TASK DEFINITION: Given a paragraph, generate a claim that is supported by the given paragraph. 1) The claim must contain information from within the paragraph. 2) A sentence within the paragraph can be used as a claim. 3) The claim should not have contradictions within the paragraph. 4) The claim should be at most one sentence long.
PROBLEM: In 2004, a virulent form of canine influenza surfaced at greyhound racing parks in Florida. In that outbreak, it infected 24 greyhounds and killed 8 more. The contagion has since been confirmed in seven states, having killed greyhounds at tracks in Florida, Massachusetts, Arizona, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Texas and Iowa. It is highly contagious, spreading through shared items (like toys) or human contact (kennel workers have carried the virus home with them), in addition to dog-to-dog encounters. The virus that has been felling greyhounds is an H3N8 flu closely related to an equine flu strain. It is not related to typical human flus or to the H5N1 avian flu that killed about 100 people in Asia. Several states — including Florida, Minnesota, and Louisiana, among others — reported another rash of cases in late June 2017. According to the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA), the outbreaks in those states were caused by a strain known as canine H3N2 influenza, which was first reported in Chicago in 2015. An AVMA spokesperson, Sharon Granskog, told us in a phone interview that such outbreaks can be seasonal in nature: There’s a time of year when more dogs are in contact with one another, they’re at dog parks, it’s highly contagious. We suggest that you make sure if your dog is going to a dog park that it’s healthy and talk to a veterinarian about whether or not a vaccine would be right for your dog. The disease was first reported in the U.S. in 2004 after several racing greyhounds in Florida contracted it. The AVMA said that they believed that the dogs became infected by a strain of H3N8 influenza, which is particular to horses. Dr. Ruben Donis, chief of molecular genetics for the influenza branch of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, confirmed that the flu jumped from horses to dogs, “a very rare event of considerable scientific interest” and added “at this point, there is no reason to panic.” How that jump occurred is either not known at this point or is not being commented on, so the email’s assertion that the eating of raw meat was to blame should be regarded as speculation rather than as fact. While there is always the possibility the virus might again jump species, this time to humans, this strain of flu has been present in horses for more than 40 years without any documented cases of humans catching it or the related canine flu. But there are vaccines available for both the equine and canine flus. Many readers have been confused (and unnecessarily frightened) by the difference between the terms “morbidity rate” and “mortality rate.” The morbidity rate describes the percentage of animals that will contract the disease after being exposed to the virus, but, despite its name, the term has nothing to do with the death rate associated with the flu. (Nearly 80 percent of dogs exposed to the canine flu virus will contract only a mild form of the disease which mimics kennel cough, a type of canine bronchitis that is rarely serious.) The mortality rate, which describes the percentage of animals that will die after contracting the disease, is in the much lower range of 5 to 8 percent, according to Dr. Cynda Crawford, the veterinary immunologist who first isolated the canine flu virus: The mortality rate is around 5 to 8 percent, says veterinarian Cynda Crawford at the University of Florida’s College of Veterinary Medicine in Gainesville. “I want to stress that despite the rumors that are out on the Internet and other such sources, this disease is not as deadly as people want to make it,” Crawford said. She says she receives more than 30 calls a day from concerned veterinarians. Dr. Crawford describes the contagion as producing in dogs “a moist, productive cough that ends in a gagging response, that will persist for one to four weeks, despite treatment with antibiotics or cough suppressants. Some dogs develop a thick, yellow discharge from the nose. A very few dogs will spike a high fever, between 105 to 107 degrees Fahrenheit. They become lethargic and weak, with rapid, shallow breathing. This is likely to progress to pneumonia.” Other veterinary experts have estimated the potential death rate as between 1 and 10 percent, with the higher percentage applying to very young, very old, or infirm dogs. Presence of the virus in dogs can be confirmed only through blood tests performed at the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine. Results of such blood screens take as long as two weeks. Dr. Crawford recommends keeping dogs showing symptoms of respiratory disease at home and away from other dogs for up to two weeks. The CDC, which is tracking the disease, issued no official recommendations. Because the symptoms of this as yet unnamed virus somewhat mimic bordetella, a less virulent illness commonly known as kennel cough, it is hard to ascertain how widespread the flu has become. On the flipside of that confusion, vets in various parts of the country have been thrown into a panic when encountering run-of-the-mill kennel cough in any of their clients, fearing they are instead confronting cases of the new flu. The Animal Health Diagnostic Center at Cornell University inserted a caution against such hair-trigger diagnosis within a larger advisory about the potential for the flu to have spread to the state of New York: “One should not lose sight of the fact that all respiratory infections in dogs are not due to canine influenza virus. Adhering to the ‘band wagon’ approach could result in the failure to appropriately treat dogs with infections previously known to cause respiratory problems in dogs.” We found this good advice for vets and dog owners in our inbox one day: PLEASE DO NOT PANIC, and do NOT assume that every cough is Canine Influenza. Kennel Cough from parainfluenza and Bordetella is more common. However, the Animal Health Diagnostic Center at Cornell