From Angela's Ashes to the Celtic Tiger: Early Life Conditions and Adult Health in Ireland

We use data from the Irish census and exploit regional and temporal variation in infant mortality rates over the 20th century to examine effects of early life conditions on later life health. Our main identification is public health interventions which eliminated the Irish urban infant mortality penalty. Estimates suggest that a unit decrease in mortality rates at time of birth reduces the probability of being disabled as an adult by between .03 and .05 percentage points. We find that individuals from lower socio economic groups had marginal effects of reduced infant mortality twice as large as those at the top.childhood health, disability

Representing disease courses: An application of the Neurological Disease Ontology to Multiple Sclerosis Typology

The Neurological Disease Ontology (ND) is being developed to provide a comprehensive framework for the representation of neurological diseases (Diehl et al., 2013). ND utilizes the model established by the Ontology for General Medical Science (OGMS) for the representation of entities in medicine and disease (Scheuermann et al., 2009). The goal of ND is to include information for each disease concerning its molecular, genetic, and environmental origins, the processes involved in its etiology and realization, as well as its clinical presentation including signs and symptoms

From Illegal to Legal: Estimating Previous Illegal Experience among New Legal Immigrants to the United States

This paper develops a framework for estimating previous illegal experience among annual cohorts of new legal immigrants to the United States – using public-use administrative microdata alone, survey data alone, and the two jointly – and provides estimates for the FY 1996 cohort of new immigrants, based on both administrative and survey data. Our procedures enable assessment of type of illegal experience, including entry without inspection, visa overstay, and unauthorized employment. We compare our estimates of previous illegal experience to estimates that would be obtained using administrative data alone; examine the extent of previous illegal experience by country of birth, immigrant class of admission, religion, and geographic residence in the United States; and estimate multivariate models of the probability of having previous illegal experience. To further assess origins and destinations, we carry out two kinds of contrasts, comparing formerly illegal new legal immigrants both to fellow immigrants who do not have previous illegal experience and also to the broader unauthorized population, the latter using estimates developed by DHS (2002), Passel (2002), and Costanzo et al. (2002).administrative data, legal immigration, illegal immigration, survey data

Immigrant Health--Selectivity and Acculturation

This paper explores some salient issues concerning immigrant health. Ethnic health disparities are inherently linked to immigration since ethnic identities often are traced to the country of origin of one's immigrant ancestors. Two of the central questions that have dominated the medical and social science literature on immigrant health are the central focus of this paper. These issues involve the magnitude and mechanisms shaping health selectivity and the determinants of health trajectories following immigration. As part of this paper, we also developed a theoretical model that attempts to explain the diversity in health selection among immigrants.

Immigration, health, and New York City: early results based on the U.S. new immigrant cohort of 2003

This article was presented at a conference organized by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in April 2005, "Urban Dynamics in New York City." The goal of the conference was threefold: to examine the historical transformations of the engine-of-growth industries in New York and distill the main determinants of the city's historical dominance as well as the challenges to its continued success; to study the nature and evolution of immigration flows into New York; and to analyze recent trends in a range of socioeconomic outcomes, both for the general population and recent immigrants more specifically.Immigrants - New York (N.Y.) ; Medical care - New York (N.Y.) ; Economic conditions - New York (N.Y.) ; Federal Reserve District, 2nd

Hard x-ray polarimetry with the Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (RHESSI)

Although designed primarily as a hard X-ray imager and spectrometer, the Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (RHESSI) is also capable of measuring the polarization of hard X-rays (20-100 keV) from solar flares. This capability arises from the inclusion of a small unobstructed Be scattering element that is strategically located within the cryostat that houses the array of nine germanium detectors. The Ge detectors are segmented, with both a front and rear active volume. Low energy photons (below about 100 keV) can reach a rear segment of a Ge detector only indirectly, by scattering. Low energy photons from the Sun have a direct path to the Be and have a high probability of Compton scattering into a rear segment of a Ge detector. The azimuthal distribution of these scattered photons carries with it a signature of the linear polarization of the incident flux. Sensitivity estimates, based on simulations and in-flight background measurements, indicate that a 20-100 keV polarization sensitivity of less than a few percent can be achieved for X-class flares

Pulsed laser deposition for growth of high quality epitaxial garnet films for low threshold waveguide lasers

Pulsed laser deposition (PLD) is a mature technique capable of producing extremely high quality epitaxial single crystalline films. We have grown Nd:doped garnet films of GGG (Gd The talk will summarise our progress using conventional (single beam) PLD in thin-film and waveguide growth, using both nanosecond and femtosecond lasers, and also introduce our new directions in tri-beam PLD (three targets, three lasers) for growth of some interesting, complex and perhaps impossible structures, such as Gaussian doping, internal voids and even helically doped structures

Large-scale Star Formation Triggering in the Low-mass Arp 82 System: A Nearby Example of Galaxy Downsizing Based on UV/Optical/Mid-IR Imaging

As part of our Spitzer Spirals, Bridges, and Tails project to help understand the effects of galaxy interactions on star formation, we analyze GALEX ultraviolet, SARA optical, and Spitzer infrared images of the interacting galaxy pair Arp 82 (NGC 2535/6) and compare to a numerical simulation of the interaction. We investigate the multiwavelength properties of several individual star forming complexes (clumps). Using optical and UV colors, EW(Halpha), and population synthesis models we constrain the ages of the clumps and find that the median clump age is about 12 Myr. The clumps have masses ranging from a few times 10^6 to 10^9 solar masses. In general, the clumps in the tidal features have similar ages to those in the spiral region, but are less massive. The 8 micron and 24 micron luminosities are used to estimate the far-infrared luminosities and the star formation rates of the clumps. The total clump star formation rate is 2.0+/-0.8 solar masses per year, while the entire Arp 82 system is forming stars at a rate of 4.9+/-2.0 solar masses per year. We find, for the first time, stars in the HI arc to the southeast of the NGC 2535 disk. Population synthesis models indicate that all of the observed populations have young to intermediate ages. We conclude that although the gas disks and some old stars may have formed early-on, the progenitors are late-type or low surface brightness and the evolution of these galaxies was halted until the recent encounter.Comment: Accepted for publication in the AJ, 22 Figures, 5 Table