Purpose: To determine the association of plasma and aqueous humor selenium with glaucoma; and to determine those factors influencing biological levels of selenium in patients with glaucoma and cataractMethods: 47 primary open angle glaucoma (POAG) cases and 54 controls were recruited from surgery patients at the University Physician's Ophthalmology Clinic in Tucson, Arizona. Aqueous humor and plasma selenium concentration was determined by high performance liquid chromatography ion channel plasma-mass spectrometry (HPLC ICP-MS). Potential confounders were assessed via questionnaire. Outcome measures included the odds of glaucoma in relation to plasma selenium and aqueous humor selenium. Factors driving plasma and aqueous humor selenium in the study population were determined via linear regression.Results: After adjustment for risk factors and multiple outcomes, the odds of glaucoma in the highest tertile of plasma selenium (OR = 13.51; p=.03) and the middle tertile of aqueous humor selenium (OR = 0.05; p=0.02) were significantly associated with glaucoma. Selenium concentration in plasma and aqueous humor was primarily driven by metabolic factors (cancer, DMII, and ARMD).Conclusions: Although a causal pathway cannot be inferred from the analysis, it may be prudent to explore these relations in a larger sample in varying areas of geographic selenium distribution. Such information could be helpful in examining a larger study population and comparing biological data. Evaluating a subject's selenium levels over time and in relation to glaucoma onset could also lend pertinent informationDriving forces behind selenium concentrations in this population are mainly metabolic in nature. Selenium levels fluctuate in most tissue as it is metabolized by the body. Selenium supplementation is a significant predictor but this effect is small and may be transient as supplementation only temporarily increases selenium pools. It is interesting to note that sex is a significant predictor of aqueous humor selenium but not of plasma selenium. In this model, female sex predicts a decrease in the selenium within the aqueous humor. This point should be explored in future studies that are powered to discern possibly subtle differences that sex plays in relation to selenium concentrations in plasma and aqueous humor and its possible role in glaucoma.

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Aqueous polyuethane (PU) colloids, like many other water-borne polymer colloids, have become an increasingly important class of materials in the surface coating industry. Three processing stages, the pre-dispersion, dispersion and postdispersion stages, are generally involved in the production of aqueous PU colloids. However, existing researches have neglected the importance of the dispersion stage. The present study aims to develop better understanding of the dispersion stage during the production of aqueous PU colloids. Non chain-extendable PU pre-polymer (PUp) is used to enable independent study of the dispersion stage and the phase inversion process is chosen due to its widespread industrial usage. Valid drop size characterisation techniques and phase inversion detection methods have been developed in this project. Three different dispersion regions have also been identified by changing the ionic group content of PUp. Each dispersion region is associated with a particular dispersion type. Those are (I) Stable aqueous emulsions that contain small PUp-in-water drops. They were produced using PUp with more than 0.2 mmole/g of ionic groups. (2) Aqueous PUp colloids with 0.05 ~ 0.2 mmole/g of ionic groups. These emulsions contain a mixture of drop structures, including simple drops and different multiple drops. (3) Aqueous PUp dispersions containing less than 0.05 mmole/g of ionic groups. These dispersions are not stable and the resultant dispersions separated when agitation was stopped. Modified phase inversion maps are introduced to represent the occurrence of all three dispersion regions. The modified phase inversion maps are partly analogous to those of conventional non-ionic-surfactant-water (nSOW) systems. The three dispersion regions have also been "reproduced" successfully using external surfactants as substitutes for the internal stabilising groups. A new catastrophic phase inversion mechanism is proposed to explain the existence of all three dispersion regions. Other variables studied during this project include different neutralising agents. different amount of carboxylic acid groups, operating temperatures and material addition rates. In conclusion, this project shows that the phase inversion process is a feasible route for producing aqueous polymer dispersions with little or no added external surfactants. Stable PUp-W dispersions can also be produced below the minimum ionic group content reported in existing literatures.

