ECONOMIC EFFECTS OF COPPER-NICKEL DEVELOPMENT IN NORTHEAST MINNESOTA

Computer simulations of industry gross output, employment and earnings changes associated with alternative copper-nickel development scenarios are presented in this report. The direct and indirect economic effects of seven development scenarios are projected for a mining impact Study Area in St. Louis County, Minnesota.Community/Rural/Urban Development, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

ECONOMIC EFFECTS OF MINNESOTA PEATLAND DEVELOPMENT

Existing peatland development and future uses for peat are described and evaluated in this report. Scenarios for future development of the study area peat industry are described in terms of employment, earnings, capital investment, and value of production. Forecasts of the potential impacts of peatland development on regional industry production, employment, earnings, and population are presented. These impacts are determined by using SIMLAB, an acronym for a regional socio-economic computer model developed at the University of Minnesota for quantitative analysis of the direct, indirect and induced socio-economic effects of events like peatland development.Land Economics/Use,

USERS' GUIDE TO THE MINNESOTA REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT SIMULATION LABORATORY

This manual is a users' guide to the Minnesota Regional Development Simulation Laboratory, called SIMLAB.Community/Rural/Urban Development,

Bayesian ancestral reconstruction for bat echolocation

Ancestral reconstruction can be understood as an interpolation between measured characteristics of existing populations to those of their common ancestors. Doing so provides an insight into the characteristics of organisms that lived millions of years ago. Such reconstructions are inherently uncertain, making this an ideal application area for Bayesian statistics. As such, Gaussian processes serve as a basis for many probabilistic models for trait evolution, which assume that measured characteristics, or some transformation of those characteristics, are jointly Gaussian distributed. While these models do provide a theoretical basis for uncertainty quantification in ancestral reconstruction, practical approaches to their implementation have proven challenging. In this thesis, novel Bayesian methods for ancestral reconstruction are developed and applied to bat echolocation calls. This work proposes the first fully Bayesian approach to inference within the Phylogenetic Gaussian Process Regression framework for Function-Valued Traits, producing an ancestral reconstruction for which any uncertainty in this model may be quantified. The framework is then generalised to collections of discrete and continuous traits, and an efficient approximate Bayesian inference scheme proposed, representing the first application of Variational inference techniques to the problem of ancestral reconstruction. This efficient approach is then applied to the reconstruction of bat echolocation calls, providing new insights into the developmental pathways of this remarkable characteristic. It is the complexity of bat echolocation that motivates the proposed approach to evolutionary inference, however, the resulting statistical methods are broadly applicable within the field of Evolutionary Biology

Damage Control Thoracotomy: A Systematic Review of Techniques and Outcomes

Background : Damage control surgery is the practice of delaying definitive management of traumatic injuries by controlling hemorrhage in the operating room and restoring normal physiology in the intensive care unit prior to definitive therapy. Presently, damage control or “abbreviated” laparotomy is used extensively for abdominal trauma in an unstable patient. The application of a damage control approach in thoracic trauma is less established and there is a paucity of literature supporting or refuting this practice. We aimed to systematically review the current data on damage control thoracotomy (DCT), to identify gaps in the literature and techniques in temporary closure. Methods : An electronic literature search of Pubmed, MEDLINE, and the Cochrane Database of Collected Reviews from 1972-2018 was performed using the keywords “thoracic,” “damage control,” and “thoracotomy.” Studies were included if they reported the use of DCT following thoracic trauma and included survival as an outcome. Results : Of 723 studies, seven met inclusion criteria for a total of a 130 DCT operations. Gauze packing with temporary closure of the skin with suture was the most frequently reported form of closure. The overall survival rate for the seven studies was 67%. Survival rates ranged from 42-77%. Average injury severity score was 30, and 64% of injuries were penetrating in nature. The most common complications included infections (57%; pneumonia, empyema, wound infection, bacteremia), respiratory failure (21%), ARDS (8%), and renal failure (18%). Conclusion : DCT may be associated with improved survival in the critically injured patient population. Delaying definitive operation by temporarily closing the thorax in order to allow time to restore normal physiology may be considered as a strategy in the unstable thoracic trauma patient population. The impact an open chest has on respiratory physiology remains inconclusive as well as best mechanisms of temporary closure. Multi-center studies are required to elucidate these important questions

DECENTRALIZATION IN UGANDA

The theory of fiscal federalism provides several reasons to expect better public service delivery if government is decentralized. Demand for public services is expected to vary across jurisdictions, and local government officials are expected to match supply of public services with demand more effectively than if public services were centrally provided. Households are expected to have higher participation rates in elections and to vote for better reasons (the candidates' experience, agenda or political affiliation, rather than bribery or the candidates' race, religion etc.) at the local level, and to have better access to information about local affairs than about national politics. Finally, mobility across jurisdictions is expected to induce local governments to be more efficient. We review the decentralization process in Uganda and provide evidence on all these mechanisms. There turns out to be little support for the relevance of these hypotheses to Uganda

