Private Financing Options for Long-term Care

Private financing for long-term care now comes almost exclusively from out-of-pocket payments. Long-term-care costs quickly impoverish most elderly, resulting in Medicaid dependency. The consequences are profound for the western Sun Belt with its rapidly growing elderly population. Key private financing options are long-term-care individual retirement accounts (LTC/IRAs), home equity conversion, social-health maintenance organizations and long-term-care insurance. Study of data from the past half century suggests that the LTC/IRA approach would prove unsatisfactory for the purpose despite the intuitive appeal of this mechanism. Experience with home equity conversions is still very limited, and unresolved questions limit this approach to the role of a reserve option for now. While promising, social-health maintenance organizations are still in the experimental stages and not yet commercially available. Long-term-care insurance is currently sold on a thin market and emphasizes nursing home coverage. New approaches to private financing through long-term-care insurance seem to offer the best approach for immediate implementation.     

Reproductive strategies,body size,and encephalization in primate evolution

In order to understand fully the generally high level of encephalization observed in living primates, we must determine why early primates exhibited moderately large relative brain sizes compared to their early Tertiary contemporaries. The relatively high degree of encephalization in early primates may be related at least in part to the fact that they were highly unusualamong mammals in combining a small body size with a strongly precocial reporductive strategy. Other small, precocial mammals also exhibit moderately high levels of encephalization; but primates appear to have been truly uniquein being the only such small-sized and highly precocial group to give rise to extensive radiations of larger descendants. This is a key element in understanding primate brain evolution, because the initial “head start” of the early primates was translated up to larger sizes in descendants. The possible relationships among encephalization, precociality, small size, and arboreality are discussed, particularly in light of recent debates concerning the validity of the superorder Archonta. This work emphasizes that we need to consider relative brain size as but one element in a complex synergistic network of morphological and life-history features.     

PHYSIOLOGICAL MODIFICATIONS RELATED TO DENSITY INCREASE IN PERIPHYTIC ASSEMBLAGES 1

Periphytic communities in running waters were examined as they developed on granite rocks, concrete balls and glass slides. At equivalent cell densities, no differences in pigment concentrations, species diversity or production levels were found among the different substrata examined. Development of the assemblage appeared to result from the elongation of short algal filaments which had initially settled on the surface. As these communities matured, a distinct canopy and understory developed. Cellular metabolisms were comparable among the communities. In the understory of the communities, even though the cellular content of chl a and b did not differ, chl c and carotenoid pigment concentrations were higher than those in the over-story. Bicarbonate assimilation of Tabellaria fenestrata (Lyng.) Külz. and Eunotia pectinalisi var. pectinalis (O. F. Müll?) Rabh. was higher than that of the more abundant Tabellaria flocculosa (Roth.)Kütz. var. flocculosa IV (sensu Koppen) at both high and low cell densities. This probably reflects a seasonal succession of colonizing species. Glucose assimilation appeared to be mainly attributable to bacterial activity, and algal cells of the upper layer were less active than those of the bottom. The small amount of glucose that was incorporated by the algal cells was probably absorbed passively since its amount was in direct proportion to cell volumes.     

Recessive Lethal Mutations and the Maintenance of Duplication-Bearing Strains of Dictyostelium discoideum

Recessive lethal mutations have been isolated and used to maintain n + 1 aneuploid strains of Dictyostelium discoideum carrying a duplication of part or all of linkage group VII. The recessive lethal mutations, relA351 and relB352, arose spontaneously in diploids; no mutagenic treatment was used in the isolation of these mutations. The probable gene order on linkage group VII is: centromere, relB couA, bsgB, cobA, relA. Maintenance of aneuploids disomic for linkage group VII was made possible by complementation of a rel mutation on each linkage group VII homologue by the corresponding wild-type allele on the other linkage group VII homologue. The duplication-bearing disomic strains were slow-growing and produced faster-growing sectors on the colony edge. Haploid sectors probably arise by a combination of mitotic recombination and subsequent loss of one homologue, diploid sectors may be formed by chromosome doubling to 2n + 2, followed by chromosome loss to return to 2n, and aneuploid sectors may arise by deletion or new mutation.     

