Symposium Review of "The Amish" by Donald Kraybill, Karen Johnson-Weiner, and Steven Nolt

Summary by Megan Bogden; Review by Steven Reschly; Review by Benjamin Zeller; Review by Tom Coletti; Authors' Reply by Donald Kraybill, Karen Johnson-Weiner, and Steven Nol

New challenges in studying nutrition-disease interactions in the developing world.

Latest estimates indicate that nutritional deficiencies account for 3 million child deaths each year in less-developed countries. Targeted nutritional interventions could therefore save millions of lives. However, such interventions require careful optimization to maximize benefit and avoid harm. Progress toward designing effective life-saving interventions is currently hampered by some serious gaps in our understanding of nutrient metabolism in humans. In this Personal Perspective, we highlight some of these gaps and make some proposals as to how improved research methods and technologies can be brought to bear on the problems of undernourished children in the developing world

Contribution to diagnostics/prognostics of tuberculosis in children. II. Indicative value of metal ions and biochemical parameters in serum

In an attempt to provide a reliable status of metal ions in children, new methods of analysis of children's sera are proposed. New flame atomic-absorption spectrometric (FAAS) methods are simple, cost- and time-effective and, above all, labor-, reagent- and sample-saving. Two methods were selected andvalidated against reference methods: method A for simultaneous determination of Cu and Zn from 5-fold diluted sera, and method B, for assaying zinc alone in 10-fold diluted samples. Both methods are based on a single-step sample pretreatment (deproteinization with 3 mol dm-3 HCl). Method A uses a single-step calibration with a mixed standard. The main advantage of method B is an additional reduction in sample consumption. Both methods were fully validated; accuracy, sensitivity and precision have proven them to becomparable to the reference methods, in terms of analytical performance,and applicable to analyses of children's sera

The impact of model-error correlation on regional data assimilative models and their observational arrays

Data assimilative models often minimize a penalty functional that measures model adjustment and model-data misfit. The penalty functional builds assumptions about model error into the analysis. Usually, errors from different parts of the model (e.g., dynamics and boundary conditions) are presumed to be uncorrelated. This is clearly not a valid assumption in regional models where uncertain large-scale forcing affects open-ocean boundary conditions. In this study, calculations with a regional wind-driven inverse model provide a specific example where model error from uncertain wind stress is correlated with model error from uncertain open boundary conditions. This physically realistic scenario motivates development of a more general penalty functional that includes model-error correlation. In fact, model-error correlations must be included in order to meet the objective of making the open-ocean boundaries behave like the open ocean. Statistical issues for the generalized inverse model are described in the context of objective analysis. Implications for array design are addressed. For data assimilative models that incorrectly neglect model-error correlation, data should not come from open-ocean boundary regions. Rather, data should come from the interior of the regional domain. There is no such restriction on data placement for the assimilative model that correctly accounts for model-error correlation

Major practicum as a learning site for exercise science professionals: A pilot study

Exercise science is now an integral part of the allied health framework in Australia and graduates from accredited programmes are equipped with skills recognised as being important in the prevention and management of lifestyle-related diseases. This pilot study sought to determine the experiences of 11 final-year exercise science students in their major practicum and identify skills learned and developed while on placement. Analysis of the interview data established that the students worked with clients from a broad range of sociocultural and socioeconomic backgrounds, both within and between practicum sites; the students' experiences and their preparedness to engage with clients from different backgrounds varied as a result. Although the students generally reported being technically skilled for their major placement, many reported being underprepared to deal with people from different backgrounds. However, all participants held that their interpersonal skills greatly improved in response to their placement and several remarked that they developed their problem-solving skills through watching and assisting their supervisors work with clients. The present study confirms the practicum as a critical learning site for improving communication and problem-solving skills with exercise science and exercise physiology students

Nutrition, diet and immunosenescence

Ageing is characterized by immunosenescence and the progressive decline in immunity in association with an increased frequency of infections and chronic disease. This complex process affects both the innate and adaptive immune systems with a progressive decline in most immune cell populations and defects in activation resulting in loss of function. Although host genetics and environmental factors, such as stress, exercise and diet can impact on the onset or course of immunosenescence, the mechanisms involved are largely unknown. This review focusses on identifying the most significant aspects of immunosenescence and on the evidence that nutritional intervention might delay this process, and consequently improve the quality of life of the elderly

