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A lack of reliable winter hardiness has impeded the adoption of winter barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) in much of the northern United States. Direct selection for winter survival is time consuming and often unreliable. In addition, because survival is a binary trait, selection towards small quantitative gains can be difficult. One solution to these challenges is to identify indirect selection traits: anatomical or physiological characteristics which can be measured in the absence of winter stress, but which contribute to improved winter survival. Here, we survey a range of winter and spring barley, as well as winter wheat, winter rye, and perennial species of the genus Hordeum, all of which are more winter hardy than barley, to identify traits associated with winter survival. We identified several traits as promising candidates for selection. These included crown depth and leaf metaxylem diameter, which previous studies have identified as indirect selection traits. New candidates identified by our study include crown diameter and leaf midvein and blade thickness, as well as a suite of traits which suggest a pattern of reduced and efficient investment in above-ground structures. The effect of these traits on winter survival need to be validated and quantified by further experiments, but they represent a promising early step in a potentially valuable breeding strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fusarium head blight (FHB) or scab is a devastating disease of barley that severely reduces the yield and quality of the grain. Additionally, mycotoxins produced by the causal Fusarium species can contaminate harvested grain, resulting in food safety concerns and further economic losses. In the Upper Midwest region of the United States, Fusarium graminearum is the primary causal agent, and deoxynivalenol (DON) is the main mycotoxin associated with Fusarium infection. Deployment of resistant cultivars is an important component of an integrated strategy to manage this disease. Unfortunately, few good sources of FHB resistance have been identified from the evaluation of large collections of Hordeum germplasm. Over the past 25 years, many barley mapping populations have been developed with selected resistance sources to identify the number, chromosomal position and allelic effect of quantitative trait loci (QTL) contributing to FHB resistance and DON accumulation. To consolidate the genetic data generated from 14 mapping studies that included 22 bi‐ or tri‐parental mapping populations and three genome‐wide association (GWAS) mapping panels, a consensus map was constructed that includes 4145 SNP, SSR, RFLP and AFLP markers. A meta‐analysis based on this consensus map revealed 96 QTL for FHB resistance and 57 for DON accumulation scattered across the barley genome. Many of the QTL explained a low percentage (<10%) of variation for the traits and were often found significant in only one or a few environments in multi‐year/multi‐location field trials. Moreover, many of the FHB/DON QTL mapped to chromosomal positions coincided with various agro‐morphological traits that could influence the level of disease (e.g. heading date, height, spike density, and spike angle), raising the important question of whether the former are true resistance factors or are simply the result of pleiotropy with the latter. Considering the magnitude of effect, consistency of detection across environments and independence from agro‐morphological traits, only three of 96 QTL for FHB and five of 57 QTL for DON were considered priority targets for marker‐assisted selection (MAS). In spite of the challenge for having a limited number of useful QTL for breeding, genomic selection holds promise for increasing the efficiency of developing FHB‐resistant barley cultivars, an essential component of the overall management strategy for the disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nursing homes contend with high staff turnover. Resources invested in employees are lost when an employee leaves. However, if employees are thriving in their job, turnover is less a concern. How can employers promote thriving in employees? Using an adaptation of Spreitzer et al. (2005)'s Social Embeddedness Model of Thriving at Work as a conceptual framework, we performed a logistic regression on the responses of 836 nursing home social service directors in the 2019 National Nursing Home Social Service Director Survey to determine factors that contribute to thriving. The model explained 39% of the variation. Seven variables contributed the most to distinguishing social service directors who report thriving at work from those who do not. Having greater influence on social service functions, having time to support residents, not having to do things others could do, and the facility providing quality care were all associated with greater thriving. Those who reported the administrator and/or attending physicians engage the expertise of social services were more likely to report thriving at work. Working in nursing home social services is demanding; retaining a good social worker is important. These findings suggest ways in which administrators can support social service directors thriving at work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Heart transplantation is the gold standard of care for end-stage heart failure in the United States. Donor hearts are a scarce resource, however the current allocation policy—proposed in 2016 and implemented in 2018—has not addressed certain disparities. Between 2005 and 2016, the number of active candidates increased 127%, whereas transplant rates decreased 27.8%. Pretransplant mortality rates declined steadily for that period from 14.6 to 9.7, especially for candidates with mechanical circulatory assistive devices (MCSDs). This study reports survival analyses of candidates for heart transplantation list under competing events of transplantation and MCSD implantation. We queried the transplant data for a cohort of adult patients (age ≥ 16) without MCSDs prior to listing for transplantation between 2005 and 2014 (n = 23,373). We used cause-specific and subdistribution hazards models as multivariate regressions for all competing events. Patients listed as low priority for transplantation are less likely to require implantation but less likely to survive after 1,000 days of listing than patients listed at higher priorities. The current policy does not address this disparity as it focuses on stratifying patients with different types of MCSD. Clinical characteristics must be considered in prioritization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Naked barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) grain threshes freely from its hull during harvesting and cleaning. Much of the available naked barley germplasm is unadapted to U.S. barley growing regions, and few genotypes have been selected to thrive under organic systems. The goal of this research was to characterize a set of spring naked barley genotypes for agronomic traits in the northern United States under organic conditions and estimate the degree of genotype × environment interaction (GEI). To achieve this goal, a multienvironment trial was conducted over 3 yr. Experiments were grown under organic conditions where traits including grain yield, test weight, plant height, heading date, and threshability were evaluated. Contributions of environment, genotype, and GEI to the phenotypic variance were calculated. In the tested germplasm, test weight, plant height, heading date, and threshability were found to have higher variance attributed to genotypic effects compared to GEI. Grain yield variance attributed to GEI was five times greater than that of genotype alone. Genotype + GEI (GGE) and location‐grouping (LG) biplots showed two sets of environments where naked barley genotypes performed similarly. Sensitivity analysis by Finlay–Wilkinson regression found that grain yield was highly sensitive to changes in environment mean yield. These results show that selection for grain yield should be conducted within mega‐environments to leverage GEI patterns. Heading date, plant height, test weight, and threshability can be selected across mega‐environments. Core Ideas: There is five‐times greater genotype × environment interaction (GEI) than genetic variance for grain yield. Biplots define two mega‐environments in the northern United States for naked barley grain yield. Other assessed agronomic traits and threshability are more affected by genotype than GEI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the challenges of criminal justice reform in the U.S. Topics include targeting root cause of criminal behavior; the protection of unalienable rights under the U.S. Constitution; and a high astronomical incarceration rate in the country, along with common law judicial process for addressing the same.

