Difference between revisions of "Team:Pittsburgh/Model"

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           <p> In developing a lead sensor for our project, we were curious about the effects of lead contamination in the water supply on small children. How do their bodies metabolize it? Where does it go? We were pretty appalled by the devastating effects lead can have on the human body and how long it can persist even after the initial exposure. Many journals report that there can be devastating neurological and physiological impairments from even the smallest exposure and <b>there is no safe dosage of lead. </b> </p>
 
           <p> In developing a lead sensor for our project, we were curious about the effects of lead contamination in the water supply on small children. How do their bodies metabolize it? Where does it go? We were pretty appalled by the devastating effects lead can have on the human body and how long it can persist even after the initial exposure. Many journals report that there can be devastating neurological and physiological impairments from even the smallest exposure and <b>there is no safe dosage of lead. </b> </p>
  
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            <p>Very often, a journal would give a range of blood-lead levels and say that it correlated with a specific impairment <b>but no paper was able to show a level or duration of contamination that resulted in that blood-lead level.</b> Without this, we couldn't really gauge what level of lead exposure and for how long a person could be exposed to lead and miss out on the devastating health benefits. So we decided to try and model it! </p>
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          <p>Very often, a journal would give a range of blood-lead levels and say that it correlated with a specific impairment <b>but no paper was able to show a level or duration of contamination that resulted in that blood-lead level.</b> Without this, we couldn't really gauge what level of lead exposure and for how long a person could be exposed to lead and miss out on the devastating health benefits. So we decided to try and model it! </p>
  
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            <p>We began with a thorough examination of the literature looking for important details on how much lead is absorbed into the body, where the absorbed lead goes, and how long it stays in the body. With these literature values, we were able to create a rudimentary mass balance of the human body focusing on the amount of lead entering the body and the amount of lead leaving the body. We decided to treat the blood and bones of the human body as two different systems in order to more accurately model how the body metabolizes lead and processes it. The finished differential equations for the two systems are included below. ***diff equations of blood and bone***</p>
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          <p>We began with a thorough examination of the literature looking for important details on how much lead is absorbed into the body, where the absorbed lead goes, and how long it stays in the body. With these literature values, we were able to create a rudimentary mass balance of the human body focusing on the amount of lead entering the body and the amount of lead leaving the body. We decided to treat the blood and bones of the human body as two different systems in order to more accurately model how the body metabolizes lead and processes it. The finished differential equations for the two systems are included below. ***diff equations of blood and bone***</p>
  
 
             <p> From there, we were interested in none are able to go so far and correlate lead contamination with the concentration of lead in the blood. were able to point to a concentration of lead exposure and give a probability of we couldn't seem to find data that linked level of lead contamination and exposure duration with aWe were interested in quantifying the exact concentration of lead a child might have in their blood stream and how much might end up in their bones. </p>  
 
             <p> From there, we were interested in none are able to go so far and correlate lead contamination with the concentration of lead in the blood. were able to point to a concentration of lead exposure and give a probability of we couldn't seem to find data that linked level of lead contamination and exposure duration with aWe were interested in quantifying the exact concentration of lead a child might have in their blood stream and how much might end up in their bones. </p>  

Revision as of 18:59, 17 October 2016

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Office of the Provost Department of Bioengineering Department of Biological Sciences Department of Chemistry Swanson School of Engineering
IDT NEB Experiment

The Effect of Lead Contamination in Drinking Water on a Young Population

In developing a lead sensor for our project, we were curious about the effects of lead contamination in the water supply on small children. How do their bodies metabolize it? Where does it go? We were pretty appalled by the devastating effects lead can have on the human body and how long it can persist even after the initial exposure. Many journals report that there can be devastating neurological and physiological impairments from even the smallest exposure and there is no safe dosage of lead.

Very often, a journal would give a range of blood-lead levels and say that it correlated with a specific impairment but no paper was able to show a level or duration of contamination that resulted in that blood-lead level. Without this, we couldn't really gauge what level of lead exposure and for how long a person could be exposed to lead and miss out on the devastating health benefits. So we decided to try and model it!

We began with a thorough examination of the literature looking for important details on how much lead is absorbed into the body, where the absorbed lead goes, and how long it stays in the body. With these literature values, we were able to create a rudimentary mass balance of the human body focusing on the amount of lead entering the body and the amount of lead leaving the body. We decided to treat the blood and bones of the human body as two different systems in order to more accurately model how the body metabolizes lead and processes it. The finished differential equations for the two systems are included below. ***diff equations of blood and bone***

From there, we were interested in none are able to go so far and correlate lead contamination with the concentration of lead in the blood. were able to point to a concentration of lead exposure and give a probability of we couldn't seem to find data that linked level of lead contamination and exposure duration with aWe were interested in quantifying the exact concentration of lead a child might have in their blood stream and how much might end up in their bones.

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