Full-scale Effort Research Articles

Achievements and Future Challenges in the Support of the Balance of Work and Medical Treatment at the Hospital of the University of Occupational and Environmental Health, Japan, in 2018-2020

The Japanese government is making full-scale efforts to support working people who suffer from cancer and/or other diseases, as it seeks to support a balance of work and receiving medical treatment. The Hospital of the University of Occupational and Environmental Health, Japan, opened its Support Center of Treatment and Work Balance in 2018. This is a multi-disciplinary department for supporting the balance of work and medical treatment. It also opened its Department of Occupational Medicine, the first such department in Japan to provide medical diagnosis and treatment dedicated to supporting that same balance. Our team has supported 704 patients through our activities over the past 3 years. The number of patients supported has increased each year, while the number of departments providing support has also trended upward. There has also been an increase in opinions by attending physicians regarding employment, as well as the number of cases covered by public medical insurance. Here we suggest two factors in our hospital's growth in these activities: (1) many of the clinicians are qualified as occupational physicians, and (2) the organizational strength of our team, which has a vision for balancing support and subsequently promotes that vision. We hope that this report will lead to the balance of support activities in Japan and contribute to the model internationally.

The BCG Vaccine for COVID-19: First Verdict and Future Directions.

Despite of the rapid development of the vaccines against the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), it will take several months to have enough doses and the proper infrastructure to vaccinate a good proportion of the world population. In this interim, the accessibility to the Bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG) may mitigate the pandemic impact in some countries and the BCG vaccine offers significant advantages and flexibility in the way clinical vaccines are administered. BCG vaccination is a highly cost-effective intervention against tuberculosis (TB) and many low-and lower-middle-income countries would likely have the infrastructure, and health care personnel sufficiently familiar with the conventional TB vaccine to mount full-scale efforts to administer novel BCG-based vaccine for COVID-19. This suggests the potential for BCG to overcome future barriers to vaccine roll-out in the countries where health systems are fragile and where the effects of this new coronavirus could be catastrophic. Many studies have reported cross-protective effects of the BCG vaccine toward non-tuberculosis related diseases. Mechanistically, this cross-protective effect of the BCG vaccine can be explained, in part, by trained immunity, a recently discovered program of innate immune memory, which is characterized by non-permanent epigenetic reprogramming of macrophages that leads to increased inflammatory cytokine production and consequently potent immune responses. In this review, we summarize recent work highlighting the potential use of BCG for the treatment respiratory infectious diseases and ongoing SARS-CoV-2 clinical trials. In situations where no other specific prophylactic tools are available, the BCG vaccine could be used as a potential adjuvant, to decrease sickness of SARS-CoV-2 infection and/or to mitigate the effects of concurrent respiratory infections.

Automated triaging of very large bug repositories

Context: Bug tracking systems play an important role in software maintenance. They allow both developers and users to submit problem reports on observed failures. However, by allowing anyone to submit problem reports, it is likely that more than one reporter will report on the same issue. Research in open source repositories has focused on two broad areas: determining the original report associated with each known duplicate, and assigning a developer to fix a particular problem.Objective: Limited research has been done in developing a fully automated triager, one that can first ascertain if a problem report is original or duplicate, and then provide a list of 20 potential matches for a duplicate report. We address this limitation by developing an automated triaging system that can be used to assist human triagers in bug tracking systems.Method: Our automated triaging system automatically assigns a label of original or duplicate to each incoming problem report, and provides a list of 20 suggestions for reports classified as duplicate. The system uses 24 document similarity measures and associated summary statistics, along with a suite of document property and user metrics. We perform our research on a lifetime of problem reports from the Eclipse, Firefox and Open Office repositories. Results: Our system can be used as a filtration aide, with high original recall exceeding 95% and low duplicate recall, or as a triaging guide, with balanced recall of approximately 70% for both originals and duplicates. Furthermore, the system reduces the workload on the triager by over 90%.Conclusions: Our work represents the first full scale effort at automatically triaging problem reports in open source repositories. By utilizing multiple similarity measures, we reduce the potential of false matches caused by the diversity of human language.

