The role of remote sensing in the development of SMART indicators for ecosystem services assessment

Human beings benefit from a wide range of goods and services from the natural environment that are collectively known as ecosystem services. However, rapid natural habitat loss, overexploitation and climate change is causing accelerating losses of populations and species, with largely unknown consequences on ecosystem functioning and the sustainable provision of ecosystem services. It is crucial, therefore, to develop a suite of indicators of the health and status of ecosystems, to monitor and quantify services delivery and to facilitate policy responses to stop and reverse negative trends. An effective framework to facilitate the development of suitable indicators is by using the SMART approach, which defines five criteria that could be applied to set monitoring and management goals, which are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-sensitive. Remote sensing provides a useful data source that can monitor ecosystems over multiple spatial and temporal scales. Although the development and application of landscape indicators (vegetation indices, for example) derived from remote sensing data are comparatively advanced, it is acknowledged that a number of organisms and ecosystem processes are not detectable by remote sensing. This paper explores several approaches to overcome this limitation, by examining the strong affinity of species with dominant habitat structures and through the coupling of remote sensing and ecosystem process models using examples drawn from a number of important ecosystems

Selection of a network of large lakes and reservoirs suitable for global environmental change analysis using Earth Observation

The Globo Lakes project, a global observatory of lake responses to environmental change, aims to exploit current satellite missions and long remote-sensing archives to synoptically study multiple lake ecosystems, assess their current condition, reconstruct past trends to system trajectories, and assess lake sensitivity to multiple drivers of change. Here we describe the selection protocol for including lakes in the global observatory based upon remote-sensing techniques and an initial pool of the largest 3721 lakes and reservoirs in the world, as listed in the Global Lakes and Wetlands Database. An 18-year-long archive of satellite data was used to create spatial and temporal filters for the identification of water bodies that are appropriate for remote-sensing methods.Further criteria were applied and tested to ensure the candidate sites span a wide range of ecological settings and characteristics; a total 960 lakes, lagoons, and reservoirs were selected. The methodology proposed here is applicable to new generation satellites,such as the European Space Agency Sentinel-series

Metabolic reprogramming through mitochondrial biogenesis drives adenosine anti-inflammatory effects: new mechanism controlling gingival fibroblast hyper-inflammatory state

IntroductionFibroblasts are the dominant stromal cells in the gingival lamina propria with a well-established relevance in regulation of inflammation, and in innate immunity. This is exemplified by their hypersecretion of CXCL8, enhancing leukocyte infiltration in chronic and sustained inflammatory conditions. We have previously shown adenosine to be a key metabolic nucleoside that regulates stromal inflammation, but the underlying mechanisms linking adenosine to the metabolic status of fibroblasts and to the resultant inflammatory response are unclear. This study examined, by seahorse real-time cell metabolic analysis, the bioenergetics of the stromal fibroblast response to extracellular adenosine and IL-1β, focusing on CXCL8 secretion by primary human gingival fibroblasts (HGF).MethodsMarkers of the glycolytic pathway and mitochondrial biogenesis were tracked through immunoblot. Further, the influence of adenosine on mitochondrial accumulation was measured by uptake of MitoTracker Red fluorescent probe and assessment of the role of FCCP (a mitochondrial uncoupler) in CXCL8 secretion and mitochondrial accumulation. ResultsOur results show that the anti-inflammatory response of HGF to extracellular adenosine, typified by reduced CXCL8 secretion, is mediated by mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation, reflected in higher oxygen consumption rate (OCR). In the presence of IL-1β, adenosine-treated cells induced higher ATP production, basal respiration and proton leak compared to IL-1β without adenosine. Surprisingly, adenosine had no additional effect on the IL-1β-induced higher glycolysis rate demonstrated by the extracellular acidification rate (ECAR). In addition, the higher OCR in adenosine-stimulated cells was not due to the mitochondrial fuel dependency or capacity, but due to an increase in mitochondrial biogenesis and accumulation in the cells with concomitant decrease in mitophagy-required p-PINK1 marker. We detected the accumulation of functional mitochondria with increased activation of the AMPK/SIRT1/PGC-1α pathway. The adenosine-induced uptake of MitoTracker was abrogated by PGC-1α inhibition with SR-12898. In addition, the adenosine effects on reduced CXCL8 were ablated by treatment with FCCP, a potent uncoupler of mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation.ConclusionOur findings reveal a key role for mitochondrial bioenergetics in regulation of CXCL8-mediated inflammation by HGF through the adenosine/AMPK/SIRT1/PGC-1α axis. Therapeutically targeting this pathway in gingival fibroblasts might be a promising future strategy to modulate stromal-mediated sustained hyper-inflammatory responses

Proudly for Brooke:Race-Conscious Campaigning in 1960s Massachusetts

Scholars have credited the victory of Edward Brooke, America's first popularly elected black U.S. senator, to a “deracialized” or “color-blind” election strategy in which both the candidate and the electorate ignored racial matters. This article revises this prevailing historical explanation of Brooke's election. Drawing from the historical-ideational paradigm of Desmond King and Rogers Smith, this paper argues that Brooke was much more of a “race-conscious” candidate than is generally remembered. Primary documents from the 1966 campaign reveal that Brooke spoke openly against racial inequality, argued in favor of racially targeted policies, and called for stronger racial equality legislation. In addition, this paper argues that Brooke's appeals were not targeted primarily to the state's small black population but to liberal whites. Far from ignoring race, internal campaign documents and interviews with campaign staff reveal that Brooke's campaign strategists sought to appeal to white desires to “do the right thing” by electing an African American candidate. Internal polling documents from the Brooke campaign and newspaper commentaries further demonstrate that a proportion of the white electorate cited Brooke's race as the reason for supporting his candidacy. This paper suggests that Brooke's election was extremely well timed—coming soon after the passage of the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act but before the urban riots of the “long hot summer of 1967”, the King assassination riots, and anti-busing riots in Boston. The first half of Brooke's 1966 campaign slogan “Proudly for Brooke: A Creative Republican” signals the race-conscious dynamics of his candidacy

