Geology and Geochemistry of the Ship Creek and Monashka Creek reservoirs, Southcentral Alaska

Graywacke from the Ship Creek watershed, dissolves incongruently in distilled water. The dissolution appears to follow a first-order rate law which in integrated form is: k = -2.303/t log No-Q/No where No is the concentration in ppm of Ca, Mg, Na or K in the graywacke, Q is the total quantity of these ions leached in time t(days), k is the rate constant in days-1. Experimentally derived rate constants for the dissolution of graywacke in distilled water at 5oC are log k+2CA, -4.128 day-1; log k+2Mg, -6.174 day-1; log k+Na, -5.800 day-1; and log k+K, -5.249 day-1. The above constants are for 40 to +100 mesh graywacke. A surface area correction term must be inserted in the above equation if it is applied to a different size fraction. Using the above equation and rate constants, the chemical composition of a water in contact with graywacke was calculated. With the exception of magnesium, the agreement between the calculated composition and that of Ship Creek water was good. Assuming that the groundwater in the Ship Creek watershed contacts about 1.5X104cm2 graywacke per liter, 120 to 360 days are required at 5oC to produce the concentration of ions observed in Ship Creek. Release of exchangeable H+ from the soil mat to the reservoir water will not significant1y lower the pH of the water. Leaching of heavy metals from sulfides contained in the bedrock of the two watersheds does not pose a water quality hazard. Lineaments in the bedrock at Monashka Creek may provide channels through which water may seep from the reservoir. These are not expected to pose a problem in retaining water in the reservoir, but they may result in small, new springs down grade from the reservoir.The work upon which this report is based was supported by funds provided by the United States Department of the Interior, Office of Water Resources Research and Technology, as authorized by the Water Resources Research Act of 1964, Public Law 88-379, as amended. (Project A-045-ALAS

Incidental music: Enhancing the emotional experience of the audience

Environmental psychologists, who study transactions between individuals and their physical settings, maintain when an individual’s environment is changed, his/her behavior and experience are also changed by the environment (Gifford, 2002). Like other segments of the theatrical setting, a manipulation of the environment can enhance or constrain audience actions. Physical elements, as well as other ambient factors such as lighting, color, quality of materials, set design, music, fragrance, and room temperature are just a sample of the dramatic elements used to orchestrate the environment. However, this paper explores the relationship between the elements utilized to create enhanced experiences for the audience through the introduction of incidental music to dramatic performances that take place in all theatrical settings and venues, ranging from traditional theatres to special events

Filtering and Forecasting With Misspecified ARCH Models II: Making the Right Forecast With the Wrong Model

A companion paper (Nelson (1992)) showed that in data observed at high frequencies, an ARCH model may do a good job at estimating conditional variances, even when the ARCH model is severely misspecified. While such models may perform reasonably well at filtering (i.e., at estimating unobserved instantaneous conditional variances) they may perform disastrously at medium and long term forecasting. In this paper, we develop conditions under which a misspecified ARCH model successfully performs both tasks, filtering and forecasting. The key requirement (in addition to the conditions for consistent filtering) is that the ARCH model correctly specifies the functional form of the first two conditional moments of all state variables. We apply these results to a diffusion model employed in the options pricing literature, the stochastic volatility model of Hull and White (1987), Scott (1987), and Wiggins (1987)

Population-level factors associated with maternal mortality in the United States, 1997–2012

Abstract Background In contrast to peer nations, the United States is experiencing rapid increases in maternal mortality. Trends in individual and population-level demographic factors and health trends may play a role in this change. Methods We analyzed state-level maternal mortality for the years 1997–2012 using multilevel mixed-effects regression grouped by state, using publicly available data including whether a state had adopted the 2003 U.S. Standard Certificate of Death, designed to simplify identification of pregnant and recently pregnant decedents. We calculated the proportion of the increase in maternal mortality attributable to specific factors during the study period. Results Maternal mortality was associated with higher population prevalence of obesity and high school non-completion among women of childbearing age; these factors explained 31.0% and 5.3% of the attributable increase in maternal mortality during the study period, respectively. Among delivering mothers, prevalence of diabetes (17.0%), attending fewer than 10 prenatal visits (4.9%), and African American race (2.0%) were also associated with higher maternal mortality, as was time-varying state adoption of the 2003 death certificate (31.1%). Conclusions Our findings indicate that, in addition to better case ascertainment of maternal deaths, adverse changes in chronic diseases, insufficient healthcare access, and social determinants of health represent identifiable risks for maternal mortality that merit prompt attention in population-directed interventions and health policies.https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/145432/1/12889_2018_Article_5935.pd

