Stature Change in Prehistoric Maya of the Southern Lowlands

Since the 1950s, a decline in stature has been offered as evidence of increasing nutritional stress in prehistoric Maya populations, particularly during the Late Classic collapse. A review of the extant skeletal data, however, reveals very inconsistent support for such a decline. The primary explanation for the variation may reside in the small number of skeletal series that have representatives of more than one time period. Other possible explanations include methodological problems associated with stature reconstruction, reliability in sex determination, and variation in health response according to site size and location

Self-Perceived Health and Outlook Among the Rural Elderly

Differences in life outlook and self-perceived health often attributed to age differences among the elderly were found to be more accurately explained by education. The young-old (62-74 years) and the old-old (75 years and older) were compared among 495 elderly in two rural counties in western Arkansas. The old-old were more likely than the young-old to perceive their health as better than that of others their age. But when six variables including age were entered into a predictive model for self-perceived health, differences were explained by education. That is, those with better educations rated their health more positively. There was no difference between the two age groups in sick days, although the old-old reported more days hospitalized and trips to the doctor. However, no predictive model for health status measured was statistically significant. On measures of life satisfaction, the old-old were slightly more pessimistic than the young-old. But the age difference in life outlook was explained by education when the data were controlled for other variables. The customary division of the elderly into young-old and old-old is questioned, and policy implications of the findings are discussed

Household decision-making about delivery in health facilities: evidence from Tanzania.

This study investigated how partners' perceptions of the healthcare system influence decisions about delivery-location in low-resource settings. A multistage population-representative sample was used in Kasulu district, Tanzania, to identify women who had given birth in the last five years and their partners. Of 826 couples in analysis, 506 (61.3%) of the women delivered in the home. In multivariate analysis, factors associated with delivery in a health facility were agreement of partners on the importance of delivering in a health facility and agreement that skills of doctors are better than those of traditional birth attendants. When partners disagreed, the opinion of the woman was more influential in determining delivery-location. Agreement of partners regarding perceptions about the healthcare system appeared to be an important driver of decisions about delivery-location. These findings suggest that both partners should be included in the decision-making process regarding delivery to raise rates of delivery at facility

I Am A Real American

https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mmb-vp/1635/thumbnail.jp

Intergalactic Baryons in the Local Universe

Simulations predict that shocks from large-scale structure formation and galactic winds have reduced the fraction of baryons in the warm, photoionized phase (the Lya forest) from nearly 100% in the early universe to less than 50% today. Some of the remaining baryons are predicted to lie in the warm-hot ionized medium (WHIM) phase at T=10^5-10^7 K, but the quantity remains a highly tunable parameter of the models. Modern UV spectrographs have provided unprecedented access to both the Lya forest and potential WHIM tracers at z~0, and several independent groups have constructed large catalogs of far-UV IGM absorbers along ~30 AGN sight lines. There is general agreement between the surveys that the warm, photoionized phase makes up ~30% of the baryon budget at z~0. Another ~10% can be accounted for in collapsed structures (stars, galaxies, etc.). However, interpretation of the ~100 high-ion (OVI, etc) absorbers at z<0.5 is more controversial. These species are readily created in the shocks expected to exist in the IGM, but they can also be created by photoionization and thus not represent WHIM material. Given several pieces of observational evidence and theoretical expectations, I argue that most of the observed OVI absorbers represent shocked gas at T~300,000 K rather than photoionized gas at T<30,000 K, and they are consequently valid tracers of the WHIM phase. Under this assumption, enriched gas at T=10^5-10^6 K can account for ~10% of the baryon budget at z<0.5, but this value may increase when bias and incompleteness are taken into account and help close the gap on the 50% of the baryons still "missing".Comment: Invited review to appear in "Future Directions in Ultraviolet Spectroscopy", Oct 20-22, 2008, Annapolis, MD, M. E. Van Steenberg, ed. (April 2009). 8 pages, five figure

The Virginia Uniform Trust Code

In its 2005 Session, the Virginia General Assembly enacted Senate Bill 891,1 thus adopting the Uniform Trust Code ( UTC ), with modifications considered appropriate to this state\u27s institutions, traditions, and jurisprudence. The Virginia Uniform Trust Code ( Virginia UTC ), set forth in new Chapter 31 of Title 55 of the Virginia Code, has an effective date of July 1, 2006, but, once in effect, it will be applicable (with some exceptions) to trusts created before, on, or after that date. The new Virginia UTC, which encompasses the great bulk of the principles and rules that comprise the law of trusts in Virginia, has great relevance and importance to lawyers who specialize in estate planning and to lawyers who represent trustees or trust beneficiaries. It also affects lawyers whose clients, as thirdparties, have transactional relationships with trustees. The legislation will also affect institutional fiduciaries, accountants, and other non-lawyer professionals whose activities involve administering trusts or advising settlors, trustees, and trust beneficiaries. This article is directed to all of those audiences, with the goal of informing them about the principal features of the legislation and its implications for their practices. In doing so, the article will identify most of the relatively small number of differences between the Virginia UTC and the official text of the UTC as adopted by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws ( NCCUSL )