Rethinking Our Global Coastal Investment Portfolio

Coastal gray infrastructure, including roads, bridges, and buildings, is critical for communities, and we invest significantly in it. We also invest in the restoration and maintenance of coastal green infrastructure such as wetlands and reefs, which provide many services and benefits to human communities. However, the relative scale of financial investments in different coastal sectors – that is, our global coastal investment portfolio – remains poorly understood. We identify some of the major sources of funding for coastal green and gray infrastructure globally, including international aid funds; US public and private funds for coastal conservation, restoration and management; and private (insurance) and public funds spent on rebuilding after coastal storms. For the 10-year period from 2004-2013, we identify a total of US $14 billion in funds for coastal conservation and green infrastructure and$198 billion in international aid funds for coastal grey infrastructure. Coastal storms during the same decade caused an estimated US $514 billion in damages globally, of which$214 billion were insured losses, while $3.5 billion in international aid funds were spent on relief and reconstruction after these storm events. We conclude that funds for green infrastructure make up a small fraction – roughly three per cent – of global financial investments along coastlines. We identify the major funders in different coastal spending categories and discuss ways to move toward a more balanced investment portfolio that could benefit biodiversity, prevent billions of dollars of storm damage, and help protect the lives and livelihoods of coastal residents

Exogenous Estrogen Boosts Circulating Estradiol Concentrations and Calcium Uptake by Duodenal Tissue in Heat-Stressed Hens

In the hen, heat stress (HS) disrupts shell calcification and reproductive processes, including hormone synthesis and egg production. Two studies were conducted to investigate palliative effects of exogenous estrogen or dietary vitamin D3 on Ca homeostasis and reproductive physiology during HS. Study 1: Hy-Line W36 hens were randomly assigned to thermoneutral (TN) or HS treatments and to 1 of 7 estrogen treatments: zero (control) or one Compudose 200 implant given 1, 2, 3, 8, 9, or 10 d before onset of HS. With no implant, HS reduced plasma estradiol (E2) and total Ca absorbed (CaT) by duodenal cells (P \u3c 0.05). In TN hens with implants, plasma E2 tripled within 24 h (P \u3c 0.05) and remained elevated (P \u3c 0.05) through d 9. In HS hens with implants, plasma E2 rose 6-fold (P \u3c 0.05) to equal TN+E2 concentrations and remained elevated through d 10. In TN and HS hens with implants, the rate of Ca absorption (CaTR) and CaT increased dramatically; the responses were quadratic and essentially identical. Study 2: Hy-Line W36 hens were provided diets formulated either according to NRC requirements (NRC, 1994), or with the addition of 22,000 IU/kg vitamin D3 (+VD hens). A 24-h HS episode was imposed 2 wk after initiation of the dietary regimen. Duodenal samples were collected for Ca absorption assays after the 24-h HS episode. Both CaTR and CaT in +VD hens were approximately 3-fold higher than in hens in the NVD group (P = 0.102). The results lead to the conclusion that exogenous estrogen, high levels of dietary vitamin D, or both, before a HS episode, are efficacious in alleviating at least some of the effects of HS and should be further investigated

Seasonal change in bone, muscle and fat in professional rugby league players and its relationship to injury: A cohort study

OBJECTIVES: To examine the anthropometric characteristics of an Australian National Rugby League team and identify the relationship to type and incidence of injuries sustained during a professional season. It was hypothesised that body composition would not change discernibly across a season and that injury would be negatively related to preseason bone and muscle mass. DESIGN: A repeated measure, prospective, observational, cohort study. SETTING: Griffith University, Gold Coast, Australia. PARTICIPANTS: 37 professional male Australian National Rugby League players, 24.3 (3.8) years of age were recruited for preseason 1 testing, of whom 25 were retested preseason 2. PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOME MEASURES: Primary outcome measures included biometrics; body composition (bone, muscle and fat mass; dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry; XR800, Norland Medical Systems, Inc); bone geometry and strength (peripheral quantitative CT; XCT 3000, Stratec); calcaneal broadband ultrasound attenuation (BUA; QUS-2, Quidel); diet and physical activity history. Secondary outcome measures included player injuries across a single playing season. RESULTS: Lean mass decreased progressively throughout the season (pre=81.45(7.76) kg; post=79.89(6.72) kg; p≤0.05), while whole body (WB) bone mineral density (BMD) increased until mid-season (pre=1.235(0.087) g/cm(2); mid=1.296(0.093) g/cm(2); p≤0.001) then decreased thereafter (post=1.256(0.100); p≤0.001). Start-of-season WB BMD, fat and lean mass, weight and tibial mass measured at the 38% site predicted bone injury incidence, but no other relationship was observed between body composition and injury. CONCLUSIONS: Significant anthropometric changes were observed in players across a professional rugby league season, including an overall loss of muscle and an initial increase, followed by a decrease in bone mass. Strong relationships between anthropometry and incidence of injury were not observed. Long-term tracking of large rugby league cohorts is indicated to obtain more injury data in order to examine anthropometric relationships with greater statistical power

