Work-Poor Households: the Welfare Implications of Changing Household Employment Patterns. ESRI Policy Series No. 52. March 2004

In the following report we consider how the employment situation of working-age Irish households has changed over a period of remarkable economic growth between 1994 and 2000. High levels of household joblessness became a matter of public concern in Ireland and elsewhere during the late 1980s and early 1990s. The concentration of unemployment and non-employment within households meant that many of the unemployed did not have access to the protection and support afforded by living with someone in employment. Therefore, household joblessness has serious implications for the financial situation of households and consequently for the psychological well-being of their members. It also has important implications for the scale of public support necessary to prevent poverty. For a given level of unemployment, a concentration of joblessness within households will require greater financing because there is no other source of household income

Novel Materials Containing Single-Wall Carbon Nanotubes Wrapped in Polymer Molecules

In this design, single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) have been coated in polymer molecules to create a new type of material that has low electrical conductivity, but still contains individual nanotubes, and small ropes of individual nanotubes, which are themselves good electrical conductors and serve as small conducting rods immersed in an electrically insulating matrix. The polymer is attached through weak chemical forces that are primarily non-covalent in nature, caused primarily through polarization rather than the sharing of valence electrons. Therefore, the electronic structure of the SWNT involved is substantially the same as that of free, individual (and small ropes of) SWNT. Their high conductivity makes the individual nanotubes extremely electrically polarizable, and materials containing these individual, highly polarizable molecules exhibit novel electrical properties including a high dielectric constant

Effect of α7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor activation on cardiac fibroblasts: A mechanism underlying RV fibrosis associated with cigarette smoke exposure

INTRODUCTION: Right ventricular dysfunction is associated with numerous smoking-related illnesses including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) where it is present even in absence of pulmonary hypertension. It is unknown if exposure to cigarette smoke has direct effects on RV function and cardiac fibroblast proliferation or collagen synthesis. In this study, we evaluated cardiac function and fibrosis in mice exposed to cigarette smoke (CS) and determined mechanisms of smoke-induced changes in cardiac fibroblast signaling and fibrosis. METHODS: AKR mice were exposed to cigarette smoke for six weeks followed by echocardiography and evaluation of cardiac hypertrophy, collagen content, and pulmonary muscularization. Proliferation and collagen content were evaluated in primary isolated rat cardiac fibroblasts (CF) exposed to cigarette smoke extract (CSE) or nicotine. Markers of cell proliferation, fibrosis, and proliferative signaling were determined by immunoblot or Sircol collagen assay. RESULTS: Mice exposed to CS had significantly decreased RV function as determined by TAPSE. There were no changes in LV parameters. RV collagen content was significantly elevated but there was no change in RV hypertrophy or pulmonary vascular muscularization. CSE directly increased cardiac fibroblast proliferation and collagen content in CF. Nicotine alone reproduced these effects. CSE and nicotine-induced fibroblast proliferation and collagen content were mediated through α7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptors and were dependent on PKC-α, PKC-δ, and reduced p38-MAPK phosphorylation. CONCLUSION: CS and nicotine have direct effects on cardiac fibroblasts to induce proliferation and fibrosis which may negatively affect right heart function

'To live and die [for] Dixie': Irish civilians and the Confederate States of America

Around 20,000 Irishmen served in the Confederate army in the Civil War. As a result, they left behind, in various Southern towns and cities, large numbers of friends, family, and community leaders. As with native-born Confederates, Irish civilian support was crucial to Irish participation in the Confederate military effort. Also, Irish civilians served in various supporting roles: in factories and hospitals, on railroads and diplomatic missions, and as boosters for the cause. They also, however, suffered in bombardments, sieges, and the blockade. Usually poorer than their native neighbours, they could not afford to become 'refugees' and move away from the centres of conflict. This essay, based on research from manuscript collections, contemporary newspapers, British Consular records, and Federal military records, will examine the role of Irish civilians in the Confederacy, and assess the role this activity had on their integration into Southern communities. It will also look at Irish civilians in the defeat of the Confederacy, particularly when they came under Union occupation. Initial research shows that Irish civilians were not as upset as other whites in the South about Union victory. They welcomed a return to normalcy, and often 'collaborated' with Union authorities. Also, Irish desertion rates in the Confederate army were particularly high, and I will attempt to gauge whether Irish civilians played a role in this. All of the research in this paper will thus be put in the context of the Drew Gilpin Faust/Gary Gallagher debate on the influence of the Confederate homefront on military performance. By studying the Irish civilian experience one can assess how strong the Confederate national experiment was. Was it a nation without a nationalism

