Two \u3ci\u3eEntomophthora\u3c/i\u3e Species Associated with Disease Epizootics of the Alfalfa Weevil, \u3ci\u3eHypera Postica\u3c/i\u3e (Coleoptera: Curculionidae), in Ontario

Recent studies have shown that disease epizootics in Ontario populations of the alfalfa weevil, Hypera postica (Gyllenhal), are caused by a complex of two fungi

Unemployment Reduction in Canada: Lessons from Japan and Sweden

Le taux de chômage canadien a été plus élevé que ceux de la plupart des pays de l'OCDE depuis deux décennies. L'expérience de ces pays peut suggérer des indices sur les moyens de réduire ce problème persistant au Canada. Le Japon et la Suède ont constamment gardé leurs taux de chómage relativement bas et les raisons de leurs succès devraient intéresser les Canadiens. Les Japonais ont réussi à garder leur taux de chómage bas en instaurant un système d'emploi à vie où les emplois sont habituellement protégés mais où les heures de travail varient selon les fluctuations de la production. Les Suédois, eux, ont réussi pareille performance grâce à des programmes actifs de marché du travail pour la formation, le placement et la mobilité qui, ensemble, accélèrent la transition entre le chómage et l'emploi.Le Canada pourrait réduire ses problèmes de chómage en copiant les politiques japonaises et suédoises. Cela, cependant, pourrait être difficile vu que chaque politique est implantée dans un type de marché du travail unique à chaque pays. La politique active de marché du travail est le reflet de relations hautement coopératives entre des fédérations très centralisées d'employeurs et de syndicats. Le système d'emploi à vie vise à embrigader les travailleurs de façon à endiguer la menace révolutionnaire des syndicats communistes et socialistes. La configuration des intérêts sur le marché du travail canadien ne reflètent aucune de ces deux situations. Les relations employeurs-employés au Canada sont conflictuelles et décentralisées et découlent de l'emphase dominante libérale sur les intérêts individuels et de l'hétérogénéité de la main-d’œuvre. Il faudrait alors modifier les systèmes japonais et suédois pour les implanter avec succès au Canada.Le Canada pourrait importer ces systèmes de deux façons. On pourrait faciliter la coopération entre le travail et le capital de façon à ce que les deux travaillent ensemble à l'implantation de programme de formation et de placement au niveau de l'industrie. Ou encore, on pourrait offrir des incitatifs fiscaux ou des subventions pour encourager une ou plusieurs des parties au marché du travail à offrir certaines composantes de chaque politique. La première option fonctionnerait mieux dans des secteurs oligopolistiques ou monopolistiques où la prise de décision centralisée et les relations coopératives existent déjà. Par exemple, on pourrait retrouver des tribunaux de formation dans les industries de l'automobile, des télécommunications, de la forêt et de l'acier. La deuxième option serait plus appropriée dans des secteurs compétitifs caractérisés par la décentralisation et l'action indépendante. Une combinaison d'approches aiderait le Canada à réduire tant l'incidence que la durée du chómage sans exiger de transformations fondamentales de son système de relations industrielles.L'analyse du système de l'emploi à vie et de la politique active de marché du travail démontre la faisabilité de l'importation de politiques du travail étrangères après que les adaptations nécessaires auront été faites. Sans ces adaptations cependant, l'efficacité de tels emprunts sera douteuse.The active labour market policy has been used to reduce the duration of unemployment in Sweden. The lifetime employment System has been used to lower the incidence of unemployment in Japan. Will the adoption of similar policies in Canada produce comparable reductions in unemployment? Emulating Japan and Sweden could prove difficult, since their policies reflect and reinforce employment interests that are uery different from Canada's. As a result, neither lifetime employment nor active labour market policy is transferable to Canada without major modifications to suit the stakeholder interests of Canadian unions, employers, and employees

A systematic review of patient reported outcome measures (PROMs) used in child and adolescent burn research

