INVESTIGATION OF ARSENIC CONTAMINATION IN GROUNDWATER IN HANOI AREA

Joint Research on Environmental Science and Technology for the Eart

INVESTIGATION OF ARSENIC RELEASE FROM SEDIMENT MINERALS TO WATER PHASES -MOTIVATION FOR ARSENIC MITIGATION TECHNOLOGY

Joint Research on Environmental Science and Technology for the Eart

Innovazione unica direzione.

Le attività della Direzione per le Relazioni con il territorio, l'innovazione e lo sviluppo

Desarrollo Territorial con Enfoque de Sistemas Agroalimentarios Localizados (AT-SIAL) : Sur Alto, Costa Rica

En el marco del proyecto “Desarrollo Territorial Aplicando el Enfoque de Sistema Agroalimentario Localizado (SIAL)” del Fondo de Cooperación Técnica del IICA, se l diseñó un Plan de Activación del Territorio Sur Alto (cantones de Buenos Aires y Coto Brus), en Costa Rica, a partir de la valorización conjunta de las cadenas agroindustriales y los servicios turísticos existentes en el territorio. En forma simultánea, el proyecto se implementó en otros tres territorios de América Latina: la Comarca Andina del Paralelo 42 (Argentina), Intag (Ecuador) y Tenancingo (México). Como referencia general, los equipos técnicos emplearon la “Guía Metodológica para la Activación de Sistemas Agroalimentarios Localizados” (Boucher y Reyes, 2011), misma que se adaptó y complementó con otros instrumentos con el propósito de cambiar “el objeto de estudio e intervención”: pasar de la activación de una concentración de agroindustrias rurales a la activación de todas las agroindustrias y servicios conexos de un territorio

Desarrollo Territorial con Enfoque de Sistemas Agroalimentarios Localizados (AT-SIAL): Valle del Intag, Ecuador

A través de la iniciativa del Fondo Concursable de la Dirección General para Proyectos de Cooperación Técnica (FonCT) que cuenta con recursos propios del Instituto Interamericano de Cooperación para la Agricultura y de otras organizaciones de países miembros e internacionales, el territorio de Intag en el norte del Ecuador, fue seleccionado para participar en el Proyecto “Desarrollo Territorial Aplicando el Enfoque SIAL”, que propone crear una metodología de activación territorial utilizando el enfoque de Sistemas Agroalimentarios Localizados (SIAL) como herramienta operativa para la promoción del desarrollo local. El territorio de Intag en el Ecuador, presenta una identidad territorial que se identifica por lazos de solidaridad y sentido de pertenencia que se expresa en la presencia de numerosas organizaciones de primero y segundo grado que buscan alternativa de desarrollo y el bienestar de su población. En este territorio, utilizando la metodología de Activación de Sistemas Agroalimentarios Localizados, se desarrollaron las fases de gestación y activación que a su vez contaron con las etapas de preparación, diagnóstico, activación territorial e implementación que en conjunto determinaron la formulación y el financiamiento de proyectos que fueron desarrollados con la activa participación de los actores locales. El presente documento presenta en forma pormenorizada, todo el proceso metodológico realizado y los resultados de las fases desarrolladas que en conclusión permitieron contar con un diagnóstico como base para la activación del territorio de Intag

Writing in London. Home and Languaging in the Work of London Poets of Chinese Descent

This essay discusses literary works produced in London by poets of Chinese descent who are foreign-born or London native. Some of these works are written in English, and some in Chinese. The aim is to discuss poetry that has emphatically or reluctantly embraced the identity narrative, talking of home and belonging in substantially different ways from each other, according to each poet’s individual relationship with movement, migration, and stability. Therefore, through the use of the phrase ‘London poets of Chinese descent’, I do not aim at tracing a shared sense of identity, but instead I am interested in using London as a method for an oblique reading that recognises the variety of angles and approaches in these poets’ individual experience, history and circumstances that can range from occasional travel to political exile

