Risk profiles and one-year outcomes of patients with newly diagnosed atrial fibrillation in India: Insights from the GARFIELD-AF Registry.

BACKGROUND: The Global Anticoagulant Registry in the FIELD-Atrial Fibrillation (GARFIELD-AF) is an ongoing prospective noninterventional registry, which is providing important information on the baseline characteristics, treatment patterns, and 1-year outcomes in patients with newly diagnosed non-valvular atrial fibrillation (NVAF). This report describes data from Indian patients recruited in this registry. METHODS AND RESULTS: A total of 52,014 patients with newly diagnosed AF were enrolled globally; of these, 1388 patients were recruited from 26 sites within India (2012-2016). In India, the mean age was 65.8 years at diagnosis of NVAF. Hypertension was the most prevalent risk factor for AF, present in 68.5% of patients from India and in 76.3% of patients globally (P < 0.001). Diabetes and coronary artery disease (CAD) were prevalent in 36.2% and 28.1% of patients as compared with global prevalence of 22.2% and 21.6%, respectively (P < 0.001 for both). Antiplatelet therapy was the most common antithrombotic treatment in India. With increasing stroke risk, however, patients were more likely to receive oral anticoagulant therapy [mainly vitamin K antagonist (VKA)], but average international normalized ratio (INR) was lower among Indian patients [median INR value 1.6 (interquartile range {IQR}: 1.3-2.3) versus 2.3 (IQR 1.8-2.8) (P < 0.001)]. Compared with other countries, patients from India had markedly higher rates of all-cause mortality [7.68 per 100 person-years (95% confidence interval 6.32-9.35) vs 4.34 (4.16-4.53), P < 0.0001], while rates of stroke/systemic embolism and major bleeding were lower after 1 year of follow-up. CONCLUSION: Compared to previously published registries from India, the GARFIELD-AF registry describes clinical profiles and outcomes in Indian patients with AF of a different etiology. The registry data show that compared to the rest of the world, Indian AF patients are younger in age and have more diabetes and CAD. Patients with a higher stroke risk are more likely to receive anticoagulation therapy with VKA but are underdosed compared with the global average in the GARFIELD-AF. CLINICAL TRIAL REGISTRATION-URL: http://www.clinicaltrials.gov. Unique identifier: NCT01090362

Large-scale citizen science programs can support ecological and climate change assessments

Large-scale citizen science programs have the potential to support national climate and ecosystem assessments by providing data useful in estimating both status and trends in key phenomena. In this study, we demonstrate how opportunistic, unbalanced observations of biological phenomena contributed through a national-scale citizen science program can be used to (a) identify and evaluate candidate biotic climate change indicators and (b) generate yearly estimates of status of selected indicators. Using observations of plant phenology contributed to Nature's Notebook, the USA National Phenology Network's citizen science program, we demonstrate a procedure for identifying biotic indicators as well as several approaches leveraging these opportunistically-sampled data points to generate yearly status measures. Because the period of record for this dataset is relatively short and inconsistently sampled (13 yr), we focus on estimates of status, though over time, these measurements could be leveraged to also estimate trends. We first applied various spatial, seasonal, and biological criteria to narrow down the list of candidate indicators. We then constructed latitude-elevation models for individual species-phenophase events using all observations. This allowed us to visualize differences between predicted and reported phenophase onset dates in a year as anomalies, with the expectation that these anomalies - representing earlier or later activity in the species of interest - reflect plant response to local springtime temperatures. Plotting yearly anomalies revealed regions with geographic coherence as well as outliers. We also show how yearly anomaly values can be reduced to a single measure to characterize the early or late nature of phenological activity in a particular year. Finally, we demonstrate how the latitude-elevation models can be leveraged to characterize the pace at which phenological transitions occur along latitude gradients on a year-by-year basis. © 2022 The Author(s).Open access journalThis item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at [email protected]

Phenoclimatology: development and applications in North America

This paper presents a brief overview and history of “phenoclimatology”, a subdiscipline of climatology, emphasizing atmosphere-biosphere interactions. Here, we describe the establishment and recent growth in models and forecasts created using in situ phenology observations and the factors enabling these advancements, with focus on North America. Most notably, large-scale phenological models paved the way for development of synthetic indices. Such indices can supply an assessment of a location’s general phenological response over a standard period, context for comparing regional or local-scale studies, the ability to analyze changes in damage risks for plants, and reconstruction of the timing of events in years past across many regions. As such, synthetic phenological indices have seen wide adoption in estimating spring-season evolution in real time, anticipating short-term impacts of an early or late start to spring, and in assessing changes in the timing of seasonal transitions associated with climate change. © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.Open access articleThis item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at [email protected]

Sensitivity of Spring Phenology to Warming Across Temporal and Spatial Climate Gradients in Two Independent Databases

