rep Loosening restrictions could mean huge increase in Montreal COVID-19 deaths: report By montreal.ctvnews.ca Published On :: Sat, 9 May 2020 08:35:00 -0400 By easing distancing measures, the Greater Montreal area could experience a substantial increase in the number of deaths per day due to the coronavirus, according to a new document published by the Institut national de santé publique du Québec (INSPQ) in collaboration with experts from Laval University. Full Article
rep “The Most Risky … Job Ever.” Reporting on “ISIS in Afghanistan” By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Tue, 17 Nov 2015 13:59:43 EST Najibullah Quraishi has covered the war in Afghanistan for more than a decade, but embedding with ISIS fighters who've recently emerged there "was the most risky and dangerous job ever I've done in my life," he says. Full Article
rep The unreasonable importance of data preparation By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Tue, 24 Mar 2020 10:00:00 +0000 In a world focused on buzzword-driven models and algorithms, you’d be forgiven for forgetting about the unreasonable importance of data preparation and quality: your models are only as good as the data you feed them. This is the garbage in, garbage out principle: flawed data going in leads to flawed results, algorithms, and business decisions. […] Full Article AI & ML Deep Dive
rep Video: Stars' Oscar preparations By www.bbc.co.uk Published On :: 2008-02-22T12:30:00 Part of the Going for gold promo for the BBC UK Homepage Full Article
rep REPORT: Recent documents reveal number of Secret Service agents with COVID-19 By dennismichaellynch.com Published On :: Sat, 09 May 2020 15:57:28 +0000 The DML News App offers the best in news reporting. The post REPORT: Recent documents reveal number of Secret Service agents with COVID-19 appeared first on Dennis Michael Lynch. Full Article News Feed Powered by DMLNewsApp.com
rep REPORT: Governor criticized over highest nursing home death toll By dennismichaellynch.com Published On :: Sat, 09 May 2020 16:34:32 +0000 The DML News App offers the best in news reporting. The post REPORT: Governor criticized over highest nursing home death toll appeared first on Dennis Michael Lynch. Full Article News Feed Powered by DMLNewsApp.com
rep REPORT: US issues new visa restrictions for country’s journalists By dennismichaellynch.com Published On :: Sat, 09 May 2020 16:45:45 +0000 The DML News App offers the best in news reporting. The post REPORT: US issues new visa restrictions for country’s journalists appeared first on Dennis Michael Lynch. Full Article News Feed Powered by DMLNewsApp.com
rep REPORT: Obama rips Trump over coronavirus in private call By dennismichaellynch.com Published On :: Sat, 09 May 2020 17:08:39 +0000 The DML News App offers the best in news reporting. The post REPORT: Obama rips Trump over coronavirus in private call appeared first on Dennis Michael Lynch. Full Article News Feed Powered by DMLNewsApp.com
rep REPORT: US slams new restrictions on journalists from this country By dennismichaellynch.com Published On :: Sat, 09 May 2020 17:23:28 +0000 The DML News App offers the best in news reporting. The post REPORT: US slams new restrictions on journalists from this country appeared first on Dennis Michael Lynch. Full Article News Feed Powered by DMLNewsApp.com
rep VIDEO: Man seen kicking gas pump to avoid prepayment By winnipeg.ctvnews.ca Published On :: Fri, 8 May 2020 13:37:00 -0600 Brandon police officers are searching for a man who was caught on camera attempting to pump gas in his car – without prepaying. Full Article
rep Repression of sphingosine kinase (SK)-interacting protein (SKIP) in acute myeloid leukemia diminishes SK activity and its re-expression restores SK function [Molecular Bases of Disease] By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: 2020-04-17T00:06:05-07:00 Previous studies have shown that sphingosine kinase interacting protein (SKIP) inhibits sphingosine kinase (SK) function in fibroblasts. SK phosphorylates sphingosine producing the potent signaling molecule sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P). SKIP gene (SPHKAP) expression is silenced by hypermethylation of its promoter in acute myeloid leukemia (AML). However, why SKIP activity is silenced in primary AML cells is unclear. Here, we investigated the consequences of SKIP down-regulation in AML primary cells and the effects of SKIP re-expression in leukemic cell lines. Using targeted ultra-HPLC-tandem MS (UPLC-MS/MS), we measured sphingolipids (including S1P and ceramides) in AML and control cells. Primary AML cells had significantly lower SK activity and intracellular S1P concentrations than control cells, and SKIP-transfected leukemia cell lines exhibited increased SK activity. These findings show that SKIP re-expression enhances SK activity in leukemia cells. Furthermore, other bioactive sphingolipids such as ceramide were also down-regulated in primary AML cells. Of note, SKIP re-expression in leukemia cells increased ceramide levels 2-fold, inactivated the key signaling protein extracellular signal-regulated kinase, and increased apoptosis following serum deprivation or chemotherapy. These results indicate that SKIP down-regulation in AML reduces SK activity and ceramide levels, an effect that ultimately inhibits apoptosis in leukemia cells. The findings of our study contrast with previous results indicating that SKIP inhibits SK function in fibroblasts and therefore challenge the notion that SKIP always inhibits SK activity. Full Article
rep Report Launch – Owners of the Republic: An Anatomy of Egypt's Military Economy By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Mon, 18 Nov 2019 10:45:01 +0000 Research Event 12 December 2019 - 5:30pm to 6:30pm Chatham House | 10 St James's Square | London | SW1Y 4LE Event participants Yezid Sayigh, Senior Fellow, Carnegie Middle East CenterDavid Butter, Associate Fellow, Middle East and North Africa Programme, Chatham HouseChair: Lina Khatib, Head, Middle East and North Africa Programme, Chatham House The Egyptian military accounts for far less of the national economy than is commonly believed but transformations in its role and scope since 2013 have turned it into an autonomous economic actor that can reshape markets and influence government policy and investment strategies. Will the military economy contract to its former enclave status if Egypt achieves successful economic growth or has it acquired a permanent stake that it will defend or even expand?This roundtable will mark the London launch of a Carnegie Middle East Center report on Egypt’s military economy. The report author, Yezid Sayigh, will begin the discussion with remarks on Egypt’s military economy model and offer thoughts on how external actors can engage the country’s formal and informal networks. David Butter will serve as discussant and the roundtable will be moderated by Lina Khatib.To attend this event, please e-mail Reni Zhelyazkova. Department/project Middle East and North Africa Programme Reni Zhelyazkova Programme Coordinator, Middle East and North Africa Programme +44 (0)20 7314 3624 Email Full Article
Reni Zhelyazkova Programme Coordinator, Middle East and North Africa Programme +44 (0)20 7314 3624 Email
rep The streptococcal multidomain fibrillar adhesin CshA has an elongated polymeric architecture [Microbiology] By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: 2020-05-08T03:41:14-07:00 The cell surfaces of many bacteria carry filamentous polypeptides termed adhesins that enable binding to both biotic and abiotic surfaces. Surface adherence is facilitated by the exquisite selectivity of the adhesins for their cognate ligands or receptors and is a key step in niche or host colonization and pathogenicity. Streptococcus gordonii is a primary colonizer of the human oral cavity and an opportunistic pathogen, as well as a leading cause of infective endocarditis in humans. The fibrillar adhesin CshA is an important determinant of S. gordonii adherence, forming peritrichous fibrils on its surface that bind host cells and other microorganisms. CshA possesses a distinctive multidomain architecture comprising an N-terminal target-binding region fused to 17 repeat domains (RDs) that are each ∼100 amino acids long. Here, using structural and biophysical methods, we demonstrate that the intact CshA repeat region (CshA_RD1–17, domains 1–17) forms an extended polymeric monomer in solution. We recombinantly produced a subset of CshA RDs and found that they differ in stability and unfolding behavior. The NMR structure of CshA_RD13 revealed a hitherto unreported all β-fold, flanked by disordered interdomain linkers. These findings, in tandem with complementary hydrodynamic studies of CshA_RD1–17, indicate that this polypeptide possesses a highly unusual dynamic transitory structure characterized by alternating regions of order and disorder. This architecture provides flexibility for the adhesive tip of the CshA fibril to maintain bacterial attachment that withstands shear forces within the human host. It may also help mitigate deleterious folding events between neighboring RDs that share significant structural identity without compromising mechanical stability. Full Article
rep Global health system needs reform to help deliver SDGs, says new report By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Fri, 09 Oct 2015 14:31:11 +0000 24 September 2015 20150922RethinkingGlobalHealthArchitecture.jpg A Pakistani health worker gives polio vaccines to children in the suburbs of Lahore, Pakistan, February 2015. Photo: Associated Press. The global health system has contributed significantly to improved health and life expectancy in recent decades. However, the existing architecture needs to be reformed in order to address future challenges and meet the health targets in the Sustainable Development Goals. Rethinking the Global Health System, a new Chatham House report, analyses how fit for purpose the current system is and identifies priority areas for reform. The Ebola crisis has shown that weak systems make individual countries more vulnerable and that strong, resilient and equitable systems at country level are needed to protect global health security. There is a pressing need for enhanced global disease surveillance and detection capacity, as well as improved international coordination in responding to emerging health threats.In addition, addressing determinants of health outside the health sector requires cross-sectoral collaboration and linkages to other policy domains. Historically, the focus has rested on directly reducing illness and death, but the need to address other influences on health outcomes – safe drinking water, proper sewage treatment, good education – is now well recognized.The report says that stronger leadership in global health is therefore required and the report lends support to calls for the creation of a new organization that would bring together United Nations agencies with health-related mandates – UN-HEALTH. Just as UNAIDS created a more coherent response for HIV, a UN-HEALTH organization could achieve a similar but more wide-reaching effect by bringing together and streamlining all UN agencies working on global health issues.Professor David Harper, who led the Chatham House project that resulted in the report, said: 'This report is intended to make a substantial contribution to the international debate on what the world will require of the health architecture of the future. It offers some options for political leaders to consider, but it is just a starting point. More work is urgently needed to develop the ideas introduced in this project and to help generate the high-level political traction that is so vital in any change process.' Editor's notes Read the report Rethinking the Global Health System from the Centre on Global Health Security at Chatham House. For all enquiries, including requests to speak with the authors of this paper, please contact the press office. Contacts Press Office +44 (0)20 7957 5739 Email Full Article
