Economic problems of coal mining in the United States with a special treatise on uniform accounting practice for mines

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Impact of Environmental and Cellular Factors on the Bioactivity of a Novel Antifungal, Occidiofungin

Occidiofungin is a novel glycolipopeptide, synthesized and secreted by Burkholderia contaminans MS14, demonstrating broad-spectrum antifungal activity and potential for successful clinical applications. Its mechanism of action has not yet been determined but is known to exhibit fungicidal activity via the induction of apoptosis in a manner unique from that of currently approved antifungals. As an early investigation into occidiofungin’s mechanism of action, we aimed to identify environmental and cellular factors that significantly alter the susceptibility of the model organism, Saccharomyces cerevisiae. To that end, we have demonstrated that occidiofungin’s bioactivity requires active cellular growth, that new protein synthesis is necessary to adequately respond to occidiofungin exposure, and that alterations in transcriptional regulation in response to glucose and phosphate deprivation have synergistic and antagonist consequences, respectively, on occidiofungin’s effectiveness. Together, this data provides a foundation on which occidiofungin’s mechanism of action can be illuminated

Is Massage Therapy an Effective Treatment for Improving Sleep Quality in Women Age 50-80 Diagnosed With Cancer?

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this selective EBM review is to determine whether or not massage therapy is an effective treatment in improving sleep quality among women age 50-80 diagnosed with cancer. STUDY DESIGN: Review of two English language randomized control trials published in 2004 and 2011 and one English language quasiexperimental pretest-posttest comparison study publishEd in 2002. DATA SOURCES: Data sources were articles published in peer reviewed journals found using PubMed and EBSCOhost. OUTCOMES MEASURED: Sleep quality was measured using the Verran and Snyder-Halpem Sleep Scale and the Richards-Campbell Sleep Questionnaire. RESULTS: Soden et al and Jane et al found significant improvement in sleep scores pre- and post-intervention among the massage group but did not find significance between groups. In contrast, Smith et al did not find any within group significance pre- and post-intervention in the therapeutic massage group, but did find statistical significance between the two groups at post-intervention. CONCLUSIONS: The results were inconclusive and conflicting. With contradicting studies and little significance between groups it is hard to draw conclusions as to whether massage therapy is effective in improving sleep quality among female cancer patients. Additional research is needed with larger sample sizes and stricter control to determine if massage therapy provides clinically significant improvement in sleep quality

Edessa Greenways: A Land Use Planning Tool Promoting Sustainable Development in Northern Greece

Known historically as the “City of Water”, Edessa is one of many ancient small hill towns situated in a forested river valley found at the northwest part of Greece\u27s Macedonia region. Bordering with FYROM, Albania and Bulgaria, it sits at the edge of a plateau overlooking the historically rich Plains of Hellas; atop a vast agricultural plain that extends east to Thessalonica, some 120 kilometers. Small rivers run through Edessa boasting an intricate system of waterwayscanals, rivulets, and waterfalls-intertwined with small streets, walking paths and scenic overlooks. The rivers fall spectacularly 70m down from the ledge to the plain below. These waterfalls are a well-known and celebrated natural feature. The new extended municipality includes both towns of Edessa and neighboring town Anissa encompassing a rural “green corridor” agricultural area between them. It comprises the study area which extends in the valley of the River Edesseos, rising in the Agras Nissi Vritta wetlands and Lake Vegoritida. North of Edessa recreational itineraries include abundant ski resorts, ornithological reserves, lakes and archeological sites. Unless the municipality of Edessa generates new economic growth, it will continue to lose a valuable human resource, its youth. The mayor wishes to create new hope and energy for the new municipality through economic investment and physical restructuring. Improvements here could reverberate throughout the region and potentially motivate further investment. Renovated small hotels and lodgings have emerged as outsiders begin to see the potential value of Edessa\u27s future. Egnatia Motorway, the region’s greatest infrastructural project, has already transformed travel times and accessibilities across northern Greece bringing closer the emerging economies of Western and Eastern Europe. Environmental considerations for the region are underway as two transnational agreements, the EU\u27s NATURA Network 2000 and the RAMSAR Convention of 1971, continue to ensure the preservation and protection of sensitive ecosystems and wetlands for the foreseeable future. But this green corridor, however scenic, suffers from inattention and minimal investment. As many regions of great natural beauty dotted with small agricultural towns across Europe continue their dependence upon cultural and ecological tourism, questions that define and frame broader issues of design, sustainability and growth in northern Greece, were considered throughout the planning process: a) How sustainable development and design issues of a region can be sensitively addressed, while developing a strategy that provides socio-cultural, economic and environmental sustainability? b) How can landscape and infrastructure design work synergistically to address the demands of connectivity and increased capacity while also promoting a sense of identity and placeness for a rural region? c) How can issues of sustainability and environmental stewardship be calibrated to the specifics of local culture and geography? d) How can recent shifts in the regional geopolitical sphere be actuated to bolster tourism and economic development? e) How can strategic investments in landscape and infrastructure be leveraged to provide development opportunity for the larger region? f) Can a pronounced shift toward high-end tourism reposition the developmental future of the region? g) Can a new strategy of catalytic rural landscape and infrastructure investments improve the internal structure of the landscape and enhance its connection to the larger region? Like many hill towns across continental Europe impacted by the shift away from small scale agricultural operations and the forces of an increasingly globalized economy, the structural relationship between town and country (in this case, the agrarian hinterlands) has profoundly changed. In the more targeted scope and scale of a municipality, fundamental questions remain: a) What uniquely defining characteristics does Edessa possess? b) What additional attributes does Edessa require? c) What actions can be taken to improve sustainable development and economic growth, while preserving natural resources, promoting cultural resources, and upgrading physical planning integration of Edessa’s urban and rural Mediterranean landscape

