Swiss Democracy on the Web 2010 : Society and Politics in a Connected Age

The rapid adoption of online media like Facebook, Twitter or Wikileaks leaves us with little time to think. Where is information technology taking us, our society and our democratic institutions ? Is the Web replicating social divides that already exist offline or does collaborative technology pave the way for a more equal society ? How do we find the right balance between openness and privacy ? Can social media improve civic participation or do they breed superficial exchange and the promotion of false information ? These and lots of other questions arise when one starts to look at the Internet, society and politics. The first part of this paper gives an overview of the social changes that occur with the rise of the Web. The second part serves as an overview on how the Web is being used for political participation in Switzerland and abroad. Le développement rapide de nouveaux médias comme Facebook, Twitter ou Wikileaks ne laisse que peu de temps à la réflexion. Quels sont les changements que ces technologies de l'information impliquent pour nous, notre société et nos institutions démocratiques ? Internet ne fait-il que reproduire des divisions sociales qui lui préexistent ou constitue-t-il un moyen de lisser et d'égaliser ces mêmes divisions ? Comment trouver le bon équilibre entre transparence et respect de la vie privée ? Les médias sociaux permettent-ils de stimuler la participation politique ou ne sont-ils que le vecteur d'échanges superficiels et de fausses informations ? Ces questions, parmi d'autres, émergent rapidement lorsque l'on s'intéresse à la question des liens entre Internet, la société et la politique. La première partie de ce cahier est consacrée aux changements sociaux générés par l'émergence et le développement d'Internet. La seconde fait l'état des lieux de la manière dont Internet est utilisé pour stimuler la participation politique en Suisse et à l'étranger.

Peak and persistent excess of genetic diversity following an abrupt migration increase.

Genetic diversity is essential for population survival and adaptation to changing environments. Demographic processes (e.g., bottleneck and expansion) and spatial structure (e.g., migration, number, and size of populations) are known to shape the patterns of the genetic diversity of populations. However, the impact of temporal changes in migration on genetic diversity has seldom been considered, although such events might be the norm. Indeed, during the millions of years of a species' lifetime, repeated isolation and reconnection of populations occur. Geological and climatic events alternately isolate and reconnect habitats. We analytically document the dynamics of genetic diversity after an abrupt change in migration given the mutation rate and the number and sizes of the populations. We demonstrate that during transient dynamics, genetic diversity can reach unexpectedly high values that can be maintained over thousands of generations. We discuss the consequences of such processes for the evolution of species based on standing genetic variation and how they can affect the reconstruction of a population's demographic and evolutionary history from genetic data. Our results also provide guidelines for the use of genetic data for the conservation of natural populations.

Smoking and adolescence: Exploring tobacco consumption and related attitudes in three different age groups in Switzerland

The present study constitutes an investigation of tobacco consumption, related attitudes and individual differences in smoking or non-smoking behaviors in a sample of adolescents of different ages in the French-speaking part of Switzerland. We investigated three school-age groups (7th-grade, 9th-grade, and the second-year of high school) for differences in attitude and social and cognitive dimensions. We present both descriptive and inferential statistics. On an inferential level, we present a binary logistic regression-based model predicting risk of smoking. The resulting model most importantly suggests a strong relationship between smoking and alcohol consumption (both regular and sporadic). We interpret this result in terms of both the impact of the actual campaigns and the cognitive processes associated with adolescence.

Strain diversity of mycobacteria isolated from pulmonary tuberculosis patients at Debre Birhan Hospital, Ethiopia.

