Age-specific mortality during the 1918 influenza pandemic: unravelling the mystery of high young adult mortality.

The worldwide spread of a novel influenza A (H1N1) virus in 2009 showed that influenza remains a significant health threat, even for individuals in the prime of life. This paper focuses on the unusually high young adult mortality observed during the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918. Using historical records from Canada and the U.S., we report a peak of mortality at the exact age of 28 during the pandemic and argue that this increased mortality resulted from an early life exposure to influenza during the previous Russian flu pandemic of 1889-90. We posit that in specific instances, development of immunological memory to an influenza virus strain in early life may lead to a dysregulated immune response to antigenically novel strains encountered in later life, thereby increasing the risk of death. Exposure during critical periods of development could also create holes in the T cell repertoire and impair fetal maturation in general, thereby increasing mortality from infectious diseases later in life. Knowledge of the age-pattern of susceptibility to mortality from influenza could improve crisis management during future influenza pandemics

Paper Abstracts (2009)

Seventeenth Conference of the Association of Christians in the Mathematical Science

Between the Unique and the Pattern

This article proposes that the underlying ideas of data journalism are not new, but rather can be traced back in history and align with larger questions about the role of quantification in journalistic practice. This article sketches out a theoretical frame (assemblage theory) in which quantitative journalism is best understood by examining the objects of evidence that journalism mobilizes on its behalf. The article illustrates this perspective by outlining three historical tensions in notions of quantitative journalism: tensions between records and reports, individuality and social science, and isolated facts and broader patterns

Open Educational Content for Digital Public Libraries

If the production of digital content for teaching -- particularly free content -- is to expand substantially, there must be mechanisms to establish a link to fame and fortune that was not perceived in a pre-digital world. How that might be done is the central question this report addresses, in the context of examining the movement for open educational content. Understanding that movement requires delving into the history of what may seem, on first pass, a totally unrelated field of endeavor. The reader's patience is requested....

The Lindenwood Colleges Bulletin, August 1973

Lindenwood College alumni magazine.https://digitalcommons.lindenwood.edu/alumni_bulletin/1003/thumbnail.jp

The unequal lag in Latin American schooling since 1900: follow the money

Special Issue on Latin American Inequality.Focusing on education–income anomalies, in which a richer country delivers less education than a poorer country, seems a promising way to harvest a part of the rich history that does not lend itself to econometrics. To test the chain of alleged causation from unequal power and wealth to poor schooling, one must follow the public money, or lack of it, in as many contexts as the data will allow. Public funding for mass schooling is the hitherto untested middle link in the chain. The key to Latin America’s poor schooling was the failure to supply tax money, not gender discrimination or any shortfall in market demand for skills. The most glaring anomalies were the Venezuelan and Argentine failures to supply the levels of tax support for mass schooling that their high income could have afforded.Este artículo estudia algunas irregularidades de la relación entre educación y renta, por la que los países ricos ofrecen menos educación que los pobres. Esta relación no parece encajar con la historia de los países ricos ni se presta a una comprobación econométrica. Para comprobar la cadena causal acreditada entre la desigualdad de poder o riqueza y baja escolarización, uno tiene que seguir el dinero público o la ausencia de éste en tantos contextos como sea posible. La financiación pública de la escolarización de masas aún no ha sido examinada en el eslabón medio en la cadena. La clave de la baja escolarización latinoamericana fue un problema de ingreso fiscal, no de discriminación de género o de un fallo de mercado en la demanda de mano de obra cualificada. Las irregularidades más flagrantes las encontramos en Venezuela y Argentina que fallaron en el nivel de apoyo fiscal a la escolarización de masas en relación con los ingresos medios disponibles

Reintroduciendo actividades etnomatemáticas maoríes en el aula: conceptos tradicionales maoríes de orientación espacial

Māori mathematical practices were excluded from schooling in Aotearoa/New Zealand for over 150 years as a result of explicit policies precluding the use of the Indigenous language and culture. As a consequence of the range of assimilationist policies, by the 1970s, the Māori language was considered endangered. In response to the perilous state of the language, Māori communities set up their own schools, initially outside of the state system, to support the revitalisation of the language and culture. However, the reintroduction of the cultural knowledge in areas such as mathematics has not matched language revitalisation efforts. Many original ethnomathematical practices are no longer in general use in the Indigenous community and the practices valued by the European majority remain the norm in the state-mandated school curricula. Spatial orientation is an example of the mathematics curricula content that is based on Western mathematical perspectives. To provide a Māori perspective, this paper draws on interviews with elders and historical data to examine Māori spatial orientation terms and the spatial frames of references that they are derived from. Students in a Māori-medium school were tested on their understanding of this traditional knowledge. As a consequence, a series of learning activities based on Māori spatial orientation concepts were developed and trialled. The outcomes of these learning activities showed some increased understandings about Māori spatial orientation concepts