Fifteen and counting : Vermont research 1974-1989 (and beyond)

Occasional paper (University of Vermont. Center for Research on Vermont

Confronting statehood : a bicentennial series of short essays

Occasional paper (University of Vermont. Center for Research on Vermont) ; no. 14. Co-sponsored by Vermont Statehood Bicentennial Commission and Center for Research on Vermont

The character of Vermont : twentieth-anniversary reflections

Occasional paper (University of Vermont. Center for Research on Vermont) ; no. 19. pt. 1. The character of Vermont : then and now / Michael Sherman and Jennie Versteeg -- pt. 2. Vermont research and the center for research on Vermont / Samuel B. Hand, Paul Gillies

Could the 2012 Drought in Central U.S. Have Been Anticipated? A Review of NASA Working Group Research

This paper summarizes research related to the 2012 record drought in the central United States conducted by members of the NASA Energy and Water cycle Study (NEWS) Working Group. Past drought patterns were analyzed for signal coherency with latest drought and the contribution of long-term trends in the Great Plains low-level jet, an important regional circulation feature of the spring rainy season in the Great Palins. Long-term changes in the seasonal transition from rainy spring into dry summer were also examined. Potential external forcing from radiative processes, soil-air interactions, and ocean teleconnections were assessed as contributors to the intensity of the drought. The atmospheric Rossby wave activity was found to be a potential source of predictability for the onset of drought. A probabilistic model was introduced and evaluated for its performance in predicting drought recovery in the Great Plains

Overcoming barriers to engaging socio-economically disadvantaged populations in CHD primary prevention: a qualitative study

<p><b>Background:</b> Preventative medicine has become increasingly important in efforts to reduce the burden of chronic disease in industrialised countries. However, interventions that fail to recruit socio-economically representative samples may widen existing health inequalities. This paper explores the barriers and facilitators to engaging a socio-economically disadvantaged (SED) population in primary prevention for coronary heart disease (CHD).</p> <p><b>Methods:</b> The primary prevention element of Have a Heart Paisley (HaHP) offered risk screening to all eligible individuals. The programme employed two approaches to engaging with the community: a) a social marketing campaign and b) a community development project adopting primarily face-to-face canvassing. Individuals living in areas of SED were under-recruited via the social marketing approach, but successfully recruited via face-to-face canvassing. This paper reports on focus group discussions with participants, exploring their perceptions about and experiences of both approaches.</p> <p><b>Results:</b> Various reasons were identified for low uptake of risk screening amongst individuals living in areas of high SED in response to the social marketing campaign and a number of ways in which the face-to-face canvassing approach overcame these barriers were identified. These have been categorised into four main themes: (1) processes of engagement; (2) issues of understanding; (3) design of the screening service and (4) the priority accorded to screening. The most immediate barriers to recruitment were the invitation letter, which often failed to reach its target, and the general distrust of postal correspondence. In contrast, participants were positive about the face-to-face canvassing approach. Participants expressed a lack of knowledge and understanding about CHD and their risk of developing it and felt there was a lack of clarity in the information provided in the mailing in terms of the process and value of screening. In contrast, direct face-to-face contact meant that outreach workers could explain what to expect. Participants felt that the procedure for uptake of screening was demanding and inflexible, but that the drop-in sessions employed by the community development project had a major impact on recruitment and retention.</p> <p><b>Conclusion:</b> Socio-economically disadvantaged individuals can be hard-to-reach; engagement requires strategies tailored to the needs of the target population rather than a population-wide approach.</p&gt

Must . . . stay . . . strong!

This is the fourth installment in our trilogy of papers on epistemic modality.It is a recurring matra that epistemic must creates a statement that is weaker than the corresponding flat-footed assertion: It must be raining vs. It’s raining. Contrary to classic discussions of the phenomenon such as by Karttunen, Kratzer, and Veltman, we argue that instead of having a weak semantics, must presupposes the presence of an indirect inference or deduction rather than of a direct observation. This is independent of the strength of the claim being made. Epistemic must is therefore quite similar to evidential markers of indirect evidence known from languages with rich evidential systems. We work towards a formalization of the evidential component, relying on a structured model of information states (analogous to some models used in the belief dynamics literature). We explain why in many contexts, one can perceive a lack of confidence on the part of the speaker who uses must

A tribute to Michael R. Raupach for contributions to aeolian fluid dynamics

Since the pioneering work of Bagnold in the 1940s, aeolian research has grown to become an integral part of earth-system science. Many individuals have contributed to this development, and Dr. Michael R. Raupach (1950–2015) has played a pivotal role. Raupach worked intensively on wind erosion problems for about a decade (1985–1995), during which time he applied his deep knowledge of turbulence to aeolian research problems and made profound contributions with far-reaching impact. The beauty of Raupach’s work lies in his clear conceptual thinking and his ability to reduce complex problems to their bare essentials. The results of his work are fundamentally important and have many practical applications. In this review we reflect on Raupach’s contribution to a number of important aspects of aeolian research, summarise developments since his inspirational work and place Raupach’s efforts in the context of aeolian science. We also demonstrate how Raupach’s work provided a foundation for new developments in aeolian research. In this tribute, we concentrate on five areas of research: (1) drag partition theory; (2) saltation roughness length; (3) saltation bombardment; (4) threshold friction velocity and (5) the carbon cycl