An analysis of the organization and evolution of type 4 fimbrial (MePhe) subunit proteins

Summary We have analyzed and compared the amino acid sequences of the type 4 fimbrial subunits fromPseudomonas aeruginosa, Moraxella bovis, M. nonliquefaciens, Bacteroides nodosus, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, andN. meningitidis. We propose a consensus sequence for the highly conserved aminoterminal regions of these proteins. In the variable regions, a domain corresponding to an epitope common toN. gonorrhoeae andN. meningitidis fimbriae is conserved, both in sequence and in environment, in fimbrial subunits fromB. nodosus. The subunits fromM. bovis andP. aeruginosa do not show any homologies to this sequence. In all of the subunits, the carboxy-terminal half of the molecule consists of a series of fairly hydrophobic domains. The last three domains, two of which include the cysteines of the disulfide bridge inN. gonorrhoeae, P. aeruginosa, andM. bovis, are more or less conserved in sequence in all of the proteins including that ofB. nodosus. We propose that these conserved hydrophobic regions, which have the potential to form a series of beta-sheets, form a structural framework around which more variable hydrophilic sequences determining immunological profile are arranged. The evolutionary relationships of the contemporary proteins and the distribution of type 4 fimbriae are also discussed.     

Effect of differential gastric evacuation and multispecies prey items on estimates of daily energy intake in juvenile chinook salmon

Synopsis The caloric density of stomach contents in juvenile chinook salmon,Oncorhynchus tshawytscha, was not affected by gastric evacuation, suggesting a constant caloric density of stomach contents during evacuation. Differences in the caloric density of prey consumed did affect caloric density of stomach contents over a 24-h period. Consumption of the amphipodCorophium sp. was associated with reduced caloric densities of stomach contents. During periods whenCorophium contributed more than 4% of the stomach contents, average caloric density declined from 5.56 to 5.33 kcal g^–1. Despite this difference, estimates of daily energy intake of juvenile chinook salmon were only 3%, greater when developed from the mean caloric density of stomach contents excludingCorophium.     

Planktivory in Pagothenia borchgrevinki (Pisces: Nototheniidae) in McMurdo sound,Antarctica

Summary Specimens of the Antarctic fish P. borchgrevinki were collected from just beneath the sea-ice in McMurdo Sound over the period 8 November to 6 December, 1985. The stomach contents of 200 fish were analysed and compared with the co-occurrence of the prey species in the plankton. Numerically, the dominant prey was a thecosomatid pteropod Limacina helicina (83%), followed by a hyperiid amphipod Hyperiella dilatata (5%). Other prey species in decreasing order of occurrence were Euphausia crystallorophias, Euchaeta antarctica, other copepods, a decapod crustacean larva, chaetognaths, the amphipods Orchomene plebs and Epimiriella macronyx, and unidentified juvenile fish. The order of frequency of occurrence of these prey in the guts of all the fish was H. dilatata (in 73% of the fish), L. helicina (71%), calanoid copepods (55%), chaetognaths (51%), E. crystallorophias (42%), decapod crustacean larva (32%), O. plebs (27%), juvenile fish (20%), and E. macronyx (14%). In volumetric terms, the dominant diet contributors were O. plebs (38%), L. helicina (17%) and chaetognaths (15%). All prey except O. plebs and E. macronyx were taken in concurrent plankton samples. Although planktivory of Pagothenia borchgrevinki is confirmed, it is not certain whether feeding is confined to the immediate sub-ice environment.     

Current utilization and further development of the palmyra palm (Borassus flabellifer L., Arecaceae) in Tamil Nadu state,India

The palmyra palm Borassus flabellifer,), a multipurpose tree of great utility, occurs extensively in Tamil Nadu state, India. Figuring in history, literature, and folklore of the state, it is exploited for food from the fruit and tuberous seedlings; beverage and sugar from the sap; fiber from the leaf and leafbase for brushes, cordage, weaving, and plaiting; trunk wood for construction and fuel; and numerous minor products. Increasing exploitation of the palmyra threatens the future supply of palm raw materials so important to rural populations. Integrated development of palmyra products for local and export markets, as well as management/conservation measures, are needed both to maximize the economic value of the products and to assure sustained yield from native stands.     

Novel synaptic structures in the central nervous system of the locust Schlstocerca gregaria

Summary An electron-microscopical study of locust thoracic ganglia reveals that synapses in the neuropily are morphologically heterogeneous. In addition to the conventional dyadic type described frequently in the literature, there is a second type with a complex arrangement of presynaptic dense material and a non-dyadic postsynaptic configuration. Serial-section analysis of these synapses suggests that the presynaptic structures include irregular or curved bars, and small projections.Although the proportion of non-dyadic synapses in the neuropile as a whole is small, a substantial number have been found on the branches of an identified flight motor neurone, labelled intracellularly with metal ions in conjunction with silver intensification. Samples from the arborization of this neurone give some indications of the distribution of non-dyadic synapses on it.The results are discussed in the context of distribution of synapses on other identified locust neurones, and the functional morphology of synapses in other phyla.