Policy Elite Perceptions: Canada, the United States and Acid Rain

This study investigates the perceptions of policy elites (researchers/scientists and members of the affected governments, industries, and environmental groups) in the United States and Canada with respect to the formation and implementation of environmental policy. The setting is the debate over acid rain policy that was carried out between Canada and the United States from the late 1970s until the signing of the 1991 Air Quality Accord. The findings suggest that despite the passage of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments and the signing of the 1991 Air Quality Accord, there exists little faith on both sides of the border that the implementation of these acts will effectively deal with the acid rain problem

Scientists’ Perceptions of Objectivity and Advocacy: Making the Linkage of Science to Environmental Policy

There is no question that science plays a profound role in American public policymaking and that scientists are critical actors in the environmental policymaking process, serving as entrepreneurs, introducing, popularizing, and elevating environmental ideas onto national and international agendas. This article uses interviews with scientists to investigate the complexities of linking science to environmental policy, with special attention given to how scientists view the concepts of advocacy, objectivity, and the separation of science and policy. Because of the importance of scientists to the environmental policymaking process, it is worth exploring what they have to say about linking science to policy. Interviews of scientists in 1997 and again in 2009 illustrate the fact that scientists remain committed to the ideal of objectivity, struggle with the trend toward advocacy by scientists, and are distrustful of the way science is used in the environmental policy-making process

Science and Policy: The View from the World of Scientists

Given the fundamentally different aims of science and politics, questions continue to swirl around the ability of scientists to connect to the policy world. Scientists are accused of being reticent about participating in the political process for fear of compromising their scientific integrity. Scientists are also accused of failing to consider broad societal and ethical concerns when conducting their research. This study uses a survey of United States and CAnadian natural scientists to explore these charges from the point of view of scientists. The survey results show that scientists do not have confidence that either scientists or policy makers have the ability (or desire) to understand each other\u27s way of thinking. Still, it appears that scientists do appreciate the importance of societal and ethical concerns to the development of environmental policy, and are willing to address the question of how values are applied to the scientific process

Lost Credibility?: Scientists, Advocacy and Acid Rain

Shortly after the passage of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments, the March 1991 signing of the United States Air Quality Accord, and the release of the National Acid Precipitation Assessment Program s Integrated Assessment in November of 1991, there appeared a firestorm of criticism directed at the science of acid rain. Some of the severest criticism came from within the scientific community, as prominent researchers castigated scientists for lacking objectivity, for failing to distinguish between science and policy, and for out-right advocacy of policy positions. The findings of this study, based on interviews of both United States and Canadian scientists in 1997, suggest that while many scientists continue to share these concerns, more and more scientists are viewing advocacy as a moral and civic obligation

Canada–US Border Communities: What the People Have to Say

This paper investigates the Canada-U.S. borderlands relationship along the two geographic corridors as bounded by Lake Superior: Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario–Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan and Thunder Bay, Ontario–Duluth, Minnesota. Borderland communities—driven by their shared cultural characteristics (ethnicity, language, religion)—are said to challenge the border as a dividing device and undermine the very essence of international borders. Moreover, borderlands regions are dynamic and overlapping, providing the first point of contact and interaction between nations. We use interviews of over 200 people living in these borderlands regions to investigate the cross-border relationships of Canada-U.S. border communities. We find that despite the challenges of crossing the border, these communities retain a strong sense of shared values

Differences That Matter: Canada, the United States and Environmental Policymaking

Does the way Canada, as a nation state, approach international environmental policymaking make a difference with respect to solving environmental problems in the Americas? We argue that it does, and it is a difference that matters. Canadian efforts toward multilateralism and toward inclusiveness (e.g., willingness to work with weaker nations) serve as a counter balance to the growing unilateralism and ever present exceptionalism of the United States, currently the most powerful country in the world, and Canada’s southern neighbor and regional partner in developing environmental policy that affects the northern Americas directly and all of the Americas indirectly. Our argument is made first generally, and then specifically using involvement and reaction to the goals set out by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), where, along with Mexico, Canada and the United States play leading roles. The basic contention of this paper is that the vision for and goals of the CEC are much more aligned with the way Canada perceives the way international environmental policymaking should be implemented, and that by fostering that vision, Canada tries to counter the tendency of the present-day United States administration to go at it alone, and thereby provides a linkage to other countries in the Americas to position themselves for participation in regional environmental policymaking

