Alien Registration- Burke, Mary A. (Auburn, Androscoggin County)

https://digitalmaine.com/alien_docs/30934/thumbnail.jp

Leveraging Epidemiology to Improve Risk Assessment.

The field of environmental public health is at an important crossroad. Our current biomonitoring efforts document widespread exposure to a host of chemicals for which toxicity information is lacking. At the same time, advances in the fields of genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, genetics and epigenetics are yielding volumes of data at a rapid pace. Our ability to detect chemicals in biological and environmental media has far outpaced our ability to interpret their health relevance, and as a result, the environmental risk paradigm, in its current state, is antiquated and ill-equipped to make the best use of these new data. In light of new scientific developments and the pressing need to characterize the public health burdens of chemicals, it is imperative to reinvigorate the use of environmental epidemiology in chemical risk assessment. Two case studies of chemical assessments from the Environmental Protection Agency Integrated Risk Information System database are presented to illustrate opportunities where epidemiologic data could have been used in place of experimental animal data in dose-response assessment, or where different approaches, techniques, or studies could have been employed to better utilize existing epidemiologic evidence. Based on the case studies and what can be learned from recent scientific advances and improved approaches to utilizing human data for dose-response estimation, recommendations are provided for the disciplines of epidemiology and risk assessment for enhancing the role of epidemiologic data in hazard identification and dose-response assessment

Social dynamics of obesity

We explain the recent increases in obesity in the United States with a model involving falling food prices, endogenous social body weight norms, and heterogeneous human metabolism. Calibrating an analytical choice model to American women in the 30-to 60-yr-old age bracket, we compare the predicted weight distributions to National Health and Nutrition Examination survey data spanning (intermittently) the years 1976-2000. The model, the first to describe explicitly complete weight distribution dynamics for this group, predicts average weights and obesity rates with considerable accuracy and captures a significant portion of the recent growth in upper quantile weights. (JEL D11, I12, Z13

A cost-effectiveness study of ownership versus access

This paper describes a method which was used to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of three different ways of supplying periodical articles in an academic library. The methods considered were: subscribing to a periodical title (ownership); individual article supply provided by two electronic document delivery services, ArticlesFirst of OCLC FirstSearch and UnCover; and traditional article supply through the British Library Document Supply Centre. The operational costs of the alternatives are obtained by taking a management accounting approach and are examined in relation to the provision of the services within the library of St. Patrick's College, Maynooth, Ireland. The cost-per-use of owning a periodical title is calculated based on the operational costs of the Periodicals Department of the library, its subscription price and a lifetime use determined by examination of the current requests for articles made through the library's Inter-Library Loans Department. The cost-per-use for the other services are also calculated based on their operational costs and document delivery charges

A cost-effectiveness study of ownership versus access

This paper describes a method which was used to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of three different ways of supplying periodical articles in an academic library. The methods considered were: subscribing to a periodical title (ownership); individual article supply provided by two electronic document delivery services, ArticlesFirst of OCLC FirstSearch and UnCover; and traditional article supply through the British Library Document Supply Centre. The operational costs of the alternatives are obtained by taking a management accounting approach and are examined in relation to the provision of the services within the library of St. Patrick's College, Maynooth, Ireland. The cost-per-use of owning a periodical title is calculated based on the operational costs of the Periodicals Department of the library, its subscription price and a lifetime use determined by examination of the current requests for articles made through the library's Inter-Library Loans Department. The cost-per-use for the other services are also calculated based on their operational costs and document delivery charges

Constraint-Induced Language Therapy: Treatment Effects on Two Individuals with Moderate to Severe Aphasia and Apraxia of Speech

Constraint-induced language therapy (CILT) has proven to be an effective treatment for improving naming in some individuals with chronic aphasia.  Whether constraint to the speech modality or treatment intensity is responsible for such gains is still under investigation.  Two individuals with moderate-to-severe chronic aphasia and apraxia of speech (AOS) were treated simultaneously, first in an unconstrained, intensive treatment program (PACE) and later using CILT. Both participants made more and faster gains in naming following CILT. The participant with less severe AOS made greater and more enduring gains, possibly due to more errorless practice

Quiescent Radio Emission from Southern Late-type M Dwarfs and a Spectacular Radio Flare from the M8 Dwarf DENIS 1048-3956

We report the results of a radio monitoring program conducted at the Australia Telescope Compact Array to search for quiescent and flaring emission from seven nearby Southern late-type M and L dwarfs. Two late-type M dwarfs, the M7 V LHS 3003 and the M8 V DENIS 1048-3956, were detected in quiescent emission at 4.80 GHz. The observed emission is consistent with optically thin gyrosynchrotron emission from mildly relativistic (~1-10 keV) electrons with source densities n_e ~ 10 G magnetic fields. DENIS 1048-3956 was also detected in two spectacular, short-lived flares, one at 4.80 GHz (peak f_nu = 6.0+/-0.8 mJy) and one at 8.64 GHz (peak f_nu = 29.6+/-1.0 mJy) approximately 10 minutes later. The high brightness temperature (T_B >~ 10^13 K), short emission period (~4-5 minutes), high circular polarization (~100%), and apparently narrow spectral bandwidth of these events imply a coherent emission process in a region of high electron density (n_e ~ 10^11-10^12 cm^-3) and magnetic field strength (B ~ 1 kG). If the two flare events are related, the apparent frequency drift in the emission suggests that the emitting source either moved into regions of higher electron or magnetic flux density; or was compressed, e.g., by twisting field lines or gas motions. The quiescent fluxes from the radio-emitting M dwarfs violate the Gudel-Benz empirical radio/X-ray relations, confirming a trend previously noted by Berger et al. (abridged)Comment: 28 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in Ap

Amphotericin forms an extramembranous and fungicidal sterol sponge.

For over 50 years, amphotericin has remained the powerful but highly toxic last line of defense in treating life-threatening fungal infections in humans with minimal development of microbial resistance. Understanding how this small molecule kills yeast is thus critical for guiding development of derivatives with an improved therapeutic index and other resistance-refractory antimicrobial agents. In the widely accepted ion channel model for its mechanism of cytocidal action, amphotericin forms aggregates inside lipid bilayers that permeabilize and kill cells. In contrast, we report that amphotericin exists primarily in the form of large, extramembranous aggregates that kill yeast by extracting ergosterol from lipid bilayers. These findings reveal that extraction of a polyfunctional lipid underlies the resistance-refractory antimicrobial action of amphotericin and suggests a roadmap for separating its cytocidal and membrane-permeabilizing activities. This new mechanistic understanding is also guiding development of what are to our knowledge the first derivatives of amphotericin that kill yeast but not human cells