A County-Level Analysis of the Relationship between Voter Behavior as a Proxy for Partisan Ideology, Income, and the Effects on Health Morbidity and Mortality Measures

Introduction: Domestic research studies focused on the interrelationships between political ideology characteristics inherent in policy decisions and the contributions these political determinants exert over health indicators and outcomes are limited. Given the paucity of research that focuses on political and policy support of health at the county-level, this study sets out to utilize the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute’s (UWPHI) annual County Health Rankings data and examine them within the context of county-based majority political partisanship and economic measures. Methods: This exploratory ecological study examined differences between independent variables: partisan voting behavior (trichotomized as conservative, moderate, and liberal) and median per capita household income in U.S. dollars (by quartile) on dependent variables related to mortality (years of productive life lost) and morbidity (number of poor mental and physical health days) at the county-level to compare differences in political and ideological underpinnings that may act as influencers on health outcomes. Multiple data sources were combined and matched to all 3,140 counties located in the U.S. Two-way between-subjects ANOVA statistical tests were conducted to determine if there is an effect of partisan voter index category on the three aforementioned dependent variables related to health outcomes, and median per capita income by quartile. Results: There was a statistically significant main interaction between median per capita household income by quartile and partisan voter index category on years of productive life lost, F(6,2789) = 19.3, p \u3c .000, partial η2 = .040. While there were also statistically significant interactions between the independent and dependent variables of poor mental and physical health days, results of those analyses should be interpreted with caution. Pertaining to years of productive life lost, post hoc analyses of significant interactions revealed significant differences at the lower income quartile, but not in the expected direction. The conservative category had statistically significant lower years of productive life lost in comparison to the liberal category (M = -8.21, SE = 1.47, p = .000). Also, there were significant differences detected in the upper quartile suggesting that the liberal category has lower years of productive life lost in comparison to the conservative category (M = 7.06, SE = 1.06, p = .000). Conclusion: Results should be interpreted with caution and suggest more research and methodological refinements are needed, particularly related to categorizing county-level political dynamics

Widespread methanotrophic primary production in lowland chalk rivers

F.S. is supported by a Natural Environment Research Council CASE studentship with the Freshwater Biological Association of the UK

Coupled nitrification and N2 gas production as a cryptic process in oxic riverbeds.

The coupling between nitrification and N2 gas production to recycle ammonia back to the atmosphere is a key step in the nitrogen cycle that has been researched widely. An assumption for such research is that the products of nitrification (nitrite or nitrate) mix freely in the environment before reduction to N2 gas. Here we show, in oxic riverbeds, that the pattern of N2 gas production from ammonia deviates by ~3- to 16-fold from that predicted for denitrification or anammox involving nitrite or nitrate as free porewater intermediates. Rather, the patterns match that for a coupling through a cryptic pool, isolated from the porewater. A cryptic pool challenges our understanding of a key step in the nitrogen cycle and masks our ability to distinguish between sources of N2 gas that 20 years' research has sought to identify. Our reasoning suggests a new pathway or a new type of coupling between known pathways in the nitrogen cycle

Non-conditioned generation of Schroedinger cat states in a cavity

We investigate the dynamics of a two-level atom in a cavity filled with a nonlinear medium. We show that the atom-field detuning $\delta$ and the nonlinear parameter $\chi^{(3)}$ may be combined to yield a periodic dynamics and allowing the generation of almost exact superpositions of coherent states ({\sl Schr\"odinger} cats). By analysing the atomic inversion and the field purity, we verify that any initial atom-field state is recovered at each revival time, and that a coherent field interacting with an excited atom evolves to a superposition of coherent states at each collapse time. We show that a mixed field state (statistical mixture of two coherent states) evolves towards a pure field state ({\sl Schr\"odinger} cat) as well. We discuss the validity of those results by using the field fidelity and the {\sl Wigner} function.Comment: REVTeX4, 8 pages, 7 figures, link to an external animation fil

