History of Jewish coinage, and of money in the Old and New Testament

by Frederic W. Madden

Post-biblical history of the Jews : from the close of the Old Testament, about the year 420 B.C.E. till the destruction of the second temple, in the year 70 C.E. ; in two volumes

by Morris J. Raphall

A community-based assessment of the spatiotemporal distribution of influenza in a U.S.-Mexico border county during the spring 2009 novel H1N1 swine-origin influenza A pandemic

This study retrospectively evaluated the spatial and temporal disease patterns associated with influenza-like illness (ILI), positive rapid influenza antigen detection tests (RIDT), and confirmed H1N1 S-OIV cases reported to the Cameron County Department of Health and Human Services between April 26 and May 13, 2009 using the space-time permutation scan statistic software SaTScan in conjunction with geographical information system (GIS) software ArcGIS 9.3. The rate and age-adjusted relative risk of each influenza measure was calculated and a cluster analysis was conducted to determine the geographic regions with statistically higher incidence of disease. A Poisson distribution model was developed to identify the effect that socioeconomic status, population density, and certain population attributes of a census block-group had on that area's frequency of S-OIV confirmed cases over the entire outbreak. Predominant among the spatiotemporal analyses of ILI, RIDT and S-OIV cases in Cameron County is the consistent pattern of a high concentration of cases along the southern border with Mexico. These findings in conjunction with the slight northward space-time shifts of ILI and RIDT cluster centers highlight the southern border as the primary site for public health interventions. Finally, the community-based multiple regression model revealed that three factors—percentage of the population under age 15, average household size, and the number of high school graduates over age 25—were significantly associated with laboratory-confirmed S-OIV in the Lower Rio Grande Valley. Together, these findings underscore the need for community-based surveillance, improve our understanding of the distribution of the burden of influenza within the community, and have implications for vaccination and community outreach initiatives.^

The impact of communication and cultural diversity in utilizing dental services among Saudi Arabian students in U.S.A.

Objectives: The purpose of this study is to understand the perceived effects of patient-dental staff communication and cultural diversity on the utilization of dental services in the U.S. by Saudi Arabian students who live in the U.S. and enrolled into the King Abdullah Scholarship program. Methods: The study design was an analytical cross-sectional study. Data for this study was obtained from the Saudi Dental Servicers Utilization Survey, a voluntary internet survey available online for one month through Facebook. Ordered logistic regression analyses and multinomial logistic regression analyses were used to measure the relationships between patient-dental staff communication and cultural diversity on the utilization of dental services. Results: Eight hundred and forty-seven responses were analyzed for this study. Overall, the majority of Saudi students reported having excellent communication experience with dental providers in the U.S. More than 58% of respondents reported at least one regular dental visit last year. Factors that influenced the use of regular dental care were: dentist's explanation of treatment plan, response of dental staff to patient's needs, respectful and polite dental staff, dental staff kindness, availability of up-to-date equipment, and overall communication with dentist. However, the utilization of emergency dental care was not associated with any measurement of patient-dental provider communication. Overall future utilization of dental care is associated with all aspects of patient-dental staff communication measured in this survey. Furthermore, more utilization of regular dental care was related to respondent's perception of the importance of trustworthiness dental staff and the importance of a dentist's reputation was only marginally associated. Respondent's perception of dentist's reputation was associated with more use of emergency dental services. Respondents are more likely to anticipate using dental care in the future if they perceived trustworthiness dental staff, and the dentist's reputation as influencing factors to their usage of dental services. Conclusions: Patient-dental staff communication was partially associated with utilization of regular dental care, not associated with utilization of emergency dental care, and broadly associated with anticipated future utilization of dental care. In addition, trustworthy dental staff, and a dentist's reputation were considered to be strong influencing factors towards utilization of dental services.^