KARAKTERISTIK DAN POLA LUKA KORBAN KECELAKAAN LALU LINTAS DI RUMAH SAKIT BHAYANGKARA AMBON PERIODE 2014-2017

Kecelakaan lalu lintas merupakan kejadian di jalan raya yang terjadi tiba-tiba dan tidak dapat diprediksi serta tercatat sebagai satu penyebab utama kematian terbesar di dunia. Penelitian karakteristik dan pola luka pada korban kecelakaan lalu lintas di Rumah Sakit Bhayangkara Ambon ini dilakukan dengan menggunakan data sekunder berupa visum et repertum dengan jenis penelitian yakni deskriptif retrospektif. Didapatkan sampel penelitian sebanyak 45 sampel dalam periode tahun 2014-2017. Usia terbanyak korban kecelakaan lalu lintas yaitu pada kelompok umur 25-44 tahun (42%), jenis kelamin terbanyak yaitu laki-laki (80%), pola luka terbanyak ada luka lecet (50%) dan lokasi luka terbanyak adalah pada daerah kepala dan anggota gerak bawah (31%)

Asymptotically Optimal Smoothing with ARCH Models

Suppose an observed time series is generated by a stochastic volatility model-i.e., there is an unobservable state variable controlling the volatility of the innovations in the series. As shown by Nelson (1992), and Nelson and Foster (1994), a misspecified ARCH model will often be able to consistently (as a continuous time limit is approached) estimate the unobserved volatility process, using information in the lagged residuals. This paper shows how to more efficiently estimate such a volatility process using information in both lagged and led residuals. In particular, this paper expands the optimal filtering results of Nelson and Foster (1994) and Nelson (1994) to smoothing.

Asymptotic Filtering Theory for Multivariate ARCH Models

ARCH models are widely used to estimate conditional variances and covariances in financial time series models. How successfully can ARCH models carry out this estimation when they are misspecified? How can ARCH models be optimally constructed? Nelson and Foster (1994) employed continuous record asymptotics to answer these questions in the univariate case. This paper considers the general multivariate case. Our results allow us, for example, to construct an asymptotically optimal ARCH model for estimating the conditional variance or conditional beta of a stock return given lagged returns on the stock, volume, market returns, implicit volatility from options contracts, and other relevant data. We also allow for time-varying shapes of conditional densities (e.g., `heteroskewticity` and `heterokurticity'). Examples are provided.

Characterization of the bacteriophage-derived endolysins PlySs2 and PlySs9 with in vitro lytic activity against bovine mastitis streptococcus uberis

Bovine mastitis, an infection of the cow’s mammary gland, is frequently caused by Streptococcus uberis and causes major economic losses in the dairy industry. The intramammary administration of antibiotics currently remains the predominant preventive and therapeutic measure. These antimicrobial compounds, ofwhich some are consideredcritical in human health care, are frequently applied as dry therapy resulting in their consistent overuse. Therefore, the use of antibiotics in the dairy sector is being questioned. We here identified two endolysins, i.e., PlySs2 and PlySs9, respectively derived from Streptococcus suis serotype-2 and -9 prophages, with lytic activity against S. uberis in an in vitro setting. Both endolysins gave clear lysis zones in spot-on-plate assays and caused a reduction of the optical density in a turbidity reduction assay. In depth characterization identified PlySs9 as the more potent endolysin over PlySs2 with a lower MIC value and about one additional log of killing. PlySs2 and PlySs9 were challenged to a panel of subclinical and clinical S. uberis milk isolates and were both able to lyse all strains tested. Molecular dissection of these endolysins in catalytic and cell wall binding subdomains resulted in major loss of killing and binding activity, respectively. Taken together, we here propose PlySs2 and PlySs9 as candidate compounds to the current antimicrobial arsenal known against bovine mastitis-causing S. uberis as future add-on or replacement strategy to the currently used intramammary antibiotics