Maine\u27s Whitewater Rapids and Their Relevance to the Critical Areas Program

Maine\u27s Whitewater Rapids and Their Relevance to the Critical Areas Program by Janet McMahon Planning Report No. 74, Critical Areas Program, 184 State St., Augusta, Maine, April, 1981 (additions made in October, 1981). Reprinted July, 1983. Contents: Introduction / Natural History of Whitewater Rapids / Methods / Criteria / Results / Conclusions / General Evaluation of Whitewater Rapids for Inclusion on the Register of Critical Areas / Bibliography / Action Planhttps://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/me_collection/1137/thumbnail.jp

B830: An Atlas of the Native Woody Plants of Maine: A Revision of the Hyland Maps

In 1944 Fay Hyland and Ferdinand Steinmetz published The Woody Plants of Maine: Their Occurrence and Distribution. This small bulletin catalogs the state\u27s native and exotic trees, shrubs, and woody vines. In-state distributions are given for 513 taxa, including 366 species, Ill varieties and named forms, and 36 hybrids. Hyland collected information for this comprehensive work from three sources: a systematic field survey of the state which he personally conducted between 1933 and 1939; a review of botanical publications on Maine flora; and herbarium records from the New England Botanical Club, Gray Herbarium, Arnold Arboretum, the Boston Society of Natural History, the Portland Society of Natural History, and several private collections. Eighteen thousand records were assembled through the field survey alone. These records, along with those tabulated from herbaria, were plotted by species on small-scale (1:1,000,000) maps of Maine. Written descriptions of each taxon were summarized from the resulting maps and compiled into the bulletin described above. The distribution maps themselves, however, were never published. The single (original) copy of Hyland\u27s maps has been kept in the Special Collections of the University of Maine\u27s Fogler Library since 1944. The ink used to mark species occurrences on those maps is now fading sufficiently to endanger the records. To preserve this valuable resource and to evaluate patterns of species\u27 richness in Maine, maps of all native species were digitized using AUTOCAD (1988). In all, 240 species meet Hyland\u27s definition of woody plants ( those plants with ligneous, perennial [biennial in Rubus] stems which increase in diameter each year by formation of annual rings ) and the criterion of natural occurrence. This includes varieties and subspecies that are the sole representative of a given species as well as 10 taxa whose distributions were not documented by Hyland (Table 1). Because new stations have been documented for many species in the nearly 50 years since the original distribution maps were prepared, specimens in the University of Maine Herbarium and the publication Rare Vascular Plants of Maine were used to update Hyland\u27s maps. A new record was noted only if it clarified or extended the range boundary of a species.https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/aes_bulletin/1130/thumbnail.jp

Young women online: political and social participation and activism

There are well-established historical trends that show that new and emerging forms of media are able to disrupt and then transform political and social opinion and discourse and have the capacity to break down social hierarchies in order to challenge dominant socio-cultural and political norms. Social media or “new digital media” are part of this trend and influence a reshape of socio-cultural and political norms, practices and discourses through awareness-raising, activism, and debate. Recent research has found that social media have considerable potential to engage, empower and activate young women in particular. These online spaces are often women-only and explicitly feminist (‘safe spaces’) and central to political and social activism in terms of women’s rights. The question remains, however, about how that effect evolves, and intersects with more traditional forms of activism, and ‘how and under what conditions these new digital platforms relate to citizen activism and protest politics’ (Valenzuela, 2013, p. 921). Drawing on historic accounts of women-led spaces and public activism as generative of feminist movement, as well as accounts of contemporary online activism drawn from our current research in Manchester and Ireland, this paper explores how 'safe enough spaces' are mobilised for political and social activism and perspectives on the impacts of such spaces on political and social change

Young feminists online: political and social participation and feminist activism

There are well-established historical trends that show that new and emerging forms of media are able to disrupt and then transform political and social opinion and discourse and have the capacity to break down social hierarchies in order to challenge dominant socio-cultural and political norms. Social media or “new digital media” are part of this trend and influence a reshape of socio-cultural and political norms, practices and discourses through awareness-raising, activism, and debate. Recent research has found that social media have considerable potential to engage, empower and activate young women in particular. These online spaces are often women-only and explicitly feminist (‘safe spaces’) and central to political and social activism in terms of women’s rights. The question remains, however, about how that effect evolves, and intersects with more traditional forms of activism, and ‘how and under what conditions these new digital platforms relate to citizen activism and protest politics’ (Valenzuela, 2013, p. 921). Drawing on historic accounts of women-led spaces and public activism as generative of feminist movement, as well as accounts of contemporary online activism drawn from our current research in Manchester and Ireland, this paper explores how online spaces are mobilised for political and social activism and perspectives on the impacts of such spaces on political and social change

Survival analysis of localized prostate cancer with deep learning.

