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With trust in top-down government faltering, community-based groups around the world are displaying an ever-greater appetite to take control of their own lives and neighbourhoods. Government, for its part, is keen to embrace the projects and the planning undertaken at this level, attempting to regularise it and use it as a means of reconnecting to citizens and localising democracy. This unique book analyses the contexts, drivers and outcomes of community action and planning in a selection of case studies in the global north: from emergent neighbourhood planning in England to the community-based housing movement in New York, and from active citizenship in the Dutch new towns to associative action in Marseille. It will be a valuable resource for academic researchers and for postgraduate students on social policy, planning and community development courses

The many different localities of the Pacific region have a long history of transformation, under both pre- and post-colonial conditions. More recently, rates of local transformation have increased tremendously under post-colonial regimes. The forces of globalization, which rapidly distribute commodities, images, and political and moral concepts across the region, have presented Pacific populations with an unprecedented need and opportunity to fashion new and expanded understandings of their cultural and individual identities. This volume, the first in a new series, examines the forces of globalization at different levels, as they manifest themselves and operate across cultural, cognitive and biographical dimensions of human life in the Pacific. While posing familiar questions, it offers new answers through the integration of cultural and psychological methods. The contributors draw on practice theory, cognitive science and the anthropology of space and place while exploring the key analytical rubrics of human agency, memory and landscape

We present a condensed description and analysis of the joint submission of ABC team for NIST SRE 2019, by BUT, CRIM, Phonexia, Omilia and UAM. We concentrate on challenges that arose during development and we analyze the results obtained on the evaluation data and on our development sets. The conversational telephone speech (CMN2) condition is challenging for current state-of-the-art systems, mainly due to the language mismatch between training and test data. We show that a combination of adversarial domain adaptation, backend adaptation and score normalization can mitigate this mismatch. On the VAST condition, we demonstrate the importance of deploying diarization when dealing with multi-speaker utterances and the drastic improvements that can be obtained by combining audio and visual modalities ; BUT researchers were supported by Czech Ministry of Interior projects Nos. VI20152020025 "DRAPAK" and VI20192022169 "AI v TiV", Czech National Science Foundation (GACR) project "NEUREM3" No. 19-26934X, European Union's Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 843627, European Union's Horizon 2020 grant agreement no. 833635 "ROXANNE" and by Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports from the National Programme of Sustainability (NPU II) project "IT4Innovations excellence in science" - LQ1602. CRIM researchers wish to acknowledge funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) through grant RGPIN-2019-05381 and Ministry of Economy and Innovation (MEI) of the Government of Quebec for the continued support

Background & Aims: Serum microRNA (miRNA) levels are known to change in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and may serve as useful biomarkers. This study aimed to profile miRNAs comprehensively at all NAFLD stages. Methods: We profiled 2,083 serum miRNAs in a discovery cohort (183 cases with NAFLD representing the complete NAFLD spectrum and 10 population controls). miRNA libraries generated by HTG EdgeSeq were sequenced by Illumina NextSeq. Selected serum miRNAs were profiled in 372 additional cases with NAFLD and 15 population controls by quantitative reverse transcriptase PCR. Results: Levels of 275 miRNAs differed between cases and population controls. Fewer differences were seen within individual NAFLD stages, but miR-193a-5p consistently showed increased levels in all comparisons. Relative to NAFL/non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) with mild fibrosis (stage 0/1), 3 miRNAs (miR-193a-5p, miR-378d, and miR378d) were increased in cases with NASH and clinically significant fibrosis (stages 2-4), 7 (miR193a-5p, miR-378d, miR-378e, miR-320b, miR-320c, miR-320d, and miR-320e) increased in cases with NAFLD activity score (NAS) 5-8 compared with lower NAS, and 3 (miR-193a-5p, miR-378d, and miR-378e) increased but 1 (miR-19b-3p) decreased in steatosis, activity, and fibrosis (SAF) activity score 2-4 compared with lower SAF activity. The significant findings for miR-193a-5p were replicated in the additional cohort with NAFLD. Studies in Hep G2 cells showed that following palmitic acid treatment, miR-193a-5p expression decreased significantly. Gene targets for miR-193a-5p were investigated in liver RNAseq data for a case subgroup (n = 80); liver GPX8 levels correlated positively with serum miR-193a-5p. Conclusions: Serum miR-193a-5p levels correlate strongly with NAFLD activity grade and fibrosis stage. MiR-193a-5p may have a role in the hepatic response to oxidative stress and is a potential clinically tractable circulating biomarker for progressive NAFLD. Lay summary: MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small pieces of nucleic acid that may turn expression of genes on or off. These molecules can be detected in the blood circulation, and their levels in blood may change in liver disease including non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). To see if we could detect specific miRNA associated with advanced stages of NAFLD, we carried out miRNA sequencing in a group of 183 patients with NAFLD of varying severity together with 10 population controls. We found that a number of miRNAs showed changes, mainly increases, in serum levels but that 1 particular miRNA miR-193a-5p consistently increased. We confirmed this increase in a second group of cases with NAFLD. Measuring this miRNA in a blood sample may be a useful way to determine whether a patient has advanced NAFLD without an invasive liver biopsy. (C) 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL). ; Funding Agencies|Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI2) Program of the European Union [777377]; European Unions Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme; EFPIA; Newcastle NIHR Biomedical Research Centre; European NAFLD Registry

