Protecting the planet and sustainable development

The United Nations has made a commitment for sustainable development. An important component of this is a healthy environment. But what exactly is a healthy environment? Environmental health specialists typically focus on occupational exposures in workers; the field mainly addresses the abiotic (i.e. non-living) aspects of environments. Ecosystem health addresses biotic (i.e. living) aspects of environments. Merging these two realms is essential for sustainable development but will be challenging because the fields are so different. The United Nations, individual countries, and schools of public health could do much to help merge these realms by implementing environmental/ecosystem health into their missions and curriculums

Chapter 3: One Health, One Medicine

In recognition that the health of humans, animals, and the environment is linked, One Health seeks to increase communication and collaboration across the disciplines in order to promote, improve, and defend the health of all species on the planet. This strategy may seem simple, but unfortunately it will not be easy to implement. The explosion of medical knowledge in the 20th century led to academic, governmental, and industrial silos of specialization; these silos fostered a compartmentalized approach to health and disease. Building bridges across these silos will require leadership, joint educational programs, financial support, and other strategies that promote transdisciplinary efforts. Before the 20th century, physicians typically worked with veterinary medical colleagues and others to improve the health of humans and animals. This chapter will describe the historical developments in medicine and veterinary medicine leading to the current status quo. It will provide examples of why the status quo is problematic and will highlight the challenges in changing the present paradigm. It will conclude with recommendations on how to implement a One Health approach in the future

Teachers of Latino students reflect on the implementation of a mathematical task

Teachers in two multi-grade study groups in elementary schools with large populations of Latino students reflect on the implementation of an open-ended mathematical task. IN this research, interviews and study group discussions provide the teachers’ reflections on the implementation of the task and on their practices in general that create learning environments for their Latino students. Multiple categories representing the teacher reflections were developed and our focus is on those practices that teachers consider effective and specific factors that impact practice. The design of this study proved to be especially useful in promoting teacher reflective conversation

The Masses of the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies

We present a family of robust tracer mass estimators to compute the enclosed mass of galaxy haloes from samples of discrete positional and kinematical data of tracers, such as halo stars, globular clusters and dwarf satellites. The data may be projected positions, distances, line of sight velocities or proper motions. Forms of the estimator tailored for the Milky Way galaxy and for M31 are given. Monte Carlo simulations are used to quantify the uncertainty as a function of sample size. For the Milky Way, the satellite sample consists of 26 galaxies with line-of-sight velocities. We find that the mass of the Milky Way within 300 kpc is ~ 0.9 x 10^12 solar masses assuming velocity isotropy. However, the mass estimate is sensitive to the anisotropy and could plausibly lie between 0.7 - 3.4 x 10^12 solar masses. Incorporating the proper motions of 6 Milky Way satellites into the dataset, we find ~ 1.4 x 10^12 solar masses. The range here if plausible anisotropies are used is still broader, from 1.2 - 2.7 x 10^12 solar masses. For M31, there are 23 satellite galaxies with measured line-of-sight velocities, but only M33 and IC 10 have proper motions. We use the line of sight velocities and distances of the satellite galaxies to estimate the mass of M31 within 300 kpc as ~ 1.4 x 10^12 solar masses assuming isotropy. There is only a modest dependence on anisotropy, with the mass varying between 1.3 -1.6 x 10^12 solar masses. Given the uncertainties, we conclude that the satellite data by themselves yield no reliable insights into which of the two galaxies is actually the more massive.Comment: 15 pages, submitted to MNRA

Incorporating one health into medical education

One Health is an emerging concept that stresses the linkages between human, animal, and environmental health, as well as the need for interdisciplinary communication and collaboration to address health issues including emerging zoonotic diseases, climate change impacts, and the human-animal bond. It promotes complex problem solving using a systems framework that considers interactions between humans, animals, and their shared environment. While many medical educators may not yet be familiar with the concept, the One Health approach has been endorsed by a number of major medical and public health organizations and is beginning to be implemented in a number of medical schools. In the research setting, One Health opens up new avenues to understand, detect, and prevent emerging infectious diseases, and also to conduct translational studies across species. In the clinical setting, One Health provides practical ways to incorporate environmental and animal contact considerations into patient care. This paper reviews clinical and research aspects of the One Health approach through an illustrative case updating the biopsychosocial model and proposes a basic set of One Health competencies for training and education of human health care providers

Clinical highlights from the 2016 European Respiratory Society International Congress

This article contains highlights and a selection of the scientific advances from the European Respiratory Society (ERS) Clinical Assembly (Assembly 1) and its six respective groups (Groups 1.1–1.6) that were presented at the 2016 ERS International Congress in London, UK. The most relevant topics for clinicians will be discussed, covering a wide range of areas including clinical problems, rehabilitation and chronic care, thoracic imaging, interventional pulmonology, diffuse and parenchymal lung diseases, and general practice and primary care. In this comprehensive review, the newest research and actual data will be discussed and put into perspective

Confronting Zoonoses, Linking Human and Veterinary Medicine

Greater collaboration is needed between human and veterinary medicine to better control zoonoses

Micro-Symposium on Orin Kerr\u27s \u27A Theory of Law\u27

For more than a century, careful readers of the Green Bag have known that “[t]here is nothing sacred in a theory of law...which has outlived its usefulness or which was radically wrong from the beginning...The question is What is the law and what is the true public policy?” Professor Orin Kerr bravely, creatively, and eloquently answered that question in his article, “A Theory of Law,” in the Autumn 2012 issue of the Green Bag. Uniquely among all theories of law that I know of, Kerr’s answer to the fundamental question of law and true public policy enables all scholars to answer that same question in their own ways. The Green Bag is pleased to be featuring his “A Theory of Law” in its first micro-symposium, and just as pleased with the quality, quantity, and diversity of the responses to the call for papers. Blessed with an abundance of good work but cursed by a shortage of space, we were compelled to select a small set – representative and excellent – of those essays to publish in the Green Bag or its sibling publication, the Journal of Law. We regret that we cannot do full justice to the outpouring of first-rate legal-theoretical commentary we received