rep Risk of serious cyber attacks on nuclear facilities underestimated, says new report By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Fri, 09 Oct 2015 15:22:30 +0000 2 October 2015 20150930CyberSecurity.jpg Workers at the Wolsong nuclear power plant participate in an anti-cyber attack exercise, Gyeongju, South Korea. Photo: Getty Images. The risk of a serious cyber attack on civil nuclear infrastructure is growing, as facilities become ever more reliant on digital systems and make increasing use of commercial ‘off-the-shelf’ software, according to a major new report from Chatham House.Cyber Security at Civil Nuclear Facilities: Understanding the Risks is the result of an 18-month study that draws on in-depth interviews with 30 leading industry practitioners based in more than eight countries. It found that the trend to digitization, when combined with a lack of executive-level awareness of the risks involved, means that nuclear plant personnel may not realize the full extent of their cyber vulnerability and are thus inadequately prepared to deal with potential attacks. Specific findings include: The conventional belief that all nuclear facilities are ‘air gapped’ (isolated from the public internet) is a myth. The commercial benefits of internet connectivity mean that a number of nuclear facilities now have VPN connections installed, which facility operators are sometimes unaware of.Search engines can readily identify critical infrastructure components with such connections.Even where facilities are air gapped, this safeguard can be breached with nothing more than a flash drive.Supply chain vulnerabilities mean that equipment used at a nuclear facility risks compromise at any stage.A lack of training, combined with communication breakdowns between engineers and security personnel, means that nuclear plant personnel often lack an understanding of key cyber security procedures.Reactive rather than proactive approaches to cyber security contribute to the possibility that a nuclear facility might not know of a cyber attack until it is already substantially under way.In the light of these risks, the report outlines a blend of policy and technical measures that will be required to counter the threats and meet the challenges. Recommendations include:Developing guidelines to measure cyber security risk in the nuclear industry, including an integrated risk assessment that takes both security and safety measures into account.Engaging in robust dialogue with engineers and contractors to raise awareness of the cyber security risk, including the dangers of setting up unauthorized internet connections.Implementing rules, where not already in place, to promote good IT hygiene in nuclear facilities (for example to forbid the use of personal devices) and enforcing rules where they do exist.Improving disclosure by encouraging anonymous information sharing and the establishment of industrial CERTs (Computer Emergency Response Team).Encouraging universal adoption of regulatory standards. Editor's notes Cyber Security at Civil Nuclear Facilities: Understanding the Risks, written by Caroline Baylon with Roger Brunt and David Livingstone, is embargoed until Monday 5 October 2015.Caroline Baylon is the research associate in science, technology and cyber security at Chatham House. Roger Brunt was appointed the UK government's regulator for security in the civil nuclear industry as the director of the Office for Civil Nuclear Security after retiring from the British Army in 2004. David Livingstone is an associate fellow at Chatham House, where he has participated in a broad range of projects on national-level risk management, cyber security, counterterrorism, serious organized crime, nuclear security and space security.Fore more information, or to request an interview with the authors, contact the press office Contacts Press Office +44 (0)20 7957 5739 Email Full Article
rep Biosecurity: Preparing for the Aftermath of Global Health Crises By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Thu, 09 Jan 2020 14:16:59 +0000 9 January 2020 Professor David R Harper CBE Senior Consulting Fellow, Global Health Programme @DavidRossHarper Benjamin Wakefield Research Associate, Global Health Programme @BCWakefield LinkedIn The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is a reminder that the security of samples taken during global health emergencies is a vital part of safeguarding biosecurity. 2020-01-09-DRC.jpg A nurse prepares a vaccine against Ebola in Goma in August 2019. Photo: Getty Images. The world’s second-largest Ebola outbreak is ongoing in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and experts from around the world have been parachuted in to support the country’s operation to stamp out the outbreak. The signs are encouraging, but we need to remain cautious.In such emergencies, little thought is usually given to what happens to the body-fluid samples taken during the course of the outbreak after the crisis is over. What gets left behind has considerable implications for global biosecurity.Having unsecured samples poses the obvious risk of accidental exposures to people who might come into contact with them, but what of the risk of malicious use? Bioterrorists would have ready access to materials that have the characteristics essential to their purpose: the potential to cause disease that is transmissible from person to person, the capacity to result in high fatality rates and, importantly, the ability to cause panic and social disruption at the very mention of them.Comparisons can be drawn with the significant international impact of the anthrax attacks in the US in 2001. Not only was there a direct effect in the US with five deaths and a further 17 people infected, but there was a paralysis of public health systems in other countries involved in the testing of countless samples from the so-called ‘white-powder incidents’ that followed.Many laboratory tests were done purely on a precautionary basis to eliminate any possibility of a risk, no matter how remote. However, the UK was also hit when a hoaxer sent envelopes of white powder labelled as anthrax to 15 MPs.The threat of the pathogen alone resulted in widespread fear, the deployment of officers trained in response to chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear incidents and the evacuation of a hospital emergency department.We learned from the 2014–16 West Africa Ebola outbreaks that during the emergency, the future biosecurity implications of the many thousands of samples taken from people were given very little consideration. It is impossible to be sure where they all are and whether they have been secured.It is widely recognized that the systems needed at the time for tracking and monitoring resources, including those necessary for samples, were weak or absent, and this has to be addressed urgently along with other capacity-building initiatives.In Sierra Leone, for example, the remaining biosecurity risk is only being addressed after the fact. To help achieve this, the government of Canada is in the process of providing a secure biobank in the Sierra Leonean capital of Freetown. The aim is to provide the proper means of storage for these hazardous samples and to allow them to remain in-country, with Sierra Leonean ownership.However, it is already more three years since the emergency was declared over by the then director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO), Margaret Chan, and the biobank and its associated laboratory are yet to be fully operational.There are many understandable reasons for this delay, including the critical issue of how best to ensure the sustainability of any new facility. But what is clear is that these solutions take time to implement and must be planned for in advance.The difficulties of responding to an outbreak in a conflict zone have been well documented, and the frequent violence in DRC has undoubtedly caused delays in controlling the outbreak. According to figures from WHO, during 2019 approximately 390 attacks on health facilities in DRC killed 11 and injured 83 healthcare workers and patients.Not only does the conflict inhibit the response, but it could also increase the risk posed by unsecured samples. There are two main potential concerns.First is the risk of accidental release during an attack on a health facility, under which circumstances sample containers may be compromised or destroyed. Second is that the samples may be stolen for malicious use or to sell them to a third-party for malicious use. It is very important in all outbreaks to ensure the necessary measures are in place to secure samples; in conflict-affected areas, this is particularly challenging.The sooner the samples in the DRC are secured, the sooner this risk to global biosecurity is reduced. And preparations for the next emergency must be made without further delay.The following steps need to be taken:Affected countries must ‘own’ the problem, with clear national government commitment to take the required actions.Funding partners must coordinate their actions and work closely with the countries to find the best solutions.If samples are to be kept in-country, secure biobanks must be established to contain them.Sustainable infrastructure must be built for samples to be kept secure into the future.An international agreement should be reached on the best approach to take to prepare for the aftermath of global health emergencies. Full Article