is interested in receiving samples from dogs that appear to have kennel cough. Clinical Signs: Since this is a new pathogen in dogs, there is currently no natural immunity present in the unexposed canine population. Almost all exposed dogs will become infected, and nearly 80% have clinical signs. In the mild form the dogs will have a cough that persists for 10 to 21 days. The cough may be soft and moist or dry. Many dogs will have a nasal discharge from a secondary bacterial infection and low grade fever. The nasal discharge responds to broad spectrum antibiotics. In the severe form with pneumonia there is a high fever (104-106 F) and respiratory difficulties. X-rays may show consolidation. These dogs often have secondary bacterial infections and have responded to broad-spectrum antibiotics and supportive care including intravenous hydration. The incubation period is two to five days and dogs may shed virus for seven to 10 days. The disease can spread rapidly throughout a boarding kennel. Dogs that are coughing SHOULD NOT BE BROUGHT TO SHOWS or Performance EVENTS. In a 1 June 2017 advisory to its members, the AVMA suggested that vaccines against the H3N2 virus strain “might be another prevention option” for dogs who were at least 8 weeks old and also recommended isolating dogs who could be infected, as well as not sharing toys between dogs and disinfecting shelter, veterinary, and boarding facilities.

SOLUTION: A virus deadly to dogs has been spreading in the canine population of the U.S.

PROBLEM: When the Mercyhurst team arrives at a crime scene, members are tasked with telling the story of how human remains arrived there, how long they were in place, and whether the remains were affected by weather, animals or other humans. “It’s all about reconstructing past events,” said Dennis Dirkmaat, department chairman of the Mercyhurst University forensic science program. Dirkmaat, a forensic anthropologist, has led his students to scenes across Pennsylvania and beyond to help coroners and medical examiners answer questions crucial to each case. With forensic anthropology, he said, investigators don’t bring bones to a lab to be identified, at least not at first. Vital information exists at the scene where a body is found, including the origin and spatial distribution of the remains. “Each particular case is a new scenario,” he said. DNA can easily provide the identity of human remains, Dirkmaat said. But his students are educated in identifying trauma in bone and gathering information at each scene that could show whether the individual died from homicide, suicide, accidental or natural causes, as well as whether remains were moved or scattered by animals, gravity, water, wind or human activity. “We always search for where the body was originally,” Dirkmaat said, and look at whether remains are still articulated - together in the proper order or pattern - or if there are signs of decomposition. “The police or coroners, when they call us in, they have some idea of who this might be and how long ago it occurred, and so we start with that hypothesis and we try to prove or disprove it from the evidence.” Dirkmaat said he’s seen an average of 100 cases each year in the nearly two decades that he and his students have assisted police and coroners at outdoor crime scenes. “In an academic setting, I don’t think anyone’s come close to that number,” he said. ‘Processing the scene’ Cambria County Coroner Jeff Lees called Dirkmaat in May concerning human remains discovered near a Johnstown trail. The Mercyhurst team helped local officials identify the remains of Nancy Giles, who had gone missing in October. “Dealing with the remains is one process, but the entire scene has to be cleared methodically,” Lees said. “It’s a diligent and slow process, but one that must be done. (Dirkmaat) and his team are second to none. Processing the scene will have a long-term impact on the investigation.” Somerset County Coroner Wallace Miller said Dirkmaat was the first person he called last September, when the remains of two homicide victims were found along Ligonier Pike in Conemaugh Township. “Anytime you have skeletal remains, you have to have (the Mercyhurst University team),” Miller said. “They’re qualified as experts in court. (Dennis) is well-known and well-respected.” Rusty Styer, Bedford County coroner, has called in Dirkmaat and his students several times. The latest instance was last October, when remains were located by a hunter near Route 30 in Snake Spring Township. The recovery and mapping capabilities are “top notch,” Styer said, and the Mercyhurst team accurately captures the location of every bone and piece of evidence, which he said is vital to the work of coroners and the police. “It’s essential to have it,” he said. “They turn over every leaf and every rock.” ‘Practical experience’ Dirkmaat said he enjoys his work for a variety of reasons: including seeing his students graduate from the program and earn their own success in the field, while navigating the challenges each case brings. He arrived at Mercyhurst University in 1991 with a doctoral degree from the University of Pittsburgh. One of his first assignments was to help then-Cambria County Coroner John Barron with a case involving human remains, coincidentally found near the site off Roosevelt Boulevard where Giles’ remains were found in May. From there, “it just expanded,” Dirkmaat said, as coroners spoke with each other about these types of cases they were working through, and the resources he and his team could provide. Dirkmaat said he and his students have worked on cases all over Pennsylvania and in parts of New York and Ohio. “It’s a pretty big territory,” he said. “And I attribute it to the fact that we can do the forensic archaeology. We can process a scene for the police and for the coroner’s office.” The hands-on experience has given the program its good reputation, Dirkmaat said. “The students that I’ve produced are well-trained forensic anthropologists,” he said. “There are really very few, if any, programs that give as much hands-on practical experience as we do. Some of the graduate students that just recently graduated have 15 to 20 forensic cases under their belts.” Dirkmaat recalled getting a