Does the recent evolution of Canadian mortality agree with the epidemiologic transition theory?

After studying the epidemiologic transition’s situation in Canada, it is determined that the delimitation of temporal stages within the epidemiologic transition as put forward by Omran (1971, 1998), Olshansky and Ault (1986), Rogers and Hackenberg (1987) and Olshansky et al. (1998) does not suit the Canadian evolution. Many of the researchers’ postulates on the epidemiologic transition were not confirmed, which leads us to assert that, since 1958, the epidemiologic transition is best described as an evolution process rather than specific stages confined within time limits.Canada, causes of death, chronic diseases, epidemiologic transition, mortality, new variants of the theory

The Recovery of the First History of Alta California: Antonio María Osio’s La historia de Alta California

The transformation of Alta California was as sudden as it was unexpected. From a population of less than 15,000 gente de razón [literally, people with the capacity to reason, meaning people born into Christianity; that is, any non-Indian people] in the mid-1840s, it contained over 100,000 inhabitants in 1850 and almost a quarter of a million two years later. Swarming over the landscape, hostile to the system of land ownership and use that had developed over the previous half century, the newcomers, imbued with their longstanding belief in Anglo-Saxon superiority, went where they willed and took what they wanted. The Californios [any Mexican raised, or later, born and raised in California] adopted various strategies to meet this invasion. Some participated in the institutions set up by the conquerors, sitting in the 1849 Constitutional Convention and in the early state legislatures. Others prepared to defend themselves through North American courts and land commissions. Others withdrew from public life and public view, in the hope that they would be left alone. Others left and returned to Mexico. This paper tells the story of another strategy, one man\u27s attempt to preserve a world through the creation of history and autobiography. On April 4, 1851, in the city of Santa Clara, Antonio María Osio, who had been a bureaucratic functionary and officeholder in Mexican California for two decades, presented Father José María Suárez del Real with a densely written one hundred and ten page manuscript. In a cover letter, Osio told Suarez del Real that what the priest had asked him to do, write the history of California, was beyond his ability. But he had decided, Osio said, to write a letter, a relación of events since 1815 and especially of what I have known and seen since 1825

Parenting Latino Toddlers and Preschoolers: Clinical and Nonclinical Samples

Parenting practices contribute significantly to the social-emotional development of young children. There is limited literature that addresses the role of culture in parenting, particularly among Latino families who have very young children with significant behavior problems. The current study compared the parenting practices of 30 low-income Latino mothers whose young children had been referred for mental health services for their behavior problems with a similar group of 30 mothers of children without behavior problems. Results showed that mothers in the clinical sample nurtured their children less often and used more frequent verbal and corporal punishment as discipline than the nonclinical sample. The clinical sample also had a significantly higher incidence of mental health problems in their families. Results also showed the significant toll that raising young children with challenging behaviors takes on their mothers. The implications of these findings for the early identification of these children are discussed

Revolt at Mission San Gabriel, October 25, 1785: Judicial Proceedings and Related Documents

In this section, we present English translations of the Spanish documents which relate to the planned Mission San Gabriel uprising in 1785. The documents come from two sources, the Archivo General de la Nación in Mexico City and the Santa Barbara Mission Archive-Library. The documents from the Archivo General are located in ramo Provincias Intern.as, tomo 120, expediente 2. Our translation follows the order in which the documents are presented in this source. The first paragraph is the title page of the expediente. The documents follow as they are arranged, with one exception: the questions which the interrogator posed to the four witnesses are only listed once in the documents. The witnesses\u27 answers are preceded by a brief phrase, a la primera, (to the first [question]), a la segunda (to the second [question]), and so forth. For ease of reading, we decided to repeat the questions before each answer given by each of the witnesses. The Santa Barbara Mission Archive-Library documents are taken from the California Mission Documents collection. The numbering of these documents has changed since the 1947 publication of Fr. Maynard Geiger\u27s volume Calendar of Documents in the Santa Barbara Mission Archives. Archive-Library Director Lynn Bremer has posted new finding guides with the updated numbers online at http://www.sbmal.org/ histdocs.html. We regret that space limitations make it impossible for us to present the Spanish text along side our English translation. We are working to make the Spanish text available online, and, if we are successful, we will provide you with the web link by way of the Correo, the CMSA electronic newsletter

Problems and Prospects of Interdisciplinarity: The Case of Philosophy of Science

In this paper, we discuss some problems and prospects of interdisciplinary encounters by focusing on philosophy of science as a case study. After introducing the case, we give an overview about the various ways in which philosophy of science can be interdisciplinary in Section 2. In Section 3, we name some general problems concerning the possible points of interaction between philosophy of science and the sciences studied. In Section 4 we compare the advantages and risks of interdisciplinarity for individual researchers and institutions. In Section 5, we discuss interdisciplinary PhD programs, in particular concerning two main problems: increased workload and the quality of supervision. In the final Section 6, we look at interdisciplinary careers beyond the PhD

