ABSTRACT
We present measurements of the redshift-dependent clustering of a DESI-like luminous red galaxy (LRG) sample selected from the Legacy Survey imaging data set, and use the halo occupation ...distribution (HOD) framework to fit the clustering signal. The photometric LRG sample in this study contains 2.7 million objects over the redshift range of 0.4 < z < 0.9 over 5655 deg2. We have developed new photometric redshift (photo-z) estimates using the Legacy Survey DECam and WISE photometry, with σNMAD = 0.02 precision for LRGs. We compute the projected correlation function using new methods that maximize signal-to-noise ratio while incorporating redshift uncertainties. We present a novel algorithm for dividing irregular survey geometries into equal-area patches for jackknife resampling. For a five-parameter HOD model fit using the MultiDark halo catalogue, we find that there is little evolution in HOD parameters except at the highest redshifts. The inferred large-scale structure bias is largely consistent with constant clustering amplitude over time. In an appendix, we explore limitations of Markov chain Monte Carlo fitting using stochastic likelihood estimates resulting from applying HOD methods to N-body catalogues, and present a new technique for finding best-fitting parameters in this situation. Accompanying this paper, we have released the Photometric Redshifts for the Legacy Surveys catalogue of photo-z’s obtained by applying the methods used in this work to the full Legacy Survey Data Release 8 data set. This catalogue provides accurate photometric redshifts for objects with z < 21 over more than 16 000 deg2 of sky.
The history of international efforts to control the flow of funds to designated ‘terrorist groups’ via the formal financial system is examined. The work shows that—despite the high motivation of some ...governments and international banks to reduce terrorist attacks, which harm their citizens, customers, staff and profits—it remains difficult to determine how this private–public policing interface can rationally target ‘risky capital’. Financial intelligence efforts have had little externally discernible impact on reducing levels of terrorism or on criminal convictions. It reviews evaluation problems in knowing whether the apparent lack of effects is due to measurement failure (estimating how much terrorist harm might have occurred had the controls not been imposed), theory failure or implementation failure. It argues for a more modest assessment of the likely impact of measures against financing terrorism and nuclear proliferation.
Crimes of deception are treated by the mass media as extensions of 'infotainment', such as individual and corporate celebrities in trouble; 'normal' people turning to fraud because of drugs, gambling ...or sex; readily visualizable and often short fraud events (like 'identity fraud' or 'card skimming') connected to 'organized crime' or 'terrorism'; or long-term concealment of fraud that shows the 'Establishment' to be incompetent or business people/politicians to be hypocrites. These populist themes, prosecutions and regulatory actions, active non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and lobbyists, media technology and libel risks influence what business activities get labelled as 'fraud' or 'corruption'. However, the growing specialist business and technology press and electronic media report worldwide less sensational cases involving reputational damage, business prospects and technological vulnerability, and these affect business people (if not the general public) in ways that may be neglected by traditional media and crime studies.
•Urinary arsenic was inversely associated with Full developmental scores at 10 years.•Stratifying by gender showed similar associations for boys and girls.•Models with children’s hair arsenic showed ...similar results.•Prenatal arsenic was inversely associated with Full developmental scores in girls.
Our studies of children in a rural Bangladeshi area, with varying concentrations of arsenic in well-water, indicated modest impact on child verbal cognitive function at 5 years of age.
Follow-up of arsenic exposure and children’s cognitive abilities at school-age.
In a nested sub-cohort of the MINIMat supplementation trial, we assessed cognitive abilities at 10 years of age (n = 1523), using Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-IV). Arsenic in maternal urine and erythrocytes in early pregnancy, in child urine at 5 and 10 years, and in hair at 10 years, was measured using Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry.