BACKGROUND: Ethiopia ranks seventh in the list of 22 high tuberculosis (TB) burden countries, with an incidence rate of 379 cases per 100 000 population for TB all forms. However, information on the genomic diversity of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in Ethiopia is limited. OBJECTIVE: To investigate the molecular characteristics of M. tuberculosis strains implicated in pulmonary TB in the study area. METHODS AND RESULTS: A cross-sectional study was conducted using socio-demographic, clinical and culture data combined with molecular typing analysis. The proportion of TB and M. tuberculosis isolates was not associated with risk factors (P > 0.05). Of 99 sputum samples, 80.8% were culture-positive. Speciation of isolates showed that 88.8% were M. tuberculosis. Further characterisation led to the identification of 27 different spoligotype patterns of M. tuberculosis; the most dominant shared types were SIT149, SIT53 and SIT54. Of the 27 strains, three strains were new and were reported to the SITVIT database. More than two thirds of the strains belonged to the Euro-American lineage. CONCLUSION: This study shows the presence of several clusters and new strains of M. tuberculosis circulating in pulmonary TB patients in the study area, suggesting recent transmission. Nationwide studies are recommended to map the population structure of M. tuberculosis and set control measures.

Younger age as a bad prognostic factor in patients with carcinoma of the cervix.

OBJECTIVE: To verify the influence of age on the prognosis of cervix carcinoma. STUDY DESIGN: Five hundred and sixty eight patients treated for a FIGO stage IB-IVA with radical irradiation in the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois of Lausanne were subdivided according to the following age categories: < or = 45, 46-60, 61-69 and >70 years. Taking the 46-60 years age group as the reference, the hazard ratios (HR) of death and corresponding 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) were estimated by means of a Cox multivariate analysis. RESULTS: The 5-year survival rates were, respectively, 57%, 67%, 60% and 45%. For the youngest women the risk of death was significantly increased (HR = 2.00, 95% CI [1.32-3.00]) and was even more accentuated in advanced stages. CONCLUSION: Age under 45 years is a bad prognostic factor in carcinoma of the cervix.

Turnover of plant lineages shapes herbivore phylogenetic beta diversity along ecological gradients.

Understanding drivers of biodiversity patterns is of prime importance in this era of severe environmental crisis. More diverse plant communities have been postulated to represent a larger functional trait-space, more likely to sustain a diverse assembly of herbivore species. Here, we expand this hypothesis to integrate environmental, functional and phylogenetic variation of plant communities as factors explaining the diversity of lepidopteran assemblages along elevation gradients in the Swiss Western Alps. According to expectations, we found that the association between butterflies and their host plants is highly phylogenetically structured. Multiple regression analyses showed the combined effect of climate, functional traits and phylogenetic diversity in structuring butterfly communities. Furthermore, we provide the first evidence that plant phylogenetic beta diversity is the major driver explaining butterfly phylogenetic beta diversity. Along ecological gradients, the bottom up control of herbivore diversity is thus driven by phylogenetically structured turnover of plant traits as well as environmental variables.

Diversity of staphylococcal cassette chromosome mec elements in predominant methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus clones in a small geographic area.

Recent population genetic studies suggest that staphylococcal cassette chromosome mec (SCCmec) was acquired much more frequently than previously thought. In the present study, we aimed to investigate the diversity of SCCmec elements in a local methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) population. Each MRSA isolate (one per patient) recovered in the Vaud canton of Switzerland from January 2005 to December 2008 was analyzed by the double-locus sequence typing (DLST) method and SCCmec typing. DLST analysis indicated that 1,884/2,036 isolates (92.5%) belong to four predominant clones. As expected from the local spread of a clone, most isolates within clones harbored an identical SCCmec type. However, three to seven SCCmec types have been recovered in every predominant DLST clone, suggesting that some of these elements might have been acquired locally. This pattern could also be explained by distinct importations of related isolates into the study region. The addition of a third highly variable locus to further increase the discriminatory power of typing as well as epidemiological data suggested that most ambiguous situations were explained by the second hypothesis. In conclusion, our study showed that even if the acquisition of new SCCmec elements at a local level likely occurs, it does not explain all the diversity observed in the study region.

