scholarly journals Forecasting hospitalizations due to COVID-19 in South Dakota, USA.

Author(s):  
Jeff S Wesner ◽  
Dan Van Peursem ◽  
Jose Flores ◽  
Yuhlong Lio ◽  
Chelsea Wesner

Anticipating the number of hospital beds needed for patients with COVID-19 remains a challenge. Early efforts to predict hospital bed needs focused on deriving predictions from SIR models, largely at the level of countries, provinces, or states. In the United States, these models rely on data reported by state health agencies. However, predictive disease and hospitalization dynamics at the state level are complicated by geographic variation in disease parameters. In addition it is difficult to make forecasts early in a pandemic due to minimal data. However, Bayesian approaches that allow models to be specified with informed prior information from areas that have already completed a disease curve can serve as prior estimates for areas that are beginning their curve. Here, a Bayesian non-linear regression (Weibull function) was used to forecast cumulative and active COVID-19 hospitalizations for South Dakota, USA. As expected, early forecasts were dominated by prior information, which was derived from New York City. Importantly, hospitalization trends also differed within South Dakota due to early peaks in an urban area, followed by later peaks in other rural areas of the state. Combining these trends led to altered forecasts with relevant policy implications.

Author(s):  
Erin Heidt-Forsythe

This chapter begins a response to the questions of what creates the unique system of egg donation regulations by examining the ways that stakeholders—legislators, advocates, scientists, and invested citizens—frame the issue of egg donation in reproduction and research. I explore one policy area of egg donation politics in the United States, compensation in California, New York, Arizona, and Louisiana between 1990 and 2010. This chapter explores and illuminates framing processes about egg donation through explaining the method of policy narrative analysis, case selection, and political contexts in each state.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
Cybelle Fox

Abstract When do states grant social rights to noncitizens? I explore this question by examining the extension of Old Age Assistance (OAA) to noncitizens after the passage of the 1935 Social Security Act. While the act contained no alienage-based restrictions, states were permitted to bar noncitizens from means-tested programs. In 1939, 31 states had alienage restrictions for OAA. By 1971, when the Supreme Court declared state-level alienage restrictions unconstitutional, only eight states still did. States with more Mexicans and Asians were slower to repeal restriction, however. Using in-depth case studies of New York, California, and Texas, I demonstrate the importance of federal and state institutional arrangements and immigrant political power for the extension of social rights to noncitizens. I also show that to secure access to OAA, immigrant advocates adapted their strategies to match the institutional and political context.


Land ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 309
Author(s):  
Elena A. Mikhailova ◽  
Hamdi A. Zurqani ◽  
Christopher J. Post ◽  
Mark A. Schlautman ◽  
Gregory C. Post ◽  
...  

Sustainable management of soil carbon (C) at the state level requires valuation of soil C regulating ecosystem services (ES) and disservices (ED). The objective of this study was to assess the value of regulating ES from soil organic carbon (SOC), soil inorganic carbon (SIC), and total soil carbon (TSC) stocks, based on the concept of the avoided social cost of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions for the state of South Carolina (SC) in the United States of America (U.S.A.) by soil order, soil depth (0–200 cm), region and county using information from the State Soil Geographic (STATSGO) database. The total estimated monetary mid-point value for TSC in the state of South Carolina was $124.36B (i.e., $124.36 billion U.S. dollars, where B = billion = 109), $107.14B for SOC, and $17.22B for SIC. Soil orders with the highest midpoint value for SOC were: Ultisols ($64.35B), Histosols ($11.22B), and Inceptisols ($10.31B). Soil orders with the highest midpoint value for SIC were: Inceptisols ($5.91B), Entisols ($5.53B), and Alfisols ($5.0B). Soil orders with the highest midpoint value for TSC were: Ultisols ($64.35B), Inceptisols ($16.22B), and Entisols ($14.65B). The regions with the highest midpoint SOC values were: Pee Dee ($34.24B), Low Country ($32.17B), and Midlands ($29.24B). The regions with the highest midpoint SIC values were: Low Country ($5.69B), Midlands ($5.55B), and Pee Dee ($4.67B). The regions with the highest midpoint TSC values were: Low Country ($37.86B), Pee Dee ($36.91B), and Midlands ($34.79B). The counties with the highest midpoint SOC values were Colleton ($5.44B), Horry ($5.37B), and Berkeley ($4.12B). The counties with the highest midpoint SIC values were Charleston ($1.46B), Georgetown ($852.81M, where M = million = 106), and Horry ($843.18M). The counties with the highest midpoint TSC values were Horry ($6.22B), Colleton ($6.02B), and Georgetown ($4.87B). Administrative areas (e.g., counties, regions) combined with pedodiversity concepts can provide useful information to design cost-efficient policies to manage soil carbon regulating ES at the state level.


