The principal soil areas of Iowa

All the soils of Iowa without exception are, in respect to their origin, referable to one or the other of four easily distinguishable classes, which, are to be found in plainly marked areas. These are: 1. Geest, or soils resulting from the secular decay of indurated rocks. 2. Soils Of Fluviatile Origin, or stream made soils (alluvium). 3. Soils Of Aeolian Origin, or wind made soils (loess). 4. Soils Of Glacial Origin, or ice made soils (till)

Evaluation and pharmacovigilance of projects promoting cultivation and local use of Artemisia annua for malaria

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Several non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are promoting the use of <it>Artemisia annua </it>teas as a home-based treatment for malaria in situations where conventional treatments are not available. There has been controversy about the effectiveness and safety of this approach, but no pharmacovigilance studies or evaluations have been published to date.</p> <p>Method</p> <p>A questionnaire about the cultivation of <it>A. annua</it>, treatment of patients, and side-effects observed, was sent to partners of the NGO Anamed in Kenya and Uganda. Some of the respondents were then selected purposively for more in-depth semi-structured interviews.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Eighteen partners in Kenya and 21 in Uganda responded. 49% reported difficulties in growing the plant, mainly due to drought. Overall about 3,000 cases of presumed malaria had been treated with <it>A. annua </it>teas in the previous year, of which about 250 were in children and 54 were in women in the first trimester of pregnancy. The commonest problem observed in children was poor compliance due to the bitter taste, which was improved by the addition of sugar or honey. Two miscarriages were reported in pregnant patients. Only four respondents reported side-effects in other patients, the commonest of which was vomiting. 51% of respondents had started using <it>A. annua </it>tea to treat illnesses other than malaria.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Local cultivation and preparation of <it>A. annua </it>are feasible where growing conditions are appropriate. Few adverse events were reported even in children and pregnant women. Where ACT is in short supply, it would make sense to save it for young children, while using <it>A. annua </it>infusions to treat older patients who are at lower risk. An ongoing pharmacovigilance system is needed to facilitate reporting of any adverse events.</p

The principal soil areas of Iowa

All the soils of Iowa without exception are, in respect to their origin, referable to one or the other of four easily distinguishable classes, which, are to be found in plainly marked areas. These are: 1. Geest, or soils resulting from the secular decay of indurated rocks. 2. Soils Of Fluviatile Origin, or stream made soils (alluvium). 3. Soils Of Aeolian Origin, or wind made soils (loess). 4. Soils Of Glacial Origin, or ice made soils (till)

Bayesian optimization with a finite budget: An approximate dynamic programming approach

We consider the problem of optimizing an expensive objective function when a finite budget of total evaluations is prescribed. In that context, the optimal solution strategy for Bayesian optimization can be formulated as a dynamic programming instance. This results in a complex problem with uncountable, dimension-increasing state space and an uncountable control space. We show how to approximate the solution of this dynamic programming problem using rollout, and propose rollout heuristics specifically designed for the Bayesian optimization setting. We present numerical experiments showing that the resulting algorithm for optimization with a finite budget outperforms several popular Bayesian optimization algorithms

New constraints on the Bray conservation-of-momentum natal kick model from multiple distinct observations

Natal supernova kicks, the linear momentum compact remnants receive during their formation, are an essential part of binary population synthesis (BPS) models. Although these kicks are well-supported by evidence, their underlying distributions and incorporation into BPS models is uncertain. In this work, we investigate the nature of natal kicks using a previously proposed analytical prescription where the strength of the kick is linearly proportional to the ejecta-remnant mass ratio. We vary the free parameters over large ranges of possible values, comparing these synthetic populations simultaneously against four constraints: the merger rate of compact binary neutron star (BNS) systems, the period-eccentricity distribution of galactic BNSs, the velocity distribution of single-star pulsars, and the likelihood for low-ejecta mass supernovae to produce low-velocity kicks. We find that different samples of the parameter space satisfy each tests, and only 1 per cent of the models satisfy all four constraints simultaneously. Although we cannot identify a single best kick model, we report $\alpha = 80 \pm 30$ km s$^{-1}$, $\beta = 0 \pm 20$ km s$^{-1}$ as the center of the region of the parameter space that fulfils all of our constraints, and expect $\beta \geq 0$ km s$^{-1}$ as a further constraint. We also suggest further observations that will enable future refinement of the kick model. A sensitive test for the kick model will be the redshift evolution of the BNS merger rate since this is effectively a direct measure of the delay-time distribution for mergers. For our best fitting values, we find that the peak of the BNS merger rate is the present-day.Comment: Submitted to MNRA

