TY  - JOUR
A1  - Asare-Kyei, Daniel
A1  - Forkuor, Gerald
A1  - Venus, Valentijn
T1  - Modeling Flood Hazard Zones at the Sub-District Level with the Rational Model Integrated with GIS and Remote Sensing Approaches
JF  - Water
N2  - Robust risk assessment requires accurate flood intensity area mapping to allow for the identification of populations and elements at risk. However, available flood maps in West Africa lack spatial variability while global datasets have resolutions too coarse to be relevant for local scale risk assessment. Consequently, local disaster managers are forced to use traditional methods such as watermarks on buildings and media reports to identify flood hazard areas. In this study, remote sensing and Geographic Information System (GIS) techniques were combined with hydrological and statistical models to delineate the spatial limits of flood hazard zones in selected communities in Ghana, Burkina Faso and Benin. The approach involves estimating peak runoff concentrations at different elevations and then applying statistical methods to develop a Flood Hazard Index (FHI). Results show that about half of the study areas fall into high intensity flood zones. Empirical validation using statistical confusion matrix and the principles of Participatory GIS show that flood hazard areas could be mapped at an accuracy ranging from 77% to 81%. This was supported with local expert knowledge which accurately classified 79% of communities deemed to be highly susceptible to flood hazard. The results will assist disaster managers to reduce the risk to flood disasters at the community level where risk outcomes are first materialized.
KW  - climate change
KW  - rational model
KW  - community
KW  - flood hazard index
KW  - West Africa
KW  - GIS
KW  - vulnerability
KW  - performance
KW  - impact
KW  - risk
KW  - mapping
KW  - runoff
Y1  - 2015
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-151581
VL  - 7
SP  - 3531
EP  - 3564
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Drozd, Valentina M.
A1  - Saenko, Vladimir A.
A1  - Brenner, Alina V.
A1  - Drozdovitch, Vladimir
A1  - Pashkevich, Vasilii I.
A1  - Kudelsky, Anatoliy V.
A1  - Demidchik, Yuri E.
A1  - Branovan, Igor
A1  - Shiglik, Nikolay
T1  - Major Factors Affecting Incidence of Childhood Thyroid Cancer in Belarus after the Chernobyl Accident: Do Nitrates in Drinking Water Play a Role?
JF  - PLoS One
N2  - One of the major health consequences of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant accident in 1986 was a dramatic increase in incidence of thyroid cancer among those who were aged less than 18 years at the time of the accident. This increase has been directly linked in several analytic epidemiological studies to iodine-131 (I-131) thyroid doses received from the accident. However, there remains limited understanding of factors that modify the I-131-related risk. Focusing on post-Chernobyl pediatric thyroid cancer in Belarus, we reviewed evidence of the effects of radiation, thyroid screening, and iodine deficiency on regional differences in incidence rates of thyroid cancer. We also reviewed current evidence on content of nitrate in groundwater and thyroid cancer risk drawing attention to high levels of nitrates in open well water in several contaminated regions of Belarus, i.e. Gomel and Brest, related to the usage of nitrogen fertilizers. In this hypothesis generating study, based on ecological data and biological plausibility, we suggest that nitrate pollution may modify the radiation-related risk of thyroid cancer contributing to regional differences in rates of pediatric thyroid cancer in Belarus. Analytic epidemiological studies designed to evaluate joint effect of nitrate content in groundwater and radiation present a promising avenue of research and may provide useful insights into etiology of thyroid cancer.
KW  - analysis
KW  - areas
KW  - power-station accident
KW  - iodine nutrition
KW  - skin hemagioma
KW  - pooled
KW  - risk
KW  - children
KW  - radiation
KW  - exposure
KW  - radiotherapy
Y1  - 2015
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-141863
VL  - 10
IS  - 9
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Marenholz, Ingo
A1  - Esparza-Gordillo, Jorge
A1  - Rüschendorf, Franz
A1  - Bauerfeind, Anja
A1  - Strachan, David P.
A1  - Spycher, Ben D.