Systematic techniques for assisting recruitment to trials (START): study protocol for embedded, randomized controlled trials

BACKGROUND: Randomized controlled trials play a central role in evidence-based practice, but recruitment of participants, and retention of them once in the trial, is challenging. Moreover, there is a dearth of evidence that research teams can use to inform the development of their recruitment and retention strategies. As with other healthcare initiatives, the fairest test of the effectiveness of a recruitment strategy is a trial comparing alternatives, which for recruitment would mean embedding a recruitment trial within an ongoing host trial. Systematic reviews indicate that such studies are rare. Embedded trials are largely delivered in an ad hoc way, with interventions almost always developed in isolation and tested in the context of a single host trial, limiting their ability to contribute to a body of evidence with regard to a single recruitment intervention and to researchers working in different contexts. METHODS/DESIGN: The Systematic Techniques for Assisting Recruitment to Trials (START) program is funded by the United Kingdom Medical Research Council (MRC) Methodology Research Programme to support the routine adoption of embedded trials to test standardized recruitment interventions across ongoing host trials. To achieve this aim, the program involves three interrelated work packages: (1) methodology - to develop guidelines for the design, analysis and reporting of embedded recruitment studies; (2) interventions - to develop effective and useful recruitment interventions; and (3) implementation - to recruit host trials and test interventions through embedded studies. DISCUSSION: Successful completion of the START program will provide a model for a platform for the wider trials community to use to evaluate recruitment interventions or, potentially, other types of intervention linked to trial conduct. It will also increase the evidence base for two types of recruitment intervention. TRIAL REGISTRATION: The START protocol covers the methodology for embedded trials. Each embedded trial is registered separately or as a substudy of the host trial

Gene flow in environmental Legionella pneumophila leads to genetic and pathogenic heterogeneity within a Legionnaires' disease outbreak

BACKGROUND: Legionnaires’ disease is a severe form of pneumonia caused by the environmental bacterium Legionella pneumophila. Outbreaks commonly affect people with known risk factors, but the genetic and pathogenic complexity of L. pneumophila within an outbreak is not well understood. Here, we investigate the etiology of the major Legionnaires’ disease outbreak that occurred in Edinburgh, UK, in 2012, by examining the evolutionary history, genome content, and virulence of L. pneumophila clinical isolates. RESULTS: Our high resolution genomic approach reveals that the outbreak was caused by multiple genetic subtypes of L. pneumophila, the majority of which had diversified from a single progenitor through mutation, recombination, and horizontal gene transfer within an environmental reservoir prior to release. In addition, we discover that some patients were infected with multiple L. pneumophila subtypes, a finding which can affect the certainty of source attribution. Importantly, variation in the complement of type IV secretion systems encoded by different genetic subtypes correlates with virulence in a Galleria mellonella model of infection, revealing variation in pathogenic potential among the outbreak source population of L. pneumophila. CONCLUSIONS: Taken together, our study indicates previously cryptic levels of pathogen heterogeneity within a Legionnaires’ disease outbreak, a discovery that impacts on source attribution for future outbreak investigations. Furthermore, our data suggest that in addition to host immune status, pathogen diversity may be an important influence on the clinical outcome of individual outbreak infections. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13059-014-0504-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users

Generation of NSE-MerCreMer Transgenic Mice with Tamoxifen Inducible Cre Activity in Neurons

To establish a genetic tool for conditional deletion or expression of gene in neurons in a temporally controlled manner, we generated a transgenic mouse (NSE-MerCreMer), which expressed a tamoxifen inducible type of Cre recombinase specifically in neurons. The tamoxifen inducible Cre recombinase (MerCreMer) is a fusion protein containing Cre recombinase with two modified estrogen receptor ligand binding domains at both ends, and is driven by the neural-specific rat neural specific enolase (NSE) promoter. A total of two transgenic lines were established, and expression of MerCreMer in neurons of the central and enteric nervous systems was confirmed. Transcript of MerCreMer was detected in several non-neural tissues such as heart, liver, and kidney in these lines. In the background of the Cre reporter mouse strain Rosa26R, Cre recombinase activity was inducible in neurons of adult NSE-MerCreMer mice treated with tamoxifen by intragastric gavage, but not in those fed with corn oil only. We conclude that NSE-MerCreMer lines will be useful for studying gene functions in neurons for the conditions that Cre-mediated recombination resulting in embryonic lethality, which precludes investigation of gene functions in neurons through later stages of development and in adult