Wasted treasure in the trash: evaluating the diversion and reduction systems of food waste in an institutional setting based on environmental, economic and social implications

Food waste is a pervasive issue plaguing our modern society that demands immediate worldwide attention. With increasing awareness, organizations and community members are slowly beginning to create change. Municipalities and institutions all over the world are developing a variety of financial incentives and mechanisms, as well as creating new policy, to also find ways to combat the problem. This study examines the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) and its institutional efforts to reduce and divert food waste from the landfill. Data was gathered via in-depth interviews with numerous university departments, dining hall management and staff, students and outside organizations. Based on quantitative information gathered from the interviews, cost-benefit analyses of each of the reduction and diversion systems currently utilized at UIUC are highlighted. Through a separate research assistantship over the course of graduate study, comprehensive waste audits with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Research and Development Center (ERDC) were conducted at military installations. These waste audits have led to several more projects, emphasizing alternative technologies, specifically regarding waste-to-energy conversion. Comparative efforts at other universities along with waste audits conducted through the assistantship were considered, as well as successes from international case studies. During the course of this study, methods for effectively reducing and diverting food waste have been found. Further analyses of the benefits of waste-to-energy technologies, why attempts have not yet been successful at UIUC, and what this outcome means moving forward are also discussed. Overall, a combined, collaborative approach leads to a more advantageous environmental, economic and social outcome for everyone

The incidence of malaria in travellers to South-East Asia: is local malaria transmission a useful risk indicator?

BACKGROUND: The presence of ongoing local malaria transmission, identified though local surveillance and reported to regional WHO offices, by S-E Asian countries, forms the basis of national and international chemoprophylaxis recommendations in western countries. The study was designed to examine whether the strategy of using malaria transmission in a local population was an accurate estimate of the malaria threat faced by travellers and a correlate of malaria in returning travellers. METHODS: Malaria endemicity was described from distribution and intensity in the local populations of ten S-E Asian destination countries over the period 2003-2008 from regionally reported cases to WHO offices. Travel acquired malaria was collated from malaria surveillance reports from the USA and 12 European countries over the same period. The numbers of travellers visiting the destination countries was based on immigration and tourism statistics collected on entry of tourists to the destination countries. RESULTS: In the destination countries, mean malaria rates in endemic countries ranged between 0.01 in Korea to 4:1000 population per year in Lao PDR, with higher regional rates in a number of countries. Malaria cases imported into the 13 countries declined by 47% from 140 cases in 2003 to 66 in 2008. A total of 608 cases (27.3% Plasmodium falciparum (Pf)) were reported over the six years, the largest number acquired in Indonesia, Thailand and Korea. Four countries had an incidence > 1 case per 100,000 traveller visits; Burma (Myanmar), Indonesia, Cambodia and Laos (range 1 to 11.8-case per 100,000 visits). The remaining six countries rates were 1 case per 100,000 visits to consider targeted malaria prophylaxis recommendations to minimize use of chemoprophylaxis for low risk exposure during visits to S-E Asia. Policy needs to be adjusted regularly to reflect the changing risk

The incidence of malaria in travellers to South-East Asia: is local malaria transmission a useful risk indicator?

Peer reviewe

The low and declining risk of malaria in travellers to Latin America: is there still an indication for chemoprophylaxis?

A comparison was made between local malaria transmission and malaria imported by travellers to identify the utility of national and regional annual parasite index (API) in predicting malaria risk and its value in generating recommendations on malaria prophylaxis for travellers

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Les collaborations du Cati Sicpa au sein de l'INRA

La volonté des Départements Génétique Animale (GA) et Physiologie Animale et Systèmes d’Élevage (Phase) de mutualiser les moyens humains de développements informatiques dédiés au phénotypage animal et de mettre en place des systèmes d’informations (SI) communs pour les Unités et Installations Expérimentales (UE/IE) des deux Départements s’est concrétisée par la création du Cati Systèmes d’Informations et Calcul pour le Phénotypage Animal (Sicpa). Cette collaboration des informaticiens de deux Départements autour de projets communs s’est progressivement et tout naturellement ouverte sur l’idée d’échanger et de collaborer avec d’autres collectifs de l’Institut sur des projets de développement et des aspects méthodologiques ou dans l’idée de réunir les conditions nécessaires à la mise en oeuvre des outils de phénotypage sur le terrain. Nous avons choisi d’illustrer ces collaborations au travers de quelques exemples