Crown Copyright © 2014 Published by Elsevier Ltd and ISBI. All rights reserved. Introduction: Patient reported outcome measures (PROMs) can identify important information about patient needs and therapeutic progress. The aim of this review was to identify the PROMs that are being used in child and adolescent burn care and to determine the quality of such scales. Methods: Computerised and manual bibliographic searches of Medline, Social Sciences Index, Cinahl, Psychinfo, Psycharticles, AMED, and HAPI, were used to identify Englishlanguage articles using English-language PROMs from January 2001 to March 2013. The psychometric quality of the PROMs was assessed. Results: 23 studies met the entry criteria and identified 32 different PROMs (31 generic, 1 burns-specific). Overall, the psychometric quality of the PROMs was low; only two generic scales (the Perceived Stigmatisation Questionnaire and the Social Comfort Scale) and only one burns-specific scale (the Children Burn Outcomes Questionnaire for children aged 5-18) had psychometric evidence relevant to this population. Conclusions: The majority of PROMs did not have psychometric evidence for their use with child or adolescent burn patients. To appropriately identify the needs and treatment progress of child and adolescent burn patients, new burns-specific PROMs need to be developed and validated to reflect issues that are of importance to this population

A Cellular Automata Model with Probability Infection and Spatial Dispersion

In this article, we have proposed an epidemic model by using probability cellular automata theory. The essential mathematical features are analyzed with the help of stability theory. We have given an alternative modelling approach for the spatiotemporal system which is more realistic and satisfactory from the practical point of view. A discrete and spatiotemporal approach are shown by using cellular automata theory. It is interesting to note that both size of the endemic equilibrium and density of the individual increase with the increasing of the neighborhood size and infection rate, but the infections decrease with the increasing of the recovery rate. The stability of the system around the positive interior equilibrium have been shown by using suitable Lyapunov function. Finally experimental data simulation for SARS disease in China and a brief discussion conclude the paper

Syndromic surveillance to assess the potential public health impact of the Icelandic volcanic ash plume across the United Kingdom, April 2010

The Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland erupted on 14 April 2010 emitting a volcanic ash plume that spread across the United Kingdom and mainland Europe. The Health Protection Agency and Health Protection Scotland used existing syndromic surveillance systems to monitor community health during the incident: there were no particularly unusual increases in any of the monitored conditions. This incident has again demonstrated the use of syndromic surveillance systems for monitoring community health in real time

The Leishmania donovani Ortholog of the Glycosylphosphatidylinositol Anchor Biosynthesis Cofactor PBN1 Is Essential for Host Infection

Visceral leishmaniasis is a deadly infectious disease caused by Leishmania donovani, a kinetoplastid parasite for which no licensed vaccine is available. To identify potential vaccine candidates, we systematically identified genes encoding putative cell surface and secreted proteins essential for parasite viability and host infection. We identified a protein encoded by LdBPK_061160 which, when ablated, resulted in a remarkable increase in parasite adhesion to tissue culture flasks. Here, we show that this phenotype is caused by the loss of glycosylphosphatidylinositol (GPI)-anchored surface molecules and that LdBPK_061160 encodes a noncatalytic component of the L. donovani GPI-mannosyltransferase I (GPI-MT I) complex. GPI-anchored surface molecules were rescued in the LdBPK_061160 mutant by the ectopic expression of both human genes PIG-X and PIG-M, but neither gene could complement the phenotype alone. From further sequence comparisons, we conclude that LdBPK_061160 is the functional orthologue of yeast PBN1 and mammalian PIG-X, which encode the noncatalytic subunits of their respective GPI-MT I complexes, and we assign LdBPK_061160 as LdPBN1. The LdPBN1 mutants could not establish a visceral infection in mice, a phenotype that was rescued by constitutive expression of LdPBN1. Although mice infected with the null mutant did not develop an infection, exposure to these parasites provided significant protection against subsequent infection with a virulent strain. In summary, we have identified the orthologue of the PBN1/PIG-X noncatalytic subunit of GPI-MT I in trypanosomatids, shown that it is essential for infection in a murine model of visceral leishmaniasis, and demonstrated that the LdPBN1 mutant shows promise for the development of an attenuated live vaccine