The wine hedonic price models in the "Old and New World": : state of the art

The basic hedonic hypothesis is that goods are valued for their utility-bearing characteristics and not for the good itself. Each attribute can be evaluated by consumers when making a purchasing decision and an implicit price can be identified for each of them. Thus, the observed price of a certain good can be analyzed as the sum of the implicit prices paid for each quality attribute. Literature has reported hedonic models estimates in the case of wines, which are excellent examples of differentiated goods worldwide.The impact of different wine attributes (intrinsic or extrinsic) on consumers’ willingness to pay has been analyzed with dissimilar results. Wines coming from "New World" producers seem to be appreciated for different attributes than wines produced in the "Old World". Moreover, "Old and New World" consumers seem to value differently the wine’s characteristics. To our knowledge, no cross country analysis has been done dealing with "New World" wines in "Old World" countries, leaving an important gap in understanding underlying attributes influencing buying decisions.

Ronald E. Heine, Origen. Scholarship in the service of the church, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2010, pp. 275. ISBN 978-0-19-920907-1.

Fil: Peretó Rivas, Rubén.

Magnetostratigraphy of DSDP Leg 73 in the South Atlantic

The main objective of DSDP Leg 73 was to obtain high-quality records of major paleooceanographic events in the South Atlantic. This was achieved by coring six sites on the African plate. The sediments thus recovered span the Cenozoic and five of the six sites proved ideally suited for magnetostratigraphic analysis. The results presented in this paper and elsewhere in this volume constitute the first opportunity to extend the direct correlation of the magnetostratigraphic and biostratigraphic time-scales into the Paleogene in deep-sea cores. The magnetostratigraphic analyses from DSDP Leg 73 sediments are presented in this paper. The correlation of the magnetostratigraphy to the magnetic polarity time-scale provides tight age-depth control for the five sites analyzed, allowing the accurate calculation of sediment accumulation rates. The data presented here represent a remarkable record of the fine-scale polarity history of the Earth's magnetic field. These data place constraints on the interpretation of smallscale marine magnetic anomalies which are modelled equally effectively by field intensity fluctuations as polarity reversals. At least some of the "tiny wiggles" correspond to very short polarity units in the magnetostratigraphic record. By assuming an axial geocentric dipole, the inclination of the time-averaged magnetic field recorded in the sediments can be used to calculate the paleolatitude at which the sediments were deposited. Combining the age and average inclination information available from the magnetostratigraphy, we present paleolatitudes versus time for the Leg 73 drill sites.

Zircon U-Pb and Hf-O analysis of porphyries from the Duolong porphyry Cu-Au deposit in the Bangongco copper belt, central Tibet

The Duolong porphyry Cu-Au deposit (5.4 Mt at 0.72% Cu, 41 t at 0.23 g/t Au), which is related to the granodiorite porphyry and the quartz-diorite porphyry from the Bangongco copper belt in central Tibet, formed in a continental arc setting. Here, we present the zircon U-Pb ages, geochemical whole-rock, Sr-Nd whole-rock and zircon in-situ Hf-O isotopic data for the Duolong porphyries. Secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) zircon U-Pb analyses for six samples yielded consistent ages of ~118 Ma, indicating a Cretaceous formation age. The Duolong porphyries (SiO2 of 58.81-68.81 wt.%, K2O of 2.90-5.17 wt.%) belong to the high-K calc-alkaline series. They show light rare earth element (LREE)-enriched distribution patterns with (La/Yb)N = 6.1-11.7, enrichment in large ion lithophile elements (e.g., Cs, Rb, and Ba) and depletion of high field strength elements (e.g., Nb), with negative Ti anomalies. All zircons from the Duolong porphyries share relatively similar Hf-O isotopic compositions (d18O=5.88-7.27 per mil; eHf(t)=3.6-7.3), indicating that they crystallized from a series of cogenetic melts with various degrees of fractional crystallization. This, along with the general absence of older inherited zircons, rules out significant crustal contamination during zircon growth. The zircons are mostly enriched in d18O relative to mantle values, indicating the involvement of an 18O-enriched crustal source in the generation of the Duolong porphyries. Together with the presence of syn-mineralization basaltic andesite, the mixing between silicic melts derived from the lower crust and evolved H2O-rich mafic melts derived from the metsomatizied mantle wedge, followed by subsequent fractional crystallization (FC) and minor crustal contamination in the shallow crust, could well explain the petrogenesis of the Duolong porphyries. Significantly, the hybrid melts possibly inherited the arc magma characteristics of abundant F, Cl, Cu, and Au elements and high oxidation state, which contributed to the formation of the Duolong porphyry Cu-Au deposit.

