The undebated issue of justice: silent discourses in Dutch flood risk management

Flood risk for all types of flooding is projected to increase based on climate change projections and increases in damage potential. These challenges are likely to aggravate issues of justice in flood risk management (henceforth FRM). Based on a discursive-institutionalist perspective, this paper explores justice in Dutch FRM: how do institutions allocate the responsibilities and costs for FRM for different types of flooding? What are the underlying conceptions of justice? What are the future challenges with regard to climate change? The research revealed that a dichotomy is visible in the Dutch approach to FRM: despite an abundance of rules, regulations and resources spent, flood risk or its management, are only marginally discussed in terms of justice. Despite that the current institutional arrangement has material outcomes that treat particular groups of citizens differently, depending on the type of flooding they are prone to, area they live in (unembanked/embanked) or category of user (e.g. household, industry, farmer). The paper argues that the debate on justice will (re)emerge, since the differences in distributional outcomes are likely to become increasingly uneven as a result of increasing flood risk. The Netherlands should be prepared for this debate by generating the relevant facts and figures. An inclusive debate on the distribution of burdens of FRM could contribute to more effective and legitimate FRM

Realistic BGP Traffic for Test Labs

This paper examines the possibility of generating realistic routing tables of arbitrary size along with realistic BGP updates of arbitrary frequencies via an automated tool deployable in a small-scale test lab. Such a tool provides the necessary foundations to study such questions as: the limits of BGP scalability, the reasons behind routing instability, and the extent to which routing instability influences the forwarding performance of a router.We find that the answer is affirmative. In this paper we identify important characteristics/metrics of routing tables and updates which provide the foundation of the proposed BGP workload model. Based on the insights of an extensive characterization of BGP traffic according to such metrics as prefix length distributions, fanout, amount of nesting of routing table prefixes, AS path length, number and times between BGP update bursts and number and times between BGP session resets, etc., we introduce our prototype tool, rtg. rtg realizes the workload model and is capable of generating realistic BGP traffic. Through its flexibility and parameterization rtg enables us to study the sensibilities of test systems in a repeatable and consistent manner while still providing the possibility of capturing the different characteristics from different vantage points in the network.Olaf Maennel and Anja Feldman

Immunologic memory with no detectable bactericidal antibody response to a first dose of meningococcal serogroup C conjugate vaccine at four years.

Fourteen children with no detectable bactericidal antibody response to a first dose of meningococcal C conjugate vaccine at 4 years of age were given a booster dose of the same vaccine 2 years later. A rapid 1000-fold rise in postimmunization bactericidal antibody titers, a measured either 7 or 14 days later, suggested previous immunologic priming

A randomized controlled trial of mometasone furoate nasal spray for the treatment of nasal polyposis

Objective: To evaluate the efficacy and safety of mometasone furoate nasal spray (NS) for the treatment of nasal polyposis. Design: Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, pararlel-group, multicenter study. Setting: A total of 24 centers in 17 countries. Patients: A total of 310 subjects 18 years or older with bilateral nasal polyps. Interventions: (1) A 200-mu g dose of mometasone furoate NS in the morning and matching placebo in the evening; (2) 200-mu g doses of mometasone furoate NS in the morning and evening; or (3) matching placebo in the morning and evening. All 3 regimens were administered as a nasal spray for 4 months. Main Outcome Measures: Primary end points were change from baseline to last assessment in physician-assessed bilateral polyp grade and change from baseline in subject-assessed congestion and/or obstruction score averaged over the first month of treatment. Analysis of variance was used for all efficacy end points except for change in bilateral polyp grade, for which baseline polyp grade was added as a covariate to the analysis of variance model to account for any between-group baseline differences in this variable. Results: Mometasone furoate NS doses of 200 mu g administered once or twice daily produced greater reductions in bilateral polyp grade at the end point than placebo, with differences reaching statistical significance with twice-daily dosing (P = .04). Over 1 month, both mometasone furoate NS regimens produced statistically superior improvements from baseline in congestion and/or obstruction score vs placebo (P = .01 for once-daily dosing; P < .001 for twice-daily dosing). The drug was well tolerated. Conclusion: Mometasone furoate NS is an effective and well-tolerated treatment for bilateral nasal polyposis in adults, reducing nasal polyp size and symptoms of nasal congestion and/or obstruction