Marine ecosystem services: Linking indicators to their classification

© 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. There is a multitude of ecosystem service classifications available within the literature, each with its own advantages and drawbacks. Elements of them have been used to tailor a generic ecosystem service classification for the marine environment and then for a case study site within the North Sea: the Dogger Bank. Indicators for each of the ecosystem services, deemed relevant to the case study site, were identified. Each indicator was then assessed against a set of agreed criteria to ensure its relevance and applicability to environmental management. This paper identifies the need to distinguish between indicators of ecosystem services that are entirely ecological in nature (and largely reveal the potential of an ecosystem to provide ecosystem services), indicators for the ecological processes contributing to the delivery of these services, and indicators of benefits that reveal the realized human use or enjoyment of an ecosystem service. It highlights some of the difficulties faced in selecting meaningful indicators, such as problems of specificity, spatial disconnect and the considerable uncertainty about marine species, habitats and the processes, functions and services they contribute to

Fostering university students' learning performance using the one-take video approach

Various studies have shown that video-based learning by explaining to a fictitious audience can be an effective learning strategy for promoting multiple knowledge domains such as memory, comprehension and knowledge transfer. However, field studies testing the effectiveness of this learning strategy in an applied setting are rare. The present study examines the effectiveness of the one-take video (OTV) approach on undergraduate students' learning performance. The OTV method involves users recording short oral presentations without any editing and with the support of handwritten visualisations (video-based learning by explaining). To test the learning outcomes, 218 undergraduate teaching students for special educational needs were randomly assigned to two test groups (OTV and explaining in writing). After that, they completed three study tasks throughout the semester, each followed by immediate and delayed knowledge tests. The results for the OTV group show that students achieved significantly better results in the immediate memory test the more handwritten visualisations they used, but not the more often they repeated the video recordings. Analyses of variance revealed that the OTV group outperformed the writing group in terms of memory performance in the immediate test but not in the delayed posttest. The OTV group also significantly outperformed the writing group in both posttests in the transfer domain. No significant differences were found in the comprehension test scores

Real-world outcomes using PD-1 antibodies and BRAF plus MEK inhibitors for adjuvant melanoma treatment from 39 skin cancer centers in Germany, Austria and Switzerland

BackgroundProgrammed death-1 (PD-1) antibodies and BRAF + MEK inhibitors are widely used for adjuvant therapy of fully resected high-risk melanoma. Little is known about treatment efficacy outside of phase III trials. This real-world study reports on clinical outcomes of modern adjuvant melanoma treatment in specialized skin cancer centers in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. MethodsMulticenter, retrospective study investigating stage III-IV melanoma patients receiving adjuvant nivolumab (NIV), pembrolizumab (PEM) or dabrafenib + trametinib (D + T) between 1/2017 and 10/2021. The primary endpoint was 12-month recurrence-free survival (RFS). Further analyses included descriptive and correlative statistics, and a multivariate linear-regression machine learning model to assess the risk of early melanoma recurrence. ResultsIn total, 1198 patients from 39 skin cancer centers from Germany, Austria and Switzerland were analysed. The vast majority received anti PD-1 therapies (n = 1003). Twelve-month RFS for anti PD-1 and BRAF + MEK inhibitor-treated patients were 78.1% and 86.5%, respectively (hazard ratio [HR] 1.998 [95% CI 1.335-2.991]; p = 0.001). There was no statistically significant difference in overall survival (OS) in anti PD-1 (95.8%) and BRAF + MEK inhibitor (96.9%) treated patients (p > 0.05) during the median follow-up of 17 months. Data indicates that anti PD-1 treated patients who develop immune-related adverse events (irAEs) have lower recurrence rates compared to patients with no irAEs (HR 0.578 [95% CI 0.443-0.754], p = 0.001). BRAF mutation status did not affect overall efficacy of anti PD-1 treatment (p > 0.05). In both, anti PD-1 and BRAF + MEK inhibitor treated cohorts, data did not show any difference in 12-month RFS and 12-month OS comparing patients receiving total lymph node dissection (TLND) versus sentinel lymph node biopsy only (p > 0.05). The recurrence prediction model reached high specificity but only low sensitivity with an AUC = 0.65. No new safety signals were detected. Overall, recorded numbers and severity of adverse events were lower than reported in pivotal phase III trials. ConclusionsDespite recent advances in adjuvant melanoma treatment, early recurrence remains a significant clinical challenge. This study shows that TLND does not reduce the risk of early melanoma recurrence and should only be considered in selected patients. Data further highlight that variables collected during clinical routine are unlikely to allow for a clinically relevant prediction of individual recurrence risk