Generalized inverse with shipboard current measurements: Tidal and nontidal flows in Long Island Sound

A simple linear shallow-water model forced by tidal boundary conditions can capture most of the tide height variability in Long Island Sound. In this sense, the tides are easy to model. The modeled tidal currents can be subtracted from measurements in order to obtain estimates of subtidal circulation. But linear shallow-water dynamics is not accurate enough for this purpose. Allowing for dynamical errors with a generalized inverse model leads to improved estimates of tidal and nontidal flow. The analysis provides expected errors for the prior (before inversion) and posterior (after inversion) tidal velocity field. Estimates of the flow field in central Long Island Sound are obtained with current measurements from a ship-mounted Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP) survey. Inversion of data from a single ten-hour survey improves tidal predictions, as verified with independent data. Furthermore, the posterior penalty functional is shown to be an effective test statistic for the existence of nontidal flow. The inverse model reduces model-data misfit, using interior dynamics and open-boundary conditions as weak constraints. Model-data misfit can also be reduced by tuning the friction parameter in the prior tidal model. However, in contrast with inversion, tuning degrades predictability

The North Atlantic circulation: Combining simplified dynamics with hydrographic data

We estimate the time-averaged velocity field in the North Atlantic from observations of density, wind stress and bottom topography. The flow is assumed geostrophic, with prescribed Ekman pumping at the surface, and no normal component at the bottom. These data and dynamics determine velocity to within an arbitrary function of (Coriolis parameter)/(ocean depth), which we call the “dynamical free mode.” The free mode is selected to minimize mixing of potential density at mid-depth. This tracer-conservation criterion serves as a relatively weak constraint on the calculation. Estimates of vertical velocity are particularly sensitive to variations in the free mode and to errors in density. In contrast, horizontal velocities are relatively robust. Below the thermocline, we predict a strong O (1 cm/sec) westward flow across the entire North Atlantic, in a narrow range of latitude between 25N and 32N. This feature supports the qualitative (and controversial) conjecture by Wüst (1935) of flow along the “Mediterranean Salt Tongue.” Along continental margins and at the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, predicted bottom velocity points along isobaths, with shallow water to the right. These flows agree with many long-term current measurements and with notions of the circulation based on tracer distributions. The results conflict with previous oceanographic-inverse models, which predict mid-depth flows an order of magnitude smaller and often in opposite directions. These discrepancies may be attributable to our relatively strong enforcement of the bottom boundary condition. This involves the plausible, although tenuous, assertion that the flow “feels” only the large-scale features of the bottom topography. Our objective is to investigate the consequences of using this hypothesis to estimate the North Atlantic circulation

The Amish Symposium

The Amish is a 500-some page university press-sized handbook that touches on a variety of topical areas. The book is the culmination of two and a half decades each of Kraybill’s, Johnson-Weiner’s, and Nolt’s work about the Amish. Karen Johnson-Weiner published a series of linguistic studies through the 1990s, and from these spring-board works later explored more fully schools and New York settlements. Donald Kraybill’s first Amish-focused publication was a Durkheimian study of the Amish and suicide in 1986. From then on he has maintained this functionalist orientation in comparative studies of plain Anabaptists and Amish responses to cultural, economic, and political change. Steven Nolt’s work follows two threads: Amish history, of which his A History of the Amish (1992) stands as the premiere testament, and Amish identity, realized most fully in Plain Diversity (2007), co-authored with Thomas Meyers. While Kraybill and Nolt have collaborated on seven publications, this is Johnson-Weiner’s first publication with either. Given the book’s volumous size and its claim to be the first generalist book about the Amish since John Hostetler’s first edition of Amish Society (1963), we as co-editors felt the book merited special review via a symposium in JAPAS. Three respondents provide reviews: a scholar of the Amish, a scholar outside Amish studies, and an Amishman. The first is Steven Reschly, a JAPAS editorial board member whose research focuses on Midwestern Amish and Amish from around the 1870s to 1930s. His work extends Bourdieau’s theories by arguning for a community-based Amish repetoire of action. The second reviewer is Benjamin Zeller, who has published several books about New Religious Movements and religion & food. He is Assistant Professor of Religion at Lake Forest College. The third reviewer is Tom Coletti, a long-term convert to the Amish and a farmer in the Union Grove, NC, community. Megan Bogden, a former student in Ohio State University’s Amish Society course, provides a brief book summary. —Cory Anderson, co-edito