Bridges and Barriers: The Lake Superior Borderlands

This paper investigates the Canada–US borderlands relationship along the two geographic corridors as bounded by Lake Superior: Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario–Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan and Thunder Bay, Ontario–Duluth, Minnesota. Borderland communities—driven by their shared cultural characteristics (ethnicity, language,religion)—are said to challenge the border as a dividing device and undermine the very essence of international borders. Moreover, borderlands regions are dynamic and overlapping, providing the first point of contact and interaction between nations. Our results depict inherent differences between these particular border regions, with each illustrating characteristics that both connect and divide. Despite the passage of time and both countries’ determined efforts to make the passage safe and less demanding, the peoples in these border regions perceive a continuing frustration with crossing the border and connecting to the people on the other side of the border

A framework for human microbiome research

A variety of microbial communities and their genes (the microbiome) exist throughout the human body, with fundamental roles in human health and disease. The National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded Human Microbiome Project Consortium has established a population-scale framework to develop metagenomic protocols, resulting in a broad range of quality-controlled resources and data including standardized methods for creating, processing and interpreting distinct types of high-throughput metagenomic data available to the scientific community. Here we present resources from a population of 242 healthy adults sampled at 15 or 18 body sites up to three times, which have generated 5,177 microbial taxonomic profiles from 16S ribosomal RNA genes and over 3.5 terabases of metagenomic sequence so far. In parallel, approximately 800 reference strains isolated from the human body have been sequenced. Collectively, these data represent the largest resource describing the abundance and variety of the human microbiome, while providing a framework for current and future studies

