Hurricane Matthew in 2100: effects of extreme sea level rise scenarios on a highly valued coastal area (Palm Beach, FL, USA)

Sea-level rise represents a severe hazard for populations living within low-elevation coastal zones and is already largely affecting coastal communities worldwide. As sea level continues to rise following unabated greenhouse gas emissions, the exposure of coastal communities to inundation and erosion will increase exponentially. These impacts will be further magnified under extreme storm conditions. In this paper, we focus on one of the most valuable coastal real estate markets globally (Palm Beach, FL). We use XBeach, an open-source hydro and morphodynamic model, to assess the impact of a major tropical cyclone (Hurricane Matthew, 2016) under three different sea-level scenarios. The first scenario (modern sea level) serves as a baseline against which other model runs are evaluated. The other two runs use different 2100 sea-level projections, localized to the study site: (i) IPCC RCP 8.5 (0.83 m by 2100) and (ii) same as (i), but including enhanced Antarctic ice loss (1.62 m by 2100). Our results show that the effective doubling of future sea level under heightened Antarctic ice loss amplifies flow velocity and wave height, leading to a 46% increase in eroded beach volume and the overtopping of coastal protection structures. This further exacerbates the vulnerability of coastal properties on the island, leading to significant increases in parcel inundation

The discursive construction of childhood and youth in AIDS interventions in Lesotho's education sector: Beyond global-local dichotomies

This is the post-print version of this article. The definitive, peer-reviewed and edited version of this article is published in Environment and Planning D,Society and Space 28(5) 791 – 810, 2010, available from the link below. Copyright @ 2010 Pion.In southern Africa interventions to halt the spread of AIDS and address its social impacts are commonly targeted at young people, in many cases through the education sector. In Lesotho, education-sector responses to AIDS are the product of negotiation between a range of ‘local’ and ‘global’ actors. Although many interventions are put forward as government policy and implemented by teachers in schools, funding is often provided by bilateral and multilateral donors, and the international ‘AIDS industry’—in the form of UN agencies and international NGOs—sets agendas and makes prescriptions. This paper analyses interviews conducted with policy makers and practitioners in Lesotho and a variety of documents, critically examining the discourses of childhood and youth that are mobilised in producing changes in education policy and practice to address AIDS. Focusing on bursary schemes, life-skills education, and rights-based approaches, the paper concludes that, although dominant ‘global’ discourses are readily identified, they are not simply imported wholesale from the West, but rather are transformed through the organisations and personnel involved in designing and implementing interventions. Nonetheless, the connections through which these discourses are made, and children are subjectified, are central to the power dynamics of neoliberal globalisation. Although the representations of childhood and youth produced through the interventions are hybrid products of local and global discourses, the power relations underlying them are such that they, often unintentionally, serve a neoliberal agenda by depicting young people as individuals in need of saving, of developing personal autonomy, or of exercising individual rights.RGS-IB

Voltage-gated Nav channel targeting in the heart requires an ankyrin-G–dependent cellular pathway

Voltage-gated Nav channels are required for normal electrical activity in neurons, skeletal muscle, and cardiomyocytes. In the heart, Nav1.5 is the predominant Nav channel, and Nav1.5-dependent activity regulates rapid upstroke of the cardiac action potential. Nav1.5 activity requires precise localization at specialized cardiomyocyte membrane domains. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying Nav channel trafficking in the heart are unknown. In this paper, we demonstrate that ankyrin-G is required for Nav1.5 targeting in the heart. Cardiomyocytes with reduced ankyrin-G display reduced Nav1.5 expression, abnormal Nav1.5 membrane targeting, and reduced Na+ channel current density. We define the structural requirements on ankyrin-G for Nav1.5 interactions and demonstrate that loss of Nav1.5 targeting is caused by the loss of direct Nav1.5–ankyrin-G interaction. These data are the first report of a cellular pathway required for Nav channel trafficking in the heart and suggest that ankyrin-G is critical for cardiac depolarization and Nav channel organization in multiple excitable tissues

From the Singular to the Plural: Exploring Diversities in Contemporary Childhoods in sub-Saharan Africa

The challenges that sub-Saharan Africa has faced in the post-colonial period have come to characterise the way the region is perceived. These narratives are especially evident in the various ways children’s lives are discussed, leading to a particular focus on childhoods in difficult circumstances or at the margins. This has eclipsed the mundanities of everyday life for many children whose lives are not characterised by ‘lacks’. This article seeks to move beyond an overwhelming focus on childhoods defined by what they lack by illustrating the multitude of childhoods which exist in the continent

