A Wake-Up Call: Lessons from Ebola for the World's Health Systems

The report ranks the world's poorest countries on the state of their public health systems, finding that 28 have weaker defenses in place than Sierra Leone where, alongside Liberia and Guinea, the current Ebola crisis has already claimed more than 9,500 lives. The report also advises that prevention is better than cure, finding that the international Ebola relief effort in West Africa has cost $4.3bn, whereas strengthening the health systems of those countries in the first place would have cost just$1.58bn. Ahead of an Ebola summit attended by world leaders in Brussels today, the charity warns that alongside immediate much needed support to Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, lessons need to be learned and applied to other vulnerable countries around the world

The 2015 al-Shabaab\u27s attack in Garissa, Kenya. An immersion into the structural, socio-political and psychological roots of violence

The paper studies the attack conducted by the Somali insurgent group al-Shabaab in Garissa, north of Kenya, on April 2, 2015. In contrast to judgmental and narrow- minded media explanations which tended to dominate the debate after the attack, the present paper uses conflict theories in order to investigate the deep roots of violence. It questions how a group such as al-Shabaab has been able to emerge, to find support and to become a major actor in the Horn of Africa, and to some extent internationally. It draws on Basic Human Needs, Collective Psychology and Structural and Cultural Violence theories to demonstrate that the attack in Garissa is the manifestation of decades of structural, cultural and direct violence between communities, as well as between colonial and post-colonial governments in Kenya and Somalia. Understanding the deep causes of violence and its endorsement by a part of the population is a first step to transform the conflict. Studying the relationships between the different actors is important in order to understand the cycle of violence, and to think of ways to defuse it and to heal decades-long wounds

The Sustainable Globalization Index: historical divergence and future convergence to sustainable globalization

In this Kühne Impact Series we provide a historical perspective on globalizationʼs contribution to climate change, and the historical role of trade in bringing us closer to (or further away from) a sustainable world. We introduce the Sustainable Globalization Index (SGI) that tracks the worldʼs progress towards a Sustainable Globalization scenario. The SGI reveals that globalization has historically diverged from a sustainable pattern of trade until the Great Recession, but is now on a converging trend. The comparison in the recent period suggests that the (green) future of trade and logistics involves more trade from and to the economic North, more intraregional trade, and a shift of trade flows in favor of energy and raw materials and away from agricultural goods

The distributional effects of carbon pricing: a global view of common but differentiated responsibilities

In this Kühne Impact Series, we focus on the distributional effects of climate action. We simulate the distributional effects of a global carbon tax – the optimal economic policy tool in the fight against climate change – with or without international redistribution schemes. Our main result is that the economic costs of climate action are disproportionately borne by poor countries, but that realistic cross-country transfers could remedy this inequality. For example, annual North-South transfers of an average $200 per person would suffice to equalize the economic costs of climate action

Guidelines for Reporting Medical Research:A Critical Appraisal

As a response to a low quality of reporting of medical research, guidelines for several different types of study design have been developed to secure accurate reporting and transparency for reviewers and readers from the scientific community. Herein, we review and discuss the six most widely accepted and used guidelines: PRISMA, CONSORT, STROBE, MOOSE, STARD, and SPIRIT. It is concluded that the implementation of these guidelines has led to only a moderate improvement in the quality of the reporting of medical research. There is still much work to be done to achieve accurate and transparent reporting of medical research findings

The impact of reduction in the benzene limit value in gasoline on airborne benzene, toluene and xylenes levels

Background benzene, toluene, xylenes (BTX) average concentrations have been measured over the urban agglomeration of Toulouse, France, during both springtime and summer periods of 1999 and 2001. The benzene average amount over the two Toulouse campaigns in 1999 is equal to 2.2 Ag/m³, very close to the French air quality standard and well under the average value of 5 Ag/m³ recommended by European Economic Community countries, recognising that those regulations are given for a whole year. BTX pollution over Toulouse has, in particular, been produced by motor vehicle exhaust gases. For the study conducted during the same periods of 2001, benzene concentrations were within the French quality value in the whole area. This is because the benzene limit value contained in gasoline went from 5% to 1% since 2000 January 1. It will be important to measure benzene over annual periods in order to know its exact values over such a period and to observe its potential seasonal variations

