Performing arts for disaster risk reduction including climate change adaptation

The Routledge Handbook of Disaster Risk Reduction Including Climate Change Adaptation aims to provide an overview and critique of the current state of knowledge, policy, and practice, encouraging engagement, and reflection on bringing the ..

Relative survival: a useful tool to assess generalisability in longitudinal studies of health in older persons

Generalisability of longitudinal studies is threatened by issues such as choice of sampling frame, representativeness of the initial sample, and attrition. To determine representativeness, cohorts are often compared with the population of interest at baseline on demographic and health characteristics. This study illustrates the use of relative survival as a tool for assessing generalisability of results from a cohort of older people among whom death is a potential threat to generalisability.The authors used data from the 1921-26 cohort (n = 12,416, aged 70-75 in 1996) of the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health (ALSWH). Vital status was determined by linkage to the National Death Index, and expected deaths were derived using Australian life tables. Relative survival was estimated using observed survival in the cohort divided by expected survival among women of the same age and State or Territory.Overall, the ALSWH women showed relative survival 9.5% above the general population. Within States and Territories, the relative survival advantage varied from 6% to 23%. The interval-specific relative survival remained relatively constant over the 12 years (1996-2008) under review, indicating that the survival advantage of the cohort has not diminished over time.This study demonstrates that relative survival can be a useful measure of generalisability in a longitudinal study of the health of the general population, particularly when participants are older

Camouflaging in a Complex Environment—Octopuses Use Specific Features of Their Surroundings for Background Matching

Living under intense predation pressure, octopuses evolved an effective and impressive camouflaging ability that exploits features of their surroundings to enable them to “blend in.” To achieve such background matching, an animal may use general resemblance and reproduce characteristics of its entire surroundings, or it may imitate a specific object in its immediate environment. Using image analysis algorithms, we examined correlations between octopuses and their backgrounds. Field experiments show that when camouflaging, Octopus cyanea and O. vulgaris base their body patterns on selected features of nearby objects rather than attempting to match a large field of view. Such an approach enables the octopus to camouflage in partly occluded environments and to solve the problem of differences in appearance as a function of the viewing inclination of the observer

Assessing the impact of prescribed medicines on health outcomes

This paper reviews methods that can be used to assess the impact of medicine use on population health outcomes. In the absence of a gold standard, we argue that a convergence of evidence from different types of studies using multiple methods of independent imperfection provides the best bases for attributing improvements in health outcomes to the use of medicines. The major requirements are: good evidence that a safe and effective medicine is being appropriately prescribed; covariation between medicine use and improved health outcomes; and being able to discount alternative explanations of the covariation (via covariate adjustment, propensity analyses and sensitivity analyses), so that medicine use is the most plausible explanation of the improved health outcomes. The strongest possible evidence would be provided by the coherence of the following types of evidence: (1) individual linked data showing that patients are prescribed the medicine, there are reasonable levels of patient compliance, and there is a relationship between medicine use and health improvements that is not explained by other factors; (2) ecological evidence of improvements in these health outcomes in the population in which the medicine is used. Confidence in these inferences would be increased by: the replication of these results in comparable countries and consistent trends in population vital statistics in countries that have introduced the medicine; and epidemiological modelling indicating that changes observed in population health outcomes are plausible given the epidemiology of the condition being treated

Genome-wide DNA methylation profiling in whole blood reveals epigenetic signatures associated with migraine

