Powers of the State of Kentucky in Implementing an Effluent Tax as a Part of an Interstate Ohio River Basin Water Pollution Control Program

This report is intended to set forth some of the problems and solutions involved in financing and regulating water quality control. The purpose is to record some of the major problems confronting those who legislate water quality, those who espouse technological answers, and those who see the problem in terms of economic solutions. The limits placed by political and institutional constraints on solutions to these problems are frequently not understandable. Within this report are contained separate investigations: a study of federal-interstate relations and the interstate compact; a study of Kentucky\u27s common law approach to water rights; a study of financing water quality under Kentucky statutes; and a summary and analysis. Each of these areas touches on problems involved in the planning process; in this context, the following problems will be considered: (1) The availability of water. (2) Water and economic development. (3) Water and the environment. (4) Responsibilities for water resource development. (5) Legal framework for development. (6) Financing water resource development. (7) Political and institutional constraints

The evolution of Benjamin Franklin's thought in relation to the role and the authority of the British Parliament over the North American colonies, 1763-1775

Purpose: It was the purpose of this study to trace the evolution of Franklin’s thought in relation to the role and authority of the British Parliament over the North American colonies. Special consideration was given to (1) the years between 1763 and 1775; (2) the various crises in imperial relations that occurred during this period; and (3) Franklin’s reactions to the parliamentary legislation and assertions which caused these crises. Methods: The methods used to obtain data for this study consisted of (1) investigating the better biographies on Benjamin Franklin: (2) investigating general works which dealt with the period in question; (3) examining the letter, essays, and press articles written by franklin during the period under consideration; and (4) examining the related writing of other colonial leaders. Findings: From the following evidence presented in this study the following conclusions appear to be in order: 1.In 1754 Franklin questioned the wisdom and fairness of British restraints on colonial commerce and manufacturing but made no attempt to question the right of the British Parliament to legislate in this area. 2.In 1754 he did question the right of the British Parliament to levy direct taxes on the colonists and felt that colonial representation in the British Parliament might prevent any future separation. 3.During the crisis over the Grenville revenue measures and the proposed stamp tax, franklin was slow to grasp the seriousness of the problem, and being preoccupied with matters in Pennsylvania offered no real leadership in opposition to the new policy. 4.When the colonists began to protest against the stamp tax, Franklin recovered and assumed a position of leadership in the movement for repeal. 5.In 1766 Franklin began to develop the idea that the British Parliament enjoyed no authority over the colonies. 6.He continued to formulate this idea and by 1770 he had become certain that the colonies were separate states bound to Britain only through a common prince. 7.Franklin had freely expressed his view on the authority of the British Parliament to his friends, and his ideas surely exerted some influence on the thinking of other colonial leaders. 8.Franklin wanted to hold the empire together and worked toward this end until hope of reconciliation had vanished

Global Patterns of Prostate Cancer Incidence, Aggressiveness, and Mortality in Men of African Descent

Prostate cancer (CaP) is the leading cancer among men of African descent in the USA, Caribbean, and Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The estimated number of CaP deaths in SSA during 2008 was more than five times that among African Americans and is expected to double in Africa by 2030. We summarize publicly available CaP data and collected data from the men of African descent and Carcinoma of the Prostate (MADCaP) Consortium and the African Caribbean Cancer Consortium (AC3) to evaluate CaP incidence and mortality in men of African descent worldwide. CaP incidence and mortality are highest in men of African descent in the USA and the Caribbean. Tumor stage and grade were highest in SSA. We report a higher proportion of T1 stage prostate tumors in countries with greater percent gross domestic product spent on health care and physicians per 100,000 persons. We also observed that regions with a higher proportion of advanced tumors reported lower mortality rates. This finding suggests that CaP is underdiagnosed and/or underreported in SSA men. Nonetheless, CaP incidence and mortality represent a significant public health problem in men of African descent around the world

Elevated Plasma Von Willebrand Factor and Propeptide Levels in Malawian Children with Malaria

In children with malaria plasma VWF and propeptide levels are markedly elevated in both cerebral and mild paediatric malaria, with levels matching disease severity, and these normalize upon recovery. High levels of both markers also occur in retinopathy-negative 'cerebral malaria' cases, many of whom are thought to be suffering from diseases other than malaria, indicating that further studies of these markers will be required to determine their sensitivity and specificity

Risk Analysis of Prostate Cancer in PRACTICAL, a Multinational Consortium, Using 25 Known Prostate Cancer Susceptibility Loci.

BACKGROUND: Genome-wide association studies have identified multiple genetic variants associated with prostate cancer risk which explain a substantial proportion of familial relative risk. These variants can be used to stratify individuals by their risk of prostate cancer. METHODS: We genotyped 25 prostate cancer susceptibility loci in 40,414 individuals and derived a polygenic risk score (PRS). We estimated empirical odds ratios (OR) for prostate cancer associated with different risk strata defined by PRS and derived age-specific absolute risks of developing prostate cancer by PRS stratum and family history. RESULTS: The prostate cancer risk for men in the top 1% of the PRS distribution was 30.6 (95% CI, 16.4-57.3) fold compared with men in the bottom 1%, and 4.2 (95% CI, 3.2-5.5) fold compared with the median risk. The absolute risk of prostate cancer by age of 85 years was 65.8% for a man with family history in the top 1% of the PRS distribution, compared with 3.7% for a man in the bottom 1%. The PRS was only weakly correlated with serum PSA level (correlation = 0.09). CONCLUSIONS: Risk profiling can identify men at substantially increased or reduced risk of prostate cancer. The effect size, measured by OR per unit PRS, was higher in men at younger ages and in men with family history of prostate cancer. Incorporating additional newly identified loci into a PRS should improve the predictive value of risk profiles. IMPACT: We demonstrate that the risk profiling based on SNPs can identify men at substantially increased or reduced risk that could have useful implications for targeted prevention and screening programs.D F. Easton was recipient of the CR-UK grant C1287/A10118. R A. Eeles was recipient of the CR-UK grant C5047/A10692 and B E. Henderson was recipient of the NIH grant 1U19CA148537-01This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available via AACR at http://cebp.aacrjournals.org/content/early/2015/04/02/1055-9965.EPI-14-0317.long

Estimating Berg Balance Scale and Mini Balance Evaluation System Test Scores by Using Wearable Shoe Sensors

Measuring humans’ functional balance is important for clinical estimation of fall risk. Although many clinical assessments, such as Berg Balance Scale and Mini Balance Evaluation System Test, are available to test the functional balance, the results are affected by the skills of different operators. This paper proposes an objective approach to access the functional balance by a wearable sensor system embedded in the shoe and a hip accelerometer. Support Vector Machine regression models are built with numerical features selected by mRMR algorithm to estimate the scores of the clinical assessments. Leave one out cross validation is employed to evaluate the regression models. The approach is validated on a group of 30 seniors (76 10.5 years old), containing fallers and non-fallers. The results show that the wearable sensor system has a capability to estimate the Berg Balance Scale and Mini Balance Evaluation System Test scores with absolute mean errors and standard deviations 6.07 3.76 and 5.45 3.65, respectively, and demonstrates high agreement with falls history based risk assessment