Smart Market for Woodchips

This paper presents the outline for a smart market geared to Quebec s woodchip industry. It aims to explain how such a market operates, and to show how it fits into or modifies the existing trading system. The proposed smart market has two main objectives. The first is to enhance the efficiency of the woodchip market. The electronic market is a favoured means of enhancing market flexibility and thus controlling the accumulation of unsold inventory. Such a mechanism maximizes the industry s overall profits by ensuring that each firm can identify all business opportunities within its reach and realize the additional profits associated with them. The second main objective is continuity of trade practices. Long-term contracts between sawmills and paper mills are an important market reality, and they will be an integral part of the smart market. The keystone of our proposal is the Optimized Periodic Market (OPM). Somewhat along the lines of the Encan électronique du porc (EÉP, or electronic pork auction), set up by the Fédération des producteurs de porcs du Québec (Quebec s pork producers federation), we are proposing to establish an electronic woodchip exchange which would open up periodically (monthly, for instance) to allocate Quebec s entire woodchip output. At the close of an electronic market session, exchanges for the month will be determined, and everyone will know who he is to receive his woodchips from, or who he is to deliver them to, along with the price of each transaction and the merchandise shipment schedule. The OPM fulfils three main functions: (1) it co-ordinates players actions with a view to reducing inventory surpluses and meeting paper mills needs as closely as possible; (2) it keeps transportation costs down by determining the least costly exchanges between sawmills and paper mills with respect to supply; and (3) it offers an effective tool for renegotiating long-term contracts. An OPM session is in three main stages: pre-sale, sale and after-sale. At the pre-sale stage, the system gathers the information it will use to determine optimum exchanges. This information concerns two key variables in the woodchip market: quality requirements, and transportation costs. Buyers first express their technical requirements: on a BBS, they indicate the quality of the woodchips they wish to purchase and the penalties that will be applied should delivery not be in compliance with the specified technical requirements. The sellers are then invited to provide a production cost indicator for their woodchips that meets each paper mill s requirements. Sellers must also indicate the unit transportation costs (UTC) which they will have to pay if they deliver to each of the buyers. An auction mechanism for transportation costs, where buyers and third parties will be able to try to lower transportation costs, may also be set up. The sale stage involves an auction which takes place in successive rounds. Buyers bids are demand schedules, and sellers bids are supply schedules. At the start of the opening round, buyers and sellers enter their bids through an electronic interface linked to a server. Sellers must also provide a list of the types of woodchips they wish to market, and this list will be valid for the duration of the sale. Depending on the classification of the woodchips they put up for sale and their ability to sort species, they will have the choice of offering low density chips, high density chips, and/or jack pine chips. Buyers take part in a single market grouping together the three types of woodchips. At the start of the opening round, they have to specify the minimum and maximum proportions of each type of woodchips they wish to acquire. When all the bids have been tallied, the system generates the quantities traded and the equilibrium price paid or received by each participant. In light of this information, players can raise or lower their bids in line with their assessment of the market. Buyers can also revise the proportions of each type of woodchips they are asking for. Another round is then initiated, ending with the re-optimization of the system and disclosure of the new allocations. If no one wishes to alter his bid after the prices and quantities are announced at the end of a round, the efficient bilateral exchanges become official, and the delivery schedule for the period is established. Bid changes from one round to the next are governed by an eligibility rule whose function is to give impetus to the market, to prompt participants to be active in the market, and to reveal their real needs as early as possible. The OPM is a medium-term market in that it lies between a long-term compensatory market and a short-term spot market. Sawmills and paper mills wishing to guarantee their supply by signing long-term agreements will be able to go the compensatory contract route. A long-term compensatory contract between a sawmill and a paper mill specifies a price and quantity of woodchips for each OPM period (each month). In this way, the paper mill is guaranteed a certain quantity of woodchips at a certain price, and the sawmill is guaranteed a price for a given portion of its output. Data from these compensatory contracts are then taken into consideration by the OPM. Somewhat like term markets, compensatory contracts are agreements on financial flow alone. It is the OPM which determines the actual exchanges of woodchips. The proposed market mechanism is designed to ensure that participation in the OPM is to everyone s benefit. With flexibility, transparency and the implementation of an open competitive mechanism, beneficial participation for all is one of the guiding principles of the smart market for woodchips. A participant bound by a compensatory contract is guaranteed to find himself, after an OPM session, in a situation at least as beneficial as that provided for in the contract. The spirit of the compensation mechanism is that if one of the partners receives an unfavourable price on the OPM, he will be compensated by his partner. In this way, the OPM compensation rule and renegotiation mechanism offer a procedure guaranteeing: (1) each participant the equivalent of what is negotiated in the long-term contract; and (2) all participants the possibility of discovering and realizing additional profits that are accessible but have not yet been realized. The proposed smart market is rounded out by a very short-term spot market on which sawmills will be able to liquidate their surpluses and paper mills will be able to procure additional quantities of woodchips, thus dealing with surpluses and unfilled requirements not anticipated in the OPM session. The spot market may be presented in the form of a BBS through which each facility will be able to initiate an auction.

Statistical estimation of a growth-fragmentation model observed on a genealogical tree

We model the growth of a cell population by a piecewise deterministic Markov branching tree. Each cell splits into two offsprings at a division rate $B(x)$ that depends on its size $x$. The size of each cell grows exponentially in time, at a rate that varies for each individual. We show that the mean empirical measure of the model satisfies a growth-fragmentation type equation if structured in both size and growth rate as state variables. We construct a nonparametric estimator of the division rate $B(x)$ based on the observation of the population over different sampling schemes of size $n$ on the genealogical tree. Our estimator nearly achieves the rate $n^{-s/(2s+1)}$ in squared-loss error asymptotically. When the growth rate is assumed to be identical for every cell, we retrieve the classical growth-fragmentation model and our estimator improves on the rate $n^{-s/(2s+3)}$ obtained in \cite{DHRR, DPZ} through indirect observation schemes. Our method is consistently tested numerically and implemented on {\it Escherichia coli} data.Comment: 46 pages, 4 figure