Monetary Valuation of Aircraft Noise; a hedonic analysis around Amsterdam Airport

In densely-populated countries and in particular in large metropolitan areas, the presence of so much human activity causes all sorts of negative externalities, for example traffic noise disturbance. These externalities call for corrective measures by the government. Economists have developed a number of procedures that provide reasonable estimates on the monetary value of some amenities and externalities. In this paper we develop a spatially-explicit hedonic pricing model for house prices in order to quantify the social cost of aircraft noise disturbance in monetary terms. While focusing on aircraft noise around Amsterdam airport in the urban fringe of the Amsterdam region, a key point in our analysis is that we account for background noise. We do this by taking multiple sources of traffic noise (i.e. road, railway and aircraft noise) into account simultaneously and by setting threshold values for all three sources of noise above which sound is generally experienced as nuisance. Based on our regression results we conclude that a higher noise level means ceteris paribus a lower house price. Air traffic has the largest price impact, followed by railway traffic and road traffic. These model outcomes can subsequently be used to estimate the marginal and total benefits of aircraft noise reduction in the studied area around Amsterdam airport. We find a marginal benefit of 1 dB noise reduction of 1459 Euro per house, leading to a total benefit of 1 dB noise reduction of 574 million Euros. © 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Association of ABCB1, 5-HT3B receptor and CYP2D6 genetic polymorphisms with ondansetron and metoclopramide antiemetic response in Indonesian cancer patients treated with highly emetogenic chemotherapy.

Our study shows that in Indonesian cancer patients treated with highly cytostatic emetogenic, carriership of the CTG haplotype of the ABCB1 gene is related to an increased risk of delayed chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting

The school career of children with hearing loss in different primary educational settings: a large longitudinal nationwide study

Pathways through Adolescenc

A Method to Exchange Recombinant Differentially Phosphorylated Rhodamine-Labeled Cardiac RLC into Permeabilized Cardiac Trabeculae

Cyclosporine, everolimus, and tacrolimus are the cornerstone of immunosuppressive therapy in renal transplantation. These drugs are characterized by narrow therapeutic windows, highly variable pharmacokinetics (PK), and metabolism by CYP3A enzymes. Recently, the decreased activity allele, CYP3A4*22, was described as a potential predictive marker for CYP3A4 activity. This study investigated the effect of CYP3A4*22, CYP3A5*3, and CYP3A combined genotypes on cyclosporine, everolimus, and tacrolimus PK in renal transplant patients. CYP3A4*22 carriers showed a significant lower clearance for cyclosporine (−15%), and a trend was observed for everolimus (−7%) and tacrolimus (−16%). Patients carrying at least one CYP3A5*1 allele had 1.5-fold higher tacrolimus clearance compared with noncarriers; however, CYP3A5*3 appeared to be nonpredictive for everolimus and cyclosporine. CYP3A combined genotype did not significantly improve prediction of clearance compared with CYP3A5*3 or CYP3A4*22 alone. These data suggest that dose individualization of cyclosporine, everolimus, or tacrolimus therapy based on CYP3A4*22 is not indicated

Relations Between Timing Features and Colors in Accreting Millisecond Pulsars

We have studied the aperiodic X-ray timing and color behavior of the accreting millisecond pulsars SAX J1808.4-3658, XTE J1751-305, XTE J0929-314, and XTE J1814-338 using large data sets obtained with the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer. We find that the accreting millisecond pulsars have very similar timing properties to the atoll sources and the low luminosity bursters. Based on the correlation of timing and color behavior SAX J1808.4-3658 can be classified as an atoll source, and XTE J0929-314 and XTE J1814-338 are consistent with being atoll sources, but the color behavior of XTE J1751-305 is different. Unlike in other atoll sources the hard color in the extreme island state of XTE J1751-305 is strongly correlated with soft color and intensity, and is not anti-correlated with any of the characteristic frequencies. We found previously, that the frequencies of the variability components of atoll sources follow a universal scheme of correlations. The frequency correlations of the accreting millisecond pulsars are similar, but in the case of SAX J1808.4-3658 and XTE J0929-314 shifted compared to those of the other atoll sources in a way that is most easily described as a shift in upper and lower kilohertz QPO frequency by a factor close to 1.5. Although, we note that the shift in lower kilohertz QPO frequency is based on only one observation for SAX J1808.4-3658. XTE J1751-305 and XTE J1814-338, as well as the low luminosity bursters show no or maybe small shifts.Comment: 46 pages, 23 figures, ApJ accepte

