Reframing the human-wetlands relationship through a Universal Declaration of the Rights of Wetlands

The proposed Universal Declaration of the Rights of Wetlands is consistent with the principles of the rights of Nature, and reframes the human-wetlands paradigm away from one of degradation and loss to one of ecological sustainability that supports the Web of Life and continued delivery of Nature's contributions to people. Given the significance of the role of wetlands in reversing climate destabilisation and biodiversity degradation and loss, the paradigm shift engendered by a Declaration opens new possibilities to align wetlands, climate, and biodiversity policy, consistent with theIntergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2021)proposals, to guide effective governmental and non-governmental mechanisms. Widening the acceptance of the concepts presented in the Declaration is part of a process to reframe human-wetlands relationships, and is ongoing and iterative

Wetlands In a Changing Climate: Science, Policy and Management

Part 1 of this review synthesizes recent research on status and climate vulnerability of freshwater and saltwater wetlands, and their contribution to addressing climate change (carbon cycle, adaptation, resilience). Peatlands and vegetated coastal wetlands are among the most carbon rich sinks on the planet sequestering approximately as much carbon as do global forest ecosystems. Estimates of the consequences of rising temperature on current wetland carbon storage and future carbon sequestration potential are summarized. We also demonstrate the need to prevent drying of wetlands and thawing of permafrost by disturbances and rising temperatures to protect wetland carbon stores and climate adaptation/resiliency ecosystem services. Preventing further wetland loss is found to be important in limiting future emissions to meet climate goals, but is seldom considered. In Part 2, the paper explores the policy and management realm from international to national, subnational and local levels to identify strategies and policies reflecting an integrated understanding of both wetland and climate change science. Specific recommendations are made to capture synergies between wetlands and carbon cycle management, adaptation and resiliency to further enable researchers, policy makers and practitioners to protect wetland carbon and climate adaptation/resiliency ecosystem services

Governors and directors: Competing models of corporate governance

Why do we use the term ‘corporate governance’ rather than ‘corporate direction’? Early British joint stock companies were normally managed by a single ‘governor’. The ‘court of governors’ or ‘board of directors’ emerged slowly as the ruling body for companies. By the nineteenth century, however, companies were typically run by directors while not-for-profit entities such as hospitals, schools and charitable bodies had governors. The nineteenth century saw steady refinement of the roles of company directors, often in response to corporate scandals, with a gradual change from the notion of the director as a ‘representative shareholder’ to the directors being seen collectively as ‘representatives of the shareholders’. Governors in not-for-profit entities, however, were regarded as having broader responsibilities. The term ‘governance’ itself suggests that corporate boards should be studied as ‘political’ entities rather than merely through economic lenses such as agency theory

Ownership-dependent mating tactics of minor males of the beetle Librodor japonicus (Nitidulidae) with intra-sexual dimorphism of mandibles

Intra-sexual dimorphism is found in the weapons of many male beetles. Different behavioral tactics to access females between major and minor males, which adopt fighting and alternative tactics, respectively, are thought to maintain the male dimorphism. In these species major males have enlarged weapons that they use in fights with rival males. Minor males also have small weapons in some of these species, and it is unclear why these males possess weapons. We examined the hypothesis that minor males might adopt a fighting tactic when their status was relatively high in comparison with that of other males (e.g., ownership of a territory). We observed the behavioral tactics of major and minor males of the beetle Librodor japonicus, whose males have a dimorphism of their mandibles. Major males fought for resources, whereas minor males adopted two status-dependent tactics, fighting and sneaking, to access females, depending on their ownership of a sap site. We suggest that ownership status-dependent mating tactics in minor males may maintain the intra-sexual dimorphism in this beetle.</p

Contribution of magnetic resonance imaging in the diagnosis of talus skip metastases of Ewing's sarcoma of the calcaneus in a child: a case report

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Introduction</p> <p>Ewing's sarcoma of the calcaneus is rare. About thirty cases with calcaneus involvement have been reported in the literature. Talus skip metastases have rarely been described in the available literature</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>We report a case of a 14-year-old Moroccan boy, who presented with Ewing's sarcoma of his right calcaneus, diagnosed by swelling of the calcaneus evolving over a year. Radiography, computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging showed an important tumoral process of the calcaneus and talus skip metastases. The diagnosis was confirmed with histology after a biopsy. In spite of amputation and postoperative chemotherapy, our patient died six months later due to secondary respiratory distress after lung metastasis.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Imaging, especially magnetic resonance, is important in the diagnosis of Ewing sarcoma and skeletal skip metastases. Treatment of Ewing's sarcoma consists of chemotherapy, radiation therapy and surgical resection depending on the stage and extent of the disease. With the exception of lesions in the calcaneus, the prognosis for disease-free survival of Ewing's sarcoma of the foot is excellent.</p

Computational modelling of cancerous mutations in the EGFR/ERK signalling pathway

