Feasibility and acceptability of e-PROMs data capture and feedback among patients receiving haemodialysis in the Symptom monitoring WIth Feedback Trial (SWIFT) pilot: protocol for a qualitative study in Australia

INTRODUCTION: People receiving haemodialysis experience a high symptom burden and impaired quality of life. The use of patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) is increasing in nephrology care, however their acceptability, utility and impacts are not well understood. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: We describe a protocol for a qualitative study to evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of electronic-PROMs (e-PROMs) data capture and feedback in haemodialysis following the pilot Symptom monitoring WIth Feedback Trial (SWIFT). SWIFT involves linkage of e-PROMs data, including symptoms and health-related quality of life, to the Australia and New Zealand Dialysis and Transplant Registry with feedback to patients' treating nephrologists and nurse unit managers. Focus groups and semistructured interviews will be conducted with nephrologists (n=15), dialysis nurses (n=24) and patients receiving haemodialysis (n=24) from six dialysis units in Australia. Question topics will include the technical and clinical feasibility and acceptability of e-PROMs reporting and feedback (including the barriers and enablers to uptake) and perceived impact on patient care and outcomes. Transcripts will be analysed thematically and guided by Normalisation Process Theory. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: Ethics approval was obtained from the relevant hospital Human Research Ethics Committees (HREC/18/CALHN/481; HREC/MML/54599). The findings from the SWIFT pilot and qualitative evaluation will inform the implementation of the SWIFT main trial, and more broadly, the use of e-PROMs in clinical settings and registries. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: ANZCTRN12618001976279.Emily Duncanson, Paul N Bennett, Andrea Viecelli, Kathryn Dansie, William Handke, Allison Ton

The Importance of Consistent Global Forest Aboveground Biomass Product Validation

Several upcoming satellite missions have core science requirements to produce data for accurate forest aboveground biomass mapping. Largely because of these mission datasets, the number of available biomass products is expected to greatly increase over the coming decade. Despite the recognized importance of biomass mapping for a wide range of science, policy and management applications, there remains no community accepted standard for satellite-based biomass map validation. The Committee on Earth Observing Satellites (CEOS) is developing a protocol to fill this need in advance of the next generation of biomass-relevant satellites, and this paper presents a review of biomass validation practices from a CEOS perspective. We outline the wide range of anticipated user requirements for product accuracy assessment and provide recommendations for the validation of biomass products. These recommendations include the collection of new, high-quality in situ data and the use of airborne lidar biomass maps as tools toward transparent multi-resolution validation. Adoption of community-vetted validation standards and practices will facilitate the uptake of the next generation of biomass products

Evaluating the potential of full-waveform lidar for mapping pan-tropical tree species richness

AIM: Mapping tree species richness across the tropics is of great interest for effective conservation and biodiversity management. In this study, we evaluated the potential of full‐waveform lidar data for mapping tree species richness across the tropics by relating measurements of vertical canopy structure, as a proxy for the occupation of vertical niche space, to tree species richness. LOCATION: Tropics. TIME PERIOD: Present. MAJOR TAXA STUDIED: Trees. METHODS: First, we evaluated the characteristics of vertical canopy structure across 15 study sites using (simulated) large‐footprint full‐waveform lidar data (22 m diameter) and related these findings to in‐situ tree species information. Then, we developed structure–richness models at the local (within 25–50 ha plots), regional (biogeographical regions) and pan‐tropical scale at three spatial resolutions (1.0, 0.25 and 0.0625 ha) using Poisson regression. RESULTS: The results showed a weak structure–richness relationship at the local scale. At the regional scale (within a biogeographical region) a stronger relationship between canopy structure and tree species richness across different tropical forest types was found, for example across Central Africa and in South America [R^{2} ranging from .44–.56, root mean squared difference as a percentage of the mean (RMSD%) ranging between 23–61%]. Modelling the relationship pan‐tropically, across four continents, 39% of the variation in tree species richness could be explained with canopy structure alone (R^{2} = .39 and RMSD% = 43%, 0.25‐ha resolution). MAIN CONCLUSIONS: Our results may serve as a basis for the future development of a set of structure–richness models to map high resolution tree species richness using vertical canopy structure information from the Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI). The value of this effort would be enhanced by access to a larger set of field reference data for all tropical regions. Future research could also support the use of GEDI data in frameworks using environmental and spectral information for modelling tree species richness across the tropics

Genetic risk and a primary role for cell-mediated immune mechanisms in multiple sclerosis.