Abstract Background Migraine is a common heritable neurovascular disorder typically characterised by episodic attacks of severe pulsating headache and nausea, often accompanied by visual, auditory or other sensory symptoms. Although genome-wide association studies have identified over 40 single nucleotide polymorphisms associated with migraine, there remains uncertainty about the casual genes involved in disease pathogenesis and how their function is regulated. Results We performed an epigenome-wide association study, quantifying genome-wide patterns of DNA methylation in 67 migraine cases and 67 controls with a matching age and sex distribution. Association analyses between migraine and methylation probe expression, after adjustment for cell type proportions, indicated an excess of small P values, but there was no significant single-probe association after correction for multiple testing (P < 1.09 × 10− 7). However, utilising a 1 kb sliding window approach to combine adjacent migraine-methylation association P values, we identified 62 independent differentially methylated regions (DMRs) underlying migraine (false discovery rate < 0.05). Migraine association signals were subtle but consistent in effect direction across the length of each DMR. Subsequent analyses showed that the migraine-associated DMRs were enriched in regulatory elements of the genome and were in close proximity to genes involved in solute transportation and haemostasis. Conclusions This study represents the first genome-wide analysis of DNA methylation in migraine. We have identified DNA methylation in the whole blood of subjects associated with migraine, highlighting novel loci that provide insight into the biological pathways and mechanisms underlying migraine pathogenesis