The USCCB Curriculum Framework: Origins, Questions, And A Call For Research

The promulgation of Doctrinal Elements of a Curriculum Framework for the Development of Catechetical Materials for Young People of High School Age by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) in November, 2007, represented a milestone in the efforts of the U.S. bishops to monitor and shape the Religious Studies curricula of U.S. Catholic secondary schools. This article contextualizes the Framework, providing comprehensive information about its origins. With the release of the English translation of the new Catechism of the Catholic Church in 1994, the U.S. bishops launched a full-scale effort to address what they perceived to be a crisis of religious illiteracy among Catholics. Central to this effort was an attempt to ensure that all catechetical materials used in Catholic parishes, elementary and secondary schools, and other programs would be in conformity with the doctrinal content, theological approach, and language of the Catechism. When members of the USCCB found many Religious Studies textbooks commonly utilized in U.S. Catholic secondary schools to be gravely deficient both theologically and pedagogically, they began, in early 1999, to create what would become the Framework. Other relevant documents issued following the Framework’s promulgation have further clarified the bishops’ expectations regarding Religious Studies in U.S. Catholic secondary schools. This article addresses many of the questions about the Framework that Religious Studies teachers may have, such as those documented by Schroeder (2013), and invites authors and researchers to subject the Framework to the rigors of empirical research.

近代の小田原城址における所有と利用の変遷及び風致保存の思想

This study clarifies changes in land ownership and land usage at the site of Odawara castle in modern times and considers corresponding thoughts regarding scenic preservation. The castle buildings were demolished when Odawara castle was under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of War. Wood and stones were carted off for use as building materials, and no thought was given to scenic preservation. In 1890 the site was purchased by the Okubo family, descendants of the former feudal lord. Two Shinto shrines were constructed. In 1899 the site came under the jurisdiction of the Imperial Household Department, which intended it for use as an Imperial villa, and this ensured the scenic preservation of the site. The Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 caused extensive damage. Odawara town government purchased a portion of the site in order to build two schools. In addition, Odawara town government partially reconstructed the stone walls that had collapsed in the earthquake and built a public park. Later, the remainder of the site was sold to Kanagawa prefectural government, but no full-scale effort at quake-proofing or parkbuilding was mounted. Nevertheless, the site was designated as a scenic district, ensuring its protection.

The Deadlocked Election of 1800: Jefferson, Burr and the Union in the Balance (review)

The Deadlocked Election of 1800: Jefferson, Burr and the in the Balance. By James Roger Sharp. (Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 2010. Pp. 256; 8 ill. Cloth, $34.95.)Reviewed by Andrew W. RobertsonThe hundredth anniversary of the election of 1800 launched a veritable cottage industry of books on the subject.1 Nothing concentrates the mind on past events better than their re-enactment, and in many of these works, the election of 2000 looms as an all-encompassing comparison. For James Roger Sharp, however, the informative parallel to the election of 1800 is not Bush v. Gore but the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860. Sharp calls these the two most critical elections in American history, because each the potential for destroying the Union (169).Sharp shows us that, if the election of 1860 brought on civil war, the election of 1800 could easily have had a similarly ominous result for the survival of the Union: an extra-constitutional solution to a manufactured crisis. Only a dozen years into the second U.S. constitutional regime, the survival of the was nearly as imperiled by boardinghouse intrigues in the new capital as it was by armed rebellion sixty years later.Sharp comes to this project very well qualified to write about the political background of this critical election. Sharp's earlier work, American Politics in the Early Republic, is an erudite, eminently readable narrative history on the politics of the 1790s.2 Because Sharp is so well versed in the political context, he brings this era to life. Refreshingly, he shies away from easy parallels to present-day politics. From Sharp we learn that late eighteenth-century politics was about both personality and principle. He reveals to us the rivalries and insecurities of brilliant, ambitious men like Jefferson and Hamilton without neglecting their ideological differences or their roles as creators and managers of mass-based movements, the forerunners of political parties. Sharp also describes what he sees as the countervailing, competing and antithetical political philosophies of the federal era: the democratic and egalitarian popular spirit of the American Revolution versus the longstanding belief in classical republicanism that assumed a disinterested elite, who would serve a unified public interest (17).Sharp explains in vivid detail the dramatic oscillations in public support between the Federalists and Republicans in the late 1 790s. Here the author shows himself to be the master of the telling details of both state and national politics. In congressional elections and many contests for governor, the Republicans and Federalists were already engaged in a full-scale effort to mobilize as many of their voters as possible and get them to the polls. Sharp writes quite compellingly about the details of these increasingly democratic elections. He is very well informed about congressional and local elections, frequently citing the voting data collected by Philip Lampi at the American Antiquarian Society. On the other hand, as Sharp makes quite apparent, both parties increasingly attempted to restrict choice in presidential elections. In 1796, eight of the fifteen states provided for election of presidential electors. By 1800 only five of fifteen states had contests for electors. Among the states that decided to change the rules were Massachusetts, which feared losing electoral votes to Jefferson in Maine, and Virginia, which expected to maximize the vote for Jefferson by providing a winner-take-all contest for electors. In New York, the Federalists thought they had locked up the state's electoral vote for Adams by having the legislature select electors; instead, Aaron Burr waged a successful campaign to win the state legislative elections for the Republicans and wrest control of both houses of the legislature out of Federalist hands. Alexander Hamilton wrote to Governor John Jay suggesting that the lame-duck legislature revert to a system of selecting presidential electors in district elections. …

