The Unexpected Amazon: Past, Present, and Imagined

This essay reviews the following works: Upriver: The Turbulent Life and Times of an Amazonian People. By Michael F. Brown. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014. Pp. vii + 321. $29.95 cloth. ISBN: 9780674368071. In Search of the Amazon: Brazil, the United States, and the Nature of Region. By Seth Garfield. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2013. Pp. ix + 343.$26.96 paper. ISBN: 9780822355854. Rainforest Cowboys: The Rise of Ranching and Cattle Culture in Western Amazonia. By Jeffrey Hoelle. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2015. Pp. viii + 196. $45.00 cloth. ISBN: 9780292761346. Tracks in the Amazon: The Day-to-Day Life of the Workers on the Madeira-Mamoré Railroad. By Gary Neeleman and Rose Neeleman. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2014. Pp. ix + 195.$29.95 paper. ISBN: 9781607812753. Amazonian Routes: Indigenous Mobility and Colonial Communities in Northern Brazil. By Heather F. Roller. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2014. Pp. ix + 342. $70.00 cloth. ISBN: 9780804787086

Роль довідково-інформаційних фондів у правовому забезпеченні моніторингу в АПК України

В статье раскрываются возможности правового обеспечения мониторинга в АПК Украины с помощью справочно-информационных фондов (СИФов), которые используются для проведения планирования и подготовки использования спецтехники и спецтактики для проведения отдельных спецопераций мониторинга в АПК Украины

A spatiotemporal natural-human database to evaluate road development impacts in an Amazon trinational frontier

Road construction and paving bring socio-economic benefits to receiving regions but can also be drivers of deforestation and land cover change. Road infrastructure often increases migration and illegal economic activities, which in turn affect local hydrology, wildlife, vegetation structure and dynamics, and biodiversity. To evaluate the full breadth of impacts from a coupled natural-human systems perspective, information is needed over a sufficient timespan to include pre- and post-road paving conditions. In addition, the spatial scale should be appropriate to link local human activities and biophysical system components, while also allowing for upscaling to the regional scale. A database was developed for the tri-national frontier in the Southwestern Amazon, where the Inter-Oceanic Highway was constructed through an area of high biological value and cultural diversity. Extensive socio-economic surveys and botanical field work are combined with remote sensing and reanalysis data to provide a rich and unique database, suitable for coupled natural-human systems research

Road building, land use and climate change: prospects for environmental governance in the Amazon

Some coupled land–climate models predict a dieback of Amazon forest during the twenty-first century due to climate change, but human land use in the region has already reduced the forest cover. The causation behind land use is complex, and includes economic, institutional, political and demographic factors. Pre-eminent among these factors is road building, which facilitates human access to natural resources that beget forest fragmentation. While official government road projects have received considerable attention, unofficial road building by interest groups is expanding more rapidly, especially where official roads are being paved, yielding highly fragmented forest mosaics. Effective governance of natural resources in the Amazon requires a combination of state oversight and community participation in a ‘hybrid’ model of governance. The MAP Initiative in the southwestern Amazon provides an example of an innovative hybrid approach to environmental governance. It embodies a polycentric structure that includes government agencies, NGOs, universities and communities in a planning process that links scientific data to public deliberations in order to mitigate the effects of new infrastructure and climate change

Roads & SDGs, tradeoffs and synergies: learning from Brazil's Amazon in distinguishing frontiers

To inform the search for SDG synergies in infrastructure provision, and to reduce SDG tradeoffs, the authors show that road impacts on Brazilian Amazon forests have varied significantly across settings. Forest loss varied predictably with prior development – both prior roads and prior deforestation – and in a spatial pattern suggesting a synergy between forests and urban growth in such frontiers. Examining multiple roads investments, the authors estimate impact for settings of high, medium and low prior roads and deforestation. Census-tract observations are numerous for each setting and reveal a pattern, not consistent with endogeneity, that confirms our predictions for this kind of frontier. Impacts are: low after relatively high prior development; larger for medium prior development, at the forest margin; then low again for low prior development. For the latter setting, the authors note that in such isolated areas, interactions with conservation policies influence forest impacts over time. These Amazonian results suggest 'SDG strategic' locations of infrastructure, an idea they suggest for other frontiers while highlighting differences in those frontiers and their SDG opportunities

The contributions of transboundary networks to environmental governance: The legacy of the MAP initiative

Because many environmental threats span national boundaries, transboundary networks have emerged as a form of multi-stakeholder platform to support environmental governance (EG). There are transboundary networks in various ecologically important regions of the world such as the Amazon. However, there remains a need for systematic analyses to adequately evaluate the contributions of transboundary networks to EG. This paper takes up the case of the “MAP Initiative”, a transboundary network in the tri-national frontier of the southwestern Amazon that sought to support EG. We examine three key questions: 1) how do transboundary networks motivate participants to engage in collaboration across boundaries for EG, 2) how do transboundary networks evolve structurally as well as strategically to increase their impact on EG, and 3) can transboundary networks generate outcomes beyond information sharing for EG? The analysis draws on historical documents, participant observation, and key informant interviews about the MAP Initiative. The findings confirm that transboundary networks motivate cross-border exchanges in multiple ways, they evolve structurally in multiple ways that increase their capacity, and that evolution supports multiple forms of activities and outcomes that support EG. We conclude with a discussion of the contributions and challenges of transboundary networks regarding EG

