Parties, promiscuity and politicisation: business-political networks in Poland

Research on post-communist political economy has begun to focus on the interface between business and politics. It is widely agreed that informal networks rather than business associations dominate this interface, but there has been very little systematic research in this area. The literature tends to assume that a politicised economy entails business-political networks that are structured by parties. Theoretically, this article distinguishes politicisation from party politicisation and argues that the two are unlikely to be found together in a post-communist context. Empirically, elite survey data and qualitative interviews are used to explore networks of businesspeople and politicians in Poland. Substantial evidence is found against the popular idea that Polish politicians have business clienteles clearly separated from each other according to party loyalties. Instead, it is argued that these politicians and businesspeople are promiscuous. Since there seems to be little that is unusual about the Polish case, this conclusion has theoretical, methodological, substantive and policy implications for other post-communist countries

PLANTAS ALIMENTÍCIAS NÃO CONVENCIONAIS: UTILIZAÇÃO DAS FOLHAS DE “ORA-PRO-NOBIS” (PERESKIA ACULEATA MILL, CACTACEAE) NO CONSUMO HUMANO.

A ora-pro-nobis (Pereskia aculeata) é uma cactácea popularmente conhecida como “carne de pobre” devido ao seu uso popular pelo teor de proteína encontrado em suas folhas e seu baixo custo, sendo classificada como uma Planta Alimentícia Não Convencional (PANC). Possui ampla distribuição, sendo encontrada principalmente na América Central, Índia Oriental, América do Norte e no Brasil, reforçando a sua característica de ser facilmente cultivada sem depender de um solo fértil, conferindo à Pereskia aculeata um notável potencial para sua aplicação na prevenção e no tratamento de condições relacionadas a deficiências nutricionais. Tendo em vista todos os benefícios da planta, o objetivo geral do trabalho consistiu em analisar a composição química e nutricional da “ora-pro-nobis” a fim de difundir sua utilização à população vegetariana e vegana, sendo os objetivos específicos o desenvolvimento de uma farinha e aplicação de um questionário para avaliar o perfil de consumo da cactácea. Para isso, as folhas de ora-pro-nobis foram coletadas na cidade de Campo Largo e, em sequência, higienizadas e passadas por um processo de quarteamento para subsequente amostragem. Foram feitas análises morfológicas superficiais, determinações de umidade, de proteínas, de lipídios, de fibras, de minerais e de carboidratos, seguindo as metodologias do Instituto Adolfo Lutz (IAL) e a Association of Official Agricultural Chemists (AOAC), e aplicação de um questionário por meio da plataforma Google Formulários. A partir disso, os resultados para proteínas encontrados foram relativamente mais baixos quando comparados à literatura, sendo isso justificado pela sazonalidade. Por fim, pode-se concluir a partir dos resultados que a Pereskia aculeata supre o papel como fonte alternativa de proteínas se consumida na forma de farinha. Além disso, obteve-se no questionário que o consumo mais prevalente da ora-pro-nobis era in natura ou na forma de saladas, reforçando a importância da divulgação do presente trabalho acadêmico à comunidade externa, visto que consumindo a cactácea na sua forma fresca, não se obtém uma quantidade significante de proteínas

Potential effects of warmer worms and vectors on onchocerciasis transmission in West Africa

Development times of eggs, larvae and pupae of vectors of onchocerciasis (Simulium spp.) and of Onchocerca volvulus larvae within the adult females of the vectors decrease with increasing temperature. At and above 25C,the parasite could reach its infective stage in less than 7 days when vectors could transmit after only two gonotrophic cycles. After incorporating exponential functions for vector development into a novel blackfly population model, it was predicted that fly numbers in Liberia and Ghana would peak at air temperatures of 29C and 34C, about 3C and 7C above current monthly averages, respectively; parous rates of forest flies (Liberia) would peak at 298C and of savannah flies (Ghana) at 308C. Small temperature increases (less than 28C) might lead to changes in geographical distributions of different vector taxa. When the new model was linked to an existing framework for the population dynamics of onchocerciasis in humans and vectors, transmission rates and worm loads were projected to increase with temperature to at least 338C. By contrast, analyses of field data on forest flies in Liberia and savannah flies in Ghana, in relation to regional climate change predictions, suggested, on the basis of simple regressions, that 13–41% decreases in fly numbers would be expected between the present and before 2040. Further research is needed to reconcile these conflicting conclusions

