Transnational Migration, State Policy and Local Clinician Treatment of Asylum Seekers and Resettled Migrants

Based on interviews conducted at five Finnish reception centers and in two municipal communes during summer 2002 with 93 migrants, mainly from a variety of Southern and Eastern countries of origin, and their ethnoculturally discordant clinicians, the article compares asylum seekers and foreign-born residents in terms of health care treatment and outcome perspectives. Comparative analysis suggests that context makes a difference in post-migration medical encounters. The legally admitted foreign nationals consulted at community facilities were considerably more likely than were asylum seekers assisted at reception centers to be satisfied with the health care they had received and to be confident that the attending physician's recommendations would serve them well in the future. Policy implications related to the study's findings are explored. In Finland and elsewhere, the education of general practitioners for transnational medical encounters needs to be enhanced. International and national efforts to promote health also need to encompass political asylum and third country resettlement policies. In Finland and other migrantreceiving states, prolonged insecure immigration status can be debilitating for both asylum seeker and host society. Expedited admission to legal residence and expanded choice of physician are likely to result in improved health outcomes

Globalization, migration health, and educational preparation for transnational medical encounters

Unprecedented migration, a core dimension of contemporary globalization, challenges population health. In a world of increasing human mobility, many health outcomes are shaped by transnational interactions among care providers and care recipients who meet in settings where nationality/ethnic match is not an option. This review article explores the value of transnational competence (TC) education as preparation for ethnically and socially discordant clinical encounters. The relevance of TC's five core skill domains (analytic, emotional, creative, communicative, and functional) for migration health and the medical-school curriculum is elaborated. A pedagogical approach that prepares for the transnational health-care consultation is presented, with a focus on clinical-clerkship learning experiences. Educational preparation for contemporary medical encounters needs to include a comprehensive set of patient-focused interpersonal skills, be adaptable to a wide variety of service users and global practice sites, and possess utility in addressing both the quality of patient care and socio-political constraints on migration health

A Physiological Study of Micrococcus pyogenes var. aureus

Micrococcus pyogenes var. aureus (Rosenbach) Zoph has been known to man for some time, for it was back in 1878 that Koch noted the presence of micrococci in pus from wounds. in all probability these organisms were Micrococcus pyogenes var. aureus or their very closely related type species Micrococcus pyogenes var. albus. It is very interesting to note relatively small amount of attention paid to this genus after the early taxonomic work was completed, and it was for this reason that this study was undertaken. In the fall of 1953 cases of tonsillitis, laryngitis, or sore throats were quite prevalent on the campus of South Dakota State College. The Health Service on the campus co-operated by providing fresh material. This material was obtained by swabbing the patient’s (student’s) throat, nasopharynx, and tonsillar crypts. The swabs were prepared by twisting a small piece of absorbent cotton on the end of the six inch wood applicator. Two of these swabs were placed in a six inch test tube and the tube was then cotton plugged and autoclaved. One swab was used for the patient’s throat and the other for the nasopharynx. In the laboratory each swab was streaked on Nutrient, Champan Stone, and Blood Agar plates (6) and incubated at 37 degrees C for 12 to 18 hours. Immediately after streaking the plates, direct slides were prepared by rolling the swab on a clean slide. These were then gram stained and examined under oil immersion. Direct microscopic examination revealed that the predominating organism was a gram positive micrococcus .8 to 1.0 microns in diameter, appearing singly and in small clumps. Other organisms present to a lesser degree included short-chain streptococci and diphtheroids. After 12 to 18 hours of incubation the plates were examined, and it was easily discernible that the predominating organisms were micrococci. These micrococci were actively hemolytic, producing a clear, well defined zone of beta hemolysis on the blood agar plate. They were also most abundant on the nutrient agar plate and here grew with a somewhat yellowish to golden sheen. Since Champan Stone is a selective medium for micrococci, they grew well, exhibiting a definite golden pigament. Therefore, from the isolation and growth characteristic studies, it was concluded that in all probability this organism was responsible for the small endemic outbreak of “sore throat” on this campus. Appropriate biochemical tests and taxonomic procedures were applied to this organism to properly classify it as Micrococcus pyogenes var. aureus (Rosenbach) Zoph (2). The cultures obtained from seven patients were not mixed but were carried on separate nutrient agar and Chapman Stone slants and in Kracke Blood Culture Medium (6). The organism used for subsequent investigational purposes was the author’s own particular isolate. Since all seven strains isolated had very similar characteristics, no particular reason or provocation can be given for picking this one from the rest, outside of a probable hypochondrial tendency on the part of the investigator. This also aided in making the work a little more stimulating