Impact of the treatment conditions of a formic/acetic acid delignification method on chemical structure and antioxidant activity of beech wood lignin

The interest in lignocellulosic substrates is increasing because they are clearly identified for their high potential of development in energy and value-added molecules production. Indeed lignocellulosic biomass constitutes a promising resource for a sustainable production of organic compounds and biobased products that could progressively replace molecules from the petrochemical industry. Until now lignocellulosic substrates were mainly used for the valorization of cellulose. Hemicelluloses and lignins were less valorized and often degraded after the process. However, due to their phenolic structure, lignins can be valorized in a lot of high-valued applications like vanillin production, replacement of petrochemical polymers, antioxidants for cosmetics and food industry, resins… In this study, a representative sample of beech wood (Fagus sylvatica L.) was collected in the region of Gaume in Belgium. Beech wood was delignified at atmospheric pressure by an organosolv process using a mixture of formic acid/acetic acid/water. The effect of cooking time and temperature was evaluated on the structure, physico-chemical properties and antioxidant activity of the lignins obtained from the black liquor after treatments. The structural and physico-chemical characteristics of the lignins were investigated with different tools like infrared spectrometry, thermogravimetric analysis, gel permeation chromatography after acetylation of lignins, NMR 1H, 13C and HSQC. The antioxidant activity was assessed by a spectrophotometric method using the α,α-diphenyl-β-picrylhydrazyl radical (DPPH)

Methods and Systems for Controlling and Determining Size and Quality of Weld Nuggets

Described herein are systems and techniques for joining two or more aluminum alloy products by spot welding and for non-destructively determining the size and quality of a weld nugget created during joining of two or more aluminum alloy products. The systems and techniques described herein may evaluate and/or monitor the welding discharge, which may correspond to a flow of electricity (i.e., electric current) between electrodes and the products to be joined, to determine and/or control a total amount of energy applied for generation of a spot welded joint. For example, the amount of current applied and the voltage at which the current is applied may be used to determine the instantaneous power applied and may, when monitored as a function of time, be used to determine the total energy applied during generation of a spot weld

170 GBit/s transmission in an erbium-doped waveguide amplifier on silicon

Signal transmission experiments were performed at 170 Gbit/s in an integrated $Al_2O_3:Er^{3+}$ waveguide amplifier to investigate its potential application in high-speed photonic integrated circuits. Net internal gain of up to 11 dB was measured for a continuous-wave 1532 nm signal under 1480 nm pumping, with a threshold pump power of 4 mW. A differential group delay of 2 ps between the TE and TM fundamental modes of the 5.7-cm-long amplifier was measured. When selecting a single polarization open eye diagrams and bit error rates equal to those of the transmission system without the amplifier were observed for a 1550 nm signal encoded with a 170 Gbit/s return-to-zero pseudo-random $2^{7}-1$ bit sequence

SOA - NOLM in Reflective Configuration for Optical Regeneration in High Bit Rate Transmission Systems

This paper presents a theoretical and experimental investigation of optical signal regeneration properties of a non-linear optical loop mirror using a semiconductor optical amplifier as the active element (SOA-NOLM). While this device has been extensively studied for optical time division demultiplexing (OTDM) and wavelength conversion applications, our proposed approach, based on a reflective configuration, has not yet been investigated, particularly in the light of signal regeneration. The impact on the transfer function shape of different parameters, like SOA position in the interferometer and SOA input optical powers, are numerically studied to appreciate the regenerative capabilities of the device.Regenerative performances in association with a dual stage of SOA to create a 3R regenerator which preserves the data polarity and the wavelength are experimentally assessed. Thanks to this complete regenerative function, a 100.000 km error free transmission has experimentally been achieved at 10 Gb/s in a recirculating loop. The evolution of Bit Error Rate for multiple pass into the regenerator and the polarization insensitivity demonstration to input data are presented