A global reference for human genetic variation

The 1000 Genomes Project set out to provide a comprehensive description of common human genetic variation by applying whole-genome sequencing to a diverse set of individuals from multiple populations. Here we report completion of the project, having reconstructed the genomes of 2,504 individuals from 26 populations using a combination of low-coverage whole-genome sequencing, deep exome sequencing, and dense microarray genotyping. We characterized a broad spectrum of genetic variation, in total over 88 million variants (84.7 million single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), 3.6 million short insertions/deletions (indels), and 60,000 structural variants), all phased onto high-quality haplotypes. This resource includes >99% of SNP variants with a frequency of >1% for a variety of ancestries. We describe the distribution of genetic variation across the global sample, and discuss the implications for common disease studies.We thank the many people who were generous with contributing their samples to the project: the African Caribbean in Barbados; Bengali in Bangladesh; British in England and Scotland; Chinese Dai in Xishuangbanna, China; Colombians in Medellin, Colombia; Esan in Nigeria; Finnish in Finland; Gambian in Western Division – Mandinka; Gujarati Indians in Houston, Texas, USA; Han Chinese in Beijing, China; Iberian populations in Spain; Indian Telugu in the UK; Japanese in Tokyo, Japan; Kinh in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; Luhya in Webuye, Kenya; Mende in Sierra Leone; people with African ancestry in the southwest USA; people with Mexican ancestry in Los Angeles, California, USA; Peruvians in Lima, Peru; Puerto Ricans in Puerto Rico; Punjabi in Lahore, Pakistan; southern Han Chinese; Sri Lankan Tamil in the UK; Toscani in Italia; Utah residents (CEPH) with northern and western European ancestry; and Yoruba in Ibadan, Nigeria. Many thanks to the people who contributed to this project: P. Maul, T. Maul, and C. Foster; Z. Chong, X. Fan, W. Zhou, and T. Chen; N. Sengamalay, S. Ott, L. Sadzewicz, J. Liu, and L. Tallon; L. Merson; O. Folarin, D. Asogun, O. Ikpwonmosa, E. Philomena, G. Akpede, S. Okhobgenin, and O. Omoniwa; the staff of the Institute of Lassa Fever Research and Control (ILFRC), Irrua Specialist Teaching Hospital, Irrua, Edo State, Nigeria; A. Schlattl and T. Zichner; S. Lewis, E. Appelbaum, and L. Fulton; A. Yurovsky and I. Padioleau; N. Kaelin and F. Laplace; E. Drury and H. Arbery; A. Naranjo, M. Victoria Parra, and C. Duque; S. Däkel, B. Lenz, and S. Schrinner; S. Bumpstead; and C. Fletcher-Hoppe. Funding for this work was from the Wellcome Trust Core Award 090532/Z/09/Z and Senior Investigator Award 095552/Z/11/Z (P.D.), and grants WT098051 (R.D.), WT095908 and WT109497 (P.F.), WT086084/Z/08/Z and WT100956/Z/13/Z (G.M.), WT097307 (W.K.), WT0855322/Z/08/Z (R.L.), WT090770/Z/09/Z (D.K.), the Wellcome Trust Major Overseas program in Vietnam grant 089276/Z.09/Z (S.D.), the Medical Research Council UK grant G0801823 (J.L.M.), the UK Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council grants BB/I02593X/1 (G.M.) and BB/I021213/1 (A.R.L.), the British Heart Foundation (C.A.A.), the Monument Trust (J.H.), the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (P.F.), the European Research Council grant 617306 (J.L.M.), the Chinese 863 Program 2012AA02A201, the National Basic Research program of China 973 program no. 2011CB809201, 2011CB809202 and 2011CB809203, Natural Science Foundation of China 31161130357, the Shenzhen Municipal Government of China grant ZYC201105170397A (J.W.), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Operating grant 136855 and Canada Research Chair (S.G.), Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (M.K.D.), a Le Fonds de Recherche duQuébec-Santé (FRQS) research fellowship (A.H.), Genome Quebec (P.A.), the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation – Ontario Institute for Cancer Research Investigator Award (P.A., J.S.), the Quebec Ministry of Economic Development, Innovation, and Exports grant PSR-SIIRI-195 (P.A.), the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) grants 0315428A and 01GS08201 (R.H.), the Max Planck Society (H.L., G.M., R.S.), BMBF-EPITREAT grant 0316190A (R.H., M.L.), the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) Emmy Noether Grant KO4037/1-1 (J.O.K.), the Beatriu de Pinos Program grants 2006 BP-A 10144 and 2009 BP-B 00274 (M.V.), the Spanish National Institute for Health Research grant PRB2 IPT13/0001-ISCIII-SGEFI/FEDER (A.O.), Ewha Womans University (C.L.), the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Fellowship number PE13075 (N.P.), the Louis Jeantet Foundation (E.T.D.), the Marie Curie Actions Career Integration grant 303772 (C.A.), the Swiss National Science Foundation 31003A_130342 and NCCR “Frontiers in Genetics” (E.T.D.), the University of Geneva (E.T.D., T.L., G.M.), the US National Institutes of Health National Center for Biotechnology Information (S.S.) and grants U54HG3067 (E.S.L.), U54HG3273 and U01HG5211 (R.A.G.), U54HG3079 (R.K.W., E.R.M.), R01HG2898 (S.E.D.), R01HG2385 (E.E.E.), RC2HG5552 and U01HG6513 (G.T.M., G.R.A.), U01HG5214 (A.C.), U01HG5715 (C.D.B.), U01HG5718 (M.G.), U01HG5728 (Y.X.F.), U41HG7635 (R.K.W., E.E.E., P.H.S.), U41HG7497 (C.L., M.A.B., K.C., L.D., E.E.E., M.G., J.O.K., G.T.M., S.A.M., R.E.M., J.L.S., K.Y.), R01HG4960 and R01HG5701 (B.L.B.), R01HG5214 (G.A.), R01HG6855 (S.M.), R01HG7068 (R.E.M.), R01HG7644 (R.D.H.), DP2OD6514 (P.S.), DP5OD9154 (J.K.), R01CA166661 (S.E.D.), R01CA172652 (K.C.), P01GM99568 (S.R.B.), R01GM59290 (L.B.J., M.A.B.), R01GM104390 (L.B.J., M.Y.Y.), T32GM7790 (C.D.B., A.R.M.), P01GM99568 (S.R.B.), R01HL87699 and R01HL104608 (K.C.B.), T32HL94284 (J.L.R.F.), and contracts HHSN268201100040C (A.M.R.) and HHSN272201000025C (P.S.), Harvard Medical School Eleanor and Miles Shore Fellowship (K.L.), Lundbeck Foundation Grant R170-2014-1039 (K.L.), NIJ Grant 2014-DN-BX-K089 (Y.E.), the Mary Beryl Patch Turnbull Scholar Program (K.C.B.), NSF Graduate Research Fellowship DGE-1147470 (G.D.P.), the Simons Foundation SFARI award SF51 (M.W.), and a Sloan Foundation Fellowship (R.D.H.). E.E.E. is an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute