The dog has been an important biomedical research model and hair samples from sled dogs could be used as a biomarker of exposure to metals. Hair samples were used as a non-invasive indicator of mercury exposure in sled dogs fed commercial food and traditional village diets. Sled dog populations living in rural New York and Alaska were sampled in 2005 and 2006. Total mercury (THg) content was de...

We explore the characteristics of households and villages in which orphans are resident in two areas of Malawi. We first review pertinent themes in qualitative data collected in our research sites. Then, using spatial analysis, we show how positive and negative clusters of orphans - which we term orphanhood "hotspots" and "coldspots" - can be found at the village and sub-village levels. In the ...

1. The nuclear-myofibrilar (800g pellet) fraction of the uterus from immature (22-23 days old) rats not exposed to oestrogen exhibits saturable binding of oestradiol. The nuclear binding capacity represents approximately 10% of that of the cytosol fraction (approx. 3.5 fmol/mug of DNA). The predominant part (0.3.5 fmol/mug of DNA) of the nuclear binind sites are present in the residual pellet a...

BACKGROUND Childhood mortality remains an important subject, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa where levels are still unacceptably high. To achieve the set Millennium Development Goals 4, calls for comprehensive application of the proven cost-effective interventions. Understanding spatial clustering of childhood mortality can provide a guide in targeting the interventions in a more strategic a...

On September 23, 1944 thus before the end of the war a university was set up which was named after Maria Curie-Sk3odowska (UMCS). Already on September 26 the first meeting of scientists took place, described by Professor Blauth-Opieñska as a “meeting on barrels since no chairs were available and although formal inauguration of the first academic year took place on January 1945 the first lecture...

This paper describes an extension of the replication/deletion approach for removal of the initialisation bias in the output data of discrete-event simulations. The proposed extension adaptively determines the cutoff index and also respects a user given ratio between the lengths of transient and steadystate period. We show the benefits of the extension inspecting the well-known M/M/1 queue. Usin...

Most outbreaks of Rift Valley fever (RVF) occur in remote locations after floods. To determine environmental risk factors and long-term sequelae of human RVF, we examined rates of previous Rift Valley fever virus (RVFV) exposure by age and location during an interepidemic period in 2006. In a randomized household cluster survey in 2 areas of Ijara District, Kenya, we examined 248 residents of 2...

We describe social, economic, and environmental impacts of a demonstration rural energy project in northeast China. Our ethnographic approach illuminates local circumstances, perspectives, priorities, and power structures that influenced and help to explain project outcomes. The project we studied is a village-scale energy project designed to use locally available corn stalks to generate househ...