rep Why an Inclusive Circular Economy is Needed to Prepare for Future Global Crises By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Wed, 15 Apr 2020 13:23:01 +0000 15 April 2020 Patrick Schröder Senior Research Fellow, Energy, Environment and Resources Programme @patricks_CH Google Scholar The risks associated with existing production and consumption systems have been harshly exposed amid the current global health crisis but an inclusive circular economy could ensure both short-term and long-term resilience for future challenges. 2020-04-15-Waste-Collection-Peru.jpg Lima city employees picking up garbage during lockdown measures in Peru amid the COVID-19 crisis. Photo: Getty Images. The world is currently witnessing how vulnerable existing production and consumption systems are, with the current global health crisis harshly exposing the magnitude of the risks associated with the global economy in its current form, grounded, as it is, in a linear system that uses a ‘take–make–throw away’ approach.These ‘linear risks’ associated with the existing global supply chain system are extremely high for national economies overly dependent on natural resource extraction and exports of commodities like minerals and metals. Equally vulnerable are countries with large manufacturing sectors of ready-made garments and non-repairable consumer goods for western markets. Furthermore, workers and communities working in these sectors are vulnerable to these changes as a result of disruptive technologies and reduced demand.In a recently published Chatham House research paper, ‘Promoting a Just Transition to an Inclusive Circular Economy’, we highlight why a circular economy approach presents the world with a solution to old and new global risks – from marine plastic pollution to climate change and resource scarcity.Taking the long viewSo far, action to transition to a circular economy has been slow compared to the current crisis which has mobilized rapid global action. For proponents of transitioning to a circular economy, this requires taking the long view. The pandemic has shown us that global emergencies can fast-forward processes that otherwise might take years, even decades, to play out or reverse achievements which have taken years to accomplish.In this vein, there are three striking points of convergence between the COVID-19 pandemic and the need to transition to an inclusive circular economy.Firstly, the current crisis is a stark reminder that the circular economy is not only necessary to ensure long-term resource security but also short-term supplies of important materials. In many cities across the US, the UK and Europe, councils have suspended recycling to focus on essential waste collection services. The UK Recycling Association, for example, has warned about carboard shortages due to disrupted recycling operations with possible shortages for food and medicine packaging on the horizon.Similarly, in China, most recycling sites were shut during the country’s lockdown presenting implications for global recycling markets with additional concerns that there will be a fibre shortage across Europe and possibly around the world.Furthermore, worldwide COVID-19 lockdowns are resulting in a resurgence in the use of single-use packaging creating a new wave of plastic waste especially from food deliveries – already seen in China – with illegal waste fly-tipping dramatically increasing in the UK since the lockdown.In this vein, concerns over the current global health crisis is reversing previous positive trends where many cities had established recycling schemes and companies and consumers had switched to reusable alternatives.Secondly, the need to improve the working conditions of the people working in the informal circular economy, such as waste pickers and recyclers, is imperative. Many waste materials and recyclables that are being handled and collected may be contaminated as a result of being mixed with medical waste.Now, more than ever, key workers in waste management, collection and recycling require personal protective equipment and social protection to ensure their safety as well as the continuation of essential waste collection so as not to increase the potential for new risks associated with additional infectious diseases.In India, almost 450 million workers including construction workers, street vendors and landless agricultural labourers, work in the informal sector. In the current climate, the poorest who are unable to work pose a great risk to the Indian economy which could find itself having to shut down.Moreover, many informal workers live in make-shift settlements areas such as Asia’s largest slum, Dharavi in Mumbai, where health authorities are now facing serious challenges to contain the spread of the disease. Lack of access to handwashing and sanitation facilities, however, further increase these risks but circular, decentralized solutions could make important contributions to sustainable sanitation, health and improved community resilience.Thirdly, it is anticipated that in the long term several global supply chains will be radically changed as a result of transformed demand patterns and the increase in circular practices such as urban mining for the recovery and recycling of metals or the reuse and recycling of textile fibres and localized additive manufacturing (e.g. 3D printing).Many of these supply chains and trade flows have now been already severely disrupted due to the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, the global garment industry has been particularly hard-hit due to the closure of outlets amid falling demand for apparel.It is important to note, workers at the bottom of these garment supply chains are among the most vulnerable and most affected by the crisis as global fashion brands, for example, have been cancelling orders – in the order of $6 billion in the case of Bangladesh alone. Only after intense negotiations are some brands assuming financial responsibility in the form of compensation wage funds to help suppliers in Myanmar, Cambodia and Bangladesh to pay workers during the ongoing crisis.In addition, the current pandemic is damaging demand for raw materials thereby affecting mining countries. Demand for Africa’s commodities in China, for example, has declined significantly, with the impact on African economies expected to be serious, with 15 per cent of the world’s copper and 20 per cent of the world’s zinc mines currently going offline. A further threat is expected to come from falling commodity prices as a result of the curtailment of manufacturing activity in China particularly for crude oil, copper, iron ore and other industrial commodities which, in these cases, will have direct impacts on the Australian and Canadian mining sectors.This is all being compounded by an associated decline in consumer demand worldwide. For example, many South African mining companies – leading producers of metals and minerals – have started closing their mining operations following the government’s announcement of a lockdown in order to prevent the transmission of the virus among miners who often work in confined spaces and in close proximity with one another. As workers are laid off due to COVID-19, there are indications that the mining industry will see fast-tracking towards automated mining operations. All of these linear risks that have been exposed through the COVID-19 pandemic reinforce the need for a just transition to a circular economy. But while the reduction in the consumption of resources is necessary to achieve sustainability, the social impacts on low- and middle- income countries and their workers requires international support mechanisms.In addition, the current situation also highlights the need to find a new approach to globalized retail chains and a balance between local and global trade based on international cooperation across global value chains rather than implementation of trade protectionist measures.In this vein, all of the recovery plans from the global COVID-19 pandemic need to be aligned with the principles of an inclusive circular economy in order to ensure both short-term and long-term resilience and preparedness for future challenges and disruptions. Full Article
rep Legal Provision for Crisis Preparedness: Foresight not Hindsight By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Tue, 21 Apr 2020 17:03:31 +0000 21 April 2020 Dr Patricia Lewis Research Director, Conflict, Science & Transformation; Director, International Security Programme @PatriciaMary COVID-19 is proving to be a grave threat to humanity. But this is not a one-off, there will be future crises, and we can be better prepared to mitigate them. 2020-04-21-Nurse-COVID-Test Examining a patient while testing for COVID-19 at the Velocity Urgent Care in Woodbridge, Virginia. Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images. A controversial debate during COVID-19 is the state of readiness within governments and health systems for a pandemic, with lines of the debate drawn on the issues of testing provision, personal protective equipment (PPE), and the speed of decision-making.President Macron in a speech to the nation admitted French medical workers did not have enough PPE and that mistakes had been made: ‘Were we prepared for this crisis? We have to say that no, we weren’t, but we have to admit our errors … and we will learn from this’.In reality few governments were fully prepared. In years to come, all will ask: ‘how could we have been better prepared, what did we do wrong, and what can we learn?’