call about a plane crash in Westmoreland County the day before that year’s classes started, before he’d even met his new students. On the first day of the semester, he took the students to the scene of that crash. “The first day of classes, they were working a scene,” he said, “right off the bat.” Career opportunities Dr. Erin Chapman, forensic anthropologist with the Erie County Medical Examiner’s Office, is one of Dirkmaat’s former students. During a recent lecture at Mercyhurst, Chapman said she is assigned 40 to 50 cases each year, 60 percent of which are trauma-related. Chapman said real-world scenarios encountered at Mercyhurst make that master’s degree program in forensic anthropology stand above similar options at other schools. “I think it’s the difference between having a job and not,” she said. Mercyhurst’s program is an attractive commodity, Dirkmaat said, due to the hands-on experience his students receive in assisting with cases. The approach involves applied learning, because there’s only so much forensic anthropologists can gain from a textbook, Chapman said. Over the past five years, Dirkmaat has seen more of his students explore careers in investigation, he said. About half graduate from the Mercyhurst program and get their doctorate degrees, he said, while the other half go into investigatory positions with coroners’ and medical examiners’ offices. “There’s a lot they can do,” he said of his students. Dirkmaat envisions a day when police will be able to collect DNA from human remains at outdoor scenes with the click of a device. Although the capabilities of forensic anthropology continue to expand - almost daily - through technology and research, Dirkmaat said bone identification will continue to be the tip of the iceberg when it comes to processing a scene. “If you just say, ‘I only work with bones,’ you’ll become extinct,” he said. ?___ Glossary of terms . Forensic anthropology: The examination and excavation of human remains to assist law enforcement with identification, signs of trauma, estimated time of death and historical context of a crime scene. . Forensic taphonomy: The study of postmortem changes to human remains, including decomposition of soft tissue, animal activity, bone modification or human interference. . Forensic pathology: The examination of corpses through autopsy to determine a medical cause of death, collect medical evidence, order further laboratory tests such as X-rays, toxicology screens and samples of tissues or organs. . Total Station: A surveying instrument used to map and reconstruct accidents or crime scenes to preserve the locations of evidence and the context in which a death or accident occurred. ___ Local scenes worked by Mercyhurst team . 2010: An unmarked cemetery near site of 1800s location of Somerset Hospital, where an addition to SCI-Laurel Highlands was planned. Tribune-Democrat archives show workers realized they were uncovering rows of coffins during excavation, and officials with the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections postponed work while Mercyhurst graduate students conducted research on each coffin’s contents. The remains were later relocated to a burial place away from the construction site. . November 2011: Dirkmaat and several of his students responded to Bedford Township near the Midway Travel Plaza of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, where skeletal remains were found by hunters in a wooded area. The remains were later identified as 30-year-old Audrey Rock Phoenix, of Portland, Oregon, who was entered as an endangered missing person by the Portland Police Department six months prior. . November 2012: The discovery of human remains along the Great Allegheny Passage hiking trail in Larimer Township, Somerset County, were quickly identified by Dirkmaat and his team as 19-year-old Justine Jackson and led to the arrest of her boyfriend, Jonathan Beal. Beal eventually admitted to strangling and killing Jackson, then burying her, and was sentenced in 2013 to serve 10 to 24 years in state prison for voluntary manslaughter. . December 2015: Mercyhurst University students helped investigate the scene of a fatal fire in Shade Township, Somerset County. Investigators and Dirkmaat’s students determined that Helen Kalanish, 56, died from smoke inhalation and her death was ruled accidental. . September 2017: Human remains found along Ligonier Pike in Conemaugh Township, Somerset County; later identified as homicide victims Damian Michael Staniszewski, 19, of Duncansville, and James Edward Smith, 32, of Portage, who were both reported missing in March 2017. State police then charged two Ohio men in the murder and allege it was retaliation for allegedly stealing drugs from a “stash house” in Johnstown. Devon Lee Wyrick and Samson Ezekiel Washington are both being held without bond at the Somerset County Jail awaiting trial. . October 2018: Human remains discovered near Route 30 in Bedford County, later identified as Robert E. Cochran, 27, of Canajoharie, New York, who had gone missing in 2013. Investigators said Cochran’s cause of death and the details of why he was in the area may never be determined, but the information from his family and Dirkmaat’s team did not include evidence of anything suspicious. . May 2019: Human remains found in shallow grave near the James Wolfe Sculpture Trail in Johnstown, later determined to be those of 40-year-old Nancy Giles, a city woman who had gone missing in October. According to Cambria County Coroner Jeff Lees, Giles’ body was found “approximately two feet off the trail and two feet down,” by a man who was searching for metal objects in the area. Dental records were used to identify the remains, and, to confirm the identification, investigators used the serial number of a medical device found with the remains that matched Giles’ medical records. Lees has called Giles’ death highly suspicious, but has not released her cause or manner of death. Police are still investigating and have not yet made any arrests in the case. ___ Online: https://bit.ly/31YjAC5 https://bit.ly/2NqbvTw ___ Information from: The Tribune-Democrat, http://www.tribune-democrat.com

SOLUTION: University forensic science team reveals stories of the dead.

