Key Findings From HSC's 2010 Site Visits: Health Care Markets Weather Economic Downturn, Brace for Health Reform

Presents findings about hospital payment rate increases, hospital-physician alignment, and insurance premiums, funding for safety-net providers, and their implications from HSC's site visits to twelve nationally representative metropolitan communities

PLANNING SOLAR HEATING FOR POULTRY - A LINEAR PROGRAMMING APPROACH

Livestock Production/Industries,

A Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect Survey for High Redshift Clusters

Interferometric observations of the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect (SZE) toward clusters of galaxies provide sensitive cosmological probes. We present results from 1 cm observations (at BIMA and OVRO) of a large, intermediate redshift cluster sample. In addition, we describe a proposed, higher sensitivity array which will enable us to survey large portions of the sky. Simulated observations indicate that we will be able to survey one square degree of sky per month to sufficient depth that we will detect all galaxy clusters more massive than 2x10^{14} h^{-1}_{50}M_\odot, regardless of their redshift. We describe the cluster yield and resulting cosmological constraints from such a survey.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures, latex, contribution to VLT Opening Symposiu

Insertion of the CXC chemokine ligand 9 (CXCL9) into the mouse hepatitis virus genome results in protection from viral-induced encephalitis and hepatitis.

The role of the CXC chemokine ligand 9 (CXCL9) in host defense following infection with mouse hepatitis virus (MHV) was determined. Inoculation of the central nervous system (CNS) of CXCL9-/- mice with MHV resulted in accelerated and increased mortality compared to wild type mice supporting an important role for CXCL9 in anti-viral defense. In addition, infection of RAG1-/- or CXCL9-/- mice with a recombinant MHV expressing CXCL9 (MHV-CXCL9) resulted in protection from disease that correlated with reduced viral titers within the brain and NK cell-mediated protection in the liver. Survival in MHV-CXCL9-infected CXCL9-/- mice was associated with reduced viral burden within the brain that coincided with increased T cell infiltration. Similarly, viral clearance from the livers of MHV-CXCL9-infected mice was accelerated but independent of increased T cell or NK cell infiltration. These observations indicate that CXCL9 promotes protection from coronavirus-induced neurological and liver disease

The Potential of Brain Stimulation Techniques for Substance Use Disorder Treatment

Current treatments for substance use disorders (SUDs) are far from ideal, with no U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved pharmacotherapies to treat stimulant and other use disorders. New approaches are urgently needed to combat the increasing prevalence of SUDs and overdose deaths. It is widely accepted that addiction is a chronic disease of the brain involving changes in neural circuitry associated with cognitive and reward functioning. Brain stimulation techniques are novel methods that can modulate these circuits directly and thus hold considerable promise for treating SUDs

Challenges facing customer patronage of tourism destinations in South-South Region of Nigeria

This study aimed at investigating the most significant challenge facing customer patronage of tourism destinations in South-South region of Nigeria. To achieve this purpose, the challenges facing tourism destinations as a whole were examined. In this study, the survey research design was adopted and the population of the study consisted of tourism destinations in South-South region of Nigeria. Although there are two categories of tourism destination - recreation/attractions and hospitality, this study focused on the recreation/attractions centres. Records available to the researchers from the Federal Ministry of Culture and Tourism, revealed a total of thirty-five (35) tourism destinations (recreation / attraction centres) in South-South region of Nigeria. Our findings revealed the following challenges facing customer patronage of tourism destinations in South-South region of Nigeria - unqualified and untrained hospitality manpower, poor facility esthetics of the destination, poor consumer purchasing power, political instability and violence, high rate of crime against humanity, deplorable road network, poor supply of electricity, unsafe airspace, inefficient telecommunication and internet services, poor facility aesthetics of the destination, national insecurity, multiplicity of levies and taxes, and high operational costs. However, the most significant of these factors is lack of consumers’ interest in recreation and leisure. It was therefore recommended that managers of tourism destinations should develop visual appeals of their destinations by exhibiting decent exterior painting and manicured landscape that would capture the attention of prospective customers. More so, the government should create an enabling environment for tourism destinations to thrive. This can be done by ensuring stability in the political environment, adequate protection of lives and property, safety of the airspace, provision of good road network; adequate supply of electricity, and other basic infrastructure, avoidance of multiple levies and taxes of operators in the hospitality market, and the maintenance of recreation and attraction centres in South-South region of Nigeria.Keywords: Challenges, customer patronage, tourism destinations, south-south regio

Nutrient accounting in global food systems

Working across agriculture–nutrition domains, nutrition balance sheets provide farm-to-fork estimates of the availability of dietary nutrients for human consumption

Imaging the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect

We report on results of interferometric imaging of the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect (SZE) with the OVRO and BIMA mm-arrays. Using low-noise cm-wave receivers on the arrays, we have obtained high quality images for 27 distant galaxy clusters. We review the use of the SZE as a cosmological tool. Gas mass fractions derived from the SZE data are given for 18 of the clusters, as well as the implied constraint on the matter density of the universe, $\Omega_M$. We find $\Omega_M h_{100} \le 0.22 ^{+0.05}_{-0.03}$. A best guess for the matter density obtained by assuming a reasonable value for the Hubble constant and also by attempting to account for the baryons contained in the galaxies as well as those lost during the cluster formation process gives $\Omega_M \sim 0.25$. We also give preliminary results for the Hubble constant. Lastly, the power for investigating the high redshift universe with a non-targeted high sensitivity SZE survey is discussed and an interferometric survey is proposed.Comment: 14 pages, 7 figures, latex, contribution to Nobel Symposium "Particle Physics and the Universe" to appear in Physica Scripta and World Scientific, eds L. Bergstrom, P. Carlson and C. Fransso