Effective monitoring of permafrost coast erosion: Wide-scale storm impacts on outer islands in the Mackenzie Delta area.

Permafrost coasts are extensive in scale and complex in nature, resulting in particular challenges for understanding how they respond to both long-term shifts in climate and short-term extreme weather events. Taking examples from the Canadian Beaufort Sea coastline characterised by extensive areas of massive ground ice within slump and block failure complexes, we conduct a quantitative analysis of the practical performance of helicopter-based photogrammetry. The results demonstrate that large scale (>1 km2) surface models can be achieved at comparable accuracy to standard UAV surveys, but 36 times faster. Large scale models have greater potential for progressive alignment and contrast issues and so breaking down image sequences into coherent chunks has been found the most effective technique for accurate landscape reconstructions. The approach has subsequently been applied in a responsive acquisition immediately before and after a large storm event and during conditions (wind gusts >50 km hr-1) that would have prohibited UAV data acquisition. Trading lower resolution surface models for large scale coverage and more effective responsive monitoring, the helicopter-based data have been applied to assess storm driven-change across the exposed outer islands of the Mackenzie Delta area for the first time. These data show that the main storm impacts were concentrated on exposed North orientated permafrost cliff sections (particularly low cliffs, >20 m in height) where cliff recession was 43% of annual rates and in places up to 29% of the annual site-wide erosion volume was recorded in this single event. In contrast, the thaw-slump complexes remained relatively unaffected, debris flow fans were generally more resistant to storm erosion than the ice-rich cliffs, perhaps due to the relatively low amounts of precipitation that occurred. Therefore, the variability of permafrost coast erosion rates is controlled by interactions between both the forcing conditions and local response mechanisms. Helicopter-based photogrammetric surveys have the potential to effectively analyse these controls with greater spatial and temporal consistency across more representative scales and resolutions than has previously been achieved, improving the capacity to adequately constrain and ultimately project future Arctic coast sensitivity

Does fragmentation contribute to the forest crisis in Germany?

Intact forests contribute to the ecosystem functionality of landscapes by storing and sequestering carbon, buffering and cooling the microclimate, and providing a range of related ecosystem functions. Forest fragmentation not only poses a threat to many organisms but also reduces the resistance and resilience of the ecosystem, which is especially relevant to the ongoing climate crisis. The effects of recent extreme heat years on forests in Germany have not been studied in detail for the influence of fragmentation. We investigate the relation of forest fragmentation with temperature and vitality in Germany per ecoregion at the canopy level using satellite imagery at 1-km and 30-m resolution. We compiled and correlated forest maps for connectivity based on Thiessen polygons, canopy temperatures on the hottest days based on land surface temperature, and forest vitality based on the maximum normalized difference vegetation index per growing season. We differentiated between ecoregions and main forest types. In 2022, larger intact tree-covered areas that are less fragmented have relatively low temperatures on hot days and higher overall vitality. Nearly 98% of the almost 1.95 million forest fragments at 30-m resolution in Germany are smaller than 1 km2, which cover nearly 30% of the total forest area. To counteract the forest crisis, forest and landscape management should aim to reduce fragmentation and maintain tree biomass and forest cover in the landscape. Increasing the size of continuous forest fragments contributes to ecosystem-based adaptation to climate change

Derivation and external validation of a simple risk score to predict in-hospital mortality in patients hospitalized for COVID-19: A multicenter retrospective cohort study

