Compartir l'esforç per millorar els serveis d'aigua i sanejament

La gestión comunitaria de los sistemas de suministro de agua será el enfoque primordial para conseguir los principales Objetivos de Desarrollo del Milenio en las zonas rurales. Discutimos tres aspectos específicos: el concepto de gestión comunitaria, los distintos papeles que pueden jugar los principales actores implicados en el desarrollo y la implementación de los servicios de agua y saneamiento; y la crucial necesidad de proveer capacitación utilizando técnicas participativas, de las cuales se describen algunas, apuntando a una toma de decisiones informada. Señalamos también que capacitar y estimular a los miembros de la comunidad es importante, pero aun lo es más, capacitar a los actores del nivel intermedio (gobierno local, ONG, sector privado, etc.) que son quienes respaldan y facilitan la implementación del proceso inicialmente, y luego el apoyo para asegurar la sostenibilidad del servicio proporcionado.La gestió comunitària dels sistemes de subministrament d'aigua serà l'enfocament primordial per a aconseguir els principals Objectius de Desenvolupament del Mil·lenni a les zones rurals. Discutim tres aspectes específics: el concepte de gestió comunitària, els distints papers que poden jugar els principals actors implicats en el desenvolupament i la implementació dels serveis d'aigua i sanejament; i la crucial necessitat de proveir capacitació utilitzant tècniques participatives, de les quals es descriuen algunes, apuntant a una presa de decisions informada. Assenyalem també que capacitar i estimular els membres de la comunitat és important, però fins i tot ho és més, capacitar als actors del nivell intermedi (govern local, ONG, sector privat, etc.) que són els qui donen suport i faciliten la implementació del procés inicialment, i després el suport per a assegurar la sostenibilitat del servei proporcionat.Peer Reviewe

Honeybees balance essential fatty acids and suffer cognitively from deficiency

Abstract Background and aims. Epidemiological data on autoimmune hepatitis (AIH) are scarce. In this study, we determined the clinical and epidemiological characteristics of AIH patients in the Netherlands (16.7 million inhabitants). Methods. Clinical characteristics were collected from 1313 AIH patients (78% females) from 31 centers, including all eight academic centers in the Netherlands. Additional data on ethnicity, family history and symptoms were obtained by the use of a questionnaire. Results. The prevalence of AIH was 18.3 (95% confidential interval [CI]: 17.3-19.4) per 100,000 with an annual incidence of 1.1 (95% CI: 0.5-2) in adults. An incidence peak was found in middle-aged women. At diagnosis, 56% of patients had fibrosis and 12% cirrhosis in liver biopsy. Overall, 1% of patients developed HCC and 3% of patients underwent liver transplantation. Overlap with primary biliary cirrhosis and primary sclerosing cholangitis was found in 9% and 6%, respectively. The clinical course did not differ between Caucasian and non-Caucasian patients. Other autoimmune diseases were found in 26% of patients. Half of the patients reported persistent AIH-related symptoms despite treatment with a median treatment period of 8 years (range 1-44 years). Familial occurrence was reported in three cases. Conclusion. This is the largest epidemiological study of AIH in a geographically defined region and demonstrates that the prevalence of AIH in the Netherlands is uncommon. Although familial occurrence of AIH is extremely rare, our twin data may point towards a genetic predisposition. The high percentage of patients with cirrhosis or fibrosis at diagnosis urges the need of more awareness for AIH

Age at first birth in women is genetically associated with increased risk of schizophrenia

Prof. Paunio on PGC:n jäsenPrevious studies have shown an increased risk for mental health problems in children born to both younger and older parents compared to children of average-aged parents. We previously used a novel design to reveal a latent mechanism of genetic association between schizophrenia and age at first birth in women (AFB). Here, we use independent data from the UK Biobank (N = 38,892) to replicate the finding of an association between predicted genetic risk of schizophrenia and AFB in women, and to estimate the genetic correlation between schizophrenia and AFB in women stratified into younger and older groups. We find evidence for an association between predicted genetic risk of schizophrenia and AFB in women (P-value = 1.12E-05), and we show genetic heterogeneity between younger and older AFB groups (P-value = 3.45E-03). The genetic correlation between schizophrenia and AFB in the younger AFB group is -0.16 (SE = 0.04) while that between schizophrenia and AFB in the older AFB group is 0.14 (SE = 0.08). Our results suggest that early, and perhaps also late, age at first birth in women is associated with increased genetic risk for schizophrenia in the UK Biobank sample. These findings contribute new insights into factors contributing to the complex bio-social risk architecture underpinning the association between parental age and offspring mental health.Peer reviewe

Search for jet extinction in the inclusive jet-pT spectrum from proton-proton collisions at s=8 TeV

