Legal U.S. Immigration: Influences on Gender, Age, and Skill Composition

The authors develop empirical models that enable them to examine the influence of two important determinants - source country characteristics and U.S. immigration policy - on the gender, age, and skills of immigrants coming to America.https://research.upjohn.org/up_press/1064/thumbnail.jp

Chest pain while gardening: a Stanford type A dissection involving the aortic root extending into the iliac arteries-an uncommon and potentially catastrophic disease process

BACKGROUND: An aortic dissection is an uncommon and potentially catastrophic disease process that carries with it a high morbidity and mortality. The inciting event is a tear in the intimal lining of the aorta. This allows passage of blood through the tear and into the aortic media, resulting in the creation of a false lumen. CASE PRESENTATION: We describe the case of a 71-year-old male with a history of hypertension that suffered a Stanford type A dissection with an intimal flap beginning at the level of the aortic root and extending into the bilateral iliac arteries. His clinical presentation was further complicated by shock, cardiac tamponade, severe coagulopathy, an ischemic right lower extremity, infarction of his thoracic spinal cord, and subacute infarcts secondary to malperfusion and embolic disease. Despite maximal intervention, the patient continued to clinically decline and ultimately died on day 5. CONCLUSION: The clinical presentation of an acute aortic dissection is often atypical and mimics other common disease processes. The signs and symptoms largely depend on the extent of the aortic dissection and the presence or absence of malperfusion. With a mortality increasing by 1-2% for every hour until definitive treatment, early recognition and prompt operative intervention are crucial for patient survival

Urban Evolution: The Role of Water

The structure, function, and services of urban ecosystems evolve over time scales from seconds to centuries as Earth’s population grows, infrastructure ages, and sociopolitical values alter them. In order to systematically study changes over time, the concept of “urban evolution” was proposed. It allows urban planning, management, and restoration to move beyond reactive management to predictive management based on past observations of consistent patterns. Here, we define and review a glossary of core concepts for studying urban evolution, which includes the mechanisms of urban selective pressure and urban adaptation. Urban selective pressure is an environmental or societal driver contributing to urban adaptation. Urban adaptation is thesequential process by which an urban structure, function, or services becomes more fitted to its changing environment or human choices. The role of water is vital to driving urban evolution as demonstrated by historical changes in drainage, sewage flows, hydrologic pulses, and long-term chemistry. In the current paper, we show how hydrologic traits evolve across successive generations of urban ecosystems via shifts in selective pressures and adaptations over time. We explore multiple empirical examples including evolving: (1) urban drainage from stream burial to stormwater management; (2) sewage flows and water quality in response to wastewater treatment; (3) amplification of hydrologic pulses due to the interaction between urbanization and climate variability; and (4) salinization and alkalinization of fresh water due to human inputs and accelerated weathering. Finally, we propose a new conceptual model for the evolution of urban waters from the Industrial Revolution to the present day based on empirical trends and historical information. Ultimately, we propose that water itself is a critical driver of urban evolution that forces urban adaptation, which transforms the structure, function, and services of urban landscapes, waterways, and civilizations over time

Morphological and molecular evidence supports specific recognition of the recently extinct Bettongia anhydra (Marsupialia: Macropodidae)

In 1933, geologist and explorer Michael Terry collected the skull of a small macropodid captured by members of his party near Lake Mackay, western Northern Territory. In 1957, this skull was described as the sole exemplar of a distinct subspecies, Bettongia penicillata anhydra, but was later synonymized with B. lesueur and thereafter all but forgotten. We use a combination of craniodental morphology and ancient mitochondrial DNA to confirm that the Lake Mackay specimen is taxonomically distinct from all other species of Bettongia and recognize an additional specimen from a Western Australian Holocene fossil accumulation. B. anhydra is morphologically and genetically most similar to B. lesueur but differs in premolar shape, rostrum length, dentary proportions, and molar size gradient. In addition, it has a substantial mitochondrial cytochrome b pairwise distance of 9.6–12% relative to all other bettongs. The elevation of this recently extinct bettong to species status indicates that Australia’s mammal extinction record over the past 2 centuries is even worse than currently accepted. Like other bettongs, B. anhydra probably excavated much of its food and may have performed valuable ecological services that improved soil structure and water infiltration and retention, as well as playing an important role in the dispersal of seeds and mycorrhizal fungal spores. All extant species of Bettongia have experienced extensive range contractions since European colonization and some now persist only on island refugia. The near total loss of these ecosystem engineers from the Australian landscape has far-reaching ecological implications