Asymmetric Mach-Zehnder fiber interferometer test of the anisotropy of the speed of light

Two optical fiber Mach-Zehnder interferometers were constructed in an environment with a temperature stabilization of better than 1 mK per day. One interferometer with a length of 2 m optical fiber in each arm with the main direction of the arms parallel to each other. A path (length 175 mm) filled with atmospheric air is inserted in one arm. Another interferometer with a length of 2 m optical fiber in each parallel arm acts as a control. In each arm 1 m of fiber was wound around a ring made of piezo material enabling the control of the length of the arms by means of a voltage. The influence of rotation of the interferometers at the Earth surface on the observed phase differences was determined. For one interferometer (with the air path) it was found that the phase difference depends on the azimuth of the interferometer. For the other one no relevant dependence on the azimuth has been measured.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figure

Spatial separation of anaerobic ammonium oxidation and nitrite-dependent anaerobic methane oxidation in permeable riverbeds.

Anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox) and nitrite-dependent anaerobic methane oxidation (n-damo) play important roles in nitrogen and carbon cycling in fresh waters but we do not know how these two processes compete for their common electron acceptor, nitrite. Here, we investigated the spatial distribution of anammox and n-damo across a range of permeable riverbed sediments. Anammox activity and gene abundance were detected in both gravel and sandy riverbeds and showed a simple, common vertical distribution pattern, while the patterns in n-damo were more complex and n-damo activity was confined to the more reduced, sandy riverbeds. Anammox was most active in surficial sediment (0-2cm), coincident with a peak in hzsA gene abundance and nitrite. In contrast, n-damo activity peaked deeper down (4-8cm) in the sandy riverbeds, coincident with a peak in n-damo 16S rRNA gene abundance and higher methane concentration. Pore water nitrite, methane and oxygen were key factors influencing the distribution of these two processes in permeable riverbeds. Furthermore, both anammox- and n-damo- activity were positively correlated with denitrification activity, suggesting a role for denitrification in supplying both processes with nitrite. Our data reveal spatial separation between anammox and n-damo in permeable riverbed sediments that potentially avoids them competing for nitrite. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved

Benefits and Pitfalls of Secondary Antibodies: Why Choosing the Right Secondary Is of Primary Importance

Simultaneous labeling of multiple targets in a single sample, or multiplexing, is a powerful approach to directly compare the amount, localization and/or molecular properties of different targets in the same sample. Here we highlight the robust reliability of the simultaneous use of multiple mouse monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) of different immunoglobulin G (IgG) subclasses in a wide variety of multiplexing applications employing anti-mouse IgG subclass-specific secondary antibodies (2°Abs). We also describe the unexpected finding that IgG subclass-specific 2°Abs are superior to general anti-mouse IgG 2°Abs in every tested application in which mouse mAbs were used. This was due to a detection bias of general anti-mouse IgG-specific 2°Abs against mAbs of the most common mouse IgG subclass, IgG1, and to a lesser extent IgG2b mAbs. Thus, when using any of numerous mouse mAbs available through commercial and non-profit sources, for cleaner and more robust results each mAb should be detected with its respective IgG subclass-specific 2°Ab and not a general anti-mouse IgG-specific 2°Ab

Incomplete quantum state estimation: a comprehensive study

We present a detailed account of quantum state estimation by joint maximization of the likelihood and the entropy. After establishing the algorithms for both perfect and imperfect measurements, we apply the procedure to data from simulated and actual experiments. We demonstrate that the realistic situation of incomplete data from imperfect measurements can be handled successfully.Comment: 11 pages, 10 figure

Space shuttle abort separation pressure investigation. Volume 2, Part B: Orbiter data at Mach 5

For abstract, see

Higher biodiversity is required to sustain multiple ecosystem processes across temperature regimes

Natural Environment Research Council. Grant Number: NE/D013305/