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Abstract: To explore the effects of the gender gap and differences in residential location on environmental risk tolerance, we analyze data from the US general population and from households living with 50 miles of a US nuclear facility. We hypothesize that a potentially hazardous facility in close proximity to a residential community generates a constant risk signal that conditions and desensitizes that local population, causing the gender gap to converge and causing overall higher risk tolerance levels. We find support for this “context matters” hypothesis, i.e., that in environmentally stressed communities, the gender gap does converge, and males and females exhibit approximately equal levels of risk tolerance greater than those in non-stressed communities. We conclude that when modeling environmental risk tolerance both gender and place of residence should be considered potentially meaningful explanatory variables. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Every adult can eliminate the risk of losing control of personal health decisions and financial resources by having a last will and testament, health proxy, power of attorney, and living trust. Yet evidence suggests that less than a majority of adult Americans have these documents. We surveyed 900 adult Americans (25 plus years old) to determine what factors predict the possession of these risk-reducing documents. In total, 46% had a living will and testament, 32% a durable power of attorney, 30% a health proxy, and 18% a living trust. Events that prompt people with wealth to secure these documents, such as increasing age, getting married, having children, and experiencing a life-threatening event were the strongest predictors of having a will. These were also among the strongest predictors of having a health proxy, along with a personal history of being proactive, and a family history that fostered trust of attorneys. Affluence, age, and education were the strongest predictors of having a living trust, and the strongest correlate of having a durable power of attorney was having faced a life-threatening event, positive experiences with attorneys, and higher educational achievement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite that the popular vote margin in the 2004 presidential election was only 2.4%, George W. Bush claimed to have "earned political capital" and Republican National Chairman Ken Mehlman characterized the outcome as "a mandate." While it seems from the size of the electoral margin that such claims are overstated, we look "under the hood" of the election to see whether any particular policy issue--such as the war in Iraq, gay marriage, social security privatization, or any of the others--was sufficiently dominant to justify the characterization of the election as a mandate. We find that the election result sources overwhelmingly to predispositions in the voters' minds before the campaign, with pre-existing party identification the most important factor in both aggregate and individual analyses. Retrospective evaluations favored Kerry, and Bush gained little from his conduct of the war on terror. In its net effect, the campaign was largely a wash, although Bush was more favored on individual traits. Among the policy issues of the campaign, only taxation had a measurable effect, providing a small boost to Bush; the vaunted social issues of abortion and gay marriage were statistically insignificant. The election results suggest that the United States has developed a new national party system of stable and very close competition, but without presidential policy mandates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article highlights the way extra-musical forces guided and appeared in the reception of the music of Gustav Mahler in the U.S. His position as the conductor at the Metropolitan Opera earned him the recognition as one of the most significant conductors of his day. In 1908, Mahler intensified his association with the New York Philharmonic symphony orchestra. He made little impact in the U.S. as a composer. Not until he was dead did his image change and become associated in the public consciousness with his music and influence the reception of his works.

Moxifloxacin exhibits concentration-dependent prolongation of human QTc intervals and bactericidal activity against Mycobacterium tuberculosis However, moxifloxacin plasma concentrations are variable between patients. We evaluated whether human gene polymorphisms affect moxifloxacin plasma concentrations in tuberculosis patients from two geographic regions. We enrolled a convenience sample of 49 adults with drug-sensitive pulmonary tuberculosis from Africa and the United States enrolled in two treatment trials of moxifloxacin as part of multidrug therapy. Pharmacokinetic parameters were evaluated by noncompartmental techniques. Human single-nucleotide polymorphisms of transporter genes were evaluated by analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) on moxifloxacin exposure and the peak (maximum) concentration ( C max ). The moxifloxacin area under the concentration-time curve from 0 to 24 h (AUC 0-24 ) and C max were significantly increased by the drug milligram-per-kilogram dosage and the genotype of variant g.-11187G>A in the SLCO1B1 gene (rs4149015) but not by geographic region. The median moxifloxacin AUC 0-24 was 46% higher and the median C max was 30% higher in 4 (8%) participants who had the SLCO1B1 g.-11187 AG genotype than in 45 participants who had the wild-type GG genotype (median AUC 0-24 from the model, 34.4 versus 23.6 μg · h/ml [ P = 0.005, ANCOVA]; median C max from the model, 3.5 versus 2.7 μg/ml [ P = 0.009, ANCOVA]). Because moxifloxacin exhibits concentration-dependent prolongation of human QTc intervals and prolonged QTc intervals are associated with cardiac arrhythmia, further study is needed to evaluate the risk associated with the SLCO1B1 g.-11187G>A variant. (This study has been registered at ClinicalTrials.gov under identifier NCT00164463.).

Background: There is increasing interest in the possible role of new fluoroquinolone antibiotics for treatment of tuberculosis, but widespread use of fluoroquinolones for treatment of other bacterial infections may select for resistant strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis., Methods: We evaluated fluoroquinolone susceptibility using the proportion method (critical ciprofloxacin concentration for susceptibility testing, 2.0 mu g/mL) in isolates obtained from patients enrolled in Tuberculosis Trial Consortium clinical trials during the period of 1995-2001 and in a referral sample of isolates sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Atlanta, GA) during the period of 1996-2000 for additional testing, often because of drug resistance., Results: Of the 1373 isolates from the clinical trials, 1324 (96%) were susceptible to isoniazid and rifampin; 2 (0.15%) of these isolates were also resistant to ciprofloxacin. Of the 1852 isolates from the referral sample, 603 (32.6%) were resistant to isoniazid and rifampin (i.e., multidrug resistant), 849 (45.7%) were resistant to >or=1 first-line drug but were not resistant to both isoniazid and rifampin, and 400 (21.6%) were susceptible to all first-line agents. Ciprofloxacin resistance was found in 33 (1.8%) of the referral-sample isolates. Most ciprofloxacin-resistant isolates (25 [75.8%]) were resistant to isoniazid and rifampin., Conclusions: Despite widespread use of fluoroquinolones for treatment of common bacterial infections, resistance among clinical isolates of M. tuberculosis in the United States and Canada remains rare, occurring primarily among multidrug-resistant strains.