Remediation of NAPL Source Zones: Lessons Learned from Field Studies at Hill and Dover AFB

Innovative remediation studies were conducted between 1994 and 2004 at sites contaminated by nonaqueous phase liquids (NAPLs) at Hill and Dover AFB, and included technologies that mobilize, solubilize, and volatilize NAPL: air sparging (AS), surfactant flushing, cosolvent flooding, and flushing with a complexing-sugar solution. The experiments proved that aggressive remedial efforts tailored to the contaminant can remove more than 90% of the NAPL-phase contaminant mass. Site-characterization methods were tested as part of these field efforts, including partitioning tracer tests, biotracer tests, and mass-flux measurements. A significant reduction in the groundwater contaminant mass flux was achieved despite incomplete removal of the source. The effectiveness of soil, groundwater, and tracer based characterization methods may be site and technology specific. Employing multiple methods can improve characterization. The studies elucidated the importance of small-scale heterogeneities on remediation effectiveness, and fomented research on enhanced-delivery methods. Most contaminant removal occurs in hydraulically accessible zones, and complete removal is limited by contaminant mass stored in inaccessible zones. These studies illustrated the importance of understanding the fluid dynamics and interfacial behavior of injected fluids on remediation design and implementation. The importance of understanding the dynamics of NAPL-mixture dissolution and removal was highlighted. The results from these studies helped researchers better understand what processes and scales are most important to include in mathematical models used for design and data analysis. Finally, the work at these sites emphasized the importance and feasibility of recycling and reusing chemical agents, and enabled the implementation and success of follow-on full-scale efforts.