Median urinary arsenic at 10 years was 58 µg/L (range 7.3–940 µg/L). Multivariable-adjusted regression analysis showed that, compared to the first urinary arsenic quintile at 10 years (<30 µg/L), the third and fourth quintiles (30–45 and 46–73 µg/L, respectively) had 6–7 points lower Full developmental raw scores (B: −7.23, 95% CI −11.3; −3.18, and B: −6.37, 95% CI −10.5; −2.22, respectively), corresponding to ~0.2 SD. Verbal comprehension and Perceptual reasoning seemed to be affected. Models with children’s hair arsenic concentrations showed similar results. Maternal urinary arsenic in early pregnancy, but not late pregnancy, showed inverse associations with Full developmental scores (quintiles 2–4: B: −4.52, 95% CI −8.61; −0.43, B: −5.91, 95% CI −10.0; −1.77, and B: −5.98, 95%CI −10.2; −1.77, respectively, compared to first quintile), as well as with Verbal comprehension, Perceptual reasoning, and Processing speed, especially in girls (p < 0.05 for interaction of sex with Full developmental scores and Perceptual reasoning). In models with all exposure time points included, both concurrent exposure at 10 years and early prenatal exposure remained associated with cognitive abilities.
Both early prenatal and childhood arsenic exposure, even at low levels (about 50 µg/L in urine), was inversely associated with cognitive abilities at school-age, although the estimates were modest.
The emergence of drug resistance in
has resulted in a greater need for susceptibility-guided treatment. While the alleles associated with resistance to clarithromycin and levofloxacin have been ...defined, there are limited data regarding the molecular mechanisms underlying resistance to other antimicrobials. Using
isolates from 42 clinical specimens, we compared phenotypic and whole-genome sequencing (WGS)-based detection of resistance. Phenotypic resistance correlated with the presence of alleles of 23S rRNA (A2142G/A2143G) for clarithromycin (kappa coefficient, 0.84; 95% confidence interval CI, 0.67 to 1.0) and
(N87I/N87K/D91Y/D91N/D91G/D99N) for levofloxacin (kappa coefficient, 0.90; 95% CI, 0.77 to 1.0). Phenotypic resistance to amoxicillin in three isolates correlated with mutations in
,
, and/or
within coding regions near known amoxicillin binding motifs. All isolates were phenotypically susceptible to tetracycline, although four bore a mutation in 16S rRNA (A926G). For metronidazole, nonsense mutations and R16H substitutions in
correlated with phenotypic resistance (kappa coefficient, 0.76; 95% CI, 0.56 to 0.96). Previously identified mutations in the
rifampin resistance-determining region (RRDR) were not present, but 14 novel mutations outside the RRDR were found in rifampin-resistant isolates. WGS also allowed for strain lineage determination, which may be important for future studies in associating precise MICs with specific resistance alleles. In summary, WGS allows for broad analyses of
isolates, and our findings support the use of WGS for the detection of clarithromycin and levofloxacin resistance. Additional studies are warranted to better define mutations conferring resistance to amoxicillin, tetracycline, and rifampin, but combinatorial analyses for
gene truncations and R16H mutations have utility for determining metronidazole resistance.
Pétron et al. (2012) have recently observed and analyzed alkane concentrations in air in Colorado's Weld County and used them to estimate the volume of methane vented from oil and gas operations in ...the Denver‐Julesburg Basin. They conclude that “the emissions of the species we measured are most likely underestimated in current inventories”, often by large factors. However, their estimates of methane venting, and hence of other alkane emissions, rely on unfounded assumptions about the composition of vented natural gas. We show that relaxing those assumptions results in much greater uncertainty. We then exploit previously unused observations reported in Pétron et al. (2012) to constrain methane emissions without making assumptions about the composition of vented gas. This results in a new set of estimates that are consistent with current inventories but inconsistent with the estimates in Pétron et al. (2012). The analysis also demonstrates the value of the mobile air sampling method employed in Pétron et al. (2012).
Patients with bacteremia due to carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales (CRE) experience delays until appropriate therapy and high mortality rates. Rapid molecular diagnostics for carbapenemases and ...new β-lactam/β-lactamase inhibitors may improve outcomes.