A longer vernal window: The role of winter coldness and snowpack in driving spring thresholds and lags

Climate change is altering the timing and duration of the vernal window, a period that marks the end of winter and the start of the growing season when rapid transitions in ecosystem energy, water, nutrient, and carbon dynamics take place. Research on this period typically captures only a portion of the ecosystem in transition and focuses largely on the dates by which the system wakes up. Previous work has not addressed lags between transitions that represent delays in energy, water, nutrient, and carbon flows. The objectives of this study were to establish the sequence of physical and biogeochemical transitions and lags during the vernal window period and to understand how climate change may alter them. We synthesized observations from a statewide sensor network in New Hampshire, USA, that concurrently monitored climate, snow, soils, and streams over a three-year period and supplemented these observations with climate reanalysis data, snow data assimilation model output, and satellite spectral data. We found that some of the transitions that occurred within the vernal window were sequential, with air temperatures warming prior to snow melt, which preceded forest canopy closure. Other transitions were simultaneous with one another and had zero-length lags, such as snowpack disappearance, rapid soil warming, and peak stream discharge. We modeled lags as a function of both winter coldness and snow depth, both of which are expected to decline with climate change. Warmer winters with less snow resulted in longer lags and a more protracted vernal window. This lengthening of individual lags and of the entire vernal window carries important consequences for the thermodynamics and biogeochemistry of ecosystems, both during the winter-to-spring transition and throughout the rest of the year

The Redshift of the Optical Transient Associated with GRB 010222

The gamma-ray burst (GRB) 010222 is the brightest GRB detected to date by the BeppoSAX satellite. Prompt identification of the associated optical transient (OT) allowed for spectroscopy with the Tillinghast 1.5m telescope at F. L. Whipple Observatory while the source was still relatively bright (R ~ 18.6 mag), within five hours of the burst. The OT shows a blue continuum with many superimposed absorption features corresponding to metal lines at z = 1.477, 1.157, and possibly also at 0.928. The redshift of GRB 010222 is therefore unambiguously placed at z >= 1.477. The high number of Mg II absorbers and especially the large equivalent widths of the Mg II, Mg I, and Fe II absorption lines in the z = 1.477 system further argue either for a very small impact parameter or that the z = 1.477 system is the GRB host galaxy itself. The spectral index of the OT is relatively steep, beta = 0.89 +/- 0.03, and this cannot be caused by dust with a standard Galactic extinction law in the z = 1.477 absorption system. This spectroscopic identification of the redshift of GRB 010222 shows that prompt and well-coordinated followup of bright GRBs can be successful even with telescopes of modest aperture.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures; ApJ Letters accepted version, only minor change

Comparison of four dietary pattern indices in Australian baby boomers: Findings from the Busselton Healthy Ageing Study

