Validation of the NGM SElect(TM) kit

The Swiss national database was launched August 2000 based on the 10 SGM Plus loci. With the aim ofaddressing the needs of the next-generation European STR genotyping systems in Switzerland, wevalidated the NGM SElectTM kit. In this study, we present the results of forensic validation studiesincluding the following aspects: sensitivity, heterozygote peak height ratio calculations, performancewith simulated PCR inhibition, proficiency tests and Swiss population data.

Iowa Public Library Statistics, July 2005-June 2006

The 2005-2006 (FY06) edition of Iowa Public Library Statistics includes information on income, expenditures, collections, circulation, and other measures, including staff. Each section is arranged by size code, then alphabetically by city. The totals and percentiles for each size code grouping are given immediately following the alphabetical listings. Totals for all reporting libraries are given at the end of each section. There are 542 libraries included in this publication; 10 did not report. The Table of Cities and Size Codes lists the libraries alphabetically and gives their size codes. The table allows a user of this publication to locate information about a specific library. The following table lists the size code designations, the population range in each size code, the number of libraries reporting in each size code, and the total population of the reporting libraries in each size code. The total population of the 542 libraries is 2,243,396. Population data is used to determine per capita figures used throughout the publication.

Iowa Public Library Statistics, July 2006-June 2007

The 2006-2007 (FY07) edition of Iowa Public Library Statistics includes information on income, expenditures, collections, circulation, and other measures, including staff. Each section is arranged by size code, then alphabetically by city. The totals and percentiles for each size code grouping are given immediately following the alphabetical listings. Totals and medians for all reporting libraries are given at the end of each section. There are 543 libraries included in this publication; 530 submitted a report. The table of size codes (page 6) lists the libraries alphabetically. The libraries in each section of the publication are listed by size code, then alphabetically by city. The following table lists the size code designations, the population range in each size code, the number of libraries reporting in each size code, and the total population of the reporting libraries in each size code. The total population served by the 543 libraries is 2,248,279. Population data is used to determine per capita figures throughout the publication.

Iowa Public Library Statistics, July 2007-June 2008

The 2007-2008 (FY08) edition of Iowa Public Library Statistics includes information on income, expenditures, collections, circulation, and other measures, including staff. Each section is arranged by size code, then alphabetically by city. The totals and percentiles for each size code grouping are given immediately following the alphabetical listings. Totals and medians for all reporting libraries are given at the end of each section. There are 543 libraries included in this publication; 522 submitted a report. The table of size codes (page 6) lists the libraries alphabetically. The following table lists the size code designations, the population range in each size code, the number of libraries reporting in each size code, and the total population of the reporting libraries in each sizecode. The total population served by the 543 libraries is 2,248,279. Population data is used to determine per capita figures throughout the publication.

Contribution of ultrasonographic examination to the prenatal detection of trisomy 21: experience from 19 European registers.

The objective of this study was to evaluate the contribution of ultrasound scanning to the prenatal detection of trisomy 21 in a large unselected European population. Data from 19 congenital malformation registers in 11 European countries were included. The prenatal ultrasound screening programs in the countries ranged from no routine screening to three ultrasound investigations per patient. Routine serum screening was offered in four of the 11 countries and routine screening on the basis of maternal age amniocentesis in all. The results show that overall 53% of cases of trisomy 21 were detected prenatally with a range from 3% in Lithuania to 88% in Paris. Ninety-eight percent of women whose babies were diagnosed before 24 weeks gestation chose to terminate the pregnancy. Centres/countries that offer serum screening do not have a significantly higher detection rate of trisomy 21 when compared to those that offer maternal age amniocentesis and anomaly scanning only. Fifty percent of trisomy 21 cases were born to women aged 35 years or more. In conclusions, second trimester ultrasound plays an important role in the prenatal diagnosis of trisomy 21. Of those cases prenatally diagnosed, 64% of cases in women <35 years and 36% of those in women >or=35 years were detected because of an ultrasound finding. Ultrasound soft markers accounted for 84% of the scan diagnoses. There is evidence of increasing maternal age across Europe with 50% of cases of trisomy 21 born to women aged 35 years or more.