Supersymmetric quantum cosmological billiards

D=11 Supergravity near a space-like singularity admits a cosmological billiard description based on the hyperbolic Kac-Moody group E10. The quantization of this system via the supersymmetry constraint is shown to lead to wavefunctions involving automorphic (Maass wave) forms under the modular group W^+(E10)=PSL(2,O) with Dirichlet boundary conditions on the billiard domain. A general inequality for the Laplace eigenvalues of these automorphic forms implies that the wave function of the universe is generically complex and always tends to zero when approaching the initial singularity. We discuss possible implications of this result for the question of singularity resolution in quantum cosmology and comment on the differences with other approaches.Comment: 4 pages. v2: Added ref. Version to be published in PR

Evidence for Distinct Components of the Galactic Stellar Halo from 838 RR Lyrae Stars Discovered in the LONEOS-I Survey

We present 838 ab-type RR Lyrae stars from the Lowell Observatory Near Earth Objects Survey Phase I (LONEOS-I). These objects cover 1430 deg^2 and span distances ranging from 3-30 kpc from the Galactic Center. Object selection is based on phased, photometric data with 28-50 epochs. We use this large sample to explore the bulk properties of the stellar halo, including the spatial distribution. The period-amplitude distribution of this sample shows that the majority of these RR Lyrae stars resemble Oosterhoff type I, but there is a significant fraction (26 %) which have longer periods and appear to be Oosterhoff type II. We find that the radial distributions of these two populations have significantly different profiles (rho_{OoI} ~ R^(-2.26 +- 0.07) and rho_{OoII} ~ R^(-2.88 +- 0.11). This suggests that the stellar halo was formed by at least two distinct accretion processes and supports dual-halo models.Comment: 18 pages, 28 figures, apjemulated, minor corrections and clarifications. Accepted to ApJ on Jan 21, 200

The role of seafood in sustainable diets

Recent discussions of healthy and sustainable diets encourage increased consumption of plants and decreased consumption of animal-source foods (ASFs) for both human and environmental health. Seafood is often peripheral in these discussions. This paper examines the relative environmental costs of sourcing key nutrients from different kinds of seafood, other ASFs, and a range of plant-based foods. We linked a nutrient richness index for different foods to life cycle assessments of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the production of these foods to evaluate nutritional benefits relative to this key indicator of environmental impacts. The lowest GHG emissions to meet average nutrient requirement values were found in grains, tubers, roots, seeds, wild-caught small pelagic fish, farmed carp and bivalve shellfish. The highest GHG emissions per nutrient supply are in beef, lamb, wild-caught prawns, farmed crustaceans, and pork. Among ASFs, some fish and shellfish have GHG emissions at least as low as plants and merit inclusion in food systems policymaking for their potential to support a healthy, sustainable diet. However, other aquatic species and production methods deliver nutrition to diets at environmental costs at least as high as land-based meat production. It is important to disaggregate seafood by species and production method in 'planetary health diet' advice

Relativistic Wavepackets in Classically Chaotic Quantum Cosmological Billiards

Close to a spacelike singularity, pure gravity and supergravity in four to eleven spacetime dimensions admit a cosmological billiard description based on hyperbolic Kac-Moody groups. We investigate the quantum cosmological billiards of relativistic wavepackets towards the singularity, employing flat and hyperbolic space descriptions for the quantum billiards. We find that the strongly chaotic classical billiard motion of four-dimensional pure gravity corresponds to a spreading wavepacket subject to successive redshifts and tending to zero as the singularity is approached. We discuss the possible implications of these results in the context of singularity resolution and compare them with those of known semiclassical approaches. As an aside, we obtain exact solutions for the one-dimensional relativistic quantum billiards with moving walls.Comment: 18 pages, 10 figure

Antigen-specific precursor frequency impacts T cell proliferation, differentiation, and requirement for costimulation

After a brief period of antigenic stimulation, T cells become committed to a program of autonomous expansion and differentiation. We investigated the role of antigen-specific T cell precursor frequency as a possible cell-extrinsic factor impacting T cell programming in a model of allogeneic tissue transplantation. Using an adoptive transfer system to incrementally raise the precursor frequency of antigen-specific CD8+ T cells, we found that donor-reactive T cells primed at low frequency exhibited increased cellular division, decreased development of multifunctional effector activity, and an increased requirement for CD28- and CD154-mediated costimulation relative to those primed at high frequency. The results demonstrated that recipients with low CD4+ and CD8+ donor-reactive T cell frequencies exhibited long-term skin graft survival upon CD28/CD154 blockade, whereas simultaneously raising the frequency of CD4+ T cells to ∼0.5% and CD8+ T cells to ∼5% precipitated graft rejection despite CD28/CD154 blockade. Antigenic rechallenge of equal numbers of cells stimulated at high or low frequency revealed that cells retained an imprint of the frequency at which they were primed. These results demonstrate a critical role for initial precursor frequency in determining the CD8+ T cell requirement for CD28- and CD154-mediated costimulatory signals during graft rejection