Alcohol consumption and body weight

The number of Americans who are overweight or obese has reached epidemic proportions. Elevated weight is associated with health problems and increased medical expenditures. This paper analyzes Waves 1 and 2 of the National Epidemiological Survey of Alcohol and Related Conditions to investigate the role of alcohol consumption in weight gain. Alcohol is not only an addictive substance but also a high-calorie beverage that can interfere with metabolic function and cognitive processes. Because men and women differ in the type and amount of alcohol they consume, in the biological effects they experience as a result of alcohol consumption, and in the consequences they face as a result of obesity, we expect our results to differ by gender. We use first-difference models of body mass index (BMI) and alcohol consumption (frequency and intensity) to control for time-invariant unobservable factors that may influence changes in both alcohol use and weight status. Increasing frequency and intensity of alcohol use is associated with statistically significant yet quantitatively small weight gain for men but not for women. Moreover, the first-difference results are much smaller in magnitude and sometimes different in sign compared with the benchmark pooled cross-sectional estimates. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/77424/1/1521_ftp.pd

Effects of two contrasting canopy manipulations on growth and water use of London plane (Platanus x acerifolia) trees

Aims: Two contrasting canopy manipulations were compared to unpruned controls on London plane trees, to determine the effects on canopy regrowth, soil and leaf water relations. Methods: ‘Canopy reduction’, was achieved by removing the outer 30 % length of all major branches and ‘canopy thinning’, by removing 30 % of lateral branches arising from major branches. Results: Total canopy leaf areas recovered within two and three years of pruning for the canopy-thinned and reduced trees respectively. Canopy reduction increased mean leaf size, nitrogen concentration, canopy leaf area density and conserved soil moisture for up to 3 years, whereas canopy thinning had no effects. Another experiment compared more severe canopy reduction to unpruned trees. This produced a similar growth response to the previous experiment, but soil moisture was conserved nearer to the trunk. Analysis of 13C and 18O signals along with leaf water relations and soil moisture data suggested that lower boundary layer conductance within the canopy-reduced trees restricted tree water use, whereas for the canopy-thinned trees the opposite occurred. Conclusions: Only canopy reduction conserved soil moisture and this was due to a combination of reduced total canopy leaf area and structural changes in canopy architecture

Choice of hospital : which type of quality matters?

The implications of hospital quality competition depend on what type of quality affects choice of hospital. Previous studies of quality and choice of hospitals have used crude measures of quality such as mortality and readmission rates rather than measures of the health gain from specific treatments. We estimate multinomial logit models of hospital choice by patients undergoing hip replacement surgery in the English NHS to test whether hospital demand responds to quality as measured by detailed patient reports of health before and after hip replacement. We find that a one standard deviation increase in average health gain increases demand by up to 10%. The more traditional measures of hospital quality are less important in determining hospital choice

Persistent Infection and Promiscuous Recombination of Multiple Genotypes of an RNA Virus within a Single Host Generate Extensive Diversity

Recombination and reassortment of viral genomes are major processes contributing to the creation of new, emerging viruses. These processes are especially significant in long-term persistent infections where multiple viral genotypes co-replicate in a single host, generating abundant genotypic variants, some of which may possess novel host-colonizing and pathogenicity traits. In some plants, successive vegetative propagation of infected tissues and introduction of new genotypes of a virus by vector transmission allows for viral populations to increase in complexity for hundreds of years allowing co-replication and subsequent recombination of the multiple viral genotypes. Using a resequencing microarray, we examined a persistent infection by a Citrus tristeza virus (CTV) complex in citrus, a vegetatively propagated, globally important fruit crop, and found that the complex comprised three major and a number of minor genotypes. Subsequent deep sequencing analysis of the viral population confirmed the presence of the three major CTV genotypes and, in addition, revealed that the minor genotypes consisted of an extraordinarily large number of genetic variants generated by promiscuous recombination between the major genotypes. Further analysis provided evidence that some of the recombinants underwent subsequent divergence, further increasing the genotypic complexity. These data demonstrate that persistent infection of multiple viral genotypes within a host organism is sufficient to drive the large-scale production of viral genetic variants that may evolve into new and emerging viruses

Dietary behaviors related to cancer prevention among pre-adolescents and adolescents: the gap between recommendations and reality

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Diet is thought to play an important role in cancer risk. This paper summarizes dietary recommendations for cancer prevention and compares these recommendations to the dietary behaviors of U.S. youth ages 8-18.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We identified cancer prevention-related dietary recommendations from key health organizations and assessed dietary consumption patterns among youth using published statistics from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, the national Youth Risk Behavior Survey, and other supplemental sources.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Cancer prevention guidelines recommend a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, recommend limiting sugary foods and beverages, red and processed meats, sodium, and alcohol, and recommend avoiding foods contaminated with carcinogens. However, youth typically do not meet the daily recommendations for fruit, vegetable, or whole grain consumption and are over-consuming energy-dense, sugary and salty foods.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>A large discrepancy exists between expert recommendations about diet and cancer and actual dietary practices among young people and points to the need for more research to better promote the translation of science into practice. Future research should focus on developing and evaluating policies and interventions at the community, state and national levels for aligning the diets of youth with the evolving scientific evidence regarding cancer prevention.</p