The Benefits of Contaminated Site Cleanup Revisited: The Case of Naples and Caserta, Italy

Guerriero and Cairns (2009) recently estimate that contaminated sites and improper waste management result in 848 excess deaths per year in the provinces of Naples and Caserta in Southern Italy, 403 of which are fatal cancers. In the absence of estimates of the Value of a Prevented Fatality (VPF) in Italy or specific to the hazardous waste context, they use figures recommended by DG-Environment. Contrary to their claims, estimates of the VPF are available for Italy that are specific to the hazardous waste context, and for causes of death that have been linked to contaminated site exposures. We review them in this paper. We also produce new estimates of the cancer VPF using data from a recent survey conducted in Milan, Italy, in late November to mid-December 2008. The evidence points to much higher VPF figures than the ones used by Guerriero and Cairns, and hence to much larger estimates of the reduced mortality benefits of remediating the hazardous waste in the Naples and Caserta areas. We also examine the importance of the discount rates, since the mortality benefits of remediation begin in 20 years and are assumed to continue over 30 years.Value of a Prevented Fatality, Stated Preferences, Hazardous Waste Sites, Contaminated Sites, Cancer, Mortality Benefits, Cost-Benefit Analysis

The rise of the data poor: the COVID-19 pandemic seen from the margins

Quantification is central to the narration of the COVID-19 pandemic. Numbers determine the existence of the problem and affect our ability to care and contribute to relief efforts. Yet many communities at the margins, including many areas of the Global South, are virtually absent from this number-based narration of the pandemic. This essay builds on critical data studies to warn against the universalization of problems, narratives, and responses to the virus. To this end, it explores two types of data gaps and the corresponding “data poor.” The first gap concerns the data poverty perduring in low-income countries and jeopardizing their ability to adequately respond to the pandemic. The second affects vulnerable populations within a variety of geopolitical and socio-political contexts, whereby data poverty constitutes a dangerous form of invisibility which perpetuates various forms of inequality. But, even during the pandemic, the disempowered manage to create innovative forms of solidarity from below that partially mitigate the negative effects of their invisibility

March 10, 1933

The Breeze is the student newspaper of James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia

COVID-19 from the Margins: Narrating the COVID-19 Pandemic Through Decoloniality and Multilinguism

Born as a multilingual blog in May 2020, 'COVID-19 from the Margins' has offered a space for authors to voice the silenced narratives of the COVID-19 pandemic in any language chosen and representing multiple South(s) of the world (Milan & Treré, 2019). The blog became an open-access book in February 2021, and since then it has travelled across the globe to bring to light narratives of devoiced groups during COVID-19, generating debate on stories narrated by, amongst others, forced migrants, gig workers, ethnic minorities, people in economic poverty, and survivors of domestic violence. The project is divided into five sections - "Human Invisibilities and the Politics of Counting," "Perpetuated Vulnerabilities and Inequalities," "Datafied Social Policies," "Technological Reconfigurations in the Datafied Pandemic," and "Pandemic Solidarities and Resistance from Below" - which together contribute to the decolonial, multilingual project of narrating the COVID-19 pandemic through the voices of the systematically silenced. In this short paper, we reflect on the 'COVID-19 from the Margins' experience and on its meaning towards a decolonial, multilingual narration of the COVID-19 pandemic

Authoritarian practices in the digital age| 'Through a glass, darkly': Everyday acts of authoritarianism in the liberal West

Institutional practices undermining citizen agency and infringing on individual freedoms are typically associated with authoritarian countries. However, they are also proliferating in Western democracies. This article redefines data-based surveillance as a “Western” authoritarian and illiberal practice in the digital realm, resulting from state–industry collaboration and alienated from accountability mechanisms. Straddling critical data studies and surveillance studies, the article explores these dynamics of surveillance in the West by focusing on two dimensions: the institutionalization of governmental practices in law and the societal normalization of surveillance in popular cultural practices. It thus investigates the renegotiation of the boundaries of state power along two axes—top down and bottom up. It connects the notions of “authoritarian and illiberal practices” and “surveillance cultures,” asking how the former are produced, negotiated, and legitimized and reviewing their consequences for citizens and civil society. Based on empirical data from two projects exploring the interplay between citizenship and surveillance, the article argues that acts of authoritarianism in the West are institutionalized at the intersection of top-down governmental practices and bottom-up popular reactions

Big Data a Partir do Sul/ dos Suis: : uma matriz analítica para investigar dados nas margens

