Residential Assessment Instrument 2.0 in care planning for residents in nursing homes

published_or_final_versio

Bioprospecting the African Renaissance: The new value of muthi in South Africa

This article gives an overview of anthropological research on bioprospecting in general and of available literature related to bioprospecting particularly in South Africa. It points out how new insights on value regimes concerning plant-based medicines may be gained through further research and is meant to contribute to a critical discussion about the ethics of Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS). In South Africa, traditional healers, plant gatherers, petty traders, researchers and private investors are assembled around the issues of standardization and commercialization of knowledge about plants. This coincides with a nation-building project which promotes the revitalization of local knowledge within the so called African Renaissance. A social science analysis of the transformation of so called Traditional Medicine (TM) may shed light onto this renaissance by tracing social arenas in which different regimes of value are brought into conflict. When medicinal plants turn into assets in a national and global economy, they seem to be manipulated and transformed in relation to their capacity to promote health, their market value, and their potential to construct new ethics of development. In this context, the translation of socially and culturally situated local knowledge about muthi into global pharmaceuticals creates new forms of agency as well as new power differentials between the different actors involved

Identifying and Prioritizing Greater Sage-Grouse Nesting and Brood-Rearing Habitat for Conservation in Human-Modified Landscapes

BACKGROUND: Balancing animal conservation and human use of the landscape is an ongoing scientific and practical challenge throughout the world. We investigated reproductive success in female greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) relative to seasonal patterns of resource selection, with the larger goal of developing a spatially-explicit framework for managing human activity and sage-grouse conservation at the landscape level. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We integrated field-observation, Global Positioning Systems telemetry, and statistical modeling to quantify the spatial pattern of occurrence and risk during nesting and brood-rearing. We linked occurrence and risk models to provide spatially-explicit indices of habitat-performance relationships. As part of the analysis, we offer novel biological information on resource selection during egg-laying, incubation, and night. The spatial pattern of occurrence during all reproductive phases was driven largely by selection or avoidance of terrain features and vegetation, with little variation explained by anthropogenic features. Specifically, sage-grouse consistently avoided rough terrain, selected for moderate shrub cover at the patch level (within 90 m(2)), and selected for mesic habitat in mid and late brood-rearing phases. In contrast, risk of nest and brood failure was structured by proximity to anthropogenic features including natural gas wells and human-created mesic areas, as well as vegetation features such as shrub cover. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Risk in this and perhaps other human-modified landscapes is a top-down (i.e., human-mediated) process that would most effectively be minimized by developing a better understanding of specific mechanisms (e.g., predator subsidization) driving observed patterns, and using habitat-performance indices such as those developed herein for spatially-explicit guidance of conservation intervention. Working under the hypothesis that industrial activity structures risk by enhancing predator abundance or effectiveness, we offer specific recommendations for maintaining high-performance habitat and reducing low-performance habitat, particularly relative to the nesting phase, by managing key high-risk anthropogenic features such as industrial infrastructure and water developments

Kwaliteitsborging binnen literatuuronderzoek

Literatuuronderzoek is een van de vele vormen van onderzoek die bij het RIVM worden uitgevoerd. Elke onderzoeker voert regelmatig literatuuronderzoek uit, hetzij als zelfstandig onderzoek, hetzij als onderdeel van een groter onderzoek. Net als op elk ander type onderzoek zijn op literatuuronderzoek kwaliteitseisen als reproduceerbaarheid en aantoonbare wetenschappelijke borging van toepassing. In deze leidraad worden aandachtspunten gegeven, die het mogelijk maken het proces van literatuuronderzoek gecontroleerd te laten verlopen. Hierbij wordt uitgegaan van de verschillende processtappen in literatuuronderzoek: probleemstelling en planning, recherche, selectie, verzameling, acceptatie, verwerking en rapportage. Deze processtappen worden beschreven. Bij elke processtap worden borgpunten aangegeven die het proces traceerbaar maken en wetenschappelijke betrouwbaarheid aantonen.<br

Development and Sensitivity of a 12-h Laboratory Test with Daphnia magna Straus Based on Avoidance of Pulp Mill Effluents

Abstract Studies on avoidance of contaminants by aquatic organisms verified that such behavior may have crucial ecological implications. Yet, avoidance tests have not been considered in ecological risk assessments. This study aimed at developing a short-term test with Daphnia magna Straus based on avoidance of pulp mill effluents and at comparing its sensitivity to the standard 21 d D. magna reproduction test. The avoidance effective dilution values (12 h EDil20 and EDil50) were as sensitive as the 21 d EDil20 and EDil50 values for reproduction. Therefore, this easily standardizable short-term test can be recommended as a valuable complementary tool in ecological risk assessments