In recent years, data-driven, deep-learning-based models have shown great promise in medical risk prediction. By utilizing the large-scale Electronic Health Record data found in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, the largest integrated healthcare system in the United States, we have developed an automated, personalized risk prediction model to support the clinical decision-making process for localized prostate cancer patients. This method combines the representative power of deep learning and the analytical interpretability of parametric regression models and can implement both time-dependent and static input data. To collect a comprehensive evaluation of model performances, we calculate time-dependent C-statistics [Formula: see text] over 2-, 5-, and 10-year time horizons using either a composite outcome or prostate cancer mortality as the target event. The composite outcome combines the Prostate-Specific Antigen (PSA) test, metastasis, and prostate cancer mortality. Our longitudinal model Recurrent Deep Survival Machine (RDSM) achieved [Formula: see text] 0.85 (0.83), 0.80 (0.83), and 0.76 (0.81), while the cross-sectional model Deep Survival Machine (DSM) attained [Formula: see text] 0.85 (0.82), 0.80 (0.82), and 0.76 (0.79) for the 2-, 5-, and 10-year composite (mortality) outcomes, respectively. In addition to estimating the survival probability, our method can quantify the uncertainty associated with the prediction. The uncertainty scores show a consistent correlation with the prediction accuracy. We find PSA and prostate cancer stage information are the most important indicators in risk prediction. Our work demonstrates the utility of the data-driven machine learning model in prostate cancer risk prediction, which can play a critical role in the clinical decision system

Does Lateral Transmission Obscure Inheritance in Hunter-Gatherer Languages?

In recent years, linguists have begun to increasingly rely on quantitative phylogenetic approaches to examine language evolution. Some linguists have questioned the suitability of phylogenetic approaches on the grounds that linguistic evolution is largely reticulate due to extensive lateral transmission, or borrowing, among languages. The problem may be particularly pronounced in hunter-gatherer languages, where the conventional wisdom among many linguists is that lexical borrowing rates are so high that tree building approaches cannot provide meaningful insights into evolutionary processes. However, this claim has never been systematically evaluated, in large part because suitable data were unavailable. In addition, little is known about the subsistence, demographic, ecological, and social factors that might mediate variation in rates of borrowing among languages. Here, we evaluate these claims with a large sample of hunter-gatherer languages from three regions around the world. In this study, a list of 204 basic vocabulary items was collected for 122 hunter-gatherer and small-scale cultivator languages from three ecologically diverse case study areas: northern Australia, northwest Amazonia, and California and the Great Basin. Words were rigorously coded for etymological (inheritance) status, and loan rates were calculated. Loan rate variability was examined with respect to language area, subsistence mode, and population size, density, and mobility; these results were then compared to the sample of 41 primarily agriculturalist languages in [1]. Though loan levels varied both within and among regions, they were generally low in all regions (mean 5.06%, median 2.49%, and SD 7.56), despite substantial demographic, ecological, and social variation. Amazonian levels were uniformly very low, with no language exhibiting more than 4%. Rates were low but more variable in the other two study regions, in part because of several outlier languages where rates of borrowing were especially high. High mobility, prestige asymmetries, and language shift may contribute to the high rates in these outliers. No support was found for claims that hunter-gatherer languages borrow more than agriculturalist languages. These results debunk the myth of high borrowing in hunter-gatherer languages and suggest that the evolution of these languages is governed by the same type of rules as those operating in large-scale agriculturalist speech communities. The results also show that local factors are likely to be more critical than general processes in determining high (or low) loan rates

Can herpes simplex virus type 2 suppression slow HIV disease progression: a study protocol for the VALacyclovir In Delaying Antiretroviral Treatment Entry (VALIDATE) trial

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Although highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) has dramatically decreased HIV-related morbidity and mortality, the associated costs, toxicities, and resistance risks make the potential delay of HAART initiation an attractive goal. Suppression of herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2) may be a novel strategy for achieving this goal because HSV-2 is associated with clinically significant increases in HIV viral load, the primary driver of HIV disease progression.</p> <p>Methods/Design</p> <p>The VALacyclovir In Delaying Antiretroviral Treatment Entry (VALIDATE) trial is a multicentre, randomized, fully blinded, clinical trial of twice daily valacyclovir 500 mg versus placebo for delaying the need for initiating HAART among HIV-1, HSV-2 co-infected HAART-naïve adults. 480 participants from Canada, Brazil and Argentina will undergo quarterly clinical follow-up until reaching the composite primary endpoint of having a CD4+ T-cell count ≤ 350 cells/mm³or initiation of HAART for any reason, whichever occurs first. The primary analysis will use a proportional hazards model, stratified by site, to estimate the relative risk of progression to this endpoint associated with valacyclovir. Secondary analyses will compare the rates of change in CD4 count, median log₁₀HIV viral load, drug-related adverse events, frequency of HSV reactivations, rate of acyclovir-resistant HSV, and quality of life between study arms.</p> <p>Discussion</p> <p>Although HIV treatment guidelines continue to evolve, with some authorities recommending earlier HAART among asymptomatic individuals, the potential delay of HAART remains a clinically relevant goal for many. If shown to be of benefit, implementation of the VALIDATE intervention will require careful consideration of both individual patient-level and public health implications.</p> <p>Trial Registration</p> <p>Current Controlled Trials ISRCTN66756285</p> <p>ClinicalTrials.gov NCT00860977</p