A dataficação – por meio do qual vários aspectos da vida social são transformados em dados - é normalmente analisada de acordo a uma utilização mais eficiente dos recursos e desenvolvimento do estado/relações entre cidadãos. Mas isso pode ter conseqüências negativas para aqueles à margem da sociedade, como refugiados, indivíduos racializados, trabalhadores informais e cidadãos de países com pouco respeito aos direitos humanos. Como podemos compreender as maneiras que os desempoderados são afetados e resistem à dataficação? Este ensaio apresenta uma matriz analítica para estudar os dados que estão às margens. A matriz identifica três componentes dos dados às margens: (1) infraestrutura, enfatizando a dimensão material; (2) práticas, apontando o agenciamento nos encontros das pessoas com a dataficação; e (3) imaginários, isto é, as facetas culturais e simbólicas dos dados às margens A matriz oferece também três lentes de interpretação através das quais é possível observar os componentes: (1) decolonalidade e raça, (2) interseccionalidade e feminismo, e (3) "pluriverso". Juntos, eles ajudam a questionar a dataficação e por que certos grupos sociais são oprimidos enquanto descobrem caminhos rumo a justiça e a igualdade

Glucocorticoid remediable aldosteronism: low morbidity and mortality in a four-generation italian pedigree.

Glucocorticoid remediable hyperaldosteronism (GRA) is a monogenic form of inherited hypertension caused by a chimeric gene originating from an unequal cross-over between the 11 beta-hydroxylase (CYP11B1) and aldosterone synthase (CYP11B2) genes. GRA is characterized by high plasma levels of aldosterone (regulated by ACTH) with suppressed plasma renin activity and the production of two rare steroids, 18hydroxycortisol and 18oxocortisol. Affected patients usually show severe hypertension and an elevated frequency of stroke at a young age. Affected women have a high risk of developing preeclampsia during pregnancy. Here, we describe a 5-generation pedigree from Sardinia in which the presence of the chimeric gene is demonstrated in 4 generations. This family displays a mild phenotype with average blood pressure levels of 131/86 mm Hg for GRA+ patients. The occurrence of stroke is very low, and preeclampsia was not observed in 29 pregnancies from 8 GRA+ mothers. We investigated whether the cross-over site (between the CYP11B1 and CYP11B2 genes) or biochemical characteristics could explain this phenotype. The cross-over site was located at the end of intron 3, in the same region as described in other families. We found a significant correlation between blood pressure and 18hydroxycortisol, 18oxocortisol, and plasma aldosterone levels, but not with kallikrein. However, none of the biochemical or genetic parameters investigated could explain the mild phenotype of the family

MRNA-Seq and microarray development for the Grooved carpet shell clam, Ruditapes decussatus:A functional approach to unravel host -parasite interaction

Abstract Background The Grooved Carpet shell clam Ruditapes decussatus is the autochthonous European clam and the most appreciated from a gastronomic and economic point of view. The production is in decline due to several factors such as Perkinsiosis and habitat invasion and competition by the introduced exotic species, the manila clam Ruditapes philippinarum. After we sequenced R. decussatus transcriptome we have designed an oligo microarray capable of contributing to provide some clues on molecular response of the clam to Perkinsiosis. Results A database consisting of 41,119 unique transcripts was constructed, of which 12,479 (30.3%) were annotated by similarity. An oligo-DNA microarray platform was then designed and applied to profile gene expression in R. decussatus heavily infected by Perkinsus olseni. Functional annotation of differentially expressed genes between those two conditionswas performed by gene set enrichment analysis. As expected, microarrays unveil genes related with stress/infectious agents such as hydrolases, proteases and others. The extensive role of innate immune system was also analyzed and effect of parasitosis upon expression of important molecules such as lectins reviewed. Conclusions This study represents a first attempt to characterize Ruditapes decussatus transcriptome, an important marine resource for the European aquaculture. The trancriptome sequencing and consequent annotation will increase the available tools and resources for this specie, introducing the possibility of high throughput experiments such as microarrays analysis. In this specific case microarray approach was used to unveil some important aspects of host-parasite interaction between the Carpet shell clam and Perkinsus, two non-model species, highlighting some genes associated with this interaction. Ample information was obtained to identify biological processes significantly enriched among differentially expressed genes in Perkinsus infected versus non-infected gills. An overview on the genes related with the immune system on R. decussatus transcriptome is also reported.Peer Reviewe