. But after every crisis, governments ask these same questions.Most countries have put in place national risk assessments and established processes and systems to monitor and stress-test crisis-preparedness. So why have some countries been seemingly better prepared?Comparing different approachesSome have had more time and been able to watch the spread of the disease and learn from those countries that had it first. Others have taken their own routes, and there will be much to learn from comparing these different approaches in the longer run.Governments in Asia have been strongly influenced by the experience of the SARS epidemic in 2002-3 and - South Korea in particular - the MERS-CoV outbreak in 2015 which was the largest outside the Middle East. Several carried out preparatory work in terms of risk assessment, preparedness measures and resilience planning for a wide range of threats.Case Study of Preparedness: South KoreaBy 2007, South Korea had established the Division of Public Health Crisis Response in Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) and, in 2016, the KCDC Center for Public Health Emergency Preparedness and Response had established a round-the-clock Emergency Operations Center with rapid response teams.KCDC is responsible for the distribution of antiviral stockpiles to 16 cities and provinces that are required by law to hold and manage antiviral stockpiles.And, at the international level, there are frameworks for preparedness for pandemics. The International Health Regulations (IHR) - adopted at the 2005 World Health Assembly and binding on member states - require countries to report certain disease outbreaks and public health events to the World Health Organization (WHO) and ‘prevent, protect against, control and provide a public health response to the international spread of disease in ways that are commensurate with and restricted to public health risks, and which avoid unnecessary interference with international traffic and trade’.Under IHR, governments committed to a programme of building core capacities including coordination, surveillance, response and preparedness. The UN Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk highlights disaster preparedness for effective response as one of its main purposes and has already incorporated these measures into the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and other Agenda 2030 initiatives. UN Secretary-General António Guterres has said COVID-19 ‘poses a significant threat to the maintenance of international peace and security’ and that ‘a signal of unity and resolve from the Council would count for a lot at this anxious time’.Case Study of Preparedness: United StatesThe National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Center for Disease Control (CDC) established PERRC – the Preparedness for Emergency Response Research Centers - as a requirement of the 2006 Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act, which required research to ‘improve federal, state, local, and tribal public health preparedness and response systems’.The 2006 Act has since been supplanted by the 2019 Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness and Advancing Innovation Act. This created the post of Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) in the Department for Health and Human Services (HHS) and authorised the development and acquisitions of medical countermeasures and a quadrennial National Health Security Strategy.The 2019 Act also set in place a number of measures including the requirement for the US government to re-evaluate several important metrics of the Public Health Emergency Preparedness cooperative agreement and the Hospital Preparedness Program, and a requirement for a report on the states of preparedness and response in US healthcare facilities.This pandemic looks set to continue to be a grave threat to humanity. But there will also be future pandemics – whether another type of coronavirus or a new influenza virus – and our species will be threatened again, we just don’t know when.Other disasters too will befall us – we already see the impacts of climate change arriving on our doorsteps characterised by increased numbers and intensity of floods, hurricanes, fires, crop failure and other manifestations of a warming, increasingly turbulent atmosphere and we will continue to suffer major volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and tsunamis. All high impact, unknown probability events.Preparedness for an unknown future is expensive and requires a great deal of effort for events that may not happen within the preparers’ lifetimes. It is hard to imagine now, but people will forget this crisis, and revert to their imagined projections of the future where crises don’t occur, and progress follows progress. But history shows us otherwise.Preparations for future crises always fall prey to financial cuts and austerity measures in lean times unless there is a mechanism to prevent that. Cost-benefit analyses will understandably tend to prioritise the urgent over the long-term. So governments should put in place legislation – or strengthen existing legislation – now to ensure their countries are as prepared as possible for whatever crisis is coming.Such a legal requirement would require governments to report back to parliament every year on the state of their national preparations detailing such measures as:The exact levels of stocks of essential materials (including medical equipment)The ability of hospitals to cope with large influx of patientsHow many drills, exercises and simulations had been organised – and their findingsWhat was being done to implement lessons learned & improve preparednessIn addition, further actions should be taken:Parliamentary committees such as the UK Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy should scrutinise the government’s readiness for the potential threats outlined in the National Risk register for Civil Emergencies in-depth on an annual basis.Parliamentarians, including ministers, with responsibility for national security and resilience should participate in drills, table-top exercises and simulations to see for themselves the problems inherent with dealing with crises.All governments should have a minister (or equivalent) with the sole responsibility for national crisis preparedness and resilience. The Minister would be empowered to liaise internationally and coordinate local responses such as local resilience groups.There should be ring-fenced budget lines in annual budgets specifically for preparedness and resilience measures, annually reported on and assessed by parliaments as part of the due diligence process.And at the international level:The UN Security Council should establish a Crisis Preparedness Committee to bolster the ability of United Nations Member States to respond to international crisis such as pandemics, within their borders and across regions. The Committee would function in a similar fashion as the Counter Terrorism Committee that was established following the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States.States should present reports on their level of preparedness to the UN Security Council. The Crisis Preparedness Committee could establish a group of experts who would conduct expert assessments of each member state’s risks and preparedness and facilitate technical assistance as required.Regional bodies such as the OSCE, ASEAN and ARF, the AU, the OAS, the PIF etc could also request national reports on crisis preparedness for discussion and cooperation at the regional level.COVID-19 has been referred to as the 9/11 of crisis preparedness and response. Just as that shocking terrorist attack shifted the world and created a series of measures to address terrorism, we now recognise our security frameworks need far more emphasis on being prepared and being resilient. Whatever has been done in the past, it is clear that was nowhere near enough and that has to change.Case Study of Preparedness: The UKThe National Risk Register was first published in 2008 as part of the undertakings laid out in the National Security Strategy (the UK also published the Biological Security Strategy in July 2018). Now entitled the National Risk Register for Civil Emergencies it has been updated regularly to analyse the risks of major emergencies that could affect the UK in the next five years and provide resilience advice and guidance.The latest edition - produced in 2017 when the UK had a Minister for Government Resilience and Efficiency - placed the risk of a pandemic influenza in the ‘highly likely and most severe’ category. It stood out from all the other identified risks, whereas an emerging disease (such as COVID-19) was identified as ‘highly likely but with moderate impact’.However, much preparatory work for an influenza pandemic is the same as for COVID-19, particularly in prepositioning large stocks of PPE, readiness within large hospitals, and the creation of new hospitals and facilities.One key issue is that the 2017 NHS Operating Framework for Managing the Response to Pandemic Influenza was dependent on pre-positioned ’just in case’ stockpiles of PPE. But as it became clear the PPE stocks were not adequate for the pandemic, it was reported that recommendations about the stockpile by NERVTAG (the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group which advises the government on the threat posed by new and emerging respiratory viruses) had been subjected to an ‘economic assessment’ and decisions reversed on, for example, eye protection.The UK chief medical officer Dame Sally Davies, when speaking at the World Health Organization about Operation Cygnus – a 2016 three-day exercise on a flu pandemic in the UK – reportedly said the UK was not ready for a severe flu attack and ‘a lot of things need improving’.Aware of the significance of the situation, the UK Parliamentary Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy launched an inquiry in 2019 on ‘Biosecurity and human health: preparing for emerging infectious diseases and bioweapons’ which intended to coordinate a cross-government approach to biosecurity threats. But the inquiry had to postpone its oral hearings scheduled for late October 2019 and, because of the general election in December 2019, the committee was obliged to close the inquiry. Full Article
rep Reply to Cosgrove: Non-enzymatic action of expansins [Letters to the Editor] By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: 2020-05-08T03:41:14-07:00 In our computational study, we use molecular simulations to substantiate a hypothetical mechanism for glycosidic bond cleavage in the presence of a single catalytic acid at the active site of the mutant D10N HiCel45A. In addition to discussing this plausible mechanism from the context of structurally related MltA lytic transglycosylase and subfamily C GH45s, we also suggest the implications of the plausible mechanism for our current understanding of the action of expansins and lytic transglycosylases. As correctly pointed out by Professor Cosgrove (1), there is large body of evidence, a significant portion of which was regrettably not discussed in our paper, that suggests that expansins are incapable of lytic action on polysaccharide substrates. Whereas these insights do not change the results or the conclusions of our article, we would like to thank Professor Cosgrove for these additional insights. In particular, our main point with respect to expansins is that our results suggest the possibility that expansins are capable of nonhydrolytic lytic activity. Our intention was not to suggest this was the mechanism of expansins, but that it should be considered based on our results and the similarity of the active sites.The molecular mechanisms of how expansins enable cell wall expansion remains to be fully understood. Whereas our proposed mechanism resulting in the formation of the 1,6-anhdro product might be found in expansins and might contribute to the mode of action of expansins, we would like to emphasize that the intent of this study was only to suggest this as a... Full Article
