"Follow my Finsta": Drinking trajectories in relation to auxiliary Instagram accounts.

OBJECTIVE: This study explored the burgeoning youth practice of possessing a fake, secondary Instagram account known as a "Finsta" in relation to exposure to alcohol-related content and college drinking. PARTICIPANTS: First-year university students with at least a primary Instagram account (N = 296) completed online surveys. METHOD: Surveys assessed whether participants did or did not have a Finsta pre-matriculation (T1), Instagram alcohol content exposure one month into college (T2), and alcohol use at T1 and near the end of the first year (T3). RESULTS: Moderated mediation analysis revealed that having a Finsta at T1 was associated with greater exposure to alcohol-related posts at T2 and, for male but not female students, predicted heavier drinking at T3. CONCLUSION: Findings are consistent with previous results suggesting that males may be more behaviorally impacted by peers' depictions of alcohol use on social media. This carries implications for social media-based intervention efforts targeting first-year students.

Systematic Bias in Self-Reported Social Media Use in the Age of Platform Swinging: Implications for Studying Social Media Use in Relation to Adolescent Health Behavior.

Public health researchers are increasingly interested in the potential relationships between social media (SM) use, well-being, and health behavior among adolescents. However, most research has assessed daily SM time via self-report survey questions, despite a lack of clarity around the accuracy of such reports given the current tendency of youth to access SM on multiple electronic devices and cycle between multiple SM platforms on a daily basis (i.e., platform swinging). The current study investigates the potential for systematic reporting biases to skew findings. Three hundred and twenty incoming college students downloaded software on their computers, tablets, and smartphones to track their active use of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat over a 2-week surveillance period and then self-reported their average daily minutes on each platform immediately after. Larger proportions of students over-estimated than under-estimated their use, with the largest overestimations found on the most heavily used platforms. Females logged significantly more SM time and were less accurate in reporting than were males and, independently, the likelihood of substantial inaccuracies in reporting total SM time and time on most individual platforms increased with each additional SM platform participants reported using. Findings demonstrate that self-reported estimates of SM time among adolescents in the age of SM platform swinging are prone to substantial error and may lead to biased conclusions about relationships between variables. Alternative measurement approaches are suggested to improve the validity of future research in this area.

Optimization of Energy Efficiency, Operation Costs, Carbon Footprint and Ecological Footprint with Reverse Osmosis Membranes in Seawater Desalination Plants.

This article shows the optimization of the reverse osmosis process in seawater desalination plants, taking the example of the Canary Islands, where there are more than 320 units of different sizes, both private and public. The objective is to improve the energy efficiency of the system in order to save on operation costs as well as reduce the carbon and ecological footprints. Reverse osmosis membranes with higher surface area have lower energy consumption, as well as energy recovery systems to recover the brine pressure and introduce it in the system. Accounting for the operation, maintenance and handling of the membranes is also important in energy savings, in order to improve the energy efficiency. The energy consumption depends on the permeate water quality required and the model of the reverse osmosis membrane installed in the seawater desalination plant, as it is shown in this study.

Integrating social media inspired features into a personalized normative feedback intervention combats social media-based alcohol influence.

BACKROUND: Research suggests that the social media platforms popular on college campuses may reflect, reinforce, and even exacerbate heavy drinking practices among students. The present study was designed to directly examine: (1) whether exposure to alcohol-related content on social media diminishes the efficacy of a traditional web-based personalized normative feedback (PNF) alcohol intervention among first-year drinkers; and (2) if social media inspired features and digital game mechanics can be integrated into a PNF intervention to combat social media-based alcohol influence and increase efficacy. METHOD: Alcohol experienced first-year college students (N = 223) completed a pre-survey that assessed exposure to alcohol-related content and social media and were randomized to 1 of 3 web-based alcohol PNF conditions (traditional, gamified only, or social media inspired gamified). One month later, participants' alcohol consumption was reassessed. RESULTS: Among participants who received traditional PNF, social media-based alcohol exposure interacted with pre-intervention drinking such that traditional PNF was less effective in reducing drinking among heavier drinkers reporting greater exposure to alcohol-related social media content. Further, when regression models compared the efficacy of all three conditions, the social media inspired gamified PNF condition was significantly more effective in reducing drinking than was traditional PNF among moderate and heavy drinkers reporting greater exposure to alcohol on social media. CONCLUSION: Although additional research is needed, these findings suggest that representing the population of students on whom normative statistics are based with social media-like user avatars and profiles may enhance the degree to which alcohol PNF is relatable and believable among high-risk students.

Study of the Ecological Footprint and Carbon Footprint in a Reverse Osmosis Sea Water Desalination Plant.

The water situation in the Canary Islands has been a historical problem that has been sought to be solved in various ways. After years of work, efforts have focused on desalination of seawater to provide safe water mainly to citizens, agriculture, and tourism. Due to the high demand in the Islands, the Canary Islands was a pioneering place in the world in desalination issues, allowing the improvement of the techniques and materials used. There are a wide variety of technologies for desalination water, but nowadays the most used is reverse osmosis. Desalination has a negative part, the energy costs of producing desalinated water are high. To this we add the peculiarities of the electricity generation system in the Canary Islands, which generates more emissions per unit of energy produced compared to the peninsular generation system. In this study we have selected a desalination plant located on the island of Tenerife, specifically in the municipality of Granadilla de Abona, and once its technical characteristics have been known, the ecological footprint has been calculated. To do this we have had to perform some calculations such as the capacity to fix carbon dioxide per hectare in the Canary Islands, as well as the total calculation of the emissions produced in the generation of energy to feed the desalination plant.

Management of slurry in Gran Canaria Island with full-scale natural treatment systems for wastewater (NTSW). One year experience in livestock farms.

The aim of this work is to describe the performance of three full-scale natural treatment systems for wastewater, which operated in an integrated manner in livestock pig farms (1000-1500pigsintotal) over one year. Slurry management was performed with these natural treatment systems operating under the normal waste loading conditions of the livestock farms in which were integrated. The systems were comprised of elements such as first generation digesters, subsurface flow constructed wetlands and facultative ponds. The facilities, located on the island of Gran Canaria (Spain), enabled the study of viable alternatives for effluent management characterized by low-cost treatments. The systems were evaluated in terms of chemical oxygen demand removal efficiency, operating with variable organic loading. Values of between 80% and 90% were obtained. A comparison was also made of first-generation cascade flow digester operation (<70% removal efficiency), with complete-mix digesters (<20% removal efficiency), and finally with facultative ponds combined with subsurface flow constructed wetlands (<91% removal efficiency). It was also verified that when natural treatment systems for wastewater combine different elements they have better removal efficiency and better response to load and/or flow changes.