Ross River virus (RR) is a mosquito-borne arbovirus responsible for outbreaks of polyarthritic disease throughout Australia. To better understand human and environmental factors driving such events, 57 historical reports on RR outbreaks between 1896 and 1998 were examined collectively. The magnitude, regularity, seasonality, and locality of outbreaks were found to be wide ranging; however, anal...

Xenophobia is on the rise in Europe; and the ten million Muslims living there are often its targets. This paper contends that the fear and anxiety Westerners exhibit toward Muslims stem ultimately from a fear and anxiety regarding ourselves and our beliefs. I argue that the perceived standoff with Muslims causes us to doubt the sincerity and superiority of our own convictions. The latter are pr...

Ross River virus (RRV) and Barmah Forest virus (BFV) infections are the two most prevalent mosquito-borne diseases in Australia. Prevention through vector control and public awareness is important to lessen their burden on public health, as there are no treatments or vaccines currently available. In many geographical areas there are clear relationships between climatic variables and RRV or BFV ...

Atmospheric deposition of polychlorinated naphthalenes (PCNs) was investigated at 11 sites in Dongjiang River basin of Guangdong Province during the winter (January and February) and summer (July and August) of 2010 to assess the effect of PCNs on those areas. The average daily deposition fluxes of total PCNs was 828 pg x (m2 x d)(-1), and the corresponding TEQ was 0.14 pg x (m2 x d)(-1). Based...

INTRODUCTION The world's first rotavirus vaccine, Rotashield or RRV-TV, was registered in the US in 1998, but withdrawn within a year because of an observed association with intussusception (IS). Surveillance for IS has consequently become important in safety monitoring of new-generation rotavirus vaccines during development. Post-marketing surveillance is also important, and requires the avail...

We describe the development of an epitope-blocking enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for the sensitive and rapid detection of antibodies to Ross River virus (RRV) in human sera and known vertebrate host species. This ELISA provides an alternative method for the serodiagnosis of RRV infections.

This paper describes the development of an empirical model to forecast epidemics of Ross River virus (RRV) disease using the multivariate seasonal auto-regressive integrated moving average (SARIMA) technique in Brisbane, Australia. We obtained computerized data on notified RRV disease cases, climate, high tide, and population sizes in Brisbane for the period 1985-2001 from the Queensland Depart...

Brown bear-human interactions were observed in 1993, 1995, and 1997 at Kulik River in Katmai National Park and Preserve, Alaska. We analyzed these interactions using survival analysis, creating survival curves for the time that bears remained on the river in the presence, and absence, of human activity. Bear-only survival curves did not vary significantly between years (p = 0.067). Ninety-seven...

[1] We investigated how climate, rising atmospheric CO2 concentration, increasing anthropogenic nitrogen deposition and land use change influenced continental river flow over the period 1948–2004 using the Community Land Model version 4 (CLM4) with coupled river transfer model (RTM), a global river routing scheme. The model results indicate that the global mean river flow shows significant decr...

1. Traditionally the assessment of river water quality has been based solely on the measurement of physical, chemical and some biological characteristics. While these measurements may be efficient for regulating effluent discharges and protecting humans, they are not very useful for large-scale management of catchments or for assessing whether river ecosystems are being protected. 2. Measuremen...