Concept and Implementation of Pes Program in the Cidanau Watershed: a Lesson Learned for Future Environmental Policy

Objective of the paper is to depict the concept of PES (Payment for Environmental Services) and its implementation in the Cidanau Watershed. This paper is a success story of PES implementation starting from the early adoption of the concept. The study shows that PES has impressed by many institutions, which was then initiated by PT KTI (Krakatau Tirta Industri) as a pilot project of the concept implementation. The main practice of PES implementation activities was promoting conservation farming, including transfer of conservation technology and trees growing. The conservation farming showed good development, which was characterized by more trees planted, more conservation technology applied, and more optimistic expectation for income increase. Moreover, PES Program will not only attract the farmers who participated in the program, but also other farmers who were not included in it. With such promising performance, PES Program can potentially be adopted by farmers and provide solution to various problems encountered in the Cidanau Watershed

Effects of the neurogranin variant rs12807809 on thalamocortical morphology in schizophrenia

10.1371/journal.pone.0085603PLoS ONE812-POLN

Arcuate Fasciculus Abnormalities and Their Relationship with Psychotic Symptoms in Schizophrenia

Disruption of fronto-temporal connections involving the arcuate fasciculus (AF) may underlie language processing anomalies and psychotic features such as auditory hallucinations in schizophrenia. No study to date has specifically investigated abnormalities of white matter integrity at particular loci along the AF as well as its regional lateralization in schizophrenia. We examined white matter changes (fractional anisotropy (FA), axial diffusivity (AD), asymmetry indices) along the whole extent of the AF and their relationship with psychotic symptoms in 32 males with schizophrenia and 44 healthy males. Large deformation diffeomorphic metric mapping and Fiber Assignment Continuous Tracking were employed to characterize FA and AD along the geometric curve of the AF. Our results showed that patients with schizophrenia had lower FA in the frontal aspects of the left AF compared with healthy controls. Greater left FA and AD lateralization in the temporal segment of AF were associated with more severe positive psychotic symptoms such as delusions and hallucinations in patients with schizophrenia. Disruption of white matter integrity of the left frontal AF and accentuation of normal left greater than right asymmetry of FA/AD in the temporal AF further support the notion of aberrant fronto-temporal connectivity in schizophrenia. AF pathology can affect corollary discharge of neural signals from frontal speech/motor initiation areas to suppress activity of auditory cortex that may influence psychotic phenomena such as auditory hallucinations and facilitate elaboration of delusional content

Progression from selective to general involvement of hippocampal subfields in schizophrenia

Volume deficits of the hippocampus in schizophrenia have been consistently reported. However, the hippocampus is anatomically heterogeneous; it remains unclear whether certain portions of the hippocampus are affected more than others in schizophrenia. In this study, we aimed to determine whether volume deficits in schizophrenia are confined to specific subfields of the hippocampus and to measure the subfield volume trajectories over the course of the illness. MRI scans were obtained from Dataset 1: 155 patients with schizophrenia (mean duration of illness of 7 years) and 79 healthy controls, and Dataset 2: an independent cohort of 46 schizophrenia patients (mean duration of illness of 18 years) and 46 healthy controls. In addition, follow-up scans were collected for a subset of Dataset 1. A novel, automated method based on an atlas constructed from ultra-high resolution, post-mortem hippocampal tissue was used to label 7 hippocampal subfields. Significant cross-sectional volume deficits in the CA1, but not of the other subfields, were found in the schizophrenia patients of Dataset 1. However, diffuse cross-sectional volume deficits across all subfields were found in the more chronic and ill schizophrenia patients of Dataset 2. Consistent with this pattern, the longitudinal analysis of Dataset 1 revealed progressive illness-related volume loss (~ 2 to 6% per year) that extended beyond CA1 to all of the other subfields. This decline in volume correlated with symptomatic worsening. Overall, these findings provide converging evidence for early atrophy of CA1 in schizophrenia, with extension to other hippocampal subfields and accompanying clinical sequelae over time

Interleukin-33 in health and disease

Interleukin-33 (IL-33) — a member of the IL-1 family — was originally described as an inducer of type 2 immune responses, activating T helper 2 (TH2) cells and mast cells. Now, evidence is accumulating that IL-33 also potently stimulates group 2 innate lymphoid cells (ILC2s), regulatory T (Treg) cells, TH1 cells, CD8+ T cells and natural killer (NK) cells. This pleiotropic nature is reflected in the role of IL-33 in tissue and metabolic homeostasis, infection, inflammation, cancer and diseases of the central nervous system. In this Review, we highlight the molecular and cellular characteristics of IL-33, together with its major role in health and disease and the potential therapeutic implications of these findings in humans