Lessons from Area-Wide, Multi-Agency Habitat Conservation Plans in California

How can the Endangered Species Act and other conservation programs cope with population and development pressures, the current biodiversity crisis, and climate change? Over 30 years ago, public and private partners in California pioneered the concept of inter-governmental habitat conservation planning in an attempt to balance the competing demands of developing desirable land and the need to provide sufficient habitat to protect species at risk. The evolution of this early innovation in governance provides valuable insights for the many ensuing and emerging federal and state initiatives seeking to promote landscape-level inter-agency planning. This report, prepared by the University of California, Irvine Law Center for Land, Environment, and Natural Resources (CLEANR), explores the key challenges of promoting effective and comprehensive conservation governance through the experience of area-wide, multi-agency habitat conservation plans, with a particular focus in California. Based on interviews with seasoned practitioners and intensive collaborative dialogues co-convened with the Center for Collaboration in Governance as part of CLEANR\u27s innovative Workshop Roundtable series, the report identifies the tradeoffs between plan scale, depth, duration, cost, certainty, and efficacy. However, close attention to these underlying tradeoffs — along with recognition of when appropriate conditions exist and careful institutional design choices — can maximize the likelihood of effective, multi-jurisdictional, large-scale, and adaptive conservation planning

Multimodal examination of emotion processing systems associated with negative affectivity across early childhood

High Temperamental Negative Affectivity in early childhood has been found to predict later emotion dysregulation. While much work has been conducted to separately probe bio-behavioral systems associated with Negative Affectivity, very little work has examined the relations among multiple systems across age. In this study, we use multi-modal methods to index neurobiological systems associated with Negative Affectivity in 53 4-7-year-old children. Prefrontal activation during emotion regulation was measured using functional near-infrared spectroscopy over the lateral prefrontal cortex (PFC) while children played a game designed to elicit frustration in Social (Happy and Angry faces) and Nonsocial contexts. Gaze behaviors while free-viewing Happy and Angry faces were also measured. Finally, Negative Affectivity was indexed using a score composite based on factor analysis of parent-reported temperament. Using mixed-effects linear models, we found an age-dependent association between Negative Affectivity and both PFC activation during frustration and fixation duration on the mouth area of Happy faces, such that older children high in Negative Affectivity spent less time looking at the mouths of Happy faces and had lower PFC activation in response to frustration (ps\u3c0.034). These results provide further insight to how Negative Affectivity may be associated with changes in affective neurobiological systems across early childhood

Emerging Regulatory Experiments in Permit Process Coordination for Endangered Species and Aquatic Resources in California

The interconnected relationship between California’s wetlands and endangered species has spurred recent efforts to coordinate endangered species permitting under federal and state endangered species laws with freshwater aquatic resource permits under the federal Clean Water Act and analogous state laws. The University of California, Irvine School of Law Center for Land, Environment, and Natural Resources surveyed these emerging permit coordination efforts among several proposed and existing California Habitat Conservation Plans/Natural Community Conservation Plans. This Article explores these nascent initiatives, including the coordinating tools they have tested, the anticipated benefits, and the already observed challenges. Preliminary evidence suggests that clearer guidance from federal agency headquarters, building on recent Presidential interagency initiatives in infrastructure permitting, would likely provide the best opportunity to promote beneficial permit coordination while minimizing potential drawbacks

Prenatal stress exposure and multimodal assessment of amygdala-medial prefrontal cortex connectivity in infants

Stressful experiences are linked to neurodevelopment. There is growing interest in the role of stress in the connectivity between the amygdala and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), a circuit that subserves automatic emotion regulation. However, the specific timing and mechanisms that underlie the association between stress and amygdala-mPFC connectivity are unclear. Many factors, including variations in fetal exposure to maternal stress, appear to affect early developing brain circuitry. However, few studies have examined the associations of stress and amygdala-mPFC connectivity in early life, when the brain is most plastic and sensitive to environmental influence. In this longitudinal pilot study, we characterized the association between prenatal stress and amygdala-mPFC connectivity in young infants (approximately age 5 weeks). A final sample of 33 women who provided data on preconception and prenatal stress during their pregnancy returned with their offspring for a magnetic resonance imaging scan session, which enabled us to characterize amygdala-mPFC structural and functional connectivity as a function of prenatal stress. Increased prenatal stress was associated with decreased functional connectivity and increased structural connectivity between the amygdala and mPFC. These results provide insight into the influence of prenatal maternal stress on the early development of this critical regulatory circuitry

Adversity is linked with decreased parent-child behavioral and neural synchrony

Parent-child synchrony-parent-child interaction patterns characterized by contingent social responding, mutual responsivity, and co-regulation-has been robustly associated with adaptive child outcomes. Synchrony has been investigated in both behavioral and biological frameworks. While it has been demonstrated that adversity can influence behavioral parent-child synchrony, the neural mechanisms by which this disruption occurs are understudied. The current study examined the association between adversity, parent-child behavioral synchrony, and parent-child neural synchrony across lateral prefrontal cortical regions using functional near-infrared spectroscopy hyperscanning during a parent-child interaction task that included a mild stress induction followed by a recovery period. Participants included 115 children (ages 4-5) and their primary caregivers. Parent-child behavioral synchrony was quantified as the amount time the dyad was synchronous (e.g., reciprocal communication, coordinated behaviors) during the interaction task. Parent-child neural synchrony was examined as the hemodynamic concordance between parent and child lateral PFC activation. Adversity was examined across two, empirically-derived domains: sociodemographic risk (e.g., family income) and familial risk (e.g., household chaos). Adversity, across domains, was associated with decreased parent-child behavioral synchrony across task conditions. Sociodemographic risk was associated with decreased parent-child neural synchrony in the context of experimentally-induced stress. These findings link adversity to decreased parent-child behavioral and neural synchrony

