Dam removal Europe: refuting myths and supporting professionals

The removal of dams and weirs has been happening for decades. Since the 90’s a few countries have increased this tendency. USA has already removed at least 1,300 dams. What very few people know is that in Europe there have been over 3,500 barriers demolished already. In some European countries, like France, Sweden, Spain, Finland and UK dams are mainly being removed due to existing legislation, safety and security, the need to reach a good ecological status of their rivers for the Water Frame Directive and/or economical reasons. However, the lack of awareness, knowledge, support by decision makers and funding for dam removal are generally bottlenecks and most of the times is the cause of many dam removal failures. In addition, the Renewable Energy Directive requires the EU countries to fulfil at least 20% of its total energy needs with renewables by 2020, and amongst these renewables is hydropower. All this makes dam removal projects tremendously difficult to those who are willing to start removing old and useless dams, and automatically makes dam removal an uncomfortable subject to bring up for politicians. Europe requires a shift towards adaptive management of stream barriers, one that maximizes benefits and minimizes impacts, one that keeps efficient dams and removes obsolete and abandoned dams. The goals of Dam Removal Europe (www.damremoval.eu) are to improve citizens’ awareness about removing dams and refute myths, create a reference community of professionals, experts and starters, who generates and shares knowledge about dam removal and putting dam removal on the agenda of policy makers, directors and managers

Dam removal Europe: refuting myths and supporting professionals

The removal of dams and weirs has been happening for decades. Since the 90’s a few countries have increased this tendency. USA has already removed at least 1,300 dams. What very few people know is that in Europe there have been over 3,500 barriers demolished already. In some European countries, like France, Sweden, Spain, Finland and UK dams are mainly being removed due to existing legislation, safety and security, the need to reach a good ecological status of their rivers for the Water Frame Directive and/or economical reasons. However, the lack of awareness, knowledge, support by decision makers and funding for dam removal are generally bottlenecks and most of the times is the cause of many dam removal failures. In addition, the Renewable Energy Directive requires the EU countries to fulfil at least 20% of its total energy needs with renewables by 2020, and amongst these renewables is hydropower. All this makes dam removal projects tremendously difficult to those who are willing to start removing old and useless dams, and automatically makes dam removal an uncomfortable subject to bring up for politicians. Europe requires a shift towards adaptive management of stream barriers, one that maximizes benefits and minimizes impacts, one that keeps efficient dams and removes obsolete and abandoned dams. The goals of Dam Removal Europe (www.damremoval.eu) are to improve citizens’ awareness about removing dams and refute myths, create a reference community of professionals, experts and starters, who generates and shares knowledge about dam removal and putting dam removal on the agenda of policy makers, directors and managers

Differential host utilisation by different life history stages of the fish ectoparasite Argulus foliaceus (Crustacea: Branchiura)

Contains fulltext : 72168.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access

Searches for heavy Higgs bosons in two-Higgs-doublet models and for t → c h decay using multilepton and diphoton final states in p p collisions at 8 TeV

Searches are presented for heavy scalar (H) and pseudoscalar (A) Higgs bosons posited in the two doublet model (2HDM) extensions of the standard model (SM). These searches are based on a data sample of pp collisions collected with the CMS experiment at the LHC at a center-of-mass energy of root s = 8 TeV and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 19.5 fb(-1). The decays H - GT hh and A - GT Zh, where h denotes an SM-like Higgs boson, lead to events with three or more isolated charged leptons or with a photon pair accompanied by one or more isolated leptons. The search results are presented in terms of the H and A production cross sections times branching fractions and are further interpreted in terms of 2HDM parameters. We place 95% C.L. cross section upper limits of approximately 7 pb on sigma B for H - GT hh and 2 pb for A - GT Zh. Also presented are the results of a search for the rare decay of the top quark that results in a charm quark and an SM Higgs boson, t - GT ch, the existence of which would indicate a nonzero flavor-changing Yukawa coupling of the top quark to the Higgs boson. We place a 95% C.L. upper limit of 0.56% on B(t - GT ch)

Multidisciplinary treatment in children with problematic severe asthma: A prospective evaluation