Synthesis of DBpin using Earth-abundant metal catalysis

The synthesis of DBpin was achieved using (EtBIP)CoCl2 or (tBuPNN)FeCl2 as pre-catalysts activated with NaOtBu. (EtBIP)CoCl2 was used as a pre-catalyst for the hydrogen isotope exchange of HBpin with D2, and (tBuPNN)FeCl2 for deuterogenolysis of B2pin2. The one-pot, tandem hydrogenolysis-hydroboration/deuterogenolysis-deuteroboration reaction of terminal alkenes could be catalysed by (tBuPNN)FeCl2 to give alkyl boronic esters

Physical Aspects of Healthy Aging: Assessments of Three Measures of Balance for Studies in Middle-Aged and Older Adults

Objectives. To investigate the reliability and correlations with age of the balance components of the EPESE, NHANES, and the Good Balance Platform System (GBPS) in a normal population of adults. Design. Cross-sectional. Setting. Urban Medical Center in the Pacific. Participants. A random sample of 203 healthy offspring of Honolulu Heart Program participants, ages 38–71. Measurements. Subjects were examined twice at visits one week apart using the balance components of the EPESE, NHANES, and the good balance system tests. Results. The EPESE and NHANES batteries of tests were not sufficiently challenging to allow successful discrimination among subjects in good health, even older subjects. The GBPS allowed objective quantitative measurements, but the test-retest correlations generally were not high. The GBPS variables correlated with age only when subjects stood on a foam pad; they also were correlated with anthropometric variables. Conclusion. Both EPESE and NHANES balance tests were too easy for healthy subjects. The GBPS had generally low reliability coefficients except for the most difficult testing condition (foam pad, eyes closed). Both height and body fat were associated with GBPS scores, necessitating adjusting for these variables if using balance as a predictor of future health

Ectopic cardiovascular fat in middle-aged men: effects of race/ethnicity, overall and central adiposity. The ERA JUMP study.

Background/objectivesHigher volumes of ectopic cardiovascular fat (ECF) are associated with greater risk of coronary heart disease (CHD). Identifying factors that are associated with ECF volumes may lead to new preventive efforts to reduce risk of CHD. Significant racial/ethnic differences exist for overall and central adiposity measures, which are known to be associated with ECF volumes. Whether racial/ethnic differences also exist for ECF volumes and their associations with these adiposity measures remain unclear.Subjects/methodsBody mass index (BMI), computerized tomography-measured ECF volumes (epicardial, pericardial and their summation) and visceral adipose tissue (VAT) were examined in a community-based sample of 1199 middle-aged men (24.2% Caucasians, 7.0% African-Americans, 23.6% Japanese-Americans, 22.0% Japanese, 23.2% Koreans).ResultsSignificant racial/ethnic differences existed in ECF volumes and their relationships with BMI and VAT. ECF volumes were the highest among Japanese-Americans and the lowest among African-Americans. The associations of BMI and VAT with ECF differed by racial/ethnic groups. Compared with Caucasians, for each 1-unit increase in BMI, African-Americans had lower, whereas Koreans had higher increases in ECF volumes (P-values&lt;0.05 for both). Meanwhile, compared with Caucasians, for each 1-unit increase in log-transformed VAT, African-Americans, Japanese-Americans and Japanese had similar increases, whereas Koreans had a lower increase in ECF volumes (P-value&lt;0.05).ConclusionsRacial/ethnic groups differed in their propensity to accumulate ECF at increasing level of overall and central adiposity. Future studies should evaluate whether reducing central adiposity or overall weight will decrease ECF volumes more in certain racial/ethnic groups. Evaluating these questions might help in designing race-specific prevention strategy of CHD risk associated with higher ECF