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Women at high inherited risk of ovarian cancer are offered risk-reducing salpingo-oophorectomy (RRSO) from age 35 to 45 years. Although potentially life-saving, RRSO may induce symptoms that negatively affect quality of life and impair long-term health. Clinical care following RRSO is often suboptimal. This scoping review describes how RRSO affects short- and long-term health and provides evidence-based international consensus recommendations for care from preoperative counselling to long-term disease prevention. This includes the efficacy and safety of hormonal and non-hormonal treatments for vasomotor symptoms, sleep disturbance and sexual dysfunction and effective approaches to prevent bone and cardiovascular disease.

Exposure to harsh or unpredictable environments can impair social and cognitive functioning. However, people may also develop enhanced abilities for solving challenges relevant in those environments (‘hidden talents’). In the current study, we explored the associations between people’s ability to accurately forecast conflict outcomes and their past and current experiences with violence. To do so, we used dynamic, real-world videos with known outcomes, rather than static, artificial stimuli (e.g., vignettes) with unknown outcomes, as previous research has done. We conducted a preregistered study in the Netherlands that included a final sample of 127 participants: 63 from a community sample and 64 college students. We found no support for our core hypothesis that people who experienced more violence are more accurate in forecasting conflict outcomes. Thus, we did not find support for hidden talents, contributing to an evidence base that was already mixed and inconclusive. We did find support for our auxiliary hypothesis that college students would wear ‘rose-colored glasses’, underestimating the number of conflicts that would escalate into fights. Contrary to our other two auxiliary hypotheses, the community sample did not overestimate the number of conflicts that would escalate into fights, and people who have experienced more violence were not more likely to predict that conflicts will escalate into fights. These findings have implications for the literature on hostile attribution bias, which shows that people with more exposure to violence more likely interpret the ambiguous actions of others as hostile. Whereas this pattern is often attributed to negativity bias in people with more exposure to violence, it might also reflect rose-colored glasses on people living safer lives.

RIVM rapport:Het RIVM heeft in kaart gebracht wat de ‘biogene stikstofemissie’ naar de lucht in Nederland is. Biogene emissie betekent de uitstoot van stoffen uit biologische bronnen. Dat wil zeggen bronnen met een natuurlijke oorsprong, die niet door menselijk handelen zijn veroorzaakt. Er zijn meerdere biogene bronnen met een natuurlijke oorsprong. In dit onderzoek gaat het om de uitstoot van stikstof uit natuurbodems, zoals bos en heide, en via de uitwerpselen van in de natuur levende dieren. Het RIVM heeft een inschatting gemaakt van hoeveel ammoniak door deze dieren wordt uitgestoten; de vorm van stikstof die dieren uitscheiden. In totaal komt dat voor vogels en zoogdieren uit op 1,9 kiloton ammoniak, met een bandbreedte van 1,3 tot 2,5 kiloton. Dit is 1,5 procent van de totale uitstoot van ammoniak. Dit onderzoek is nu voor het eerst in Nederland gedaan. De uitstoot van stikstofoxiden uit natuurbodems wordt al geregistreerd in de Emissieregistratie. De resultaten van onderliggend onderzoek hebben geen direct effect op de berekende stikstofniveaus (depositie) in Nederland. De extra bijdrage uit biogene bronnen wordt namelijk indirect verwerkt in de berekeningen. De aanleiding voor dit onderzoek is een vraag uit de Tweede Kamer om meer duidelijkheid te krijgen hoe de biogene uitstoot zich verhoudt tot de uitstoot via menselijke bronnen,zoals veeteelt. Het ministerie van Landbouw, Natuur en Voedselkwaliteit (LNV) heeft het RIVM er de opdracht voor gegeven., RIVM has identified and analysed the biogenic emission of nitrogen to the air in the Netherlands. Biogenic emissions are emissions of substances from biological sources, that is, that are not caused by human activity. There are various biogenic sources of natural origins. This research examines the emission of nitrogen of natural origins from natural soils (such as forest and moorland) and the faeces of animals living in nature areas. RIVM has estimated how much ammonia, the form of nitrogen excreted by these animals. For birds and mammals, this amounts to a total of 1.9 ktonne, with a bandwidth of 1.3 to 2.5 ktonne, of ammonia and is 1.5% of the total emission of ammonia. This is the first time that such an estimate has been made for the Netherlands. The emission of nitrogen oxides from natural soils is already registered in the Netherlands Pollutant Emission Register. The results of this research have no direct effect on the calculated nitrogenlevels (deposition) in the Netherlands, The additional contribution from biogenic sources is already taken into account in the calculations in an indirect way. The reason for this study was a request from the House of Representatives of the Netherlands for more clarity on how biogenic emissions relate to those due to human activities (such as livestock farming). The Ministry of Agriculture, Nature & Food Quality (LNV) commissioned RIVM to carry out the study.