Wichita Barren

Title from PDF of title page, viewed on March 22, 2016Thesis advisor: Mitch BrianVitaThesis (M.F.A.)--Department of English Language and Literature. University of Missouri--Kansas City, 2015Includes bibliographical references (page xiv)On the surface, Ramey Stewart has it all. She is married to the most powerful man in Wichita; she is beautiful and rich beyond the dream of avarice. But there is one thing missing from her perfect life: children. After she suffers her eighth miscarriage, Ramey dissolves into a lengthy and crippling depression. Her mother, Linnaia, takes Ramey to church to try to pray for healing. While at church, Ramey encounters an old friend from college named Kate, who now works for a maternity home. Ramey’s depression endures and worsens with her alcohol abuse. Ramey’s husband, Gus, pleads with Ramey to seek professional help, which Ramey refuses. Ramey’s anxiety and paranoia starts to interfere with her ability to navigate reality and perception. She experiences a mental lapse in a restaurant, and then after fleeing from men that chase her out of an abandoned mall where Ramey goes to exercise, Ramey is in a terrible car accident that sends her into a three-day coma. When she wakes up, Ramey has a new and profound relationship with religion. This leads her to seek out Kate’s maternity home, Sacred Heart House. At the Sacred Heart House, Ramey meets a surly young pregnant girl named Tilly. Ramey then learns that the maternity house also serves to help raise local orphans in their on-site children’s center. The Sacred Heart House provides fulfillment and happiness in ways that Ramey’s home and marriage can no longer do. She also creates a bond with Tilly. Later, Kate asks Ramey to join them in their protest of a local abortion clinic. When Ramey believes that Tilly has had a late term abortion, Ramey begins to plot the murder of the clinic’s CEO. Her paranoia and inability to gauge reality from fantasy brings Ramey to carry out her plot. After the murder, Gus leaves Wichita and Kate turns her back on Ramey. The only solace Ramey has is the belief that she carried out God’s will.Abstract -- Critical introduction -- Wichita Barre

Pseudo-Label Assisted nnU-Net enables automatic segmentation of 7T MRI from a single acquisition

IntroductionAutomatic whole brain and lesion segmentation at 7T presents challenges, primarily from bias fields, susceptibility artifacts including distortions, and registration errors. Here, we sought to use deep learning algorithms (D/L) to do both skull stripping and whole brain segmentation on multiple imaging contrasts generated in a single Magnetization Prepared 2 Rapid Acquisition Gradient Echoes (MP2RAGE) acquisition on participants clinically diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS), bypassing registration errors.MethodsBrain scans Segmentation from 3T and 7T scanners were analyzed with software packages such as FreeSurfer, Classification using Derivative-based Features (C-DEF), nnU-net, and a novel 3T-to-7T transfer learning method, Pseudo-Label Assisted nnU-Net (PLAn). 3T and 7T MRIs acquired within 9 months from 25 study participants with MS (Cohort 1) were used for training and optimizing. Eight MS patients (Cohort 2) scanned only at 7T, but with expert annotated lesion segmentation, was used to further validate the algorithm on a completely unseen dataset. Segmentation results were rated visually by experts in a blinded fashion and quantitatively using Dice Similarity Coefficient (DSC).ResultsOf the methods explored here, nnU-Net and PLAn produced the best tissue segmentation at 7T for all tissue classes. In both quantitative and qualitative analysis, PLAn significantly outperformed nnU-Net (and other methods) in lesion detection in both cohorts. PLAn's lesion DSC improved by 16% compared to nnU-Net.DiscussionLimited availability of labeled data makes transfer learning an attractive option, and pre-training a nnUNet model using readily obtained 3T pseudo-labels was shown to boost lesion detection capabilities at 7T