Pitfalls of the geographic population structure (GPS) approach applied to human genetic history: a case study of Ashkenazi Jews

In a recent interdisciplinary study, Das and co-authors have attempted to trace the homeland of Ashkenazi Jews and of their historical language, Yiddish (Das et al. 2016. Localizing Ashkenazic Jews to Primeval Villages in the Ancient Iranian Lands of Ashkenaz. Genome Biology and Evolution). Das and co-authors applied the geographic population structure (GPS) method to autosomal genotyping data and inferred geographic coordinates of populations supposedly ancestral to Ashkenazi Jews, placing them in Eastern Turkey. They argued that this unexpected genetic result goes against the widely accepted notion of Ashkenazi origin in the Levant, and speculated that Yiddish was originally a Slavic language strongly influenced by Iranian and Turkic languages, and later remodeled completely under Germanic influence. In our view, there are major conceptual problems with both the genetic and linguistic parts of the work. We argue that GPS is a provenancing tool suited to inferring the geographic region where a modern and recently unadmixed genome is most likely to arise, but is hardly suitable for admixed populations and for tracing ancestry up to 1000 years before present, as its authors have previously claimed. Moreover, all methods of historical linguistics concur that Yiddish is a Germanic language, with no reliable evidence for Slavic, Iranian, or Turkic substrata

Implication of climate change and variability on stream flow in Iringa region, Tanzania

This paper investigates the implication of climate change and variability on the river flow within the traditional irrigation farming system, vinyungu, in Iringa region, Tanzania. The study aimed at establishing areas that are most impacted by climate change in terms of river flow and various adaptation strategies. It is based on both primary data collected by questionnaires distributed randomly among 189 farmers and key informant checklists conducted with villages’ leaders and Agriculture Extension Officers. Two focused group discussions were carried out for each village as well as the researcher’s own observations, and secondary data includes: literature review, rainfall and river flow data. The long-term annual trends of rainfall and river flow were analyzed via Mann–Kendall’s statistical test and linear trend analysis. Climate data on rainfall trend showed a significant decreasing pattern during the last 17 years. Also, river flow data showed a slight decline within the same period. Decrement in river flow, combined with rainfall fluctuation, forced farmers to employ various adaptation strategies. Following the severity of the problem the paper recommends that more research be conducted on proper water management for sustainable river flow for both agriculture production and environmental management

Citrato de cafeína: ¿por qué usarlo en los recién nacidos?

ResumenEl citrato de cafeína, es uno de los medicamentos más comúnmente usado en cualquier unidad de cuidados intensivos neonatales; es una metilxantina e inhibidor de los receptores de adenosina. Desde hace más de 30 años es bien conocida su eficacia en el tratamiento de la apnea del prematuro, actualmente se le reconocen otros beneficios como disminución en la incidencia de displasia broncopulmonar, disminución de la falla a la extubación y ser un factor de neuroprotección entre otros. El objetivo del presente artículo fue realizará una revisión sobre las propiedades farmacológicas, mecanismos de acción, dosis adecuadas, niveles séricos y efectos terapéuticos de la cafeína en los recién nacidos.AbstractCaffeine, a methylxantine and nonspecific inhibitor of adenosine receptors, is commonly prescribed in the Neonatal Intensive Care Units. The efficacy of caffeine in an episode of apnea of prematurity has been known for over thirty years, but now it has been found that caffeine have others beneficial actions, such as reduction in the incidence of bronchopulmonary dysplasia, less extubation failure, the need for patent ductus arteriosus treatment, and neuroprotective role. The objective is this review was to update the current knowledge of pharmacologic properties, the mechanisms of action, caffeine dosing and therapeutic effects, in the neonatal population

Harnessing England’s Biodiversity Net Gain legislation to amplify urban flood risk management

The Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) legislation came into effect in England from February 2024 and represents a significant shift in planning regulations. Now that the legislation exists – and a new government is in place – this policy report presents the case for integrating BNG and natural flood management to enhance urban resilience, including integration of BNG funding with local authorities’ natural flood risk management projects. This can best be achieved through appropriate policy measures, better leveraging of insurance underwriting solutions, and research and collaboration. The report sets out recommendations for national government, local authorities, the insurance sector and others, intended to help amplify the legislation’s impact

Fine-Grain Interoperability of Scientific Workflows in Distributed Computing Infrastructures

Today there exist a wide variety of scientific workflow management systems, each designed to fulfill the needs of a certain scientific community. Unfortunately, once a workflow application has been designed in one particular system it becomes very hard to share it with users working with different systems. Portability of workflows and interoperability between current systems barely exists. In this work, we present the fine-grained interoperability solution proposed in the SHIWA European project that brings together four representative European workflow systems: ASKALON, MOTEUR, WS-PGRADE, and Triana. The proposed interoperability is realised at two levels of abstraction: abstract and concrete. At the abstract level, we propose a generic Interoperable Workflow Intermediate Representation (IWIR) that can be used as a common bridge for translating workflows between different languages independent of the underlying distributed computing infrastructure. At the concrete level, we propose a bundling technique that aggregates the abstract IWIR representation and concrete task representations to enable workflow instantiation, execution and scheduling. We illustrate case studies using two real-workflow applications designed in a native environment and then translated and executed by a foreign workflow system in a foreign distributed computing infrastructure. © 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

