Smallpox and Bioterrorism: Why the Plan to Protect the Nation Is Stalled and What to Do

The Iraq war is over, no weapons of mass destruction (WMD) have yet been found, and the president's smallpox plan, though sound, is running out of steam. Instead of being well on the way to protecting the nation's civilian population by vaccinating up to 10 million health, emergency, and public safety workers, we are stalled at 37,971 vaccinated civilians while the military has successfully and safely vaccinated more than 450,000 people. Moreover, whether or not WMD are found in Iraq, it is only one of a number of nations on the list of suspects. Of all biological weapons, smallpox has the greatest potential for doing widespread harm. Given that the risk of death or serious harm to anyone from any form of terrorism is very low, we should live our daily lives normally, not in fear. However, to do that we need to be sure that our government is taking effective steps to reduce the chances of terrorism and, when it occurs, to minimize its consequences. Even though there is enough vaccine for everyone, we are ill prepared to rapidly contain smallpox after a bioterrorist release. Although Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines have recently improved, they continue to overstate the risk of side effects of the vaccine and erroneously suggest that, after an attack, the techniques used decades ago to eradicate smallpox will work well today. Medicine and public health are very risk-averse professions in our risk-averse culture. We have not yet realized the complexity and difficulty of vaccinating millions of Americans rapidly after an attack. Nor have we come to grips with the need to make rapid, possibly draconian, post-attack decisions based on limited data of uncertain quality. That type of decisionmaking runs counter to the culture of public health. The Bush administration needs to revitalize our preparations for a smallpox bioterrorist event

Identification of Factors Influencing Flight Performance of Field-Collected and Laboratory-Reared, Overwintered, and Nonoverwintered Cactus Moths Fed with Field-Collected Host Plants

Environmental conditions during egg and larval development may influence the dispersal ability of insect pests, thus requiring seasonal adjustment of control strategies. We studied the longest single flight, total distance flown, and the number of flights initiated by wild Cactoblastis cactorum (Berg) (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae) to determine whether the flight performance of overwintered cactus moths with a prolonged feeding phase during development differs from nonoverwintered cactus moths. Pupae of field-collected and laboratory-reared moths were transported together from the United States to Switzerland, and flight mills were used to characterize the flight capacity of 24- to 48-h-old adults during their most active period of the diel cycle. The lack of seasonal variation in flight performance of those moths that developed under controlled environment but were fed with field-collected Opuntia cacti showed that seasonal changes in host plant quality did not affect flight. This consistent flight performance in the mass-reared laboratory population throughout the year is beneficial for sterile insect technique programs, which aim to limit the dispersal of this pest. For field-collected C. cactorum, the larger overwintered females performed similarly to nonoverwintered females, indicating that longer feeding time at lower temperature increases body size but does not influence female flight capacity. Young mated females had a similar flight capacity to unmated ones, suggesting that gravid females may play an important role in invading new habitats. For males, overwintering increased the proportion of long-distance flyers, suggesting that they are well-adapted to locate the more sparsely dispersed females in the sprin

Diel Flight Pattern and Flight Performance of Cactoblastis cactorum (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae) Measured on a Flight Mill: Influence of Age, Gender, Mating Status, and Body Size

Cactoblastis cactorum (Berg) (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae) is an invasive herbivore that poses a serious risk to Opuntia cacti in North America. Knowledge of the flight behavior of the cactus moth is crucial for a better understanding of natural dispersal, and for both monitoring and control. We used computer-linked flight mills to investigate diel flight activity and flight performance in relation to gender, age, mating status, and body size. Maximal flight activity for both mated and unmated moths occurred during twilight, whereas flight activity was low during photophase. The total distance flown and the number of initiated flights within a diel cycle were higher in both unmated and mated females than in males, but the longest single flight was similar in both genders. These findings suggest that pheromone trap captures of males likely indicate the simultaneous presence of females and that mated females might even be in areas where males are not detected yet. Flight performance heterogeneity was large, with a small portion of the population (both males and females) performing long unbroken flights, whereas the majority made short flights. Females had higher pupal and adult body size and shorter longevity than males. A few individuals, particularly young mated females, flying long distances may be important for active spread of a population and the colonization of new habitats. Implications of this study in the control of the cactus moth by using the sterile insect technique are discusse

Placement Tests, Initial Enrollments, and Student Outcomes in the Technical College System of Georgia

