Respiratory and Urinary Tract Infections, Arthritis, and Asthma Associated with HTLV-I and HTLV-II Infection

Human T-lymphotropic virus types I and II (HTLV-I and -II) cause myelopathy; HTLV-I, but not HTLV-II, causes adult T-cell leukemia. Whether HTLV-II is associated with other diseases is unknown. Using survival analysis, we studied medical history data from a prospective cohort of HTLV-I– and HTLV-II–infected and –uninfected blood donors, all HIV seronegative. A total of 152 HTLV-I, 387 HTLV-II, and 799 uninfected donors were enrolled and followed for a median of 4.4, 4.3, and 4.4 years, respectively. HTLV-II participants had significantly increased incidences of acute bronchitis (incidence ratio [IR] = 1.68), bladder or kidney infection (IR = 1.55), arthritis (IR = 2.66), and asthma (IR = 3.28), and a borderline increase in pneumonia (IR = 1.82, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.98 to 3.38). HTLV-I participants had significantly increased incidences of bladder or kidney infection (IR = 1.82), and arthritis (IR = 2.84). We conclude that HTLV-II infection may inhibit immunologic responses to respiratory infections and that both HTLV-I and -II may induce inflammatory or autoimmune reactions

Indentation Hardness Measurements at Macro-, Micro-, and Nanoscale: A Critical Overview

The Brinell, Vickers, Meyer, Rockwell, Shore, IHRD, Knoop, Buchholz, and nanoindentation methods used to measure the indentation hardness of materials at different scales are compared, and main issues and misconceptions in the understanding of these methods are comprehensively reviewed and discussed. Basic equations and parameters employed to calculate hardness are clearly explained, and the different international standards for each method are summarized. The limits for each scale are explored, and the different forms to calculate hardness in each method are compared and established. The influence of elasticity and plasticity of the material in each measurement method is reviewed, and the impact of the surface deformation around the indenter on hardness values is examined. The difficulties for practical conversions of hardness values measured by different methods are explained. Finally, main issues in the hardness interpretation at different scales are carefully discussed, like the influence of grain size in polycrystalline materials, indentation size effects at micro-and nanoscale, and the effect of the substrate when calculating thin films hardness. The paper improves the understanding of what hardness means and what hardness measurements imply at different scales.Funding Agencies|Swedish Government Strategic Research Area in Materials Science on Functional Materials at Linkoping University ((Faculty Grant SFO Mat LiU) [2009 00971]</p

Marine Biodiversity of Aotearoa New Zealand

The marine-biodiversity assessment of New Zealand (Aotearoa as known to Māori) is confined to the 200 nautical-mile boundary of the Exclusive Economic Zone, which, at 4.2 million km2, is one of the largest in the world. It spans 30° of latitude and includes a high diversity of seafloor relief, including a trench 10 km deep. Much of this region remains unexplored biologically, especially the 50% of the EEZ deeper than 2,000 m. Knowledge of the marine biota is based on more than 200 years of marine exploration in the region. The major oceanographic data repository is the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA), which is involved in several Census of Marine Life field projects and is the location of the Southwestern Pacific Regional OBIS Node; NIWA is also data manager and custodian for fisheries research data owned by the Ministry of Fisheries. Related data sources cover alien species, environmental measures, and historical information. Museum collections in New Zealand hold more than 800,000 registered lots representing several million specimens. During the past decade, 220 taxonomic specialists (85 marine) from 18 countries have been engaged in a project to review New Zealand's entire biodiversity. The above-mentioned marine information sources, published literature, and reports were scrutinized to give the results summarized here for the first time (current to 2010), including data on endemism and invasive species. There are 17,135 living species in the EEZ. This diversity includes 4,315 known undescribed species in collections. Species diversity for the most intensively studied phylum-level taxa (Porifera, Cnidaria, Mollusca, Brachiopoda, Bryozoa, Kinorhyncha, Echinodermata, Chordata) is more or less equivalent to that in the ERMS (European Register of Marine Species) region, which is 5.5 times larger in area than the New Zealand EEZ. The implication is that, when all other New Zealand phyla are equally well studied, total marine diversity in the EEZ may be expected to equal that in the ERMS region. This equivalence invites testable hypotheses to explain it. There are 177 naturalized alien species in New Zealand coastal waters, mostly in ports and harbours. Marine-taxonomic expertise in New Zealand covers a broad number of taxa but is, proportionately, at or near its lowest level since the Second World War. Nevertheless, collections are well supported by funding and are continually added to. Threats and protection measures concerning New Zealand's marine biodiversity are commented on, along with potential and priorities for future research

Shopping for Anonymous Shell Companies: An Audit Study of Anonymity and Crime in the International Financial System

The last few years have seen an international campaign to ensure that the world's financial and banking systems are "transparent," meaning that every actor and transaction within the system can be traced to a discrete, identifiable individual. I present an audit study of compliance with the prohibitions on anonymous shell companies. In particular, I describe my attempts to found anonymous corporate vehicles without proof of identity and then to establish corporate bank accounts for these vehicles. (Transactions processed through the corporate account of such a "shell company" become effectively untraceable—and thus very useful for those looking to hide criminal profits, pay or receive bribes, finance terrorists, or escape tax obligations.) I solicited offers of anonymous corporate vehicles from 54 different corporate service providers in 22 different countries, and collated the responses to determine whether the existing legal and regulatory prohibitions on anonymous corporate vehicles actually work in practice. To foreshadow the results, it seems that small island offshore centers may have standards for corporate transparency and disclosure that are higher than major OECD economies like the United States and the United Kingdom.