We conducted an observational study of patients with CRE bacteremia from 2016 to 2018 at 8 New York and New Jersey medical centers and assessed center-specific clinical microbiology practices. We compared time to receipt of active antimicrobial therapy and mortality between patients whose positive blood cultures underwent rapid molecular testing for the Klebsiella pneumoniae carbapenemase (KPC) gene (blaKPC) and patients whose cultures did not undergo this test. CRE isolates underwent antimicrobial susceptibility testing by broth microdilution and carbapenemase profiling by whole-genome sequencing. We also assessed outcomes when ceftazidime-avibactam and polymyxins were used as targeted therapies.
Of 137 patients with CRE bacteremia, 89 (65%) had a KPC-producing organism. Patients whose blood cultures underwent blaKPC PCR testing (n = 51) had shorter time until receipt of active therapy (median: 24 vs 50 hours; P = .009) compared with other patients (n = 86) and decreased 14-day (16% vs 37%; P = .007) and 30-day (24% vs 47%; P = .007) mortality. blaKPC PCR testing was associated with decreased 30-day mortality (adjusted odds ratio: .37; 95% CI: .16-.84) in an adjusted model. The 30-day mortality rate was 10% with ceftazidime-avibactam monotherapy and 31% with polymyxin monotherapy (P = .08).
In a KPC-endemic area, blaKPC PCR testing of positive blood cultures was associated with decreased time until appropriate therapy and decreased mortality for CRE bacteremia, and ceftazidime-avibactam is a reasonable first-line therapy for these infections.
Background. Novel therapies are urgently needed to treat carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae (CR-Kp)-mediated infection, which constitute a major health threat in the United States. In order ...to assess if it is feasible to develop anticapsular antibodies as a potential novel therapy, it is crucial to first systematically characterize capsular polysaccharide (CPS) and virulence traits in these strains. Methods. Forty CR-Kp were genotyped by pulsed field gel electrophoresis, multilocus sequence typing (MLST), and molecular capsule typing (C-patterns and wzi sequencing). Their biofilm formation, serum resistance, macrophage-mediated killing, and virulence in Galleria mellonella were compared. MAb (1C9) was generated by coimmunization with 2 CPSs, and cross-reactivity was investigated. Results. MLST assigned 80% of CR-Kp isolates to the ST258-clone. Molecular capsule typing identified new C-patterns, including C200/wzi-154, which was widely represented and associated with blaKPC-3-bearing strains. Heterogeneity was detected in biofilm formation and macrophage-mediated killing. Differences in serum resistance correlated with virulence in G. mellonella. ST258 strains carrying blaKPC-3 were less virulent than those with blaKPC-2. Conclusions. CR-Kp ST258 strains exhibit variability of virulence-associated traits. Differences were associated with the type of KPC gene and CPS. Identification of cross-reacting anti-CPS mAbs encourages their development as adjunctive therapy.
This article has two main objectives. First, to interrogate the concept and/or conception of ‘economic crime’ (framed as a singular thing). We argue that current policy, and subsequently, social ...scientific (or criminological more specifically) framings, tend to arbitrarily ‘carve up’ the objects of study that interest us, in turn creating a ‘conceptual disorder’ that has implications for how we explain, and respond to, these harmful crimes. This raises questions about the value of the concept of ‘economic crime’ and about the related process of conceptual abstraction. In analytical terms, we argue that more can be gained by focusing on the necessary and contingent relations of serious crimes for economic gain. Second, to scrutinise the logic of ‘economic criminology’ (framed in terms of a singular discipline) and assess the value that criminology can add to analyses of related behaviours. Notwithstanding the journal’s aim to create a sub-field of ‘economic criminology’, we argue that research into the nature, organisation and control of serious crimes for economic gain ought to begin from the perspective of how we can create integrative, collaborative or multi-dimensional accounts of these behaviours in order to better organise, and identify, the most plausible explanations and interventions. To this end, we explore different ways of working interdisciplinarily, considering the underlying logic and/or rationale for doing so.
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