Author Correction: Ex situ seed banks and the IUCN Red List

n/

Advances in plant conservation translocation

With thousands of performed cases, conservation translocation is now widely used to restore rare and threatened plant populations worldwide. While we begin to understand from previous mistakes and best practices what makes translocations successful, we realize also how complex the process of performing a translocation is, from the very initial planning phases to the final monitoring phase. Conservation biologists and practitioners met in Rome at the Roma Tre University in June 2022 for the 1st International Plant Translocation Conference, a conference fully dedicated to the most recent advances in plant translocations. This special issue, containing eight articles on different aspects of plant translocation, is a tangible output of the efforts by all attendees to sharing knowledge and establishing plant translocation best practices. Besides reviews and species-specific apsects of translocation, the special issue highlights the importance of the community of scientists and practictioners and the multidisciplinarity of conservation translocations to achieve succesful outcome

Post-hoc derivation of SOHO Michelson doppler imager flat fields

<p><b>Context:</b> The SOHO satellite now offers a unique perspective on the Sun as it is the only space-based instrument that can provide large, high-resolution data sets over an entire 11-year solar cycle. This unique property enables detailed studies of long-term variations in the Sun. One significant problem when looking for such changes is determining what component of any variation is due to deterioration of the instrument and what is due to the Sun itself. One of the key parameters that changes over time is the apparent sensitivity of individual pixels in the CCD array. This can change considerably as a result of optics damage, radiation damage, and aging of the sensor itself. In addition to reducing the sensitivity of the telescope over time, this damage significantly changes the uniformity of the flat field of the instrument, a property that is very hard to recalibrate in space. For procedures such as feature tracking and intensity analysis, this can cause significant errors.</p> <p><b>Aims:</b> We present a method for deriving high-precision flat fields for high-resolution MDI continuum data, using analysis of existing continuum and magnetogram data sets.</p> <p><b>Methods:</b> A flat field is constructed using a large set (1000-4000 frames) of cospatial magnetogram and continuum data. The magnetogram data is used to identify and mask out magnetically active regions on the continuum data, allowing systematic biases to be avoided. This flat field can then be used to correct individual continuum images from a similar time.</p> <p><b>Results:</b> This method allows us to reduce the residual flat field error by around a factor 6-30, depending on the area considered, enough to significantly change the results from correlation-tracking analysis. One significant advantage of this method is that it can be done retrospectively using archived data, without requiring any special satellite operations.</p&gt

Supervision of redeployed surgical trainees during the COVID-19 pandemic: what have we learnt and how can we improve?

Objective When cases of patients presenting with Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) overwhelmed existing services in the United Kingdom (UK), surgical trainees were redeployed to assist frontline efforts. This project characterises the effects of redeployment on the supervision of these trainees. The resulting generation of practical recommendations could be implemented for future crises. Design A qualitative approach was utilised, comprised of seven phenomenological interviews with surgical and intensive care consultants, as well as redeployed surgical trainees. Interview recordings were transcribed and subsequently analysed using Thematic Analysis. Setting The project utilised participants currently in surgical training within the London deanery across a variety of surgical specialties representing several UK National Health Service (NHS) Trusts. Participants Three types of participants were interviewed. Four interviews were conducted with redeployed surgical trainees, across all stages of training, in full time employment who were redeployed for two weeks or more. One interview was conducted with an educational supervisor of multiple redeployed trainees. The third group comprised two consultant intensivists who supervised redeployed trainees within their respective departments. Results Four themes were developed: ‘Responding to an unforeseen crisis’, ‘Maintaining surgical identity and culture; A fish out of water?’, ‘Trainee supervision and support’ and ‘Preparation and sequelae’. Participants described a sense of obligation to the pandemic effort. Many described a significant interruption to training, however communication of this to surgical supervisors was suboptimal with minimal mitigation. Supervisors on the frontline were challenged by the assessment of trainee competence and acceptance into a new community of practice. Both trainees and supervisors described the management of uncertainty, advocating for the use of reflective practice to ensure preparation for the future. Conclusion This project presents an insight into several potentially long-lasting effects on surgical training. The recommendations generated may be applicable to trainees returning to work from time out of training, increasing the utility of this work