Author(s):  
Dick M. Carpenter

For decades, scholars have debated the purpose of U.S. education, but too often ignored how non-education-related power brokers define education or the requisite consequences.[Qu: Is there a different way of phrasing this? I'm not sure, in reading it, what you intend "the requisite consequences" to mean. Does this mean the results of education, or the consequences of inaccurate definitions of it? Also, may we rephrase "non-education-related power brokers" to something like "power brokers without education experience"?]This study examines how one of the most prominent categories of U.S. leaders, state governors, defines education and discusses the policy implications. We examine gubernatorial rhetoric—that is, public speeches—about education, collected from State of the State speeches from 2001 to 2008. In all, one purpose gains overwhelmingly more attention—economic efficiency. As long as governors and the general public, seen enthymematically through gubernatorial rhetoric, define education in economic terms, other purposes will likely remain marginalized, leading to education policies designed disproportionately to advance economic ends.


with carrying out the decentralization reform public administration mechanisms play an important role in ensuring the comprehensive development of rural areas. Expanding the use of such mechanisms in the sphere of cooperation on the state level will facilitate development and support of small entrepreneurial forms, common use of material and technical basis, emerging new working places, building social infrastructure and engineering communications, providing qualitative services to citizens and preserving rural settlements. The objective of the article is to identify constituents of the comprehensive mechanism of public administration for development of service cooperation of rural areas in Ukraine and to integrate them into a coherent system which would facilitate realization of the state strategies and programmes to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. The object of the research is a comprehensive mechanism of public administration for development of service cooperation. Research methodology is grounded upon the use of general scientific knowledge methods, in particular, logical and semantic, induction and deduction for formulating definitions, systemic and situational analysis for characterizing constituents of a comprehensive mechanism and identifying their interrelations. Based on the systemic approach it has been defined that comprehensive mechanism is an integrated system which combines interrelated and dependable functioning of legislative, institutional, organisational and economic, financial and credit, information and communication as well as staffing mechanisms in the sphere of developing cooperative movement in the rural localities. It is proved that every mechanism influences its particular direction and is formed at the international, national, regional and local levels based on cooperative values and generalized system of principles. Special attention is paid to the research of international and national legislation to generalize the system of principles of cooperation, intermunicipal cooperation, public authorities and public associations’ functioning, upon which the comprehensive mechanism for public administration of service cooperation development in rural areas of Ukraine is based.


Plant Disease ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 90 (11) ◽  
pp. 1461-1461 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. J. Soule ◽  
K. C. Eastwell ◽  
R. A. Naidu

