8 research outputs found
Tolls and control: The Chicago skyway and the Pennsylvania Turnpike
No full textThis article provides an historical perspective on recent efforts to lease revenue-generating transportation facilities, focusing on two high-profile toll roads: the Pennsylvania Turnpike, operated by an independent public authority, and the Chicago Skyway, originally built and managed under the auspices of the City of Chicago. In 2004, the Chicago City Council unanimously approved a ninetynine-year Skyway lease for $1.83 billion. In contrast, the fate of the Pennsylvania Turnpike was hotly contested, and in 2008 a long-term lease deal failed to win approval. The divergent history of these facilities highlights the close relationship between infrastructure financing and the locus of control, with important implications for transportation planning and administration. © 2012 The Author(s)
Internal improvements to public works to infrastructure: Tolling in California and the public/ private dichotomy in historical perspective
No full textThis article considers the administration of toll-financed transportation infrastructure in its larger historical context, through an overview of the political economy of public works in the United States. The decision to shift responsibility for California\u27s toll bridges to a state-level authority in 1929 reflected larger, long-term political and institutional trends as well as the powerful influence of Progressive Era ideology. Similarly, political and institutional developments since the 1970s have propelled initiatives to establish new mechanisms for infrastructure financing, administration, and management in California and elsewhere and suggest that private toll roads may again be on the horizon in a new era of free-market ideology. © The Author(s) 2010
Inclusive fitness for in-laws
No full textA.G. is supported by a Natural Environment Research Council Independent Research Fellowship (NE/K009524/1) and a European Research Council Consolidator Grant (771387)Cooperation among kin is common across the natural world and can be explained in terms of inclusive fitness theory, which holds that individuals can derive indirect fitness benefits from aiding genetically related individuals. However, human kinship includes not only genetic kin but also kin by marriage: our affines (in-laws) and spouses. Can cooperation between these genetically unrelated kin be reconciled with inclusive fitness theory? Here, we argue that although affinal kin and spouses do not necessarily share genetic ancestry, they may have shared genetic interests in future reproduction and, as such, can derive indirect fitness benefits though cooperating. We use standard inclusive fitness theory to derive a coefficient of shared reproductive interest (s) that predicts altruistic investment both in genetic kin and in spouses and affines. Specifically, a behaviour that reduces the fitness of the actor by c and increases the fitness of the recipient by b will be favoured by natural selection when sb > c. We suggest that the coefficient of shared reproductive interest may provide a valuable tool for understanding not only the evolution of human kinship but also cooperation and conflict across the natural world more generally.Peer reviewe
The feasibility of using pattern recognition software to measure the influence of computer use on the consultation.
No full textBackground: A key feature of a good general practice consultation is that it is patient-centred. A
number of verbal and non-verbal behaviours have been identified as important to establish a good relationship with the patient. However, the use of the computer detracts the doctor's attention away from the patient, compromising these essential elements of the consultation. Current
methods to assess the consultation and the influence of the computer on them are time consuming and subjective. If it were possible to measure these quantitatively, it could provide the basis for the first truly objective way of studying the influence of the computer on the consultation.
The aim was to assess whether pattern recognition software could be used to measure the influence and pattern of computer use in the consultation. If this proved possible it would provide, for the first time, an objective quantitative measure of computer use and a measure of the attention and responsiveness of the general practitioner towards the patient.
Methods: A feasibility study using pattern recognition software to analyse a consultation was conducted. A web camera, linked to a data-gathering node was used to film a simulated consultation in a standard office. Members of the research team enacted the role of the doctor and the patient, using pattern recognition software to try and capture patient-centred, non-verbal behaviour. As
this was a feasibility study detailed results of the analysis are not presented.
Results: It was revealed that pattern recognition software could be used to analyse certain aspects of a simulated consultation. For example, trigger lines enabled the number of times the clinician's hand covered the keyboard to be counted and wrapping recorded the number of times the clinician nodded his head. It was also possible to measure time sequences and whether the movement was brief or lingering.
