Feature Article

In May 2014, the Balkans were hit by a Vb-type cyclone that brought disastrous flooding and severe damage to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, and Croatia. Vb cyclones migrate from the Mediterranean, where they absorb warm and moist air, to the north, often causing flooding in central/eastern Europe. Extreme rainfall events are increasing on a global scale, and both thermodynamic and dynamical mechanisms play a role. Where thermodynamic aspects are generally well understood, there is large uncertainty associated with current and future changes in dynamics.

We at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) continue to be deeply concerned about the growing epidemic of opioid abuse, addiction, and overdose — an epidemic directly related to the increasingly widespread misuse of powerful opioid pain medications.

Original Source

The paper explores the degree to which exposure to natural disasters and poor governance (quality of governance) is associated with absolute child poverty in sixty-seven middle- and low-income countries. The data is representative for about 2.8 billion of the world´s population. Institutionalist tend to argue that many of society’s ills, including poverty, derive from fragile or inefficient institutions.

Climate impact on landslide occurrence and spatial patterns were analyzed within the larch-dominant communities associated with continuous permafrost areas of central Siberia. We used high resolution satellite imagery (i.e. QuickBird, WorldView) to identify landslide scars over an area of 62 000 km. Landslide occurrence was analyzed with respect to climate variables (air temperature, precipitation, drought index SPEI), and Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment satellite derived equivalent of water thickness anomalies (EWTA).

Many urban areas experience both fluvial and pluvial floods, because locations next to rivers are preferred settlement areas and the predominantly sealed urban surface prevents infiltration and facilitates surface inundation. The latter problem is enhanced in cities with insufficient or non-existent sewer systems. While there are a number of approaches to analyse either a fluvial or pluvial flood hazard, studies of a combined fluvial and pluvial flood hazard are hardly available.

Moroccan Pre-Saharan zone is an oasis system, which it is characterised by extreme events, like drought and flood. The flood risks will likely increases in frequency and magnitude due to global and regional climate change. Flood tends to have an important impact on isolated and poor regions such as oasis regions. This paper aims the analysis of applicability of Flood Vulnerability Index (FVI) in pre-Saharan region of Morocco. The FVI, it is a numerical index that reflects the status of a region’s flood vulnerability.

Since the emergence of Zika virus (ZIKV), reports of microcephaly have increased significantly in Brazil; however, causality between the viral epidemic and malformations in fetal brains needs further confirmation. Here, we examine the effects of ZIKV infection in human neural stem cells growing as neurospheres and brain organoids. Using immunocytochemistry and electron microscopy, we show that ZIKV targets human brain cells, reducing their viability and growth as neurospheres and brain organoids. These results suggest that ZIKV abrogates neurogenesis during human brain development.

After 2010, two Indian generic companies started local plants in South Africa, attempted to partake in the morally loaded politics of antiretroviral therapy, and complied with broader affirmative action policies there. This article analyses a variety of sources and tries to lay bare the nexus between drug manufacturers, the state, and civil society organisations and tries to contextualise them in the anthropological theories of public health and humanitarian aid.

There has been no significant change in the knowledge-base and institutional structure for managing water systems since colonial rule. This makes the recent efforts of the Ministry of Water Resources for restructuring the Central Water Commission and the Central Ground Water Board significant. This article argues that the effort should be backed by interdisciplinary studies that see surface water and groundwater as ecologically connected.

Forty of India's biggest energy companies are being investigated by a wing of the Union Ministry of Finance for over-invoicing of imported coal. The artificially higher prices of coal have been passed on to electricity consumers across the country. The scam is conservatively estimated by government officials at no less than ₹29,000 crore, a third of which is in the form of higher power tariffs. Big names from the corporate sector, notably the Adani Group and Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, are being probed for their alleged involvement in the scandal. An exclusive report.