“Mr.Editor, Have We Digressed?” Newspaper Editor John Neal and The Woman Suffrage Debate

In May and June of 1870, Portland newspaper editor and reformer John Neal sparked a debate over women’s suffrage that elicited strong views on women’s place in society. Neal posted a call in the Daily Eastern Argus to like-minded women and men to meet to discuss how to bring about the women’s vote. His post led to a debate in Portland’s newspapers about the idea of women’s suffrage. Several respondents expressed outrage at women’s participation in politics, fearing it would lead to society’s downfall. Although the debate died down in June, Neal’s efforts gave renewed energy to Maine suffragists. The author is an assistant professor of history at Niagara University. She specializes in progressive-era American history, women’s history, and public history

“Friendship, Sweet Soother of My Cares!”: Women, Religion, and Power in the Diary Of Sarah Connell Ayer

The diary of Sarah Connell Ayer (1791-1835) reveals the motivations of a woman caught up in the Second Great Awakening that spread across New England in the early nineteenth century. Ayer arrived in Portland in 1811 and immediately sought out a circle of female friends who espoused the same desires as did she. She joined with other church women in challenging the boundaries of Republican Motherhood ,and under the veil of the church, helped to minister in the greater Portland society.This female church culture helped women like Ayer get through the many pitfalls of womanhood in the early nineteenth century, including infant mortality, loss of family fortune, and the tensions of public life. This emerging political culture would shortly lead to the temperance, abolition and woman suffrage movements. Author Shannon M. Risk is completing a PhD in history at the University of Maine. She has presented talks on her dissertation, titled “‘In Order to Establish Justice’: The Nineteenth-Century Woman Suffrage Movements of Maine and New Brunswick,” at several conferences and symposiums and has published articles in the Hudson River Valley Review and Khronikos, the University of Maine History Graduate Student Online Journal. She was recipient of the Alice Stewart Fellowship for 2007-2008 and is currently a Fullbright Fellow working in Canada

Glimpses into the Life of a Maine Reformer: Elizabeth Upham Yates, Missionary and Woman Suffragist

Raised in a religious family in Bristol, Elizabeth Upham Yates spent much of her adult life as a reformer. While in her twenties, Yates spent six years in China serving as a Methodist missionary trying to spread the gospel and Western culture. Upon returning to the United States she became involved in two domestic reform movements, temperance and women’s suffrage. She was active in the women’s suffrage movement from the 1890s until the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920 and ran for lieutenant governor of Rhode Island in the election of 1920. Yates was never a nationally renowned figure in the suffrage movement, but the success of the movement was due as much to Yates and other state suffrage leaders like her as it was to the national suffrage leaders. The author is an assistant professor of history at Niagara University. She earned her bachelor’s degree in history from the University of Northern Iowa and her master’s degree and Ph.D. in American history from the University of Maine. She was awarded a Fulbright fellowship for the 2008-2009 academic year to study in Canada

In Order to Establish Justice : The Nineteenth-Century Woman Suffrage Movements of Maine and New Brunswick

The study of the nineteenth-century woman suffrage movements in Maine and New Brunswick brings to light the struggles of Americans and Canadians to define a wider democracy and citizenry amid times of profound socio-economic changes. Targeting the struggle for the female vote allows the historian to explore time-honored ideas about womanhood, manhood, and membership in a national political body. In the Borderlands of Maine and New Brunswick, a place where historians see cultural connections, the border loomed large. Borderlands historians have virtually ignored women’s political behavior in this region. This study will demonstrate that although Maine and New Brunswick women both tapped into the ideals of the Enlightenment and individual and property rights, their political work diverged by the turn of the twentieth century. The women, with a history of working together on issues of temperance, religion and slavery that transcended the border, were more tuned into the work of their national organizations and political structures when it came to suffrage. Maine woman suffrage was shaped by the American Revolutionary War and its ideals, the rights of citizens, which allowed for a process of professionalization and radicalism. Maine women also had training in the anti-slavery movement, which strengthened their ideas about woman suffrage. By the turn of the twentieth century, Maine suffragists had strong ties to national and international suffrage organizations, and drew upon these to bolster their own stateside cause. In New Brunswick, the Loyalist legacy continued, in the nineteenth century, with its emphasis on hierarchy and the importance of property ownership, to influence ideas about suffrage and women’s place in society. Despite a brief blossoming of female leadership connected to the Maritime Woman’s Christian Temperance Union and Saint John suffragists, female reformers could not always target the vote as their chief goal, nor did they attempt to fight for it as citizens, but rather, as property owners. In this respect, the New Brunswick suffrage movement was dampened by the social gospel movement that sought to bring religion to the streets, other women’s reform causes, and the limitations of land-owning suffrage, by the early twentieth century

