Woodland expansion in upland national parks: an analysis of stakeholder views and understanding in the Dartmoor National Park, UK

Woodland expansion on a significant scale is widely seen to be critical if governments are to achieve their net zero greenhouse gas ambitions. The United Kingdom government is committed to expanding tree cover from 13% to at least 17% in order to achieve net zero by 2050. With much lowland area under agricultural production, woodland expansion may be directed to upland areas, many of which are national parks under some degree of conservation jurisdiction. This may prove to be controversial, requiring full engagement with the interests of those individuals with a stake in their protection and management. In this paper, we explore how a range of stakeholders view the prospect of woodland expansion in Dartmoor National Park in southwest England, UK. Fifteen stakeholders—a mix of key informants and farmers—were shown different woodland expansion scenarios in map form and consulted using semi-structured interviews. The findings suggest widespread enthusiasm for woodland expansion, but with significant differences in terms of the scale and approach. Stakeholders raised topics of biodiversity gain, climate change mitigation, environmental benefits, cultural ecosystem gain, and forest crop benefits. Caution was expressed regarding target setting, the place of woodland expansion in the national debate, and the potential for harm from inappropriate new planting. The constraints identified were land tenure patterns, notably tenancy insecurity and ‘common land’ challenges, historical farming policy and culture, landscape objectives, and future policy design

Childhood atopic eczema consensus document

No Abstract. South African Medical Journal Vol. 95(6) 2005: 435-44

Practicing physiotherapy in Danish private practice: an ethical perspective.

Despite an increasingly growth of professional guidelines, textbooks and research about ethics in health care, awareness about ethics in Danish physiotherapy private practice seen vague. This article explores how physiotherapists in Danish private practice, from an ethical perspective, perceive to practice physiotherapy. The empirical data consists of interviews with twenty-one physiotherapists. The interviews are analysed from a hermeneutic approach, inspired by Ricoeur's textual interpretation of distanciation. The analysis follows three phases: naïve reading, structural analysis and comprehensive analysis. Four main themes are constructed: Beneficence as the driving force; Disciplining the patient through the course of physiotherapy; Balancing between being a trustworthy professional and a businessperson; The dream of a code of practice. Private practice physiotherapy is embedded in a structural frame directed by both political and economical conditions that shape the conditions for practicing physiotherapy. It means that beneficence in practice is a balance between the patient, the physiotherapists themselves and the business. Beneficence towards the patient is expressed as an implicit demand. Physiotherapeutic practice is expressed as being an integration of professionalism and personality which implies that the physiotherapists also have to benefit themselves. Private practice seems to be driven by a paternalistic approach towards the patient, where disciplining the patient is a crucial element of practice, in order to optimise profit. Physiotherapists wish for a more beneficent practice in the future by aiming at bridging 'to be' and 'ought to be'

Tree insect pests and pathogens: a global systematic review of their impacts in urban areas

Trees contribute greatly to urban environments and human well-being, yet relatively little is known about the extent to which a rising incidence of tree insect pests and pathogens may be affecting these contributions. To address this issue, we undertook a systematic review and synthesis of the diverse global empirical evidence on the impacts of urban tree insect pests and pathogens, using bibliographic databases. Following screening and appraisal of over 3000 articles from a wide range of fields, 100 studies from 28 countries, spanning 1979–2021, were conceptually sorted into a three-part framework: (1) environmental impacts, representing 95 of the studies, including those reporting on tree damage, mortality, reduced growth, and changes in tree function; (2) social impacts were reported by 35 of studies, including on aesthetics, human health, and safety hazards; and (3) economic impacts, reported in 24 of studies, including on costs of pest management, and economic losses. There has been a considerable increase in urban impact studies since 2011. Evidence gaps exist on impacts on climate-regulating capacity, including temperature regulation, water retention, soil erosion, and wind protection, but also on specific hazards, nuisances, human well-being, property damages, and hazard liabilities. As a knowledge synthesis, this article presents the best available evidence of urban tree insect / pathogen impacts to guide policy, management and further research. It will enable us to better forecast how growing threats will affect the urban forest and plan for these eventualities