For children with problematic severe asthma, achieving adequate control of asthma is difficult. The aim of this prospective observational study was to evaluate the effects of intensive multidisciplinary inpatient treatment on multiple outcome variables in children with problematic severe asthma. Participants were 89 children with problematic severe asthma (mean age 13.6 ± 2.5 years) treated in tertiary care clinics at high altitude (Switzerland) or sea level (Netherlands) and their parents (85 mothers, 55 fathers). The primary outcome variable was the Childhood Asthma Control Test (C-ACT). Other outcome variables were forced expiratory volume in 1 sec (FEV1 ), fractional concentration of exhaled nitric oxide (FeNO), quality of life [PAQLQ(S)], children's coping (UCL-A), parents' report of behavioral problems (CBCL), and parenting stress (PSI/NOSI). Evaluations were taken pre-treatment, post-treatment, and 3-6 months follow-up. Median [P25;P75] treatment duration 74 [56;80] days; Median follow-up interval 131 [103;177] days. The percentages of children showing controlled asthma (C-ACT) were 18% (pre-treatment), 69% (post-treatment), and 44% (follow-up). The vast majority of the children (80%) showed an improvement on C-ACT with 4% showing a deterioration. On C-ACT, FeNO, quality of life, and behavioral problems, improvements at post-treatment were highly significant. Improvements generally remained at a functional level at follow-up. Children's coping and parenting stress in parents did not change. The improvement in asthma control and other outcome variables suggests that multidisciplinary inpatient treatment is an effective approach for a heterogeneous group of children with asthma that remained uncontrolled in secondary care. Pediatr Pulmonol. 2017;52:588-597. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, In

The relationship between autonomic nervous system function and interoceptive accuracy in persons with fibromyalgia versus healthy controls

Fibromyalgia (FM) is a common chronic primary pain syndrome in which underlying mechanisms remain largely unknown. The role of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) and interoceptive accuracy (IA), the ability to accurately sense internal body signals, in relation to pain sensitivity was examined in persons with FM which were compared to healthy controls. ANS activity was expected to differ in FM compared to controls, both at rest and while performing mental stressful tasks, and IA was expected to be different too. It was further explored whether IA mediates the relationship between ANS activity and pain. In total 108 participants (n=54 healthy controls and n=54 persons with FM) underwent ANS measures during alternating rest and mental stress conditions. These ANS measures consisted of skin conductance levels (SCL), heart rate (HR) and HR variability (HRV), cardiac output, pre-ejection period and stroke volume (SV). IA was measured using a heartbeat perception task and pain sensitivity was assessed by determining pressure pain thresholds. Several questionnaires were administered which were associated to ANS, IA and pain measures. During mental stress as compared to rest conditions, higher levels were found for SCL (p <.001) and HR (p <.001) in both groups, while SV (p <.004) was higher in rest versus in mental stress. Significant interactions between condition (rest versus mental stress) and groups (FM versus controls) were found for SCL (p =.04) and HR (p =.01), pointing to lower reactivity to stress in FM. Posthoc tests showed no significant group effects for the different conditions (i.e., for the rest or stress conditions). Group main effects were neither found for any of the ANS measures. Lower IA scores were found in FM compared to controls (p =.009). IA did not significantly mediate the relationship between ANS measures and pain thresholds. Since no differences between persons with FM and controls were found for any of the ANS measures, it can be concluded that ANS functions do not seem to be a crucial underlying mechanism in FM, at least in the relatively healthy subgroup included in this study. Importantly however, results showed that IA is diminished in FM. The role of IA in the pathogenesis and treatment of (at least a subgroup of persons with) FM requires further study. Also, studies into interoceptive modalities other than heartbeat perception are needed

Distinguishing score 0 from score 1+ in HER2 immunohistochemistry-negative breast cancer: clinical and pathobiological relevance

Objectives: To investigate the clinical and pathobiological significance of distinguishing score 0 and score 1+ within the group of immunohistochemistry (IHC)-negative invasive breast cancers. Methods: We studied HER2 status using both IHC and fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) in 150 consecutive breast tumors submitted to our laboratory after a negative IHC result in local testing centers. Results: We were able to discern a group of score 0 tumors that had a lower HER2 copy number than the group consisting of score 1+ tumors. In contrast with the group of score 1+ tumors, HER2 FISH was consistently negative for both copy number based and ratio-based tumors without equivocal results. Conclusions: In a setting with stringent quality assurance, score 0 and score 1+ tumors emerge as distinct and clinically important subgroups within the HER2 IHC-negative population

Magnetic resonance imaging of the small bowel with the true FISP sequence: intra- and interobserver agreement of enteroclysis and imaging without contrast material

Purpose: This study aimed to determine the reliability of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) without luminal contrast medium versus MR enteroclysis for evaluating small bowel pathology, to compare MRI and MRE findings per observer, and to compare these findings with those of an expert reader in order to determine the influence of luminal contrast medium on morphological evaluations. Conclusion: The use of luminal contrast medium bowel improves reliability for measuring bowel wall thickness and for the diagnosis and grading of obstruction when evaluating the small bowel. (C) 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserve

Reducing the global environmental impacts of rapid infrastructure expansion

Infrastructures, such as roads, mines, and hydroelectric dams, are proliferating explosively. Often, this has serious direct and indirect environmental impacts. We highlight nine issues that should be considered by project proponents to better evaluate and limit the environmental risks of such developments