Conclusion: Pattern recognition software enables movements associated with patient-centredness to be recorded. Pattern recognition software has the potential to provide an objective, quantitative measure of the influence of the computer on the consultation
Wealth, health and inequality in Agta foragers
No full textSupplementary data are available online at https://academic.oup.com/emph/article/11/1/149/7162654#supplementary-data .Copyright © The Author(s) 2023. Background and objectives:
There is significant evidence from large-scale, industrial and post-industrial societies that greater income and wealth inequality is negatively associated with both population health and increasing health inequalities. However, whether such relationships are inevitable and should be expected to impact the health of small-scale societies as they become more market-integrated is less clear.
Methodology:
Here, using mixed-effect models, we explore the relationship between health, wealth, wealth inequality and health inequalities in a small-scale foraging population from the Philippines, the Agta.
Results:
Across 11 camps, we find small to moderate degrees of wealth inequality (maximal Gini Coefficient 0.44) which is highest in the most permanent camps, where individuals engage more heavily in the formal market. However, in both adults (n = 161) and children (n = 215), we find little evidence that either wealth or wealth inequality associates with ill health, except for one measure of nutritional condition—red blood cell count.
Conclusions and implications:
We interpret these results in the light of high levels of cooperation among the Agta which may buffer against the detrimental effects of wealth inequality documented in industrial and post-industrial societies. We observe little intergenerational wealth transmission, highlighting the fluid nature of wealth, and thus wealth inequality, particularly in mobile communities. The deterioration of nutritional status, as indicated by red blood cell counts, requires further investigation before concluding the Agta’s extensive cooperation networks may be beginning to breakdown in the face of increasing inequality.A.E.P. received funding from the MRC & DFID (MR/P014216/1). A.B.M. received funding from the Leverhulme Trust (RP2011-R 045). D.S. was supported by the John Templeton Foundation (grant ID: 61917)
Environmental controls, oceanography and population dynamics of pathogens and harmful algal blooms: connecting sources to human exposure
No full text© 2008 Author et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Environmental Health 7 (2008): S5, doi:10.1186/1476-069X-7-S2-S5.Coupled physical-biological models are capable of linking the complex interactions between environmental factors and physical hydrodynamics to simulate the growth, toxicity and transport of infectious pathogens and harmful algal blooms (HABs). Such simulations can be used to assess and predict the impact of pathogens and HABs on human health. Given the widespread and increasing reliance of coastal communities on aquatic systems for drinking water, seafood and recreation, such predictions are critical for making informed resource management decisions. Here we identify three challenges to making this connection between pathogens/HABs and human health: predicting concentrations and toxicity; identifying the spatial and temporal scales of population and ecosystem interactions; and applying the understanding of population dynamics of pathogens/HABs to management strategies. We elaborate on the need to meet each of these challenges, describe how modeling approaches can be used and discuss strategies for moving forward in addressing these challenges.The authors acknowledge the financial support for the NSF/NIEHS and
NOAA Centers for Oceans and Human Healt
Centers for Oceans and Human Health : a unified approach to the challenge of harmful algal blooms
No full text© 2008 Author et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License
The definitive version was published in Environmental Health 7 (2008): S2, doi:10.1186/1476-069X-7-S2-S2.Harmful algal blooms (HABs) are one focus of the national research initiatives on Oceans and Human Health (OHH) at NIEHS, NOAA and NSF. All of the OHH Centers, from the east coast to Hawaii, include one or more research projects devoted to studying HAB problems and their relationship to human health. The research shares common goals for understanding, monitoring and predicting HAB events to protect and improve human health: understanding the basic biology of the organisms; identifying how chemistry, hydrography and genetic diversity influence blooms; developing analytical methods and sensors for cells and toxins; understanding health effects of toxin exposure; and developing conceptual, empirical and numerical models of bloom dynamics.