A large containment capsule for nuclear reactor irradiation of explosive materials

Large containment capsule for nuclear reactor irradiation of explosive material

Horticultural Protocols to Aid the Conservation of Melampyrum sylvaticum, Orobanchaceae (Small Cow-Wheat), an Endangered Hemiparasitic Plant

Small cow-wheat is an annual, hemiparasitic plant that is endangered in the UK. Attempts at restoration have been hampered by a lack of species-specific horticultural knowledge. This paper outlines the methods used to collect, store and germinate small cow-wheat seed, and to cultivate the plant at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. The germination rates achieved using two different approaches are reported and the factors potentially influencing germination and establishment success are discussed

Treatment-seeking rates in malaria endemic countries

BACKGROUND: The proportion of individuals who seek treatment for fever is an important quantity in understanding access to and use of health systems, as well as for interpreting data on disease incidence from routine surveillance systems. For many malaria endemic countries (MECs), treatment-seeking information is available from national household surveys. The aim of this paper was to assemble sub-national estimates of treatment-seeking behaviours and to predict national treatment-seeking measures for all MECs lacking household survey data. METHODS: Data on treatment seeking for fever were obtained from Demographic and Health Surveys, Malaria Indicator Surveys and Multiple Cluster Indicator Surveys for every MEC and year that data were available. National-level social, economic and health-related variables were gathered from the World Bank as putative covariates of treatment-seeking rates. A generalized additive mixed model (GAMM) was used to estimate treatment-seeking behaviours for countries where survey data were unavailable. Two separate models were developed to predict the proportion of fever cases that would seek treatment at (1) a public health facility or (2) from any kind of treatment provider. RESULTS: Treatment-seeking data were available for 74 MECs and modelled for the remaining 24. GAMMs found that the percentage of pregnant women receiving prenatal care, vaccination rates, education level, government health expenditure, and GDP growth were important predictors for both categories of treatment-seeking outcomes. Treatment-seeking rates, which varied both within and among regions, revealed that public facilities were not always the primary facility type used. CONCLUSIONS: Estimates of treatment-seeking rates show how health services are utilized and help correct reported malaria case numbers to obtain more accurate measures of disease burden. The assembled and modelled data demonstrated that while treatment-seeking rates have overall increased over time, access remains low in some malaria endemic regions and utilization of government services is in some areas limited

Hutchison Medallist 1. Wave-Dominated to Tide-Dominated Coastal Systems: A Unifying Model for Tidal Shorefaces and Refinement of the Coastal- Environments Classification Scheme

