Loss Database Architecture for Disaster Risk Management

The reformed Union civil protection legislation (Decision on a Union Civil Protection Mechanism), which entered into force on 1 January 2014, is paving the way for more resilient communities by including key actions related to disaster prevention such as developing national risk assessments and the refinement of risk management planning. Under the Decision, Member States agreed to “develop risk assessments at national or appropriate sub- national level and make available to the Commission a summary of the relevant elements thereof by 22 December 2015 and every three years thereafter”. The Decision also requires Member States, together with the Commission, to develop guidelines on the content, methodology, and structure of risk management capability assessments. The Commission has published risk assessment and risk mapping guidelines to assist Member States with their national risk assessments. Risk management capability assessment guidelines were also developed. The recent Communication from the Commission "Strengthening EU Disaster Management: rescEU -Solidarity with Responsibility" COM(2017) 773 final calls "Member States and Commission to promote more systematic collection and dissemination of loss data, to enhance the collection of loss data and make use of loss data for optimised prevention and climate adaptation planning". Systematically collected, comparable and robust disaster damage and loss data are an essential element of the risk assessment and management processes. Thus, the Council Conclusions on risk management capability call on the Commission to 'Encourage the development of systems, models or methodologies for collecting and exchanging data on ways to assess the economic impact of disasters on an all-hazard basis.' The current practice in disaster loss data recording across the EU shows that there are hardly any comparable disaster damage and loss data: differences exist in the methods of data recording as well as in the governance approaches to managing disaster damage and loss data. The lack of standards for damage and loss data collection and recording represent the main challenge for damage and loss data sharing and comparison, especially for cross-border cooperation within the EU. This report is based on an accurate analysis of several databases developed following a diversified number of purposes to collect, record and aggregate information regarding losses occurred after a shock triggered by different hazards. The report proposes a common structure of a generic database able to accommodate and properly record the required particularities of a vast variety of events triggered by any kind of hazard.JRC.E.1-Disaster Risk Managemen

Moving ahead from food-related behaviours: an alternative approach to understand household food waste generation

Food waste prevention is a hot topic on the policy agenda. According to available data, urgent measures need to be undertaken to significantly reduce the current generation of food waste. However, it is important to thoroughly understand consumers' behaviour to define measures that will lead to a long-lasting change in the situation. The aim of the present work is to analyse consumer food waste behaviour by means of a model that brings together food-related and waste management variables. To do so, a survey was given to 418 consumers of the metropolitan area of Barcelona. Results show that food waste is directly influenced by purchasing discipline, waste prevention habits and materialism values and indirectly influenced by environmental values. This highlights the importance of addressing the problem from different perspectives and emphasizes the importance of considering this problem as a transversal element for policy makers. We suggest that household food waste prevention and reduction needs to be included as a key element in different policy areas.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Sleep Apnea – Recent Updates

Sleep apnea is highly prevalent and underdiagnosed. It is associated with multiple medical conditions including cardiac dysrhythmia, stroke, hypertension, diabetes and congestive heart failure. In the last few decades, advances in diagnosis and treatment of sleep apnea have been robust. In this review, we will emphasize primarily developments in the area of sleep apnea that occurred in the past 5 years. These include changes in the nomenclature of sleep apnea in the International Classification in Sleep Disorders (ICSD)-3, physiologic approach of treating sleep apnea, eligibility for CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) treatment, home sleep testing (HST), sleep apnea in pregnancy, updates in oral device treatment and other emerging concepts on sleep apnea

Anti-phospholipase A2 receptor antibody and spontaneous remission in membranous nephropathy

Anti-phospholipase A2 receptor antibody; Membranous nephropathy; Spontaneous remissionAnticòs del receptor anti-fosfolipasa A2; Nefropatia membranosa; Remissió espontàniaAnticuerpo del receptor anti-fosfolipasa A2; Nefropatía membranosa; Remisión espontáneaMembranous nephropathy (MN) is one of the most common causes of nephrotic syndrome in native kidney biopsies from adults. In 2009, antibodies to the M-type receptor of phospholipase A2 (anti-PLA2R) were identified in idiopathic MN patients, both within the kidney and in the circulation. The clinical course of idiopathic MN is variable and ranges from spontaneous remission to end-stage renal disease. Clinical variables such as proteinuria levels, patient sex, age and renal function at diagnosis have been associated with renal MN progression. In this editorial, we update the importance of anti-PLA2R levels as a prognostic marker in idiopathic MN at the diagnosis of the diseas

The Risk Data Hub loss datasets

The aim of this document is to report the methodology used to create the Historic Events module and the use that can be done of damage and loss data. The RDH Historical Event Catalogue consists in a collection of past events data occurred in EU created from a wide array of data published in several sources and datasets. This collection makes use of inventoried data; precisely different open access datasets have been interrogated collecting European-related records on past disastrous events. Both hazard and loss data have been systematically collected from various sources, checked, linked and homogenized to be provided in tabular and geospatial format in order to create the RDH Historical Event Catalogue. The work carried out consists in an effort done to improve the existing lack of homogeneous and comparable data on past events occurred across European Countries. This work represents an assemblage of sources that become complementary. Considering that each source focuses on different aspects of the impact events, the objective of the collection is to describe the phenomenon, gather data on loss and damage records and present the spatial extent of the damages. Finally, analyses intended to illustrate ways of examining global loss data and identifying possible trends in terms of peril or geographical prone areas within the European Countries are performed on the collected damage and loss data.JRC.E.1-Disaster Risk Managemen

