Assessment of regional trade and virtual water flows in China

The success of China's economic development has left deep marks on resource availability and quality. Some regions in China are relatively poor with regards to water resources. This problem is exacerbated by economic growth. Flourishing trade activities on both domestic and international levels have resulted in significant amounts of water withdrawal and water pollution. Hence the goal of this paper is to evaluate the current inter-regional trade structure and its effects on water consumption and pollution via ‘virtual water flows’. Virtual water is the water embedded in products and used in the whole production chain, and that is traded between regions or exported to other countries. For this assessment of trade flows and effects on water resources, we have developed an extended regional input–output model for eight hydro-economic regions in China to account for virtual water flows between North and South China. The findings show that the current trade structure in China is not very favorable with regards to water resource allocation and efficiency. North China as a water scarce region virtually exports about 5% of its total available freshwater resources while accepting large amounts of wastewater for other regions' consumption. By contrast, South China a region with abundant water resources is virtually importing water from other regions while their imports are creating waste water polluting other regions' hydro-ecosystems

Survey for Emission-Line Galaxies: Universidad Complutense de Madrid List 3

A new low-dispersion objective-prism search for low-redshift (z<0.045) emission-line galaxies (ELG) has been carried out by the Universidad Complutense de Madrid with the Schmidt Telescope at the Calar-Alto Observatory. This is a continuation of the UCM Survey, which was performed by visual selection of candidates in photographic plates via the presence of the Halpha+[NII]6584 blend in emission. In this new list we have applied an automatic procedure, fully developed by us, for selecting and analyzing the ELG candidates on the digitized images obtained with the MAMA machine. The analyzed region of the sky covers 189 square degrees in nine fields near R.A.=14h & 17h, Dec=25 deg. The final sample contains 113 candidates. Special effort has been made to obtain a large amount of information directly from our uncalibrated plates by using several external calibrations. The parameters obtained for the ELG candidates allow for the study of the statistical properties for the sample.Comment: 13 pages, 18 PostScript figures, 6 JPEG figures, Table 2 corrected. Accepted for publication in Astrophysical Journal Supplements, also available at http://www.ucm.es/info/Astrof/opera/LIST3_ApJS99

Stroke in Ashanti region of Ghana

Objective: To determine the morbidity and mortality in adult in-patients with stroke admitted to the KomfoAnokye Teaching Hospital (KATH).Methods: A retrospective study of in-patients with stroke admitted to the KATH, from January 2006 todecember 2007 was undertaken. Data from admission and discharge registers were analysed to determinestroke morbidity and mortality.Results: Stroke constituted 9.1% of total medical adult admissions and 13.2% of all medical adult deathswithin the period under review. The mean age of stroke patients was 63.7 (95% ci=62.8, 64.57) years. Males were younger than females. The overall male to female ratio was 1:0.96, and the age-adjusted risk of death from stroke was slightly lower for females than males (relative risk= 0.88; 95% ci=0.79, 1.02, p=0.08). The stroke case fatality rate was 5.7% at 24 hours, 32.7% at 7 days, and 43.2% at 28 days.Conclusion: Stroke constitutes a significant cause of morbidity and mortality in Ghana. Major efforts are needed in the prevention and treatment of stroke. Population-based health education programs and appropriate public health policy need to be developed. This will require a multidisciplinary approach of key players with a strong political commitment. There is also a clear need for further studies on this topic including, for example, an assessment of care and quality of life after discharge from hospital. The outcomes of these studies will provide important information for the prevention efforts.Keywords: Stroke, Cerebrovascular disease, CVD, Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital, Ghan