Planktic and benthic 14C reservoir ages, calibrated by a suite of 14C plateaus in the glacial-to-deglacial Suigetsu atmospheric 14C record

We here present a compilation of planktic and benthic 14C reservoir ages for the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) and early deglacial from 11 key sites of global ocean circulation in the Atlantic and Indo-Pacific Ocean. The ages were obtained by 14C plateau tuning, a robust technique to derive both an absolute chronology for marine sediment records and a high-resolution record of changing reservoir/ventilation ages (Delta14C values) for surface and deep waters by comparing the suite of planktic 14C plateaus of a sediment record with that of the atmospheric 14C record (Sarnthein et al., 2007, doi:10.1029/173GM13). Results published thus far used as atmospheric 14C reference U/Th-dated corals, the Cariaco planktic record, and speleothems (Fairbanks et al., 2005, doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2005.04.007; Hughen et al., 2006, doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2006.03.014; Beck et al., 2001, doi:10.1023/A:1008175728826). We have now used the varve-counted atmospheric 14C record of Lake Suigetsu terrestrial macrofossils (Ramsey et al., 2012, doi:10.1126/science.1226660) to recalibrate the boundary ages and reservoir ages of the seven published records directly to an atmospheric 14C record. In addition, the results for four new cores and further planktic results for four published records are given. Main conclusions from the new compilation are: (1) The Suigetsu atmospheric 14C record on its varve counted time scale reflects all 14C plateaus, their internal structures and relative length previously identified, but implies a rise in the average 14C plateau age by 200-700 14C yr during LGM and early deglacial times. (2) Based on different 14C ages of coeval atmospheric and planktic 14C plateaus, marine surface water Delta14C may have temporarily dropped to an equivalent of ~0 yr in low-latitude lagoon waters, but reached >2500 14C yr both in stratified subpolar waters and in upwelled waters such as in the South China Sea. These values differ significantly from a widely assumed constant global planktic Delta14C value of 400 yr. (3) Suites of deglacial planktic Delta14C values are closely reproducible in 14C records measured at neighboring core sites. (4) Apparent deep-water 14C ventilation ages (equivalents of benthic Delta14C), deduced from the sum of planktic Delta14C and coeval benthic-planktic 14C differences, vary from 500 up to >5000 yr in LGM and deglacial ocean basins.

(Table 2) Geochemistry and petrograhy of DSDP Leg 82 Holes and MAPCO cruise of Jean Charcot in the Mid-Atlantic Ridge area

The compositions of abyssal glasses obtained on Leg 82 of the awGlomar Challenger and the MAPCO cruise of Jean Charcot have been investigated. Two main compositional groups of Atlantic glasses (A1 and A2) that are separated in space and time were identified. The distribution of these groups in the studied area allowed mapping of the transition zone from A1 to A2 between 30-35°N MAR. We infer that the compositional groups of abyssal glasses of the Atlantic and other oceans reflect the depth of separation of primary melts from the oceanic mantle. Specifically, the primary melt of Group A1 separates from the mantle at a depth of 30-60 km (spinel-peridotite facies) and those for Group A2 from a depth of 15-30 km (plagioclase-peridotite facies). Modifications of dynamic models of the ocean lithosphere are discussed.