A1  - Baurecht, Hansjörg
A1  - Magaritte-Jeannin, Patricia
A1  - Sääf, Annika
A1  - Kerkhof, Marjan
A1  - Ege, Markus
A1  - Baltic, Svetlana
A1  - Matheson, Melanie C.
A1  - Li, Jin
A1  - Michel, Sven
A1  - Ang, Wei Q.
A1  - McArdle, Wendy
A1  - Arnold, Andreas
A1  - Homuth, Georg
A1  - Demenais, Florence
A1  - Bouzigon, Emmanuelle
A1  - Söderhäll, Cilla
A1  - Pershagen, Göran
A1  - de Jongste, Johan C.
A1  - Postma, Dirkje S.
A1  - Braun-Fahrländer, Charlotte
A1  - Horak, Elisabeth
A1  - Ogorodova, Ludmila M.
A1  - Puzyrev, Valery P.
A1  - Bragina, Elena Yu
A1  - Hudson, Thomas J.
A1  - Morin, Charles
A1  - Duffy, David L.
A1  - Marks, Guy B.
A1  - Robertson, Colin F.
A1  - Montgomery, Grant W.
A1  - Musk, Bill
A1  - Thompson, Philip J.
A1  - Martin, Nicholas G.
A1  - James, Alan
A1  - Sleiman, Patrick
A1  - Toskala, Elina
A1  - Rodriguez, Elke
A1  - Fölster-Holst, Regina
A1  - Franke, Andre
A1  - Lieb, Wolfgang
A1  - Gieger, Christian
A1  - Heinzmann, Andrea
A1  - Rietschel, Ernst
A1  - Keil, Thomas
A1  - Cichon, Sven
A1  - Nöthen, Markus M.
A1  - Pennel, Craig E.
A1  - Sly, Peter D.
A1  - Schmidt, Carsten O.
A1  - Matanovic, Anja
A1  - Schneider, Valentin
A1  - Heinig, Matthias
A1  - Hübner, Norbert
A1  - Holt, Patrick G.
A1  - Lau, Susanne
A1  - Kabesch, Michael
A1  - Weidinger, Stefan
A1  - Hakonarson, Hakon
A1  - Ferreira, Manuel A. R.
A1  - Laprise, Catherine
A1  - Freidin, Maxim B.
A1  - Genuneit, Jon
A1  - Koppelman, Gerard H.
A1  - Melén, Erik
A1  - Dizier, Marie-Hélène
A1  - Henderson, A. John
A1  - Lee, Young Ae
T1  - Meta-analysis identifies seven susceptibility loci involved in the atopic march
JF  - Nature Communications
N2  - Eczema often precedes the development of asthma in a disease course called the 'atopic march'. To unravel the genes underlying this characteristic pattern of allergic disease, we conduct a multi-stage genome-wide association study on infantile eczema followed by childhood asthma in 12 populations including 2,428 cases and 17,034 controls. Here we report two novel loci specific for the combined eczema plus asthma phenotype, which are associated with allergic disease for the first time; rs9357733 located in EFHC1 on chromosome 6p12.3 (OR 1.27; P = 2.1 x 10(-8)) and rs993226 between TMTC2 and SLC6A15 on chromosome 12q21.3 (OR 1.58; P = 5.3 x 10(-9)). Additional susceptibility loci identified at genome-wide significance are FLG (1q21.3), IL4/KIF3A (5q31.1), AP5B1/OVOL1 (11q13.1), C11orf30/LRRC32 (11q13.5) and IKZF3 (17q21). We show that predominantly eczema loci increase the risk for the atopic march. Our findings suggest that eczema may play an important role in the development of asthma after eczema.
KW  - chromosome 11Q13
KW  - risk
KW  - genomewide association
KW  - hay fever
KW  - birth cohort
KW  - filaggrin mutations
KW  - food allergy
KW  - juvenile myoclonic epilepsy
KW  - childhood asthma
KW  - dermatitis
Y1  - 2015
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-139835
VL  - 6
IS  - 8804
ER  -