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published articles title, journal citation, and DOI.The first search at the LHC for the extinction of QCD jet production is presented, using data collected with the CMS detector corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 10.7  fb−1 of proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 8 TeV. The extinction model studied in this analysis is motivated by the search for signatures of strong gravity at the TeV scale (terascale gravity) and assumes the existence of string couplings in the strong-coupling limit. In this limit, the string model predicts the suppression of all high-transverse-momentum standard model processes, including jet production, beyond a certain energy scale. To test this prediction, the measured transverse-momentum spectrum is compared to the theoretical prediction of the standard model. No significant deficit of events is found at high transverse momentum. A 95% confidence level lower limit of 3.3 TeV is set on the extinction mass scale

Genomic and phenotypic insights from an atlas of genetic effects on DNA methylation

DNA methylation quantitative trait locus (mQTL) analyses on 32,851 participants identify genetic variants associated with DNA methylation at 420,509 sites in blood, resulting in a database of >270,000 independent mQTLs.Characterizing genetic influences on DNA methylation (DNAm) provides an opportunity to understand mechanisms underpinning gene regulation and disease. In the present study, we describe results of DNAm quantitative trait locus (mQTL) analyses on 32,851 participants, identifying genetic variants associated with DNAm at 420,509 DNAm sites in blood. We present a database of >270,000 independent mQTLs, of which 8.5% comprise long-range (trans) associations. Identified mQTL associations explain 15-17% of the additive genetic variance of DNAm. We show that the genetic architecture of DNAm levels is highly polygenic. Using shared genetic control between distal DNAm sites, we constructed networks, identifying 405 discrete genomic communities enriched for genomic annotations and complex traits. Shared genetic variants are associated with both DNAm levels and complex diseases, but only in a minority of cases do these associations reflect causal relationships from DNAm to trait or vice versa, indicating a more complex genotype-phenotype map than previously anticipated.Molecular Epidemiolog

Searches for electroweak neutralino and chargino production in channels with Higgs, Z, and W bosons in pp collisions at 8 TeV

Searches for supersymmetry (SUSY) are presented based on the electroweak pair production of neutralinos and charginos, leading to decay channels with Higgs, Z, and W bosons and undetected lightest SUSY particles (LSPs). The data sample corresponds to an integrated luminosity of about 19.5 fb(-1) of proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 8 TeV collected in 2012 with the CMS detector at the LHC. The main emphasis is neutralino pair production in which each neutralino decays either to a Higgs boson (h) and an LSP or to a Z boson and an LSP, leading to hh, hZ, and ZZ states with missing transverse energy (E-T(miss)). A second aspect is chargino-neutralino pair production, leading to hW states with E-T(miss). The decays of a Higgs boson to a bottom-quark pair, to a photon pair, and to final states with leptons are considered in conjunction with hadronic and leptonic decay modes of the Z and W bosons. No evidence is found for supersymmetric particles, and 95% confidence level upper limits are evaluated for the respective pair production cross sections and for neutralino and chargino mass values

Facilitating community water supply treatment : from transferring filtration technology to multi-stakeholder learning