Disparate ecological datasets are often organized into databases post hoc and then analyzed and interpreted in ways that may diverge from the purposes of the original data collections. Few studies, however, have attempted to quantify how biases inherent in these data (for example, species richness, replication, climate) affect their suitability for addressing broad scientific questions, especially in under-represented systems (for example, deserts, tropical forests) and wild communities. Here, we quantitatively compare the sensitivity of species first flowering and leafing dates to spring warmth in two phenological databases from the Northern Hemisphere. One-PEP725-has high replication within and across sites, but has low species diversity and spans a limited climate gradient. The other-NECTAR-includes many more species and a wider range of climates, but has fewer sites and low replication of species across sites. PEP725, despite low species diversity and relatively low seasonality, accurately captures the magnitude and seasonality of warming responses at climatically similar NECTAR sites, with most species showing earlier phenological events in response to warming. In NECTAR, the prevalence of temperature responders significantly declines with increasing mean annual temperature, a pattern that cannot be detected across the limited climate gradient spanned by the PEP725 flowering and leafing data. Our results showcase broad areas of agreement between the two databases, despite significant differences in species richness and geographic coverage, while also noting areas where including data across broader climate gradients may provide added value. Such comparisons help to identify gaps in our observations and knowledge base that can be addressed by ongoing monitoring and research efforts. Resolving these issues will be critical for improving predictions in understudied and under-sampled systems outside of the temperature seasonal mid-latitudes

Biogeosciences Perspectives on Integrated, Coordinated, Open, Networked (ICON) Science

International audienceThis article is composed of three independent commentaries about the state of Integrated, Coordinated, Open, Networked (ICON) principles in the American Geophysical Union Biogeosciences section, and discussion on the opportunities and challenges of adopting them. Each commentary focuses on a different topic: (a) Global collaboration, technology transfer, and application (Section 2), (b) Community engagement, community science, education, and stakeholder involvement (Section 3), and (c) Field, experimental, remote sensing, and real-time data research and application (Section 4). We discuss needs and strategies for implementing ICON and outline short-and long-term goals. The inclusion of global data and international community engagement are key to tackling grand challenges in biogeosciences. Although recent technological advances and growing open-access information across the world have enabled global collaborations to some extent, several barriers, ranging from technical to organizational to cultural, have remained in advancing interoperability and tangible scientific progress in biogeosciences. Overcoming these hurdles is necessary to address pressing large-scale research questions and applications in the biogeosciences, where ICON principles are essential. Here, we list several opportunities for ICON, including coordinated experimentation and field observations across global sites, that are ripe for implementation in biogeosciences as a means to scientific advancements and social progress. Plain Language Summary Biogeosciences is an interdisciplinary field that requires multiscale global data and concerted international community efforts to tackle grand challenges. However, several technical, institutional, and cultural hurdles have remained as major roadblocks toward scientific progress, hindering seamless global data acquisition and international community engagement. To bring a paradigm shift in biogeosciences, there is a need to implement integrated, coordinated, open, and networked efforts, collectively known as the Integrated, Coordinated, Open, Networked (ICON) principles. In this article, we present three related commentaries about the state of ICON, discuss needs to reduce geographical bias in data for enhancing scientific progress, and identify action items. Action items are primarily people-centric DWIVEDI ET AL

An exploratory analysis of the determinants of cooperative advertising participation rates

The paper offers an exploratory empirical investigation of the determinants of cooperative advertising participation rates. Using data for 2,286 brands, we examine the relationship of participation rates to national advertising expenditures by brand. We also consider how participation rates vary with average manufacturers’ margins by industry, average retail margins by category, and additional category-level variables. Reflecting the discrete nature of the dependent variable, the analysis employs discrete choice estimation techniques instead of OLS regression. The results reveal a significant quadratic relationship between advertising and participation rates. We interpret this and other significant findings in the context of existing work. Copyright Springer Science + Business Media, Inc. 2006Cooperative advertising, National advertising, Discrete choice models,

Evolving priorities in sponsorship:from media management to network management

Commercial sponsorship has continually adapted to the needs of the market. The purpose of this paper is to tracks these changes and draw out the evolution in management capabilities required to manage sponsorship effectively. Five distinct approaches to sponsorship have been identified from an extensive review of the literature, including: the philanthropic approach, the market-centred approach, the consumer-centred approach, the strategic resource, and finally the relations and networks approach. By examining these approaches, the paper identifies key capabilities required for the future of sponsorship, including network visioning, network orchestration, and relationship portfolio management. This is presented in a four-level framework for sponsorship network management. This paper serves two key audiences. On the one hand, for sponsorship managers, it examines past and future capabilities required to manage sponsorship effectively. For researchers, the paper historically reviews the emergence of sponsorship capabilities and sets out a research agenda to progress our understanding on a network perspective on sponsorship