rep The Future of Democracy in Europe: Technology and the Evolution of Representation By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Tue, 25 Feb 2020 11:31:48 +0000 3 March 2020 To the extent that perceptions of a crisis in liberal democracy in Europe can be confirmed, this paper investigates the nature of the problem and its causes, and asks what part, if any, digital technology plays in it. Read online Download PDF Hans Kundnani Senior Research Fellow, Europe Programme @hanskundnani 2020-02-27-Irish-Referendum.jpg A woman writes a note on the Savita Halappanavar mural in Dublin on 26 May 2018, following a referendum on the 36th amendment to Ireland’s constitution. The referendum result was overwhelmingly in favour of removing the country’s previous near-universal ban on abortion. Photo: Getty Images. SummaryThere is a widespread sense that liberal democracy is in crisis, but little consensus exists on the specific nature and causes of the crisis. In particular, there are three prisms through which the crisis is usually seen: the rise of ‘populism’, ‘democratic deconsolidation’, and a ‘hollowing out’ of democracy. Each reflects normative assumptions about democracy.The exact role of digital technology in the crisis is disputed. Despite the widely held perception that social media is undermining democracy, the evidence for this is limited. Over the longer term, the further development of digital technology could undermine the fundamental preconditions for democracy – though the pace and breadth of technological change make predictions about its future impact difficult.Democracy functions in different ways in different European countries, with political systems on the continent ranging from ‘majoritarian democracies’ such as the UK to ‘consensual democracies’ such as Belgium and Switzerland. However, no type seems to be immune from the crisis. The political systems of EU member states also interact in diverse ways with the EU’s own structure, which is problematic for representative democracy as conventionally understood, but difficult to reform.Political parties, central to the model of representative democracy that emerged in the late 18th century, have long seemed to be in decline. Recently there have been some signs of a reversal of this trend, with the emergence of parties that have used digital technology in innovative ways to reconnect with citizens. Traditional parties can learn from these new ‘digital parties’.Recent years have also seen a proliferation of experiments in direct and deliberative democracy. There is a need for more experimentation in these alternative forms of democracy, and for further evaluation of how they can be integrated into the existing institutions and processes of representative democracy at the local, regional, national and EU levels.We should not think of democracy in a static way – that is, as a system that can be perfected once and for all and then simply maintained and defended against threats. Democracy has continually evolved and now needs to evolve further. The solution to the crisis will not be to attempt to limit democracy in response to pressure from ‘populism’ but to deepen it further as part of a ‘democratization of democracy’. Department/project Europe Programme, Commission on Democracy and Technology in Europe Full Article
rep Impact of 1,N6-ethenoadenosine, a damaged ribonucleotide in DNA, on translesion synthesis and repair [Enzymology] By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: 2020-05-01T00:06:09-07:00 Incorporation of ribonucleotides into DNA can severely diminish genome integrity. However, how ribonucleotides instigate DNA damage is poorly understood. In DNA, they can promote replication stress and genomic instability and have been implicated in several diseases. We report here the impact of the ribonucleotide rATP and of its naturally occurring damaged analog 1,N6-ethenoadenosine (1,N6-ϵrA) on translesion synthesis (TLS), mediated by human DNA polymerase η (hpol η), and on RNase H2–mediated incision. Mass spectral analysis revealed that 1,N6-ϵrA in DNA generates extensive frameshifts during TLS, which can lead to genomic instability. Moreover, steady-state kinetic analysis of the TLS process indicated that deoxypurines (i.e. dATP and dGTP) are inserted predominantly opposite 1,N6-ϵrA. We also show that hpol η acts as a reverse transcriptase in the presence of damaged ribonucleotide 1,N6-ϵrA but has poor RNA primer extension activities. Steady-state kinetic analysis of reverse transcription and RNA primer extension showed that hpol η favors the addition of dATP and dGTP opposite 1,N6-ϵrA. We also found that RNase H2 recognizes 1,N6-ϵrA but has limited incision activity across from this lesion, which can lead to the persistence of this detrimental DNA adduct. We conclude that the damaged and unrepaired ribonucleotide 1,N6-ϵrA in DNA exhibits mutagenic potential and can also alter the reading frame in an mRNA transcript because 1,N6-ϵrA is incompletely incised by RNase H2. Full Article
rep Wish you were here: Meetings, no meetings, meeting reports [Editorial] By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: 2020-04-17T00:06:05-07:00 We've all been saying it: These are unprecedented times. The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic are incredibly wide-ranging and affect all facets of life. One that is hitting the scientific community very hard is the cancellation of meetings, large and small. While we are well-versed in connecting with colleagues and collaborators across a variety of online platforms, these do not replace the immensely gratifying aspects of attending meetings in person: the pleasure of catching up with old friends and making new ones, the insights gained from having real-time conversations with others working on the same topic but with different expertise and perspectives, and the stimulating new scientific ideas we carry home. We have all been feeling the disappointment as we learn that one meeting after another is forced to cancel, from the vibrant ASBMB annual meeting to summer conferences of all types.Another loss from the appropriate but painful decision to cancel the ASBMB annual meeting was the chance to hear from our Herbert Tabor Early Career Investigator Awardees, who represent the best science published in JBC in the preceding year. This year, the competition was particularly fierce. We hope and anticipate that we will be able to hear from the winners at next year's ASBMB annual meeting. But in the meantime, we want to raise a toast to Wenchao Zhao, Yue Yang, Manisha Dagar, Febin Varghese, and Ayumi Nagashima-Kasahara as our 2020 winners. We've captured their award-winning 2019 papers (1–5) on the JBC website (6), and extended profiles of the... Full Article
rep Legal Provision for Crisis Preparedness: Foresight not Hindsight By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Tue, 21 Apr 2020 17:03:31 +0000 21 April 2020 Dr Patricia Lewis Research Director, Conflict, Science & Transformation; Director, International Security Programme @PatriciaMary COVID-19 is proving to be a grave threat to humanity. But this is not a one-off, there will be future crises, and we can be better prepared to mitigate them. 2020-04-21-Nurse-COVID-Test Examining a patient while testing for COVID-19 at the Velocity Urgent Care in Woodbridge, Virginia. Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images. A controversial debate during COVID-19 is the state of readiness within governments and health systems for a pandemic, with lines of the debate drawn on the issues of testing provision, personal protective equipment (PPE), and the speed of decision-making.President Macron in a speech to the nation admitted French medical workers did not have enough PPE and that mistakes had been made: ‘Were we prepared for this crisis? We have to say that no, we weren’t, but we have to admit our errors … and we will learn from this’.In reality few governments were fully prepared. In years to come, all will ask: ‘how could we have been better prepared, what did we do wrong, and what can we learn?’. But after every crisis, governments ask these same questions.Most countries have put in place national risk assessments and established processes and systems to monitor and stress-test crisis-preparedness. So why have some countries been seemingly better prepared?Comparing different approachesSome have had more time and been able to watch the spread of the disease and learn from those countries that had it first. Others have taken their own routes, and there will be much to learn from comparing these different approaches in the longer run.Governments in Asia have been strongly influenced by the experience of the SARS epidemic in 2002-3 and - South Korea in particular - the MERS-CoV outbreak in 2015 which was the largest outside the Middle East. Several carried out preparatory work in terms of risk assessment, preparedness measures and resilience planning for a wide range of threats.Case Study of Preparedness: South KoreaBy 2007, South Korea had established the Division of Public Health Crisis Response in Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) and, in 2016, the KCDC Center for Public Health Emergency Preparedness and Response had established a round-the-clock Emergency Operations Center with rapid response teams.KCDC is responsible for the distribution of antiviral stockpiles to 16 cities and provinces that are required by law to hold and manage antiviral stockpiles.And, at the international level, there are frameworks for preparedness for pandemics. The International Health Regulations (IHR) - adopted at the 2005 World Health Assembly and binding on member states - require countries to report certain disease outbreaks and public health events to the World Health Organization (WHO) and ‘prevent, protect against, control and provide a public health response to the international spread of disease in ways that are commensurate with and restricted to public health risks, and which avoid unnecessary interference with international traffic and trade’.Under IHR, governments committed to a programme of building core capacities including coordination, surveillance, response and preparedness. The UN Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk highlights disaster preparedness for effective response as one of its main purposes and has already incorporated these measures into the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and other Agenda 2030 initiatives. UN Secretary-General António Guterres has said COVID-19 ‘poses a significant threat to the maintenance of international peace and security’ and that ‘a signal of unity and resolve from the Council would count for a lot at this anxious time’.Case