Social amplification of wildfire risk: the role of social interactions and information sources.

Wildfire is a persistent and growing threat across much of the western United States. Understanding how people living in fire-prone areas perceive this threat is essential to the design of effective risk management policies. Drawing on the social amplification of risk framework, we develop a conceptual model of wildfire risk perceptions that incorporates the social processes that likely shape how individuals in fire-prone areas come to understand this risk, highlighting the role of information sources and social interactions.

Trying not to get burned: understanding homeowners' wildfire risk-mitigation behaviors.

Three causes have been identified for the spiraling cost of wildfire suppression in the United States: climate change, fuel accumulation from past wildfire suppression, and development in fire-prone areas. Because little is likely to be performed to halt the effects of climate on wildfire risk, and because fuel-management budgets cannot keep pace with fuel accumulation let alone reverse it, changing the behaviors of existing and potential homeowners in fire-prone areas is the most promising approach to decreasing the cost of suppressing wildfires in the wildland-urban interface and increasing the odds of homes surviving wildfire events. Wildfire education efforts encourage homeowners to manage their property to decrease wildfire risk.

Prediction of intrafraction prostate motion: accuracy of pre- and post-treatment imaging and intermittent imaging.

Purpose: To evaluate whether pre- and post-treatment imaging (immediately before and after a radiation therapy treatment fraction) and intermittent imaging (at intervals during a treatment fraction) are accurate predictors of prostate motion during the delivery of radiation.

Methods And Materials: The Calypso 4D Localization System was used to continuously track the prostate during radiation delivery in 35 prostate cancer patients, for a total of 1,157 fractions (28-45 per patient). Predictions of prostate motion away from isocenter were modeled for a pre- and post-treatment imaging schedule and for multiple intermittent intrafraction imaging schedules and compared with the actual continuous tracking data.

Multi-institutional clinical experience with the Calypso System in localization and continuous, real-time monitoring of the prostate gland during external radiotherapy.

Purpose: To report the clinical experience with an electromagnetic treatment target positioning and continuous monitoring system in patients with localized prostate cancer receiving external beam radiotherapy.

Methods And Materials: The Calypso System is a target positioning device that continuously monitors the location of three implanted electromagnetic transponders at a rate of 10 Hz. The system was used at five centers to position 41 patients over a full course of therapy.

Ezetimibe + simvastatin (Merck/Schering-Plough).

Merck/Schering-Plough Pharmaceuticals has developed and launched ezetimibe + simvastatin (Vytorin), a fixed combination tablet of Schering-Plough's cholesterol absorption inhibitor ezetimebe (Zetia), and Merck's HMG CoA reductase inhibitor simvastatin (Zocor), for the treatment of hypercholesterolemia. The drug had been launched in Germany and Mexico by April 2004, and, in July 2004, was approved in the US, with expected launch late in 2004.

Electrophysiological effects accompanying regression of left ventricular hypertrophy.

Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate changes following regression of left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH).

Methods: Electrophysiolological changes were recorded in isolated guinea-pig myocardial preparations. LVH was induced by constriction of the thoracic aorta and regression was followed after removal of the constriction.

Pitavastatin Nissan/Kowa Yakuhin/Novartis/Sankyo.

Pitavastatin (nisvastatin) is an HMG CoA reductase inhibitor being developed jointly by Nissan, Kowa Kogyo, Novartis and Sankyo for the potential treatment of atherosclerosis and hyperlipidemia.