Believing the unbelievable: the myth of Russians 'with snow on their boots' in the United Kingdom, 1914

PublishedArticle“This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Cultural and Social History on1 May 2015, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/ 10.2752/147800414X13802176314528.”In the opening months of the First World War, a rumour spread across the United Kingdom that Russian soldiers – identified by the ‘snow on their boots’ – had landed in Scotland en route to the Western Front. Despite being relegated to history’s footnotes as a comical but meaningless episode, this article takes the rumour seriously. Unconcerned with questions of ‘truth’ (the rumour was dismissed as fantastical by late October 1914), I will argue that the real value of this story is in what it reveals about British society at the outbreak of war. The rumour emerged as the British Expeditionary Force entered its first big test of the Great War – the battle of Mons – which would result in Germany’s first great victory and resulting in thousands of casualties. As such the rumour can be interpreted as a form of ‘secular apparition’ bringing consolation to many. It was one of the ways ordinary people made sense of their newly threatening world

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Omecamtiv mecarbil in chronic heart failure with reduced ejection fraction, GALACTIC‐HF: baseline characteristics and comparison with contemporary clinical trials

Aims: The safety and efficacy of the novel selective cardiac myosin activator, omecamtiv mecarbil, in patients with heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF) is tested in the Global Approach to Lowering Adverse Cardiac outcomes Through Improving Contractility in Heart Failure (GALACTIC‐HF) trial. Here we describe the baseline characteristics of participants in GALACTIC‐HF and how these compare with other contemporary trials. Methods and Results: Adults with established HFrEF, New York Heart Association functional class (NYHA) ≥ II, EF ≤35%, elevated natriuretic peptides and either current hospitalization for HF or history of hospitalization/ emergency department visit for HF within a year were randomized to either placebo or omecamtiv mecarbil (pharmacokinetic‐guided dosing: 25, 37.5 or 50 mg bid). 8256 patients [male (79%), non‐white (22%), mean age 65 years] were enrolled with a mean EF 27%, ischemic etiology in 54%, NYHA II 53% and III/IV 47%, and median NT‐proBNP 1971 pg/mL. HF therapies at baseline were among the most effectively employed in contemporary HF trials. GALACTIC‐HF randomized patients representative of recent HF registries and trials with substantial numbers of patients also having characteristics understudied in previous trials including more from North America (n = 1386), enrolled as inpatients (n = 2084), systolic blood pressure < 100 mmHg (n = 1127), estimated glomerular filtration rate < 30 mL/min/1.73 m2 (n = 528), and treated with sacubitril‐valsartan at baseline (n = 1594). Conclusions: GALACTIC‐HF enrolled a well‐treated, high‐risk population from both inpatient and outpatient settings, which will provide a definitive evaluation of the efficacy and safety of this novel therapy, as well as informing its potential future implementation

Degrees Matter: New Evidence on Sheepskin Effects in the Returns to Education.

Because many individuals do not complete their degrees in the standard number of years, previous estimates of diploma effects, which have been based only on an individual's years of education, are biased. Using a data set from a matched sample of the 1991 and 1992 March Current Population Survey that has information on both years of education and diplomas received, this paper improves on earlier estimates and finds that using 'true' information on degree receipt substantially increases estimated sheepskin effects of high school and college degrees. Unlike past research, this paper finds that there are few statistically significant differences in sheepskin effects between race and sex groups. The relative returns to Associates and post-graduate degrees are also examined. Copyright 1996 by MIT Press.

The postearthquake stress state on the Tohoku megathrust as constrained by reanalysis of the JFAST breakout data

International audienceThe Japan Trench Fast Drilling Project (JFAST) endeavored to establish the stress state on theshallow subduction megathrust that slipped during theM9 Tohoku earthquake. Borehole breakout datafrom the drill hole can constrain both the orientation and magnitude of the principal stresses. Here wereanalyze those data to refine our understanding of the stress state on the fault. In particular, we (1) improvethe identification of breakouts, (2) consider a fuller range of stress states consistent with the data, and (3)incorporate new and more robust laboratory constraints on rock strength. The original conclusion that theregion is in a normal faulting regime after the earthquake is strengthened by the new analysis. The combinedanalysis suggests that the earthquake released sufficient elastic strain energy to reset the local stressfield