E-voting for Swiss abroad: A joint project between the Confederation and the Cantons

The ever-increasing number of expatriates has fed the political debate on the voting rights of Swiss abroad over the last two decades. More than the right to vote itself, the effective exercise of voting rights has become a much-discussed issue. Swiss expatriates are able to vote at the federal level, which means they are invited to vote in popular votes and referendums up to four times a year and in elections every four years. They vote mainly by post and are faced with delays inherent to this method of voting and are sometimes disenfranchised as a result. Internet voting considerably accelerates the return of the ballot. Its introduction has been one of the main demands of Swiss living abroad. In parallel, the federal and cantonal authorities have planned to gradually and pragmatically adapt direct democracy instruments and voting methods to the digital environment in a prudent and long-term process. Internet voting was launched at the beginning of the 21st century and is one of the key projects of the Confederation’s e-government strategy. Three Internet voting systems have been developed so far by the cantons of Zurich, Neuchâtel, and Geneva. Internet voting was first offered to Swiss expats in June 2008. For the latest federal elections on February 13, 2011, some 55,000 Swiss abroad had the possibility to vote via Internet; on the federal elections on October 23, 2011, some 22,000 Swiss abroad registered in four cantons took part in the very first Internet voting trial during a federal election. Half of Swiss cantons have now introduced Internet voting, mainly for citizens abroad. While it is too early to draw conclusions on whether Internet voting fosters participation of expatriates in Swiss political life, recent experience clearly shows that Internet voting is well accepted. The success of the Swiss model of the introduction of e- voting can be explained with the following elements: joint strategic planning (the roadmap), a good inter-cantonal cooperation with hosting solutions, and a gradual expansion, which puts security at the center of efforts

Ancient and Recent Adaptive Evolution of Primate Non-Homologous End Joining Genes

In human cells, DNA double-strand breaks are repaired primarily by the non-homologous end joining (NHEJ) pathway. Given their critical nature, we expected NHEJ proteins to be evolutionarily conserved, with relatively little sequence change over time. Here, we report that while critical domains of these proteins are conserved as expected, the sequence of NHEJ proteins has also been shaped by recurrent positive selection, leading to rapid sequence evolution in other protein domains. In order to characterize the molecular evolution of the human NHEJ pathway, we generated large simian primate sequence datasets for NHEJ genes. Codon-based models of gene evolution yielded statistical support for the recurrent positive selection of five NHEJ genes during primate evolution: XRCC4, NBS1, Artemis, POLλ, and CtIP. Analysis of human polymorphism data using the composite of multiple signals (CMS) test revealed that XRCC4 has also been subjected to positive selection in modern humans. Crystal structures are available for XRCC4, Nbs1, and Polλ; and residues under positive selection fall exclusively on the surfaces of these proteins. Despite the positive selection of such residues, biochemical experiments with variants of one positively selected site in Nbs1 confirm that functions necessary for DNA repair and checkpoint signaling have been conserved. However, many viruses interact with the proteins of the NHEJ pathway as part of their infectious lifecycle. We propose that an ongoing evolutionary arms race between viruses and NHEJ genes may be driving the surprisingly rapid evolution of these critical genes

Meta-analysis identifies seven susceptibility loci involved in the atopic March

Eczema often precedes the development of asthma in a disease course called the a 'atopic march'. To unravel the genes underlying this characteristic pattern of allergic disease, we conduct a multi-stage genome-wide association study on infantile eczema followed by childhood asthma in 12 populations including 2,428 cases and 17,034 controls. Here we report two novel loci specific for the combined eczema plus asthma phenotype, which are associated with allergic disease for the first time; rs9357733 located in EFHC1 on chromosome 6p12.3 (OR 1.27; P=2.1 × 10 a'8) and rs993226 between TMTC2 and SLC6A15 on chromosome 12q21.3 (OR 1.58; P=5.3 × 10 a'9). Additional susceptibility loci identified