PROBLEM: “There have been fights breaking out, heated arguments, with some doctors asking, ‘How come my colleague gets to go and I can’t?’” doctor Adrian Benitez, 46, said on Tuesday just hours before he was due to board a plane for Liberia. Despite a global alarm over the worst Ebola outbreak on record, Cuban doctors are eager to travel to West Africa and start healing the sick. Nicknamed as the “army of white robes” and citing a long history of Cuban medical missions in Africa and elsewhere, they speak of a sense of duty and are willing to assume the risks. “We know that we are fighting against something that we don’t totally understand. We know what can happen. We know we’re going to a hostile environment,” said Leonardo Fernandez, 63. “But it is our duty. That’s how we’ve been educated.”  The Ebola virus has killed more than 4,500 people since March, mostly in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia. The numbers include more than 200 healthcare workers. Some Cuban 165 doctors and nurses have already arrived in Sierra Leone and another 91 were flying on Tuesday for six-month missions, with 53 destined for Liberia and 38 for Guinea. Yet another 205 medical professionals have undergone a  three-week training course in Cuba, with extensive practice in using the protective, full-body suits, but have yet to receive an Ebola assignment. It is the latest example of Cuba’s medical diplomacy. The Caribbean island has dispatched medical brigades to disaster sites around the world since the 1959 revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power. The communist government made 11 of the departing doctors available to reporters on Tuesday. All of them have been on previous overseas missions, and they all expressed pride in their mission, saying their families were supportive. There is no proven cure for Ebola, and about half those who contract it die. Several of the doctors repeated an often-cited slogan within Cuba’s medical culture: “We don’t offer what we have left over. We share what we have.”  “This little bit that we have, when people need it, we are capable of sharing. It’s a basic concept,” Fernandez said. When Castro’s rebels took power in 1959, Cuba had 6,000 doctors, and half of them quickly left the country, the government says. With economic aid from the Soviet Union, Cuba built a healthcare system that was the envy of the developing world, though some of those advances have been lost since the communist bloc collapsed. Many Cuban hospitals have fallen into disrepair and Cubans say they have difficulty getting medical appointments or finding medicine. With 83,000 doctors today, Cuba says it has 7.2 physicians per 1,000 people, one of the highest rates in the world. But with about 25,000 doctors working overseas, that ratio falls to about 4.6, even when counting 5,500 recent medical school graduates, according to Health Minister Roberto Morales. While Cuba provides doctors and nurses for disaster relief free of charge, it also exchanges them for cash or goods on more routine missions. The island receives an estimated 100,000 barrels of oil per day from Venezuela, where some 30,000 Cuban medical professionals are posted. In all, there are more than 50,000 health workers in 66 countries. Those recruited for the Ebola missions underwent three weeks of training at the Pedro Kouri Tropical Medicine Institute on the outskirts of Havana, where trainers set up a field hospital of tents to simulate conditions in West Africa. Should any Cuban doctors or nurses contract Ebola in West Africa, they will be treated at a special site for international aid workers until they are cured or die, said Jorge Perez, director of the Pedro Kouri institute. All of them will be held for at least 21 days of observation at the hospital upon returning to Cuba, the same as any visitor coming to the island from the affected countries. Despite the risks and inconvenience, Ivan Rodriguez, 50, said his family was supportive and proud. “I would have felt disappointed and sad if they would have been afraid for me to take this step,” Rodriguez said. “Now, there are 15,000 (volunteers). I’m convinced there could be 15,000 more.”

SOLUTION:
Cuban doctors proud to risk lives in mission to halt Ebola.