Microscopically visible chromatin is partitioned into two major components in Arabidopsis thaliana nuclei. Chromocenters on one hand are conspicuous foci of highly condensed 'heterochromatic' domains that contain mostly repeated sequences. On the other hand, less condensed and gene-rich 'euchromatin' emanates from these chromocenters. This differentiation, together with the dynamic nature of chromatin compaction in response to developmental and environmental stimuli, makes Arabidopsis a powerful system for studying chromatin organization and dynamics. Heterochromatin dynamics can be monitored by measuring the Heterochromatin Index, i.e. the proportion of nuclei displaying well-defined chromocenters, or the DNA fraction of chromocenters (Relative Heterochromatin Fraction). Both measures are composite traits, thus their values represent the sum of effects of various underlying morphometric properties. We exploited genetic variation between natural occurring accessions to determine the genetic basis of individual nucleus and chromocenter morphometric parameters; Area, Perimeter, Density, Roundness and Heterogeneity, that together determine chromatin compaction. Our novel reductionistic genetic approach revealed Quantitative Trait Loci (QTLs) for all measured traits. Genomic co-localization among QTLs was limited, which suggests a complex genetic regulation of chromatin compaction. Yet, genomic intervals of QTLs for nucleus size (Area and Perimeter) both overlap with a known QTL for heterochromatin compaction that is explained by natural polymorphism in the red/far-red light and temperature receptor Phytochrome B. Mutant analyses and genetic complementation assays show that Phytochrome B is a negative regulator of nucleus size, unveiling that perception of climatic conditions by a phytochrome-mediated hub is a major determinant for coordinating nucleus size and heterochromatin compaction

RIVM rapport:In 2016 is op 29 snelwegtracés de maximum snelheid verhoogd naar 130 kilometer per uur. Door de hogere snelheid stoten auto's meer luchtvervuilende stoffen uit. In de praktijk vallen de hogere bijdragen van verkeer aan de concentraties in de lucht op veel plaatsen weg tegen de verbeterde luchtkwaliteit van de afgelopen jaren. Langs een beperkt aantal kilometers weg leidt de snelheidsverhoging naar 130 km/uur tot een slechtere lokale luchtkwaliteit. In alle gevallen liggen de volgens de wettelijke methoden berekende concentraties onder de Europese grenswaarden. Overigens treden ook onder de norm gezondheids-effecten op. Dit blijkt uit een analyse die het RIVM op verzoek van het ministerie van Infrastructuur en Milieu heeft uitgevoerd. Langs de tracés waar de snelheid is verhoogd, zijn op 71.159 locaties de concentraties stikstof en fijnstof onderzocht. Ten opzichte van 2015 zijn op 84 procent van de onderzochte locaties de berekende concentraties stikstofdioxide gedaald. Op circa 4000 van de onderzochte locaties, oftewel 5,5 procent, is de lokale luchtkwaliteit verslechterd door de snelheidsverhoging en is lokaal de kans groter dat de grenswaarde voor stikstofdioxide wordt overschreden. Statistisch gezien worden 12 extra overschrijdingen verwacht. Voor fijn stof is er geen wezenlijk grotere kans op overschrijding van de grenswaarde na verhoging van de maximumsnelheden. Op 3 maart 2016 is in de Tweede Kamer een motie ingediend om te laten uitzoeken of en in hoeverre de in 2016 doorgevoerde en nog door te voeren snelheidsverhogingen tot extra overschrijdingen van de wettelijke grenswaarden voor luchtkwaliteit leiden (30175, nr 231). Om hier invulling aan te geven heeft het RIVM de concentraties luchtvervuilende stoffen langs de wegvakken met snelheidsverhogingen berekend voor de jaren 2016 en 2020., In 2016 the speed limit on 29 stretches of highway has been increased to 130 kilometers per hour. As a result of the higher speed cars emit more pollutants into the air. In practice, the increased contributions from traffic to the concentrations in the air are compensated in many places by the continued improvement of air quality during recent years. Along a few kilometers of road, the increase in speed results in a poorer local air quality. In all cases, the concentrations, calculated using the official methods, remain below the European limit values. However, lower concentrations of pollutants in the air improve public health, even at concentration levels below the European limit values. This can be concluded from an analysis conducted by the RIVM at the request of the Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment. Along the routes where speed has been increased the nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter concentrations were investigated at 71159 locations. Compared to 2015, concentrations of nitrogen dioxide in 2016 were lower at 84 percent of the surveyed locations. At approximately 4000 of the surveyed sites, or 5.5 percent, local air quality has deteriorated because of the speed increase. Locally the likelihood to exceed the limit value for nitrogen dioxide increased. Statistically, 12 additional exceedances of the legal limit value are expected. For particulate matter, there is no substantial increased risk of exceeding the limit value after increasing the speed limits. On March 3, 2016 representatives in the Dutch House of Parliament filed a motion to investigate whether and to what extent implemented increases in speed limits in 2016 lead to additional exceedances of the legal limits for air quality (motion 30175, No. 231). To answer the question, the RIVM has calculated concentrations of air pollutants along the road sections with speed increases for the years 2016 and 2020.

Current methods for studying the genetic basis of adaptation evaluate genetic associations with ecologically relevant traits or single environmental variables, under the implicit assumption that natural selection imposes correlations between phenotypes, environments and genotypes. In practice, observed trait and environmental data are manifestations of unknown selective forces and are only indirectly associated with adaptive genetic variation. In theory, improved estimation of these forces could enable more powerful detection of loci under selection. Here we present an approach in which we approximate adaptive variation by modeling phenotypes as a function of the environment and using the predicted trait in multivariate and univariate genome-wide association analysis (GWAS). Based on computer simulations and published flowering time data from the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, we find that environmentally predicted traits lead to higher recovery of functional loci in multivariate GWAS and are more strongly correlated to allele frequencies at adaptive loci than individual environmental variables. Our results provide an example of the use of environmental data to obtain independent and meaningful information on adaptive genetic variation.