There is a substantial evidence that plyometric training significantly increases muscular strength and vertical jump. Due to the vigorous nature of this type of training, however, there is a risk of incurring musculoskeletal injuries. Therefore, conducting plyometric exercise programs in an aquatic environment might lead to significant improvements in vertical jump with possibly a lower risk of...

Donor financing for HIV prevention and treatment has shifted from supporting disease-specific ("vertical") programs to health systems strengthening ("horizontal") programs intended to integrate all aspects of care. We examine the consequences of shifting resources from three perspectives: first, through a broad analysis of the changing policy context of health care financing; second, through an...

The deep sea (i.e., >200 m depth) is a highly dynamic environment where benthic ecosystems are functionally and ecologically connected with the overlying water column surface. In aphotic sea, organisms rely on external signals to synchronize their biological clocks. Apart from responding cyclic hydrodynamic patterns periodic fluctuations of variables such as temperature, salinity, phytop...

BACKGROUND Prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV (PMTCT) programs can greatly reduce the vertical transmission rate (VTR) of HIV, and Malawi is expanding PMTCT access by offering HIV-infected pregnant women life-long antiretroviral therapy (Option B+). There is currently no empirical data on the effectiveness of Malawian PMTCT programs. This study describes a surveillance approach t...

Traditional stochastic programs assume that the probability distribution of uncertainty is known. However, in practice, the probability distribution oftentimes is not known or cannot be accurately approximated. One way to address such distributional ambiguity is to work with distributionally robust convex stochastic programs (DRSPs), which minimize the worst-case expected cost with respect to a...

The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that individual differences in the response of maximal O(2) uptake (VO(2max)) to a standardized training program are characterized by familial aggregation. A total of 481 sedentary adult Caucasians from 98 two-generation families was exercise trained for 20 wk and was tested for VO(2max) on a cycle ergometer twice before and twice after the train...

Payments for environmental services (PES) represent a new, more direct way to promote conservation. They explicitly recognize the need to address difficult trade-offs by bridging the interests of landowners and external actors through compensations. Theoretical assessments praise the advantages of PES over indirect approaches, but in the tropics PES application has remained incipient. Here I ai...

Vertical integration has received much attention in the last 25 years and there are wellknown theories that explain this behavior. However, the one common thread that runs through virtually all of this research is the assumption of private property rights. Very little attention has been paid to how firms behave when the property rights structure under which they operate changes. The commercial ...