Institutions in the Technical College System of Georgia (TCSG) offer programs that lead to technical certificates of credit (certificates), diplomas, and associate degrees. TCSG uses tiered standards to place students into courses for these programs. The standards consist of minimum thresholds for several common skills and aptitude tests, including the ACCUPLACER, SAT, and ACT, with progressively higher standards applying to required courses for certificate, diploma, and associate degree programs. This multi-measure, tiered system is intended to ensure each student has the appropriate math and language skills to succeed in the student’s chosen program. This report from Michael D. Bloem, David C. Ribar, and Jonathan Smith analyzed how placement test results and other student characteristics are associated with students’ program choices, program completion, and post-program outcomes. It examines students who enrolled in TCSG award programs in the Fall 2013 term through the Summer 2020 term. The authors have three main findings 1. Some students are more likely to enroll in particular programs. Women, White students, older students, and students without high school diplomas have high rates of enrollment in certificate programs. Men, Black students, and economically-disadvantaged students have high rates in diploma programs. Younger and economically-disadvantaged students have high rates in associate degree programs. 2. Placement test scores are only moderately associated with program enrollments and certificate and degree program completion. 3. Initial program level is an important predictor of whether students complete a credential and what type of credential they obtain, although a plurality of students at each initial program level earns a certificat

The Effects of Minimum College Transfer Admissions Requirements within the University System of Georgia

The University System of Georgia sets minimum transfer admissions requirements for its institutions that differ with the institution’s classification as a research university, comprehensive university, state university, or state college. For the three types of universities, the requirements consist of minimum grade-point-average (GPA) thresholds that apply for students with at least 30 transferrable credits. This report studies how the minimum GPA requirements affect student transfers within the system. We find that, in many cases, these GPA requirements do influence transfer patterns. These effects are most apparent for the minimum GPA (3.2) required to transfer to the University of Georgia. Students with a GPA just above the 3.2 minimum at 30 credits are three times as likely to transfer to the University of Georgia within one year compared to students with a GPA just below 3.2. The minimum transfer GPA requirements, however, have a more distinct effect on the timing of when students transfer as opposed to whether students ever transfer to a particular institution. The report concludes with a discussion of the policy implications of these findings

Advisory Algorithm for Scheduling Open Sectors, Operating Positions, and Workstations

Air traffic controller supervisors configure available sector, operating position, and work-station resources to safely and efficiently control air traffic in a region of airspace. In this paper, an algorithm for assisting supervisors with this task is described and demonstrated on two sample problem instances. The algorithm produces configuration schedule advisories that minimize a cost. The cost is a weighted sum of two competing costs: one penalizing mismatches between configurations and predicted air traffic demand and another penalizing the effort associated with changing configurations. The problem considered by the algorithm is a shortest path problem that is solved with a dynamic programming value iteration algorithm. The cost function contains numerous parameters. Default values for most of these are suggested based on descriptions of air traffic control procedures and subject-matter expert feedback. The parameter determining the relative importance of the two competing costs is tuned by comparing historical configurations with corresponding algorithm advisories. Two sample problem instances for which appropriate configuration advisories are obvious were designed to illustrate characteristics of the algorithm. Results demonstrate how the algorithm suggests advisories that appropriately utilize changes in airspace configurations and changes in the number of operating positions allocated to each open sector. The results also demonstrate how the advisories suggest appropriate times for configuration changes

OBDD-Based Representation of Interval Graphs

A graph $G = (V,E)$ can be described by the characteristic function of the edge set $\chi_E$ which maps a pair of binary encoded nodes to 1 iff the nodes are adjacent. Using \emph{Ordered Binary Decision Diagrams} (OBDDs) to store $\chi_E$ can lead to a (hopefully) compact representation. Given the OBDD as an input, symbolic/implicit OBDD-based graph algorithms can solve optimization problems by mainly using functional operations, e.g. quantification or binary synthesis. While the OBDD representation size can not be small in general, it can be provable small for special graph classes and then also lead to fast algorithms. In this paper, we show that the OBDD size of unit interval graphs is $O(\ | V \ | /\log \ | V \ |)$ and the OBDD size of interval graphs is $O(\ | V \ | \log \ | V \ |)$which both improve a known result from Nunkesser and Woelfel (2009). Furthermore, we can show that using our variable order and node labeling for interval graphs the worst-case OBDD size is$\Omega(\ | V \ | \log \ | V \ |)$. We use the structure of the adjacency matrices to prove these bounds. This method may be of independent interest and can be applied to other graph classes. We also develop a maximum matching algorithm on unit interval graphs using$O(\log \ | V \ |)$operations and a coloring algorithm for unit and general intervals graphs using$O(\log^2 \ | V \ |)$ operations and evaluate the algorithms empirically.Comment: 29 pages, accepted for 39th International Workshop on Graph-Theoretic Concepts 201

“Have a little faith”

This study contributes to our knowledge about the relationship between inter-organizational cooperation and innovation performance. While research shows that ties between organizations can be a precondition for innovation, less is known about how to govern these inter-organizational relations. Theoretically, relations between organizations can be based on prices (the market), authority (hierarchies), or trust (communities). A central debate in the literature concerns the question whether these mechanisms are substitutes or complements. If they are substitutes, only one of them should suffice, if they are complements, it is possible to have combinations of these mechanisms. A vignette study was conducted to answer this question. The results show that trust is the main mechanism in inter-organizational relations aimed at innovation performance. Furthermore, the results provide evidence that price, authority, and trust are complementary mechanisms