Ryan White CARE Act Title I Funding Priorities and Unmet Service Needs in Baltimore, Maryland

The analysis presented in this paper explores the similarities and differences between the services selected as priorities for funding by the Baltimore Ryan White CARE Act Title I Planning Council during the first 2 years of the program in this metropolitan area, and services perceived by HIV/AIDS service providers and people living with HIV/AIDS to be unmet needs. The data used for these analyses were collected as part of a study to assess the implementation and impact of the CARE Act legislation in the Baltimore eligible metropolitan area( EMS ). This project includes three interrelated components: (a) a case study of the legislatively mandated Planning Council, (b) a survey of providers representing HIV/AIDS service organizations, and (c) a qualitative field study of the perceptions of people living with HIV/AIDS about the service delivery system. Taken together, the data from these three sources describe the similarities and differences among these three groups involved in HIV/AIDS care in Baltimore, in terms of their perceptions of services needed by people living with HIV / AIDS. The conclusions drawn from this study can be used to strengthen needs assessments in Title I-EMAs throughout the United States.     

Arafat's legacy,Abbas's challenges

The death of Yasser Arafat in November 2004 left much more than a set of job vacancies: as ‘Mr Palestine’, Arafat had come to embody the Palestinian cause, but also, due to the nature of his rule, left his successor Mahmoud Abbas with a list of major political and economic challenges. Chief among these is the Palestine Authority's relations with Israel and the need to return quickly to the negotiating table. But linked to the peace process are the conflicting challenges from Abbas's various domestic contenders, including from a new ‘young guard’ in the territories, a predominantly ‘old guard’ in the diaspora, and from Islamist groups—not to mention the problems stemming from the dire state of the Palestinian economy. This article examines these issues as both a legacy of Yasser Arafat and as a set of interconnected problems that will complicate Abbas' political manoeuvring in the coming months and years.     

The fractal geometry of ancient Maya settlement

Ancient Maya settlement patterns exhibit fractal geometry both within communities and across regions. Fractals are self-similar sets of fractional dimension. In this paper, we show how Maya settlement patterns are logically and statistically self-similar. We demonstrate how to measure the fractal dimensions (or Hausdorff–Besicovitch dimensions) of several data sets. We describe nonlinear dynamical processes, such as chaotic and self-organized critical systems, that generate fractal patterns. As an illustration, we show that the fractal dimensions calculated for some Maya settlement patterns are similar to those produced by warfare, supporting recent claims that warfare is a significant factor in Maya settlement patterning.     

THE COMPLEMENTARITY BETWEEN CITIES AND SKILLS*

ABSTRACT There is a strong connection between per‐worker productivity and metropolitan area population, which is commonly interpreted as evidence for the existence of agglomeration economies. This correlation is particularly strong in cities with higher levels of skill and virtually nonexistent in less skilled metropolitan areas. This fact is particularly compatible with the view that urban density is important because proximity spreads knowledge, which either makes workers more skilled or entrepreneurs more productive. Bigger cities certainly attract more skilled workers, and there is some evidence suggesting that human capital accumulates more quickly in urban areas.     

Investigating archaeological site formation processes on the battleship USS Arizona using finite element analysis

Scientists from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) worked in a collaborative partnership with archaeologists from the National Park Service's (NPS) Submerged Resources Center (SRC) to develop a finite element model (FEM) of the battleship USS Arizona. An FEM is a computer-based engineering model that calculates theoretical stresses, propagation of force, and shape changes to a structure under loads using thousands or even millions of individual elements whose individual responses are well understood. NIST researchers created an FEM of an 80 ft. (25 m) midships section of the Arizona site to analyze archaeological site formation processes on the sunken battleship, in particular to determine the current condition of the wreck and predict its future strength and structural integrity as it continues to corrode. The NIST's FEM study is one aspect of a larger project under the direction of the NPS, the USS Arizona Preservation Project, whose goal is to determine the nature and rate of corrosion affecting USS Arizona, and to model its long-term structural deterioration. The FEM incorporates findings from other key components of the USS Arizona Preservation Project, such as steel hull corrosion rates, structural surveys of the vessel, sediment compaction studies, and analysis of the concretion that covers the ship's hull, into a single tool that is being used to predict how the wreck will degrade in the future.     

Mitochondrial DNA from 3000-year old chickens at the Teouma site,Vanuatu

Chickens were part of the Lapita cultural complex, transported into and through the Pacific by prehistoric colonists; as such they can be used as a proxy for tracking prehistoric migration and interaction. The Lapita site of Teouma in Vanuatu is well known for the recovery of complete dentate stamped pots and a cemetery containing the largest collection of Lapita period skeletons ever found. Chicken bones recovered from these excavations provide the first ancient DNA sequences from any commensal organism directly associated with a Lapita context. The ancient mtDNA sequences obtained from two Teouma chicken bones are compared with previously published archaeologically derived ancient DNA sequences to extend our understanding of the spread of chickens in Pacific prehistory. The results also show that the haplogroup E signature was present in very early populations of chickens transported into Remote Oceania. This study also adds to the suite of available data relating to isotopic signatures for commensal animals during the early settlement of Vanuatu and may reveal a different diet for Teouma chickens than those from other early prehistoric assemblages in the Pacific.     

Foreign bodies; or, how did Darwin invent the symptom?

Beginning with a discussion of the sources in Darwin's writing for Freud's theory of the hysterical symptom, this essay proceeds to a symptomatic reading of Darwin himself. With reference to "The Origin of Species," "The Descent of Man," and "The Expression of the Emotions," this essay shows that Darwin's theories of involuntary expressive behavior and of aesthetic preference in sexual selection are linked by their role in his understanding of racial difference and also by their reliance on the idea that learned habits can be inherited as instincts, a view often identified with Lamarck. They are thus at once theories of the foreign body and theories that appear as foreigners within the body of Darwin's work.