Feature Article

Poor-quality medicines present a serious public health problem, particularly in emerging economies and developing countries, and may have a significant impact on the national clinical and economic burden. Attention has largely focused on the increasing availability of deliberately falsified drugs, but substandard medicines are also reaching patients because of poor manufacturing and quality-control practices in the production of genuine drugs (either branded or generic).

In the face of climate change, the life history traits of large terrestrial mammals will prevent them from adapting genetically at a sufficient pace to keep track with changing environments, and habitat fragmentation will preclude them from shifting their distribution range. Predicting how habitat-bound large mammals will respond to environmental change requires measurement of their sensitivity and exposure to changes in the environment, as well as the extent to which phenotypic plasticity can buffer them against the changes.

Debris flows often cause devastating damage to property and can injure or kill residents in mountainous areas. The construction of check dams in debris-flow valleys is considered a useful strategy for mitigating the damages downstream. In this paper, a new type of spillway structure with lateral contraction was proposed to distribute debris flows after the check dam storage filled up.

A study conducted among 10 Indian metro cities investigates the impact of municipal solid waste and animal birth control programme on stray dog population and its menaces. Its results show statistically strong and positive linkages among the variables such as human population, municipal solid waste, per capita solid waste, food waste, dog population and dogs per capita. People's general awareness and the efforts of municipalities are inadequate to control the dog menace.

Super typhoons (STYs), intense tropical cyclones of the western North Pacific, rank among the most destructive natural hazards globally. The violent winds of these storms induce deep mixing of the upper ocean, resulting in strong sea surface cooling and making STYs highly sensitive to ocean density stratification. Although a few studies examined the potential impacts of changes in ocean thermal structure on future tropical cyclones, they did not take into account changes in near-surface salinity.

Previous studies have shown that the world’s largest reptile – the leatherback turtle Dermochelys coriacea – conducts flexible foraging migrations that can cover thousands of kilometres between nesting sites and distant foraging areas. The vast distances that may be travelled by migrating leatherback turtles have greatly complicated conservation efforts for this species worldwide.

The goal of this work is to assess climate change and its impact on the predictability of seasonal (i.e., April–July) streamflow in major water supply watersheds in the Sierra Nevada.

Original Source

Controversy exists about the differences in air pollution exposure and inhalation dose between mode of transport. We aimed to review air pollution exposure and inhaled dose according to mode of transport and pollutant and their effect in terms of years of life expectancy (YLE).

Original Source

Insecticide-treated bednets (ITNs) are effective in preventing malaria where vectors primarily bite indoors and late at night, but their effectiveness is uncertain where vectors bite outdoors and earlier in the evening. We studied the effectiveness of ITNs following a mass distribution in Haiti from May to September, 2012, where the Anopheles albimanus vector bites primarily outdoors and often when people are awake.

Original Source

Runoff of agricultural nutrients and sediments has led to re-eutrophication of lakes and impaired stream health in the Great Lakes Basin since around 2000 following earlier success in protecting water quality. Substantial investment in conservation actions has had insufficient impact, due in part to a limited basis for understanding the likely environmental outcomes of those investments. This article introduces a special section focusing on promoting investment that produces environmental outcomes as opposed to investing in conservation actions with unknown effects.