IARC Monographs: 40 Years of Evaluating Carcinogenic Hazards to Humans

Background: Recently, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) Programme for the Evaluation of Carcinogenic Risks to Humans has been criticized for several of its evaluations, and also for the approach used to perform these evaluations. Some critics have claimed that failures of IARC Working Groups to recognize study weaknesses and biases of Working Group members have led to inappropriate classification of a number of agents as carcinogenic to humans. Objectives: The authors of this Commentary are scientists from various disciplines relevant to the identification and hazard evaluation of human carcinogens. We examined criticisms of the IARC classification process to determine the validity of these concerns. Here, we present the results of that examination, review the history of IARC evaluations, and describe how the IARC evaluations are performed. Discussion: We concluded that these recent criticisms are unconvincing. The procedures employed by IARC to assemble Working Groups of scientists from the various disciplines and the techniques followed to review the literature and perform hazard assessment of various agents provide a balanced evaluation and an appropriate indication of the weight of the evidence. Some disagreement by individual scientists to some evaluations is not evidence of process failure. The review process has been modified over time and will undoubtedly be altered in the future to improve the process. Any process can in theory be improved, and we would support continued review and improvement of the IARC processes. This does not mean, however, that the current procedures are flawed. Conclusions: The IARC Monographs have made, and continue to make, major contributions to the scientific underpinning for societal actions to improve the public’s health

Model-based geostatistical mapping of the prevalence of onchocerca volvulus in West Africa.

Background: The initial endemicity (pre-control prevalence) of onchocerciasis has been shown to be an important determinant of the feasibility of elimination by mass ivermectin distribution. We present the first geostatistical map of microfilarial prevalence in the former Onchocerciasis Control Programme in West Africa (OCP) before commencement of antivectorial and antiparasitic interventions. Methods and Findings: Pre-control microfilarial prevalence data from 737 villages across the 11 constituent countries in the OCP epidemiological database were used as ground-truth data. These 737 data points, plus a set of statistically selected environmental covariates, were used in a Bayesian model-based geostatistical (B-MBG) approach to generate a continuous surface (at pixel resolution of 5 km x 5km) of microfilarial prevalence in West Africa prior to the commencement of the OCP. Uncertainty in model predictions was measured using a suite of validation statistics, performed on bootstrap samples of held-out validation data. The mean Pearson’s correlation between observed and estimated prevalence at validation locations was 0.693; the mean prediction error (average difference between observed and estimated values) was 0.77%, and the mean absolute prediction error (average magnitude of difference between observed and estimated values) was 12.2%. Within OCP boundaries, 17.8 million people were deemed to have been at risk, 7.55 million to have been infected, and mean microfilarial prevalence to have been 45% (range: 2–90%) in 1975. Conclusions and Significance: This is the first map of initial onchocerciasis prevalence in West Africa using B-MBG. Important environmental predictors of infection prevalence were identified and used in a model out-performing those without spatial random effects or environmental covariates. Results may be compared with recent epidemiological mapping efforts to find areas of persisting transmission. These methods may be extended to areas where data are sparse, and may be used to help inform the feasibility of elimination with current and novel tools

Status of Biodiversity in the Baltic Sea

The brackish Baltic Sea hosts species of various origins and environmental tolerances. These immigrated to the sea 10,000 to 15,000 years ago or have been introduced to the area over the relatively recent history of the system. The Baltic Sea has only one known endemic species. While information on some abiotic parameters extends back as long as five centuries and first quantitative snapshot data on biota (on exploited fish populations) originate generally from the same time, international coordination of research began in the early twentieth century. Continuous, annual Baltic Sea-wide long-term datasets on several organism groups (plankton, benthos, fish) are generally available since the mid-1950s. Based on a variety of available data sources (published papers, reports, grey literature, unpublished data), the Baltic Sea, incl. Kattegat, hosts altogether at least 6,065 species, including at least 1,700 phytoplankton, 442 phytobenthos, at least 1,199 zooplankton, at least 569 meiozoobenthos, 1,476 macrozoobenthos, at least 380 vertebrate parasites, about 200 fish, 3 seal, and 83 bird species. In general, but not in all organism groups, high sub-regional total species richness is associated with elevated salinity. Although in comparison with fully marine areas the Baltic Sea supports fewer species, several facets of the system's diversity remain underexplored to this day, such as micro-organisms, foraminiferans, meiobenthos and parasites. In the future, climate change and its interactions with multiple anthropogenic forcings are likely to have major impacts on the Baltic biodiversity

IARC Monographs: 40 Years of Evaluating Carcinogenic Hazards to Humans

Background: Recently, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) Programme for the Evaluation of Carcinogenic Risks to Humans has been criticized for several of its evaluations, and also for the approach used to perform these evaluations. Some critics have claimed that failures of IARC Working Groups to recognize study weaknesses and biases of Working Group members have led to inappropriate classification of a number of agents as carcinogenic to humans

Active dynamics of filaments in motility assays

We study the active dynamics of single and interacting cytoskeletal filaments in motility assays, in which immobilized motor proteins bind the filaments to a surface and actively pull them along this surface. We present a model which couples the overdamped dynamics of filaments, the active dynamics of motor heads, and the elasticity of motor stalks and which can be used for Langevin dynamics simulations. Single filaments perform a persistent random walk, which we characterize by several simulation results. For interacting filaments with a repulsive interaction of filaments, the motor-driven dynamics of filaments leads to a non-equilibrium phase transition which generalizes the isotropic-nematic phase transition of the corresponding equilibrium system, the hard-rod fluid. Langevin dynamics simulations and analytical theory show that the motor activity enhances the tendency for nematic ordering