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At the molecular level the entropic “hydrophobic effect” is responsible for high interfacial energies between hydrophobic solids and aqueous liquids, the low solubility of apolar solutes in aqueous solvents, and self-assembly in biological processes, such as vesicle formation and protein folding. Although it is known that a strong attraction between apolar molecules exists at the molecular level, it is not clear how this force scales up to objects with dimensions in the range 100 nm–1 m. This work sets out to measure the forces between particles with a radius of about 10 µm. Because we can only measure the total force, which includes the van der Waals force and the electrostatic forces, it is important to isolate the effect of “hydrophobicity”. We do this by measuring for systems where the particles are very hydrophobic (water contact angle, θ ~110°) and the van der Waals and electrostatic forces are very small. Under these conditions we find that the total force is very small: it is similar to the van der Waals force at separations exceeding 5 nm. Many early works on the hydrophobic force reported surface force at over 100 nm of separation. However, many of these strong, long-ranged attractive forces are likely caused by submicron interfacial bubbles, known as nanobubbles. Nanobubbles were imaged with an atomic force microscope to better understand their stability and dependence on solution properties, such as initial concentration of dissolved gas and changes in gas concentration. We found that nanobubbles still formed in degassed solutions and that lowering the dissolved gas concentration did not reduce the bubble size, implying that nanobubbles do not form from dissolved gas in the liquid phase or do not contain gas and are instead water vapor. Furthermore, addition of an oxygen scavenger agent, sodium sulfite, to a liquid phase that had been pressured with oxygen did not reduce bubble size which could be evidence that nanobubbles are impermeable to gas diffusion across the gas liquid interface, do not form from the dissolved gas in the surrounding liquid, or do not contain gas and are instead water vapor. / Ph. D.

During the 1990s, shellfish hatcheries operating on the Eastern Shore of Virginia noticed an increase in mortalities of their clam larvae; it was suspected that this was a result of the deteriorating quality of the estuarine water used by aquaculture hatcheries. Many hatcheries obtain their facility process water directly from nearby streams and estuaries. During the same time period, there was also an increase in the use of plastic mulch on some of the vegetable fields on the Eastern Shore. The increased runoff commonly associated with these plastic-covered fields often contains copper-based bactericides that are used on the crops. The plasticulture fields were often located adjacent to the same estuaries from which the shellfish hatcheries draw their water. High levels of copper were measured in multiple surface water locations near these fields. Runoff associated with the plasticulture fields contained up to 238 ug/L dissolved copper, well in excess of the copper concentration of 16.4 ug/L dissolved copper known to affect the mortality of larval clams. Surface water samples collected from nearby unimpacted water bodies contained less than 4 ug/L dissolved copper. Sorption studies conducted with synthetic estuary water quantified the dissolved copper sorption capacities of eight sorbents, including GACs, zeolites, a greensand, and an ion exchange resin, Amberlite IRC-718. These isotherm studies showed that all sorbents removed soluble copper, and that increased salinity and a greater contact time were shown to increase sorption. Utilizing the Freundlich isotherm, the capacity of the eight sorbents studies ranged from 25 to 221 ug/g with a 24-hour contact time. Column studies with an influent concentration of 300 ug/L dissolved copper showed that using 10 grams of a GAC sorbent, a flow rate of 5 mL/min maintained the target effluent concentration of less than 16.4 ug/L for approximately 100 hours. A similar column using 10 g of resin sorbent at a flow rate of 12.5 mL/min maintained the target effluent concentration for approximately 300 hours. The high removal capacity of the resin makes it a desirable treatment for controlling copper in estuarine water used for aquaculture. Utilizing the sorbent capacities obtained from the Freundlich isotherm and a batch treatment, a typical 500 gallon tank used for clam aquaculture would require approximately four pounds of a GAC sorbent, or two pounds of the resin sorbent to reduce a source water that contains 300 ug/L of dissolved copper to below the larval clam toxicity level. Both sorbents would require a 24-hour contact time. / Master of Science

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