Impact of climate change on renewable groundwater resources : assessing the benefits of avoided greenhouse gas emissions using selected CMIP5 climate projections

Reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to minimize climate change requires very significant societal effort. To motivate this effort, it is important to clarify the benefits of avoided emissions. To this end, we analysed the impact of four emissions scenarios on future renewable groundwater resources, which range from 1600 GtCO2 during the 21st century (RCP2.6) to 7300 GtCO2 (RCP8.5). Climate modelling uncertainty was taken into account by applying the bias-corrected output of a small ensemble of five CMIP5 global climate models (GCM) as provided by the ISI-MIP effort to the global hydrological model WaterGAP. Despite significant climate model uncertainty, the benefits of avoided emissions with respect to renewable groundwater resources (i.e. groundwater recharge (GWR)) are obvious. The percentage of projected global population (SSP2 population scenario) suffering from a significant decrease of GWR of more than 10% by the 2080s as compared to 1971–2000 decreases from 38% (GCM range 27–50%) for RCP8.5 to 24% (11–39%) for RCP2.6. The population fraction that is spared from any significant GWR change would increase from 29% to 47% if emissions were restricted to RCP2.6. Increases of GWR are more likely to occur in areas with below average population density, while GWR decreases of more than 30% affect especially (semi)arid regions, across all GCMs. Considering change of renewable groundwater resources as a function of mean global temperature (GMT) rise, the land area that is affected by GWR decreases of more than 30% and 70% increases linearly with global warming from 0 to 3 ° C. For each degree of GMT rise, an additional 4% of the global land area (except Greenland and Antarctica) is affected by a GWR decrease of more than 30%, and an additional 1% is affected by a decrease of more than 70%

Health on a Cloud: Modeling Digital Flows in an E-health Ecosystem

A unified and well-knit e-health network is one that provides a common platform to its key stakeholders to facilitate a sharing of information with a view to promoting cooperation and maximizing benefits. A promising candidate worthy of being considered for this ponderous job is the emerging "cloud technology" with its offer of computing as a utility, which seems well-suited to foster such a network bringing together diverse players who would otherwise remain fragmented and be unable to reap benefits that accrue from cooperation. The e-health network serves to provide added value to its various stakeholders through syndication, aggregation and distribution of this health information, thereby reducing costs and improving efficiencies. Because such a network is in fact an interconnected "network of network" that delivers a product or service through both competition and cooperation, it can be thought of as a business ecosystem. . This study attempts to model the digital information flows in an e-health ecosystem and analyze the resulting strategic implications for the key players for whom the rules of the game are bound to change given their interdependent added-values. The ADVISOR framework is deployed to examine the values created and captured in the ecosystem. Based on this analysis, some critical questions that must be addressed as necessary preconditions for an e-Health Cloud, are derived. The paper concludes with the conjecture that "collaboration for value" will replace "competition for revenue" as the new axiom in the health care business that could ideally usher in a fair, efficient and sustainable ecosystem

Surfactant protein a in cystic fibrosis: supratrimeric structure and pulmonary outcome.

The state of oligomerization of surfactant associated protein-A (SP-A) monomers differs between individuals. This likely affects SP-A's functional properties and could thereby influence clinical status in patients with lung diseases. In this study we focus on SP-A structure in cystic fibrosis (CF) compared to both healthy subjects and disease controls. SP-A composition and function were assessed in both bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluid and serum of 46 CF patients with mild disease, 25 patients with chronic bronchitis and 22 healthy subjects by gel chromatography and a functional agglutination assay. Relation of SP-A agglutination ability to disease severity of the subjects was explored. SP-A was present in seven major oligomeric forms with the majority of SP-A being structurally organized as complex oligomeric forms. More complex oligomeric forms were associated with better SP-A function with regard to its agglutination ability. These forms were more frequently observed in BAL than in serum, but there were no differences between disease groups. In CF patients, more complex forms of SP-A were associated with better lung function. Organizational structure of SP-A affects its functional activity and is linked to disease severity in CF

Curriculum Reform, Assessment and National Qualifications Frameworks

This background paper engages with issues of secondary education reform in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) since 2007 and uses the MasterCard framework of questions as a template for gathering evidence. The framework seeks answers in three broad areas of reform: curriculum, assessment/examination systems and national qualifications frameworks (NQFs). It specifically invited responses to the following questions: Curriculum- What kinds of curriculum reform have occurred in SSA since 2007?- How successful has the practical implementation of new curricula been?- Given the challenges, how can resource-constrained ministries implement curriculum reform?- To what extent has a/the new curriculum promoted 21st century skills (like creativity, critical thinking, cognitive flexibility and emotional intelligence), as well as employability and entrepreneurial skills? Assessment- How successful has assessment reform been? National Qualifications Framework - What is the status of implementation of NQFs across SSA?- Have the approaches to NQF implementation promoted learning and the acquisition of skills necessary for employment?To ensure greater inclusivity, and to solicit a wide range of perspectives, we have chosen to review as broad a spectrum of publications as possible. This has meant that we have included research papers that, more often than not, would have been excluded from similar types of reviews. These include graduate students' masters and doctoral theses; and research papers published in journals that are not widely recognised. The net effect of widening the pool of sources is that many more researchers from, and working in, institutions on the continent have been referenced or included in the bibliography. The evidence gathering processes involved six linked activities: x Setting the search parameters and undertaking an electronic search. vi x Reviewing the document titles and abstracts; and sifting and excluding nonrelevant documents. x Once the primary and secondary sources have been identified, using high frequency citations to identify researchers in the field for follow up processes. x Reviewing the wider scholarship of identified scholars to gather additional 'grey' literature. x Identifying case studies, based on the analysis of these preliminary sources. x Site visits and case study write-ups Two system case studies were selected for close analysis: South Africa and Ethiopia. South Africa was selected because of its experience of three separate waves of curriculum reform in the past two decades, the extensive documentation of these curriculum reforms and as one of the first systems in the world to have introduced a national qualifications framework. Ethiopia was selected as it represents a rapidly developing country in which secondary education is likely to play a key role. It was also selected because of its recent review of its secondary education curriculum and examination system

Impaired empathy, but intact theory of mind

Aggressive, violent behaviour is a major burden and challenge for society. It has been linked to deficits in social understanding, but the evidence is inconsistent and the specifics of such deficits are unclear. Here, we investigated affective (empathy) and cognitive (Theory of Mind) routes to understanding other people in aggressive individuals. Twenty-nine men with a history of legally relevant aggressive behaviour (i.e. serious assault) and 32 control participants were tested using a social video task (EmpaToM) that differentiates empathy and Theory of Mind and completed questionnaires on aggression and alexithymia. Aggressive participants showed reduced empathic responses to emotional videos of others’ suffering, which correlated with aggression severity. Theory of Mind performance, in contrast, was intact. A mediation analysis revealed that reduced empathy in aggressive men was mediated by alexithymia. These findings stress the importance of distinguishing between socio-affective and socio-cognitive deficits for understanding aggressive behaviour and thereby contribute to the development of more efficient treatments