Water quality sampling methods may bias evaluations of watershed management practices.

Accurate measurement of the discharge of total suspended solids (TSS) from watersheds is complicated by the extreme temporal variability of suspended solid concentrations during periods of high stream flow. Consequently, TSS loads estimated from data collected at different temporal frequencies may differ in accuracy and precision. Moreover, there remains a need for optimal sampling methods which yield the highest possible accuracy for the least effort. We investigated the effect of sampling frequency on estimations of TSS loads and retention within a restored stream in Maryland, USA. We found that coarser temporal sampling methods can lead to erroneous conclusions of restoration efficacy with poor accuracy and precision in estimates of sediment retention. Additionally, we synthesized 28 years of continuous turbidity-based TSS data from Europe and North America to assess the effect of sampling frequency. Our synthesis suggests that flow-paced composite sampling may be the most accurate and precise sampling method. This method is also economical, requiring analysis of only one sample per week. Thus, the flow-paced method may be a potential solution to economize and standardize water quality monitoring.

InSAR constraints on soil moisture evolution after the March 2015 extreme precipitation event in Chile.

ABSTARCT: Constraints on soil moisture can guide agricultural practices, act as input into weather, flooding and climate models and inform water resource policies. Space-based interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) observations provide near-global coverage, even in the presence of clouds, of proxies for soil moisture derived from the amplitude and phase content of radar imagery. We describe results from a 1.5 year-long InSAR time series spanning the March, 2015 extreme precipitation event in the hyperarid Atacama desert of Chile, constraining the immediate increase in soil moisture and drying out over the following months, as well as the response to a later, smaller precipitation event. The inferred temporal evolution of soil moisture is remarkably consistent between independent, overlapping SAR tracks covering a region ~100 km in extent. The unusually large rain event, combined with the extensive spatial and temporal coverage of the SAR dataset, present an unprecedented opportunity to image the time-evolution of soil characteristics over different surface types. Constraints on the timescale of shallow water storage after precipitation events are increasingly valuable as global water resources continue to be stretched to their limits and communities continue to develop in flood-prone areas.

Down's (1866) essay and its sociomedical context.

The inaccuracy of J. L. H. Down's formulation of the syndrome that now bears his name is recognized widely. The basis for his ideas are not, however, because they are to be found in the concepts of human development prevalent in his day. In this paper Down's essay is de-constructed, and his key concepts are related to the scientific literature of the era. The ideas within which Down developed his thoughts are found, for example, in contemporary writings on medicine, ethnography, public health, and genetics.

Historical perspectives on health: assessment of national progress in public health in England, 1832-1911.

The health of society is the sum of recent public policy and the heritage of public health and welfare. The degree of improvement in the health of young males in the nineteenth century may be gauged by scrutinizing changes in the ratio of weight to height2 (W/H2). The two variables summate the developmental history of individuals, and so are an index of biosocial circumstances for a set of people. Such data are uncommon, and this essay formulates the ratio for the years 1832 to 1911. The conclusion is that, according to the W/H2 criterion, innovations in public policy produced improvement in the health of young males.

"An awful visitation of providence": the Irish Famine of 1845-49.

This essay examines the condition of Ireland before, during and after the famine which began in 1845 when the potato crop began to fail. A series of topics is presented: the quality of life, families, government aid, philanthropy, population changes, literacy, emigration, and public policy. The essay draws on the author's research quantifying the quality of life in Ireland, and on research analysing the heights of a sample of Irish army recruits in the famine era.

Social change, height, and body mass in Victorian youth, 1805-1914.

A corpus of height studies from the period 1805-1914 was assembled. In the first of three studies the data were assessed for autocorrelation and for departure from linearity. In the second study, heights indexed to the P50 values identified by Tanner, Whitehouse and Takaishi (1966) were regressed on three economic variables, consecutively, in the presence of three ecological measures. In the third study, an estimate of Quetelet's index (w/h2) was calculated for males in the years 1832-1911. Implications were derived from the analyses.

Comparison of United States and New Zealand children's body mass scores.

Body Mass Index (BMI) scores were calculated for two racially similar samples, one from New Zealand and the other from the United States, at ages 3, 5, 7 and 13 years. At ages 3, 7 and 13 years, the New Zealand subjects had higher BMI scores than their American peers. Chi-square analyses showed that a disproportionately large number of American subjects had scores in the bottom 20th percentile for their age and sex than expected at each of the four ages. Similarly, a disproportionately larger number of New Zealand subjects had BMI scores in the uppermost 20th percentile at ages 3 and 13 years. It is hypothesized that the difference in BMI scores for the two samples, which have previously been shown to have similar median heights and weights, reflects a difference in degree of body fat.

Transported to Van Diemen's Land: the boys of the Frances Charlotte (1832) and Lord Goderich (1841).

From the logs of ships transporting convicts from Great Britain to Australia in the early nineteenth century, records of 2 ships carrying juveniles have been transcribed. Data on the backgrounds of the boys and height data are presented and analyzed. Comparisons are made with nineteenth- and twentieth-century data sets. Caution is expressed about limitations of the data, which constitute a sample stratified by age whose differences in means are sometimes anomalous.

Unresectable hepatic metastases from carcinoma of the colon and rectum.

To alter the dismal prognosis of multiple unresectable metastases to the liver from carcinoma of the colon and rectum, 30 patients underwent hepatic dearterialization (ligation of the hepatic artery, transection of hepatic ligaments and cholecystectomy) and distal hepatic artery cannulation with prolonged infusion chemotherapy by a portable infusion pump followed by systemic intravenous chemotherapy. Involvement of the liver by carcinoma was less than 50 per cent in 16 and more than 50 per cent in 14 patients. The results of follow-up examinations, LFT, CEA and CT scan studies showed more than 50 per cent regression of the tumor and a decrease in alkaline phosphatase values and CEA in 29 patients (97 per cent); six had complete regression of tumor. The duration of response ranged from five to 39 months with the median of 17 or more months. The results of sequential LFT showed immediate increase in liver enzymes with return to normal in seven to 14 days. The mean CEA value decreased by 69 per cent within the first week and further decreased by 88 per cent in two months at the end of infusion chemotherapy. The over-all and adjusted survival rates from diagnosis were 79 and 91 per cent at 12 months; 56 and 81 per cent at 18 months, and 40 and 65 per cent at 24 months. The over-all and adjusted median survival rate after the treatment was 17 and 23 months, respectively. Of the 14 patients who failed this program, 11 had recurrences at sites other than the liver, with hepatic disease in remission in the majority. Of the 17 patients who died, six died of causes unrelated to the recurrence of disease. Thus, hepatic dearterialization and infusion regional chemotherapy can "effectively" control the hepatic disease and increase over-all survival time from three to six months to 23 months. However, recurrences of extrahepatic carcinoma and other causes are responsible for death and the over-all guarded prognosis.

THE INFLUENCE OF AGE AND SOCIAL CLASS ON AUTHORITARIAN FAMILY IDEOLOGY.

The Authoritarian Family Ideology Scale (AFI,,) was administered to four hundred and thirty eight mothers towards the end of their confinement. Raw scores were analyzed by means of multiple linear regression. Chrono- logical age and social class scores were found to give substantial accounts of criterion variance. AFI,, scores tended to drop as age and social class rose. Interaction and curvilinearity did not increase R2 values to a substantial degree.