Application of carrying capacity management in Vietnamese national parks

Implementing carrying capacity is a prerequisite for national parks (NPs) striving to meet the three mandates of park management, namely, recreational use, conservation, and economic value. This study attempts to investigate the application of carrying capacity management in Vietnam’s park system and to assess its application for further development of the concept. Findings show that there are three different approaches to the implementation of carrying capacity in Vietnamese parks, including (1) a laissez-faire approach, (2) a relaxed approach, and (3) a strict approach. It is suggested that economic consideration is one of the major constraints to the implementation in developing countries such as Vietnam. This study not only contributes to the literature on capacity management in NPs, especially in the context of developing countries, but its findings are also valuable for park authorities to achieve the triple mandates of park management

Contributions of mean and shape of blood pressure distribution to worldwide trends and variations in raised blood pressure: A pooled analysis of 1018 population-based measurement studies with 88.6 million participants

© The Author(s) 2018. Background: Change in the prevalence of raised blood pressure could be due to both shifts in the entire distribution of blood pressure (representing the combined effects of public health interventions and secular trends) and changes in its high-blood-pressure tail (representing successful clinical interventions to control blood pressure in the hypertensive population). Our aim was to quantify the contributions of these two phenomena to the worldwide trends in the prevalence of raised blood pressure. Methods: We pooled 1018 population-based studies with blood pressure measurements on 88.6 million participants from 1985 to 2016. We first calculated mean systolic blood pressure (SBP), mean diastolic blood pressure (DBP) and prevalence of raised blood pressure by sex and 10-year age group from 20-29 years to 70-79 years in each study, taking into account complex survey design and survey sample weights, where relevant. We used a linear mixed effect model to quantify the association between (probittransformed) prevalence of raised blood pressure and age-group- and sex-specific mean blood pressure. We calculated the contributions of change in mean SBP and DBP, and of change in the prevalence-mean association, to the change in prevalence of raised blood pressure. Results: In 2005-16, at the same level of population mean SBP and DBP, men and women in South Asia and in Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa would have the highest prevalence of raised blood pressure, and men and women in the highincome Asia Pacific and high-income Western regions would have the lowest. In most region-sex-age groups where the prevalence of raised blood pressure declined, one half or more of the decline was due to the decline in mean blood pressure. Where prevalence of raised blood pressure has increased, the change was entirely driven by increasing mean blood pressure, offset partly by the change in the prevalence-mean association. Conclusions: Change in mean blood pressure is the main driver of the worldwide change in the prevalence of raised blood pressure, but change in the high-blood-pressure tail of the distribution has also contributed to the change in prevalence, especially in older age groups

Rising rural body-mass index is the main driver of the global obesity epidemic in adults

Body-mass index (BMI) has increased steadily in most countries in parallel with a rise in the proportion of the population who live in cities(.)(1,2) This has led to a widely reported view that urbanization is one of the most important drivers of the global rise in obesity(3-6). Here we use 2,009 population-based studies, with measurements of height and weight in more than 112 million adults, to report national, regional and global trends in mean BMI segregated by place of residence (a rural or urban area) from 1985 to 2017. We show that, contrary to the dominant paradigm, more than 55% of the global rise in mean BMI from 1985 to 2017-and more than 80% in some low- and middle-income regions-was due to increases in BMI in rural areas. This large contribution stems from the fact that, with the exception of women in sub-Saharan Africa, BMI is increasing at the same rate or faster in rural areas than in cities in low- and middle-income regions. These trends have in turn resulted in a closing-and in some countries reversal-of the gap in BMI between urban and rural areas in low- and middle-income countries, especially for women. In high-income and industrialized countries, we noted a persistently higher rural BMI, especially for women. There is an urgent need for an integrated approach to rural nutrition that enhances financial and physical access to healthy foods, to avoid replacing the rural undernutrition disadvantage in poor countries with a more general malnutrition disadvantage that entails excessive consumption of low-quality calories.Peer reviewe