Alpine tectonic evolution of a Jurassic subduction-accretionary complex: Deformation, kinematics and 40Ar/39Ar age constraints on the Mesozoic low-grade schists of the Circum-Rhodope Belt in the eastern Rhodope-Thrace region, Bulgaria-Greece

Deformation of the Circum-Rhodope Belt Mesozoic (Middle Triassic to earliest Lower Cretaceous) low-grade schists underneath an arc-related ophiolitic magmatic suite and associated sedimentary successions in the eastern Rhodope-Thrace region occurred as a two-episode tectonic process: (i) Late Jurassic deformation of arc to margin units resulting from the eastern Rhodope-Evros arc-Rhodope terrane continental margin collision and accretion to that margin, and (ii) Middle Eocene deformation related to the Tertiary crustal extension and final collision resulting in the closure of the Vardar ocean south of the Rhodope terrane. The first deformational event D-1 is expressed by Late Jurassic NW-N vergent fold generations and the main and subsidiary planar-linear structures. Although overprinting, these structural elements depict uniform bulk north-directed thrust kinematics and are geometrically compatible with the increments of progressive deformation that develops in same greenschist-facies metamorphic grade. It followed the Early-Middle Jurassic magmatic evolution of the eastern Rhodope-Evros arc established on the upper plate of the southward subducting Maliac-Meliata oceanic lithosphere that established the Vardar Ocean in a supra-subduction back-arc setting. This first event resulted in the thrust-related tectonic emplacement of the Mesozoic schists in a supra-crustal level onto the Rhodope continental margin. This Late Jurassic-Early Cretaceous tectonic event related to N-vergent Balkan orogeny is well-constrained by geochronological data and traced at a regional-scale within distinct units of the Carpatho-Balkan Belt. Following subduction reversal towards the north whereby the Vardar Ocean was subducted beneath the Rhodope margin by latest Cretaceous times, the low-grade schists aquired a new position in the upper plate, and hence, the Mesozoic schists are lacking the Cretaceous S-directed tectono-metamorphic episode whose effects are widespread in the underlying high-grade basement. The subduction of the remnant Vardar Ocean located behind the colliding arc since the middle Cretaceous was responsible for its ultimate closure, Early Tertiary collision with the Pelagonian block and extension in the region caused the extensional collapse related to the second deformational event D-2. This extensional episode was experienced passively by the Mesozoic schists located in the hanging wall of the extensional detachments in Eocene times. It resulted in NE-SW oriented open folds representing corrugation antiforms of the extensional detachment surfaces, brittle faulting and burial history beneath thick Eocene sediments as indicated by 42.1-39.7 Ma Ar-40/Ar-39 mica plateau ages obtained in the study. The results provide structural constraints for the involvement components of Jurassic paleo-subduction zone in a Late Jurassic arc-continental margin collisional history that contributed to accretion-related crustal growth of the Rhodope terrane. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Age over 40 years increases the failure rate of non-operative management of blunt splenic injuries

Objective: Non-operative management (NOM) of blunt splenic injuries (BSI) is nowadays considered the standard treatment. The study aimed to determine the criteria applied for NOM and to identify risk factors for its failure. Methods: Review of all adult patients with BSI treated at the University Hospital Bern, Switzerland, between 2000 and 2008. Results: There were 206 patients (146 men, 70·9%) with a mean age of 38·2 ± 19·1 years and an Injury Severity Score of 30·9 ± 11·6. The American Association for the Surgery of Trauma classification of the splenic injury was: grade I, n=43 (20·9%); grade II, n=52 (25·2%); grade III, n=60 (29·1%); grade IV, n=42 (20·4%) and grade V, n=9 (4·4%). 47 patients (22·8%) required immediate surgery. Five or more units of red cell transfusions (P<0·001), Glasgow Coma Scale<11 (P=0·009) and age ≥55 years (P=0·038) were associated with primary operative management (OM). 159 patients (77·2%) qualified for NOM, which was successful in 89·9% (143/159). The overall splenic salvage rate was 69·4% (143/206). Multivariate analysis found age ≥40 years to be the only factor independently related to the failure of NOM (P=0·001). Conclusion: Advanced age is associated with an increased failure rate ofNOM in patients with BSI.