Structure, function and diversity of the healthy human microbiome

Author Posting. © The Authors, 2012. This article is posted here by permission of Nature Publishing Group. The definitive version was published in Nature 486 (2012): 207-214, doi:10.1038/nature11234.Studies of the human microbiome have revealed that even healthy individuals differ remarkably in the microbes that occupy habitats such as the gut, skin and vagina. Much of this diversity remains unexplained, although diet, environment, host genetics and early microbial exposure have all been implicated. Accordingly, to characterize the ecology of human-associated microbial communities, the Human Microbiome Project has analysed the largest cohort and set of distinct, clinically relevant body habitats so far. We found the diversity and abundance of each habitat’s signature microbes to vary widely even among healthy subjects, with strong niche specialization both within and among individuals. The project encountered an estimated 81–99% of the genera, enzyme families and community configurations occupied by the healthy Western microbiome. Metagenomic carriage of metabolic pathways was stable among individuals despite variation in community structure, and ethnic/racial background proved to be one of the strongest associations of both pathways and microbes with clinical metadata. These results thus delineate the range of structural and functional configurations normal in the microbial communities of a healthy population, enabling future characterization of the epidemiology, ecology and translational applications of the human microbiome.This research was supported in part by National Institutes of Health grants U54HG004969 to B.W.B.; U54HG003273 to R.A.G.; U54HG004973 to R.A.G., S.K.H. and J.F.P.; U54HG003067 to E.S.Lander; U54AI084844 to K.E.N.; N01AI30071 to R.L.Strausberg; U54HG004968 to G.M.W.; U01HG004866 to O.R.W.; U54HG003079 to R.K.W.; R01HG005969 to C.H.; R01HG004872 to R.K.; R01HG004885 to M.P.; R01HG005975 to P.D.S.; R01HG004908 to Y.Y.; R01HG004900 to M.K.Cho and P. Sankar; R01HG005171 to D.E.H.; R01HG004853 to A.L.M.; R01HG004856 to R.R.; R01HG004877 to R.R.S. and R.F.; R01HG005172 to P. Spicer.; R01HG004857 to M.P.; R01HG004906 to T.M.S.; R21HG005811 to E.A.V.; M.J.B. was supported by UH2AR057506; G.A.B. was supported by UH2AI083263 and UH3AI083263 (G.A.B., C. N. Cornelissen, L. K. Eaves and J. F. Strauss); S.M.H. was supported by UH3DK083993 (V. B. Young, E. B. Chang, F. Meyer, T. M. S., M. L. Sogin, J. M. Tiedje); K.P.R. was supported by UH2DK083990 (J. V.); J.A.S. and H.H.K. were supported by UH2AR057504 and UH3AR057504 (J.A.S.); DP2OD001500 to K.M.A.; N01HG62088 to the Coriell Institute for Medical Research; U01DE016937 to F.E.D.; S.K.H. was supported by RC1DE0202098 and R01DE021574 (S.K.H. and H. Li); J.I. was supported by R21CA139193 (J.I. and D. S. Michaud); K.P.L. was supported by P30DE020751 (D. J. Smith); Army Research Office grant W911NF-11-1-0473 to C.H.; National Science Foundation grants NSF DBI-1053486 to C.H. and NSF IIS-0812111 to M.P.; The Office of Science of the US Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231 for P.S. C.; LANL Laboratory-Directed Research and Development grant 20100034DR and the US Defense Threat Reduction Agency grants B104153I and B084531I to P.S.C.; Research Foundation - Flanders (FWO) grant to K.F. and J.Raes; R.K. is an HHMI Early Career Scientist; Gordon&BettyMoore Foundation funding and institutional funding fromthe J. David Gladstone Institutes to K.S.P.; A.M.S. was supported by fellowships provided by the Rackham Graduate School and the NIH Molecular Mechanisms in Microbial Pathogenesis Training Grant T32AI007528; a Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of Canada Grant in Aid of Research to E.A.V.; 2010 IBM Faculty Award to K.C.W.; analysis of the HMPdata was performed using National Energy Research Scientific Computing resources, the BluBioU Computational Resource at Rice University

Prevalence, associated factors and outcomes of pressure injuries in adult intensive care unit patients: the DecubICUs study

Funder: European Society of Intensive Care Medicine; doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100013347Funder: Flemish Society for Critical Care NursesAbstract: Purpose: Intensive care unit (ICU) patients are particularly susceptible to developing pressure injuries. Epidemiologic data is however unavailable. We aimed to provide an international picture of the extent of pressure injuries and factors associated with ICU-acquired pressure injuries in adult ICU patients. Methods: International 1-day point-prevalence study; follow-up for outcome assessment until hospital discharge (maximum 12 weeks). Factors associated with ICU-acquired pressure injury and hospital mortality were assessed by generalised linear mixed-effects regression analysis. Results: Data from 13,254 patients in 1117 ICUs (90 countries) revealed 6747 pressure injuries; 3997 (59.2%) were ICU-acquired. Overall prevalence was 26.6% (95% confidence interval [CI] 25.9–27.3). ICU-acquired prevalence was 16.2% (95% CI 15.6–16.8). Sacrum (37%) and heels (19.5%) were most affected. Factors independently associated with ICU-acquired pressure injuries were older age, male sex, being underweight, emergency surgery, higher Simplified Acute Physiology Score II, Braden score 3 days, comorbidities (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, immunodeficiency), organ support (renal replacement, mechanical ventilation on ICU admission), and being in a low or lower-middle income-economy. Gradually increasing associations with mortality were identified for increasing severity of pressure injury: stage I (odds ratio [OR] 1.5; 95% CI 1.2–1.8), stage II (OR 1.6; 95% CI 1.4–1.9), and stage III or worse (OR 2.8; 95% CI 2.3–3.3). Conclusion: Pressure injuries are common in adult ICU patients. ICU-acquired pressure injuries are associated with mainly intrinsic factors and mortality. Optimal care standards, increased awareness, appropriate resource allocation, and further research into optimal prevention are pivotal to tackle this important patient safety threat