Iowa Public Library Statistics, July 2009-June 2010

The 2009-2010 (FY10) edition of Iowa Public Library Statistics includes information on income, expenditures, collections, circulation, and other measures, including staff. Each section is arranged by size code, then alphabetically by city. The totals and percentiles for each size code grouping are given immediately following the alphabetical listings. Totals and medians for all reporting libraries are given at the end of each section. There are 543 libraries included in this publication; 525 submitted a report. The table of size codes (page 5) lists the libraries alphabetically. The following table lists the size code designations, the population range in each size code, the number of libraries reporting in each size code, and the total population of the reporting libraries in each sizecode. The total population served by the 543 libraries is 2,339,070. Population data is used to determine per capita figures throughout the publication.

Ecology and evolution of social-organization: insights from fire ants and other highly eusocial insects

Social organisms exhibit conspicuous intraspecific variation in all facets of their social organization. A prominent example of such variation in the highly eusocial Hymenoptera is differences in the number of reproductive queens per colony, Differences in queen number in ants are associated with differences in a host of reproductive and social traits, including queen phenotype and breeding strategy, mode of colony reproduction, and pattern of sex allocation. We examine the causes and consequences of changes in colony queen number and associated traits using the fire ant Solenopsis invicta as a principal model. Ecological constraints on mode of colony founding may act as important selective forces causing the evolution of queen number in this and many other ants, with social organization generally perpetuated across generations by means of the social environment molding appropriate queen phenotypes and reproductive strategies. Shifts in colony queen number have profound effects on genetic structure within nests and may also influence genetic structure at higher levels (aggregations of nests or local demes) because of the association of queen number with particular mating and dispersal habits. Divergence of breeding habits between populations with different social organizations has the potential to promote genetic differentiation between these social variants. Thus, evolution of social organization can be important in generating intrinsic selective regimes that channel subsequent social evolution and in initiating the development of significant population genetic structure, including barriers to gene flow important in cladogenesis.

Iowa Public Library Statistics, July 2010-June 2011

The 2010-2011 (FY11) edition of Iowa Public Library Statistics includes information on income, expenditures, collections, circulation, and other measures, including staff. Each section is arranged by size code, then alphabetically by city. The totals and percentiles for each size code grouping are given immediately following the alphabetical listings. Totals and medians for all reporting libraries are given at the end of each section. There are 543 libraries included in this publication; 525 submitted a report. The table of size codes (page 5) lists the libraries alphabetically. The following table lists the size code designations, the population range in each size code, the number of libraries reporting in each size code, and the total population of the reporting libraries in each size code. The total population served by the 543 libraries is 2,339,070. Population data is used to determine per capita figures throughout the publication.

Iowa Public Library Statistics, July 1, 2011-June 30, 2012

The 2010-2011 (FY11) edition of Iowa Public Library Statistics includes information on income, expenditures, collections, circulation, and other measures, including staff. Each section is arranged by size code, then alphabetically by city. The totals and percentiles for each size code grouping are given immediately following the alphabetical listings. Totals and medians for all reporting libraries are given at the end of each section. There are 543 libraries included in this publication; 525 submitted a report. The table of size codes (page 5) lists the libraries alphabetically. The following table lists the size code designations, the population range in each size code, the number of libraries reporting in each size code, and the total population of the reporting libraries in each size code. The total population served by the 543 libraries is 2,339,070. Population data is used to determine per capita figures throughout the publication.

The co-evolution of culturally inherited altruistic helping and cultural transmission under random group formation.

Limited migration results in kin selective pressure on helping behaviors under a wide range of ecological, demographic and life-history situations. However, such genetically determined altruistic helping can evolve only when migration is not too strong and group size is not too large. Cultural inheritance of helping behaviors may allow altruistic helping to evolve in groups of larger size because cultural transmission has the potential to markedly decrease the variance within groups and augment the variance between groups. Here, we study the co-evolution of culturally inherited altruistic helping behaviors and two alternative cultural transmission rules for such behaviors. We find that conformist transmission, where individuals within groups tend to copy prevalent cultural variants (e.g., beliefs or values), has a strong adverse effect on the evolution of culturally inherited helping traits. This finding is at variance with the commonly held view that conformist transmission is a crucial factor favoring the evolution of altruistic helping in humans. By contrast, we find that under one-to-many transmission, where individuals within groups tend to copy a "leader" (or teacher), altruistic helping can evolve in groups of any size, although the cultural transmission rule itself hitchhikes rather weakly with a selected helping trait. Our results suggest that culturally determined helping behaviors are more likely to be driven by "leaders" than by popularity, but the emergence and stability of the cultural transmission rules themselves should be driven by some extrinsic factors.