This study describes social services directors' involvement in dementia care in U.S. nursing homes, focusing on interest in and needs for dementia care training. Respondents were 924 social service directors from U.S. nursing homes. We found that 87% of social service departments engaged in cognitive assessment; 59% of social services directors were strongly interested in dementia care training, and 23% would need up to 10 hours of preparation time or would not be able to train staff on dementia-related care. Multinomial logistic regression analysis (n = 836) revealed that, in comparison to having no interest in dementia training, age, years of experience in nursing homes, outside mental health contracting, barriers to staffing, and hours needed to prepare dementia training predicted varying interest in dementia care training. These findings demonstrate social services directors' active involvement in dementia care and need for training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

PREMISE: Inbreeding depression, or the reduction in fitness of progeny with related parents, has the potential to adversely affect the long‐term viability of both wild and captive plant populations. Silphium integrifolium, a prairie plant native to the central United States, has been identified as a potential candidate for domestication as a perennial oilseed crop. Little is known about the potential for inbreeding depression in this species, but it is expected to be nonnegligible because S. integrifolium is both perennial and self‐incompatible. Here, we measure lethal inbreeding depression expressed through embryo deaths, and nonlethal inbreeding depression expressed through changes in vigor and fitness phenotypes of progeny. METHODS: First, we made controlled crosses among related and unrelated individuals to determine the effect of two different levels of inbreeding on seed production. Then, we grew inbred and outbred progeny from this population to reproductive maturity and measured 11 key traits. RESULTS: We found that within an improved S. integrifolium population, individuals carried an average of slightly less than one lethal allele per gamete. In progeny, significant inbreeding depression was observed in at least one family for eight of the 11 measured traits. CONCLUSIONS: Inbreeding depression is likely to be an important challenge to S. integrifolium domestication, reducing overall population fecundity and values for important phenotypes. These effects may grow worse as selection reduces effective population size. We recommend several strategies for S. integrifolium breeding to help mitigate these problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A soil resampling approach has detected an early stage of recovery in the cation chemistry of spruce forest soil due to reductions in acid deposition. That approach is limited by the lack of soil data and archived soil samples prior to major increases in acid deposition during the latter half of the 20th century. An alternative approach is the dendrochemical analysis of dated wood to detect temporal changes in base cations back into the 19th century. To infer environmental change from dendrochemical patterns of essential base cations, internal factors that affect cation chemistry such as the maturation of sapwood and the spread of wood infection need to be recognized. Potassium concentration was a useful marker of these internal maturation and infection that could affect the concentration of essential base cations in wood. Dendrochemical patterns in samples of red spruce in the eastern United States and Norway spruce in northwestern Russia were used to determine how internal changes in base cations can be separated from external changes in root-zone soil to date major changes in the availability of essential base cations associated with a changing environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses how the changes in technology are shaping the law and the legal profession in the U.S. Topics discussed include regulations defined under laws concerning technology; web resources of law like Google Scholar, Casemaker, Fastcase; and ways in which technology can aid scheduling to prevent lawyers from missing filing deadlines.