Coastal depositional systems are normally classified based on the relative input of wave, tide, and river processes. While wave- through to river-dominated environments are well characterized, environments along the wave-to-tide continuum are relatively poorly understood and this limits the reliability and utility of coastal classification schemes. Two tidal shoreface models, open-coast tidal flats (OCTF) and tidally modulated shorefaces (TMS), have been introduced for mixed wave-tide coastal settings. Following nearly two decades of research on tidal shorefaces, a number of significant insights have been derived, and these data are used here to develop a unified model for such systems. First, OCTFs are components of larger depositional environments, and in multiple published examples, OCTFs overlie offshore to lower shoreface successions that are similar to TMS. Consequently, we combine OCTFs and TMSs into a single tidal shoreface model where TMS (as originally described) and TMS-OCTF successions are considered as variants along the wave-tide continuum. Second, tidal shoreface successions are preferentially preserved in low- to moderate-wave energy environments and in progradational to aggradational systems. It is probably difficult to distinguish tidal shorefaces from their storm-dominated counterparts. Third, tidal shorefaces, including both TMSs and OCTFs, should exhibit tidally modulated storm deposits, reflecting variation in storm-wave energy at the sea floor resulting from the rising and falling tide. They may also exhibit interbedding of tidally generated structures (e.g. double mud drapes or bidirectional current ripples), deposited under fairweather conditions, and storm deposits (e.g. hummocky cross-stratification) through the lower shoreface and possibly into the upper shoreface.The development of the tidal shoreface model sheds light on the limitations of the presently accepted wave-tide-river classification scheme of coastal environments and a revised scheme is presented. In particular, tidal flats are components of larger depositional systems and can be identified in the rock record only in settings where intertidal and supratidal deposits are preserved; consequently, they should not represent the tide-dominated end-member of coastal systems. Instead, we suggest that tide-dominated embayments should occupy this apex. Tide-dominated embayments exhibit limited wave and river influence and include a wide range of geomorphological features typically associated with tidal processes, including tidal channels, bars and flats.Les systèmes de dépôts côtiers sont normalement classés en fonction de l’apport relatif des processus liés à la houle, aux marées et aux rivières. Si les environnements dominés par la houle et les rivières sont bien caractérisés, les environnements le long du continuum houle-marée sont relativement mal compris, ce qui limite la fiabilité et l’utilité des systèmes de classification des côtes. Deux modèles d’avant-plages tidales, les estrans ouverts (open-coast tidal flats; OCTF) et les avant-plages modulées par la marée (tidally modulated shoreface; TMS), ont été introduits pour les milieux côtiers mixtes, houle-marée. Suite à près de deux décennies de recherche sur les avant-plages tidales, un certain nombre d’informations importantes ont été obtenues et ces données sont utilisées ici pour développer un modèle unifié pour ces systèmes. Tout d’abord, les OCTF sont les composants de systèmes de dépôt plus vastes et, dans de nombreux exemples publiés, les OCTF recouvrent des successions sédimentaires allant du large à l’avant-plage inférieure, similaires à celle des TMS. Par conséquent, nous combinons les OCTF et les TMS en un seul modèle d’avant-plage tidale où les TMS (tel que décrit à l’origine) et les successions TMS-OCTF sont considérés comme des variantes le long du continuum houle-marée. Deuxièmement, les successions d’avant-plages tidales sont préférentiellement préservées dans des environnements ayant une houle faible à modérée et dans des systèmes progradant et aggradant. Il est probablement difficile de distinguer les avant-plages tidales de leurs homologues dominés par les tempêtes. Troisièmement, les avant-plages tidales, incluant à la fois les TMS et les OCTF devraient présenter des dépôts de tempête modulés par la marée, reflétant ainsi la variation de l’énergie des vagues de tempête sur le fond marin liée à la marée montante et descendante. Les avant-plages tidales peuvent également présenter une interstratification de structures générées par la marée (par exemple, des doubles drapages argileux ou des rides de courants bidirectionnelles) déposées pendant des conditions de beau temps, et des dépôts de tempête (par exemple, des stratifications en mamelons) au niveau de l’avant-plage inférieure et éventuellement de l’avant-plage supérieure.Le développement du modèle d’avant-plage tidale met en lumière les limites de la classification tripartite (houle-marée-rivière) des environnements côtiers actuellement acceptée et une classification révisée est présentée. En particulier, les OCTF et les estrans sont des composantes de systèmes dedépôt plus importants et ne peuvent être identifiés que dans le registre sédimentaire dans les milieux où les dépôts intertidaux et supratidaux sont préservés; par conséquent, ils ne devraient pas représenter le membre extrême des systèmes côtiers dominé par la marée. Nous suggérons plutôt que les baies dominées par la marée occupent cette place. Les baies dominées par les marées présentent une influence limitée des vagues et des rivières et comprennent un large éventail de caractéristiques géomorphologiques généralement associées aux processus de marée, notamment des chenaux, des barres et des platiers tidaux