Multiple sclerosis is a common disease of the central nervous system in which the interplay between inflammatory and neurodegenerative processes typically results in intermittent neurological disturbance followed by progressive accumulation of disability. Epidemiological studies have shown that genetic factors are primarily responsible for the substantially increased frequency of the disease seen in the relatives of affected individuals, and systematic attempts to identify linkage in multiplex families have confirmed that variation within the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) exerts the greatest individual effect on risk. Modestly powered genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have enabled more than 20 additional risk loci to be identified and have shown that multiple variants exerting modest individual effects have a key role in disease susceptibility. Most of the genetic architecture underlying susceptibility to the disease remains to be defined and is anticipated to require the analysis of sample sizes that are beyond the numbers currently available to individual research groups. In a collaborative GWAS involving 9,772 cases of European descent collected by 23 research groups working in 15 different countries, we have replicated almost all of the previously suggested associations and identified at least a further 29 novel susceptibility loci. Within the MHC we have refined the identity of the HLA-DRB1 risk alleles and confirmed that variation in the HLA-A gene underlies the independent protective effect attributable to the class I region. Immunologically relevant genes are significantly overrepresented among those mapping close to the identified loci and particularly implicate T-helper-cell differentiation in the pathogenesis of multiple sclerosis

One-pot RAFT and fast polymersomes assembly: a ‘beeline’ from monomers to drug-loaded nanovectors

Rapid and simple routes to functional polymersomes are increasingly needed to expand their clinical or industrial applications. Here we describe a novel strategy where polymersomes are prepared through an in-line process in just a few hours, starting from simple acrylate or acrylamide monomers. Using Perrier's protocol, well-defined amphiphilic diblock copolymers formed from PEG acrylate (mPEGA480), 2-(acryloyloxy)ethyl-3-chloro-4-hydroxybenzoate (ACH) or 2-(3-chloro-4-hydroxybenzamido)ethyl acrylate (CHB), have been synthesised by RAFT polymerisation in one-pot, pushing the monomer conversion for each block close to completion (≥94%). The reaction mixture, consisting of green biocompatible solvents (ethanol/water) have then been directly utilised to generate well-defined polymersomes, by simple cannulation into water or in a more automated process, by using a bespoke microfluidic device. Terbinafine and cyanocobalamine were used to demonstrate the suitability of the process to incorporate model hydrophobic and hydrophilic drugs, respectively. Vesicles size and morphology were characterised by DLS, TEM, and AFM. In this work we show that materials and experimental conditions can be chosen to allow facile and rapid generation drug-loaded polymersomes, through a suitable in-line process, directly from acrylate or acrylamide monomer building blocks

Security (studies) and the limits of critique: why we should think through struggle

This paper addresses the political and epistemological stakes of knowledge production in post-structuralist Critical Security Studies. It opens a research agenda in which struggles against dominant regimes of power/knowledge are entry-points for analysis. Despite attempts to gain distance from the word ‘security’, through interrogation of wider practices and schemes of knowledge in which security practices are embedded, post-structuralist CSS too quickly reads security logics as determinative of modern/liberal forms of power and rule. At play is an unacknowledged ontological investment in ‘security’, structured by disciplinary commitments and policy discourse putatively critiqued. Through previous ethnographic research, we highlight how struggles over dispossession and oppression call the very frame of security into question, exposing violences inadmissible within that frame. Through the lens of security, the violence of wider strategies of containing and normalizing politics are rendered invisible, or a neutral backdrop against which security practices take place. Building on recent debates on critical security methods, we set out an agenda where struggle provokes an alternative mode of onto political investment in critical examination of power and order

Aboveground biomass density models for NASA's Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) lidar mission

