Workgroup report: Public health strategies for reducing aflatoxin exposure in developing countries

10.1289/ehp.9302Environmental Health Perspectives114121898-190

Primordial Nucleosynthesis for the New Cosmology: Determining Uncertainties and Examining Concordance

Big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) and the cosmic microwave background (CMB) have a long history together in the standard cosmology. The general concordance between the predicted and observed light element abundances provides a direct probe of the universal baryon density. Recent CMB anisotropy measurements, particularly the observations performed by the WMAP satellite, examine this concordance by independently measuring the cosmic baryon density. Key to this test of concordance is a quantitative understanding of the uncertainties in the BBN light element abundance predictions. These uncertainties are dominated by systematic errors in nuclear cross sections. We critically analyze the cross section data, producing representations that describe this data and its uncertainties, taking into account the correlations among data, and explicitly treating the systematic errors between data sets. Using these updated nuclear inputs, we compute the new BBN abundance predictions, and quantitatively examine their concordance with observations. Depending on what deuterium observations are adopted, one gets the following constraints on the baryon density: OmegaBh^2=0.0229\pm0.0013 or OmegaBh^2 = 0.0216^{+0.0020}_{-0.0021} at 68% confidence, fixing N_{\nu,eff}=3.0. Concerns over systematics in helium and lithium observations limit the confidence constraints based on this data provide. With new nuclear cross section data, light element abundance observations and the ever increasing resolution of the CMB anisotropy, tighter constraints can be placed on nuclear and particle astrophysics. ABRIDGEDComment: 54 pages, 20 figures, 5 tables v2: reflects PRD version minor changes to text and reference

Public health strategies for reducing aflatoxin exposure in developing countries: workgroup report

Consecutive outbreaks of acute aflatoxicosis in Kenya in 2004 and 2005 caused > 150 deaths. In response, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization convened a workgroup of international experts and health officials in Geneva, Switzerland, in July 2005. After discussions concerning what is known about aflatoxins, the workgroup identified gaps in current knowledge about acute and chronic human health effects of aflatoxins, surveillance and food monitoring, analytic methods, and the efficacy of intervention strategies. The workgroup also identified public health strategies that could be integrated with current agricultural approaches to resolve gaps in current knowledge and ultimately reduce morbidity and mortality associated with the consumption of aflatoxin-contaminated food in the developing world. Four issues that warrant immediate attention were identified: a) quantify the human health impacts and the burden of disease due to aflatoxin exposure; b) compile an inventory, evaluate the efficacy, and disseminate results of ongoing intervention strategies; c) develop and augment the disease surveillance, food monitoring, laboratory, and public health response capacity of affected regions; and d) develop a response protocol that can be used in the event of an outbreak of acute aflatoxicosis. This report expands on the workgroup's discussions concerning aflatoxin in developing countries and summarizes the findings

Model order reduction : methods, concepts and properties

This chapter offers an introduction to Model Order Reduction (MOR). It gives an overview on the methods that are mostly used. It also describes the main concepts behind the methods and the properties that are aimed to be preserved. The sections are in a prefered order for reading, but can be read independentlty. Section 4.1, written by Michael Striebel, E. Jan W. ter Maten, Kasra Mohaghegh and Roland Pulch, overviews the basic material for MOR and its use in circuit simulation. Issues like Stability, Passivity, Structure preservation, Realizability are discussed. Projection based MOR methods include Krylov-space methods (like PRIMA and SPRIM) and POD-methods. Truncation based MOR includes Balanced Truncation, Poor Man’s TBR and Modal Truncation.Section 4.2, written by Joost Rommes and Nelson Martins, focuses on Modal Truncation. Here eigenvalues are the starting point. The eigenvalue problems related to large-scale dynamical systems are usually too large to be solved completely. The algorithms described in this section are efficient and effective methods for the computation of a few specific dominant eigenvalues of these large-scale systems. It is shown how these algorithms can be used for computing reduced-order models with modal approximation and Krylov-based methods.Section 4.3, written by Maryam Saadvandi and Joost Rommes, concerns passivity preserving model order reduction using the spectral zero method. It detailedly discusses two algorithms, one by Antoulas and one by Sorenson. These two approaches are based on a projection method by selecting spectral zeros of the original transfer function to produce a reduced transfer function that has the specified roots as its spectral zeros. The reduced model preserves passivity.Section 4.4, written by Roxana Ionutiu, Joost Rommes and Athanasios C. Antoulas, refines the spectral zero MOR method to dominant spectral zeros. The new model reduction method for circuit simulation preserves passivity by interpolating dominant spectral zeros. These are computed as poles of an associated Hamiltonian system, using an iterative solver: the subspace accelerated dominant pole algorithm (SADPA). Based on a dominance criterion, SADPA finds relevant spectral zeros and the associated invariant subspaces, which are used to construct the passivity preserving projection. RLC netlist equivalents for the reduced models are provided.Section 4.5, written by Roxana Ionutiu and Joost Rommes, deals with synthesis of a reduced model: reformulate it as a netlist for a circuit. A framework for model reduction and synthesis is presented, which greatly enlarges the options for the re-use of reduced order models in circuit simulation by simulators of choice. Especially when model reduction exploits structure preservation, we show that using the model as a current-driven element is possible, and allows for synthesis without controlled sources. Two synthesis techniques are considered: (1) by means of realizing the reduced transfer function into a netlist and (2) by unstamping the reduced system matrices into a circuit representation. The presented framework serves as a basis for reduction of large parasitic R/RC/RCL networks