Transitions of cardio-metabolic risk factors in the Americas between 1980 and 2014

Background: Describing the levels and trends of cardio-metabolic risk factors associated with non-communicable diseases (NCDs) is vital for monitoring progress, planning prevention and provide evidence to support policy efforts. We aimed to analyse the transition in body-mass index (BMI), obesity, blood pressure, raised blood pressure (RBP) and diabetes in the Americas, 1980-2014. Methods: Pooled analysis of population-based studies with data on anthropometric measurements, biomarkers for diabetes, and blood pressure from adults aged 18+ years. A Bayesian model was used to estimate trends in BMI, RBP (systolic blood pressure ≥140 mmHg or diastolic blood pressure ≥90 mmHg) and diabetes (fasting plasma glucose ≥7.0 mmol/l, history of diabetes, or diabetes treatment) from 1980 to 2014 in 37 countries and 6 sub-regions of the Americas. Findings: 389 population-based surveys from the Americas were available. Comparing the 2014 with the 1980 prevalence estimates, the obesity ratio was the largest in the non-English-speaking Caribbean sub-region (4.71 in men and 2.50 in women) showing that the prevalence in 2014 for men is almost five times larger than it was in 1980. The English-speaking Caribbean sub-region had the largest ratio regarding diabetes (2.14 in men and 2.13 in women). Conversely, the ratio for RBP signals that the frequency of this condition has diminished across the region; the largest decrease was found in North America (0.56 in men and 0.54 in women). Interpretation: Despite the generally high prevalence of cardio-metabolic risk factors across the Americas region, estimates also show a high level of heterogeneity in the transition between countries

Worldwide trends in diabetes since 1980: a pooled analysis of 751 population-based studies with 4·4 million participants

Background One of the global targets for non-communicable diseases is to halt, by 2025, the rise in the age-standardised adult prevalence of diabetes at its 2010 levels. We aimed to estimate worldwide trends in diabetes, how likely it is for countries to achieve the global target, and how changes in prevalence, together with population growth and ageing, are affecting the number of adults with diabetes. Methods We pooled data from population-based studies that had collected data on diabetes through measurement of its biomarkers. We used a Bayesian hierarchical model to estimate trends in diabetes prevalence—defined as fasting plasma glucose of 7·0 mmol/L or higher, or history of diagnosis with diabetes, or use of insulin or oral hypoglycaemic drugs—in 200 countries and territories in 21 regions, by sex and from 1980 to 2014. We also calculated the posterior probability of meeting the global diabetes target if post-2000 trends continue. Findings We used data from 751 studies including 4 372 000 adults from 146 of the 200 countries we make estimates for. Global age-standardised diabetes prevalence increased from 4·3% (95% credible interval 2·4–7·0) in 1980 to 9·0% (7·2–11·1) in 2014 in men, and from 5·0% (2·9–7·9) to 7·9% (6·4–9·7) in women. The number of adults with diabetes in the world increased from 108 million in 1980 to 422 million in 2014 (28·5% due to the rise in prevalence, 39·7% due to population growth and ageing, and 31·8% due to interaction of these two factors). Age-standardised adult diabetes prevalence in 2014 was lowest in northwestern Europe, and highest in Polynesia and Micronesia, at nearly 25%, followed by Melanesia and the Middle East and north Africa. Between 1980 and 2014 there was little change in age-standardised diabetes prevalence in adult women in continental western Europe, although crude prevalence rose because of ageing of the population. By contrast, age-standardised adult prevalence rose by 15 percentage points in men and women in Polynesia and Micronesia. In 2014, American Samoa had the highest national prevalence of diabetes (>30% in both sexes), with age-standardised adult prevalence also higher than 25% in some other islands in Polynesia and Micronesia. If post-2000 trends continue, the probability of meeting the global target of halting the rise in the prevalence of diabetes by 2025 at the 2010 level worldwide is lower than 1% for men and is 1% for women. Only nine countries for men and 29 countries for women, mostly in western Europe, have a 50% or higher probability of meeting the global target. Interpretation Since 1980, age-standardised diabetes prevalence in adults has increased, or at best remained unchanged, in every country. Together with population growth and ageing, this rise has led to a near quadrupling of the number of adults with diabetes worldwide. The burden of diabetes, both in terms of prevalence and number of adults affected, has increased faster in low-income and middle-income countries than in high-income countries. Funding Wellcome Trust