ABSTRACT: As severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 continues to spread, easy-to-use risk models that predict hospital mortality can assist in clinical decision making and triage. We aimed to develop a risk score model for in-hospital mortality in patients hospitalized with 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19) that was robust across hospitals and used clinical factors that are readily available and measured standardly across hospitals. In this retrospective observational study, we developed a risk score model using data collected by trained abstractors for patients in 20 diverse hospitals across the state of Michigan (Mi-COVID19) who were discharged between March 5, 2020 and August 14, 2020. Patients who tested positive for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 during hospitalization or were discharged with an ICD-10 code for COVID-19 (U07.1) were included. We employed an iterative forward selection approach to consider the inclusion of 145 potential risk factors available at hospital presentation. Model performance was externally validated with patients from 19 hospitals in the Mi-COVID19 registry not used in model development. We shared the model in an easy-to-use online application that allows the user to predict in-hospital mortality risk for a patient if they have any subset of the variables in the final model. Two thousand one hundred and ninety-three patients in the Mi-COVID19 registry met our inclusion criteria. The derivation and validation sets ultimately included 1690 and 398 patients, respectively, with mortality rates of 19.6% and 18.6%, respectively. The average age of participants in the study after exclusions was 64 years old, and the participants were 48% female, 49% Black, and 87% non-Hispanic. Our final model includes the patient\u27s age, first recorded respiratory rate, first recorded pulse oximetry, highest creatinine level on day of presentation, and hospital\u27s COVID-19 mortality rate. No other factors showed sufficient incremental model improvement to warrant inclusion. The area under the receiver operating characteristics curve for the derivation and validation sets were .796 (95% confidence interval, .767-.826) and .829 (95% confidence interval, .782-.876) respectively. We conclude that the risk of in-hospital mortality in COVID-19 patients can be reliably estimated using a few factors, which are standardly measured and available to physicians very early in a hospital encounter

Macrophage Reprogramming with Anti-miR223-Loaded Artificial Protocells Enhances In Vivo Cancer Therapeutic Potential

Several immune cell‐expressed miRNAs (miRs) are associated with altered prognostic outcome in cancer patients, suggesting that they may be potential targets for development of cancer therapies. Here, translucent zebrafish (Danio rerio) is utilized to demonstrate that genetic knockout or knockdown of one such miR, microRNA‐223 (miR223), globally or specifically in leukocytes, does indeed lead to reduced cancer progression. As a first step toward potential translation to a clinical therapy, a novel strategy is described for reprogramming neutrophils and macrophages utilizing miniature artificial protocells (PCs) to deliver anti‐miRs against the anti‐inflammatory miR223. Using genetic and live imaging approaches, it is shown that phagocytic uptake of anti‐miR223‐loaded PCs by leukocytes in zebrafish (and by human macrophages in vitro) effectively prolongs their pro‐inflammatory state by blocking the suppression of pro‐inflammatory cytokines, which, in turn, drives altered immune cell‐cancer cell interactions and ultimately leads to a reduced cancer burden by driving reduced proliferation and increased cell death of tumor cells. This PC cargo delivery strategy for reprogramming leukocytes toward beneficial phenotypes has implications also for treating other systemic or local immune‐mediated pathologies

The Advanced Clinical Practitioner (ACP) in UK healthcare: Dichotomies in a new ‘multi-professional’ profession

open access articleAdvanced Clinical Practitioners (ACPs) work in a wide range of settings across the English National Health Service. ACPs come from a wide range of health professional backgrounds. This paper explores the ACP as a multi-professional role, and the implications of these understandings for the sociology of professions. This paper analyses what happens when a new occupational role is created that encompasses several established professions. This qualitative study gathered views and experiences across a range of stakeholders. Fifty-eight semi-structured interviews were undertaken with participants employing ACPs (n = 14) actively working in an ACP role (n = 10), training as an ACP (n = 13) or engaged in the delivery of the ACP education programme in England (n = 21). Findings were analysed into three overarching themes: (i) professional identity, (ii) differing definitions of ACP and (iii) advanced practice, professional regulation and recognition. ACPs hold a unique and emerging professional identity based on their previous professional health background and are themselves clear that they are not doctors. The role is not yet formally regulated, though many ACPs aspire to this. This research is an early look at a new type of professional which challenges existing understandings of what a profession is

Threshold Concepts: Challenging the Way We Think, Teach and Learn in Biology and Science

