BACKGROUND Racial disparities in birth outcomes persist in North Carolina and the United States. We examined patterns of birth outcomes and womens health measures in North Carolina by race and age to portray the largest disparities. We wanted to see if our data were consistent with the "weathering hypothesis," which holds that the health of African American women may begin to deteriorate in ear...

Winter chilling is critical for flowering and fruiting of many temperate fruits, with evidence that blackcurrant (Ribes nigrum L.) cropping has been adversely affected by warm winters. Accurate models of chill accumulation in blackcurrant are required so that breeding strategies can be formulated for the generation of new cultivars with resilience to future climates. Existing models for chill a...

Amer Shreim, Peter Grassberger, Walter Nadler, Björn Samuelsson, Joshua E. S. Socolar, and Maya Paczuski Complexity Science Group, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada Department of Physics, Michigan Technological University, Houghton, Michigan, USA Department of Physics, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, USA (Received 20 October 2006; publ...

For a three-year time period beginning in 2001, North Carolina awarded an annual bonus of $1800 to certified math, science and special education teachers working in public secondary schools with either high-poverty rates or low test scores. Using longitudinal data on teachers, we estimate hazard models that identify the impact of this differential pay by comparing turnover patterns before and a...

In June 2006 the North Carolina Folic Acid Council, the North Carolina Chapter of the March of Dimes, and the UNC Center for Maternal and Infant Health created an inventory of preconception health activities in North Carolina. The resulting booklet, Looking Back Moving Forward: North Carolina’s Path to Healthier Mothers and Babies,was developed in response to a recommendation from the US Center...