Three Sequencing Companies Join the 1000 Genomes Project

Leaders of the 1000 Genomes Project announced on June 11 that 3 firms that have pioneered development of new sequencing technologies have joined the international effort to build the most detailed map to date of human genetic variation as a tool for medical research. The new participants are: 454 Life Sciences, a Roche company, Branford, Connecticut; Applied Biosystems, an Applera Corp. business, Foster City, California; and Illumina Inc, San Diego. The 1000 Genomes Project, which was announced in January 2008, is an international research consortium that is creating a new map of the human genome that will provide a view of biomedically relevant DNA variations at a resolution unmatched by current resources. Organizations that have already committed major support to the project are: the Beijing Genomics Institute, Shenzhen, China; the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Hinxton, Cambridge, UK; and the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), part of the National Institutes of Health. The NHGRI-supported work is being done by the institute's Large-Scale Sequencing Network, which includes the Human Genome Sequencing Center at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston; the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts; and the Washington University Genome Sequencing Center at Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri. “The additional sequencing capacity and expertise provided by the three companies in the pilot phase will enable us to explore the human genome with even greater depth and speed than we had originally envisioned, and will help us to optimize the design of the full study to follow,” said Richard Durbin, PhD, of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, who co-chairs the consortium. The 1000 Genomes Project builds on the International HapMap Project, which produced a comprehensive catalog of human genetic variation organized into haplotype neighborhoods. The HapMap catalog laid the foundation for the recent explosion of genome-wide association studies that have identified >130 genetic variants linked to a wide range of common diseases, including type 2 diabetes, coronary artery disease, prostate and breast cancers, rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, and a number of mental illnesses. The HapMap catalog, however, only identifies genetic variants that are present at a frequency of ≥5%. The catalog produced by the 1000 Genomes Project will map many more details of the human genome and how it varies among individuals, identifying genetic variants that are present at a frequency of 1% across most of the genome and down to 0.5% or lower within genes. The 1000 Genomes Project's high-resolution catalog will serve to accelerate many future studies of people with specific illnesses. “In some ways, this application of the new sequencing technologies is like building bigger telescopes,” said NHGRI Director Francis S. Collins, MD, PhD. “Just as astronomers see farther and more clearly into the universe with bigger telescopes, the results of the 1000 Genomes Project will give us greater resolution as we view our own genetic blueprint. We'll be able to see more things more clearly than before and that will be important for understanding the genetic contributions to health and illness.” In its first phase, expected to last about 1 year, the 1000 Genomes Project is conducting 3 pilots that will be used to decide the best strategies for achieving the goals of the full-scale effort. The first pilot involves sequencing the genomes of 6 people (2 nuclear families) at high resolution; the second involves sequencing the genomes of 180 people at lower resolution; and the third involves sequencing the coding regions of 1,000 genes in about 1,000 people. The full-scale project will involve sequencing the genomes of ≥1,000 people, drawn from several populations around the world. The project will use samples from donors who have given informed consent for their DNA to be analyzed and placed in public databases. Most of these samples have already been collected, and any additional samples will come from specific populations. The data will contain no medical or personal identifying information about the donors. Additional information about the project can be found at www.1000genomes.org/.

Psychometric Properties of Darryl, a Cartoon Based Measure to Assess Community Violence-Related PTSD in Children

To examine the reliability and validity of Darryl, a cartoon-based measure of PTSD symptoms and a screening tool for identifying children and adolescents with a PTSD diagnosis. Exposure to community violence, PTSD symptoms and diagnostic status were assessed in a sample of 49 children and adolescents at an urban outpatient psychiatry clinic. Darryl has good internal consistency for the full scale and adequate reliability for each DSM-IV PTSD symptom cluster. Darryl correlates significantly (r = 0.64, P < 0.001) with the most frequently used measure for assessing PTSD in children (CPTSD-RI). As a screening tool, Darryl has excellent sensitivity and specificity in relationship to the KID-SCID. In comparison to other child PTSD measures, Darryl has comparable or better psychometric properties and assesses PTSD symptoms in a more developmentally appropriate manner, especially in the domain of community violence. The value of Darryl as a screening tool remains preliminary given the limited number of diagnosed cases of PTSD in the study sample. Full scale efforts at replication are warranted.

McClellan's War: The Failure of Moderation in the Struggle for the Union (review)