"Versuchung" Bild – wahrheitsgemäße Berichterstattung oder verkaufte News? Statements und Podiumsdiskussion

Teilnehmer: Friedhelm Brebeck, ARD, Hamburg; Petra Gilb, Ressortleiterin BILD-TV, Hamburg; Prof Dr. Christion Doelker, Zürich; Pfarrer Dietmar Heeg, Beauftragter der Bischofskonferenz für die RTL-Gruppe und ProSieben-SAT. 1, Frankfurt/Main. Moderation: Birgit Harprath, Bayerischer Rundfunk, München Am Beginn der Abschlussdiskussion des Studientags zum Thema "Wahrheitsgemäße Berichterstattung oder verkaufte News?" stand die Erfahrung eines langjährigen ARD-Auslandskorrespondenten: "Wir haben längst aufgegeben, rauszugehen und nach der Wahrheit zu schaufeln", urteilt Friedhelm Brebeck über seine Arbeit. Die eine Wahrheit, wie man sie gerne wissen und darstellen möchte, gebe es nicht, allenfalls Seiten mit Teilwahrheiten. Also bleibe dem Korrespondenten nur, das zu berichten, was er sehe. (...

The opioid overdose crisis in New York: a study on the impacts of policy, demographics, and treatment access

There is a notable gap in research examining the opioid epidemic between 2016 and 2021, particularly across all counties in New York state. This study aims to fill this gap by analyzing the factors contributing to opioid overdose deaths, focusing on demographics, drug-related crime, healthcare events, and policy. The model reveals that opioid overdose death rates are higher across counties with larger populations of Hispanic or Latino, Asian, and multiracial populations, highlighting potential disparities in substance abuse treatment access. Additionally, the findings show that healthcare visits for opioid overdose or abuse are associated with increasing mortality rates, suggesting a lack of coordinated care across counties. However, the interaction between healthcare facility visits for opioid abuse and admissions to OASAS-certified drug treatment programs is associated with a decrease in opioid overdose deaths. This is likely due to the effectiveness of these certified programs in preventing overdose, even in the rare instances when coordinated care is employed. Surprisingly, drug misdemeanor charges are correlated to a reduction in overdose deaths, possibly reflecting the success of drug diversion programs that offer treatment over incarceration. Conversely, the legalization of recreational marijuana and the COVID-19 pandemic are strongly associated with higher overdose death rates, potentially due to shifts in drug-use patterns, increased substance availability, and disruptions in addiction treatment services. These findings emphasize the need for sustained access to healthcare and highlight critical gaps in treatment and intervention efforts across New York State. Keywords: Business Analytics, Opioid Overdose, Mixed-effects model, COVID-19 pandemicNASUNY College at New PaltzHonorsHonorsN/

Mathematical Problems in Molecular Evolution and Next Generation Sequencing

The focus of this work is the development of new mathematical methods for problems in phylogenetic tree inferences. In the first part we solve several problems related to so-called partitioned alignments. In the second part we demonstrate how to calculate all identical subtrees of a given labeled tree. We make use of this to implement an efficient method for avoiding redundant likelihood operations during phylogenetic tree inferences

Un trait d’union entre la Russie et l’Europe au début du xxe siècle : le musicologue B. V. Asaf´ev

L’article explore le rôle joué par Boris Asaf´ev dans le dialogue entre les cultures musicales de la Russie impériale, de la Russie soviétique et de l’Europe durant les premières décennies du xxe siècle. Se trouvant au centre des bouleversements politiques et sociaux de l’époque, Asaf´ev est devenu un lien entre les artistes de différents pays, grâce en particulier à ses voyages. Ceux-ci se divisent en deux périodes, en fonction de leur durée, des programmes de visite et de la coupure que constitue la révolution de 1917. La première concerne les voyages effectués l’été entre 1911 et 1914 ; la seconde renvoie au voyage de l’année 1928. Pour reconstituer ces liens, l’auteur s’appuie sur le journal et la correspondance d’Asaf´ev et en particulier sur ses échanges avec Pierre Souvtchinsky. Les originaux de ces documents se trouvent à la Bibliothèque nationale de France et sont publiés ici pour la première fois.This article explores the role of Boris Asaf´ev in the dialogue between the musical cultures of Imperial Russia, Soviet Russia and Europe during the first decades of the 20th century. Located in the heart of social upheaval, Asaf´ev becomes a link between musicians from different countries. The environment in which Asaf´ev was formed as an art critic was analyzed in order to understand the modalities of his travels, and his involvement in different cultural contexts. Asaf´ev’s travels, which are distinguished by their duration and visit program can be divided into two periods. The first period concerns the travels during the summers from 1911 to 1914, and the second one corresponds to the year 1928. Asaf´ev’s life and travels are correspondingly divided into pre-and post-revolutionary period, as for many other Russians. In the reconstruction of historical facts, the journals and the correspondence of Asaf´ev and particularly his exchanges with Pierre Souvtchinsky, play an important role. The original documents of these exchanges can be found at the Bibliothèque nationale de France; they were previously unpublished and are mentioned for the first time in this article