Editorial

The Analysis of Verbal Behavior -     

Quantitative Risk Assessment of FMD Virus Transmission via Water

Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) is a viral disease of domesticated and wild cloven-hoofed animals. FMD virus is known to spread by direct contact between infected and susceptible animals, by animal products such as meat and milk, by the airborne route, and mechanical transfer on people, wild animals, birds, and by vehicles. During the outbreak of 2001 in the Netherlands, milk from dairy cattle was illegally discharged into the sewerage as a consequence of transport prohibition. This may lead to contaminated discharges of biologically treated and raw sewage in surface water that is given to cattle to drink. The objective of the present study was to assess the probability of infecting dairy cows that were drinking FMD virus contaminated surface water due to illegal discharges of contaminated milk. So, the following data were collected from literature: FMD virus inactivation in aqueous environments, FMD virus concentrations in milk, dilution in sewage water, virus removal by sewage treatment, dilution in surface water, water consumption of cows, size of a herd in a meadow, and dose-response data for ingested FMD virus by cattle. In the case of 1.6 x 10(2) FMD virus per milliliter in milk and discharge of treated sewage in surface water, the probability of infecting a herd of cows was estimated to be 3.3 x 10(-7) to 8.5 x 10(-5), dependent on dilution in the receiving surface water. In the case of discharge of raw sewage, all probabilities of infection were 100 times higher. In the case of little dilution in small rivers, the high level of 8.5 x 10(-3) is reached. For 10(4) times higher FMD virus concentrations in milk, the probabilities of infecting a herd of cows are high in the case of discharge of treated sewage (3.3 x 10(-3) to 5.7 x 10(-1)) and very high in the case of discharge of raw sewage (0.28-1.0). It can be concluded that illegal and uncontrolled discharges of contaminated milk into the sewerage system may lead to high risks to other cattle farms at 6-50 km distance of the location of discharge within one day. This clearly underlines current measures that prohibit such discharges, and also asks for strict control. This risk assessment clearly demonstrated the potential significance of FMD virus transmission via water, and the results will be useful on an international scale, and could also serve as a basis for other FMD risk-assessment models.     

Talcott Parsons and national socialism: The case of the “ten mysterious missing letters”

This essay is a response to questions raised by my review of a book by Uta Gerhardt called Talcott Parsons on National Socialism.In short, I found many issues unresolved in the Cold War years from 1946 to 1954 at Harvard University, especially the role of Talcott Parons and Clyde Kluckhohn in allegedly bringing Nazi collaborators to the United States. I have tried to address these controversial issues in this response.     

Detection of biotic responses to urbanization using fish assemblages from small streams of western Georgia,USA

We examined relationships between stream fish assemblages and land use alteration associated with urbanization in 15 lower Piedmont watersheds along an urbanization gradient north of Columbus, western Georgia. Based on land cover data from 2002 Landsat 7 TM imagery aerial photos, streams drained watersheds that were largely urban, developing (suburban), agricultural (pasture), managed pine forest, and unmanaged mixed-forest. We quantified fish seasonally from 3 run-pool segments in each stream, and used a variety of metrics as response variables in analyses of relationships between fish assemblage structure and land use and natural basin variation. In general, Georgia-Index of Biotic Integrity (GA-IBI) values, Bray-Curtis faunal similarity of streams to mean conditions within reference streams, proportions of fish as lithophilic spawners, and fish lacking eroded fins, lesions, tumors decreased with increasing urbanization. Multiple regression indicated that assemblages were explained by a combination of land use and natural basin variables (basin size, average discharge, nearest distance to a larger downstream tributary [colonization source]), with land use variables being important predictors of summer assemblages and natural basin variables being more important in winter and spring assemblages. Non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) ordinations revealed strong separation between assemblages in urban watersheds and forested watersheds, whereas assemblages in agricultural and developing watersheds were intermediate between those in urban and forested watersheds. Our data suggest that fish are reliable indicators of anthropogenic disturbance at the landscape scale, at least seasonally, and may be used to forecast the magnitude of landscape-level changes in stream structure and function associated with the conversion of forests to urban/suburban land in the Southeast.