Reviewed by David J. Fitzpatrick Ann Arbor, Michigan McClellan's War: The Failure of Moderation in the Struggle for the Union. By Ethan S. Rafuse. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005. ISBN 0-253-34532-4. Maps. Photographs. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Pp. xiv, 524. $35.00. George B. McClellan, during his tenure as general-in-chief of the Union Army and as commander of the Army of the Potomac, was a lightning rod for those who wished to prosecute a "hard war" against the Confederacy. At the [End Page 225] same time, he was much loved by his soldiers and by many of his subordinate commanders. Historians, however, have been nearly unanimous in agreeing with McClellan's contemporary critics. In McClellan's War, Ethan Rafuse mounts a full-scale effort to rehabilitate the general's reputation by contextualizing his beliefs and actions. It is an endeavor that raises as many questions as it answers. Rafuse contends that McClellan's political and social beliefs had been shaped "by his early political socialization . . . in environments where the cultural values of the . . . the Whig Party . . . dominated." This conservative outlook, he argues, "colored his perspective on the sectional conflict and shaped his approach to the war and [its] conduct" (p. 5). The book's first four chapters clearly demonstrate this conservatism's origins and manifestations, but it is a strange sort of conservatism. McClellan (though certainly not alone in this regard) saw Northern abolitionists as a threat to national unity, not proslavery southerners (pp. 122–25). This might have been understandable before December 1860, but that McClellan continued to see the sectional conflict in these terms after secession and during the war is not adequately explained. How, after southern secessionists had broken the union, could a true "conservative" continue to see abolitionists as the problem? Indeed, most conservative Northern Whigs went the other direction once secession occurred, as did William Tecumseh Sherman, who had no love for abolition or of abolitionists. Why was McClellan different? Rafuse, perhaps unintentionally, paints an unflattering psychological portrait of the general. McClellan, he tells us, "automatically presumed those who questioned him or his actions were motivated by ignorance, narrow-minded partisanship, or selfishness" (p. 123). Such rigidity, which seems more important than his Whiggish beliefs in explaining his actions, suggests that McClellan was particularly unsuited for high command. McClellan's conduct of the Peninsular Campaign, where he insisted on carrying out classic siege operations, exemplifies the problem. Rafuse argues that the general's "desire to avoid unnecessary wastage of life, maintain as complete control as he could over the battlefield, and ensure certainty of results" led him to the conclusion that "there was simply no contest between the merits of a siege versus those of a frontal assault" (p. 207). This passage, which describes McClellan's mindset at Yorktown, accurately reflects his thinking throughout the campaign. On 21 June, after nearly one month of inactivity outside of Richmond, McClellan proposed an advance on Old Tavern (not Richmond) that "would 'be chiefly an Artillery and Engineering affair'" (p. 221). Two days later Lee attacked at Beaver Dam Creek, rendering these plans moot. A student who recently wrote a paper on the Peninsular Campaign concluded that McClellan "imagined the campaign as it should have been and not as it was." Rafuse's account seems to support her conclusion. McClellan's political myopia was, perhaps, even more revealing. That he was unable, by the summer of 1862, to comprehend the magnitude and ramifications of "The exhaustion of Northern patience with conciliation" (p. 235) speaks volumes. The war had changed, but McClellan's rigid nature had not allowed him to change with it. To Rafuse's credit, he is unsparing in his criticism of McClellan's personal [End Page 226] conduct during the Seven Days' Battles, describing the general's absence from the Glendale battlefield as "dereliction of duty" (p. 227). But elsewhere he fails to support his defense of McClellan...

Sustainability science: building a new discipline

In scientific and academic circles worldwide, the opportunity to develop the emerging discipline of sustainability science has never been greater. This new science has its origins in the concept of sustainable development proposed by the World Commission on Environment and Development (1987) (WCED, also known as the Brundtland Commission). Defining sustainable development as ‘‘development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’’, the WCED gained worldwide support for its argument that development must ensure the coexistence of economy and the environment. Today, ‘‘sustainability’’ is recognized the world over as a key issue facing twentyfirst century society. It has, however, also been remarked that the idea of sustainable development increasingly seems to be linked to political agendas, raising concerns about the solidity of its analytical basis; as a consequence the scientific and technological underpinnings of the concept remain unclear to many (Cohen et al. 1998). During the 1990s, the International Council for Science (ICSU) initiated studies of science and technology for sustainable development. There were, increasingly, calls for a science of sustainability predicated on recognition of the fundamental link between science and economy while remaining free from political bias of the sort seen, for example, when North–South issues are raised in debates over sustainable development (Kates et al. 2001; ICSU 2002; Clark and Dickson 2003). At the University of Tokyo, located in Asia, the need for a new academic discipline of sustainability science has become increasingly evident during our ten years of collaborative research and education initiatives through the Alliance for Global Sustainability (AGS) with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), and Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden. We have been fortunate to receive support from the Special Coordination Funds for Promoting Science and Technology of Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT) for the purpose of forming a sustainability science network in Japan and working toward sustainability from a global perspective, particularly in Asia. In August 2005, the University of Tokyo inaugurated the Integrated Research System for Sustainability Science (IR3S) and invited universities throughout Japan to participate, thus launching a full-scale effort to set up a nationwide research network. Electronic Supplementary Material Supplementary material is available to authorised users in the online version of this article at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11625-006-0007-4.

