Revisiting the Cold War in Latin America

This essay reviews the following works: Rivalry and Alliance Politics in Cold War Latin America. By Christopher Darnton. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014. Pp. ix + 285. $44.95 paper. ISBN: 9781421413617. Neither Peace nor Freedom: The Cultural Cold War in Latin America. By Patrick Iber. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015. Pp. 1 + 327.$39.95 cloth. ISBN: 9780674286047. Mexico’s Cold War: Cuba, the United States, and the Legacy of the Mexican Revolution. By Renata Keller. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Pp. xix + 274. $103.00 cloth. ISBN: 9781107079588. Back Channel to Cuba: The Hidden History of Negotiations between Washington and Havana. By William M. LeoGrande and Peter Kornbluh. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014. Pp. xiv + 524.$25.00 paper. ISBN: 9781469617633. Reagan and Pinochet: The Struggle over U.S. Policy toward Chile. By Morris Morley and Chris McGillion. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Pp. xiii + 338. $35.99 paper. ISBN: 9781107458093

Outcomes of Shoulder Arthroplasty Performed for Postinfectious Arthritis.

Background: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the functional outcomes, infection rate, and complications associated with shoulder arthroplasty for sequelae of prior septic arthritis. Methods: This is a retrospective cohort study of 17 patients who underwent shoulder arthroplasty for sequelae of septic arthritis. Patients were analyzed for patient-reported outcomes, complications, and reoperations. Results: The 17 patients in this cohort were an average age of 65.4 ± 12.2 years old, were 58.8% male, and had an average body mass index of 27.9 ± 4.1 kg/m Conclusions: Shoulder arthroplasty after septic arthritis had inconsistent functional outcomes and high complication rates but no reinfection

Energy Access Scenarios to 2030 for the Power Sector in Sub-Saharan Africa

In order to reach a goal of universal access to modern energy services in Africa by 2030, consideration of various electricity sector pathways is required to help inform policy-makers and investors, and help guide power system design. To that end, and building on existing tools and analysis, we present several ‘high-level’, transparent, and economy-wide scenarios for the sub-Saharan African power sector to 2030. We construct these simple scenarios against the backdrop of historical trends and various interpretations of universal access. They are designed to provide the international community with an indication of the overall scale of the effort required. We find that most existing projections, using typical long-term forecasting methods for power planning, show roughly a threefold increase in installed generation capacity occurring by 2030, but more than a tenfold increase would likely be required to provide for full access – even at relatively modest levels of electricity consumption. This equates to approximately a 13% average annual growth rate, compared to a historical one (in the last two decades) of 1.7%.Energy Access, Power System Planning, Sub-Saharan Africa

Assessing Intra-Event Phosphorus Dynamics in Drainage Water Using Phosphate Stable Oxygen Isotopes

Quantifying fluxes and pathways of dissolved reactive phosphorus (DRP) in tile-drained landscapes has been hampered by a lack of measurements that are sensitive to P fate and transport processes. One potential tool to help understand these dynamics is the oxygen isotope signature of phosphate (δ18OPO4); however, its potential benefits and limitations are not well understood for intra-event dynamics at the field scale. The objectives of this study were to quantify intra-event variability of δ18OPO4 signatures in tile drainage water and assess the efficacy of δ18OPO4 to elucidate mechanisms and flow pathways controlling DRP transport to tile drains. We collected water samples during a summer storm event from a subsurface (tile)-drained field located in west-central Ohio and analyzed for δ18OPO4 of DRP. Supplementary water quality measurements, hydrologic modeling, and soil temperature data were used to help understand intra-event δ18OPO4 dynamics. Results of the soil extraction analysis from our study site highlight that the soil water-extractable P (WEP) pool was not in equilibrium with long-term, temperature-dependent water isotope values. This result suggests that P-rich soils may, at least partially, retain their original source signature, which has significant implications for identifying hotspots of P delivery in watershed-scale applications. Results of the storm event analysis highlight that equilibration of leached DRP in soil water creates a gradient between isotopic compositions of pre-event shallow subsurface sources, pre-event deep subsurface sources, and the WEP tied up in surface soils. The current study represents the first intra-event analysis of δ18OPO4 and highlights the potential for phosphate oxygen isotopes as a novel tool to improve understanding of P fate and transport in artificially drained agroecosystems