NASA’s Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) is collecting spaceborne full waveform lidar data with a primary science goal of producing accurate estimates of forest aboveground biomass density (AGBD). This paper presents the development of the models used to create GEDI’s footprint-level (~25 m) AGBD (GEDI04_A) product, including a description of the datasets used and the procedure for final model selection. The data used to fit our models are from a compilation of globally distributed spatially and temporally coincident field and airborne lidar datasets, whereby we simulated GEDI-like waveforms from airborne lidar to build a calibration database. We used this database to expand the geographic extent of past waveform lidar studies, and divided the globe into four broad strata by Plant Functional Type (PFT) and six geographic regions. GEDI’s waveform-to-biomass models take the form of parametric Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) models with simulated Relative Height (RH) metrics as predictor variables. From an exhaustive set of candidate models, we selected the best input predictor variables, and data transformations for each geographic stratum in the GEDI domain to produce a set of comprehensive predictive footprint-level models. We found that model selection frequently favored combinations of RH metrics at the 98th, 90th, 50th, and 10th height above ground-level percentiles (RH98, RH90, RH50, and RH10, respectively), but that inclusion of lower RH metrics (e.g. RH10) did not markedly improve model performance. Second, forced inclusion of RH98 in all models was important and did not degrade model performance, and the best performing models were parsimonious, typically having only 1-3 predictors. Third, stratification by geographic domain (PFT, geographic region) improved model performance in comparison to global models without stratification. Fourth, for the vast majority of strata, the best performing models were fit using square root transformation of field AGBD and/or height metrics. There was considerable variability in model performance across geographic strata, and areas with sparse training data and/or high AGBD values had the poorest performance. These models are used to produce global predictions of AGBD, but will be improved in the future as more and better training data become available.Additional co-authors: Scott J. Goetz, Hao Tang, Michelle Hofton, Bryan Blair, Scott Luthcke, Lola Fatoyinbo, Alfonso Alonso, Hans-Erik Andersen, Paul Aplin, Timothy R. Baker, Nicolas Barbier, Jean Francois Bastin, Peter Biber, Pascal Boeckx, Jan Bogaert, Luigi Boschetti, Peter Brehm Boucher, Doreen S. Boyd, David F.R.P. Burslem, Sofia Calvo-Rodriguez, Jérôme Chave, Robin L. Chazdon, David B. Clark, Deborah A. Clark, Warren B. Cohen, David A. Coomes, Piermaria Corona, K.C. Cushman, Mark E.J. Cutler, James W. Dalling, Michele Dalponte, Jonathan Dash, Sergio de-Miguel, Songqiu Deng, Peter Woods Ellis, Barend Erasmus, Patrick A.Fekety, Alfredo Fernandez-Landa, Antonio Ferraz, Rico Fischer, Adrian G. Fisher, Antonio García-Abril, Terje Gobakken, Jorg M. Hacker, Marco Heurich, Ross A. Hill, Chris Hopkinson, Huabing Huang, Stephen P. Hubbell, Andrew T. Hudak, Andreas Huth, Benedikt Imbach, Masato Katoh, Elizabeth Kearsley, David Kenfack, Natascha Kljun, Nikolai Knapp, Kamil Král, Martin Krůček, Nicolas Labrière, Simon L. Lewis, Marcos Longo, Richard M. Lucas, Russell Main, Jose A. Manzanera, Rodolfo Vásquez Martínez, Renaud Mathieu, Herve Memiaghe, Victoria Meyer, Abel Monteagudo Mendoza, Alessandra Monerris, Paul Montesano, Felix Morsdorf, Erik Næsset, Laven Naidoo, Reuben Nilus, Michael O’Brien, David A. Orwig, Konstantinos Papathanassiou, Geoffrey Parker, Christopher Philipson, Oliver L. Phillips, Jan Pisek, John R. Poulsen, Hans Pretzsch, Christoph Rüdiger, Sassan Saatchi, Arturo Sanchez-Azofeifa, Nuria Sanchez-Lopez, Robert Scholes, Carlos A. Silva, Marc Simard, Andrew Skidmore, Krzysztof Stereńczak, Mihai Tanase, Chiara Torresan, Ruben Valbuena, Hans Verbeeck, Tomas Vrska, Konrad Wessels, Joanne C. White, Eliakimu Zahabu, Carlo Zgragge

Resonance-Enhanced Multiphoton Ionization in the X-Ray Regime

Here, we report on the nonlinear ionization of argon atoms in the short wavelength regime using ultraintense x rays from the European XFEL. After sequential multiphoton ionization, high charge states are obtained. For photon energies that are insufficient to directly ionize a 1s electron, a different mechanism is required to obtain ionization to Ar17+. We propose this occurs through a two-color process where the second harmonic of the FEL pulse resonantly excites the system via a 1s -> 2p transition followed by ionization by the fundamental FEL pulse, which is a type of x-ray resonance-enhanced multiphoton ionization (REMPI). This resonant phenomenon occurs not only for Ar16+, but also through lower charge states, where multiple ionization competes with decay lifetimes, making x-ray REMPI distinctive from conventional REMPI. With the aid of state-of-the-art theoretical calculations, we explain the effects of x-ray REMPI on the relevant ion yields and spectral profile