A Crisis in Confederate Command: Edmund Kirby Smith, Richard Taylor, and the Army of the Trans-Mississippi (review)

Reviewed by: A Crisis in Confederate Command: Edmund Kirby Smith, Richard Taylor, and the Army of the Trans-Mississippi Richard M. McMurry A Crisis in Confederate Command: Edmund Kirby Smith, Richard Taylor, and the Army of the Trans-Mississippi. By Jeffrey S. Prushankin. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2005. ISBN 0-8071-3088-5. Maps. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Pp. xx, 308. $39.95. In the spring of 1864 Union forces launched a double offensive against the Confederates in the "Trans-Mississippi." One arm of this effort advanced up the Red River into northwestern Louisiana; the other came overland across southern Arkansas. The Yankee objective was Shreveport, near the Louisiana-Texas border and the center of Confederate power, authority, and industry west of the Mississippi River. On 8 April at Mansfield southeast of Shreveport the Confederates turned back the Red River arm of the Yankee campaign. They then shifted their main effort northward to meet the other Federal column. That force, learning [End Page 514] of the result at Mansfield, soon turned back, and the danger to the Rebel position came to an end. Both Union columns were able to retreat without suffering serious damage. Jeffrey Prushankin uses this campaign as the focus of his fine study of Confederate command in the Trans-Mississippi. The leading Rebels—General Edmund Kirby Smith, commander of the department, and Major General Richard Taylor, in charge of Rebel forces defending Louisiana—are the central figures. The two had long disagreed about the overall policy that the Secessionists should follow west of the Mississippi. Smith favored efforts to regain Arkansas and to establish Rebel rule over Missouri (he owed his command to Arkansas and Missouri politicians). Taylor, who lived near New Orleans, believed that the Confederates should devote their main attention to Louisiana, with the ultimate objective of retaking New Orleans (captured by Federal forces in April 1862). This difference greatly hampered Rebel operations in the department, especially in 1864 when the Trans-Mississippi Confederates faced their most serious challenge. The dispute came down to what the Rebels should attempt to do in the aftermath of their victory at Mansfield. Should they concentrate on exploiting that success by mounting a full-scale effort to pursue the beaten Federals as they fled back down the Red River, as Taylor advocated, or should they shift troops northward to meet the enemy force in Arkansas, as Smith preferred? The former course might produce a great victory, perhaps even including the capture or destruction of the powerful fleet of gunboats that accompanied the Red River column. The second strategy would ensure the safety of the department. Taylor favored the former strategy; Smith preferred the latter. Since Smith commanded the department, many of the troops who had helped Taylor triumph at Mansfield went north to Arkansas. Taylor, left with a weakened force, could not trap the Unionists he had beaten at Mansfield, and they eventually escaped from the Red River Valley. Smith was able to do little more than follow and skirmish with the retreating column in Arkansas. Soon after the campaign ended the Smith-Taylor differences broke into the open and quickly turned very personal and very bitter. The whole sorry episode furnishes an excellent example of how military operations should and should not be conducted and of how good or bad personal chemistry can affect a nation's military fortunes. Readers wanting tactical lessons can skip this book. Those who wish to ponder the larger aspects of warfare can learn much from studying how Smith and Taylor defended the Trans-Mississippi in 1864. Richard M. McMurry Roanoke, Virginia Copyright © 2006 Society for Military History

Studies on the evaluation of municipal waste management systems.