Millisecond Oscillations in X-Ray Binaries

The first millisecond X-ray variability phenomena from accreting compact objects have recently been discovered with the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer. Three new phenomena are observed from low-mass X-ray binaries containing low-magnetic-field neutron stars: millisecond pulsations, burst oscillations and kiloHertz quasi-periodic oscillations. Models for these new phenomena involve the neutron star spin, and orbital motion closely around the neutron star and rely explicitly on our understanding of strong gravity and dense matter. I review the observations of these new neutron-star phenomena and possibly related ones in black-hole candidates, and describe the attempts to use them to perform measurements of fundamental physical interest in these systems.Comment: 40 pages, 17 figures, 4 tables - submitted to the Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics; to appear September 200

Quality of life of children with hearing loss in special and mainstream education: a longitudinal study

Objectives: To compare the quality of life (QoL) of children with hearing loss (HL) and children with normal hearing (NH) and to examine how the QoL of children with HL changes over time, considering language skills, type of hearing device, degree of HL, and type of education.Methods and materials: This longitudinal study included 62 children with HL and their parents. Developmental outcome data were collected at two time points, when the mean ages of the children were 4 and 11 years. The Pediatric Quality of Life (PedsQL (TM)) questionnaire, which includes assessments of Physical, Emotional, Social, and School functioning, was completed by parents at both time points and by the children with HL at the second time point. Receptive and expressive language skills at 4 years were assessed by the Reynell Developmental Language Scale. Results were compared with a Dutch normative sample.Results: The QoL of children with HL was similar to that of children with NH at both time points on two of the four QoL scales, Emotional and Physical functioning. On the other two scales, Social and School functioning, children with HL who attended special education and children who switched to mainstream education showed lower scores than children with HL who were consistently in mainstream education and lower scores than children with NH. The School QoL of children with HL decreased over time, as did the School QoL of children with NH. Social QoL of children with cochlear implants decreased over time, but this was not the case in children with hearing aids. Language skills and the degree of HL did not clinically improve the QoL over time of preschool children with HL.Conclusions: The QoL of children with HL in mainstream education and the Physical and Emotional QoL of all children with HL were satisfactory. It is essential to develop specific guidance regarding school activities for children with HL in special education and for children with HL who switch to mainstream education in order to increase their social QoL.Pathways through Adolescenc

X-ray bursts at extreme mass accretion rates from GX 17+2

(abridged version) We report on ten type I X-ray bursts from GX 17+2 in data obtained with the RXTE/PCA in 1996--2000. Three bursts were short in duration (~10 s), whereas the others lasted for ~6-25 min. Five of the long bursts showed evidence for radius expansion of the neutron star photosphere. No correlations o f the burst properties with respect to the persistent X-ray spectral properties are seen, suggesting no correlation with inferred persistent mass accretion rate. The presence of short bursts in GX 17+2 (and similar bright X-ray sources) is not accounted for in the current X-ray bursts theories at the high mass accretion rates encountered in these sources. We find that in contrast to previous suggestions the persistent black-body emission does NOT arise from the same site as the burst emission. The black-body component of the persistent emission is consistent with arising in an expanded boundary layer, as indicated by recent theoretical work. The total persistent flux just before and after the radius expansion bursts is inferred to be up to a factor of 2 higher than the net peak flux of the burst. If both the burst and persistent emission are radiated isotropically, this would imply that the persistent emission is up to a factor of 2 higher than the Eddington luminosity. This is unlikely and we suggest that the persistent luminosity is close to the Eddington luminosity and that the burst emission is (highly) anisotropic. Assuming that the net burst peak fluxes equal the Eddington limit, applying standard burst parameters (1.4 M_sun neutron star, cosmic composition, electron scattering opacity appropriate for high temperatures), and taking into account gravitational redshift and spectral hardening, we derive a distance to GX 17+2 of ~8 kpc, with an uncertainty of up to ~30%.Comment: 27 pages, 16 figures, accepted for publication in A&A; revised considerably with respect to v1, but conclusions remain unchanged; included 4 burst-like events which were previously misse

Discovery of type-I X-ray bursts from the low-mass X-ray binary 4U 1708-40

We report the discovery of type-I X-ray bursts from the low-mass X-ray binary 4U 1708-40 during the 100 ks observation performed by BeppoSAX on 1999 August 15-16. Six X-ray bursts have been observed. The unabsorbed 2-10 keV fluxes of the bursts range from ~ (3-9)x10^(-10) erg cm^(-2)s^(-1). A correlation between peak flux and fluence of the bursts is found, in agreement with the behaviour observed in other similar sources. There is a trend of the burst flux to increase with the time interval from the previous burst. From the value of the persistent flux we infer a mass accretion rate Mdot~7x10^(-11) Msun/yr, that may correspond to the mixed hydrogen/helium burning regime triggered by thermally unstable hydrogen. We have also analysed a BeppoSAX observation performed on 2001 August 22 and previous RXTE observations of 4U 1708-40, where no bursts have been observed; we found persistent fluxes of more than a factor of 7 higher than the persistent flux observed during the BeppoSAX observation showing X-ray bursts.Comment: accepted for publication in MNRA