Non-Target Hazard Assessment of Using DRC-1339 Avicide to Manage Blackbirds in Sunflower

Terrestrial hazard assessments were conducted for the spring blackbird baiting program to protect sunflower crops. Risk Assessment methodology proposed by the Ecological Committee on FIFRA Risk Assessment Methods (ECOFRAM) and the method currently used by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (LD50s/ft2) were compared for their predictive strengths and for the ease of adapting the assessment to site specific conditions. While the ECOFRAM and LD50s/ft2 methods identified the same groups of organisms as being at risk, the flexibility of the ECOFRAM methodology allowed more latitude in adapting the assessment to unique behaviors of individual species. These risk assessment approaches indicate that blackbird baiting with DRC-1339 presents acute hazards to select nontarget birds like western meadowlarks and mourning doves but few hazards to most mammals or small granivorous birds like sparrows and finches. However, field experiments indicate that the mitigation measures currently employed in the baiting program, minimize the nontarget hazards

Administering GonaCon\u3csup\u3eTM\u3c/sup\u3e to White-Tailed Deer Via Hand-Injection Versus Syringe-Dart

Immunocontraceptive vaccines have shown some promise for fertility control of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) in urban and suburban habitats where traditional methods of population control may not be applicable. Currently, the only contraceptive vaccine approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for use in white-tailed deer is GonaConTM Immunocontraceptive Vaccine, but it is registered for use via hand-injection only. It has been suggested that remote-delivery of immunocontraceptives would be more cost-effective than hand-injection, but there is the potential for incomplete injection from a syringe-dart. Therefore, the purpose of our research was to: (1) conduct a dart configuration assessment trial to determine the ideal syringe-dart configuration for remote-delivery of GonaCon to white-tailed deer and (2) use the determined syringe-dart configuration in a subsequent trial to evaluate the vaccine efficacy when administered to female white-tailed deer via hand-injection versus syringe-dart. We saw comparable results with regard to vaccine dispersal during the dart configuration assessment and the efficacy trial; syringedart injected deer presented vaccine deposits and reaction sites both subcutaneously and intramuscularly, whereas, hand-injected deer presented vaccine deposits and reaction sites only intramuscularly. One year after administration, 4 of 5 deer treated with syringe-darts were pregnant, compared to 3 of 6 deer that received hand-injections. Anti-GnRH titers were negatively related to pregnancy status. We did not observe a high level of vaccine efficacy with the syringe-dart delivery method we used. Therefore, we recommend further research of syringe-dart delivery of GonaCon with a larger sample size where the vaccine is deployed in a single bolus similar to a hand-injected presentation

Corneal Replication Is an Interferon Response-Independent Bottleneck for Virulence of Herpes Simplex Virus 1 in the Absence of Virion Host Shutoff

Herpes simplex viruses lacking the virion host shutoff function (Δvhs) are avirulent and hypersensitive to type I and type II interferon (IFN). In this study, we demonstrate that even in the absence of IFN responses in AG129 (IFN-αβγR−/−) mice, Δvhs remains highly attenuated via corneal infection but is fully virulent via intracranial infection. The data demonstrate that the interferon-independent inherent replication defect of Δvhs has a significant impact upon peripheral replication and neuroinvasion

Genetic Linkage and Association Analysis for Loneliness in Dutch Twin and Sibling Pairs Points to a Region on Chromosome 12q23–24

We obtained evidence from a large study in Dutch twins (N = 8387) and siblings (N = 2295) that variation in loneliness has a genetic component. The heritability estimate for loneliness, which was assessed as an ordinal trait, was 40% and did not differ between males and females. There were 682 sibling pairs with genotypic (around 400 microsatellite markers) data. We combined phenotypic and genotypic data to carry out a genome scan to localize QTLs for loneliness. One region on chromosome 12q23.3-24.3, showed near suggestive linkage. Genetic association tests within this region revealed significant association (p-value 0.009) with one of the alleles of marker D12S79 and with one of the alleles of neighbouring marker D12S395 (p-value 0.043). We review evidence for linkage in this region for psychiatric disorders and discuss our findings within this context. © 2006 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc

Queer Youth and the Culture Wars: From Classroom to Courtroom in Australia, Canada and the United States

This article builds on Lugg\u27s (2006) discussion of surveillance in public schools and how queer youth are resisting schools\u27 current efforts to regulate sexual orientation and gender expression in the U.S. and internationally. Legal complaints initiated by queer youth against their schools for harassment and access to extra-curricular activities are discussed. The number of cases in the past five years has increased significantly and the courts are siding with the youth and their allies, demonstrating that queer youth are significantly impacting the dismantling of heteronormative regulatory regimes and improving the school experiences for themselves and queer adults

Published at Univ. of Calif

AbstrAct: New regulatory restrictions have been placed on the use of some second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides in the United States, and in some situations this action may be offset by expanded use of first-generation compounds. We have recently conducted several studies with captive adult American kestrels and eastern screech-owls examining the toxicity of diphacinone (DPN) using both acute oral and short-term dietary exposure regimens. Diphacinone evoked overt signs of intoxication and lethality in these raptors at exposure doses that were 20 to 30 times lower than reported for traditionally used wildlife test species (mallard and northern bobwhite). Sublethal exposure of kestrels and owls resulted in prolonged clotting time, reduced hematocrit, and/or gross and histological evidence of hemorrhage at daily doses as low as 0.16 mg DPN/kg body weight. Findings also demonstrated that DPN was far more potent in short-term 7-day dietary studies than in single-day acute oral exposure studies. Incorporating these kestrel and owl data into deterministic and probabilistic risk assessments indicated that the risks associated with DPN exposure for raptors are far greater than predicted in analyses using data from mallards and bobwhite. These findings can assist natural resource managers in weighing the costs and benefits of anticoagulant rodenticide use in pest control and eradication programs