Meyer and Land (2003, 2005) proposed the notion of ‘threshold concepts’, which are central to the mastery of a specific discipline due to their transformative, irreversible and integrative nature. Using the methodology of Davies and Mangan (2007) we interviewed novice students (58) and expert academic staff (11) from three Australian universities and conducted an international survey of academics (55) to identify differences in novice and expert conceptions. We matched these data with understandings from the ‘misconceptions’ literature to create the ‘biology thresholds matrix’. The matrix demonstrates that threshold concepts in biology are not necessarily the troublesome content, but rather the tacit understandings of the discipline (Taylor, 2006, 2008; Ross & Tronson, 2007, Ross, Taylor, Hughes, Kofod, Whitaker, Lutze-Mann & Tzioumis, 2010). These are often not explicitly taught (Perkins, 2006) yet underpin difficult content areas including: energy and energy transformation, variation, probability and randomness, proportionality and surface area to volume ratio, dynamic equilibrium, linking the subcellular (submicroscopic) with the macroscopic, temporal and spatial scales (Ross et al., 2010), and the formulation and testing of hypotheses (Taylor & Meyer, 2010). These threshold concepts are not hierarchical in nature, but form a web of epistemes which has commonalities with tacit understandings in other science disciplines

Using Threshold Concepts to generate a new understanding of teaching and learning Biology

Students come to tertiary institutions with misconceptions of key concepts in the disciplines they are studying. Their misconceptions commonly relate to conceptually difficult or troublesome knowledge (Perkins 1999) and can be: incomplete, contradictory, stable and highly resistant to change and remain intact despite repeated instruction at successively higher levels, being perhaps reinforced by teachers and textbooks (Driver 1983; Driver, Guesne and Tiberghien, 1985; Gabel 1994). For sometime, we have known that a range of concepts in Biology are conceptually difficult e.g. biochemical pathways, evolution and genetics (Brown 1995; Ross and Tronson 2007, Taylor 2006, 2008), but whether these are the ‘threshold concepts’ of (Meyer and Land 1995) is a question that needs to be explored further. We propose an alternative perspective where threshold crossing can be envisaged more productively as a cognitive process with students transported across a conceptual chasm or threshold. Misconceptions may then lie with an underlying ‘cognitive threshold’ and not a ‘threshold concept’ (Ross et al 2008). This current ALTC funded collaborative project involves three Australian universities and aims to identify the cognitive processes which underlie difficult Biological concepts; develop intervention strategies to improve students’ framework of conceptual understanding, in one or more related concept areas (that is, to help the students cross a conceptual threshold); test whether students can subsequently transfer this thinking process to aid their understanding of other similarly difficult concepts (that is, to see if they have learnt how to cross unfamiliar thresholds). In this paper we present the preliminary results of a survey which asked biology academics (both nationally and internationally) to identify troublesome biological concepts in their teaching, describe the cognitive process that underlies them which may determine why they are troublesome, and to identify the links they perceive with our nominated cognitive thresholds

ATP hydrolysis by the viral RNA sensor RIG-I prevents unintentional recognition of self-RNA

The cytosolic antiviral innate immune sensor RIG-I distinguishes 5' tri- or diphosphate containing viral double-stranded (ds) RNA from self-RNA by an incompletely understood mechanism that involves ATP hydrolysis by RIG-I's RNA translocase domain. Recently discovered mutations in ATPase motifs can lead to the multi-system disorder Singleton-Merten Syndrome (SMS) and increased interferon levels, suggesting misregulated signaling by RIG-I. Here we report that SMS mutations phenocopy a mutation that allows ATP binding but prevents hydrolysis. ATPase deficient RIG-I constitutively signals through endogenous RNA and co-purifies with self-RNA even from virus infected cells. Biochemical studies and cryo-electron microscopy identify a 60S ribosomal expansion segment as a dominant self-RNA that is stably bound by ATPase deficient RIG-I. ATP hydrolysis displaces wild-type RIG-I from this self-RNA but not from 5' triphosphate dsRNA. Our results indicate that ATP-hydrolysis prevents recognition of self-RNA and suggest that SMS mutations lead to unintentional signaling through prolonged RNA binding