Canadian Inuit have often reported concerns about the quality of their municipal drinking water; research has also shown that some Inuit communities experience some of the highest incidence rates of self-reported acute gastrointestinal illness (AGI) in Canada and globally. The goal of this thesis research was to investigate drinking water perceptions and consumption patterns, as well as water c...

Microbial and chemical contamination of drinking water supplies can cause human health problems. Microbial pathogens are of primary concern and quantitative microbial risk assessment (QMRA) is employed to assess and manage the risks they pose. Estimates of drinking water consumption, or distributions, are required to assess levels of waterborne pathogen exposure. To establish distributions for ...

OBJECTIVE To improve an existing measure of fruit and vegetable intake self efficacy by including items that varied on levels of difficulty, and testing a corresponding measure of water intake self efficacy. DESIGN Cross sectional assessment. Items were modified to have easy, moderate and difficult levels of self efficacy. Classical test theory and item response modeling were applied. SETTI...

Jaramillo and Destouni claim that freshwater consumption is beyond the planetary boundary, based on high estimates of water cycle components, different definitions of water consumption, and extrapolation from a single case study. The difference from our analysis, based on mainstream assessments of global water consumption, highlights the need for clearer definitions of water cycle components an...

Two experiments examined the effect of meal-related water deficits on the distribution of meal-associated drinking. In the first procedure free-feeding rats received 10-, 20-, or 30-min delays between the end of a meal and the subsequent availability of postprandial water. Each delay condition remained in effect for 10 consecutive days. The primary effect of the delay was to postpone the intake...

Water scarcity is a rapidly growing concern around the globe, but little is known about how it has developed over time. This study provides a first assessment of continuous sub-national trajectories of blue water consumption, renewable freshwater availability, and water scarcity for the entire 20th century. Water scarcity is analysed using the fundamental concepts of shortage (impacts due to lo...

Friction is a major inhibitor in almost every mechanical system. Enlightened by the Leidenfrost effect - a droplet can be levitated by its own vapor layer on a sufficiently hot surface - we demonstrate for the first time that a small cart can also be levitated by Leidenfrost vapor. The levitated cart can carry certain amount of load and move frictionlessly over the hot surface. The maximum load...

Freshwater scarcity is increasingly perceived as a global systemic risk. Previous global water scarcity assessments, measuring water scarcity annually, have underestimated experienced water scarcity by failing to capture the seasonal fluctuations in water consumption and availability. We assess blue water scarcity globally at a high spatial resolution on a monthly basis. We find that two-thirds...