Mapping Land Use Around the San Francisco Bay: A Look at Environmental Justice through S. F. Bay Conservation and Development Commission’s Permitting History

Planning and regulatory environmental agency San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC) plays an important role in the permitting of development around the San Francisco Bay. As the agency works to add an environmental justice amendment to its primary policy document, this research explores the S.F. Bay Area’s history of approved development project proposal permits, and the associated patterns of land use and environmental justice implications in order to support the proposed change in permitting policy. By classifying all major permits found within BCDC’s internal permit database into groups based on the type of land use associated with the permit project, i.e. Industrial, Flood Control, Ports, etc., it was possible to create maps showing the geographic distribution of each group of permits. To analyze potential environmental justice implications of the patterns of geographic distribution of development permits, each group of permit types was layered on top of spatial data representing areas around the SF Bay that have been identified as highly socially vulnerable. Based on the findings of this project, it appears that highly socially vulnerable communities around the San Francisco Bay bear a disproportionate amount of land-use related environmental burdens. Furthermore, it is crucial to recognize the limitations of geospatial analysis tools in conveying the magnitude of disproportionate environmental and community health impacts of land use on socially vulnerable communities in the San Francisco Bay Area

Duration and stability of metabolically healthy obesity over 30 years.

BackgroundObese adults who are free from metabolic risk factors may develop risk factors over time. Our objective was to characterize development of obesity and duration of metabolically healthy obese (MHO) over 30 years.MethodsParticipants in CARDIA who developed obesity (BMI ≥ 30 kg/m2) at follow-up exams during years 7, 10, 15, 20, 25, and 30 were analyzed. MHO was defined as obese and having 0 or 1 risk factor: ≥SBP/DBP 130/85 mmHg; fasting glucose ≥100 mg/dL/5.55 mmol/L; fasting triglycerides (≥150 mg/dL/1.69 mmol/L); and HDL-C (men <40 mg/dL/1.036 mmol/L, women <50 mg/dL/1.295 mmol/L) or on any medication(s) for these conditions. MHO duration (years) and obesity duration (years) were estimated for each subsequent time-point; and an overall cumulative duration was also calculated over available follow-up. MHO duration (%) was approximated as MHO duration ÷ obesity duration. Stable MHO was defined as 100% MHO duration over follow-up, while transient MHO was defined as <1-99%. Chi-squared tests were used to compare proportions by sex and race across obesity phenotypes. Multivariable-adjusted ANCOVA, adjusting for baseline BMI, age, race, and sex, was used to analyze obesity duration in all individuals who developed obesity, and also compare MHO duration (%) across race and sex in transient MHO individuals.ResultsOf the 987 eligible participants who developed obesity, 51% were African American (AA), 56% were women. Higher percentages of AA were classified as transient MHO, and higher proportions of females were MHO (both p < 0.0001). Obesity duration (years) was higher in transient MHO compared with stable MHO (mean difference: 6.2 ± 0.5 years, p < 0.0001). Of those with transient MHO, African Americans (51.4 ± 1.6%) were more likely to have longer MHO duration compared to Caucasians (44.4 ± 1.9%, p = 0.005).ConclusionMHO status can be a transient phenotype which differs by sex and race. Future studies are needed to explore modifiable lifestyle/behavioral predictors associated with longer MHO duration

The COG database: an updated version includes eukaryotes

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The availability of multiple, essentially complete genome sequences of prokaryotes and eukaryotes spurred both the demand and the opportunity for the construction of an evolutionary classification of genes from these genomes. Such a classification system based on orthologous relationships between genes appears to be a natural framework for comparative genomics and should facilitate both functional annotation of genomes and large-scale evolutionary studies.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We describe here a major update of the previously developed system for delineation of Clusters of Orthologous Groups of proteins (COGs) from the sequenced genomes of prokaryotes and unicellular eukaryotes and the construction of clusters of predicted orthologs for 7 eukaryotic genomes, which we named KOGs after eukaryotic orthologous groups. The COG collection currently consists of 138,458 proteins, which form 4873 COGs and comprise 75% of the 185,505 (predicted) proteins encoded in 66 genomes of unicellular organisms. The eukaryotic orthologous groups (KOGs) include proteins from 7 eukaryotic genomes: three animals (the nematode <it>Caenorhabditis elegans</it>, the fruit fly <it>Drosophila melanogaster </it>and <it>Homo sapiens</it>), one plant, <it>Arabidopsis thaliana</it>, two fungi (<it>Saccharomyces cerevisiae </it>and <it>Schizosaccharomyces pombe</it>), and the intracellular microsporidian parasite <it>Encephalitozoon cuniculi</it>. The current KOG set consists of 4852 clusters of orthologs, which include 59,838 proteins, or ~54% of the analyzed eukaryotic 110,655 gene products. Compared to the coverage of the prokaryotic genomes with COGs, a considerably smaller fraction of eukaryotic genes could be included into the KOGs; addition of new eukaryotic genomes is expected to result in substantial increase in the coverage of eukaryotic genomes with KOGs. Examination of the phyletic patterns of KOGs reveals a conserved core represented in all analyzed species and consisting of ~20% of the KOG set. This conserved portion of the KOG set is much greater than the ubiquitous portion of the COG set (~1% of the COGs). In part, this difference is probably due to the small number of included eukaryotic genomes, but it could also reflect the relative compactness of eukaryotes as a clade and the greater evolutionary stability of eukaryotic genomes.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The updated collection of orthologous protein sets for prokaryotes and eukaryotes is expected to be a useful platform for functional annotation of newly sequenced genomes, including those of complex eukaryotes, and genome-wide evolutionary studies.</p