BICCO-Net II. Final report to the Biological Impacts of Climate Change Observation Network (BICCO-Net) Steering Group

• BICCO-Net Phase II presents the most comprehensive single assessment of climate change impacts on UK biodiversity to date. • The results provide a valuable resource for the CCRA 2018, future LWEC report cards, the National Adaptation Programme and other policy-relevant initiatives linked to climate change impacts on biodiversity

Doxycycline versus prednisolone as an initial treatment strategy for bullous pemphigoid: a pragmatic non-inferiority randomised controlled trial

Background: Bullous pemphigoid (BP) is a blistering skin disorder with increased mortality. We tested whether a strategy of starting treatment with doxycycline conveys acceptable short-term blister control whilst conferring long-term safety advantages over starting treatment with oral corticosteroids. Methods: Pragmatic multi-centre parallel-group randomised controlled trial of adults with BP (≥3 blisters ≥2 sites and linear basement membrane IgG/C3) plus economic evaluation. Participants were randomised to doxycycline (200 mg/day) or prednisolone (0·5 mg/kg/day). Localised adjuvant potent topical corticosteroids (<30 g/week) was permitted weeks 1-3. The non-inferiority primary effectiveness outcome was the proportion of participants with ≤3 blisters at 6 weeks. We assumed that doxycycline would be 25% less effective than corticosteroids with a 37% acceptable margin of noninferiority. The primary safety outcome was the proportion with severe, life-threatening or fatal treatment-related adverse events by 52 weeks. Analysis used a regression model adjusting for baseline disease severity, age and Karnofsky score, with missing data imputed. Results: 132 patients were randomised to doxycycline and 121 to prednisolone from 54 UK and 7 German dermatology centres. Mean age was 77·7 years and 68.4% had moderate to severe baseline disease. For those starting doxycycline, 83/112 (74·1%) had ≤3 blisters at 6 weeks compared with 92/101 (91·1%) for prednisolone, a difference of 18·6% favouring prednisolone (upper limit of 90% CI, 26·1%, within the predefined 37% margin). Related severe, life-threatening and fatal events at 52 weeks were 18·5% for those starting doxycycline and 36·6% for prednisolone (mITT analysis), an adjusted difference of 19·0% (95% CI, 7·9%, 30·1%, p=0·001). Conclusions: A strategy of starting BP patients on doxycycline is non-inferior to standard treatment with oral prednisolone for short-term blister control and significantly safer long-term

Time-lapse seismic analysis of pressure depletion in the Southern Gas Basin

In the Southern Gas Basin (SGB) of the North Sea there are many mature gas fields where time-lapse monitoring could be very beneficial in extending production life. However, the conditions are not immediately attractive for time-lapse seismic assessment. This is primarily because the main production effect to be assessed is a pore pressure reduction and frame stiffening because of gas production in tight sandstone reservoirs that also have no real seismic direct hydrocarbon indicators. Modelling, based on laboratory measurements, has shown that such an effect would be small and difficult to detect in seismic data. This paper makes two main contributions. Firstly, this is, to our knowledge, the first time-lapse study in the SGB and involves a real-data assessment of the viability for detecting production in such an environment. Secondly, the feasibility of using markedly different legacies of data in such a study is addressed, including an assessment of the factors influencing the crossmatching. From the latter, it is found that significant, spatially varying time shifts need to be, and are successfully, resolved through 3-D warping. After the warping, the primary factors limiting the crossmatching appear to be residual local phase variations, possibly induced by the differing migration strategies, structure, reverberations and different coherencies of the volumes, caused by differences in acquisition-structure azimuth and acquisition fold. Despite these differences, a time-lapse amplitude signature is observed that is attributable to production. The character of the 4-D amplitude anomalies may also indicate variations in stress sensitivity, e.g. because of zones of fracturing. Additionally, warping-derived time attributes have been highlighted as a potential additional avenue for detection of pressure depletion in such reservoirs. Although the effects are subtle, they may indicate changes in stress/pressure in and around the reservoir because of production. However, to fully resolve the subtle time-lapse effects in such a reservoir, the data differences need to be better addressed, which may be possible by full re-processing and pre-stack analysis, but more likely dedicated 4-D acquisition would be required

Evidence of the unidimensional structure of mind perception

The last decade has witnessed intense interest in how people perceive the minds of other entities (humans, non-human animals, and non-living objects and forces) and how this perception impacts behavior. Despite the attention paid to the topic, the psychological structure of mind perception-that is, the underlying properties that account for variance across judgements of entities-is not clear and extant reports conflict in terms of how to understand the structure. In the present research, we evaluated the psychological structure of mind perception by having participants evaluate a wide array of human, non-human animal, and non-animal entities. Using an entirely within-participants design, varied measurement approaches, and data-driven analyses, four studies demonstrated that mind perception is best conceptualized along a single dimension