Observation of High-Energy Astrophysical Neutrinos in Three Years of IceCube Data

A search for high-energy neutrinos interacting within the IceCube detector between 2010 and 2012 provided the first evidence for a high-energy neutrino flux of extraterrestrial origin. Results from an analysis using the same methods with a third year (2012-2013) of data from the complete IceCube detector are consistent with the previously reported astrophysical flux in the 100 TeV - PeV range at the level of $10^{-8}\, \mathrm{GeV}\, \mathrm{cm}^{-2}\, \mathrm{s}^{-1}\, \mathrm{sr}^{-1}$ per flavor and reject a purely atmospheric explanation for the combined 3-year data at $5.7 \sigma$. The data are consistent with expectations for equal fluxes of all three neutrino flavors and with isotropic arrival directions, suggesting either numerous or spatially extended sources. The three-year dataset, with a livetime of 988 days, contains a total of 37 neutrino candidate events with deposited energies ranging from 30 to 2000 TeV. The 2000 TeV event is the highest-energy neutrino interaction ever observed.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures. Accepted by PRL. The event catalog, event displays, and other data tables are included after the final page of the article. Changed from the initial submission to reflect referee comments, expanding the section on atmospheric backgrounds, and fixes offsets of up to 0.9 seconds in reported event times. Address correspondence to: J. Feintzeig, C. Kopper, N. Whitehor

Primary Care and Youth Mental Health in Ireland: Qualitative Study in Deprived Urban Areas

BACKGROUND: Mental disorders account for six of the 20 leading causes of disability worldwide with a very high prevalence of psychiatric morbidity in youth aged 15-24 years. However, healthcare professionals are faced with many challenges in the identification and treatment of mental and substance use disorders in young people (e.g. young people\u27s unwillingness to seek help from healthcare professionals, lack of training, limited resources etc.) The challenge of youth mental health for primary care is especially evident in urban deprived areas, where rates of and risk factors for mental health problems are especially common. There is an emerging consensus that primary care is well placed to address mental and substance use disorders in young people especially in deprived urban areas. This study aims to describe healthcare professionals\u27 experience and attitudes towards screening and early intervention for mental and substance use disorders among young people (16-25 years) in primary care in deprived urban settings in Ireland. METHODS: The chosen method for this qualitative study was inductive thematic analysis which involved semi-structured interviews with 37 healthcare professionals from primary care, secondary care and community agencies at two deprived urban centres. RESULTS: We identified three themes in respect of interventions to increase screening and treatment: (1) Identification is optimised by a range of strategies, including raising awareness, training, more systematic and formalised assessment, and youth-friendly practices (e.g. communication skills, ensuring confidentiality); (2) Treatment is enhanced by closer inter-agency collaboration and training for all healthcare professionals working in primary care; (3) Ongoing engagement is enhanced by motivational work with young people, setting achievable treatment goals, supporting transition between child and adult mental health services and recognising primary care\u27s longitudinal nature as a key asset in promoting treatment engagement. CONCLUSIONS: Especially in deprived areas, primary care is central to early intervention for youth mental health. Identification, treatment and continuing engagement are likely to be enhanced by a range of strategies with young people, healthcare professionals and systems. Further research on youth mental health and primary care, including qualitative accounts of young people\u27s experience and developing complex interventions that promote early intervention are priorities

Acoustic Assessment of a Konjac–Carrageenan Tissue-Mimicking Material at 5–60 MHz

AbstractThe acoustic properties of a robust tissue-mimicking material based on konjac–carrageenan at ultrasound frequencies in the range 5–60 MHz are described. Acoustic properties were characterized using two methods: a broadband reflection substitution technique using a commercially available preclinical ultrasound scanner (Vevo 770, FUJIFILM VisualSonics, Toronto, ON, Canada), and a dedicated high-frequency ultrasound facility developed at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL, Teddington, UK), which employed a broadband through-transmission substitution technique. The mean speed of sound across the measured frequencies was found to be 1551.7 ± 12.7 and 1547.7 ± 3.3 m s−1, respectively. The attenuation exhibited a non-linear dependence on frequency, f (MHz), in the form of a polynomial function: 0.009787f2 + 0.2671f and 0.01024f2 + 0.3639f, respectively. The characterization of this tissue-mimicking material will provide reference data for designing phantoms for preclinical systems, which may, in certain applications such as flow phantoms, require a physically more robust tissue-mimicking material than is currently available