External Benefits of Irrigation in Mountain Areas: Stakeholder Perceptions and Water Policy Implications

Irrigation contributes to land and ecosystem degradation, especially in intensive farming areas. However, in marginal areas, long-established irrigation systems also supply agroecosystem services. This study aimed to identify and prioritize the external benefits provided by irrigation in extensive grazing farms in an Italian alpine region (Aosta Valley, NW Italy). Three local stakeholder groups (land irrigation consortia members, non-farmer users of the irrigation water service, and non-user citizens) engaged in focus group discussions. The transcriptions were analyzed with an integrated subjective and computer-assisted approach. The main result of the study showed that a convergence of stakeholder opinions led to prioritization of the same four benefits, i.e., hydro-geological and land maintenance, traditional agricultural landscape conservation, biodiversity conservation, and leisure recreational activities provision. Incorporating this information into decision-making processes is relevant in marginal mountain areas, especially in light of the implementation of the water pricing policy laid down in the EU Water Framework Directive. To this end, the economic value of the external benefits should be considered along with the recovery costs for water services. Such information is essential to balance the environmental costs of irrigation and to compare the resource cost of alternative water uses

Novel Association Strategy with Copy Number Variation for Identifying New Risk Loci of Human Diseases

Copy number variations (CNV) are important causal genetic variations for human disease; however, the lack of a statistical model has impeded the systematic testing of CNVs associated with disease in large-scale cohort.Here, we developed a novel integrated strategy to test CNV-association in genome-wide case-control studies. We converted the single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) signal to copy number states using a well-trained hidden Markov model. We mapped the susceptible CNV-loci through SNP site-specific testing to cope with the physiological complexity of CNVs. We also ensured the credibility of the associated CNVs through further window-based CNV-pattern clustering. Genome-wide data with seven diseases were used to test our strategy and, in total, we identified 36 new susceptible loci that are associated with CNVs for the seven diseases: 5 with bipolar disorder, 4 with coronary artery disease, 1 with Crohn's disease, 7 with hypertension, 9 with rheumatoid arthritis, 7 with type 1 diabetes and 3 with type 2 diabetes. Fifteen of these identified loci were validated through genotype-association and physiological function from previous studies, which provide further confidence for our results. Notably, the genes associated with bipolar disorder converged in the phosphoinositide/calcium signaling, a well-known affected pathway in bipolar disorder, which further supports that CNVs have impact on bipolar disorder.Our results demonstrated the effectiveness and robustness of our CNV-association analysis and provided an alternative avenue for discovering new associated loci of human diseases

Spadin, a Sortilin-Derived Peptide, Targeting Rodent TREK-1 Channels: A New Concept in the Antidepressant Drug Design

We found that spadin, a natural peptide derived from sortilin, blocks the mouse TREK-1 channel and might be an efficient and fast-acting antidepressant