In the past several years, there has been significant progress toward all of the common goals. Several studies have elucidated the effects of environmental conditions and genetic heterogeneity on bloom dynamics. New methods have been developed or implemented for the detection of HAB cells and toxins, including genetic assays for Pseudo-nitzschia and Microcystis, and a biosensor for domoic acid. There have been advances in predictive models of blooms, most notably for the toxic dinoflagellates Alexandrium and Karenia. Other work is focused on the future, studying the ways in which climate change may affect HAB incidence, and assessing the threat from emerging HABs and toxins, such as the cyanobacterial neurotoxin β-N-methylamino-L-alanine.
Along the way, many challenges have been encountered that are common to the OHH Centers and also echo those of the wider HAB community. Long-term field data and basic biological information are needed to develop accurate models. Sensor development is hindered by the lack of simple and rapid assays for algal cells and especially toxins. It is also critical to adequately understand the human health effects of HAB toxins. Currently, we understand best the effects of acute toxicity, but almost nothing is known about the effects of chronic, subacute toxin exposure. The OHH initiatives have brought scientists together to work collectively on HAB issues, within and across regions. The successes that have been achieved highlight the value of collaboration and cooperation across disciplines, if we are to continue to advance our understanding of HABs and their relationship to human health.This work was funded through grants from the NSF/NIEHS Centers for
Oceans and Human Health, NIEHS P50 ES012742 and NSF OCE-043072
(DLE and DMA), NSF OCE04-32479 and NIEHS P50 ES012740 (PB and
RRB), NSF OCE-0432368 and NIEHS P50 ES12736 (LEB), NIEHS P50
ES012762 and NSF OCE-0434087 (RCS, KAL, MSP, MLW, and KAH).
Additional support was provided by the ECOHAB Grant program NSF
Grant OCE-9808173 and NOAA Grant NA96OP0099 (DMA), NOAA
OHHI NA04OAR4600206 (RRB) and Washington State Sea Grant
NA16RG1044 (RCS). KAL and VLT were supported in part by the West
Coast Center for Oceans and Human Health (WCCOHH) as part of the
NOAA Oceans and Human Health Initiative
Reproductive inequality in humans and other mammals
No full textData, Materials, and Software Availability:
All study data are included in the article and/or supporting information available online at https://www.pnas.org/lookup/doi/10.1073/pnas.2220124120#supplementary-materials .Copyright © 2023 the Author(s). To address claims of human exceptionalism, we determine where humans fit within the greater mammalian distribution of reproductive inequality. We show that humans exhibit lower reproductive skew (i.e., inequality in the number of surviving offspring) among males and smaller sex differences in reproductive skew than most other mammals, while nevertheless falling within the mammalian range. Additionally, female reproductive skew is higher in polygynous human populations than in polygynous nonhumans mammals on average. This patterning of skew can be attributed in part to the prevalence of monogamy in humans compared to the predominance of polygyny in nonhuman mammals, to the limited degree of polygyny in the human societies that practice it, and to the importance of unequally held rival resources to women’s fitness. The muted reproductive inequality observed in humans appears to be linked to several unusual characteristics of our species—including high levels of cooperation among males, high dependence on unequally held rival resources, complementarities between maternal and paternal investment, as well as social and legal institutions that enforce monogamous norms.This work was conducted as a part of the “Emergence of Hierarchy and Leadership in Mammalian Societies” group at the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis, supported by NSF Award DBI-1300426 and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. It was supported by NSF awards SMA-1329089 and SMA-1743019, and the Santa Fe Institute, as well as the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Department of Human Behavior, Ecology and Culture. S.G. was supported by the US Army Research Office grants W911NF-14-1-0637, W911NF-17-1-0150, and the Office of Naval Research grant W911NF-18-1-0138. Additional funding for data collection was provided by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research awards: 8913 and 7970, by NSF awards: BCS-0924630, BCS-0925910, BCS-0848360, BCS-0514559, BCS-0613226, BCS-0827277, SES-9870429, and DDRIG-1357209, by the National Geographic Society awards: HJ-099R-17, 20113909, 8671-09, and 7968-06, by the Kone Foundation awards: 086809, 088423, and 088423, and by the Jacobs Foundation, the UCSB Broom Center for Demography, and the UCSB Department of Anthropology
