长三角区域环境保护共赢之路探索

该文根据长三角区域环境保护的现状，提出了构建长三角区域环境保护合作机制的具体内容，并提出了具体建议。     

美国大学的办学理念及其影响

美国的大学使用英语作为教学用语,其著名大学的排名位居世界前列,使成千上万的海外学子赴美求学.美国大学对世界的影响在于其先进的理念和良好的学术环境.     

Diagnosis of heat stroke in forensic medicine. Contribution of thermophysiology.

The diagnosis of heat stroke is difficult to establish in forensic medicine due to the absence of observations made on the victims whilst alive. A recent case, concerning the death of two children in a vehicle, was restudied by taking into account calculations of thermophysiology. The results obtained allowed some assumptions of the investigation to be checked, and adds to the data provided previously in literature on the subject.     

论创建中国特色的城市评价体系

该文对创建中国特色城市评价体系的必要性进行了论证,认为中国特色是创建中国城市评价体系的基础,科学发展观是创建中国城市评价体系的核心和依据。     

School Smoking Policy Characteristics and Individual Perceptions of the School Tobacco Context: Are They Linked to Students’ Smoking Status?

The purpose of this study was to explore individual- and school-level policy characteristics on student smoking behavior using an ecological perspective. Participants were 24,213 (51% female) Grade 10–11 students from 81 schools in five Canadian provinces. Data were collected using student self-report surveys, written policies collected from schools, interviews with school administrators, and school property observations to assess multiple dimensions of the school tobacco policy. The multi-level modeling results revealed that the school a student attended was associated with his/her smoking behavior. Individual-level variables that were associated with student smoking included lower school connectedness, a greater number of family and friends who smoked, higher perceptions of student smoking prevalence, lower perceptions of student smoking frequency, and stronger perceptions of the school tobacco context. School-level variables associated with student smoking included weaker policy intention indicating prohibition and assistance to overcome tobacco addiction, weaker policy implementation involving strategies for enforcement, and a higher number of students smoking on school property. These findings suggest that the school environment is important to tobacco control strategies, and that various policy dimensions have unique relationships to student smoking. School tobacco policies should be part of a comprehensive approach to adolescent tobacco use.     

Osteometric variation in the humerus: sexual dimorphism in South Africans

There has been a surge of research on forensic anthropology in South Africa. Differences between the populations of this country and others are demonstrated in many studies. Yet, many forensic osteometric techniques based on other populations are still in use. The purpose of the present study is to develop an osteometric sex determination technique using the humerus. The sample is composed of skeletons of 104 whites and 88 blacks from the Dart and Pretoria collections. Six humeral dimensions were initially analyzed using stepwise discriminant function statistics. Humeral head diameter, deltoid tuberosity circumference and epicondylar breadth were individually calculated in order to make the technique usable for fragmented remains. The results indicated that the head and epicondylar diameters are the best in whites to differentiate sexes from each other, while head diameter and maximum length are best in blacks. Accuracy of correct classification was as high as 96% in whites and 95% in blacks. Crossvalidation provided the same accuracy as the original classification. These accuracy percentages are as high as those expected from the femur and tibia. Posterior probability, which measures the percent affiliation of the sample with its original sex group, was also mostly 80% or better. South African collections are ideal for osteometric analysis, because they are still growing in numbers with cross-sectional representatives from the country.     

Metric sex determination from the pelvis in modern Greeks

The ability to determine sex from unknown skeletal remains is vital, and methods to do this on the various bones of the human skeleton have been researched extensively. Many researchers have emphasized the need for population specific data for methods which are based on measurements, as there are vast differences in body size in various populations. The pelvis is known to be the most sexually dimorphic part of the human body, and no discriminant function formulae for this bone are available for Greek or other Mediterranean groups. The purpose of this study was therefore to develop discriminant functions which can be used for sex determination on measurements of the pelvis of modern Greeks. A sample of 97 male and 95 female pelves in a skeletal collection housed in Heraklion, Crete, was used. Measurements were taken from the articulated pelvis, single os coxae and the sacrum. Discriminant function formulae for all measurements and various combinations were used in order to assess the degree of sexual dimorphism in various parts of the pelvis, and to make the formulae usable on fragmented remains. For the single os coxae, average accuracies of 79.7-95.4% (79.1-93.5% on cross-validation) were found. However, it was found that measurements of the sciatic notch were unreliable and yielded poor results, and it is advisable that this characteristic must only be used as a last resort. Dimensions of the sacrum were not very dimorphic (average accuracy 60.9%), while measurements from the articulated pelvis yielded poorer results than that from single innominate bones. The diameter of the acetabulum was the single most dimorphic characteristic, providing on average 83.9% accuracy when used in isolation.     

A road map for universal coverage: finding a pass through the financial mountains

Government already pays for more than half of U.S. health care costs, and nearly all universal health insurance proposals assume continued government involvement through tax subsidies and other means. The question of what specific taxes could be used to finance universal coverage is, however, seldom carefully examined, in part due to efforts by health care reform proponents to downplay tax issues. In this article we undertake such an examination. We argue that the challenges of relying on taxes for universal coverage are even greater than is generally appreciated, but that they can nevertheless be met. A proposal to fund a universal health insurance voucher system with a value-added tax illustrates issues that would arise for tax-financed plans in general and provides a broad framework for a bipartisan approach to universal coverage. We discuss significant problems that such an approach would face and suggest solutions. We outline a long-term political and legislative strategy for enacting universal coverage that draws upon precedents set by comparable legislative initiatives, including tax reform and Medicare. The results are an improved understanding of the relationship between systemic health care finance reform and taxation and a politically realistic plan for universal coverage that employs undisguised taxes.     

Rapid STR analysis of single source DNA samples in 2 h

The establishment of offender DNA databases is critical to future crime prevention. Many countries have established databases or are in the process of passing database legislation. With new legislation the number of samples that will be collected could begin to exceed the testing capacity of many labs leading to backlogs.Two bottlenecks in the workflow that can contribute to a backlog of samples are DNA purification and PCR cycling time. The average purification time is approximately 2 h and the average cycling time of current STR kits is approximately 3 h. To address the second problem we investigated alternative DNA enzymes to decrease PCR cycling time. It was necessary to balance the increase in time to result against the need to address factors which can impact interpretation of a DNA profile such as: generation of stutter products, non-template addition, intra-locus balance, accuracy, and species specificity.Initial feasibility studies demonstrate that alternative enzymes can decrease PCR cycling time. The data show that this assay can increase throughput, providing results in less than 2 h. However, decreasing PCR cycling time will have an affect on multiplex STR performance.