MCP1 haplotypes associated with protection from pulmonary tuberculosis

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The monocyte chemoattractant protein 1 (MCP-1) is involved in the recruitment of lymphocytes and monocytes and their migration to sites of injury and cellular immune reactions. In a Ghanaian tuberculosis (TB) case-control study group, associations of the <it>MCP1 </it>-362C and the <it>MCP1 </it>-2581G alleles with resistance to TB were recently described. The latter association was in contrast to genetic effects previously described in study groups originating from Mexico, Korea, Peru and Zambia. This inconsistency prompted us to further investigate the <it>MCP1 </it>gene in order to determine causal variants or haplotypes genetically and functionally.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A 14 base-pair deletion in the first <it>MCP1 </it>intron, int1del554-567, was strongly associated with protection against pulmonary TB (OR = 0.84, CI 0.77-0.92, P_corrected= 0.00098). Compared to the wildtype combination, a haplotype comprising the -2581G and -362C promoter variants and the intronic deletion conferred an even stronger protection than did the -362C variant alone (OR = 0.78, CI 0.69-0.87, P_nominal= 0.00002; adjusted P_global= 0.0028). In a luciferase reporter gene assay, a significant reduction of luciferase gene expression was observed in the two constructs carrying the <it>MCP1 </it>mutations -2581 A or G plus the combination -362C and int1del554-567 compared to the wildtype haplotype (P = 0.02 and P = 0.006). The associated variants, in particular the haplotypes composed of these latter variants, result in decreased MCP-1 expression and a decreased risk of pulmonary TB.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>In addition to the results of the previous study of the Ghanaian TB case-control sample, we have now identified the haplotype combination -2581G/-362C/int1del554-567 that mediates considerably stronger protection than does the <it>MCP1 </it>-362C allele alone (OR = 0.78, CI 0.69-0.87 vs OR = 0.83, CI 0.76-0.91). Our findings in both the genetic analysis and the reporter gene study further indicate a largely negligible role of the variant at position -2581 in the Ghanaian population studied.</p

Income-based greenhouse gas emissions of nations

Accounting for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of nations is essential to understanding their importance to global climate change and help inform the policymaking on global GHG mitigation. Previous studies have made efforts to evaluate direct GHG emissions of nations (a.k.a. production-based accounting method) and GHG emissions caused by the final consumption of nations (a.k.a. consumption-based accounting method), but overlooked downstream GHG emissions enabled by primary inputs of individual nations and sectors (a.k.a. income-based accounting method). Here we show that the income-based accounting method reveals new GHG emission profiles for nations and sectors. The rapid development of mining industries drives income-based GHG emissions of resource-exporting nations (e.g., Australia, Canada, and Russia) during 1995–2009. Moreover, the rapid development of sectors producing basic materials and providing financial intermediation services drives income-based GHG emissions of developing nations (e.g., China, Indonesia, India, and Brazil) during this period. The income-based accounting can support supply side policy decisions and provide additional information for determining GHG emission quotas based on cumulative emissions of nations and designing policies for shared responsibilities

Urinary schistosomiasis among preschool-aged children in Sahelian rural communities in Mali

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Mass chemotherapy with praziquantel is the main control strategy for schistosomiasis in Mali. However, in the national control programme for schistosomiasis and soil-transmitted helminthiasis, infants and preschool-aged children are overlooked in preventive chemotherapy campaigns. We therefore determined the prevalence and intensity of urinary schistosomiasis in children between the ages 1-4 years in three villages across Diema health district, a rural community with endemic schistosomiasis in Mali. For <it>Schistosoma haematobium </it>diagnosis, a single urine sample of 10 ml obtained from each child was subjected to the standard urine filtration method.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Of the 338 children examined 173 (51.2%) were infected. Both prevalence and intensity of infection varied significantly between communities (p < 0.01). There was no significant difference (p = 0.94) in infection rates between boys (51.2%) and girls (50.3%). Likewise, prevalence did not significantly increase with age (p = 0.86). The overall geometric mean of Williams (GMw) was 18.41 eggs/10 ml urine, with no significant association (p = 0.91) between boys (17.48 eggs/10 ml urine) and girls (19.69 eggs/10 ml urine). However, the GMw significantly increased with age (p = 0.04). Infection of preschool children would occur through early exposure to infected water bodies through both passive and active process.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our study showed that preschool children living closely to lakes across in Mali are at high risk to be infected by schistosomiasis and contributed largely to the transmission; therefore schistosomiasis control interventions should also target infants in addition to school children and adults in endemic areas.</p