DNA Cleaving "Tandem-Array" Metallopeptides Activated With KHSO5: Towards the Development of Multi-Metallated Bioactive Conjugates and Compounds

Amino terminal peptides of the general form Gly-Gly-His have been used to introduce single sites of metal binding and redox activity into a wide range of biomolecules to create bioactive compounds and conjugates capable of substrate oxidation. We report here that Gly-Gly-His-like peptides linked in a tandem fashion can also be generated leading to multi-metal binding arrays. While metal binding by the native Gly-Gly-His motif (typically to Cu(2+), Ni(2+), or Co(2+)) requires a terminal peptide amine ligand, previous work has demonstrated that an ornithine (Orn) residue can be substituted for the terminal Gly residue to allow solid-phase peptide synthesis to continue via the side chain N-δ. This strategy thus frees the Orn residue N-α for metal binding and permits placement of a Gly-Gly-His-like metal binding domain at any location within a linear, synthetic peptide chain. As we show here, this strategy also permits the assembly of tandem arrays of metal binding units in linear peptides of the form: NH2-Gly-Gly-His-[(δ)-Orn-Gly-His]n-(δ)-Orn-Gly-His-CONH2 (where n = 0, 1, and 2). Metal binding titrations of these tandem arrays monitored by UV-vis and ESI-MS indicated that they bind Cu(2+), Ni(2+), or Co(2+) at each available metal binding site. Further, it was found that these systems retained their ability to modify DNA oxidatively and to an extent greater than their parent M(II)•Gly-Gly-His. These findings suggest that the tandem array metallopeptides described here may function with increased efficiency as "next generation" appendages in the design of bioactive compounds and conjugates

Infrared Diode Laser Spectrometer for the Study of Jet Cooled Gases

We have constructed a tunable, high resolution, infrared diode laser spectrometer and combined it with a pulsed supersonic jet expansion. A modified version of the Perry multipass cell has been incorporated into the spectrometer to increase the effective absorption path length. Performance capabilities of the spectrometer are evaluated by examining ro-vibrational spectra for the carbon monoxide molecule in the five micron region of the infrared. From these measurements, an instrumental absorption sensitivity is determined. Finally, since one of our immediate goals is the infrared study of jet cooled transition metal carbonyls, we present high resolution data obtained by entraining the vapor above a solid metal carbonyl and injecting it into the pulsed jet expansion

Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program: An Economic and Operational Analysis

The Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP), a part of the U.S. Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, requires the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to penalize hospitals with excess readmissions. We take an economic and operational (patient flow) perspective to analyze the effectiveness of this policy in encouraging hospitals to reduce readmissions. We develop a game-theoretic model that captures the competition among hospitals inherent in HRRP’s benchmarking mechanism. We show that this competition can be counterproductive: it increases the number of nonincentivized hospitals, which prefer paying penalties over reducing readmissions in any equilibrium. We calibrate our model with a data set of more than 3,000 hospitals in the United States and show that under the current policy, and for a large set of parameters, 4%–13% of the hospitals remain nonincentivized to reduce readmissions. We also validate our model against the actual performance of hospitals in the three years since the introduction of the policy. We draw several policy recommendations to improve this policy’s outcome. For example, localizing the benchmarking process—comparing hospitals against similar peers—improves the performance of the policy

Clustering of adverse health and educational outcomes in adolescence following early childhood disadvantage: population-based retrospective UK cohort study

Background: Disadvantage in early childhood (ages 0–5 years) is associated with worse health and educational outcomes in adolescence. Evidence on the clustering of these adverse outcomes by household income is scarce in the generation of adolescents born since the turn of the millennium. We aimed to describe the association between household income in early childhood and physical health, psychological distress, smoking behaviour, obesity, and educational outcomes at age 17 years, including the patterning and clustering of these five outcomes by income quintiles. Methods: In this population-based, retrospective cohort study, we used data from the Millennium Cohort Study in which individuals born in the UK between Sept 1, 2000, and Jan 1, 2002, were followed up. We collected data on five adverse health and social outcomes in adolescents aged 17 years known to limit life chances: psychological distress, self-assessed ill health, smoking, obesity, and poor educational achievement. We compared how single and multiple outcomes were distributed across early childhood quintile groups of income, as an indicator of disadvantage, and modelled the potential effect of three income-shifting scenarios in early childhood for reducing adverse outcomes in adolescence. Findings: We included 15 245 adolescents aged 17 years, 7788 (51·1%) of whom were male and 7457 (48·9%) of whom were female. Adolescents in the lowest income quintile group in childhood were 12·7 (95% CI 6·4–25·1) times more likely than those in the highest quintile group to have four or five adverse adolescent outcomes, with poor educational achievement (risk ratio [RR] 4·6, 95% CI 4·2–5·0) and smoking (3·6, 3·0–4·2), showing the largest single risk ratios. Shifting up to the second lowest, middle, and highest income groups would reduce multiple adolescent adversities by 4·9% (95% CI –23·8 to 33·6), 32·3% (–2·7 to 67·3), and 83·9% (47·2 to 120·7), respectively. Adjusting for parental education and single parent status moderately attenuated these estimates. Interpretation: Early childhood disadvantage is more strongly correlated with multiple adolescent adversities than any of the five single adverse outcomes. However, shifting children from the lowest income quintile group to the next lowest group is ineffective. Tackling multiple adolescent adversities requires managing early childhood disadvantage across the social gradient, with income redistribution as a central element of coordinated cross-sectoral action. Funding: UK Prevention Research Partnership

Clustering of adverse health and educational outcomes in adolescence following early childhood disadvantage: population-based retrospective UK cohort study

BACKGROUND: Disadvantage in early childhood (ages 0-5 years) is associated with worse health and educational outcomes in adolescence. Evidence on the clustering of these adverse outcomes by household income is scarce in the generation of adolescents born since the turn of the millennium. We aimed to describe the association between household income in early childhood and physical health, psychological distress, smoking behaviour, obesity, and educational outcomes at age 17 years, including the patterning and clustering of these five outcomes by income quintiles. METHODS: In this population-based, retrospective cohort study, we used data from the Millennium Cohort Study in which individuals born in the UK between Sept 1, 2000, and Jan 1, 2002, were followed up. We collected data on five adverse health and social outcomes in adolescents aged 17 years known to limit life chances: psychological distress, self-assessed ill health, smoking, obesity, and poor educational achievement. We compared how single and multiple outcomes were distributed across early childhood quintile groups of income, as an indicator of disadvantage, and modelled the potential effect of three income-shifting scenarios in early childhood for reducing adverse outcomes in adolescence. FINDINGS: We included 15 245 adolescents aged 17 years, 7788 (51·1%) of whom were male and 7457 (48·9%) of whom were female. Adolescents in the lowest income quintile group in childhood were 12·7 (95% CI 6·4-25·1) times more likely than those in the highest quintile group to have four or five adverse adolescent outcomes, with poor educational achievement (risk ratio [RR] 4·6, 95% CI 4·2-5·0) and smoking (3·6, 3·0-4·2), showing the largest single risk ratios. Shifting up to the second lowest, middle, and highest income groups would reduce multiple adolescent adversities by 4·9% (95% CI -23·8 to 33·6), 32·3% (-2·7 to 67·3), and 83·9% (47·2 to 120·7), respectively. Adjusting for parental education and single parent status moderately attenuated these estimates. INTERPRETATION: Early childhood disadvantage is more strongly correlated with multiple adolescent adversities than any of the five single adverse outcomes. However, shifting children from the lowest income quintile group to the next lowest group is ineffective. Tackling multiple adolescent adversities requires managing early childhood disadvantage across the social gradient, with income redistribution as a central element of coordinated cross-sectoral action

Revisiting the Rise of Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems Using Search Query Surveillance

Public perceptions of electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) remain poorly understood because surveys are too costly to regularly implement and when implemented there are large delays between data collection and dissemination. Search query surveillance has bridged some of these gaps. Herein, ENDS’ popularity in the U.S. is reassessed using Google searches