SAFE FOOD AND WATER: PRODUCERS LOOK AT RISK

Environmental Economics and Policy,

Soluble levels of receptor for advanced glycation endproducts and dysfunctional high-density lipoprotein in persons infected with human immunodeficiency virus: ACTG NWCS332.

The role of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) function and advanced glycation end products (AGEs) in HIV-related atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (CVD) is unclear. Both glycation and oxidation (HDLox) are major modifications of HDL that can alter its composition and function. Therefore, we explored the longitudinal association of HDLox with progression of glycation, as evaluated by measurement of circulating forms of receptor for AGE that predict morbidity (soluble Receptors for Advanced Glycation Endproducts [sRAGE], endogenous secretory Receptors for Advanced Glycation Endproducts [esRAGE]), in people with HIV-1 (PWH; HIV-1) and uninfected (HIV-1) individuals.We retrospectively assessed if levels of plasma sRAGE and esRAGE and HDL function (reduced antioxidant function is associated with increased HDL lipid hydroperoxide content; HDLox) in a subset of participants (n = 80) from a prospective 3-year study (AIDS Clinical Trials Group A5078). Primary outcomes were baseline and yearly rates of change over 96 of 144 weeks (Δ) in HDLox in HIV-1 versus uninfected HIV-1 controls (noted as HIV-1).Higher baseline levels of sRAGE in PWH on effective anti-retroviral therapy and with low CVD risk, but not in HIV-1 persons, were independently associated with higher HDLox. EsRAGE, but not sRAGE, had consistent inverse relationships with ΔHDLox in both HIV-1 and HIV-1 persons at baseline. In HIV-1 but not in HIV-1 persons, ΔHDLox had positive and inverse relationships with ΔRAGE and ΔesRAGE, respectively.Glycation and oxidation of HDL may contribute to impaired HDL function present in PWH

The Changing Face of Medicine: Women Doctors and the Evolution of Health Care in America

[Excerpt] This book is a case study of one profession that plays a key role in the health care sector, which now represents about one seventh of the U.S. economy. It examines the most dramatic demographic change in this sector in the last century. But the issues we raise are likely to be of interest more broadly for what they say about the changing roles of women in contemporary society. Women\u27s entry into medicine is taken as dramatic evidence that the barriers to opportunity for women are rapidly falling in America. Does the experience of female physicians to date bear out this optimistic view? An alternative view is that gender roles remain deeply entrenched in our institutions and culture. Specifically, the gender division of household labor continues to constrain the choices of all women. The trade-offs between work and family may be clearest in the most demanding professions, such as law and medicine, which require a high degree of professional devotion. Our study builds on the fine histories of women in medicine written by Walsh, Morantz-Sanchez, and More. The analysis presented here focuses on the period since 1970, thus complementing the important studies of Bowman and colleagues and Bickel. Lorber examined the experiences of the generation of women who pioneered the transformation of the profession. With the benefit of additional decades of perspective, we are in a position to examine whether the role of gender in medicine is changing

Intact Physiological Response to Arousal with Impaired Emotional Recognition in Alexithymia

Background: The purpose of the present study was to clarify the relationship between the recognition of emotion and physiological response to emotion (i.e. arousal) in alexithymia. Methods: This study investigated differences in physiological arousal state, as measured by continuous heart rate, electrodermal activity (EDA) and self-reported emotional intensity before and after exposure to an emotionally arousing or neutral videotape among 41 high- or low-alexithymic young adult participants. Results: Across subjects, emotionally negative stimuli produced increased physiological arousal. However, high-alexithymic participants exposed to the arousing videotape did not report increased subjective emotional intensity, as did low-alexithymic participants. In addition, the baseline EDA of high-alexithymic participants was significantly higher than that of the low-alexithymic participants. Conclusions: Results support the prediction that alexithymia leads to a decoupling between subjective and physiological arousal when exposed to emotionally negative stimuli. This decoupling may increase alexithymic individuals’ risks for stress-related illness

Dust Echos from Gamma Ray Bursts

The deviation from the power-law decline of the optical flux observed in GRB 970228 and GRB 980326 has been used recently to argue in favor of the connection between GRBs and supernovae. We consider an alternative explanation for this phenomenon, based on the scattering of a prompt optical burst by 0.1 solar masses of dust located beyond its sublimation radius 0.1-1 pc from the burst. In both cases, the optical energy observed at the time of the first detection of the afterglow suffices to produce an echo after 20-30 days, as observed. Prompt optical monitoring of future bursts and multiband photometry of the afterglows will enable quantitative tests of simple models of dust reprocessing and a prediction of the source redshift.Comment: 4 pages including 3 postscript figures, LaTeX (emulateapj.sty; newapa.sty for bibliography definitions); accepted for publication in ApJ

Investigating Primary Source Literacy

Primary source research requires students to acquire specialized research skills. This paper presents results from a user study testing the effectiveness of a Web guide designed to convey the concepts behind “primary source literacy”. The study also evaluated students’ strengths and weaknesses when conducting primary source research

Local-dephasing-induced entanglement sudden death in two-component finite-dimensional systems

Entanglement sudden death (ESD), the complete loss of entanglement in finite time, is demonstrated to occur in a class of bipartite states of qu-d-it pairs of any finite dimension d > 2, when prepared in so-called `isotropic states' and subject to multi-local dephasing noise alone. This extends previous results for qubit pairs [T. Yu, J. H. Eberly, Phys. Rev. Lett. 97, 140403 (2006)] to all qu-d-it pairs with d > 2.Comment: 8 pages, to appear in Phys. Rev.