Copyright of International Journal for Quality in Health Care is the property of Oxford University Press / USA and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Using delivery system innovations to advance health care reform continues to be of widespread interest. However, it is difficult to generalize about the success of specific types of innovations, since they have been examined in only a few studies. To gain a broader perspective, we analyzed the results of forty-three ambulatory care programs funded by the first round of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation's Health Care Innovations Awards. The innovations' impacts on total cost of care were estimated by independent evaluators using multivariable difference-in-differences models. Through the first two years, most of the innovations did not show a significant effect on total cost of care. Using meta-regression, we assessed the effects on costs of five common components of these innovations. Innovations that used health information technology or community health workers achieved the greatest cost savings. Savings were also relatively large in programs that targeted clinically fragile patients--clinically complex populations at risk for disease progression. While the magnitude of these effects was often substantial, none achieved conventional levels of significance in our analyses. Meta-analyses of a larger number of delivery system innovations are needed to more clearly establish their potential for patient care cost savings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents question and answers related to the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) in the U.S. including the importance of FCRA, the pros and cons of the applicant or employee credit checks and the analogous laws to the FCRA.

The article examines the income-based repayment plans and for-profit education in the U.S. Topics discussed include student loans in bankruptcy, for-profit education and student loan repayment plans; income-based repayment plans, and federal student loan debt and the bankruptcy court's standard to discharge them.

