Assessments and Accountability (Condensed version)

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Chiefly tablesIncludes bibliographical referencesSupported in part by the National Institute of Education under contract no. US-NIE-C-400-76-011

Ammonium Carbonate Is More Attractive Than Apple and Hawthorn Fruit Volatile Lures to Rhagoletis pomonella (Diptera: Tephritidae) in Washington State

The apple maggot fly, Rhagoletis pomonella (Walsh), is an introduced, quarantine pest of apple (Malus domestica Borkhausen) in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. In the eastern United States where the fly is native, fruit volatiles have been reported to be more attractive than ammonia compounds to R. pomonella. However, the opposite may be true in the western United States. Here, we determined whether newly identified western apple and western hawthorn fruit volatiles are more attractive than ammonium carbonate (AC) to R. pomonella in apple, black hawthorn, and ornamental hawthorn trees in western Washington State. In all three host trees, sticky red sphere or yellow panel traps baited with AC generally caught more flies than traps baited with lures containing the four newly developed fruit blends (modified eastern apple, western apple, western ornamental hawthorn, and western black hawthorn) or two older blends (eastern apple and eastern downy hawthorn). Fruit volatiles also displayed more variation among trapping studies conducted at different sites, in different host trees, and across years than AC. The results imply that traps baited with AC represent the best approach to monitoring R. pomonella in Washington Stat

National Athletic Trainers\u27 Association Position Statement: Anabolic-Androgenic Steroids

Objective: This manuscript summarizes the best available scholarly evidence related to anabolic-androgenic steroids (AAS) as a reference for health care professionals, including athletic trainers, educators, and interested others. Background: Health care professionals associated with sports or exercise should understand and be prepared to educate others about AAS. These synthetic, testosteronebased derivatives are widely abused by athletes and nonathletes to gain athletic performance advantages, develop their physiques, and improve their body image. Although AAS can be ergogenic, their abuse may lead to numerous negative health effects. Recommendations: Abusers of AAS often rely on questionable information sources. Sports medicine professionals can therefore serve an important role by providing accurate, reliable information. The recommendations provide health care professionals with a current and accurate synopsis of the AAS-related research

Floating oil-covered debris from Deepwater Horizon : identification and application

Author Posting. © IOP Publishing, 2012. This article is posted here by permission of IOP Publishing. Re-use is limited to non-commercial purposes. The definitive version was published in Environmental Research Letters 7 (2012): 015301, doi:10.1088/1748-9326/7/1/015301.The discovery of oiled and non-oiled honeycomb material in the Gulf of Mexico surface waters and along coastal beaches shortly after the explosion of Deepwater Horizon sparked debate about its origin and the oil covering it. We show that the unknown pieces of oiled and non-oiled honeycomb material collected in the Gulf of Mexico were pieces of the riser pipe buoyancy module of Deepwater Horizon. Biomarker ratios confirmed that the oil had originated from the Macondo oil well and had undergone significant weathering. Using the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's records of the oil spill trajectory at the sea surface, we show that the honeycomb material preceded the front edge of the uncertainty of the oil slick trajectory by several kilometers. We conclude that the observation of debris fields deriving from damaged marine materials may be incorporated into emergency response efforts and forecasting of coastal impacts during future offshore oil spills, and ground truthing predicative models.This research was supported by NSF grant OCE-1043976 to CR

Heavy metals in moss guide environmental justice investigation: A case study using community science in Seattle, WA, USA

Heavy metal concentrations often vary at small spatial scales not captured by air monitoring networks, with implications for environmental justice in industrial-adjacent communities. Pollutants measured in moss tissues are commonly used as a screening tool to guide use of more expensive resources, like air monitors. Such studies, however, rarely address environmental justice issues or involve the residents and other decision makers expected to utilize results. Here, we piloted a community science approach, engaging over 55 people from nine institutions, to map heavy metals using moss in two industrial-adjacent neighborhoods. This area, long known for disproportionately poor air quality, health outcomes, and racial inequities, has only one monitor for heavy metals. Thus, an initial understanding of spatial patterns is critical for gauging whether, where, and how to invest further resources toward investigating heavy metals. Local youth-led sampling of the moss Orthotrichum lyellii from trees across a 250 × 250 m sampling grid (n = 79) and generated data comparable to expert-collected samples (n = 19). We mapped 21 chemical elements measured in moss, including 6 toxic “priority” metals: arsenic, cadmium, chromium, cobalt, lead, and nickel. Compared to other urban O. lyellii studies, local moss had substantially higher priority metals, especially arsenic and chromium, encouraging community members to investigate further. Potential hotspots of priority metals varied somewhat but tended to peak near the central industrial core where many possible emission sources, including legacy contamination and converge. Informed by these findings, community members successfully advocated regulators for a second study phase—a community-directed air monitoring campaign to evaluate residents\u27 exposure to heavy metals—as is needed to connect moss results back to the partnership\u27s core goal of understanding drivers of health disparities. This follow-up campaign will measure metals in the PM10 fraction owing to clues in the current study that airborne soil and dust may be locally important carriers of priority metals. Future work will address how our approach combining bioindicators and community science ultimately affects success addressing longstanding environmental justice concerns. For now, we illustrate the potential to co-create new knowledge, to help catalyze and strategize next steps, in a complex air quality investigation

