data remains equivocal and detailed future studies are needed to make definitive conclusions. The ovarian expression data lay the foundation for further studies using conditional knockout mice to verify the importance of the tissue and age specific developmental pattern that was identified.

The genes that regulate pubertal timing in the general population are not well understood. Recently, genome-wide association studies have demonstrated that genetic variants near LIN28B associate with variation in pubertal timing in humans. To investigate where within the hypothalamic-pituitary-ovarian (HPO) axis Lin28b, and its homologue Lin28a, regulate pubertal timing, expression of these genes was assessed across the pubertal transition. The finding that Lin28a/b expression decreases only in the ovary suggests that the Lin28 pathway may exert its regulatory effects with respect to puberty in the ovary. Another aim of this thesis was to examine the effect of estrogen on Lin28b expression in immortalized GnRH neuronal cells, but the data remains equivocal and detailed future studies are needed to make definitive conclusions. The ovarian expression data lay the foundation for further studies using conditional knockout mice to verify the importance of the tissue and age specific developmental pattern that was identified.