Words are believed to be indicators of the values that are important to politicians and an impressive amount of empirical research has analyzed variations in language use. While it is generally accepted that there are value differences between Democrats and Republicans, the extent to which these differences are reflected in word usage has been theorized but is largely untested. The connection between values and language is, theoretically, not limited just to politicians, but should be especially evident among politicians as representatives of existing ideological poles. In this article, we examine elite rhetoric through the lens of four value-centered theoretical frameworks (Lakoff’s Parenting Styles model, Moral Foundations Theory, Schwartz’s Values Theory, and Motivated Social Cognition Theory). Contrary to the expectations posited by these four theories, we find little reliable evidence of value-related language differences between Democratic and Republican politicians. Our findings suggest that, at least when it comes to elite rhetoric, widely accepted theoretical claims about the value-based nature of political language and political differences are not consistently supported by empirical analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Key message: We report malt quality QTLs relevant to breeding with greater precision than previous mapping studies. The distribution of favorable alleles suggests strategies for marker-assisted breeding and germplasm exchange. Abstract: This study leverages the breeding data of 1,862 barley breeding lines evaluated in 97 field trials for genome-wide association study of malting quality traits in barley. The mapping panel consisted of six-row and two-row advanced breeding lines from eight breeding populations established at six public breeding programs across the United States. A total of 4,976 grain samples were subjected to micro-malting analysis and mapping of nine quality traits was conducted with 3,072 SNP markers distributed throughout the genome. Association mapping was performed for individual breeding populations and for combined six-row and two-row populations. Only 16 % of the QTL we report here had been detected in prior bi-parental mapping studies. Comparison of the analyses of the combined two-row and six-row panels identified only two QTL regions that were common to both. In total, 108 and 107 significant marker-trait associations were identified in all six-row and all two-row breeding programs, respectively. A total of 102 and 65 marker-trait associations were specific to individual six-row and two-row breeding programs, respectively indicating that most marker-trait associations were breeding population specific. Combining datasets from different breeding program resulted in both the loss of some QTL that were apparent in the analyses of individual programs and the discovery of new QTL not identified in individual programs. This suggests that simply increasing sample size by pooling samples with different breeding history does not necessarily increase the power to detect associations. The genetic architecture of malting quality and the distribution of favorable alleles suggest strategies for marker-assisted selection and germplasm exchange. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective To compare health care utilization and payments between NCQA-recognized patient-centered medical home ( PCMH) practices and practices without such recognition. Data Sources Medicare Part A and B claims files from July 1, 2007 to June 30, 2010, 2009 Census, 2007 Health Resources and Services Administration and CMS Utilization file, Medicare's Enrollment Data Base, and the 2005 American Medical Association Physician Workforce file. Study Design This study used a longitudinal, nonexperimental design. Three annual observations (July 1, 2008-June 30, 2010) were available for each practice. We compared selected outcomes between practices with and those without NCQA PCMH recognition. Data Collection Methods Individual Medicare fee-for-service ( FFS) beneficiaries and their claims and utilization data were assigned to PCMH or comparison practices based on where they received the plurality of evaluation and management services between July 1, 2007 and June 30, 2008. Principal Findings Relative to the comparison group, total Medicare payments, acute care payments, and the number of emergency room visits declined after practices received NCQA PCMH recognition. The decline was larger for practices with sicker than average patients, primary care practices, and solo practices. Conclusions This study provides additional evidence about the potential of the PCMH model for reducing health care utilization and the cost of care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the increasing use of fair value accounting under U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) compared to the traditional use of historical cost accounting. Acquisition costs, especially for financial assets, used to be capitalized as part of the investment asset. However, with the increasing use of fair value accounting, accounting standards for acquisition costs are increasingly requiring the expensing of these acquisition costs. This paper discusses the former and current standards for treatment of these costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A renewed interest in breeding barley specifically for food end-uses is being driven by increased consumer interest in healthier foods. We conducted association mapping on physicochemical properties of barley that play a role in food quality and processing including grain hardness, polyphenol oxidase activity, total phenolics, amylose content, and β-glucan. We used 3,069 elite two-row and six-row spring barley breeding lines from eight US breeding programs and 2,041 SNP markers for association mapping. Marker-trait associations were identified using a mixed model that incorporated population structure and kinship. We detected two previously identified QTL for grain hardness on chromosome 2H in the telomeric region of 5H along with two novel regions on 4H and 6H. For amylose content, we detected marker-trait associations on 7H from 0.63 to 30 cM. We detected four regions on chromosomes 1H, 2H, 3H, and 4H associated with polyphenol oxidase activity. The chromosome 2H region co-localized with the two previously mapped polyphenol oxidase genes PPO1 and PPO2, and the regions on chromosomes 1H, 3H, and 4H QTL were novel. For total phenolics, we identified three significant regions on 3H, 4H, and 5H. Two regions on 2H and 7H were associated with β-glucan. Both previously identified and novel QTL are segregating in elite US breeding germplasm. Only three of the 24 SNPs that were associated with traits using either the two-row or six-row mapping panel were identified in both panels. Nine SNPs were detected in the individual two-row or six-row panels that were not detected in the analysis using the complete panel and accounting for population structure. The distribution of favorable alleles at these loci that underpin food quality across the breeding programs suggests several strategies to use markers to improve barley for food uses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To examine the impact of the Medicare Physician Group Practice (PGP) demonstration on expenditure, utilization, and quality outcomes. Data Source: Secondary data analysis of 2001–2010 Medicare claims for 1,776,387 person years assigned to the ten participating provider organizations and 1,579,080 person years in the corresponding local comparison groups. Study Design: We used a pre-post comparison group observational design consisting of four pre-demonstration years (1/01–12/04) and five demonstration years (4/05–3/10). We employed a propensity-weighted difference-in-differences regression model to estimate demonstration effects, adjusting for demographics, health status, geographic area, and secular trends. Principal Findings: The ten demonstration sites combined saved $171 (2.0%) per assigned beneficiary person year (p<0.001) during the five-year demonstration period. Medicare paid performance bonuses to the participating PGPs that averaged $102 per person year. The net savings to the Medicare program were $69 (0.8%) per person year. Demonstration savings were achieved primarily from the inpatient setting. The demonstration improved quality of care as measured by six of seven claims-based process quality indicators. Conclusions: The PGP demonstration, which used a payment model similar to the Medicare Accountable Care Organization (ACO) program, resulted in small reductions in Medicare expenditures and inpatient utilization, and improvements in process quality indicators. Judging from this demonstration experience, it is unlikely that Medicare ACOs will initially achieve large savings. Nevertheless, ACOs paid through shared savings may be an important first step toward greater efficiency and quality in the Medicare fee-for-service program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The degree to which people desire policy change is a function of two factors: preferences for future policies and perceptions of current policies. Political scientists, pollsters, and pundits know a good deal about people’s policy preferences but surprisingly little about the distance of those preferences from policy perceptions. In this article, we assess the distance between policy perceptions and policy preferences to calculate the amount of policy change desired. The data come from an original survey tapping respondents’ preferred and perceived policies and from those few National Election Surveys where parallel items on policy preferences and perceptions were posed. By incorporating policy perceptions alongside of preferences, our findings provide a better indication of the gulf between the policy change desired by liberals and the policy change desired by conservatives. The findings help explain polarization in the United States where differences in policy preferences alone often do not indicate extreme diversity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article presents questions and answers concerning the legal and policy issues surrounding the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policies of most employers in the U.S.