Ethical and methodological issues in engaging young people living in poverty with participatory research methods

This paper discusses the methodological and ethical issues arising from a project that focused on conducting a qualitative study using participatory techniques with children and young people living in disadvantage. The main aim of the study was to explore the impact of poverty on children and young people's access to public and private services. The paper is based on the author's perspective of the first stage of the fieldwork from the project. It discusses the ethical implications of involving children and young people in the research process, in particular issues relating to access and recruitment, the role of young people's advisory groups, use of visual data and collection of data in young people's homes. The paper also identifies some strategies for addressing the difficulties encountered in relation to each of these aspects and it considers the benefits of adopting participatory methods when conducting research with children and young people

A compendium and functional characterization of mammalian genes involved in adaptation to Arctic or Antarctic environments

Many mammals are well adapted to surviving in extremely cold environments. These species have likely accumulated genetic changes that help them efficiently cope with low temperatures. It is not known whether the same genes related to cold adaptation in one species would be under selection in another species. The aims of this study therefore were: to create a compendium of mammalian genes related to adaptations to a low temperature environment; to identify genes related to cold tolerance that have been subjected to independent positive selection in several species; to determine promising candidate genes/pathways/organs for further empirical research on cold adaptation in mammals

<i>HLA</i> and autoantibodies define scleroderma subtypes and risk in African and European Americans and suggest a role for molecular mimicry

Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is a clinically heterogeneous autoimmune disease characterized by mutually exclusive autoantibodies directed against distinct nuclear antigens. We examined HLA associations in SSc and its autoantibody subsets in a large, newly recruited African American (AA) cohort and among European Americans (EA). In the AA population, the African ancestry-predominant HLA-DRB1*08:04 and HLA-DRB1*11:02 alleles were associated with overall SSc risk, and the HLA-DRB1*08:04 allele was strongly associated with the severe antifibrillarin (AFA) antibody subset of SSc (odds ratio = 7.4). These African ancestry-predominant alleles may help explain the increased frequency and severity of SSc among the AA population. In the EA population, the HLA-DPB1*13:01 and HLA-DRB1*07:01 alleles were more strongly associated with antitopoisomerase (ATA) and anticentromere antibody-positive subsets of SSc, respectively, than with overall SSc risk, emphasizing the importance of HLA in defining autoantibody subtypes. The association of the HLA-DPB1*13:01 allele with the ATA+ subset of SSc in both AA and EA patients demonstrated a transancestry effect. A direct correlation between SSc prevalence and HLA-DPB1*13:01 allele frequency in multiple populations was observed (r = 0.98, P = 3 × 10−6). Conditional analysis in the autoantibody subsets of SSc revealed several associated amino acid residues, mostly in the peptide-binding groove of the class II HLA molecules. Using HLA &#x3B1; / &#x3B2; allelic heterodimers, we bioinformatically predicted immunodominant peptides of topoisomerase 1, fibrillarin, and centromere protein A and discovered that they are homologous to viral protein sequences from the Mimiviridae and Phycodnaviridae families. Taken together, these data suggest a possible link between HLA alleles, autoantibodies, and environmental triggers in the pathogenesis of SSc

Computer-assisted detection of pulmonary embolism: evaluation of pulmonary CT angiograms performed in an on-call setting

Item does not contain fulltextPURPOSE: The purpose of the study was to assess the stand-alone performance of computer-assisted detection (CAD) for evaluation of pulmonary CT angiograms (CTPA) performed in an on-call setting. METHODS: In this institutional review board-approved study, we retrospectively included 292 consecutive CTPA performed during night shifts and weekends over a period of 16 months. Original reports were compared with a dedicated CAD system for pulmonary emboli (PE). A reference standard for the presence of PE was established using independent evaluation by two readers and consultation of a third experienced radiologist in discordant cases. RESULTS: Original reports had described 225 negative studies and 67 positive studies for PE. CAD found PE in seven patients originally reported as negative but identified by independent evaluation: emboli were located in segmental (n = 2) and subsegmental arteries (n = 5). The negative predictive value (NPV) of the CAD algorithm was 92% (44/48). On average there were 4.7 false positives (FP) per examination (median 2, range 0-42). In 72% of studies or=10 FP. CONCLUSION: CAD identified small emboli originally missed under clinical conditions and found 93% of the isolated subsegmental emboli. On average there were 4.7 FP per examination.1 april 201