Natural World Heritage Sites (NWHS), via their formal designation through the United Nations, are globally recognized as containing some of the Earth's most valuable natural assets. Understanding changes in their ecological condition is essential for their ongoing preservation. Here we use two newly available globally consistent data sets that assess changes in human pressure (Human Footprint) and forest loss (Global Forest Watch) over time across the global network of terrestrial NWHS.
Every year, more than 2 million women worldwide are diagnosed with breast or cervical cancer, yet where a woman lives, her socioeconomic status, and agency largely determines whether she will develop one of these cancers and will ultimately survive. In regions with scarce resources, fragile or fragmented health systems, cancer contributes to the cycle of poverty. Proven and cost-effective interventions are available for both these common cancers, yet for so many women access to these is beyond reach.
Massive slums have become major features of cities in many low-income and middle-income countries. Here, in the first in a Series of two papers, we discuss why slums are unhealthy places with especially high risks of infection and injury. We show that children are especially vulnerable, and that the combination of malnutrition and recurrent diarrhoea leads to stunted growth and longer-term effects on cognitive development. We find that the scientific literature on slum health is underdeveloped in comparison to urban health, and poverty and health.
In the first paper in this Series we assessed theoretical and empirical evidence and concluded that the health of people living in slums is a function not only of poverty but of intimately shared physical and social environments. In this paper we extend the theory of so-called neighbourhood effects. Slums offer high returns on investment because beneficial effects are shared across many people in densely populated neighbourhoods. Neighbourhood effects also help explain how and why the benefits of interventions vary between slum and non-slum spaces and between slums.
Nanotechnology provides an emerging potent alternate mode of cancer therapy. Nanomaterials dispersion or solubility is of particular concern in utilising their full potential applications in biomedical fields. PEGylation of nanomaterials is considered to provide products with stealth properties, and physiological environment with no obvious adverse effects. The purpose of this work was to develop a sustainable one-step method for fabrication of hierarchical microspheres of PEGylated MoS 2 nanosheets using a stoichiometric ratio of Mo(VI) and thiourea.
Drawing on discussions with Kenyan, Mexican and British teachers, this paper reports on emotional responses to international socio-economic inequality. Emotional regimes are explored to identify what ‘appropriate’ responses to inequality are in a variety of local and national contexts. These include rural and urban settings, and social milieus ranging from elite to deprived. Politeness, hand-wringing and humour can create a protective distance; while sadness, anger and hope for change connect with the issue of inequality and challenge the associated injustices.
In February, 2016, WHO released a report for the development of national action plans to address the threat of antibiotic resistance, the catastrophic consequences of inaction, and the need for antibiotic stewardship. Antibiotic stewardship combined with infection prevention comprises a collaborative, multidisciplinary approach to optimise use of antibiotics. Efforts to mitigate overuse will be unsustainable without learning and coordinating activities globally.
