Empirical measurement of illicit tobacco trade in the Philippines.

Cigarette smuggling reduces the price of cigarettes, thwarts youth access restrictions, reduces government revenue, and undercuts the ability of taxes to reduce consumption. The tobacco industry often opposes increases to tobacco taxes on the claim that greater taxes induce more smuggling. To date, little is known about the magnitude of smuggling in the Philippines. his information is necessary to effectively address illicit trade and to measure the impacts of tax changes and the introduction of secure tax markings on illicit trade. This study employs two gap discrepancy methods to estimate the magnitude of illicit trade in cigarettes for the Philippines between 1994 and 2009. First, domestic consumption is compared with tax-paid sales to measure the consumption of illicit cigarettes. Second, imports recorded by the Philippines are compared with exports to the Philippines by trade partners to measure smuggling. Domestic consumption fell short of tax-paid sales for all survey years. The magnitude of these differences and a comparison with a prevalence survey for 2009 suggest a high level of survey under-reporting of smoking. In the late 1990s and the mid 2000s, the Philippines experienced two sharp declines in trade discrepancies, from a high of $750 million in 1995 to a low of $133.7 million in 2008. Discrepancies composed more than one-third of the domestic market in 1995, but only 10 percent in 2009. Hong Kong, Singapore, and China together account for more than 80 percent of the cumulative discrepancies over the period and 74 percent of the discrepancy in 2009. The presence of large discrepancies supports the need to implement an effective tax marking and tobacco track and trace system to reduce illicit trade and support tax collection. The absence of a relation between tax changes and smuggling suggests that potential increases in the excise tax should not be discouraged by illicit trade. Finally, the identification of specific trade partners as primary sources for illicit trade may facilitate targeted efforts in cooperation with these governments to reduce illicit trade.

The presence of the Aragonese language in the magazine "El Ebro" (1917-1936)

El Ebro (1917-1936) was a magazine published in Barcelona by Aragonese emigrants at the beginning of the 20th century. It was the first experience of coexistence of different dialectal varieties of the Aragonese language in the same media. El Ebro was an experience that has gone virtually unnoticed in the recent history of one of the most minority languages, and with minor media presence, of Western Europe. In its pages El Ebro mixed dialects spoken in different regions of linguistic Aragonese area together with transcripts of medieval documents. At the same time, this newspaper raised debates about the language issue that they were truncated due to disappearance of the publication and the lack of theoretical realization

Competence in research planning in the fourth level of Spanish Secondary Education: a case study

In the last years, “Inquiry-Based Science Education” methodologies (IBSE) are being recommended by European institutions in order to improve the competence levels and the attitudes towards science of primary and secondary school students. Therefore, the aim of this study is to test the effectiveness of an IBSE methodology, the Methodology of Problem Solving as an Investigation (MPSI), for the teaching-learning process of planning of experiments in the fourth level of Spanish Secondary Education. By means of the students’ solutions for a series of open problems, the progress in the learning of the competences related to the planning of experiments has been analyzed, along with the influence of the methodology on the development of these competencies. The results show a students’ command from higher to lower levels on: emission of hypothesis, design of the experiment, qualitative analysis, identification of variables and reformulation of the open problem. Furthermore, the Methodology has contributed to an improvement of the scientific competence in the area of planning experiments.

Deletion of TRPC4 and TRPC6 in Mice Impairs Smooth Muscle Contraction and Intestinal Motility In Vivo.

BACKGROUND & AIMS: Downstream effects of muscarinic receptor stimulation in intestinal smooth muscle include contraction and intestinal transit. We thought to determine whether classic transient receptor potential (TRPC) channels integrate the intracellular signaling cascades evoked by the stimulated receptors and thereby contribute to the control of the membrane potential, Ca-influx, and cell responses. METHODS: We created trpc4-, trpc6-, and trpc4/trpc6-gene-deficient mice and analyzed them for intestinal smooth muscle function in vitro and in vivo. RESULTS: In intestinal smooth muscle cells TRPC4 forms a 55 pS cation channel and underlies more than 80% of the muscarinic receptor-induced cation current (mI(CAT)). The residual mI(CAT) depends on the expression of TRPC6, indicating that TRPC6 and TRPC4 determine mI(CAT) channel activity independent of other channel subunits. In TRPC4-deficient ileal myocytes the carbachol-induced membrane depolarizations are diminished greatly and the atropine-sensitive contraction elicited by acetylcholine release from excitatory motor neurons is reduced greatly. Additional deletion of TRPC6 aggravates these effects. Intestinal transit is slowed down in mice lacking TRPC4 and TRPC6. CONCLUSIONS: In intestinal smooth muscle cells TRPC4 and TRPC6 channels are gated by muscarinic receptors and are responsible for mI(CAT). They couple muscarinic receptors to depolarization of intestinal smooth muscle cells and voltage-activated Ca(2+)-influx and contraction, and thereby accelerate small intestinal motility in vivo.

Isolation basin records of late Quaternary sea-level change, central mainland British Columbia, Canada.