Hospitalization Rates for Coronary Heart Disease in Relation to Residence Near Areas Contaminated with Persistent Organic Pollutants and Other Pollutants

Exposure to environmental pollutants may contribute to the development of coronary heart disease (CHD). We determined the ZIP codes containing or abutting each of the approximately 900 hazardous waste sites in New York and identified the major contaminants in each. Three categories of ZIP codes were then distinguished: those containing or abutting sites contaminated with persistent organic pollutants (POPs), those containing only other types of wastes (“other waste”), and those not containing any identified hazardous waste site (“clean”). Effects of residence in each of these ZIP codes on CHD and acute myocardial infarction (AMI) hospital discharge rates were assessed with a negative binomial model, adjusting for age, sex, race, income, and health insurance coverage. Patients living in ZIP codes contaminated with POPs had a statistically significant 15.0% elevation in CHD hospital discharge rates and a 20.0% elevation in AMI discharge rates compared with clean ZIP codes. In neither of the comparisons were rates in other-waste sites significantly greater than in clean sites. In a subset of POP ZIP codes along the Hudson River, where average income is higher and there is less smoking, better diet, and more exercise, the rate of hospitalization for CHD was 35.8% greater and for AMI 39.1% greater than in clean sites. Although the cross-sectional design of the study prevents definite conclusions on causal inference, the results indirectly support the hypothesis that living near a POP-contaminated site constitutes a risk of exposure and of development of CHD and AMI

Evaluating the Role of LVI as an Indicator for Adverse Outcomes in Patients with Upper Tract Urothelial Carcinoma and its Histological Subtypes

Lymphvascular invasion (LVI) is recognized as an adverse prognostic factor in many cancers. Our aim is to assess the prognostic ability of LVI in UTUC urothelial carcinoma (UC) and micropapillary urothelial carcinoma (MPUC) subtypes as a predictor of overall survival (OS) using a large North American cohort. Our cohort included 9750 cM0 UTUC patients who underwent a radical nephroureterectomy (RNU), between 2004 and 2015, within the National Cancer Database (NCDB). The main variable of interest was LVI status, and its interaction with pathological nodal (pN) status. Kaplan-Meier curves were used to estimate the OS. Cox regression analysis tested the impact of LVI status on OS after accounting for covariates. In patients with UC at 5-years post-RNU, the OS rates were 60.2%, 29.9%, 28.9%, and 20.8% in patient with pN0 without LVI, pN0 with LVI, pN+ without LVI, and pN+ with LVI, respectively (p Our report is the first to examine the impact of LVI on OS in a large North American nationwide cohort. It indicates that LVI is associated with reduced OS in patients with UTUC treated surgically

Gas phase mean opacities for varying [M/H], N/O, and C/O

We present a set of gas-phase Planck mean and Rosseland mean opacity tables applicable for simulations of star and planet formation, stellar evolution, disk modelling at various metallicities in hydrogen-rich environments. The tables are calculated for gas temperatures between 1000K and 10000K and total hydrogen number densities between 10^2 cm^-3 and 10^17 cm^-3. The carbon-to-oxygen ratio is varied from 0.43 to well above 2.0, the nitrogen-to-oxygen ration between 0.14 and 100.0. The tables are calculated for a range of metallicities down to [M/H]'= log N_M/N_H=-7.0. We demonstrate how the mean opacities and the abundances of the opacity species vary with C/O, N/O, and [M/H]'. We use the element abundances from Grevesse, Asplund & Sauval (2007), and we provide additional tables for the oxygen-abundance value from Caffau et al.(2008). All tables will be available online under http://star-www.st-and.ac.uk/$\sim$ch80/datasources.htmlComment: 10 pages, accepted for publication in MNRA