RENDIMIENTO ACADÉMICO DE ESTUDIANTES UNIVERSITARIOS EN LA UNSJ. ESTUDIO DE CASOS”

El objetivo de esta presentación es hacer un análisis comparativo de las características de los alumnos ingresantes de dos unidades académicas de la UNSJ, con marcadas diferencias en el rendimiento académico entre ambas unidades. El análisis comparativo se centra en los alumnos de las carreras de profesorados y licenciaturas de la Facultad de Filosofía, Humanidades y Artes (FFHA) y de ingenierías de la propia Facultad de Ingenierías (FI). Si bien el análisis focaliza en aspectos objetivos (condiciones materiales y simbólicas) y aspectos subjetivos (representaciones que los alumnos tienen de sí, del saber del que se ocupan, del campo profesional) y sus articulaciones en las prácticas institucionales y en el espacio socio-político más amplio, para esta presentación sólo abordamos información relativa al rendimiento académico de los alumnos de primer año e información relativa al patrimonio económico familiar, situación laboral, becas de ayuda económica. Para relevar la información nos hemos valido de encuestas y entrevistas. También hacemos una caracterización de las carreras seleccionadas según el estado y la dinámica de los campos desde una perspectiva sincrónica y diacrónica, teniendo en cuenta sus articulaciones en el espacio social. Los aportes de la pedagogía crítica y de la sociología de P. Bourdieu, representan nuestros referentes teórico-metodológicos principales

Awareness of fetal movements and care package to reduce fetal mortality (AFFIRM)::a trial-based and model-based cost-effectiveness analysis from a stepped wedge, cluster-randomised trial

Abstract Background The AFFIRM intervention aimed to reduce stillbirth and neonatal deaths by increasing awareness of reduced fetal movements (RFM) and implementing a care pathway when women present with RFM. Although there is uncertainty regarding the clinical effectiveness of the intervention, the aim of this analysis was to evaluate the cost-effectiveness. Methods A stepped-wedge, cluster-randomised trial was conducted in thirty-three hospitals in the United Kingdom (UK) and Ireland. All women giving birth at the study sites during the analysis period were included in the study. The costs associated with implementing the intervention were estimated from audits of RFM attendances and electronic healthcare records. Trial data were used to estimate a cost per stillbirth prevented was for AFFIRM versus standard care. A decision analytic model was used to estimate the costs and number of perinatal deaths (stillbirths + early neonatal deaths) prevented if AFFIRM were rolled out across Great Britain for one year. Key assumptions were explored in sensitivity analyses. Results Direct costs to implement AFFIRM were an estimated £95,126 per 1,000 births. Compared to standard care, the cost per stillbirth prevented was estimated to be between £86,478 and being dominated (higher costs, no benefit). The estimated healthcare budget impact of implementing AFFIRM across Great Britain was a cost increase of £61,851,400/year. Conclusions Perinatal deaths are relatively rare events in the UK which can increase uncertainty in economic evaluations. This evaluation estimated a plausible range of costs to prevent baby deaths which can inform policy decisions in maternity services. Trial registration The trial was registered with www.ClinicalTrials.gov, number NCT01777022. </jats:sec

An economic evaluation of targeted case-finding strategies for identifying postnatal depression: A model-based analysis comparing common case-finding instruments

BackgroundHalf of women with postnatal depression (PND) are not identified in routine care. We aimed to estimate the cost-effectiveness of PND case-finding in women with risk factors for PND.MethodsA decision tree was developed to represent the one-year costs and health outcomes associated with case-finding and treatment for PND. The sensitivity and specificity of case-finding instruments, and prevalence and severity of PND, for women with ≥1 PND risk factor were estimated from a cohort of postnatal women. Risk factors were history of anxiety/depression, age ResultsMore than half of the cohort had one or more PND risk factor (57.8 %; 95 % CI 52.7 %-62.7 %). The most cost-effective case-finding strategy was the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale with a cut-off of ≥10 (EPDS-10). Among high-risk women, there is a high probability that EPDS-10 case-finding for PND is cost-effective compared to no case-finding (78.5 % at a threshold of £20,000/QALY), with an ICER of £8146/QALY gained. Universal case-finding is even more cost-effective at £2945/QALY gained (versus no case-finding). There is a greater health improvement with universal rather than targeted case-finding.LimitationsThe model includes costs and health benefits for mothers in the first year postpartum, the broader (e.g. families, societal) and long-term impacts are also important.ConclusionsUniversal PND case-finding is more cost-effective than targeted case-finding which itself is more cost-effective than not case-finding