Isolation basin records from the Seymour-Belize Inlet Complex, a remote area of central mainland British Columbia, Canada are used to constrain post-glacial sea-level changes and provide a preliminary basis for testing geophysical model predictions of relative sea-level (RSL) change. Sedimentological and diatom data from three low-lying (<4 m elevation) basins record falling RSLs in late-glacial times and isolation from the sea by ~11,800–11,200 14C BP. A subsequent RSL rise during the early Holocene (~8000 14C BP) breached the 2.13 m sill of the lowest basin (Woods Lake), but the two more elevated basins (sill elevations of ~3.6 m) remained isolated. At ~2400 14C BP, RSL stood at 1.49 ± 0.34 m above present MTL. Falling RSLs in the late Holocene led to the final emergence of the Woods Lake basin by 1604 ± 36 14C BP. Model predictions generated using the ICE-5G model partnered with a small number of different Earth viscosity models generally show poor agreement with the observational data, indicating that the ice model and/or Earth models considered can be improved upon. The best data-model fits were achieved with relatively low values of upper mantle viscosity (5 × 1019 Pa s), which is consistent with previous modelling results from the region. The RSL data align more closely with observational records from the southeast of the region (eastern Vancouver Island, central Strait of Georgia), than the immediate north (Bella Bella–Bella Coola and Prince Rupert-Kitimat) and areas to the north-west (Queen Charlotte Sound, Hecate Strait), underlining the complexity of the regional response to glacio-isostatic recovery.

Plasma HDL cholesterol and risk of myocardial infarction: A mendelian randomisation study

Background: High plasma HDL cholesterol is associated with reduced risk of myocardial infarction, but whether this association is causal is unclear. Exploiting the fact that genotypes are randomly assigned at meiosis, are independent of non-genetic confounding, and are unmodified by disease processes, mendelian random isation can be used to test the hypothesis that the association of a plasma biomarker with disease is causal.
Methods: We performed two mendelian randomisation analyses. First, we used as an instrument a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in the endothelial lipase gene (LIPG Asn396Ser) and tested this SNP in 20 studies (20 913 myocardial infarction cases, 95 407 controls). Second, we used as an instrument a genetic score consisting of 14 common SNPs that exclusively associate with HDL cholesterol and tested this score in up to 12 482 cases of myocardial infarction and 41 331 controls. As a positive control, we also tested a genetic score of 13 common SNPs exclusively associated with LDL cholesterol.
Findings: Carriers of the LIPG 396Ser allele (2·6% frequency) had higher HDL cholesterol (0·14 mmol/L higher p=8×10-13) but similar levels of other lipid and non-lipid risk factors for myocardial infarction compared with noncarriers. This difference in HDL cholesterol is expected to decrease risk of myocardial infarction by 13% (odds ratio [OR] 0·87, 95% CI 0·84-0·91). However, we noted that the 396Ser allele was not associated with risk of myocardial infarction (OR 0·99, 95% CI 0·88-1·11, p=0·85). From observational epidemiology, an increase of 1 SD in HDL cholesterol was associated with reduced risk of myocardial infarction (OR 0·62, 95% CI 0·58-0·66). However, a 1 SD increase in HDL cholesterol due to genetic score was not associated with risk of myocardial infarction (OR 0·93 95% CI 0·68-1·26, p=0·63). For LDL cholesterol, the estimate from observational epidemiology (a 1 SD increase in LDL cholesterol associated with OR 1·54, 95% CI 1·45-1·63) was concordant with that from genetic score (OR 2·13 95% CI 1·69-2·69, p=2×10 -10).
Interpretation: Some genetic mechanisms that raise plasma HDL cholesterol do not seem to lower risk of myocardial infarction. These data challenge the concept that raising of plasma HDL cholesterol will uniformly translate into reductions in risk of myocardial infarction.

LRP-1 variation is not associated with risk of Alzheimer's disease

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is characterised by the extensive deposition of amyloid beta (Aß) within the parenchyma and vasculature of the brain. It is hypothesised that a dysfunction in Aß degradation and/or its removal from the brain may result in accumulation as plaques. Low density lipoprotein receptor-related protein-1 (LRP-1) is a multifunctional receptor shown to be involved in cholesterol metabolism but also the removal of Aß from the brain. Its ability to transport Aß from the brain to the periphery has made it an attractive candidate for involvement in Alzheimer's disease (AD). We have assessed the frequencies of 9 tag- SNPs and the commonly studied synonymous SNP within exon 3 (rs1799986) in a multi-centre AD/control cohort and performed haplotype analysis. We found no evidence from a combined total of 412 controls and 1057 AD patients to support the involvement of LRP-1 variation, including the most commonly studied variant in rs1799986 in conferring genetic susceptibility to increased risk of AD.

Sex, Politics and Religion: The Transformation of the Figure of the Fairy Queen from Thomas off Ersseldoune to ‘‘Thomas Rymer’’

Our earliest version of the Thomas Rymer story is the medieval romance Thomas off Ersseldoune (c.1430). There is a four hundred year lacuna before the ballad “Thomas Rymer”, our next surviving version, is recorded in the early 1800s. In the intervening time the narrative changed very little but the dynamic of the piece, radically. The romance transformed into the highly subversive ballad, “Thomas Rymer”. Central to this transformation is the reconceptualization of the romance's heroine. Referred to simply as the “lufly lady” and caught between her husband, the fay King, and a mere mortal, Thomas, she becomes in the ballad the powerful Queen of the Fairies. The ballad is structured around a series of revelations in which the enigmatic Queen assumes the roles of Eve and Mary, and finally Christ Himself. I will explore the implications of this extraordinary ballad. Moreover, I suggest that it is Queen Elizabeth herself who, ironically, enables the heroine's transformation. “Ironically” because it appears that it was Elizabeth's own restrictions, designed to suppress heretical, seditious or radical literature, which forced Thomas off Ersseldoune (and many other romances which employed religious imagery or figures) out of the written domain and into the oral tradition. And yet, it is Elizabeth who, in creating the image of herself as a female prince, as the Faerie Queen, inspires a new literary vocabulary designed to describe female executive power, without which it would have been impossible to imagine a figure such as the ballad's Queen of the Fairies.