Empirical Impact Evaluation of the WHO Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel in Australia, Canada, UK and USA

Background: The active recruitment of health workers from developing countries to developed countries has become a major threat to global health. In an effort to manage this migration, the 63rd World Health Assembly adopted the World Health Organization (WHO) Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel in May 2010. While the Code has been lauded as the first globally-applicable regulatory framework for health worker recruitment, its impact has yet to be evaluated. We offer the first empirical evaluation of the Code’s impact on national and sub-national actors in Australia, Canada, United Kingdom and United States of America, which are the English-speaking developed countries with the greatest number of migrant health workers. Methods: 42 key informants from across government, civil society and private sectors were surveyed to measure their awareness of the Code, knowledge of specific changes resulting from it, overall opinion on the effectiveness of non-binding codes, and suggestions to improve this Code’s implementation. Results: 60% of respondents believed their colleagues were not aware of the Code, and 93% reported that no specific changes had been observed in their work as a result of the Code. 86% reported that the Code has not had any meaningful impact on policies, practices or regulations in their countries. Conclusions: This suggests a gap between awareness of the Code among stakeholders at global forums and the awareness and behaviour of national and sub-national actors. Advocacy and technical guidance for implementing the Code are needed to improve its impact on national decision-makers

Semicrossed products of the disk algebra and the Jacobson radical

We consider semicrossed products of the disk algebra with respect to endomorphisms defined by finite Blaschke products. We characterize the Jacobson radical of these operator algebras. Furthermore, in the case the finite Blaschke product is elliptic, we show that the semicrossed product contains no nonzero quasinilpotent elements. However, if the finite Blaschke product is hyperbolic or parabolic with zero hyperbolic step, the Jacobson radical is nonzero and a proper subset of the set of quasinilpotent elements.Comment: 12 page

Landscape requirements of a primate population in a human-dominated environment

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Introduction</p> <p>As urban and rural land development become widespread features of the global landscape so an understanding of the landscape requirements of displaced and isolated wildlife species becomes increasingly important for conservation planning. In the Cape Peninsula, South Africa, rapid human population growth, and the associated urban and rural land transformation, threatens the sustainability of the local chacma baboon population. Here we analyse spatial data collected from nine of the 12 extant troops to determine their population-level landscape requirements. We use hurdle models to ascertain the key landscape features influencing baboon occurrence and abundance patterns on two hierarchical spatial scales.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Both spatial scales produced similar results that were ecologically reliable and interpretable. The models indicated that baboons were more likely to occur, and be more abundant, at low altitudes, on steep slopes and in human-modified habitats. The combination of these landscape variables provides baboons with access to the best quality natural and anthropogenic food sources in close proximity to one another and suitable sleeping sites. Surface water did not emerge as an influential landscape feature presumably as the area is not water stressed.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The model results indicate that land development in the Cape Peninsula has pushed baboons into increasingly marginal natural habitat while simultaneously providing them with predictable and easily accessible food sources in human-modified habitats. The resultant spatial competition between humans and baboons explains the high levels of human-baboon conflict and further erosion of the remaining land fragments is predicted to exacerbate competition. This study demonstrates how the quantification of animal landscape requirements can provide a mechanism for identifying priority conservation areas at the human-wildlife interface.</p

Listening with Two Ears: Conflicting Perceptions of Space in Tonal Music

The Tonnetz is a spatial model of tonal pitch, constructed by placing fifths along the horizontal axis of a coordinate plane and thirds along the vertical axis. This dissertation examines the ways in which different conceptions of interval, including just-intonation ratios, diatonic scalar intervals, and pitch-class intervals, result in different Tonnetz geometries, representing different, and sometimes conflicting, modes of musical perception, and argues for treating conflicts between these often unexamined conceptions of interval as an explicit part of musical analysis. Chapter One considers relationships between a number of Tonnetz spaces, as well as the groups of intervals they model, using harmonic function theory. Chapter Two examines ways in which pitches may project multiple functions in Tonnetz spaces and uses these spaces to model some aspects of the harmonic theory of Jean-Philippe Rameau. Chapter Three considers the ways in which neo-Riemannian transformations, as ways of relating triads and seventh chords to one another, might be associated with changes of harmonic function in different Tonnetz spaces, and culminates in an analysis of Chopin's E Minor Prelude. Chapter Four explores primary triads with chromatically altered roots and fifths and, in this context, analyzes an unusual modulation from A-flat major to E major in Hugo Wolf's song "An den Schlaf." Finally, Chapter Five considers harmonic function in nontriadic music, examining the beginning of the final movement of Bartók's Fourth String Quartet

Comparative genomics approaches accurately predict deleterious variants in plants

Recent advances in genome resequencing have led to increased interest in prediction of the functional consequences of genetic variants. Variants at phylogenetically conserved sites are of particular interest, because they are more likely than variants at phylogenetically variable sites to have deleterious effects on fitness and contribute to phenotypic variation. Numerous comparative genomic approaches have been developed to predict deleterious variants, but the approaches are nearly always assessed based on their ability to identify known disease-causing mutations in humans. Determining the accuracy of deleterious variant predictions in nonhuman species is important to understanding evolution, domestication, and potentially to improving crop quality and yield. To examine our ability to predict deleterious variants in plants we generated a curated database of 2,910 Arabidopsis thaliana mutants with known phenotypes. We evaluated seven approaches and found that while all performed well, their relative ranking differed from prior benchmarks in humans. We conclude that deleterious mutations can be reliably predicted in A. thaliana and likely other plant species, but that the relative performance of various approaches does not necessarily translate from one species to another

Observations of Reproduction in Mountain Lions from Nebraska

Occurrences of mountain lions (Puma concolor) in Nebraska have been steadily increasing; however, reproductive activity in mountain lions has not been documented in the state. We present the first evidence of mountain lion reproduction in Nebraska since mountain lions recolonized the state in the early 1990s. On 28 February 2007, a spotted kitten was hit by a vehicle in northwestern Nebraska; and based on body length and weight, we estimate its age at 3.9 months. On 20 December 2008, a female mountain lion and spotted kitten were photographed in the northwestern part of the state. On 9 May 2009, a female mountain lion with a juvenile was also photographed. All records were from the Pine Ridge region of Dawes County, Nebraska. Our records suggest that mountain lions are establishing a permanent population in at least one region of Nebraska

Recent Occurrence of an American Black Bear in Nebraska

We report on a young male, cinnamon-phase American black bear (Ursus americanus) that was collected in northwestern Nebraska on May 12, 2008. This specimen represents the first black bear taken in Nebraska since 1907. Cranial characteristics and mass of the individual indicated a 15–16-month old bear. This bear may have dispersed from the Laramie Mountains in southeastern Wyoming along the North Platte River into western Nebraska. This record adds to the growing number of cases where large carnivores are reinvading previously occupied territory in the Great Plains. These reinvasions potentially have broad ecological implications to local prey populations and overall biodiversity