Introduction

This is the post print version of the chapter - Copyright @ 2003 The editorsThis book is about surrogacy and, more specifically, surrogate motherhood. It is a collection of essays that aims to provide a contemporary and international picture of a practice, traceable to ancient times, devised to solve the problem of childlessness. The collection, which explores surrogacy from a variety of perspectives including law, policy, medicine and psychology, is timely. For although there is nothing new in the notion that a woman might bear a child for someone else, there is some evidence that the incidence of surrogacy is increasing and technology has developed to make ever more complex arrangements possible

Assessing the climate vulnerability of the world’s natural and cultural heritage

Climate change is the fastest-growing global threat to the world’s natural and cultural heritage. No systematic approach to assess climate vulnerability of protected areas and their associated communities has existed—until now. The Climate Vulnerability Index (CVI) is scientifically robust, transparent, and repeatable, and has now been applied to various World Heritage properties. The CVI builds upon an established Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) framework to systematically assess vulnerability through a risk assessment approach that considers the key values of the World Heritage property in question and identifies key climate stressors. The CVI process is then used to assess the climate-related vulnerability of the community (including local residents, domestic visitors, and international tourists) associated with the World Heritage property considering economic, social, and cultural connections. Climate impacts are increasingly adding to a wide range of compounding pressures (e.g., increasing tourism, infrastructure development, changing land use practices) that are affecting places, people, customs, and values. Applications of the CVI to date have led to commitments to integrate outcomes into relevant management plans, and to periodically repeat the process, enabling responsive management to changing future circumstances. The CVI has also demonstrated its potential applicability for protected areas beyond World Heritage properties. The CVI process engages local community members in determining impacts, provides opportunities for identifying adaptation and impact mitigation within the community, and aids broader communication about key climate issues

Views from the Ohio manufacturing index

An introduction to the experimental Ohio Manufacturing Index and a brief examination of the recent patterns of manufacturing growth occurring in the state.Manufactures - Ohio ; Ohio ; Economic indicators - Ohio

Calibration of a fission gas monitor

Calibration of argon gas neutron activation sampling devic

Evaluating the role of citizen science in biological investigations

Considering recent and predicted ecological changes (caused by global climate change), baseline monitoring of biological diversity becomes an extremely useful record to have. Citizen science provides a unique, low-cost, high output method of attaining large data sets which has already been implemented in several studies. They are used by major bodies such as the Natural History Museum, OPAL and the RSPB. Despite this concerns lie with the accuracy of the data – can volunteers really produce real data? In this study various aspects were investigated, firstly the current public opinion about citizen science, how we can train volunteers carrying out surveys, and the kinds of method suitable for biological monitoring by citizen scientists. This report finds a generally good level of public literacy in terms of the existence and the potential of, citizen science. Participant confidence significantly increases once a volunteer has carried out a survey – but this does not show any relationship with accuracy. It is concluded that estimation of abundance must be embedded with training and validation methods, and it is recommended further work is carried out into robust online training and validation

Flucytosine and cryptococcosis: time to urgently address the worldwide accessibility of a 50-year-old antifungal.

Current, widely accepted guidelines for the management of HIV-associated cryptococcal meningoencephalitis (CM) recommend amphotericin B combined with flucytosine (5-FC) for ≥2 weeks as the initial induction treatment of choice. However, access to flucytosine in Africa and Asia, where disease burden is greatest, is inadequate at present. While research into identifying effective and well-tolerated antifungal combinations that do not contain flucytosine continues, an ever-increasing body of evidence from in vitro, in vivo and clinical studies points to the benefits of flucytosine in the treatment of CM in both intravenous combinations with amphotericin B and oral combinations with high-dose fluconazole. This article provides an up-to-date review of this evidence, and the current issues and challenges regarding increasing access to this key component of combination antifungal therapy for cryptococcosis

Pressure-driven flow of solid helium

The recent torsional oscillator results of Kim and Chan suggest a supersolid phase transition in solid 4He. We have used a piezoelectrically driven diaphragm to study the flow of solid helium through an array of capillaries. Our measurements showed no indication of low temperature flow, placing stringent restrictions on supersolid flow in response to a pressure difference. The average flow speed at low temperatures was less than 1.2x10-14 m/s, corresponding to a supersolid velocity at least 7 orders of magnitude smaller than the critical velocities inferred from the torsional oscillator measurements.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Drought-Induced Amplification of Saint Louis encephalitis virus, Florida

We used a dynamic hydrology model to simulate water table depth (WTD) and quantify the relationship between Saint Louis encephalitis virus (SLEV) transmission and hydrologic conditions in Indian River County, Florida, from 1986 through 1991, a period with an SLEV epidemic. Virus transmission followed periods of modeled drought (specifically low WTDs 12 to 17 weeks before virus transmission, followed by a rising of the water table 1 to 2 weeks before virus transmission). Further evidence from collections of Culex nigripalpus (the major mosquito vector of SLEV in Florida) suggests that during extended spring droughts vector mosquitoes and nestling, juvenile, and adult wild birds congregate in selected refuges, facilitating epizootic amplification of SLEV. When the drought ends and habitat availability increases, the SLEV-infected Cx. nigripalpus and wild birds disperse, initiating an SLEV transmission cycle. These findings demonstrate a mechanism by which drought facilitates the amplification of SLEV and its subsequent transmission to humans

User benefits and funding strategies

The justification, economic and technological benefits of NASA Space Programs (aside from pure scientific objectives), in improving the quality of life in the United States is discussed and outlined. Specifically, a three-step, systematic method is described for selecting relevant and highly beneficial payloads and instruments for the Interim Upper Stage (IUS) that will be used with the space shuttle until the space tug becomes available. Viable Government and private industry cost-sharing strategies which would maximize the number of IUS payloads, and the benefits obtainable under a limited NASA budget were also determined. Charts are shown which list the payload instruments, and their relevance in contributing to such areas as earth resources management, agriculture, weather forecasting, and many others

An inter-comparison of Arctic synoptic scale storms between four global reanalysis datasets

The Arctic is becoming more accessible as sea ice extent continues to decline, resulting in higher human exposure to Arctic storms. This study compares Arctic storm characteristics between the ECMWF-Interim Reanalysis, 55-year Japanese Reanalysis, NASA-Modern Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications Version 2 and National Centre for Environmental Prediction-Climate Forecast System Reanalysis datasets between 1980 and 2017, in winter (DJF) and summer (JJA). It is shown that Arctic storm characteristics are sensitive to the variable used for storm tracking. Arctic storm frequency is found to be similar in summer and winter when using sea level pressure minima to track Arctic storms, whereas, the storm frequency is found to be higher in winter than summer when using 850 hPa relative vorticity to track storms, based on using the same storm tracking algorithm. It is also found that there are no significant trends in Arctic storm characteristics between 1980 and 2017. Given the sparsity of observations in the Arctic, it might be expected that there are large differences in Arctic storm characteristics between the reanalysis datasets. Though, some similar Arctic storm characteristics are found between the reanalysis datasets, it is found that the differences in Arctic storm characteristics between the reanalysis datasets are generally higher in winter than in summer. Overall, the results show that there are differences in Arctic storm characteristics between reanalysis datasets, but even larger differences can arise between using 850 hPa relative vorticity or mean sea level pressure as the storm tracking variable, which adds to the uncertainty associated with current Arctic storm characteristics