While the existing evidence affirms beneficial impacts of greenspace on health, much remains to be learned about the specific pathways and functional form of such relationships, and how these may vary by context, population groups and health outcomes. This Report provides guidance for further epidemiological research with the goal of creating new evidence upon which to develop policy recommendations.

The limb-girdle muscular dystrophies are a genetically heterogeneous group of inherited progressive muscle disorders that affect mainly the proximal musculature, with evidence for at least three autosomal dominant and eight autosomal recessive loci. The latter mostly involve mutations in genes encoding components of the dystrophin-associated complex; another form is caused by mutations in the gene for the muscle-specific protease calpain 3. Using a positional cloning approach, we have identified the gene for a form of limb-girdle muscular dystrophy that we previously mapped to chromosome 2p13 (LGMD2B). This gene shows no homology to any known mammalian gene, but its predicted product is related to the C. elegans spermatogenesis factor fer-1. We have identified two homozygous frameshift mutations in this gene, resulting in muscular dystrophy of either proximal or distal onset in nine families. The proposed name 'dysferlin' combines the role of the gene in producing muscular dystrophy with its C. elegans homology.

[1] Large-scale crustal deformation in the Levant is mainly related to the DST and the CFS. The former is an active left lateral transform, bounding the Arabian plate and the Sinai sub-plate, and the latter branches out of the former and separates the Sinai sub-plate into two tectonic domains. In this study we obtain the velocities of 33 permanent GPS stations and 145 survey stations that were surveyed in three campaigns between 1996 and 2008. We use a simple 1-D elastic dislocation model to infer the slip rate and locking depth along various segments of the DST. We infer a 3.1-4.5 mm/yr slip rate and a 7.8-16.5 km locking depth along the DST north of the CFS, and a slip rate of 4.6-5.9 mm/yr and locking depth of 11.8-24 km along the Jericho Valley, south of the CFS. Further south, along the Arava Valley we obtain a slip rate of 4.7-5.4 mm/yr and a locking depth of 12.1-23 km. We identify an oblique motion along the Carmel Fault with $0.7 mm/yr left-lateral and $0.6 mm/yr extension rates, resulting in N-S extension across the Carmel Fault. This result, together with the decrease in DST slip velocity from the Jericho Valley to the segment north of the CFS, confirms previous suggestions, according to which part of the slip between Arabia and Sinai is being transferred from the DST to the CFS.

Using a time-dependent approach, we investigated all-site and site-specific cancer incidence in a large population stratified by diabetes status. The study analyzed a closed cohort comprised of Israelis aged 21-89 years, enrolled in a health fund, and followed from 2002 to 2012. Adjusting for age, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status, we calculated hazard ratios for cancer incidence using Cox regression separately for participants with prevalent and incident diabetes; the latter was further divided by time since diabetes diagnosis. Of the 2,186,196 individuals included in the analysis, 159,104 were classified as having prevalent diabetes, 408,243 as having incident diabetes, and 1,618,849 as free of diabetes. In both men and women, diabetes posed an increased risk of cancers of the liver, pancreas, gallbladder, endometrium, stomach, kidney, brain (benign), brain (malignant), colon/rectum, lung (all, adenocarcinoma, and squamous cell carcinoma), ovary, and bladder, as well as leukemia, multiple myeloma, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and breast cancer in postmenopausal women. No excess risk was observed for breast cancer in premenopausal women or for thyroid cancer. Diabetes was associated with a reduced risk of prostate cancer. Hazard ratios for all-site and site-specific cancers were particularly elevated during the first year following diabetes diagnosis. The findings of this large study with a time-dependent approach are consistent with those of previous studies that have observed associations between diabetes and cancer incidence.

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