This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund - Copyright @ 2009 Orton et al.BACKGROUND: The Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor (EGFR) activated Extracellular-signal Regulated Kinase (ERK) pathway is a critical cell signalling pathway that relays the signal for a cell to proliferate from the plasma membrane to the nucleus. Deregulation of the EGFR/ERK pathway due to alterations affecting the expression or function of a number of pathway components has long been associated with numerous forms of cancer. Under normal conditions, Epidermal Growth Factor (EGF) stimulates a rapid but transient activation of ERK as the signal is rapidly shutdown. Whereas, under cancerous mutation conditions the ERK signal cannot be shutdown and is sustained resulting in the constitutive activation of ERK and continual cell proliferation. In this study, we have used computational modelling techniques to investigate what effects various cancerous alterations have on the signalling flow through the ERK pathway. RESULTS: We have generated a new model of the EGFR activated ERK pathway, which was verified by our own experimental data. We then altered our model to represent various cancerous situations such as Ras, B-Raf and EGFR mutations, as well as EGFR overexpression. Analysis of the models showed that different cancerous situations resulted in different signalling patterns through the ERK pathway, especially when compared to the normal EGF signal pattern. Our model predicts that cancerous EGFR mutation and overexpression signals almost exclusively via the Rap1 pathway, predicting that this pathway is the best target for drugs. Furthermore, our model also highlights the importance of receptor degradation in normal and cancerous EGFR signalling, and suggests that receptor degradation is a key difference between the signalling from the EGF and Nerve Growth Factor (NGF) receptors. CONCLUSION: Our results suggest that different routes to ERK activation are being utilised in different cancerous situations which therefore has interesting implications for drug selection strategies. We also conducted a comparison of the critical differences between signalling from different growth factor receptors (namely EGFR, mutated EGFR, NGF, and Insulin) with our results suggesting the difference between the systems are large scale and can be attributed to the presence/absence of entire pathways rather than subtle difference in individual rate constants between the systems.This work was funded by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), under their Bioscience Beacon project programme. AG was funded by an industrial PhD studentship from Scottish Enterprise and Cyclacel

Proliferation and estrogen signaling can distinguish patients at risk for early versus late relapse among estrogen receptor positive breast cancers

Introduction: We examined if a combination of proliferation markers and estrogen receptor (ER) activity could predict early versus late relapses in ER-positive breast cancer and inform the choice and length of adjuvant endocrine therapy. Methods: Baseline affymetrix gene-expression profiles from ER-positive patients who received no systemic therapy (n = 559), adjuvant tamoxifen for 5 years (cohort-1: n = 683, cohort-2: n = 282) and from 58 patients treated with neoadjuvant letrozole for 3 months (gene-expression available at baseline, 14 and 90 days) were analyzed. A proliferation score based on the expression of mitotic kinases (MKS) and an ER-related score (ERS) adopted from Oncotype DX® were calculated. The same analysis was performed using the Genomic Grade Index as proliferation marker and the luminal gene score from the PAM50 classifier as measure of estrogen-related genes. Median values were used to define low and high marker groups and four combinations were created. Relapses were grouped into time cohorts of 0-2.5, 0-5, 5-10 years. Results: In the overall 10 years period, the proportional hazards assumption was violated for several biomarker groups indicating time-dependent effects. In tamoxifen-treated patients Low-MKS/Low-ERS cancers had continuously increasing risk of relapse that was higher after 5 years than Low-MKS/High-ERS cancers [0 to 10 year, HR 3.36; p = 0.013]. High-MKS/High-ERS cancers had low risk of early relapse [0-2.5 years HR 0.13; p = 0.0006], but high risk of late relapse which was higher than in the High-MKS/Low-ERS group [after 5 years HR 3.86; p = 0.007]. The High-MKS/Low-ERS subset had most of the early relapses [0 to 2.5 years, HR 6.53; p < 0.0001] especially in node negative tumors and showed minimal response to neoadjuvant letrozole. These findings were qualitatively confirmed in a smaller independent cohort of tamoxifen-treated patients. Using different biomarkers provided similar results. Conclusions: Early relapses are highest in highly proliferative/low-ERS cancers, in particular in node negative tumors. Relapses occurring after 5 years of adjuvant tamoxifen are highest among the highly-proliferative/high-ERS tumors although their risk of recurrence is modest in the first 5 years on tamoxifen. These tumors could be the best candidates for extended endocrine therapy

Predictions for the X-ray circumgalactic medium of edge-on discs and spheroids

We investigate how the X-ray circumgalactic medium (CGM) of present-day galaxies depends on galaxy morphology and azimuthal angle using mock observations generated from the EAGLE cosmological hydrodynamic simulation. By creating mock stacks of eROSITA-observed galaxies oriented to be edge-on, we make several observationally-testable predictions for galaxies in the stellar mass range M⋆ = 1010.7 − 11.2 M⊙. The soft X-ray CGM of disc galaxies is between 60 and 100% brighter along the semi-major axis compared to the semi-minor axis, between 10-30 kpc. This azimuthal dependence is a consequence of the hot (T &amp;gt; 106 K) CGM being non-spherical: specifically it is flattened along the minor axis such that denser and more luminous gas resides in the disc plane and co-rotates with the galaxy. Outflows enrich and heat the CGM preferentially perpendicular to the disc, but we do not find an observationally-detectable signature along the semi-minor axis. Spheroidal galaxies have hotter CGMs than disc galaxies related to spheroids residing at higher halos masses, which may be measurable through hardness ratios spanning the 0.2 − 1.5 keV band. While spheroids appear to have brighter CGMs than discs for the selected fixed M⋆ bin, this owes to spheroids having higher stellar and halo masses within that M⋆ bin, and obscures the fact that both simulated populations have similar total CGM luminosities at the exact same M⋆. Discs have brighter emission inside 20 kpc and more steeply declining profiles with radius than spheroids. We predict that the eROSITA 4-year all-sky survey should detect many of the signatures we predict here, although targeted follow-up observations of highly inclined nearby discs after the survey may be necessary to observe some of our azimuthally-dependent predictions