Political transition and emergent forest‐conservation issues in Myanmar

Political and economic transitions have had substantial impacts on forest conservation. Where transitions are underway or anticipated, historical precedent and methods for systematically assessing future trends should be used to anticipate likely threats to forest conservation and design appropriate and prescient policy measures to counteract them. Myanmar is transitioning from an authoritarian, centralized state with a highly regulated economy to a more decentralized and economically liberal democracy and is working to end a long‐running civil war. With these transitions in mind, we used a horizon‐scanning approach to assess the 40 emerging issues most affecting Myanmar's forests, including internal conflict, land‐tenure insecurity, large‐scale agricultural development, demise of state timber enterprises, shortfalls in government revenue and capacity, and opening of new deforestation frontiers with new roads, mines, and hydroelectric dams. Averting these threats will require, for example, overhauling governance models, building capacity, improving infrastructure‐ and energy‐project planning, and reforming land‐tenure and environmental‐protection laws. Although challenges to conservation in Myanmar are daunting, the political transition offers an opportunity for conservationists and researchers to help shape a future that enhances Myanmar's social, economic, and environmental potential while learning and applying lessons from other countries. Our approach and results are relevant to other countries undergoing similar transitions.     

The potential of spatial information in human biomonitoring by example of two German environmental epidemiology studies

This study aimed at statistically investigating the association between the internal exposure of children and young adults to uranium (U) and epidemiologically relevant external determinants of exposure. The investigation was performed with data from two studies within the framework of the German health-related environmental monitoring program: The German Environmental Survey for Children (GerES IV) conducted by the Federal Environment Agency (Umweltbundesamt) with data on 1,780 children 3–14 years of age and their home environment and the German Environmental Specimen Bank (ESB, section: human specimens) with data on 2,253 students 20–29 years of age. Both studies provided data on the U levels in human urine for all probands. GerES IV furthermore provided an extensive environmental and demographic database on, e.g., U levels in drinking water. The data from GerES IV and ESB were linked by GIS to spatially relevant exposure information, including background values of U in stream sediments and in upper and lower soils, U levels in mosses and particulate matter in the lower atmosphere, precipitation and elevation as well as forest density. Bivariate correlation analysis and two decision tree models showed moderate but significant associations between U in human urine and U levels in drinking water, stream sediments and upper and lower soils. Future investigations considering additional epidemiologically relevant data sets may differentiate the results. Furthermore, the sample design of future environmental epidemiology studies should take the spatial evaluation of the data into greater account.     

Multicenter clinical experience with non-invasive cell-free DNA screening for monosomy X and related X-chromosome variants

Objective

We aimed to investigate how the presence of fetal anomalies and different X chromosome variants influences Cell-free DNA (cfDNA) screening results for monosomy X.

Methods

From a multicenter retrospective survey on 673 pregnancies with prenatally suspected or confirmed Turner syndrome, we analyzed the subgroup for which prenatal cfDNA screening and karyotype results were available. A cfDNA screening result was defined as true positive (TP) when confirmatory testing showed 45,X or an X-chromosome variant.

Results

We had cfDNA results, karyotype, and phenotype data for 55 pregnancies. cfDNA results were high risk for monosomy X in 48/55, of which 23 were TP and 25 were false positive (FP). 32/48 high-risk cfDNA cases did not show fetal anomalies. Of these, 7 were TP. All were X-chromosome variants. All 16 fetuses with high-risk cfDNA result and ultrasound anomalies were TP. Of fetuses with abnormalities, those with 45,X more often had fetal hydrops/cystic hygroma, whereas those with “variant” karyotypes had different anomalies.

Conclusion

Both, 45,X or X-chromosome variants can be detected after a high-risk cfDNA result for monosomy X. When there are fetal anomalies, the result is more likely a TP. In the absence of fetal anomalies, it is most often an FP or X-chromosome variant.     

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) in contaminated coastal marine waters of the Saudi Arabian Red Sea: a baseline study

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) are today considered important constituents of the continuously growing substance group of persistent...     

Influence of Inversion Layers on the Distribution of Air Pollutants in Urban Areas

The air quality in urban areas is on the one hand determined by the intensity of emissions. On the other hand atmospheric dispersion and chemical transformation conditions as well as topographic location have great influence on the ambient air concentrations. Within, this study the correlation between pollutant concentrations and the dynamics of atmospheric barrier and mixing layers has been experimentally investigated by tethered balloon soundings.The most important barrier layer is the surface inversion. During clear sky it develops in the late afternoon and is dissolved by warm air from the heated ground in the morning. Emitted pollutants are kept beneath this inversion. But, at the same time, the component ozone is depleted below and stored above the layer within the so called `ozone reservoir layer'. During night elevated mountain sites are decoupled from the ground conditions and stay within this reservoir without a remarkable nocturnal decrease of ozone concentration. The regularly observed ground level ozone increase in the morning hours is firstly caused by down mixing from the reservoir. The conditions and dynamics are illustratively depicted by vertical profiles of the different components and diagrams of temperature and concentration isopleths over the height and the experiment time lasting over five days.