Study of Preparedness: United StatesThe National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Center for Disease Control (CDC) established PERRC – the Preparedness for Emergency Response Research Centers - as a requirement of the 2006 Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act, which required research to ‘improve federal, state, local, and tribal public health preparedness and response systems’.The 2006 Act has since been supplanted by the 2019 Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness and Advancing Innovation Act. This created the post of Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) in the Department for Health and Human Services (HHS) and authorised the development and acquisitions of medical countermeasures and a quadrennial National Health Security Strategy.The 2019 Act also set in place a number of measures including the requirement for the US government to re-evaluate several important metrics of the Public Health Emergency Preparedness cooperative agreement and the Hospital Preparedness Program, and a requirement for a report on the states of preparedness and response in US healthcare facilities.This pandemic looks set to continue to be a grave threat to humanity. But there will also be future pandemics – whether another type of coronavirus or a new influenza virus – and our species will be threatened again, we just don’t know when.Other disasters too will befall us – we already see the impacts of climate change arriving on our doorsteps characterised by increased numbers and intensity of floods, hurricanes, fires, crop failure and other manifestations of a warming, increasingly turbulent atmosphere and we will continue to suffer major volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and tsunamis. All high impact, unknown probability events.Preparedness for an unknown future is expensive and requires a great deal of effort for events that may not happen within the preparers’ lifetimes. It is hard to imagine now, but people will forget this crisis, and revert to their imagined projections of the future where crises don’t occur, and progress follows progress. But history shows us otherwise.Preparations for future crises always fall prey to financial cuts and austerity measures in lean times unless there is a mechanism to prevent that. Cost-benefit analyses will understandably tend to prioritise the urgent over the long-term. So governments should put in place legislation – or strengthen existing legislation – now to ensure their countries are as prepared as possible for whatever crisis is coming.Such a legal requirement would require governments to report back to parliament every year on the state of their national preparations detailing such measures as:The exact levels of stocks of essential materials (including medical equipment)The ability of hospitals to cope with large influx of patientsHow many drills, exercises and simulations had been organised – and their findingsWhat was being done to implement lessons learned & improve preparednessIn addition, further actions should be taken:Parliamentary committees such as the UK Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy should scrutinise the government’s readiness for the potential threats outlined in the National Risk register for Civil Emergencies in-depth on an annual basis.Parliamentarians, including ministers, with responsibility for national security and resilience should participate in drills, table-top exercises and simulations to see for themselves the problems inherent with dealing with crises.All governments should have a minister (or equivalent) with the sole responsibility for national crisis preparedness and resilience. The Minister would be empowered to liaise internationally and coordinate local responses such as local resilience groups.There should be ring-fenced budget lines in annual budgets specifically for preparedness and resilience measures, annually reported on and assessed by parliaments as part of the due diligence process.And at the international level:The UN Security Council should establish a Crisis Preparedness Committee to bolster the ability of United Nations Member States to respond to international crisis such as pandemics, within their borders and across regions. The Committee would function in a similar fashion as the Counter Terrorism Committee that was established following the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States.States should present reports on their level of preparedness to the UN Security Council. The Crisis Preparedness Committee could establish a group of experts who would conduct expert assessments of each member state’s risks and preparedness and facilitate technical assistance as required.Regional bodies such as the OSCE, ASEAN and ARF, the AU, the OAS, the PIF etc could also request national reports on crisis preparedness for discussion and cooperation at the regional level.COVID-19 has been referred to as the 9/11 of crisis preparedness and response. Just as that shocking terrorist attack shifted the world and created a series of measures to address terrorism, we now recognise our security frameworks need far more emphasis on being prepared and being resilient. Whatever has been done in the past, it is clear that was nowhere near enough and that has to change.Case Study of Preparedness: The UKThe National Risk Register was first published in 2008 as part of the undertakings laid out in the National Security Strategy (the UK also published the Biological Security Strategy in July 2018). Now entitled the National Risk Register for Civil Emergencies it has been updated regularly to analyse the risks of major emergencies that could affect the UK in the next five years and provide resilience advice and guidance.The latest edition - produced in 2017 when the UK had a Minister for Government Resilience and Efficiency - placed the risk of a pandemic influenza in the ‘highly likely and most severe’ category. It stood out from all the other identified risks, whereas an emerging disease (such as COVID-19) was identified as ‘highly likely but with moderate impact’.However, much preparatory work for an influenza pandemic is the same as for COVID-19, particularly in prepositioning large stocks of PPE, readiness within large hospitals, and the creation of new hospitals and facilities.One key issue is that the 2017 NHS Operating Framework for Managing the Response to Pandemic Influenza was dependent on pre-positioned ’just in case’ stockpiles of PPE. But as it became clear the PPE stocks were not adequate for the pandemic, it was reported that recommendations about the stockpile by NERVTAG (the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group which advises the government on the threat posed by new and emerging respiratory viruses) had been subjected to an ‘economic assessment’ and decisions reversed on, for example, eye protection.The UK chief medical officer Dame Sally Davies, when speaking at the World Health Organization about Operation Cygnus – a 2016 three-day exercise on a flu pandemic in the UK – reportedly said the UK was not ready for a severe flu attack and ‘a lot of things need improving’.Aware of the significance of the situation, the UK Parliamentary Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy launched an inquiry in 2019 on ‘Biosecurity and human health: preparing for emerging infectious diseases and bioweapons’ which intended to coordinate a cross-government approach to biosecurity threats. But the inquiry had to postpone its oral hearings scheduled for late October 2019 and, because of the general election in December 2019, the committee was obliged to close the inquiry. Full Article
rep Activists and Entrepreneurs: The Future of the Arab Spring By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Tue, 27 May 2014 15:00:01 +0000 Research Event 10 June 2014 - 2:30pm to 4:00pm Chatham House, London Event participants Maryam Jamshidi, Author, The Future of the Arab Spring: Civic Entrepreneurship in Politics, Art, and Technology StartupsChair: Leonie Northedge, Research Associate, Middle East and North Africa Programme, Chatham House Three years on from the Arab uprisings, many of the goals of the protests remain unmet. However, the spirit of collaboration which was nurtured during this time lives on and has resulted in an expansion of grassroots organizations, tech startups and artists’ collectives. At this roundtable, Maryam Jamshidi, author of The Future of the Arab Spring: Civic Entrepreneurship in Politics, Art, and Technology Startups, will argue that the Middle East’s ‘civic entrepreneurs’ continue to apply their talents to rebuilding their countries’ political, economic and social fabrics.THIS EVENT IS NOW FULL AND REGISTRATION IS CLOSED. Department/project Middle East and North Africa Programme Full Article
rep A simplified method for the preparation of detergent-free lipid rafts By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: 2005-05-01 Jennifer L. MacdonaldMay 1, 2005; 46:1061-1067Methods Full Article
rep Rafts defined: a report on the Keystone symposium on lipid rafts and cell function By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: 2006-07-01 Linda J. PikeJul 1, 2006; 47:1597-1598Report Full Article
rep Preparation of fatty acid methyl esters and dimethylacetals from lipids with boron fluoride--methanol By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: 1964-10-01 William R. MorrisonOct 1, 1964; 5:600-608Articles Full Article
rep Can Entrepreneurship Help Stabilize Conflict Zones? By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Tue, 10 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0100 Full Article
rep Preparing for Digital Transformation By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Wed, 10 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +0100 Full Article
rep Undercurrents: Episode 51 - Preparing for Pandemics, and Gandhi's Chatham House Speech By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Thu, 30 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0100 Full Article
