Building resilience to climate risks through social protection: from individualised models to systemic transformation.

This article analyses the role of social protection programmes in contributing to people's resilience to climate risks. Drawing from desk-based and empirical studies in Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda, it finds that social transfers make a strong contribution to the capacity of individuals and households to absorb the negative impacts of climate-related shocks and stresses. They do so through the provision of reliable, national social safety net systems-even when these are not specifically designed to address climate risks. Social protection can also increase the anticipatory capacity of national disaster response systems through scalability mechanisms, or pre-emptively through linkages to early action and early warning mechanisms. Critical knowledge gaps remain in terms of programmes' contributions to the adaptive capacity required for long-term resilience. The findings offer insights beyond social protection on the importance of robust, national administrative systems as a key foundation to support people's resilience to climate risks.

Risk Factors for Preeclampsia in a High-Risk Cohort of Women Served by a Nursing-based Home Visiting Program.

This descriptive study aimed to identify the impact of psychosocial risk factors on pregnancy outcomes for high risk women in an urban setting. Women in this category tend to experience adverse pregnancy outcomes, like preeclampsia, at greater rates than low or medium risk women. A retrospective paper chart review of East Harlem women served by LSA Family Health Service (LSA) Maternal Outreach Program (MOP) was conducted. All women who enrolled in the MOP with a singleton pregnancy from January 2015 to December 2017, were eligible for inclusion in our analyses. Data were analyzed using SPSS (version 23). Of 379 total participants, 68.6% (n=203) were Hispanic/Latina women, 44.8% (n=163) were English only speakers, 67.4% (n=226) were identified as overweight/obese, 90.6% (n=328) were mothers over the age of 20 among those for whom data were available. Sixty-two percent (n=235) initiated prenatal care in their first trimester, and 71.5% (n=271) were referred to the MOP by a hospital or other healthcare provider. The percentage of preeclampsia among mothers was 26.9% (n=102). After adjustment for type of LSA services received, and race/ethnicity, there were no associations between psychosocial risk factors and preeclampsia diagnosis in this population. Further research is needed on the relationship between psychosocial risk factors and preeclampsia to identify potential areas of intervention and reduce the burden of disease.

Livelihoods, conflict and aid programming: is the evidence base good enough?

In conflict-affected situations, aid-funded livelihood interventions are often tasked with a dual imperative: to generate material welfare benefits and to contribute to peacebuilding outcomes. There may be some logic to such a transformative agenda, but does the reality square with the rhetoric? Through a review of the effectiveness of a range of livelihood promotion interventions--from job creation to microfinance--this paper finds that high quality empirical evidence is hard to come by in conflict-affected situations. Many evaluations appear to conflate outputs with impacts and numerous studies fail to include adequate information on their methodologies and datasets, making it difficult to appraise the reliability of their conclusions. Given the primary purpose of this literature--to provide policy guidance on effective ways to promote livelihoods--this silence is particularly concerning. As such, there is a strong case to be made for a restrained and nuanced handling of such interventions in conflict-affected settings.

Polyfunctional tetrahydropyrido[2,3-b]pyrazine scaffolds from 4-phenylsulfonyl tetrafluoropyridine.

[Reaction: see text]. Polyfunctional tetrahydropyrido[2,3-b]pyrazine scaffolds can be synthesized by sequential reaction of pentafluoropyridine with sodium phenylsulfinate and an appropriate diamine. The polyfunctionality possessed by the difluorinated tetrahydropyrido[2,3-b]pyrazine scaffolds was demonstrated in selected model reactions with nucleophiles to give access to various polysubstituted [6,6]-ring fused systems.

Tetrahydropyrido[3,4-b]pyrazine scaffolds from pentafluoropyridine.

[reaction: see text] Representative polyfunctional tetrahydropyrido[3,4-b]pyrazine scaffolds have been synthesized very readily by a one-pot annelation reaction of pentafluoropyridine with appropriate diamines. The trifluorinated pyridopyrazine products react sequentially with various nucleophiles to give poly-substituted tetrahydropyridopyrazines, demonstrating the potential of the polyfluorinated ring fused pyridine system as a scaffold for the synthesis of previously inaccessible poly-substituted pyridopyrazine derivatives. This general approach has special relevance to the development of new chemical entities for the life science industries and particularly in the drug discovery arena, in which low molecular weight, polyfunctional heterocyclic derivatives are playing an increasingly important role.

Design, synthesis and evaluation of ratiometric probes for hydrogencarbonate based on europium emission.

A series of cationic, zwitterionic and anionic macrocyclic europium complexes has been prepared incorporating a N or C- linked acridone chromophore that allows sensitisation of Eu emission following excitation at 390-410 nm. Each of these complexes selectively binds bicarbonate at physiological pH and reversible binding is signalled by a change in the form and relative intensity of the Eu emission spectrum. Affinity for bicarbonate is regulated by overall complex charge and falls within the range required for intracellular or extracellular analyses. Monitoring the ratio of the intensity of Eu emission at up to three wavelengths, e.g. 618/588 or 618/702 nm allows the solution concentration of bicarbonate to be deduced in a background of competing anions such as lactate, citrate and phosphate. Preliminary screens reveal the complexes to be non-toxic to NIH-3T3 cells and to be taken inside the cell, encouraging further study.

Ratiometric probes for hydrogencarbonate analysis in intracellular or extracellular environments using europium luminescence.

A series of six, cationic, zwitterionic and anionic Eu complexes has been examined for the analysis of hydrogencarbonate concentration in the intracellular and extracellular ranges; an anionic complex incorporating three glutarate residues and a sensitising acridone chromophore (lambda exc = 410 nm) exhibits a 69% change in the intensity ratio of the 618/588 nm Eu emission bands between 5 and 15 mM HCO3- in a cell lysate medium.