This article reports results from the first twin study of adults in the United States that focuses exclusively and comprehensively on political traits. These data allow us to test whether a common set of genetic and environmental influences act upon a broad variety of values, personality traits, and political attitudes. In short, it allows us to empirically investigate whether there are a core set of predispositions that form the basis of our political orientations and, if so, whether these predispositions are shaped by the same environmental and innate forces. The key finding from our analysis is that there are core political predispositions that are rooted in common genetic and environmental influences and that these predispositions are empirically distinct from broader personality traits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: To date, limited and inconsistent evidence exists regarding racial discrimination and risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD). Methods: Cross-sectional observational study of 1005 US-born non-Hispanic black (n = 504) and white (n = 501) participants age 35–64 randomly selected from community health centers in Boston, MA (2008–2010; 82.4% response rate), using 3 racial discrimination measures: explicit self-report; implicit association test (IAT, a time reaction test for self and group as target vs. perpetrator of discrimination); and structural (Jim Crow status of state of birth, i.e. legal racial discrimination prior 1964). Results: Black and white participants both had adverse cardiovascular and socioeconomic profiles, with black participants most highly exposed to racial discrimination. Positive crude associations among black participants occurred for Jim Crow birthplace and hypertension (odds ratio (OR) 1.92, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.28, 2.89) and for explicit self-report and the Framingham 10 year CVD risk score (beta  = 0.04; 95% CI 0.01, 0.07); among white participants, only negative crude associations existed (for IAT for self, for lower systolic blood pressure (SBP; beta  = −4.86; 95% CI −9.08, −0.64) and lower Framingham CVD score (beta  = −0.36, 95% CI −0.63, −0.08)). All of these associations were attenuated and all but the white IAT-Framingham risk score association were rendered null in analyses that controlled for lifetime socioeconomic position and additional covariates. Controlling for racial discrimination, socioeconomic position, and other covariates did not attenuate the crude black excess risk for SBP and hypertension and left unaffected the null excess risk for the Framingham CVD score. Conclusion: Despite worse exposures among the black participants, racial discrimination and socioeconomic position were not associated, in multivariable analyses, with risk of CVD. We interpret results in relation to constrained variability of exposures and outcomes and discuss implications for valid research on social determinants of health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the U.S. Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA). It stresses the struggle of employers in achieving the law's reasonable accommodation requirements and undue hardship establishment for employees with disabilities. Furthermore, it provides a list of common mistakes that violate ADA including the employers' failure to engage in the interactive process and the automatic termination of employee on Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) expiration.

Forty to fifty percent decreases in acidic deposition through the 1980s and 1990s led to partial recovery of acidified surface waters in the northeastern United States; however, the limited number of studies that have assessed soil change found increased soil acidification during this period. From existing data, it's not clear whether soils continued to worsen in the 1990s or if recovery had begun. To evaluate possible changes in soils through the 1990s, soils in six red spruce (Picea rubens Sarg.) stands in New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, first sampled in 1992 to 1993, were resampled in 2003 to 2004. The Oa-horizon pH increased (P < 0.01) at three sites, was marginally higher (P < 0.1) at one site, and lower (P < 0.05) at the New York site. Total C concentrations in Oa horizons decreased (P < 0.05) at sites where the pH increased, but the cause is uncertain. Exchangeable Al concentrations in Oa horizons decreased (P < 0.05) 20 to 40% at all sites except New York, which showed no change. The AI decrease can be attributed to decreased deposition of SO42-, which decreased the mobility of Al throughout the upper soil profile. Results indicate a nascent recovery driven largely by vegetation processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: To date, research on racial discrimination and health typically has employed explicit self-report measures, despite their potentially being affected by what people are able and willing to say. We accordingly employed an Implicit Association Test (IAT) for racial discrimination, first developed and used in two recent published studies, and measured associations of the explicit and implicit discrimination measures with each other, socioeconomic and psychosocial variables, and smoking. Methodology/Principal Findings: Among the 504 black and 501 white US-born participants, age 35-64, randomly recruited in 2008-2010 from 4 community health centers in Boston, MA, black participants were over 1.5 times more likely (p<0.05) to be worse off economically (e.g., for poverty and low education) and have higher social desirability scores (43.8 vs. 28.2); their explicit discrimination exposure was also 2.5 to 3.7 times higher (p<0.05) depending on the measure used, with over 60% reporting exposure in 3 or more domains and within the last year. Higher IAT scores for target vs. perpetrator of discrimination occurred for the black versus white participants: for ''black person vs. white person'': 0.26 vs. 0.13; and for ''me vs. them'': 0.24 vs. 0.19. In both groups, only low non-significant correlations existed between the implicit and explicit discrimination measures; social desirability was significantly associated with the explicit but not implicit measures. Although neither the explicit nor implicit discrimination measures were associated with odds of being a current smoker, the excess risk for black participants (controlling for age and gender) rose in models that also controlled for the racial discrimination and psychosocial variables; additional control for socioeconomic position sharply reduced and rendered the association null. Conclusions: Implicit and explicit measures of racial discrimination are not equivalent and both warrant use in research on racial discrimination and health, along with data on socioeconomic position and social desirability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented on the steps to achieve a user-friendly law on copyright renewal for libraries. These steps, which also elucidate the complexities of the U.S. law on copyright protection and fair use, include anti-circumvention exceptions, preemption of non-negotiable contracts, and preservation options for sound recordings. It mentions that such suggestions, which address the copyright law issues, is aimed at helping librarians acquire profound knowledge of the copyright environment.

