We have read with interest the article by Bedolla et al. [1] and we believe the lack of association between passive smoking and asthma might be a consequence of the way the variable was measured. They defined passive smoking as follows: “smoking was considered as passive when one or more cigarettes were consumed by one or by both parents in the presence of the children”. We would like to highli...

Poor nutrition and other challenges during infancy can impose delayed costs, and it has been proposed that expression of costs during adulthood should involve increased mortality rather than reduced reproduction. Demonstrations of delayed costs come mostly from experimental manipulations of the diet and hormones of captive infants of short-lived species, and we know very little about how natura...

Trunk trails, used by Pogonomyrmex barbatus and P. rugosus during foraging and homing, have the effect of avoiding aggressive confrontations between neighboring colonies of the same species. They channel the mass of foragers of hostile neighboring nests into diverging directions, before each ant pursues its individual foraging exploration. This channeling subtly partitions the foraging grounds ...

To determine the protective effect of 'belief in a just world for self' (BJW-S) on hostile attributional bias, 379 adolescents aged 10-16 years, previously identified by teacher ratings as high or low troublemakers, were presented with a hypothetical frustrating situation where the intent of the frustrating agent appeared either benign, hostile, or ambiguous. The analysis indicated that the hig...

This paper presents methodologies for dimensioning access networks based on ATM technology, taking as a case study the Passive Optical Access Network (PON) being developed as part of the Broadband Loop (BBL) project, from the European Program ACTS Advanced Communications Technology and Services.

This paper investigates whether proximity to institutional shareholders influences corporate policies. We find that firms with high local institutional ownership are more profitable, less risky, and have a better governance structure. Specifically, these firms are less likely to engage in undesirable corporate activities such as aggressive earnings management or option back-dating and are there...

An open prospective study was conducted among the patients visiting an urban medical policlinic for the first time without an appointment to assess whether the immigrants (who represent more than half of our patients) are aware of the health effects of smoking, whether the level of acculturation influences knowledge, and whether doctors give similar advice to Swiss and foreign smokers. 226 smok...