Why do European consumers buy food the way they do? Which key factors drive Europeans' food consumption patterns and how could they be used to create pathways toward sustainability? The VALUMICS project's evidence-based report provides insights to what influences consumers the most in their food choices. The report 'Food consumption behaviours in Europe' brings together data across various countries, such as the United Kingdom, Germany, France and Italy. Through in-depth literature research, focus groups and expert consultations, the report provides a better understanding of the status quo, trends, motivations as well as barriers and opportunities towards more sustainable food consumption behaviours in general. The focus is on five product categories: Beef, dairy, salmon, tomatoes and bread. Findings indicate that food consumption behaviours can be largely attributed to price considerations, family eating habits, health concerns or social contexts of consumers. The report highlights that environmental awareness and values play little to no role in the consumption patterns. "Certain changes can only be made by politics, or the EU in this case, which should impose high sustainability limits and standards: for example, banning disposable plastics is a good start. Until certain management practices are allowed, it is difficult to behave more sustainably because everyone else can be more economically competitive" noted one of the experts interviewed for the report. Other actions suggested in the report include fostering stronger communication channels between producers and consumers, with the potential for increasing the resilience of food value chains as well as using behavioural insights to inform strategies and action plans for more sustainable food consumption. The report 'Food consumption behaviours in Europe' is the first in a series of VALUMICS publications focusing on analysing food consumption. The upcoming reports look into successful interventions for sustainable food behaviour, multi-stakeholder ...

INTRODUCTION: Vertical transmission of covid-19 is possible; its risk factors are worth researching. The placental changes found in pregnant women have a definite impact on the foetus. CASE PRESENTATION: We report a case of a 25-year-old woman, gravida 3, para 2 (2 alive children), with a history of two caesarean deliveries, who was infected by the SARS-CoV-2 during the last term of her pregnancy. She gave birth by caesarean at 34 weeks of gestation to a newborn baby also infected with SARS-CoV-2. The peri-operative observations noted several eruptive lesions in the pelvis, bleeding on contact. Microscopic examination of the foetal appendages revealed thrombotic vasculopathy in the placenta and in the umbilical cord vessels. CONCLUSION: This case is one of the first documented cases of COVID-19 in pregnancy in sub-Saharan Africa. We strongly suggest obstetricians to carefully examine the aspect of the peritoneum, viscera and foetal appendages in affected pregnant women.

The 10th and largest Ebola virus disease epidemic in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) was declared in North Kivu Province in August 2018 and ended in June 2020. We describe and evaluate an Early Warning, Alert and Response System (EWARS) implemented in the Beni health zone of DRC during August 5, 2018–June 30, 2020. During this period, 194,768 alerts were received, of which 30,728 (15.8%) were validated as suspected cases. From these, 801 confirmed and 3 probable cases were detected. EWARS showed an overall good performance: sensitivity and specificity >80%, nearly all (97%) of alerts investigated within 2 hours of notification, and good demographic representativeness. The average cost of the system was US $438/case detected and US $1.8/alert received. The system was stable, despite occasional disruptions caused by political insecurity. Our results demonstrate that EWARS was a cost-effective component of the Ebola surveillance strategy in this setting.