The article examines unpublished private letters exchanged in 1938-1939 between British diplomat Geoffrey Thompson and U.S. ambassador to Spain Claude Bowers for their insights into the diplomatic relationship between U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in the months before the outbreak of World War II. Differences between the United States and Great Britain over how to confront fascism in Europe are discussed, as are the Munich pact between Great Britain and Germany, and the British policy of appeasement.

The article focuses on the efficiency of the intranet site in the workflow of hospital pharmacy department in the U.S. Intranet sites have been viewed to communication improvement, pharmacy education enhancement, and work efficiency improvement considering that large hospitals have problems in handling information. Managing information can be improved with the used of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, a knowledge based tool, because this can lead to better pharmacy services.

[Display omitted] • Fishers once occupied only 43% of their historic range. • Reintroduced fishers on industrial timberlands yielded a growing population. • Density of the reintroduced population was equivalent to other populations on managed landscapes. • Landscapes managed for timber will be important for future fisher conservation. Understanding the role of landscapes managed for timber production in the conservation of forest-obligate species is a priority for preserving ecological integrity and fostering socioeconomic wellbeing. The forest characteristics generally associated with the survival, reproduction, and persistence of forest-obligate species (e.g., large-diameter trees, standing dead trees, understory vegetation, downed logs) are often believed to be at odds with timber production. One such species is the fisher (Pekania pennanti), a mesocarnivoran (member of the order Carnivora) associated with mature forest characteristics whose range has decreased substantially since the mid-1800s. Fishers exemplify the perceived conflict between forest-obligate species and timber production because they generally require areas exhibiting complex forest structure including multiple canopy layers, old trees and standing dead trees with cavities, logs, and understory vegetation that provide sufficient prey, escape cover, and structures to support reproduction and parturition. Consequently, understanding if fishers can persist in landscapes managed for timber production can provide a critical test of the compatibility among forest-obligate species and forest management. We reintroduced 40 fishers (24 females, 16 males) between November 2009 and December 2011 onto a landscape managed for timber production to establish a new fisher population and to evaluate the viability of fisher populations on a forest managed for timber production. We studied this reintroduced population of fishers for 8 years following the reintroduction using annual live-captures and year-round tracking with radio telemetry. Using population modeling with spatial capture-recapture methods, we estimated this population of fishers to be growing during the 7-year study period. The density of the reintroduced fisher population in 2017 (10.8 fishers/100 km2) was within the reported range of fisher densities across the western United States. The reintroduction of fishers to previously occupied portions of their range is an important component of fisher conservation and will play a role in the recovery of the species in western portions of the fisher's range. Our results suggest that forests managed for timber production with landscape conditions similar to our study area may be important for future fisher reintroductions and species recovery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Electrical Systems Division at the NASA Kennedy Space Center has developed and deployed an agent-based tool to monitor the space shuttle's ground processing telemetry stream. The application, the NASA Engineering Shuttle Telemetry Agent (NESTA), increases situational awareness for system and hardware engineers during ground processing of the shuttle's subsystems. The agent provides autonomous monitoring of the telemetry stream and automatically alerts system engineers when predefined criteria have been met. Efficiency and safety are improved through increased automation. Sandia National Labs' Java Expert System Shell is employed as the rule engine. The shell's predicate logic lends itself well to capturing the heuristics and specifying the engineering rules of this spaceport domain. The declarative paradigm of the rule-based agent yields a highly modular and scalable design spanning multiple subsystems of the shuttle. Several hundred monitoring rules have been written thus far with corresponding notifications sent to shuttle engineers. This article discusses the rule-based telemetry agent used for space shuttle ground processing and explains the problem domain, development of the agent software, benefits of AI technology, and deployment and sustaining engineering of the product. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The articles reports on the NESTA software tool which was developed to enhance insight into space shuttle ground processing and improve situational awareness at the NASA Kennedy Space Center. NESTA assists the Launch Processing System (LPS) by continuously monitoring the data going through the real-time telemetry system. LPS-processed measurements are distributed on a local area network as the Shuttle Data Stream, offering real-time data telemetry from shuttle ground-processing and launch operations. NESTA performs the function of a software agent for the NASA engineer.