rep Atomic force microscopy-based characterization of the interaction of PriA helicase with stalled DNA replication forks [DNA and Chromosomes] By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: 2020-05-01T00:06:09-07:00 In bacteria, the restart of stalled DNA replication forks requires the DNA helicase PriA. PriA can recognize and remodel abandoned DNA replication forks, unwind DNA in the 3'-to-5' direction, and facilitate the loading of the helicase DnaB onto the DNA to restart replication. Single-stranded DNA–binding protein (SSB) is typically present at the abandoned forks, but it is unclear how SSB and PriA interact, although it has been shown that the two proteins interact both physically and functionally. Here, we used atomic force microscopy to visualize the interaction of PriA with DNA substrates with or without SSB. These experiments were done in the absence of ATP to delineate the substrate recognition pattern of PriA before its ATP-catalyzed DNA-unwinding reaction. These analyses revealed that in the absence of SSB, PriA binds preferentially to a fork substrate with a gap in the leading strand. Such a preference has not been observed for 5'- and 3'-tailed duplexes, suggesting that it is the fork structure that plays an essential role in PriA's selection of DNA substrates. Furthermore, we found that in the absence of SSB, PriA binds exclusively to the fork regions of the DNA substrates. In contrast, fork-bound SSB loads PriA onto the duplex DNA arms of forks, suggesting a remodeling of PriA by SSB. We also demonstrate that the remodeling of PriA requires a functional C-terminal domain of SSB. In summary, our atomic force microscopy analyses reveal key details in the interactions between PriA and stalled DNA replication forks with or without SSB. Full Article
rep Why an Inclusive Circular Economy is Needed to Prepare for Future Global Crises By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Wed, 15 Apr 2020 13:23:01 +0000 15 April 2020 Patrick Schröder Senior Research Fellow, Energy, Environment and Resources Programme @patricks_CH Google Scholar The risks associated with existing production and consumption systems have been harshly exposed amid the current global health crisis but an inclusive circular economy could ensure both short-term and long-term resilience for future challenges. 2020-04-15-Waste-Collection-Peru.jpg Lima city employees picking up garbage during lockdown measures in Peru amid the COVID-19 crisis. Photo: Getty Images. The world is currently witnessing how vulnerable existing production and consumption systems are, with the current global health crisis harshly exposing the magnitude of the risks associated with the global economy in its current form, grounded, as it is, in a linear system that uses a ‘take–make–throw away’ approach.These ‘linear risks’ associated with the existing global supply chain system are extremely high for national economies overly dependent on natural resource extraction and exports of commodities like minerals and metals. Equally vulnerable are countries with large manufacturing sectors of ready-made garments and non-repairable consumer goods for western markets. Furthermore, workers and communities working in these sectors are vulnerable to these changes as a result of disruptive technologies and reduced demand.In a recently published Chatham House research paper, ‘Promoting a Just Transition to an Inclusive Circular Economy’, we highlight why a circular economy approach presents the world with a solution to old and new global risks – from marine plastic pollution to climate change and resource scarcity.Taking the long viewSo far, action to transition to a circular economy has been slow compared to the current crisis which has mobilized rapid global action. For proponents of transitioning to a circular economy, this requires taking the long view. The pandemic has shown us that global emergencies can fast-forward processes that otherwise might take years, even decades, to play out or reverse achievements which have taken years to accomplish.In this vein, there are three striking points of convergence between the COVID-19 pandemic and the need to transition to an inclusive circular economy.Firstly, the current crisis is a stark reminder that the circular economy is not only necessary to ensure long-term resource security but also short-term supplies of important materials. In many cities across the US, the UK and Europe, councils have suspended recycling to focus on essential waste collection services. The UK Recycling Association, for example, has warned about carboard shortages due to disrupted recycling operations with possible shortages for food and medicine packaging on the horizon.Similarly, in China, most recycling sites were shut during the country’s lockdown presenting implications for global recycling markets with additional concerns that there will be a fibre shortage across Europe and possibly around the world.Furthermore, worldwide COVID-19 lockdowns are resulting in a resurgence in the use of single-use packaging creating a new wave of plastic waste especially from food deliveries – already seen in China – with illegal waste fly-tipping dramatically increasing in the UK since the lockdown.In this vein, concerns over the current global health crisis is reversing previous positive trends where many cities had established recycling schemes and companies and consumers had switched to reusable alternatives.Secondly, the need to improve the working conditions of the people working in the informal circular economy, such as waste pickers and recyclers, is imperative. Many waste materials and recyclables that are being handled and collected may be contaminated as a result of being mixed with medical waste.Now, more than ever, key workers in waste management, collection and recycling require personal protective equipment and social protection to ensure their safety as well as the continuation of essential waste collection so as not to increase the potential for new risks associated with additional infectious diseases.In India, almost 450 million workers including construction workers, street vendors and landless agricultural labourers, work in the informal sector. In the current climate, the poorest who are unable to work pose a great risk to the Indian economy which could find itself having to shut down.Moreover, many informal workers live in make-shift settlements areas such as Asia’s largest slum, Dharavi in Mumbai, where health authorities are now facing serious challenges to contain the spread of the disease. Lack of access to handwashing and sanitation facilities, however, further increase these risks but circular, decentralized solutions could make important contributions to sustainable sanitation, health and improved community resilience.Thirdly, it is anticipated that in the long term several global supply chains will be radically changed as a result of transformed demand patterns and the increase in circular practices such as urban mining for the recovery and recycling of metals or the reuse and recycling of textile fibres and localized additive manufacturing (e.g. 3D printing).Many of these supply chains and trade flows have now been already severely disrupted due to the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, the global garment industry has been particularly hard-hit due to the closure of outlets amid falling demand for apparel.It is important to note, workers at the bottom of these garment supply chains are among the most vulnerable and most affected by the crisis as global fashion brands, for example, have been cancelling orders – in the order of $6 billion in the case of Bangladesh alone. Only after intense negotiations are some brands assuming financial responsibility in the form of compensation wage funds to help suppliers in Myanmar, Cambodia and Bangladesh to pay workers during the ongoing crisis.In addition, the current pandemic is damaging demand for raw materials thereby affecting mining countries. Demand for Africa’s commodities in China, for example, has declined significantly, with the impact on African economies expected to be serious, with 15 per cent of the world’s copper and 20 per cent of the world’s zinc mines currently going offline. A further threat is expected to come from falling commodity prices as a result of the curtailment of manufacturing activity in China particularly for crude oil, copper, iron ore and other industrial commodities which, in these cases, will have direct impacts on the Australian and Canadian mining sectors.This is all being compounded by an associated decline in consumer demand worldwide. For example, many South African mining companies – leading producers of metals and minerals – have started closing their mining operations following the government’s announcement of a lockdown in order to prevent the transmission of the virus among miners who often work in confined spaces and in close proximity with one another. As workers are laid off due to COVID-19, there are indications that the mining industry will see fast-tracking towards automated mining operations. All of these linear risks that have been exposed through the COVID-19 pandemic reinforce the need for a just transition to a circular economy. But while the reduction in the consumption of resources is necessary to achieve sustainability, the social impacts on low- and middle- income countries and their workers requires international support mechanisms.In addition, the current situation also highlights the need to find a new approach to globalized retail chains and a balance between local and global trade based on international cooperation across global value chains rather than implementation of trade protectionist measures.In this vein, all of the recovery plans from the global COVID-19 pandemic need to be aligned with the principles of an inclusive circular economy in order to ensure both short-term and long-term resilience and preparedness for future challenges and disruptions. Full Article
rep Strengthening National Accountability and Preparedness for Global Health Security (SNAP-GHS) By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Thu, 19 Dec 2019 15:43:55 +0000 The project aims to identify the enablers and barriers to enhance data use by National Public Health Institutes (NPHIs), producing outputs that will facilitate strengthening of the role of NPHIs in monitoring potential public health threats, and in shaping and informing domestic policies on health security and preparedness. Global health security is underpinned by the actions taken at a national level to ensure capacities exist to sufficiently prepare for and respond to acute threats and crises. In many contexts, National Public Health Institutes (NPHIs) were first established because of, and in response to, specific public health challenges typically related to infectious diseases.The Strengthening National Accountability and Preparedness for Global Health Security (SNAP-GHS) project evolved from a series of roundtables and discussions hosted by the Centre on Global Health Security at Chatham House, in collaboration with the Graduate Institute of Geneva.The outcome of the project is a SNAP-GHS Toolkit to support NPHIs in better diagnosing and understanding the challenges to data use within their own institutes, as well as in relation to external stakeholders and agencies. The toolkit is intended to be used for further circulation and dissemination by the International Association of National Public Health Institutes (IANPHI).The project is led by the Centre on Global Health Security at Chatham House in collaboration with the Ethiopian Public Health Institute, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, and the National Institute for Health in Pakistan. Full Article
