A global view of shifting cultivation: Recent, current, and future extent

Mosaic landscapes under shifting cultivation, with their dynamic mix of managed and natural land covers, often fall through the cracks in remote sensing–based land cover and land use classifications, as these are unable to adequately capture such landscapes’ dynamic nature and complex spectral and spatial signatures. But information about such landscapes is urgently needed to improve the outcomes of global earth system modelling and large-scale carbon and greenhouse gas accounting. This study combines existing global Landsat-based deforestation data covering the years 2000 to 2014 with very high-resolution satellite imagery to visually detect the specific spatio-temporal pattern of shifting cultivation at a one-degree cell resolution worldwide. The accuracy levels of our classification were high with an overall accuracy above 87%. We estimate the current global extent of shifting cultivation and compare it to other current global mapping endeavors as well as results of literature searches. Based on an expert survey, we make a first attempt at estimating past trends as well as possible future trends in the global distribution of shifting cultivation until the end of the 21st century. With 62% of the investigated one-degree cells in the humid and sub-humid tropics currently showing signs of shifting cultivation—the majority in the Americas (41%) and Africa (37%)—this form of cultivation remains widespread, and it would be wrong to speak of its general global demise in the last decades. We estimate that shifting cultivation landscapes currently cover roughly 280 million hectares worldwide, including both cultivated fields and fallows. While only an approximation, this estimate is clearly smaller than the areas mentioned in the literature which range up to 1,000 million hectares. Based on our expert survey and historical trends we estimate a possible strong decrease in shifting cultivation over the next decades, raising issues of livelihood security and resilience among people currently depending on shifting cultivation

Real-life efficacy of pregabalin for the treatment of peripheral neuropathic pain in daily clinical practice in Denmark:the NEP-TUNE study

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to provide evidence regarding the real-life efficacy of pregabalin in the treatment of peripheral neuropathic pain (NeP) in Denmark. METHODS: In this prospective, observational, noninterventional study, pregabalin (Lyrica(®)) was prescribed following usual clinical practice. Compared with baseline, the primary study end points after 3 months of observation were changes in 1) the average level of pain during the past week, 2) the worst level of pain during the past week, and 3) the least level of pain during the past week. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used to perform paired analyses, and a multivariate regression analysis investigated factors driving change in pain. RESULTS: A total of 86 of the 128 patients included were regarded as efficacy evaluable (those completing 3 months of pregabalin treatment). Patients (59 years) were long-time sufferers of peripheral NeP, and 38% of them had comorbidities. The majority had previously been treated with tricyclic antidepressants or gabapentin. The average dose of pregabalin was 81.5 mg/d at baseline and 240 mg/d after 3 months. A clinically and statistically significant improvement of 2.2 points in the average level of pain intensity was found after 3 months. The higher the pain intensity at baseline, the higher was the reduction of the pain score. Positive results were also found for pain-related sleep interference, patients’ global impression of change, quality of life, and work and productivity impairment. Twenty-one patients reported 28 adverse events. CONCLUSION: This real-life study indicates that for some patients (two-thirds), addition of pregabalin for peripheral NeP helps to reduce their pain intensity significantly

The Hard X-Ray View of the Young Supernova Remnant G1.9+0.3

NuSTAR observed G1.9+0.3, the youngest known supernova remnant in the Milky Way, for 350 ks and detected emission up to $\sim$30 keV. The remnant's X-ray morphology does not change significantly across the energy range from 3 to 20 keV. A combined fit between NuSTAR and CHANDRA shows that the spectrum steepens with energy. The spectral shape can be well fitted with synchrotron emission from a power-law electron energy distribution with an exponential cutoff with no additional features. It can also be described by a purely phenomenological model such as a broken power-law or a power-law with an exponential cutoff, though these descriptions lack physical motivation. Using a fixed radio flux at 1 GHz of 1.17 Jy for the synchrotron model, we get a column density of N$_{\rm H}$ = $(7.23\pm0.07) \times 10^{22}$ cm$^{-2}$, a spectral index of $\alpha=0.633\pm0.003$, and a roll-off frequency of $\nu_{\rm rolloff}=(3.07\pm0.18) \times 10^{17}$ Hz. This can be explained by particle acceleration, to a maximum energy set by the finite remnant age, in a magnetic field of about 10 $\mu$G, for which our roll-off implies a maximum energy of about 100 TeV for both electrons and ions. Much higher magnetic-field strengths would produce an electron spectrum that was cut off by radiative losses, giving a much higher roll-off frequency that is independent of magnetic-field strength. In this case, ions could be accelerated to much higher energies. A search for $^{44}$Ti emission in the 67.9 keV line results in an upper limit of $1.5 \times 10^{-5}$ $\,\mathrm{ph}\,\mathrm{cm}^{-2}\,\mathrm{s}^{-1}$ assuming a line width of 4.0 keV (1 sigma).Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, accepted Ap

A Spatially Resolved Study of the Synchrotron Emission and Titanium in Tycho's Supernova Remnant with NuSTAR