Washington State is the largest producer of juice grapes (Vitis labruscana ‘Concord’ and Vitis labrusca ‘Niagara’) and ranks second in wine grape production in the United States. Grapevine leafroll disease (GLD) is the most wide spread and economically significant virus disease in wine grapes in the state. Previous studies (2) have shown that Grapevine leafroll associated virus-3 (GLRaV-3) is the predominant virus associated with GLD. However, little is known about the incidence and economic impact of GLD on juice and table grapes. Because typical GLD symptoms may not be obvious among these cultivars, the prevalence and economic impact of GLD in Concord and Niagara, the most widely planted cultivars in Washington State, has received little attention from the grape and nursery industries. During the 2005 growing season, 32 samples from three vineyards and one nursery of ‘Concord’ and three samples from one nursery of ‘Niagara’ were collected randomly. Petiole extracts were tested by single-tube reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR; 3) with primers LC 1 (5′-CGC TAG GGC TGT GGA AGT ATT-3′) and LC 2 (5′-GTT GTC CCG GGT ACC AGA TAT-3′), specific for the heat shock protein 70 homologue (Hsp70h gene) of GLRaV-3 (GenBank Accession No. AF037268). One ‘Niagara’ nursery sample and eleven ‘Concord’ samples from the three vineyards tested positive for GLRaV-3, producing a single band of the expected size of 546 bp. The ‘Niagara’ and six of the ‘Concord’ RT-PCR products were cloned in pCR2.1 (Invitrogen Corp, Carlsbad, CA) and the sequences (GenBank Accession Nos. DQ780885, DQ780886, DQ780887, DQ780888, DQ780889, DQ780890, and DQ780891) compared with the respective sequence of a New York isolate of GLRaV-3 (GenBank Accession No. AF037268). The analysis revealed that GLRaV-3 isolates from ‘Concord’ and ‘Niagara’ share nucleotide identities of 94 to 98% and amino acid identities and similarities of 97 to 98% with the Hsp70h gene homologue of the New York isolate of GLRaV-3. Additional testing by double-antibody sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (DAS-ELISA) using antibodies specific to GLRaV-3 (BIOREBA AG, Reinach, Switzerland) further confirmed these results in the ‘Niagara’ and two of the ‘Concord’ isolates. GLRaV-3 has previously been reported in labrusca cvs. Concord and Niagara in western New York (4) and Canada (1), but to our knowledge, this is the first report of GLRaV-3 in American grapevine species in the Pacific Northwest. Because wine and juice grapes are widely grown in proximity to each other in Washington State and grape mealybug (Pseudococcus maritimus), the putative vector of GLRaV-3, is present in the state vineyards, further studies will focus on the role of American grapevine species in the epidemiology of GLD. References: (1) D. J. MacKenzie et al. Plant Dis. 80:955, 1996. (2) R. R. Martin et al. Plant Dis. 89:763, 2005. (3) A. Rowhani et al. ICGV, Extended Abstracts, 13:148, 2000. (4) W. F. Wilcox et al. Plant Dis. 82:1062, 1998.


2021 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 853-864
Author(s):  
Dilip Kumar

Population of rural areas face distinct health challenges due to economic conditions, cultural/behavioural factors, and health provider shortages that combine to impose striking disparities in health outcomes among them. The process of recruitment takes about four to six months for Recruitment of Medical officers and paramedics. The number of applicants is quite limited because of dearth of doctors and paramedics in the State. It was felt that the health staffs incentives will help to increase the turnover of health staffs to some extent in the rural and remote areas. Monitoring cell has been constituted at the state level. The trainings are being monitored at regular intervals of time. The motivational level of health staff at all levels seems to be low. Continuous communication and feedback by state level programme officers is needed on regular basis. Placement of the suitable trained personnel is needed at those health facilities where sufficient infrastructure is available. Since 2010-11, there has been a continuous focus on the capacity building of the existing manpower in  the  state.  Trainings  as  per  GOI  guidelines  on  Immunization,  IMNCI,  EmOC,  LSAS,  SBA  and Minilap/MVA etc. have been taken up with full strength. In addition, the State wide training on immunization for Medical Officers, IPC skills for breast feeding and basic training in neonatal resuscitation also has been taken up at various levels. More than four-fifth of the total staffs in the health facilities were agreed on all the educational interventions for retention of health staffs in rural areas. For the regulatory interventions such as enhanced scope of practice, different types of health workers; multi skilling of alternate service providers, compulsory rural service which may be mandatory for obtaining license to practice or can be a prerequisite for entry into specialization and subsidized education in return of assured services were agreed by four-fifth of the total staffs. For the interventions related to professional and personal support such as better living conditions (water, sanitation, electricity, telecommunications, schools, etc.), safe and supportive working environment, outreach activities to facilitate cooperation between health workforce from better served and underserved areas; use of tele-health, designing career development programmes linked with rural service: more senior posts in rural areas and professional networks for rural areas such as rural health professional associations, rural health journals, etc. about 88 percent of the HR categories of Staffs were agreed in the health facilities


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