The municipal waste disposal system is at a turning point now, because full-scale efforts are demanded to approach the goal of 'the construction of a waste-recycling society'. An attempt was made to evaluate municipal solid waste management systems with easier indexes in the model area. This study includes two evaluation systems. One evaluation system (case 1) is based on the analysis of waste management costs. Different waste disposal systems can be easily evaluated by comparing the waste disposal costs associated with them. However, it seems risky to rate cities only by the results of an analysis of the waste disposal cost data, since the municipalities build, acquire or expand facilities independently from one another. The associated costs are not summed in a uniform way by all municipalities and for other reasons. The other evaluation system (case 2) is based on the 'amenity and comfort ranking of cities' (Keizai 1998). Judgment by one evaluation index alone for a waste disposal system seems risky since the data in that case are insufficient for proper evaluation of a city. Hence, it is desirable to use two or more indices representative of a future ideal system. The results of the study demonstrated that Toyo Keizai's method of 'amenity and comfort ranking of cities' is better than the method of comparing solid waste management costs.

Urban Disaster Reduction-Proposals for the Future-

The objectives of this paper are to integrate some consideration on the Great Hanshin-Awaji earthquake disaster and to propose the perspectives which will contribute to reduce the damage of next urban earthquake disasters. Since the disaster in 1995, we have done full-scale efforts as volunteers to join many committees such as recovery, damage estimation and local disaster planning held by central and local governments, and at the same time, to do field survey and propose some new ideas about emergency management. Especially, disaster ethnography, vicious cycle, acceptable risk and integrated disaster information systems were defined and discussed to be effective on reduction of damage due to next urban earthquak disasters. These systemized approach will lead to establishment of integrated disaster prevention studies.

A Review of Cooperative Temperature Data Validation

Abstract The network of about 5600 cooperative stations in the United States provides the baseline temperature data upon which most climatologies are based. Since the data serve between 40 000 and 50 000 primary users each year, and untold secondary users, data review, a part of data quality control, is an important consideration. This paper reveals the magnitudes of data changes made during different levels of data review efforts. With a full-scale effort, only about one-half of one percent of all values are altered in some way. However, the magnitude of daily changes can be large, thereby affecting the computation of monthly statistics and affecting users' needs for daily data.

Polio Policy: A Bitter Pill to Swallow

Polio Policy: A Bitter Pill to Swallow

Relative Realized Life Span and Delayed Cost of Parental Care

Many iteroparous animals delay full reproductive effort past the age of reproductive maturity. According to a life history model, this delay is likely to be selected for when the costs of reproductive effort (e.g., parental care) are low and/or the number of reproductive episodes is high, all other things being equal. Benefit increases as reproductive effort increases from its lowest level at the onset of reproduction through its peak. If this benefit increases while the number of reproductive episodes stays constant, selection favors full-scale effort from the start. The model fails to predict the change in parental defense of broods with age in two avian species, the great tit (Parus major) and the California gull (Larus californicus), and an insect, the eggplant lace bug (Gargaphia solani, Tingidae), assuming a similar benefit/cost ratio across all three species. By contrast, a simple life history measure, the ratio of the mean number of reproductive episodes in a lifetime to the maximum number of thos...

Citizen Interviews, Organizational Feedback, and Police-Community Relations Decisions

Police-community relations programs are intended to be long-range, full-scale efforts to acquaint the police and the community with each other's problems and to stimulate action aimed at solving problems; they have been criticized, however, as being concerned mainly with raising the professional image of the police in the minds of the public (President's Commission, 1967a: 100). In some ways, they seem to have functioned to slow down change and to maintain present police policies and practices.The President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice (1967b: 178) has indicated that some of these policies and practices cannot be justified. The National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (1968: 158) comments that some activities of even the most “professional” police departments may heighten tension and enhance the potential for civil disorder.

Politics, Personality, and Social Science in the Twentieth Century: Essays in Honor of Harold D. Lasswell.

Harold Lasswell is one of America's most distinguished political scientists, a man whose work has had enormous impact both in the United States and abroad upon not only his own field but also those of sociology, psychology and psychiatry, economics, law, anthropology, and communications. This collection of essays is the first full-scale effort to deal with the voluminous writings of Lasswell and explore his at once charming and baffling personality which is perhaps inseparable from the inventiveness, unconventionality, and unusual scope of his work. The authors of these essays, many of whom are former students or collaborators, view their subject from a variety of perspectives. What emerges is a full assessment of Lasswell's many-faceted contribution to the social scholarship of his time.

Leishmaniasis in the Sudan Republic

Leishmaniasis in the Sudan Republic