Targeted hepatitis C antibody testing interventions: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Testing for hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection may reduce the risk of liver-related morbidity, by facilitating earlier access to treatment and care. This review investigated the effectiveness of targeted testing interventions on HCV case detection, treatment uptake, and prevention of liver-related morbidity. A literature search identified studies published up to 2013 that compared a targeted HCV testing intervention (targeting individuals or groups at increased risk of HCV) with no targeted intervention, and results were synthesised using meta-analysis. Exposure to a targeted testing intervention, compared to no targeted intervention, was associated with increased cases detected [number of studies (n) = 14; pooled relative risk (RR) 1.7, 95 % CI 1.3, 2.2] and patients commencing therapy (n = 4; RR 3.3, 95 % CI 1.1, 10.0). Practitioner-based interventions increased test uptake and cases detected (n = 12; RR 3.5, 95 % CI 2.5, 4.8; and n = 10; RR 2.2, 95 % CI 1.4, 3.5, respectively), whereas media/information-based interventions were less effective (n = 4; RR 1.5, 95 % CI 0.7, 3.0; and n = 4; RR 1.3, 95 % CI 1.0, 1.6, respectively). This meta-analysis provides for the first time a quantitative assessment of targeted HCV testing interventions, demonstrating that these strategies were effective in diagnosing cases and increasing treatment uptake. Strategies involving practitioner-based interventions yielded the most favourable outcomes. It is recommended that testing should be targeted at and offered to individuals who are part of a population with high HCV prevalence, or who have a history of HCV risk behaviour

Genetic association study of QT interval highlights role for calcium signaling pathways in myocardial repolarization.

The QT interval, an electrocardiographic measure reflecting myocardial repolarization, is a heritable trait. QT prolongation is a risk factor for ventricular arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death (SCD) and could indicate the presence of the potentially lethal mendelian long-QT syndrome (LQTS). Using a genome-wide association and replication study in up to 100,000 individuals, we identified 35 common variant loci associated with QT interval that collectively explain ∼8-10% of QT-interval variation and highlight the importance of calcium regulation in myocardial repolarization. Rare variant analysis of 6 new QT interval-associated loci in 298 unrelated probands with LQTS identified coding variants not found in controls but of uncertain causality and therefore requiring validation. Several newly identified loci encode proteins that physically interact with other recognized repolarization proteins. Our integration of common variant association, expression and orthogonal protein-protein interaction screens provides new insights into cardiac electrophysiology and identifies new candidate genes for ventricular arrhythmias, LQTS and SCD

Differential In Vitro Effects of Intravenous versus Oral Formulations of Silibinin on the HCV Life Cycle and Inflammation

Silymarin prevents liver disease in many experimental rodent models, and is the most popular botanical medicine consumed by patients with hepatitis C. Silibinin is a major component of silymarin, consisting of the flavonolignans silybin A and silybin B, which are insoluble in aqueous solution. A chemically modified and soluble version of silibinin, SIL, has been shown to potently reduce hepatitis C virus (HCV) RNA levels in vivo when administered intravenously. Silymarin and silibinin inhibit HCV infection in cell culture by targeting multiple steps in the virus lifecycle. We tested the hepatoprotective profiles of SIL and silibinin in assays that measure antiviral and anti-inflammatory functions. Both mixtures inhibited fusion of HCV pseudoparticles (HCVpp) with fluorescent liposomes in a dose-dependent fashion. SIL inhibited 5 clinical genotype 1b isolates of NS5B RNA dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) activity better than silibinin, with IC50 values of 40–85 µM. The enhanced activity of SIL may have been in part due to inhibition of NS5B binding to RNA templates. However, inhibition of the RdRps by both mixtures plateaued at 43–73%, suggesting that the products are poor overall inhibitors of RdRp. Silibinin did not inhibit HCV replication in subgenomic genotype 1b or 2a replicon cell lines, but it did inhibit JFH-1 infection. In contrast, SIL inhibited 1b but not 2a subgenomic replicons and also inhibited JFH-1 infection. Both mixtures inhibited production of progeny virus particles. Silibinin but not SIL inhibited NF-κB- and IFN-B-dependent transcription in Huh7 cells. However, both mixtures inhibited T cell proliferation to similar degrees. These data underscore the differences and similarities between the intravenous and oral formulations of silibinin, which could influence the clinical effects of this mixture on patients with chronic liver diseases