Using demand side management to adapt to water scarcity and climate change in the Saïss basin, Morocco

The Saïss Sub-Basin surface waters are greatly reduced, and will be completely depleted within 25 years. Climate Change and Training workshops directly led to the formation of the Zoubiya cooperative by local farmers. Members pooled their resources to create a water reservoir and drip irrigation systems thereby increasing the adaptive capacity of the region in response to water shortages. Drip irrigation results in water savings of about fifty percent per unit of crop yield. This project worked with multiple stakeholders and focused on benefits for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged communities within project sites, such as contract herders and women

Bone-specific alkaline phosphatase concentrations are less variable than those of parathyroid hormone in stable hemodialysis patients

Abnormalities of bone mineral metabolism and vascular calcification are prevalent in patients with kidney failure. Clinical management is based on biochemical targets, in particular parathyroid hormone (PTH) concentrations, but this has many limitations including high biological variation. A possible alternative is bone-specific alkaline phosphatase (ALP); therefore, we evaluated the biological variation of this marker in patients undergoing hemodialysis. Bone ALP was measured in non-fasting serum samples taken twice a week over a 6-week period in 22 stable hemodialysis patients and 12 healthy volunteers. The within-individual coefficients of variance were calculated and used to derive the critical difference required to be certain that an observed change was significant. The coefficient of variance for bone ALP was significantly higher in hemodialysis patients compared to healthy individuals. Seven samples were required to estimate the homeostatic set point of bone ALP, within 10%, in a hemodialysis patient. The concentration of serial bone ALP measurements would need to change by 36% between any two measurements before it can be considered a significant change. Since the biological variation of bone ALP is less than half that reported for PTH, our study provides further support for the use of bone ALP as an alternative marker of bone mineral metabolism in the setting of chronic kidney disease–mineral and bone disorder

Rhodotorula Endogenous Endophthalmitis: A Novel Harbinger of the Injection Drug Epidemic in the United States

Endogenous endophthalmitis is a rare but feared infectious ocular complication of injection drug use (IDU). The recent opioid epidemic in the United States threatens to increase the incidence of this disease. We report the first case of endogenous endophthalmitis in the United States caused by the emerging fungal pathogen Rhodotorula in an injection drug user which led to no light perception vision (NLP). Worldwide experience with Rhodotorula endogenous endophthalmitis is limited, but existing cases suggest infection by this particular fungal genus has a grim prognosis

Forum on pedagogy:the introductory course in international relations: regional variations

This forum explores how societal contexts affect how instructors teach introductory undergraduate courses in international relations (IR), global politics, and international studies. Contributors teach at universities in China, Ecuador, India, Morocco, South Africa, the United Kingdom-Scotland, and the United States. Because instructors vary the structure, content, and pedagogical approaches in their courses (and perhaps most in their introductory courses) to account for their students' backgrounds, conditions, and paradigms, the discipline can learn about contemporary global patterns by putting regionally diverse pedagogical approaches in conversation with each other. A concluding essay explores emergent patterns of a global IR and sets up points for further conversation. The authors hope sharing their pedagogical strategies will inspire instructors to devote the creativity necessary to improve how they teach introductory IR courses in their own societal contexts

“Playing the game”, identity and perception-of-the-other in water cooperation in the Jordan River Basin

The concept of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) has enjoyed immense popularity and thus has been the preferred approach for river basin management. IWRM generally has a strong focus on rational choice, based on a technocratic conceptual interpretation of the conventional hydrological cycle. However, uncritical acceptance of IWRM runs the risk of blinding policy makers and academics for the defining impact of context, socio-cultural, political, historical and cognitive dimensions in water cooperation. Human behaviour in water cooperation was tested and observed during eight experiments with the Jordan River Basin Boardgame Exercise (JRBBE) played with respondent groups from inside and outside the Jordan River Basin. The experiments consisted of one control group outside the basin and seven respondent groups both outside and inside the basin. This article argues that the role of identities, beliefs and perception-of-the-other, should be taken more into account in order to develop successful and socio-political sustainable river basin management