MHD stability of toroidal plasma with modulated curvature planar magnetic axis

The authors study the equilibrium and analyze Mercier's criterion of stability (Mercier, 1964) near an arbitrary modulated curvature planar magnetic axis (with zero torsion and variable curvature) of non-circular (elliptically and triangularly deformed) toroidal plasma cross section with high pressure. A longitudinal uniform current is allowed to flow through the plasma. The influence of the modulation of the magnetic axis on the equilibrium and stability of this plasma configuration is also studied.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/48953/2/ppv23i5p385.pd

Bandt-Pompe symbolization dynamics for time series with tied values: A data-driven approach

In 2002, Bandt and Pompe [Phys. Rev. Lett. 88, 174102 (2002)] introduced a successfully symbolic encoding scheme based on the ordinal relation between the amplitude of neighboring values of a given data sequence, from which the permutation entropy can be evaluated. Equalities in the analyzed sequence, for example, repeated equal values, deserve special attention and treatment as was shown recently by Zunino and co-workers [Phys. Lett. A 381, 1883 (2017)]. A significant number of equal values can give rise to false conclusions regarding the underlying temporal structures in practical contexts. In the present contribution, we review the different existing methodologies for treating time series with tied values by classifying them according to their different strategies. In addition, a novel data-driven imputation is presented that proves to outperform the existing methodologies and avoid the false conclusions pointed by Zunino and co-workers.Fil: Traversaro Varela, Francisco. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Lanús; ArgentinaFil: Redelico, Francisco Oscar. Hospital Italiano; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Quilmes; ArgentinaFil: Risk, Marcelo. Hospital Italiano; Argentina. Instituto Tecnológico de Buenos Aires; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Frery, Alejandro César. Universidade Federal de Alagoas; BrasilFil: Rosso, Osvaldo Aníbal. Hospital Italiano; Argentina. Universidade Federal de Alagoas; Brasil. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad de Los Andes; Chil

Rising rural body-mass index is the main driver of the global obesity epidemic in adults [Letter]

Body-mass index (BMI) has increased steadily in most countries in parallel with a rise in the proportion of the population who live in cities1,2. This has led to a widely reported view that urbanization is one of the most important drivers of the global rise in obesity3,4,5,6. Here we use 2,009 population-based studies, with measurements of height and weight in more than 112 million adults, to report national, regional and global trends in mean BMI segregated by place of residence (a rural or urban area) from 1985 to 2017. We show that, contrary to the dominant paradigm, more than 55% of the global rise in mean BMI from 1985 to 2017—and more than 80% in some low- and middle-income regions—was due to increases in BMI in rural areas. This large contribution stems from the fact that, with the exception of women in sub-Saharan Africa, BMI is increasing at the same rate or faster in rural areas than in cities in low- and middle-income regions. These trends have in turn resulted in a closing—and in some countries reversal—of the gap in BMI between urban and rural areas in low- and middle-income countries, especially for women. In high-income and industrialized countries, we noted a persistently higher rural BMI, especially for women. There is an urgent need for an integrated approach to rural nutrition that enhances financial and physical access to healthy foods, to avoid replacing the rural undernutrition disadvantage in poor countries with a more general malnutrition disadvantage that entails excessive consumption of low-quality calories

ConXsense - Automated Context Classification for Context-Aware Access Control

We present ConXsense, the first framework for context-aware access control on mobile devices based on context classification. Previous context-aware access control systems often require users to laboriously specify detailed policies or they rely on pre-defined policies not adequately reflecting the true preferences of users. We present the design and implementation of a context-aware framework that uses a probabilistic approach to overcome these deficiencies. The framework utilizes context sensing and machine learning to automatically classify contexts according to their security and privacy-related properties. We apply the framework to two important smartphone-related use cases: protection against device misuse using a dynamic device lock and protection against sensory malware. We ground our analysis on a sociological survey examining the perceptions and concerns of users related to contextual smartphone security and analyze the effectiveness of our approach with real-world context data. We also demonstrate the integration of our framework with the FlaskDroid architecture for fine-grained access control enforcement on the Android platform.Comment: Recipient of the Best Paper Awar