Microbial nitrogen limitation in the mammalian large intestine

Resource limitation is a fundamental factor governing the composition and function of ecological communities. However, the role of resource supply in structuring the intestinal microbiome has not been established and represents a challenge for mammals that rely on microbial symbionts for digestion: too little supply might starve the microbiome while too much might starve the host. We present evidence that microbiota occupy a habitat that is limited in total nitrogen supply within the large intestines of 30 mammal species. Lowering dietary protein levels in mice reduced their faecal concentrations of bacteria. A gradient of stoichiometry along the length of the gut was consistent with the hypothesis that intestinal nitrogen limitation results from host absorption of dietary nutrients. Nitrogen availability is also likely to be shaped by host-microbe interactions: levels of host-secreted nitrogen were altered in germ-free mice and when bacterial loads were reduced via experimental antibiotic treatment. Single-cell spectrometry revealed that members of the phylum Bacteroidetes consumed nitrogen in the large intestine more readily than other commensal taxa did. Our findings support a model where nitrogen limitation arises from preferential host use of dietary nutrients. We speculate that this resource limitation could enable hosts to regulate microbial communities in the large intestine. Commensal microbiota may have adapted to nitrogen-limited settings, suggesting one reason why excess dietary protein has been associated with degraded gut-microbial ecosystems

The Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field Camera 3 Early Release Science data: Panchromatic Faint Object Counts for 0.2-2 microns wavelength

We describe the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) Early Release Science (ERS) observations in the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey (GOODS) South field. The new WFC3 ERS data provide calibrated, drizzled mosaics in the UV filters F225W, F275W, and F336W, as well as in the near-IR filters F098M (Ys), F125W (J), and F160W (H) with 1-2 HST orbits per filter. Together with the existing HST Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) GOODS-South mosaics in the BViz filters, these panchromatic 10-band ERS data cover 40-50 square arcmin at 0.2-1.7 {\mu}m in wavelength at 0.07-0.15" FWHM resolution and 0.090" Multidrizzled pixels to depths of AB\simeq 26.0-27.0 mag (5-{\sigma}) for point sources, and AB\simeq 25.5-26.5 mag for compact galaxies. In this paper, we describe: a) the scientific rationale, and the data taking plus reduction procedures of the panchromatic 10-band ERS mosaics; b) the procedure of generating object catalogs across the 10 different ERS filters, and the specific star-galaxy separation techniques used; and c) the reliability and completeness of the object catalogs from the WFC3 ERS mosaics. The excellent 0.07-0.15" FWHM resolution of HST/WFC3 and ACS makes star- galaxy separation straightforward over a factor of 10 in wavelength to AB\simeq 25-26 mag from the UV to the near-IR, respectively.Comment: 51 pages, 71 figures Accepted to ApJS 2011.01.2

Improved reference genome for the domestic horse increases assembly contiguity and composition

Theodore Kalbfleisch et al. present an improved genome assembly for the domestic horse by combining short- and long-read data, as well as proximity ligation data. They improve contiguity of the assembly by 40-fold, with a 10-fold reduction in gaps

The GuideLine Implementability Appraisal (GLIA): development of an instrument to identify obstacles to guideline implementation

BACKGROUND: Clinical practice guidelines are not uniformly successful in influencing clinicians' behaviour toward best practices. Implementability refers to a set of characteristics that predict ease of (and obstacles to) guideline implementation. Our objective is to develop and validate a tool for appraisal of implementability of clinical guidelines. METHODS: Indicators of implementability were identified from the literature and used to create items and dimensions of the GuideLine Implementability Appraisal (GLIA). GLIA consists of 31 items, arranged into 10 dimensions. Questions from 9 of the 10 dimensions are applied individually to each recommendation of the guideline. Decidability and Executability are critical dimensions. Other dimensions are Global, Presentation and Formatting, Measurable Outcomes, Apparent Validity, Flexibility, Effect on Process of Care, Novelty/Innovation, and Computability. We conducted a series of validation activities, including validation of the construct of implementability, expert review of content for clarity, relevance, and comprehensiveness, and assessment of construct validity of the instrument. Finally, GLIA was applied to a draft guideline under development by national professional societies. RESULTS: Evidence of content validity and preliminary support for construct validity were obtained. The GLIA proved to be useful in identifying barriers to implementation in the draft guideline and the guideline was revised accordingly. CONCLUSION: GLIA may be useful to guideline developers who can apply the results to remedy defects in their guidelines. Likewise, guideline implementers may use GLIA to select implementable recommendations and to devise implementation strategies that address identified barriers. By aiding the design and operationalization of highly implementable guidelines, our goal is that application of GLIA may help to improve health outcomes, but further evaluation will be required to support this potential benefit

The Eighth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: First Data from SDSS-III

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) started a new phase in August 2008, with new instrumentation and new surveys focused on Galactic structure and chemical evolution, measurements of the baryon oscillation feature in the clustering of galaxies and the quasar Ly alpha forest, and a radial velocity search for planets around ~8000 stars. This paper describes the first data release of SDSS-III (and the eighth counting from the beginning of the SDSS). The release includes five-band imaging of roughly 5200 deg^2 in the Southern Galactic Cap, bringing the total footprint of the SDSS imaging to 14,555 deg^2, or over a third of the Celestial Sphere. All the imaging data have been reprocessed with an improved sky-subtraction algorithm and a final, self-consistent photometric recalibration and flat-field determination. This release also includes all data from the second phase of the Sloan Extension for Galactic Understanding and Evolution (SEGUE-2), consisting of spectroscopy of approximately 118,000 stars at both high and low Galactic latitudes. All the more than half a million stellar spectra obtained with the SDSS spectrograph have been reprocessed through an improved stellar parameters pipeline, which has better determination of metallicity for high metallicity stars.Comment: Astrophysical Journal Supplements, in press (minor updates from submitted version