Abstract: Population health research on racial discrimination is hampered by a paucity of psychometrically validated instruments that can be feasibly used in large-scale studies. We therefore sought to investigate the validity and reliability of a short self-report instrument, the “Experiences of Discrimination” (EOD) measure, based on a prior instrument used in the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) study. Study participants were drawn from a cohort of working class adults, age 25–64, based in the Greater Boston area, Massachusetts (USA). The main study analytic sample included 159 black, 249 Latino, and 208 white participants; the validation study included 98 African American and 110 Latino participants who completed a re-test survey two to four weeks after the initial survey. The main and validation survey instruments included the EOD and several single-item discrimination questions; the validation survey also included the Williams Major and Everyday discrimination measures. Key findings indicated the EOD can be validly and reliably employed. Scale reliability was high, as demonstrated by confirmatory factor analysis, Cronbach''s alpha (0.74 or greater), and test–re-test reliability coefficients (0.70). Structural equation modeling demonstrated the EOD had the highest correlation () with an underlying discrimination construct compared to other self-report discrimination measures employed. It was significantly associated with psychological distress and tended to be associated with cigarette smoking among blacks and Latinos, and it was not associated with social desirability in either group. By contrast, single-item measures were notably less reliable and had low correlations with the multi-item measures. These results underscore the need for using validated, multi-item measures of experiences of racial discrimination and suggest the EOD may be one such measure that can be validly employed with working class African Americans and Latino Americans. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Examines the impact of the Brown versus Board of Education case, which led to the desegregation of public K-12 schools, on jurisprudence in the U.S. Background on the case; Analysis of purposes not directly related to desegregation for which the case is repeatedly cited based on court decisions in the country; Implications of the case for the use of social science research in judicial decision making.

