OBJECTIVE To review the statistical approaches to test for spatial heterogeneity of relative risks. Three different statistical tests (Gail, Martuzzi-Hills and Potthoff-Whittinghill) are reviewed and applied--as motivating example--to the analysis of cause-specific mortality records (years: 1991-2000) of the Municipalities belonging to the Local Health Unit Alto Vicentino. METHODS Spatial het...

[1] Ground surface tilts recorded proximal to a growing lava dome, and sustained through repeated dome collapses, provide unique geodetic constraints on the depth, size, and overpressures of the shallow magmatic system at Soufrière Hills Volcano. Tilt records identify a single pressure-source inflating with periods 3–30 h. Sustained tilt amplitude ratios for paired stations identify the pressur...

Previous research has shown that hills appear steeper to those who are fatigued, encumbered, of low physical fitness, elderly, or in declining health (Bhalla & Proffitt, 1999; Proffitt, Bhalla, Gossweiler, & Midgett, 1995). The prevailing interpretation of this research is that observers' perceptions of the environment are influenced by their capacity to navigate that environment. The current s...

1 medullary stimulation 2 3 Yuan-Yang Lai, Tohru Kodama, Elizabeth Schenkel and Jerome M. Siegel 4 5 Department of Psychiatry & Biobehavioral Sciences, David Geffen School of Medicine, 6 UCLA and VAGLAHS Sepulveda, North Hills, CA 91343 and Department of 7 Psychology, Tokyo Metropolitan Institute for Medical Research, Tokyo, Japan 8 9 Running title: state-dependent response to medulla activatio...

C Forest Management (CFM) is the youngest forestry program implemented so far, in Nepal. CFM modality in Nepal has been designed focusing on sustainable management of Terai forest. Several policies and strategies formulated and implemented in the past to manage Terai forest resulted unsuccessful. Operation Forest Management Plan (OFMP) and Community Forestry (CF) are the latest example of such ...

Previous surveys of wild ungulates indicate that the liver fluke, Dicrocoelium dendriticum, was rare in the Cypress Hills area of southeastern Alberta. However, 41 of 59 wapiti (Cervus elaphus) sampled during the 2003 and 2004 hunting seasons from this region were infected, with 7 hosts containing >1,000 worms. Prevalence and mean intensity were similarly high in sympatric beef cattle and mule ...

Background: Anemia during adolescence contributes to maternal, fetal morbidity and mortality in future. Tribal population is vulnerable and underserved wherein it is indeed essential to explore anemia among tribal adolescent girls to prevent future morbidity and maternal mortality. Objectives: To assess the prevalence of anemia and risk factors among tribal adolescent girls in Javvadu hills in ...

Previous studies have shown that conscious awareness of hill slant is overestimated, but visually guided actions directed at hills are relatively accurate. Also, steep hills are consciously estimated to be steeper from the top than the bottom, possibly because they are dangerous to descend. In the present study, participants stood at the top of a hill either on a skateboard or a wooden box of t...

We consider combinatorial optimization problems for which the formation of a neighborhood structure of feasible solutions is impeded by a set of constraints. Neighborhoods are recovered by relaxing the complicating constraints into the objective function within a penalty term. We examine a heuristic called compressed annealing that integrates a variable penalty multiplier approach within the fr...

Philip Scarf, Centre for OR and Applied Statistics, University of Salford, Salford M5 4WT, UK Introduction Looking out over the South Pennines in mid-winter, through the driving rain, we can see flat topped hills, drab and uninviting. The heather, dark at this time of year, gives them a foreboding aspect. When walking and faced with a choice to go over or around, their flat tops mean that the o...