We report results from deep observations (~750 ks) of Tycho's supernova remnant (SNR) with NuSTAR. Using these data, we produce narrow-band images over several energy bands to identify the regions producing the hardest X-rays and to search for radioactive decay line emission from 44Ti. We find that the hardest (>10 keV) X-rays are concentrated in the southwest of Tycho, where recent Chandra observations have revealed high emissivity "stripes" associated with particles accelerated to the knee of the cosmic-ray spectrum. We do not find evidence of 44Ti, and we set limits on its presence and distribution within the SNR. These limits correspond to a upper-limit 44Ti mass of M44 < 2.4x10^-4 M_sun for a distance of 2.3 kpc. We perform spatially resolved spectroscopic analysis of sixty-six regions across Tycho. We map the best-fit rolloff frequency of the hard X-ray spectra, and we compare these results to measurements of the shock expansion and ambient density. We find that the highest energy electrons are accelerated at the lowest densities and in the fastest shocks, with a steep dependence of the roll-off frequency with shock velocity. Such a dependence is predicted by models where the maximum energy of accelerated electrons is limited by the age of the SNR rather than by synchrotron losses, but this scenario requires far lower magnetic field strengths than those derived from observations in Tycho. One way to reconcile these discrepant findings is through shock obliquity effects, and future observational work is necessary to explore the role of obliquity in the particle acceleration process.Comment: 12 pages, 12 figures, ApJ in pres

No Correlation Between Nasopharyngeal Human Bocavirus 1 Genome Load and mRNA Detection or Serology in Adeno-/Tonsillectomy Patients

Human bocavirus 1 (HBoV1) can persist in nasopharynx and tonsils. Using HBoV1 serology, reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for detecting messenger RNA (mRNA) and quantitative PCR for HBoV1 genome load count, we studied to what extent the HBoV1 DNA loads in nasopharynx correlate with acute infection markers. Tonsillar tissue, nasopharyngeal aspirate, and serum were obtained from 188 elective adeno-/tonsillectomy patients. Relatively high loads of HBoV1 DNA were detected in the nasopharynx of 14 (7%) primarily asymptomatic subjects with negative mRNA and/or serodiagnostic results. Quantitative HBoV1 DNA PCR may have lower specificity than HBoV1 mRNA detection for diagnosing symptomatic infection.Peer reviewe

Broadband X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy of the Crab Nebula and Pulsar with NuSTAR

We present broadband (3 -- 78 keV) NuSTAR X-ray imaging and spectroscopy of the Crab nebula and pulsar. We show that while the phase-averaged and spatially integrated nebula + pulsar spectrum is a power-law in this energy band, spatially resolved spectroscopy of the nebula finds a break at $\sim$9 keV in the spectral photon index of the torus structure with a steepening characterized by $\Delta\Gamma\sim0.25$. We also confirm a previously reported steepening in the pulsed spectrum, and quantify it with a broken power-law with break energy at $\sim$12 keV and $\Delta\Gamma\sim0.27$. We present spectral maps of the inner 100\as\ of the remnant and measure the size of the nebula as a function of energy in seven bands. These results find that the rate of shrinkage with energy of the torus size can be fitted by a power-law with an index of $\gamma = 0.094\pm 0.018$, consistent with the predictions of Kennel and Coroniti (1984). The change in size is more rapid in the NW direction, coinciding with the counter-jet where we find the index to be a factor of two larger. NuSTAR observed the Crab during the latter part of a $\gamma$-ray flare, but found no increase in flux in the 3 - 78 keV energy band

Identification of the first surrogate agonists for the G protein-coupled receptor GPR132

This is the accepted manuscript. The final version is available at http://pubs.rsc.org/en/Content/ArticleLanding/2015/RA/c5ra04804d#!divAbstract.GPR132 is an orphan Class A G protein-coupled receptor. It has been proposed to be activated by protons\ud and to regulate apoptosis, atherosclerosis and inflammation, but these results are still preliminary. In the\ud current work, we now designed and screened a focused compound library using a ?-arrestin recruitment\ud assay, and thereby identified the first disclosed surrogate GPR132 agonist 1 with a potency of 3.4 ?M.\ud This constitutes the first available pharmacological tool for the in vitro characterization of the orphan\ud receptor GPR132. The testing of 32 analogs furthermore identified a number of compounds with lower\ud activity - of which six were agonists and two were antagonists - that were used to construct preliminary\ud structure-activity relationships. Docking followed by molecular dynamics simulation of compound 1 in a\ud structural model of GPR132 displayed the putative interactions for the key ligand functionalities.M.A.S. was supported by a research scholarship from the\ud Drug Research Academy and Novo Nordisk A/S. D.E.G.\ud and H.B.-O. gratefully acknowledge financial support by\ud the Carlsberg Foundation. D.E.G. and D.S.P. gratefully\ud acknowledges financial support by the Lundbeck\ud Foundation. Nils Nyberg is acknowledged for help with\ud NMR spectroscopy. NMR equipment used in this work\ud was purchased via a grant from The Lundbeck\ud Foundation (R77-A6742)

Altered brain energetics induces mitochondrial fission arrest in Alzheimer's Disease.

Altered brain metabolism is associated with progression of Alzheimer's Disease (AD). Mitochondria respond to bioenergetic changes by continuous fission and fusion. To account for three dimensional architecture of the brain tissue and organelles, we applied 3-dimensional electron microscopy (3D EM) reconstruction to visualize mitochondrial structure in the brain tissue from patients and mouse models of AD. We identified a previously unknown mitochondrial fission arrest phenotype that results in elongated interconnected organelles, "mitochondria-on-a-string" (MOAS). Our data suggest that MOAS formation may occur at the final stages of fission process and was not associated with altered translocation of activated dynamin related protein 1 (Drp1) to mitochondria but with reduced GTPase activity. Since MOAS formation was also observed in the brain tissue of wild-type mice in response to hypoxia or during chronological aging, fission arrest may represent fundamental compensatory adaptation to bioenergetic stress providing protection against mitophagy that may preserve residual mitochondrial function. The discovery of novel mitochondrial phenotype that occurs in the brain tissue in response to energetic stress accurately detected only using 3D EM reconstruction argues for a major role of mitochondrial dynamics in regulating neuronal survival