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The decades just before and after the founding of the American Public Health Association in 1872 saw an efflorescence of political cartooning and caricature in national-circulation weeklies. Part of the political and social critique that cartoonists and their editors provided the public focused on needs or opportunities for preventing illness and accidents. This paper presents a small selection of editorial cartoons that agitated in support of public health activities over 4 decades. The goals are to illustrate several concerns that rose to national prominence in that era, to examine the kinds of imagery that newspapers and magazine editors offered their readers, and to observe how frequently the public was encouraged to see politicians and commercial interests as responsible for preventable health problems. This discussion focuses exclusively on propagandistic images, leaving aside the reportorial depictions of events in the news and the neutral illustrations of methods and machines in scientific and technical publications.

A random variable X on IR+ is said to be self‐decomposable, dif for all c∈ (0, 1) there exists a random variable Xc on IR+ such that X=dcX+Xc. It is said to be stable if it is self‐decomposable and Xc=d (1 ‐ c)X', where X and X' are identically and independently distributed. The notions of stability and self‐decomposability for infinitely divisible random variables are generalised to abelian semi‐groups (S, +) with S having an identical involution, by using characteristic functions. The generalised definitions involve semi‐groups of scaling operators T. There operators can be interpreted in a slightly different context as generalised continuous‐time branching processes (with immigration). The underlying importance of the generator of the semi‐groups T in the characterisation of stability and self‐decomposability is stressed.

Aus australischer Sicht

A decade ago the term 'New World Order' was a commonly-used expression. Now - at the beginning of the twenty-first century - the contours of this order are less clear. How can this international order be described and interpreted and how can it be explained from contrasting theoretical viewpoints? Ten scholars in international politics, many of them experts in the field, offer penetrating contributions to provide a survey of the ongoing debate surrounding the new world order.

Purpose of the studyIdiopathic non‐cirrhotic portal hypertension (INCPH) has been reported increasingly in patients with chronic HIV infection. However, several aspects of this disorder remain to be elucidated. The aim of our study was to evaluate the prevalence and risk factors of HIV associated INCPH.MethodsAll adult HIV patients attending the outpatient clinic between February and September 2011 underwent sonographical spleen size determination and assessment of portosystemic collaterals. Patients with splenomegaly underwent an extensive ultrasound examination. Gastroscopy was performed when additional signs of portal hypertension or collaterals were observed. All children with HIV infection underwent extensive ultrasound examination. INCPH was diagnosed according to the general definition. Differences between INCPH cases (group 1) and HIV patients treated with didanosine (ddI) without portal hypertension (group 2) were assessed at HIV diagnosis, start of ddI and INCPH diagnosis.Summary of resultsFour out of 1010 screened adult HIV patients were diagnosed with INCPH (prevalence of 4‰). Hundred of the 1010 screened patients were treated with ddI. All INCPH patients were treated with ddI, representing an INCPH prevalence of 4% in patients exposed to ddI. In The Netherlands, 7000 patients were treated with ddI and only 17 are diagnosed with INCPH, suggesting underdiagnosis in 260 patients. No differences in clinical characteristics predictive for the development of INCPH could be demonstrated between group 1 and group 2 at HIV infection or start of ddI treatment. INCPH patients were treated longer with ddI [86 vs. 51 months, p<0.01] and concomitant treatment with ddI and stavudine [21 vs. 4 months, p<0.01]. Corrected for age and duration of follow‐up of HIV, active protein c [0.64 vs. 1.13, p<0.01] and active protein s [0.67 vs. 1.01, p<0.01] levels were lower in the INCPH group. None of the 38 children with HIV infection were diagnosed with INCPH. None of these children were ever treated with ddI.ConclusionsIn our study HIV‐associated INCPH only occurred in patients exposed to ddI. Awareness for this disorder is warranted considering the suggested underdiagnosis based on these study results. Risk factors are long term treatment with ddI and concomitant treatment with stavudine and screening for signs of portal hypertension in this subgroup may be recommended. A possible pathophysiological role for thrombophilia remains to be elucidated.
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