Net primary productivity of forest stands in New Hampshire estimated from Landsat and MODIS satellite data

© 2007 Potter et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licens

Thrombosis Is Reduced by Inhibition of COX-1, but Unaffected by Inhibition of COX-2, in an Acute Model of Platelet Activation in the Mouse

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

A comparison of location of acute symptomatic vs. 'silent' small vessel lesions

Background: Acute lacunar ischaemic stroke, white matter hyperintensities, and lacunes are all features of cerebral small vessel disease. It is unclear why some small vessel disease lesions present with acute stroke symptoms, whereas others typically do not. Aim: To test if lesion location could be one reason why some small vessel disease lesions present with acute stroke, whereas others accumulate covertly. Methods: We identified prospectively patients who presented with acute lacunar stroke symptoms with a recent small subcortical infarct confirmed on magnetic resonance diffusion imaging. We compared the distribution of the acute infarcts with that of white matter hyperintensity and lacunes using computational image mapping methods. Results: In 188 patients, mean age 67 ± standard deviation 12 years, the lesions that presented with acute lacunar ischaemic stroke were located in or near the main motor and sensory tracts in (descending order): posterior limb of the internal capsule (probability density 0·2/mm3), centrum semiovale (probability density = 0·15/mm3), medial lentiform nucleus/lateral thalamus (probability density = 0·09/mm3), and pons (probability density = 0·02/mm3). Most lacunes were in the lentiform nucleus (probability density = 0·01–0·04/mm3) or external capsule (probability density = 0·05/mm3). Most white matter hyperintensities were in centrum semiovale (except for the area affected by the acute symptomatic infarcts), external capsules, basal ganglia, and brainstem, with little overlap with the acute symptomatic infarcts (analysis of variance, P < 0·01). Conclusions: Lesions that present with acute lacunar ischaemic stroke symptoms may be more likely noticed by the patient through affecting the main motor and sensory tracts, whereas white matter hyperintensity and asymptomatic lacunes mainly affect other areas. Brain location could at least partly explain the symptomatic vs. covert development of small vessel disease

Childhood socioeconomic position, adult socioeconomic position and social mobility in relation to markers of adiposity in early adulthood: evidence of differential effects by gender in the 1978/79 Ribeirao Preto cohort study

Background: Longitudinal studies drawn from high-income countries demonstrate long-term associations of early childhood socioeconomic deprivation with increased adiposity in adulthood. However, there are very few data from resource-poor countries where there are reasons to anticipate different gradients. Accordingly, we sought to characterise the nature of the socioeconomic status (SES)-adiposity association in Brazil. / Methods: We use data from the Ribeirao Preto Cohort Study in Brazil in which 9067 newborns were recruited via their mothers in 1978/79 and one-in-three followed up in 2002/04 (23–25years). SES, based on family income (salaries, interest on savings, pensions and so on), was assessed at birth and early adulthood, and three different adiposity measures (body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC), waist-to-hip ratio (WHR)) ascertained at follow-up. The association between childhood SES, adult SES and social mobility (defined as four permutations of SES in childhood and adulthood: low–low, low–high, high–low, high–high), and the adiposity measures was examined using linear regression. / Results: There was evidence that the association between SES and the three markers of adiposity was modified by gender in both adulthood (P<0.02 for all outcomes) and childhood SES (P<0.02 for WC and WHR). Thus, in an unadjusted model, linear regression analyses showed that higher childhood SES was associated with lower adiposity in women (coefficient (95% confidence intervals) BMI: −1.49 (−2.29,−0.69); WC: −3.85 (−5.73,−1.97); WHR: −0.03 (−0.04,−0.02)). However, in men, higher childhood SES was related to higher adiposity (BMI: 1.03 (0.28,−1.78); WC: 3.15 (1.20, 5.09); WHR: 0.009 (−0.001, 0.019)) although statistical significance was not seen in all analyses. There was a suggestion that adult SES (but not adult health behaviours or birthweight) accounted for these relationships in women only. Upward mobility was associated with protection against greater adiposity in women but not men. / Conclusion: In the present study, in men there was some evidence that both higher childhood and adulthood SES was related to a higher adiposity risk, while the reverse gradient was apparent in women