Right Hepatectomy in Patients over 70 Years of Age: An Analysis of Liver Function and Outcome.

BACKGROUND: As a consequence of the increase in life expectancy, hepatobiliary surgeons have to deal with an emerging aged population. We aimed to analyze the liver function and outcome after right hepatectomy (RH) in patients over 70 years of age. METHODS: From January 2006 to December 2009, we prospectively collected data of 207 consecutive elective hepatectomies. In patients who had RH, cardiac risk was assessed by a dedicated preoperative workup. Liver failure (LF) was defined by the "fifty-fifty" criteria at postoperative day 5 (POD) and morbidity by the Clavien-Dindo classification. Liver function tests (LFTs) and short-term outcome were retrospectively analyzed in patients over (elderly group, EG) and younger (young group, YG) than 70 years of age. RESULTS: Eighty-seven consecutive RH were performed during the study period. Indication for surgery included 90 % malignancy in 47 % of patients requiring preoperative chemotherapy. ASA grade > 2 (44 vs. 16 %, p = 0.027), ischemic heart disease (17 vs. 5 %, p = 0.076), and preoperative cardiac failure (26 vs. 2 %, p < 0.001) were more frequent in the EG (n = 23) than in the YG (n = 64). Both groups were similar regarding rates of normal liver parenchyma, chemotherapy and intraoperative parameters. The overall morbidity rates were comparable, but the serious complication (grades III-V) rate was relatively higher in the EG (39 vs. 25 %, p = 0.199), particularly in patients with diabetes mellitus (100 vs. 29 %, p = 0.04) and those who had additional nonhepatic surgery (67 vs. 35 %, p = 0.110) and transfusions (44 vs. 30 %, p = 0.523). The 90-day mortality rate was similar (9 % in the EG vs. 3 % in the YG, p = 0.28) and was related to heart failure in the EG. LFTs showed a similar trend from POD 1 to 8, and patients ≥70 years of age had no liver failure. CONCLUSIONS: Age ≥70 years alone is not a contraindication to RH. However, major morbidity is particularly higher in the elderly with diabetes. This high-risk group should be closely monitored in the postoperative course. Liver function is not altered in the elderly patient after RH.

Diversity of radiolarian families through time

The examination of radiolarian biodiversity at the family level through Phanerozoic time reveals some general trends known in other groups of organisms, especially among plankton, while some other trends seem to be quite peculiar. The Permian/Triassic crisis that is one of the most important in the evolution of marine organisms, is marked in radiolarian assemblages by the extinction of two orders (Albaillellaria and Latentifistularia) towards the end of the Permian, and mostly by the tremendous diversification of Spumellaria and Nassellaria in the early-mid Triassic. Radiolarian diversity increased from Cambrian to Jurassic, remained quite stable during the Cretaceous and has decreased slightly since then.

Low estimates of dietary acid load are positively associated with bone ultrasound in women older than 75 years of age with a lifetime fracture

Dietary acid load from Western diets may be a risk factor for osteoporosis. It can be estimated by net endogenous acid production (NEAP). No data currently exists for NEAP estimates and bone indices in the very elderly (i.e. > or = 75 y). The aim of this study was to determine the association between NEAP estimates by using the potential renal acid load (PRAL) equation and quantitative bone ultrasound (QUS) measurements at the heel [broadband ultrasound attenuation (BUA)] in Caucasian women. We assessed NEAP and QUS in 401 very elderly Swiss ambulatory women. We evaluated dietary intake and NEAP estimates with a validated FFQ. QUS was measured using Achilles (Lunar). We identified 2 subgroups: 256 women (80.6 y +/- 3; BUA, 96.8 dB/MHz) with a fracture history and the remaining 145 (79.9 y SD 2.9; BUA, 101.7 dB/MHz) without. Women who reported having suffered a fracture had lower BUA (P < 0.001) than nonfractured women but did not differ in nutrient intakes and NEAP. Lower NEAP (P = 0.023) and higher potassium intake (P = 0.033) were correlated with higher BUA, which remained significant even after adjustment for age, BMI, and osteoporosis treatment. BUA was positively correlated with calcium (P = 0.016) and BMI (P < 0.001). Women who reported no fractures had no significant correlations between nutrient intake, NEAP, and BUA. Low nutritional acid load was correlated with higher BUA in very elderly women with a fracture history. Although relatively weak compared with age and BMI, this association was significant and may be an important additional risk factor that might be particularly relevant in frail patients with an already high fracture risk.