rep Biosecurity: Preparing for the Aftermath of Global Health Crises By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Thu, 09 Jan 2020 14:16:59 +0000 9 January 2020 Professor David R Harper CBE Senior Consulting Fellow, Global Health Programme @DavidRossHarper Benjamin Wakefield Research Associate, Global Health Programme @BCWakefield LinkedIn The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is a reminder that the security of samples taken during global health emergencies is a vital part of safeguarding biosecurity. 2020-01-09-DRC.jpg A nurse prepares a vaccine against Ebola in Goma in August 2019. Photo: Getty Images. The world’s second-largest Ebola outbreak is ongoing in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and experts from around the world have been parachuted in to support the country’s operation to stamp out the outbreak. The signs are encouraging, but we need to remain cautious.In such emergencies, little thought is usually given to what happens to the body-fluid samples taken during the course of the outbreak after the crisis is over. What gets left behind has considerable implications for global biosecurity.Having unsecured samples poses the obvious risk of accidental exposures to people who might come into contact with them, but what of the risk of malicious use? Bioterrorists would have ready access to materials that have the characteristics essential to their purpose: the potential to cause disease that is transmissible from person to person, the capacity to result in high fatality rates and, importantly, the ability to cause panic and social disruption at the very mention of them.Comparisons can be drawn with the significant international impact of the anthrax attacks in the US in 2001. Not only was there a direct effect in the US with five deaths and a further 17 people infected, but there was a paralysis of public health systems in other countries involved in the testing of countless samples from the so-called ‘white-powder incidents’ that followed.Many laboratory tests were done purely on a precautionary basis to eliminate any possibility of a risk, no matter how remote. However, the UK was also hit when a hoaxer sent envelopes of white powder labelled as anthrax to 15 MPs.The threat of the pathogen alone resulted in widespread fear, the deployment of officers trained in response to chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear incidents and the evacuation of a hospital emergency department.We learned from the 2014–16 West Africa Ebola outbreaks that during the emergency, the future biosecurity implications of the many thousands of samples taken from people were given very little consideration. It is impossible to be sure where they all are and whether they have been secured.It is widely recognized that the systems needed at the time for tracking and monitoring resources, including those necessary for samples, were weak or absent, and this has to be addressed urgently along with other capacity-building initiatives.In Sierra Leone, for example, the remaining biosecurity risk is only being addressed after the fact. To help achieve this, the government of Canada is in the process of providing a secure biobank in the Sierra Leonean capital of Freetown. The aim is to provide the proper means of storage for these hazardous samples and to allow them to remain in-country, with Sierra Leonean ownership.However, it is already more three years since the emergency was declared over by the then director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO), Margaret Chan, and the biobank and its associated laboratory are yet to be fully operational.There are many understandable reasons for this delay, including the critical issue of how best to ensure the sustainability of any new facility. But what is clear is that these solutions take time to implement and must be planned for in advance.The difficulties of responding to an outbreak in a conflict zone have been well documented, and the frequent violence in DRC has undoubtedly caused delays in controlling the outbreak. According to figures from WHO, during 2019 approximately 390 attacks on health facilities in DRC killed 11 and injured 83 healthcare workers and patients.Not only does the conflict inhibit the response, but it could also increase the risk posed by unsecured samples. There are two main potential concerns.First is the risk of accidental release during an attack on a health facility, under which circumstances sample containers may be compromised or destroyed. Second is that the samples may be stolen for malicious use or to sell them to a third-party for malicious use. It is very important in all outbreaks to ensure the necessary measures are in place to secure samples; in conflict-affected areas, this is particularly challenging.The sooner the samples in the DRC are secured, the sooner this risk to global biosecurity is reduced. And preparations for the next emergency must be made without further delay.The following steps need to be taken:Affected countries must ‘own’ the problem, with clear national government commitment to take the required actions.Funding partners must coordinate their actions and work closely with the countries to find the best solutions.If samples are to be kept in-country, secure biobanks must be established to contain them.Sustainable infrastructure must be built for samples to be kept secure into the future.An international agreement should be reached on the best approach to take to prepare for the aftermath of global health emergencies. Full Article
rep Spectral analysis and representation of solutions of integro-differential equations with fractional exponential kernels By www.ams.org Published On :: Fri, 10 Apr 2020 08:09 EDT V. V. Vlasov and N. A. Rautian Trans. Moscow Math. Soc. 80 (2020), 169-188. Abstract, references and article information Full Article
rep Ordinary differential operators and the integral representation of sums of certain power series By www.ams.org Published On :: Fri, 10 Apr 2020 08:09 EDT K. A. Mirzoev and T. A. Safonova Trans. Moscow Math. Soc. 80 (2020), 133-151. Abstract, references and article information Full Article
rep euromicron AG publishes 2019 Half-Year Report By www.euromicron.de Published On :: Thu, 08 Aug 2019 06:58:00 +0200 Final half-year figures equivalent to the published figures EUR 3.8 million increase in EBITDA (before IFRS 16) shows improved quality of the margin Forecast for 2019 as a whole confirmed euromicron AG, a medium-sized technology group and specialist for the digital networking of business and production processes, published its report for the first half of 2019 today. Full Article
rep euromicron AG publishes its report on the third quarter of 2019 By www.euromicron.de Published On :: Thu, 07 Nov 2019 06:51:00 +0100 Final numbers for the first nine months match previously published figures Development of consolidated sales due to order postponements behind plan EBITDA (before IFRS 16) of €2.0 million and so slightly up year over year Capital increase completed successfully in the third quarter of 2019 Guidance for the whole of 2019 adjusted Full Article
rep The Executive Director's Statement to the 150th Meeting of the Committee of Permanent Representatives By www.unenvironment.org Published On :: Thu, 30 Apr 2020 00:00:00 GMT In these unusual and tragic times, I am indeed grateful that we are able to connect virtually to continue the business of environmental governance. While the efforts of all your capitals are correctly focused on preventing human suffering, as parts of the world move slowly towards recovery, the environmental agenda remains one of our most powerful insurance policies in preventing future global pandemics like COVID-19. Full Article
rep Report of the Fourth Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity Serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety By www.cbd.int Published On :: Thu, 26 Jun 2008 00:00:00 GMT Report of the Fourth Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity Serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety (Advance text) Full Article
rep Report of the fifth meeting of the Compliance Committee now available. By www.cbd.int Published On :: Mon, 01 Dec 2008 00:00:00 GMT Full Article
rep Report of the Fifth Coordination Meeting for Governments and Organizations Implementing or Funding Biosafety Capacity-building Activities. By www.cbd.int Published On :: Wed, 07 Oct 2009 00:00:00 GMT Full Article
rep Report of the sixth meeting of the Compliance Committee now available. By www.cbd.int Published On :: Thu, 18 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT Full Article
rep Report of the sixth meeting of the Liaison Group on Capacity-Building for Biosafety. By www.cbd.int Published On :: Thu, 18 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT Full Article
rep Report of the Group of the Friends of the Co-Chairs on Liability and Redress in the Context of the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety on the Work of its First Meeting. By www.cbd.int Published On :: Thu, 18 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT Full Article
rep Report of the Group of the Friends of the Co-Chairs on Liability and Redress in the Context of The Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety on the Work of Its Second Meeting By www.cbd.int Published On :: Wed, 31 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT Full Article
rep Report of the sixth coordination meeting for governments and organizations By www.cbd.int Published On :: Fri, 09 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT Full Article
rep Report of the Ad Hoc Technical Expert Group on Risk Assessment and Risk Management Under the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety By www.cbd.int Published On :: Fri, 09 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT Full Article
rep Report of the First Meeting of the Ad Hoc Technical Expert Group on Risk Assessment and Risk Management under the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety By www.cbd.int Published On :: Fri, 09 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT Full Article
rep Report of the Group of the Friends of the Co-Chairs on Liability and Redress in the Context of the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety on the Work of its Third Meeting By bch.cbd.int Published On :: Thu, 22 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT Full Article