Verified Model Checking for Conjunctive Positive Logic

We formalize, in the Dafny language and verifier, a proof system PS for deciding the model checking problem of the fragment of first-order logic, denoted FOAE/\ , known as conjunctive positive logic (CPL). We mechanize the proofs of soundness and completeness of PS ensuring its correctness. Our formalization is representative of how various popular verification systems can be used to verify the correctness of rule-based formal systems on the basis of the least fixpoint semantics. Further, exploiting Dafny’s automatic code generation, from the completeness proof we achieve a mechanically verified prototype implementation of a proof search mechanism that is a model checker for CPL. The model checking problem of FOAE/\ is equivalent to the quantified constraint satisfaction problem (QCSP), and it is PSPACE-complete. The formalized proof system decides the general QCSP and it can be applied to arbitrary formulae of CPL.This research has been supported by the European Union (FEDER funds) under grant TIN2017-86727-C2-2-R, and by the University of the Basque Country under Project LoRea GIU18-182

Friends' Support in the Independent Life of People with Intellectual Disabilities: Views of Self-Advocates and Support Professionals

Interpersonal relationships significantly influence social inclusion during the transition processes to adult life of people with intellectual disabilities. Having a supportive social network is considered the pinnacle of social inclusion. In order to explore the role of friendships in the independent life processes of people with intellectual disabilities, as well as the role of support professionals, focus groups have been conducted with both people with intellectual disabilities and professionals. The results of this study show the perspective that they have of friendship, as well as the role that they consider that friendships develop in the independent life processes of people with intellectual disabilities, and the role that support professionals play with regard to the promotion of the establishment and maintenance of friendships of people with intellectual disabilities. The design and development of specific actions that allow people with disabilities to identify and/or expand their natural support network is considered necessary.Las relaciones interpersonales influyen de forma significativa en la inclusión social durante los procesos de tránsito a la vida adulta de las personas con discapacidad intelectual. Disponer de una red social de apoyo se considera la cima de la inclusión social. Con el objetivo de explorar el papel de las relaciones de amistad en los procesos de vida independiente de las personas con discapacidad intelectual, así como el papel de los profesionales de apoyo, se han llevado a cabo grupos de discusión tanto con personas con discapacidad intelectual como con profesionales. Los resultados de este estudio muestran la visión que unos y otros tienen de la amistad, así como elpapel que consideran que desarrollan las amistades en los procesos de vida independientede las personas con discapacidad intelectual y el rol que desempeñan los profesionales de apoyo con relación a la promoción del establecimiento y mantenimiento de relaciones de amistad de las personas con discapacidad intelectual. Se considera necesario el diseño y desarrollo de acciones específicas que permitan a las personas con discapacidad identificar y/o ampliar su red natural de apoyo

The Release of Soluble Factors Contributing to Endothelial Activation and Damage after Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation Is Not Limited to the Allogeneic Setting and Involves Several Pathogenic Mechanisms

AbstractThis study evaluated the relative impact of the intensity of the conditioning regimen and the alloreactivity in the endothelial dysfunction occurring after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT). It involved a comparative analysis of the effect of incubating human umbilical vein endothelial cells (ECs) with serum samples from patients receiving autologous HSCT (auto-HSCT) or unrelated donor allo-HSCT. In both groups, blood samples were collected through a central line before conditioning (Pre), before transplantation (day 0), and at days 7, 14, and 21 after transplantation. Changes in the expression of EC receptors and adhesion proteins, adhesion of leukocytes and platelets under flow, and signaling pathways were analyzed. Endothelial activation and damage were observed in both groups, but with differing patterns. All markers of endothelial dysfunction demonstrated a progressive increase from day Pre to day 14 in the auto-HSCT group and exhibited 2 peaks of maximal expression (at days 0 and 21) in the allo-HSCT group. Both treatments induced a proinflammatory state (ie, expression of adhesion receptors, leukocyte adhesion, and p38 MAPK activation) and cell proliferation (ie, morphology and activation of ErK42/44). Prothrombotic changes (ie, von Willebrand factor expression and platelet adhesion) predominated after allo-HSCT, and a proapoptotic tendency (ie, activation of SAPK/JNK) was seen only in this group. These findings indicate that endothelial activation and damage after HSCT also occur in the autologous setting and affect macrovascular ECs. After the initial damage induced by the conditioning regimen, other factors, such as granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) toxicity, engraftment, and alloreactivity, may contribute to the endothelial damage seen during HSCT. Further studies are needed to explore the association between this endothelial damage and the vascular complications associated with HSCT