Impaired musculoskeletal response to age and exercise in PPARβ(-/-) diabetic mice.

Fragility fractures are recognized complication of diabetes, but yet the underlying mechanisms remain poorly understood. This is particularly pronounced in type 2 diabetes in which the propensity to fall is increased but bone mass is not necessarily low. Thus, whether factors implicated in the development of insulin resistance and diabetes directly impact on the musculoskeletal system remains to be investigated. PPARβ(-/-) mice have reduced metabolic activity and are glucose intolerant. We examined changes in bone and muscle in PPARβ(-/-) mice and investigated both the mechanism behind those changes with age as well as their response to exercise. Compared with their wild type, PPARβ(-/-) mice had an accelerated and parallel decline in both muscle and bone strength with age. These changes were accompanied by increased myostatin expression, low bone formation, and increased resorption. In addition, mesenchymal cells from PPARβ(-/-) had a reduced proliferation capacity and appeared to differentiate into more of an adipogenic phenotype. Concomitantly we observed an increased expression of PPARγ, characteristic of adipocytes. The anabolic responses of muscle and bone to exercise were also diminished in PPARβ(-/-) mice. The periosteal bone formation response to direct bone compression was, however, maintained, indicating that PPARβ controls periosteal bone formation through muscle contraction and/or metabolism. Taken together, these data indicate that PPARβ deficiency leads to glucose intolerance, decreased muscle function, and reduced bone strength. On a molecular level, PPARβ appears to regulate myostatin and PPARγ expression in muscle and bone, thereby providing potential new targets to reverse bone fragility in patients with metabolic disturbances.

A neuropsychological instrument measuring age-related cerebral decline in older drivers: development, reliability, and validity of MedDrive.

When facing age-related cerebral decline, older adults are unequally affected by cognitive impairment without us knowing why. To explore underlying mechanisms and find possible solutions to maintain life-space mobility, there is a need for a standardized behavioral test that relates to behaviors in natural environments. The aim of the project described in this paper was therefore to provide a free, reliable, transparent, computer-based instrument capable of detecting age-related changes on visual processing and cortical functions for the purposes of research into human behavior in computational transportation science. After obtaining content validity, exploring psychometric properties of the developed tasks, we derived (Study 1) the scoring method for measuring cerebral decline on 106 older drivers aged ≥70 years attending a driving refresher course organized by the Swiss Automobile Association to test the instrument's validity against on-road driving performance (106 older drivers). We then validated the derived method on a new sample of 182 drivers (Study 2). We then measured the instrument's reliability having 17 healthy, young volunteers repeat all tests included in the instrument five times (Study 3) and explored the instrument's psychophysical underlying functions on 47 older drivers (Study 4). Finally, we tested the instrument's responsiveness to alcohol and effects on performance on a driving simulator in a randomized, double-blinded, placebo, crossover, dose-response, validation trial including 20 healthy, young volunteers (Study 5). The developed instrument revealed good psychometric properties related to processing speed. It was reliable (ICC = 0.853) and showed reasonable association to driving performance (R (2) = 0.053), and responded to blood alcohol concentrations of 0.5 g/L (p = 0.008). Our results suggest that MedDrive is capable of detecting age-related changes that affect processing speed. These changes nevertheless do not necessarily affect driving behavior.