Trapping \u3ci\u3ePhyllophaga \u3c/i\u3espp. (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Melolonthinae) in the United States and Canada using sex attractants.

The sex pheromone of the scarab beetle, Phyllophaga anxia, is a blend of the methyl esters of two amino acids, L-valine and L-isoleucine. A field trapping study was conducted, deploying different blends of the two compounds at 59 locations in the United States and Canada. More than 57,000 males of 61 Phyllophaga species (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Melolonthinae) were captured and identified. Three major findings included: (1) widespread use of the two compounds [of the 147 Phyllophaga (sensu stricto) species found in the United States and Canada, males of nearly 40% were captured]; (2) in most species intraspecific male response to the pheromone blends was stable between years and over geography; and (3) an unusual pheromone polymorphism was described from P. anxia. Populations at some locations were captured with L-valine methyl ester alone, whereas populations at other locations were captured with L-isoleucine methyl ester alone. At additional locations, the L-valine methyl ester-responding populations and the L-isoleucine methyl ester-responding populations were both present, producing a bimodal capture curve. In southeastern Massachusetts and in Rhode Island, in the United States, P. anxia males were captured with blends of L-valine methyl ester and L-isoleucine methyl ester

Determination of Stromal Signatures in Breast Carcinoma

Many soft tissue tumors recapitulate features of normal connective tissue. We hypothesize that different types of fibroblastic tumors are representative of different populations of fibroblastic cells or different activation states of these cells. We examined two tumors with fibroblastic features, solitary fibrous tumor (SFT) and desmoid-type fibromatosis (DTF), by DNA microarray analysis and found that they have very different expression profiles, including significant differences in their patterns of expression of extracellular matrix genes and growth factors. Using immunohistochemistry and in situ hybridization on a tissue microarray, we found that genes specific for these two tumors have mutually specific expression in the stroma of nonneoplastic tissues. We defined a set of 786 gene spots whose pattern of expression distinguishes SFT from DTF. In an analysis of DNA microarray gene expression data from 295 previously published breast carcinomas, we found that expression of this gene set defined two groups of breast carcinomas with significant differences in overall survival. One of the groups had a favorable outcome and was defined by the expression of DTF genes. The other group of tumors had a poor prognosis and showed variable expression of genes enriched for SFT type. Our findings suggest that the host stromal response varies significantly among carcinomas and that gene expression patterns characteristic of soft tissue tumors can be used to discover new markers for normal connective tissue cells

Performance Benchmarks for Screening Mammography

PURPOSE: To retrospectively evaluate the range of performance outcomes of the radiologist in an audit of screening mammography by using a representative sample of U.S. radiologists to allow development of performance benchmarks for screening mammography. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Institutional review board approval was obtained, and study was HIPAA compliant. Informed consent was or was not obtained according to institutional review board guidelines. Data from 188 mammographic facilities and 807 radiologists obtained between 1996 and 2002 were analyzed from six registries from the Breast Cancer Surveillance Consortium (BCSC). Contributed data included demographic information, clinical findings, mammographic interpretation, and biopsy results. Measurements calculated were positive predictive values (PPVs) from screening mammography (PPV(1)), biopsy recommendation (PPV(2)), biopsy performed (PPV(3)), recall rate, cancer detection rate, mean cancer size, and cancer stage. Radiologist performance data are presented as 50th (median), 10th, 25th, 75th, and 90th percentiles and as graphic presentations by using smoothed curves. RESULTS: There were 2 580 151 screening mammographic studies from 1 117 390 women (age range, /=80 years). The respective means and ranges of performance outcomes for the middle 50% of radiologists were as follows: recall rate, 9.8% and 6.4%-13.3%; PPV(1), 4.8% and 3.4%-6.2%; and PPV(2), 24.6% and 18.8%-32.0%. Mean cancer detection rate was 4.7 per 1000, and the median [corrected] mean size of invasive cancers was 13 mm. The range of performance outcomes for the middle 80% of radiologists also was presented. CONCLUSION: Community screening mammographic performance measurements of cancer outcomes for the majority of radiologists in the BCSC surpass performance recommendations. Recall rate for almost half of radiologists, however, is higher than the recommended rate