The assessment of dietary patterns comprehensively represents the totality of the diet, an important risk factor for many chronic diseases. This study aimed to characterise and compare four dietary pattern indices in middle-aged Australian adults. In 3458 participants (55 % female) from the Busselton Healthy Ageing Study (Phase Two), a validated food frequency questionnaire was used to capture dietary data between 2016 and 2022. Four dietary patterns [Australian Dietary Guideline Index 2013 (DGI-2013); the Mediterranean Diet Index (MedDiet); the Literature-based Mediterranean Diet Index (Lit-MedDiet); and the EAT-Lancet Index], were calculated and compared by measuring total and sub-component scores, and concordance (ρc). Cross-sectional associations between the dietary indices and demographic, lifestyle, and medical conditions were modelled with linear regression and restricted cubic splines. Participants had the highest standardised scores for the DGI-2013 followed by the EAT-Lancet Index and the MedDiet, with the lowest standardised scores observed for the Lit-MedDiet. The DGI-2013 had the lowest agreement with the other scores (ρc ≤ 0.47). These findings indicate that the diets included in this Australian cohort align more closely with the Australian Dietary Guidelines than with the other international dietary patterns, likely due to the wide variation of individual food group weightings in the construction of these indices

Psychometric evaluation of the Chinese version of the subjective happiness scale: Evidence from the Hong Kong FAMILY cohort

BACKGROUND: With China's rapid economic growth in the past few decades, there is currently an emerging focus on happiness. Cross-cultural validity studies have indicated that the four-item Subjective Happiness Scale (SHS) has high internal consistency and stable reliability. However, the psychometric characteristics of the SHS in broader Chinese community samples are unknown. PURPOSE: We evaluated the factor structure and psychometric properties of the SHS in the Hong Kong general population. METHODS: The Chinese SHS was derived using forward-backward translation. Of the Cantonese-speaking participants aged >/=15 years, 2,635 were randomly selected from the random sample component of the FAMILY Cohort, a territory-wide cohort study in Hong Kong. In addition to the SHS, a single-item overall happiness scale, the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), the Family Adaptation, Partnership, Growth, Affection, Resolve (APGAR) scale, and the Medical Outcomes Study 12-item short-form version 2 (SF-12) mental and physical health scales were administered. RESULTS: Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses supported a single factor with high loadings for the four SHS items. Multiple group analyses indicated factor invariance across sex and age groups. Cronbach's alpha was 0.82, and 2-week test-retest reliability (n = 191) was 0.70. The SHS correlated significantly with single-item overall happiness (Spearman's rho [rho] = 0.57), Family APGAR (rho = 0.26), PHQ-9 (rho = -0.34), and mental health-related quality of life (rho = 0.40) but showed a lower correlation with physical health (rho = 0.15). A regression model that included the PHQ-9 and Family APGAR scores explained 37 % of the variance in SF-12 mental health scores; adding the SHS raised the variance explained to 41 %. CONCLUSIONS: Our results support the reliability and validity of the SHS as a relevant component in the measurement battery for mental well-being in a Chinese general population.published_or_final_versio

Insights from the Inclusive Environments and Metrics in Biology Education and Research Network: Our Experience Organizing Inclusive Biology Education Research Events

In contrast to efforts focusing on improving inclusion in STEM classrooms from kindergarten through un-dergraduate (K–16), efforts to improve inclusion in scientific meetings and conferences, important hubs of STEM culture, are more recent. Markers of inclusion that are sometimes overlooked at these events can include the composition of panels, how workshops are run, the affordability of conferences, and various other mechanisms that maintain pre-existing hierarchies and norms that limit the participation of early-career researchers and individuals of minoritized cultural, linguistic, and economic backgrounds. The Inclusive Environments and Metrics in Biology Education and Research (iEMBER) network coordinates efforts of researchers from many fields interested in diversity and inclusion in biology education. Given the concerns regarding inclusion at professional meetings, iEMBER has developed and implemented several practices in planning and executing our meetings to make them more inclusive. In this report, we share our experiences developing inclusive meetings on biology education research and discuss the outcomes of such efforts. Spe-cifically, we present our approach to planning and executing the iEMBER 2019 conference and the National Association of Biology Teachers iEMBER 2019 workshop. This report adds to the growing body of resources on inclusive meetings, provides readers with an account of how such an attempt at implementation might unfold, and complements existing theories and work relating to the importance and functioning of such meetings in terms of representation in STEM