Drinking water utilities are responsible for providing safe drinking water. As water directly impacts public health, water utilities follow stringent water treatment standards and processes. However to keep pace with the dynamic environment and tackle challenges such as water stress, water pollution, …

The World Health Organization engages cities and communities all over the world in becoming age-friendly. There is a need for assessing the age-friendliness of cities and communities by means of a transparently constructed and validated tool which measures the construct as a whole. The aim of this study …

The consistent and unambiguous description of sequence variants is essential to report and exchange information on the analysis of a genome. In particular, DNA diagnostics critically depends on accurate and standardized description and sharing of the variants detected. The sequence variant nomenclature …

There is now a convergence of two modes of genetic testing, that of testing a few candidate genes at a time based on suspicion of a specific genetic disease, and that of genomic testing, especially when a candidate gene(s) is not suspected or known. Both aim to interpret pathogenicity of identified genetic …

Two key air pollutants that affect asthma are ozone and particle pollution. Studies show a direct relationship between the number of deaths and hospitalizations for asthma and increases of particulate matter in the air, including dust, soot, fly ash, diesel exhaust particles, smoke, and sulfate aerosols. …

Motivation: Unambiguous sequence variant descriptions are important in reporting the outcome of clinical diagnostic DNA tests. The standard nomenclature of the Human Genome Variation Society (HGVS) describes the observed variant sequence relative to a given reference sequence. We propose an efficient …

The Artist Organisations International conference, organised by Florian Malzacher, Jonas Staal and Joanna Warsza, took place in Berlin’s HAU theatre from 9 to 11 January 2015. The organisers emphasised how it seems that more and more activist artists are creating organisational structures that increase …

BACKGROUND : Primary Health Care (PHC) is well suited for management of low back pain (LBP). Prevalence of (chronic) LBP is suspected to be high among visitors of the South African primary care centers, but currently no information exists on prevalence or guideline adherence. OBJECTIVES : To establish …

This paper examines the role of the public private partnerships in the health care systems of three European countries - The United Kingdom, Poland and the Czech Republic. Public private partnerships were developed in the 19th century in the UK. It was a way to finance the rapid growth of the infrastructure, …

Many believe that public international law is important and crucial in resolving international disputes. It is indeed an essential resource in controlling states and other international actors. The UN has developed advisory standards, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Other international …