For more than a quarter of a century, IRC has been supporting the development of Slow Sand Filtration (SSF) and more recently, together with CINARA, the pioneering of Multi-Stage Filtration (MSF) - a combination of Gravel Filtration and SSF that has been shown to have great potential as an effective water treatment system for community water supply. This study examines experiences in introducing SSF and MSF technologies in a number of countries and reviews key components of the "learning project approach" developed in Colombia. It seeks to answer three questions about the replication of these two technologies:*Was the introduction of SSF and MSF successful?Has an effective facilitation process emerged for the introduction of the technologies?Have the conditions been created to sustain the technologies?Based on the findings, it proposes an expansion of the learning project approach into a comprehensive new methodology for participatory technology development and replication to be known as: Facilitating of Learning, Application, Implementation and Reflection -FLAIR.Material for the study has come from the SSF project (1975-1986) and the TRANSCOL project between 1989 and 1996. It has been supplemented by revisiting several MSF systems in Colombia in 2005, nine years after the TRANSCOL project ended. The authors' involvement in these projects started in 1982.The study presents salient aspects of the SSF and MSF technology including a number of innovations that have been developed over time in the two projects and in a related research project. It shows that results with SSF have been moderately positive, wherever a good quality water source was available. MSF treatment has similar implementation characteristics to SSF but is able to treat water of much poorer quality, and the results were better. The study shows that MSF can perform very well and is well suited to community water supp!y treatment, provided that the contextual situation is supportive.The author reconstructs the initial conceptual framework of the SSF project and describes different transfer channels that were used. He stresses the potential of the concept of using project management committees in each country, and draws lessons from the fact that results did not live up to expectation. The SSF project was moderately successful in only three of the six project countries. He argues that the thinking underlying the project was in line with the conventional technology transfer paradigm of that era. Based on a detailed review of the project, the findings support the criticism of this model -confirming that technology transfer is not a unilateral process, but much more complex. The project did not treat the SSF technology at this level of complexity. SSF truly is a complex system and its successful functioning involves interactions between the biological processes and the human operators.A change in thinking came about at the end of the SSF project and became the basis for the TRANSCOL project, the second case study presented. An essential change was that the project team was much more convinced that it was necessary to move towards a dialogue approach, to understand better the different perceptions those involved may have about the attributes of the technology and the problems at hand. A learning approach was adopted with a constructivist perspective, recognising that different 'world views' exist.The detailed analysis of this project shows that results are more promising, particularly where a supportive framework exists, which primarily seems to be the case in better-off communities with better access to resources and to advisory support. This analysis also shows that the TRANSCOL project has the characteristics of a learning alliance - a series of nested platforms at different institutional levels (national, district, community, etc.) created with the aim of bringing together a range of stakeholders interested in innovation. This learning alliance provided opportunities for social learning on multiple scales.The author concludes that the chain-linked mode! better matches the approach to the development and promotion of MSF in TRANSCOL than the conventional technology transfer model, but that much better understanding is obtained when using an Actor Network Theory (ANT) perspective. The MSF systems have the characteristics of what are called boundary objects, abstract or concrete objects which 'inhabit' several intersecting social worlds and can provide a common point of reference. ANT helps to enhance understanding of the interaction between the human actors, the water supply system and the environment. A positive finding is that scaling-out (i.e. the wider application of a locally successful innovation) of MSF technology has occurred in Colombia and that activities are also now being initiated by the TRANSCOL coordinating agency, CINARA, in other countries. Yet the necessary scaling-up (i.e. replacement of the existing organizational and institutional framework in which the technology is embedded) to sustain the MSF systems has not yet taken place.Water supply sector staff still has a hardware bias, whereas the sector needs a soft-systems approach, because a multitude of perceptions about problems and potential solutions exist among the different stakeholders. Sector staff and communities need to be able to understand not just the " hardware", but also: the "software", which deals with the interrelation between the technology, the water supply system, the operators, the users and possibly other stakeholders; the "orgware", the organizational base and rules and regulations involved; and the "ecoware", the relationship between the technology, the ecology and the environment.The author concludes the study by proposing a FLAIR-based approach, adapting the concept of learning projects developed in TRANSCOL, to create appreciation of the needs and desires of stakeholders and help them to gain insight into problems and to participate in solutions. Process facilitation, using participatory tools, is the corner stone for every water project and for innovation in the sector. This requires that sector staff come to grips with key concepts such as, soft-system thinking, sustainable and equitable financing, efficient water use, and water quality, and either learn about process facilitation or involve process facilitators. In addition, a FLAlR-based approach sets out to introduce new concepts or to enhance sector performance in a broader sense. This converts some mainstream projects into 'parallel learning projects'. These become theatres of innovation -learning spaces in which key actors can experiment and learn about new approaches, strategies and technologies and subsequently feed this learning back to mainstream implementation. The essence is to involve the stakeholders, particularly including the political and management levels, in meaningful discourse about problems and solutions and about scaling-out and scaling-up of innovations that contribute to solving 'their' problem, taking their 'stakes' into account.The FLAiR-based approach and the overall findings of this study present an important challenge for all sector actors, and especially for governments and universities to stimulate the required change in thinking about the need for an ecologically sound and sustainable water supply service in which water quality and the social process are taken seriously. It also opens the possibility for communities to help fellow communities, thus creating the leverage needed to tru!y enhance sector performance

Compartir l'esforç per millorar els serveis d'aigua i sanejament

La gestión comunitaria de los sistemas de suministro de agua será el enfoque primordial para conseguir los principales Objetivos de Desarrollo del Milenio en las zonas rurales. Discutimos tres aspectos específicos: el concepto de gestión comunitaria, los distintos papeles que pueden jugar los principales actores implicados en el desarrollo y la implementación de los servicios de agua y saneamiento; y la crucial necesidad de proveer capacitación utilizando técnicas participativas, de las cuales se describen algunas, apuntando a una toma de decisiones informada. Señalamos también que capacitar y estimular a los miembros de la comunidad es importante, pero aun lo es más, capacitar a los actores del nivel intermedio (gobierno local, ONG, sector privado, etc.) que son quienes respaldan y facilitan la implementación del proceso inicialmente, y luego el apoyo para asegurar la sostenibilidad del servicio proporcionado.La gestió comunitària dels sistemes de subministrament d'aigua serà l'enfocament primordial per a aconseguir els principals Objectius de Desenvolupament del Mil·lenni a les zones rurals. Discutim tres aspectes específics: el concepte de gestió comunitària, els distints papers que poden jugar els principals actors implicats en el desenvolupament i la implementació dels serveis d'aigua i sanejament; i la crucial necessitat de proveir capacitació utilitzant tècniques participatives, de les quals es descriuen algunes, apuntant a una presa de decisions informada. Assenyalem també que capacitar i estimular els membres de la comunitat és important, però fins i tot ho és més, capacitar als actors del nivell intermedi (govern local, ONG, sector privat, etc.) que són els qui donen suport i faciliten la implementació del procés inicialment, i després el suport per a assegurar la sostenibilitat del servei proporcionat.Peer Reviewe