Light thrown by archaeology upon the religion of Canaan

This item was digitized by the Internet Archive. Thesis (M.A.)--Boston Universityhttps://archive.org/details/lightthrownbyarc00adk

Hurricane Damage to the Ocean

In 2005, insured losses from hurricanes and other catastrophes were greater than in any other year in U.S. history. NOAA’s National Hurricane Center estimates that $85 billion of total damages resulted from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita alone. One year later, the region affected by these two hurricanes still struggles to recover, both as a place to live and as a viable economy. Using data from the BLS Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, the National Ocean Economics Program has developed a data series that allows the economic damage to coastal regions to be seen in a new light: what happens to the economic value derived from the ocean when the ocean turns from resource and respite to a massive engine of destruction? The ocean economy is defined as industries in marine construction, living resources (seafood processing and marketing, plus aquaculture), shipbuilding and boatbuilding, minerals (primarily oil and gas exploration and production), marine transportation and related goods and services, and, finally, tourism and recreation industries whose establishments are located close to the shore of the ocean or the Great Lakes. In 2004, the ocean economy of the region encompassing Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, stretching from Franklin County, Florida, to Brazoria County, Texas, employed 291,830 people in wage and salary jobs paying nearly$7.7 billion in wages. (See table 1.) The affected States accounted for 13 percent of employment and wages in the U.S. ocean economy

Patient Perspectives on Medication Assisted Therapy in Vermont

Introduction. Medication-Assisted Therapy (MAT) for opioid addiction has dramatically increased in Vermont, supported by a novel statewide system that integrates specialty treatment centers ( Hubs ) with primary care office-based opioid therapy ( Spokes ). In 2010, Vermont had the highest per capita buprenorphine use in the US. Previous studies of patient perspectives of MAT have identified social barriers, rigid program rules, and concerns about withdrawal and relapse as common causes of treatment failure. Our goal was to elicit patient perspectives on barriers and enablers of successful MAT to further inform system refinement. Methods. An interview guide was developed based on previous literature as well as discussions with program leadership, staff and clinicians, and community stakeholders. Responses were organized using thematic content analysis with consensus across seven interviewers and two analysts. The interviews were conducted with 44 patients enrolled in MAT at two Hub sites in Burlington, VT in October 2016. Results. The median age of subjects was 34 years, 34% were employed at least part-time, and 72% were female. Half reported a mental health condition and 20% reported chronic pain. Barriers included transportation (25%), lack of stable housing, and stigma (41%). Enablers included feeling supported (82% felt well-supported; 52% felt supported by healthcare professionals). Subjects expressed high confidence in the treatment system and high self-efficacy for sobriety. Conclusions. Patients in MAT have complex medical, mental health, social, personal, and work lives. A comprehensive system that addresses this wide range of domains is critical to achieving optimal outcomes.https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/comphp_gallery/1245/thumbnail.jp

Characterizing the Ocean Economies of Guam, American Samoa, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA’s) Economics: National Ocean Watch (ENOW) provides an annual time series of select employment, establishment, wage, and gross domestic product data for all 30 U.S. coastal and Great Lakes states as far back as 2005. As detailed in Section 4 of this report, ENOW covers 47 six-digit NAICS industries across the following six ocean- and Great Lakes– dependent sectors of the economy: Living resources Marine construction Marine transportation Offshore mineral resources • Ship and boat building Tourism and recreation ENOW data play an important role in characterizing and determining the relative importance of the ocean economies of the U.S. states and sub-state regions, as well as enhancing our understanding of the economic impacts of natural and human-made disasters, such as hurricanes and oil spills. Most importantly, ENOW allows NOAA and other stakeholders to clearly describe the importance of the ocean and coastal economies and to access such information for policy development. This report characterizes the ocean economies of Guam, American Samoa, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) and assesses what information would be needed to develop an ENOW dataset for each of these Pacific Island Territories, none of which ENOW currently covers. Due to data availability issues similar to those faced in a prior NOAA effort to characterize the ocean economies of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands (NOAA OCM 2016), and additional issues unique to these Pacific Island Territories, this study relied primarily on U.S. Census County Business Patterns (CBP) data, local datasets, and information from interviews to describe these three ocean economies. Methods The ERG team, under contract to NOAA, performed in-person interviews in Guam, American Samoa, and CNMI in January and February 2018 to better estimate the size of the ocean economy in each territory. Using a combination of U.S. Census CBP data, local data, and information from interviews, ERG developed establishment and employment estimates for industries in the six ENOW sectors as well as other related industries in these sectors that we deemed ocean-dependent in an island setting (referred to as ENOW+ in this report)

The Economic Value of America’s Estuaries: 2021 Report

This study builds on the work completed in 2009, “The Economic and Market Value of Coasts and Estuaries: What’s At Stake?,” a report by NOAA in collaboration with the Center for the Blue Economy and the Ocean Foundation, at the request of Restore America’s Estuaries. Like the 2009 study, the 2021 update uses the same data sources (Census, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bureau of Economic Analysis and NOAA), and looks in detail at the same five major sectors of the U.S. economy (fisheries, energy infrastructure, marine transportation, real estate, and recreation) from 2009-2018. The 2021 update includes the economic value of natural coastal infrastructure and coastal blue carbon storage for six regions: • Great Egg Harbor, New Jersey • Palmico Sound and the Lower Neuse River, North Carolina • Tampa Bay, Florida • Terrebonne Basin, Louisiana • San Pablo Bay, California • Snohomish River Estuary, Washington For the six areas above, a thirty-year data set,1970-2020, was included in addition to the key economic metrics, drawn from NOAA data and premised on two fundamental principles: First, that natural infrastructure and blue carbon value is derived from the ability of these systems to avoid future economic damages; Secondly, and most important, the actual value is dependent on keeping existing wetlands intact. The reduction or elimination of flood losses and the avoided release of carbon stores are what determine the economic value. “The Economic Value of America’s Estuaries, 2021 Report,” has two main purposes: to update our understanding of the contributions of estuary regions to the economy of the U.S, and to expand our understanding of those values by examining the values provided by reduction in flood damages (natural infrastructure function) and the value provided by storing carbon dioxide (the blue carbon function). This report provides decision makers a methodolgically sound baseline for both of those criteria, and it provides the basis for some good news: we can mitigate the most dire climate impacts by investing in and protecting America’s estuaries, deltas, bays, coastlines and Great Lakes

Systems analysis of multiple regulator perturbations allows discovery of virulence factors in Salmonella

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Systemic bacterial infections are highly regulated and complex processes that are orchestrated by numerous virulence factors. Genes that are coordinately controlled by the set of regulators required for systemic infection are potentially required for pathogenicity.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In this study we present a systems biology approach in which sample-matched multi-omic measurements of fourteen virulence-essential regulator mutants were coupled with computational network analysis to efficiently identify <it>Salmonella </it>virulence factors. Immunoblot experiments verified network-predicted virulence factors and a subset was determined to be secreted into the host cytoplasm, suggesting that they are virulence factors directly interacting with host cellular components. Two of these, SrfN and PagK2, were required for full mouse virulence and were shown to be translocated independent of either of the type III secretion systems in <it>Salmonella </it>or the type III injectisome-related flagellar mechanism.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Integrating multi-omic datasets from <it>Salmonella </it>mutants lacking virulence regulators not only identified novel virulence factors but also defined a new class of translocated effectors involved in pathogenesis. The success of this strategy at discovery of known and novel virulence factors suggests that the approach may have applicability for other bacterial pathogens.</p