In July 1998, the mother of an 18-month-old boy in rural Tennessee found a triatomine bug in his crib, which she saved because it resembled a bug shown on a television program about insects that prey on mammals. The gut contents of the Triatoma sanguisuga were found, by light microscopy and polymerase chain reaction (PCR), to be infected with Trypanosoma cruzi; PCR products hybridized with T. cruzi-specific oligonucleotide probes. Whole-blood specimens obtained from the child in July and August were negative by buffy-coat examination and hemoculture but positive by PCR and DNA hybridization, suggesting that he had low-level parasitemia. Specimens obtained after treatment with benznidazole were negative. He did not develop anti-T. cruzi antibody; 19 relatives and neighbors also were seronegative. Two of 3 raccoons trapped in the vicinity had positive hemocultures for T. cruzi. The child's case of T. cruzi infection-the fifth reported US autochthonous case-would have been missed without his mother's attentiveness and the availability of sensitive molecular techniques.

A total of 625 buildings and outdoor locations in the San Diego, California, area were monitored using the Allergenco Sampl-Air MK-3 impaction sampler or the Zefon Air-O-Cell slit bioaerosol cassette. Locations were classified by rigid criteria as clean commercial, commercial with mold growth, clean residential, residential with water staining, and residential with mold growth. In addition, coastal and inland outdoor locations were measured. Seven categories (total spores, Ascospores/Basidiospores, Cladosporium, Smut/Myxomycetes-like, Aspergillus/Penicillium (AS/PE), Alternaria, and Unidentified/Other) were detected frequently enough that maximum likelihood estimate techniques could be used to determine distribution parameters and, thus, treat these as continuous variables. For total counts (no nondetectables) an analysis of variance was used to examine differences in location means. For the other categories Land's confidence limits were generated and visually compared for differences among locations. For 12 other categories (Curvularia, Dreschlera, Epicoccum, Fusarium, Mildew-like, Pithomyces, Rusts, Stachybotrys, Stemphyllium, Torula, Ulocladium, and Zygomycetes-like), detection generally occurred in less than 10% of samples. These genera were treated as dichotomous (detect/nondetect) data, and Chi-square analyses differentiated between locations. For total counts, values were significantly different on the order of clean < outdoor < moldy. There was a large difference between the moldy and other location classes. For AS/PE, moldy location means were clearly higher than those for clean buildings and outdoors, although the clean and outdoor means could not be differentiated. For all other genera the results tend to indicate little or no ability to discriminate location. For example, there were no differences in the probabilities of detecting Stachybotrys among the various locations. In our study only total counts, usually driven by AS/PE concentrations, had value in determining whether a building is mold contaminated employing our set of rigorous location classification criteria.

The Leiobunum calcar species-group is erected to accommodate four species of North American harvestmen, namely, L. nigropalpi (Wood 1868), L. euserratipalpe new species, L. calcar (Wood 1868) and L. hoffmani new species. The group is characterized by several sexually dimorphic characters, including an elongate penis lacking subterminal sacs, base of male palpal tibia projecting ventrally and denticulate, and unique female sterno-opercular mechanism that appears to act as a pregenital barricade. The four species are distinguished by penial and palpal features in the male and by details of the sterno-opercular mechanism in females. The history of confusion between L. serratipalpe Roewer 1910 and L. calcar is reviewed, and the new species L. euserratipalpe is proposed to accommodate the concept of L. serratipalpe developed by North American systematists as well as the synonymy of L. serratipalpe Roewer with L. calcar. All species are diagnosed, described and illustrated, and a key to species is provided.

This study is exploratory in nature with a goal of extending the application of stochastic modeling to health economics research. The aim of this study is to investigate whether the prediction of utilization and attendant costs through the development of a stochastic model, specifically a firstorder Markov chain, can be adapted to specific diseases and/or events. The original study considered three diseases. They included both chronic and acute diseases. The choices were diabetes, hypertension and myocardial infarction. For the purposes of this article the application is illustrated by looking at the group with hypertension. The group of n = 1019 was randomly split into two groups. They were then categorized into age groups {over 66/under 66} and gender {male/female}. The first group was used to generate the transition probabilities and second was used to validate the results. Chi-square analysis was performed and there were no significant differences between the groups. The costs were computed and presented.

We investigated the relationship between various demographic factors and the risk of testing positive for marijuana or cocaine use in the U.S. Air Force in fiscal years 1997 through 1999. Overall test positive rates for marijuana and cocaine were very low, at 0.24 and 0.07% of all tests, respectively. However, monthly test positive rates increased significantly during the study period while the number of tests conducted decreased by more than 50%. Gender, race/ethnicity, service component, military rank, education level, and assignment location each predicted the likelihood of testing positive for marijuana or cocaine use. These findings were consistent with annual surveys of self-reported drug use conducted in military and civilian populations in the United States. We conclude that overall testing percentages should be re-evaluated in light of these findings, but we do not recommend oversampling from population subgroups that demonstrated a higher likelihood of testing positive.