The international electromagnetic field (EMF) project of the World Health Organization (WHO) is a collaborative effort of the WHO teams for Environment, Climate Change and Health (ECCH) and Radiation and Health (ionizing and non-ionizing). The purpose of the effort is twofold. Firstly it seeks to create and house a database of legislation pertaining to EMF exposure. Secondly, it seeks to promote dialogue on the risks related to EMF exposure. The establishment of the EMF Project is motivated by the fact that EMF of a very broad range of frequencies represents one of the most common and fastest growing environmental influences on human health. EMF may have notable positive or negative effects on health, depending on the exposure context. EMF has been around since the birth of the universe, with light being its most familiar form. Electric and magnetic fields are part of the spectrum of electromagnetic radiation, which extends from static electric and magnetic fields, through radiofrequency, ultraviolet, and infrared radiation, to X-rays. Various Organs of State have reviewed the research endeavors of the NRF in this emerging field and found that the research is innovative and strongly aligned with South Africa's national interests. The EMF project is a multidisciplinary research endeavor integrating efforts from multiple sectors. Of particular import to South Africa is research into EMF exposure risks, EMF shielding modifications, and bio-adaptation mitigation options related to climate change. The EMF Project is endorsed by the Surgeon General, and the Nation's doctor is provided with the best available scientific information on how to improve health outcomes and reduce the risk of illness and injury. The mission of the EMF Project is to protect, promote, and advance the health of our Nation.

System-of-systems approaches for integrated assessments have become prevalent in recent years. Such approaches integrate a variety of models from different disciplines and modeling paradigms to represent a socioenvironmental (or social-ecological) system aiming to holistically inform policy and decision-making processes. Central to the system-of-systems approaches is the representation of systems in a multi-tier framework with nested scales. Current modeling paradigms, however, have disciplinary-specific lineage, leading to inconsistencies in the conceptualization and integration of socio-environmental systems. In this paper, a multidisciplinary team of researchers, from engineering, natural and social sciences, have come together to detail socio-technical practices and challenges that arise in the consideration of scale throughout the socioenvironmental modeling process. We identify key paths forward, focused on explicit consideration of scale and uncertainty, strengthening interdisciplinary communication, and improvement of the documentation process. We call for a grand vision (and commensurate funding) for holistic system-of-systems research that engages researchers, stakeholders, and policy makers in a multi-tiered process for the co-creation of knowledge and solutions to major socio-environmental problems. ; National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC) under the National Science Foundation [DBI-1639145]; Australian Government Research Training Program (AGRTP) ScholarshipAustralian Government; ANU Hilda-John Endowment Fund; USDAUnited States Department of Agriculture (USDA); ARSUnited States Department of Agriculture (USDA)USDA Agricultural Research Service [58-3091-6-035]; Texas A&M AgriLife Research; Key Program of NSF of China [41930648]; NSFNational Science Foundation (NSF) [EEC 1937012] ; Published version ; This work was supported by the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC) under funding received from the National Science Foundation DBI-1639145. The primary author (Takuya Iwanaga) is supported through an Australian Government Research Training Program (AGRTP) Scholarship and a top-up scholarship from the ANU Hilda-John Endowment Fund. Hsiao-Hsuan Wang and Tomasz E. Koralewski acknowledge partial support from USDA, ARS Agreement No. 58-3091-6-035 with Texas A&M AgriLife Research, titled `Areawide pest management of the invasive sugarcane aphid in grain sorghum, regional population monitoring and forecasting.' Min Chen is supported by the Key Program of NSF of China (No. 41930648). John Little acknowledges partial support from NSF Award EEC 1937012. The authors would like to thank the three anonymous reviewers and Prof. Randall Hunt (USGS) for their constructive feedback and comments. The authors additionally thank Faye Duchin and Adrian Hindes for comments provided on an earlier draft. ; Public domain authored by a U.S. government employee

Urgent sustainability challenges require effective leadership for inter- and trans-disciplinary (ITD) institutions. Based on the diverse experiences of 20 ITD institutional leaders and specific case studies, this article distills key lessons learned from multiple pathways to building successful programs. The lessons reflect both the successes and failures our group has experienced, to suggest how to cultivate appropriate and effective leadership, and generate the resources necessary for leading ITD programs. We present two contrasting pathways toward ITD organizations: one is to establish a new organization and the other is to merge existing organizations. We illustrate how both benefit from a real-world focus, with multiple examples of trajectories of ITD organizations. Our diverse international experiences demonstrate ways to cultivate appropriate leadership qualities and skills, especially the ability to create and foster vision beyond the status quo; collaborative leadership and partnerships; shared culture; communications to multiple audiences; appropriate monitoring and evaluation; and perseverance. We identified five kinds of resources for success: (1) intellectual resources; (2) institutional policies; (3) financial resources; (4) physical infrastructure; and (5) governing boards. We provide illustrations based on our extensive experience in supporting success and learning from failure, and provide a framework that articulates the major facets of leadership in inter- and trans-disciplinary organizations: learning, supporting, sharing, and training.