We examined non-response bias in physical component summary scores (PCS) and mental component summary scores (MCS) in the Medicare fee-for-service (FFS) Health Outcomes Survey (HOS) using two alternative methods, response propensity weighting and imputation for non-respondents. The two approaches gave nearly identical estimates of non-response bias. PCS scores were 0.74 points lower and MCS scores 0.51 points lower after adjustment for non-response through imputation and 0.63 and 0.46 lower after adjustment for propensity weighting. These levels are small for component scores suggesting that survey non-response to the FFS HOS does not adversely affect estimates of average health status for this population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A multi-year study was carried out to evaluate ERS synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery for monitoring surface hydrologic conditions in wetlands of southern Florida. Surface conditions (water level, aboveground biomass, soil moisture) were measured in 13 study sites (representing three major wetland types) over a 25-month period. ERS SAR imagery was collected over these sites on 22 different occasions and correlated with the surface observations. The results show wide variation in ERS backscatter in individual sites when they were flooded and non-flooded. The range (minimum vs. maximum) in SAR backscatter for the sites when they were flooded was between 2.3 and 8.9 dB, and between 5.0 and 9.0 dB when they were not flooded. Variations in backscatter in the non-flooded sites were consistent with theoretical scattering models for the most part. Backscatter was positively correlated to field measurements of soil moisture. The MIchigan MIcrowave Canopy Scattering (MIMICS) model predicts that backscatter should decrease sharply when a site becomes inundated, but the data show that this drop is only 1–2 dB. This decrease was observed in both non-wooded and wooded sites. The drop in backscatter as water depth increases predicted by MIMICS was observed in the non-wooded wetland sites, and a similar decrease was observed in wooded wetlands as well. Finally, the sensitivity of backscatter and attenuation to variations in aboveground biomass predicted by MIMICS was not observed in the data.The results show that the inter- and intra-annual variations in ERS SAR image intensity in the study region are the result of changes in soil moisture and degree of inundation in the sites. The correlation between changes in SAR backscatter and water depth indicates the potential for using spaceborne SAR systems, such as the ERS for monitoring variations in flooding in south Florida wetlands. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Epidemiologic studies have shown that airborne particulate matter (PM) with a mass median aerodynamic diameter < 10 µm (PM[sub 10]) is associated with an increase in respiratory-related disease. However, there is a growing consensus that particles < 2.5 µm (PM[sub 2.5]), including many in the ultrafine (< 0.1 µm) size range, may elicit greater adverse effects. PM is a complex mixture of organic and inorganic compounds; however, those components or properties responsible for biologic effects on the respiratory system have yet to be determined. During the fall and winter of 2000-2001, healthy adult Sprague-Dawley rats were exposed in six separate experiments to filtered air or combined fine (PM[sub 2.5]) and ultrafine portions of ambient PM in Fresno, California, enhanced approximately 20-fold above outdoor levels. The intent of these studies was to determine if concentrated fine/ultrafine fractions of PM are cytotoxic and/or proinflammatory in the lungs of healthy adult rats. Exposures were for 4 hr/day for 3 consecutive days. The mean mass concentration of particles ranged from 190 to 847 µg/m³. PM was enriched primarily with ammonium nitrate, organic and elemental carbon, and metals. Viability of cells recovered by bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) from rats exposed to concentrated PM was significantly decreased during 4 of 6 weeks, compared with rats exposed to filtered air (p < 0.05). Total numbers of BAL cells were increased during 1 week, and neutrophil numbers were increased during 2 weeks. These observations strongly suggest exposure to enhanced concentrations of ambient fine/ultrafine particles in Fresno is associated with mild, but significant, cellular effects in the lungs of healthy adult rats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: This study sought to determine whether blacks and whites with life-threatening cardiac events differ in likelihood of help seeking, types of help sought, or likelihood of reaching the hospital before death. Design: Death certificates were used to identify all coronary heart disease-related deaths occurring in 1988-89 among 45- to 74-year-old, black and white, non-institutionalized residents of three contiguous inner-city districts in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. An informant was interviewed about the decedent's health status, access to care and pre-mortal help-seeking behaviors. Results: Among the 232 decedents analyzed, there were no racial differences in the likelihood of help seeking. Among those who sought help, there were no racial differences in the likelihood of reaching the hospital. However, blacks were more likely than whites to engage in two specific help-seeking behaviors: calling the 911 emergency system, and trying to reach an emergency room. Conclusion: In an area where blacks and whites were similar with respect to socioeconomic status and access to care, race did not affect the likelihood of help seeking or the likelihood of succeeding in reaching the hospital before death. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the impact of denied visitation on the psychological adjustment of children in the U.S. Conceptualization of denied visitation; Reasons for denied of visitation; Effects of divorce on child adjustment.

How does US copyright law, and especially the doctrine of fair use, impact reusing figures drawn from a previous publication? Does it help if we redraw those figures in an attempt to evade copyright restrictions? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article comments on the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The opinion of the Court in Minnesota v. Carter is replete with flaws of logic, consistency, and practical results. The rule promulgated by the majority leads at best to unpredictable results. At worst, it undermines indeed, nullifies the protection which the Fourth Amendment is supposed to provide. Though the primary purpose of this paper was to point out the faults in the Court's analysis, a quick and simple solution may be easily proposed. Even the following rule, though perhaps not perfect, would be more desirable: Fourth amendment protection should extend to anyone who exhibits an actual, subjective expectation of privacy under circumstances which make such an expectation reasonable, with this reasonableness being governed largely by common sense and precedent. Though this rule may need fine-tuning, it has the benefit of keeping with the spirit and wording of the Fourth Amendment, while additionally providing greater predictability and equitable results.

Provides a theoretical argument for a complex relationship between education and local economic conditions in the United States. Economic development as an important focus of state politics; Analysis of policymakers' ability to influence local economic conditions; Pooled analysis of state-level productivity.

Assesses the ability of a morality politics framework to predict the regulation of pornographic materials in the United States. Effects of regulating sexually explicit materials; Discussion on balancing freedom of speech and sexual autonomy; Determinants of the presence and enforcement of obscenity laws.

Focuses on issues surrounding the United States Supreme Court's essentially complete denial of pro se paid civil petitions for certiorari. Function of the Supreme Court within the American legal and political systems; Factors which influence the court's certiorari decision-making process; Legal and political implications.

States that existing research has failed to discover a significant impact of abortion attitudes on voting behavior in United States presidential elections, despite evidence that abortion is an issue with great potential for political mobilization and partisan realignment. Findings that suggest that pro-choice attitudes do influence voting behavior at the individual level in national elections.