Appraisal of health care: from patient value to societal benefit

Aim: This paper summarizes the deficiencies and weaknesses of the most frequently used methods for the allocation of health-care resources. New, more transparent and practical methods for optimizing the allocation of these resources are proposed. Method: The examples of quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) and efficiency frontier (EF) are analyzed to describe weaknesses and problems in decisions regulating health-care provision. After conducting a literature search and discussions with an international group of professionals, three groups of professionals were formed to discuss the assessment and appraisal of health-care services and allocation of available resources. Results: At least seven essential variables were identified that should be heeded when applying the concept of QALYs for decisions concerning health-care provision. The efficiency frontier (EF) concept can be used to set a ceiling price and perform a cost-benefit analysis of provision, but different stakeholders—a biostatistician (efficacy), an economist (costs), a clinician (effectiveness), and the patient (value)—could provide a fairer appraisal of health-care services. Efficacy and costs are often based on falsifiable data. Effectiveness and value depend on the success with which a particular clinical problem has been solved. These data cannot be falsified. The societal perspective is generated by an informal cost-benefit analysis including appraisals by the above-mentioned stakeholders and carried out by an authorized institution. Conclusion: Our analysis suggests that study results expressed in QALYs or as EF cannot be compared unless the variables included in the calculation are specified. It would be far more objective and comprehensive if an authorized institution made an informal decision based on formal assessments of the effectiveness of health-care services evaluated by health-care providers, of the value assessed by consumers, of efficacy described by biostatisticians, and of costs calculated by economists

Imputation of missing values of tumour stage in population-based cancer registration

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Missing data on tumour stage information is a common problem in population-based cancer registries. Statistical analyses on the level of tumour stage may be biased, if no adequate method for handling of missing data is applied. In order to determine a useful way to treat missing data on tumour stage, we examined different imputation models for multiple imputation with chained equations for analysing the stage-specific numbers of cases of malignant melanoma and female breast cancer.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>This analysis was based on the malignant melanoma data set and the female breast cancer data set of the cancer registry Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. The cases with complete tumour stage information were extracted and their stage information partly removed according to a MAR missingness-pattern, resulting in five simulated data sets for each cancer entity. The missing tumour stage values were then treated with multiple imputation with chained equations, using polytomous regression, predictive mean matching, random forests and proportional sampling as imputation models. The estimated tumour stages, stage-specific numbers of cases and survival curves after multiple imputation were compared to the observed ones.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The amount of missing values for malignant melanoma was too high to estimate a reasonable number of cases for each UICC stage. However, multiple imputation of missing stage values led to stage-specific numbers of cases of T-stage for malignant melanoma as well as T- and UICC-stage for breast cancer close to the observed numbers of cases. The observed tumour stages on the individual level, the stage-specific numbers of cases and the observed survival curves were best met with polytomous regression or predictive mean matching but not with random forest or proportional sampling as imputation models.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This limited simulation study indicates that multiple imputation with chained equations is an appropriate technique for dealing with missing information on tumour stage in population-based cancer registries, if the amount of unstaged cases is on a reasonable level.</p

Behavior of TPC`s in a high particle flux environment

TPC`s (Time Projection Chamber) used in E-810 at the AGS (Alternating Gradient Synchrotron) were exposed to fluxes equivalent to more than 10{sup 7} minimum ionizing particles per second to find if such high fluxes cause gain changes or distortions of the electric field. Initial results of these and other tests are presented and the consequences for the RHIC (Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider) TPC-based experiments are discussed

The histology of ovarian cancer: worldwide distribution and implications for international survival comparisons (CONCORD-2)

Objective Ovarian cancers comprise several histologically distinct tumour groups with widely different prognosis. We aimed to describe the worldwide distribution of ovarian cancer histology and to understand what role this may play in international variation in survival. Methods The CONCORD programme is the largest population-based study of global trends in cancer survival. Data on 681,759 women diagnosed during 1995â\u80\u932009 with cancer of the ovary, fallopian tube, peritoneum and retroperitonum in 51 countries were included. We categorised ovarian tumours into six histological groups, and explored the worldwide distribution of histology. Results During 2005â\u80\u932009, type II epithelial tumours were the most common. The proportion was much higher in Oceania (73.1%), North America (73.0%) and Europe (72.6%) than in Central and South America (65.7%) and Asia (56.1%). By contrast, type I epithelial tumours were more common in Asia (32.5%), compared with only 19.4% in North America. From 1995 to 2009, the proportion of type II epithelial tumours increased from 68.6% to 71.1%, while the proportion of type I epithelial tumours fell from 23.8% to 21.2%. The proportions of germ cell tumours, sex cord-stromal tumours, other specific non-epithelial tumours and tumours of non-specific morphology all remained stable over time. Conclusions The distribution of ovarian cancer histology varies widely worldwide. Type I epithelial, germ cell and sex cord-stromal tumours are generally associated with higher survival than type II tumours, so the proportion of these tumours may influence survival estimates for all ovarian cancers combined. The distribution of histological groups should be considered when comparing survival between countries and regions