The Australian SKA Pathfinder (ASKAP) telescope has started to localize fast radio bursts (FRBs) to arcsecond accuracy from the detection of a single pulse, allowing their host galaxies to be reliably identified. We discuss the global properties of the host galaxies of the first four FRBs localized by ASKAP, which lie in the redshift range 0.11 z < 0.48. All four are massive galaxies (log(M-*/M) similar to 9.4-10.4) with modest star formation rates of up to 2 M yr(-1)-very different to the host galaxy of the first repeating FRB 121102, which is a dwarf galaxy with a high specific star formation rate. The FRBs localized by ASKAP typically lie in the outskirts of their host galaxies, which appears to rule out FRB progenitor models that invoke active galactic nuclei or free-floating cosmic strings. The stellar population seen in these host galaxies also disfavors models in which all FRBs arise from young magnetars produced by superluminous supernovae, as proposed for the progenitor of FRB 121102. A range of other progenitor models (including compact-object mergers and magnetars arising from normal core-collapse supernovae) remain plausible. ; European Southern Observatory 0102.A-0450(A) 0103.A-0101(B) Australian Research Council DP180100857 Australian Research Council FT150100415 Australian Research Council FL150100148 CE170100004 PUCV/VRIEA project 039.395/2019 National Science Foundation (NSF) AST-1911140 Australian Government Australian Government Department of Industry, Innovation and Science Government of Western Australia Science and Industry Endowment Fund W.M. Keck Foundation Las Campanas Observatory, Chile CN2019A-36 LCOGT network CN2019A-39/CLN2019A-002 CN2019B-93/CLN2019B-001 Gemini Observatory GS-2018B-Q-133 UCh/VID-ENL18/18 FONDECYT 1191232

International audience ; Earthquake risk reduction approaches classically apply a top-down model where scientific information is processed to deliver risk mitigation measures and policies understandable by all, while shielding end-users from the initial, possibly complex, information. Alternative community-based models exist but are rarely applied at a large scale and rely on valuable, but non-scientific, observations and experiences of local populations. In spite of risk reduction efforts based on both approaches, changes in behaviour or policies to reduce earthquake risk are slow or even non-existent, in particular in developing countries. Here we report on the initial stage of a project that aims at testing, through a participatory seismology experiment in Haiti—a country struck by a devastating earthquake in January 2010—whether public or community involvement through the production and usage of seismic information can improve earthquake awareness and, perhaps, induce grassroots protection initiatives. This experiment is made possible by the recent launch of very low-cost, plug-and-play, Raspberry Shake seismological stations, the relative ease of access to the internet even in developing countries such as Haiti, and the familiarity of all with social networks as a way to disseminate information. Our early findings indicate that 1) the seismic data collected is of sufficient quality for real-time detection and characterization of the regional seismicity, 2) citizens are in demand of earthquake information and trust scientists, even though they appear to see earthquakes through the double lens of tectonics and magic/religion, 3) the motivation of seismic station hosts has allowed data to flow without interruption for more than a year, including through a major political crisis in the Fall of 2019 and the current COVID19 situation. At this early stage of the project, our observations indicate that citizen-seismology in a development context has potential to engage the public while collecting ...

International audience ; Earthquake risk reduction approaches classically apply a top-down model where scientific information is processed to deliver risk mitigation measures and policies understandable by all, while shielding end-users from the initial, possibly complex, information. Alternative community-based models exist but are rarely applied at a large scale and rely on valuable, but non-scientific, observations and experiences of local populations. In spite of risk reduction efforts based on both approaches, changes in behaviour or policies to reduce earthquake risk are slow or even non-existent, in particular in developing countries. Here we report on the initial stage of a project that aims at testing, through a participatory seismology experiment in Haiti—a country struck by a devastating earthquake in January 2010—whether public or community involvement through the production and usage of seismic information can improve earthquake awareness and, perhaps, induce grassroots protection initiatives. This experiment is made possible by the recent launch of very low-cost, plug-and-play, Raspberry Shake seismological stations, the relative ease of access to the internet even in developing countries such as Haiti, and the familiarity of all with social networks as a way to disseminate information. Our early findings indicate that 1) the seismic data collected is of sufficient quality for real-time detection and characterization of the regional seismicity, 2) citizens are in demand of earthquake information and trust scientists, even though they appear to see earthquakes through the double lens of tectonics and magic/religion, 3) the motivation of seismic station hosts has allowed data to flow without interruption for more than a year, including through a major political crisis in the Fall of 2019 and the current COVID19 situation. At this early stage of the project, our observations indicate that citizen-seismology in a development context has potential to engage the public while collecting ...