An Assessment of Traffic Safety in Urban Deer Herd Management Zones in Iowa, 2010

Many states are striving to keep their deer population to a sustainable and controllable level while maximizing public safety. In Iowa, measures to control the deer population include annual deer hunts and special deer herd management plans in urban areas. While these plans may reduce the deer population, traffic safety in these areas has not been fully assessed. Using deer population data from the Iowa Department of Natural Resources and data on deer-vehicle crashes and deer carcass removals from the Iowa Department of Transportation, the authors examined the relationship between deer-vehicle collisions, deer density, and land use in three urban areas in Iowa that have deer management plans in place (Cedar Rapids, Dubuque, and Iowa City) over the period 2002 to 2007. First, a comparison of deer-vehicle crash counts and deer carcass removal counts was conducted at the county level. Further, the authors estimated econometric models to investigate the factors that influence the frequency and severity of deer-vehicle crashes in these zones. Overall, the number of deer carcasses removed on the primary roads in these counties was greater than the number of reported deervehicle crashes on those roads. These differences can be attributed to a number of reasons, including variability in data reporting and data collection practices. In addition, high rates of underreporting of crashes were found on major routes that carry high volumes of traffic. This study also showed that multiple factors affect deer-vehicle crashes and corresponding injury outcomes in urban management zones. The identified roadway and non-roadway factors could be useful for identifying locations on the transportation system that significantly impact deer species and safety and for determining appropriate countermeasures for mitigation. Efforts to reduce deer density adjacent to roads and developed land and to provide wider shoulders on undivided roads are recommended. Improving the consistency and accuracy of deer carcass and deer-vehicle collision data collection methods and practices is also desirable.

Emergence of Swiss metropole and scaling properties of urban clusters

Defining the limits of an urban agglomeration is essential both for fundamental and applied studies in quantitative and theoretical geography. A simple and consistent way for defining such urban clusters is important for performing different statistical analysis and comparisons. Traditionally, agglomerations are defined using a rather qualitative approach based on various statistical measures. This definition varies generally from one country to another, and the data taken into account are different. In this paper, we explore the use of the City Clustering Algorithm (CCA) for the agglomeration definition in Switzerland. This algorithm provides a systemic and easy way to define an urban area based only on population data. The CCA allows the specification of the spatial resolution for defining the urban clusters. The results from different resolutions are compared and analysed, and the effect of filtering the data investigated. Different scales and parameters allow highlighting different phenomena. The study of Zipf's law using the visual rank-size rule shows that it is valid only for some specific urban clusters, inside a narrow range of the spatial resolution of the CCA. The scale where emergence of one main cluster occurs can also be found in the analysis using Zipf's law. The study of the urban clusters at different scales using the lacunarity measure - a complementary measure to the fractal dimension - allows to highlight the change of scale at a given range.

European cancer mortality predictions for the year 2012.

BACKGROUND: Estimating current cancer mortality figures is important for defining priorities for prevention and treatment.Materials and methods:Using logarithmic Poisson count data joinpoint models on mortality and population data from the World Health Organization database, we estimated numbers of deaths and age-standardized rates in 2012 from all cancers and selected cancer sites for the whole European Union (EU) and its six more populated countries. RESULTS: Cancer deaths in the EU in 2012 are estimated to be 1 283 101 (717 398 men and 565 703 women) corresponding to standardized overall cancer death rates of 139/100 000 men and 85/100 000 women. The fall from 2007 was 10% in men and 7% in women. In men, declines are predicted for stomach (-20%), leukemias (-11%), lung and prostate (-10%) and colorectal (-7%) cancers, and for stomach (-23%), leukemias (-12%), uterus and colorectum (-11%) and breast (-9%) in women. Almost stable rates are expected for pancreatic cancer (+2-3%) and increases for female lung cancer (+7%). Younger women show the greatest falls in breast cancer mortality rates in the EU (-17%), and declines are expected in all individual countries, except Poland. CONCLUSION: Apart for lung cancer in women and pancreatic cancer, continuing falls are expected in mortality from major cancers in the EU.

