New Proposal to Iran: Will It Be Enough to Defuse the Nuclear Crisis?

This BASIC Note assesses the progress of transatlantic diplomacy toward Iran on nuclear issues. On June 6, Iran was presented with a revised package of incentives to persuade it to curb its uranium enrichment program. The authors argued previously that the earlier E3/EU proposal was vague on incentives and heavy on demands. (See BASIC Note, August 11, 2005 at http://www.basicint.org/pubs/Notes/BN050811-IranEU.htm). In this article, the authors suggest that if the June 6 proposal had been offered a year ago (or better still two years ago), much of the recent damage to diplomatic relations between Iran and the West could have been avoided

The ?2-cohomology of hyperplane complements

We compute the l^2-Betti numbers of the complement of any finite collection of affine hyperplanes in complex n-space. At most one of the l^2-Betti numbers is non-zero. <br/

The Effect of Entry of Generic Antibiotics on Prescriptions of the Antibiotic: The Case of Sulfamethoxazole-Trimethoprim

The nonrenewable nature of antibiotic therapy has led many medical professionals, policy makers, and researchers to questions regarding the optimal use of antibiotics. To build out a more robust understanding of antibiotic usage and its contributing factors, careful attention must be paid to the study of antibiotic demand and its characteristics. The purpose of this paper is to estimate the effect of generic entry on antibiotic demand through changes in the probability of prescription using sulfamethoxazole-trimethoprim as a case study. The data used are visits where sulfamethoxazole-trimethoprim could have been prescribed pooled from the National Ambulatory Medical Care Surveys over the years 2006-2016. The probabilities of prescription of sulfamethoxazole-trimethoprim for various patient groups who could have been prescribed the drug both before and after entry of an off brand version are estimated. If a patient has at least one diagnosis of a medical condition for which the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of the United States has approved the use of sulfamethoxazole-trimethoprim to treat, the probability the patient is prescribed the antibiotic initially increases an estimated 1.87 percentage points in the first months the generic is on sale. This increase in probability of prescription is greater for non-white patients and patients on either Medicare or Medicaid. Visits where patients were not diagnosed with an FDA approved reason for prescription of the antibiotic saw no significant change in the probability of being prescribed the antibiotic after entry of the generic

MALLARD NESTING ECOLOGY IN THE GREAT LAKES

Understanding how habitat features influence vital rates that drive population growth is fundamental for delivery of effective conservation programs. Past decisions in management of Great Lakes mallard (Anas platyrynchos) populations were based largely on paradigms established in the mid-continent because regional data were lacking. Recent sensitivity analyses from the Great Lakes Mallard Study show that population growth (i.e., λ) is most sensitive to changes in nest success (16%) and duckling survival (32%). In spring of 2001 to 2003, as part of the Great Lakes Mallard Study, 536 mallards were radio-marked at nine sites in four states (Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Indiana). I tested a set of a priori candidate models to evaluate the relative influence of habitat variables on survival rate of mallard nests (DSR) at local and landscape-level scales (2 m and 2-, 5-, and 10-km radii from nest). Nest success (0.156 ± 1.420) varied regionally from a low of 0.101 in Wisconsin to a high of 0.247 in Michigan, and was higher in forested landscapes (21.7 - 24.7%) than in agricultural environments (10.1 – 16.5%). Mallard nest survival was higher for older females than for second-year birds, and probability of hatching increased with nest age. Concealment within 2 m of a nest increased nest DSR, and amount of tillage agriculture within 5-km of a nest was inversely related to survival. Models that combined variables at multiple spatial scales explained nest DSR better than any combination of variables that were measured at a single spatial scale. Mallard populations in the Great Lakes states are likely to expand further as forested lands are cleared for agricultural production, and mallards begin to pioneer newly created habitats. Because nest success and duckling survival are the most influential vital rates, we recommend that managers conserve and restore wetlands to increase brood survival in higher forested landscapes where small inclusions of agricultural tillage provide habitat without affecting nest success

Modelling household responses to energy efficiency interventions via system dynamics and survey data

An application of building a system dynamics model of the way households might respond to interventions aimed at reducing energy consumption (specifically the use of electricity) is described in this paper. A literature review of past research is used to build an initial integrated model of household consumption, and this model is used to generate a small number of research hypotheses about how households possessing different characteristics might react to various types of interventions. These hypotheses are tested using data gathered from an efficiency intervention conducted in a town in the South African Western Cape in which households were able to exchange regular light bulbs for more efficient compact fluorescent lamp light bulbs. Our experiences are (a) that a system dynamics approach proved useful in advancing a non-traditional point of view for which, for historical and economic reasons, data were not abundantly available; (b) that, in areas where traditional models are heavily quantitative, some scepticism to a system dynamics model may be expected; and (c) that a statistical comparison of model results by means of empirical data may be an effective tool in reducing such scepticism