Vitamin B12 Deficiency in the aged: Laboratory Diagnosis, Prevalence and Clinical Profile

B₁₂-vitamiinin puute iäkkäillä: laboratoriodiagnostiikka, yleisyys ja yhteys sairastavuuteen Tausta: B12-vitamiinin puute on yleistä iäkkäillä ja se tulisi todeta riittävän varhaisessa vaiheessa palautumattomien vaurioiden estämiseksi. On epäselvää pitäisikö diagnostiikka kohdistaa tiettyihin riskiryhmiin vai mahdollisesti seuloa valikoimatonta vanhusväestöä. Myöskään yksimielisyyttä laboratoriotutkimusten valinnasta ei ole. Tavoitteet: Tutkimuksen tarkoituksena oli evaluoida uutta HoloTC RIA menetelmää ja tuottaa viitearvot sille, selvittää B12-vitamiinin puutteen yleisyys, yhteys sairastavuuteen ja mahdolliset riskitekijät suomalaisessa vanhusväestössä, arvioida munuaisfunktion vaikusta B12-vitamiinin puutteen laboratoriotutkimuksiin ja näiden perusteella ehdottaa suomalaiseen terveydenhuoltoon sopivaa laboratoriotutkimusstrategiaa. Aineisto ja menetelmät: Liedon iäkkäät -tutkimuksen vanhusaineisto on edustava otos yhden kunnan yli 65-vuotiaasta väestöstä, yhteensä 1260 henkilöä. Tutkittavat kävivät lääkärintarkastuksessa, ja heistä on käytettävissä runsaasti laboratoriotutkimuksia sekä tiedot sairauksista, ruokavaliosta, lääkkeiden ja vitamiinivalmisteiden käytöstä, dementiaseula ja depressiokysely. Viitearvoaineistoa varten kerättiin näytteet 84 vapaaehtoisesta terveestä aikuisesta ja menetelmäevaluaatiota varten 107 sairaalapotilaasta. Tulokset: HoloTC RIA menetelmän toistettavuus oli hyvä manuaalimenetelmäksi. 95%:n viiteväli holotranskobalamiinille oli 37-171 pmol/l. Kaikilla tutkittavilla, joilla oli muilla laboratoriotutkimuksilla osoitettu todennäköinen B12-vitamiinin puute, myös holotranskobalamiini oli viitealueen alarajaa pienempi. Suurentuneella kystatiini C-pitoisuudella osoitettu munuaisten vajaatoiminta korreloi voimakkaasti homokysteiinin (rs=0.53, p<0.001) ja metyylimalonihapon (rs=0.27, p<0.001) pitoisuuksiin, mutta ei kokonais-B12-vitamiinin (rs=- 0.04, p=0.227) tai holotranskobamiinin (rs=-0.01, p=0.817) pitoisuuksiin. Suomalaisessa vanhusväestössä B12-vitamiinin puutteen prevalenssi oli 12%. Kokonais- B12-vitamiinin pitoisuus oli matala (<150 pmol/l) 6%:lla. Miessukupuoli (OR 1.9, 95% CI 1.2-2.9), ikä ≥75 (OR 2.2, 95% CI 1.4-3.4) ja maitotuotteiden välttäminen (OR 2.3, 95% CI 1.2-4.4) lisäsivät B12-vitamiinin puutteen riskiä, mutta anemia (OR 1.3, 95% CI 0.7-2.3) tai makrosytoosi (OR 1.2, 95% CI 0.6-2.7) eivät. Päätelmät: Diagnosoimaton B12-vitamiinin puute on yleistä iäkkäillä, mutta kliinisesti merkityksellistä spesifistä riskiryhmää ei löydy. Koska anemian ja makrosytoosin puuttuminen ei poissulje B12-vitamiinin puutetta ja munuaisten vajaatoiminta heikentää metabolisten merkkiaineiden käyttökelpoisuutta, kokonais-B12-vitamiinia suositellaan ensisijaiseksi laboratoriotutkimukseksi epäiltäessä B12-vitamiinin puutetta ja tarvittaessa varmentavina tutkimuksina käytetään homokysteiiniä ja holotranskobalamiinia.

DnaSP Version 5. DNA Sequence Polymorphism

DnaSP, DNA Sequence Polymorphism, is a software package for the analysis of nucleotide polymorphism from aligned DNA sequence data. DnaSP can estimate several measures of DNA sequence variation within and between populations (in noncoding, synonymous or nonsynonymous sites, or in various sorts of codon positions), as well as linkage disequilibrium, recombination, gene flow and gene conversion parameters. DnaSP can also carry out several tests of neutrality: Hudson, Kreitman and Aguadé (1987), Tajima (1989), McDonald and Kreitman (1991), Fu and Li (1993), and Fu (1997) tests. Additionally, DnaSP can estimate the confidence intervals of some test-statistics by the coalescent. The results of the analyses are displayed on tabular and graphic form.