IPE/IPC: Some BIG Issues Theoretical and Methodological

John H.V. Gilbert, C.M., PhD, FCAHS Principal & Professor Emeritus College of Health Disciplines University of British Columbia Co-Chair, Canadian Interprofessional Health Collaborative Adjunct Professor, Dalhousie University Dr. John Gilbert is founding Principal & Professor Emeritus, College of Health Disciplines, University of British Columbia where he was also founding Director of the School of Audiology and Speech Sciences, and Director of the School of Rehabilitation Sciences. His many honors include a Fulbright Scholarship; Medical Research Council of Canada Post-Doctoral Scholarship; the Outstanding Alumnus Award of the School of Liberal Arts, Purdue University; a UBC Isaac Killam-Walton Outstanding Teaching Award; The Distinguished Service Award of the British Columbia Institute of Technology; and the National Health Sciences Student’s Interprofessional Mentorship Award. This award is now named in honor of Dr. Gilbert. Throughout his long career, John has served on many national and international committees and Boards. He currently serves on the School of Health Sciences Advisory Committee of the Justice Institute of BC, and is appointed by the Minister of Health of British Columbia to serve on British Columbia’s Patient Care Quality Review Board. He is a Global Consultant to the National Center for Interprofessional Practice and Education at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota. John is a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Interprofessional Care, and Co-Editor of the open access Journal of Research in Interprofessional Education. He is Senior Scholar, WHO Collaborating Centre on Health Workforce Planning and Research, Dalhousie University; Visiting Professor at the National University of Malaysia; Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Graduate Studies, Dalhousie University, and Adjunct Professor, the University of Pittsburgh. He was Co-Chair of the WHO Study Group on Interprofessional Education and Collaborative Practice. His is International Advisor to Hospitals Without Boundaries. John was elected a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences in 2009 and was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada, (Canada’s highest civilian award) in July 2011 for his leadership in the development of interprofessional education as a central tenet in team-based collaborative patient-centered practice and care, nationally and globally. He was awarded the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal in April 2012, and in October 2013 received the Outstanding Lifetime Contribution to International Allied Health Development Award from the International Chief Health Professions Officers Organization

Papio cranium from the hominin-bearing site of Malapa: Implications for the evolution of modern baboon cranial morphology and South African Plio-Pleistocene biochronology.

A new partial cranium (UW 88-886) of the Plio-Pleistocene baboon Papio angusticeps from Malapa is identified, described and discussed. UW 88-886 represents the only non-hominin primate yet recovered from Malapa and is important both in the context of baboon evolution as well as South African hominin site biochronology. The new specimen may represent the first appearance of modern baboon anatomy and coincides almost perfectly with molecular divergence date estimates for the origin of the modern P. hamadryas radiation. The fact that the Malapa specimen is dated between ~2.026–2.36 million years ago (Ma) also has implications for the biochronology of other South African Plio-Pleistocene sites where P. angusticeps is found

The inactivation of bacillus subtilis spores at low concentrations of hydrogen peroxide vapour

Spores of the bacterium Bacillussubtilis were deposited onto the surface of membranes by a process of filtration and exposed to concentrations of hydrogen peroxide vapour between 10 and 90 mg/m3 (ppm) for times ranging from 1.5 to 48 h. The inactivation data obtained in this way was modelled using the Weibull, Series-Event and Baranyi inactivation models. The Weibull model provided the best fit, and its use was extended to previously published literature obtained at higher hydrogen peroxide concentrations to produce a correlation yielding D (decimal reduction value) values over a range from 10 to almost 4000 ppm

Indicators for transboundary river management

The aim of this paper is to analyze the potential of indicators for integrated river basin management and to develop a set of indicators for the management of transboundary river basins. An indicator, comprising a variable or some aggregation of variables, describes a system or process such that it has significance beyond the face value of its components. Integrated river basin management takes into account policies and measures for the multifunctional use of rivers on a catchment scale and associated institutional changes. Indicators are useful instruments for this process for two reasons. Firstly, they meet the information need of policy-and decision-makers. Secondly, indicators can be used to structure the definition and description of information needs and collection of information between the different international, institutional, and sectoral management levels. The development of indicators involves a number of steps: definition of aim, construction of conceptual model, selection of variables, comparison with selection criteria, database assessment, and indicator selection. In this paper these steps are discussed and specified for integrated river basin management. This results in a set of indicators describing the pressure to the river, the state of the river ecosystem, the impact to goods and services provided by the river, and the societal response. The proposed set of indicators measured at a river basin scale provides integrated information on the use and supply of goods and services, underlying cause-effect relationships and possible trade-offs and their spatial distribution (e.g., upstream versus downstream). Furthermore, we propose a division of tasks and responsibilities for river basin management with regard to the development of indicators, data collection, and their application in decision-making

An investigation into the inactivation kinetics of hydrogen peroxide vapor against clostridium difficile endospores

C. difficile spores are resistant to routine cleaning agents and are able to survive on inanimate surfaces for long periods of time. There is increasing evidence of the importance of the clinical environment as a reservoir for pathogenic agents and as a potential source of healthcare-associated infections (HCAIs). In this context, to reduce the risk of cross-transmission, terminal disinfection of hospital wards and isolation rooms using hydrogen peroxide vapor (HPV) is attracting attention. Spores of C. difficile (ribotype 027) were exposed to constant concentrations of HPV ranging between 11 and 92 mg m−3 (ppm) for a range of exposure times in a specially designed chamber. The inactivation data thus obtained was fitted using the modified Chick–Watson inactivation model to obtain decimal reduction values (D values). D values ranged from 23 to 1.3 min at HPV concentrations of 11 and 92 ppm, respectively. We present a simple mathematical model based on the inactivation kinetic data obtained here to estimate the efficacy of commercial HPV processes used in healthcare environmental decontamination. C. difficile spores showed linear inactivation kinetics at steady HPV concentrations ranging between 10 and 90 ppm. The data obtained here was used to provide estimates of the inactivation efficacy of commercial HPV process cycles, which employ unsteady HPV concentrations during the decontamination process

Long-Term Crop Rotation Diversification Enhances Maize Drought Resistance Through Soil Organic Matter

Climate change adaptation requires building agricultural system resilience to warmer, drier climates. Increasing temporal plant diversity through crop rotation diversification increases yields of some crops under drought, but its potential to enhance crop drought resistance and the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. We conducted a drought manipulation experiment using rainout shelters embedded within a 36-year crop rotation diversity and no-till experiment in a temperate climate and measured a suite of soil and crop developmental and eco-physiological traits in the field and laboratory. We show that diversifying maize-soybean rotations with small grain cereals and cover crops mitigated maize water stress at the leaf and canopy scales and reduced yield losses to drought by 17.1 ± 6.1%, while no-till did not affect maize drought resistance. Path analysis showed a strong correlation between soil organic matter and lower maize water stress despite no significant differences in soil organic matter between rotations or tillage treatments. This positive relationship between soil organic matter and maize water status was not mediated by higher soil water retention or infiltration as often hypothesized, nor differential depth of root water uptake as measured with stable isotopes, suggesting that other mechanisms are at play. Crop rotation diversification is an underappreciated drought management tool to adapt crop production to climate change through managing for soil organic matter

OMA orthology in 2021: website overhaul, conserved isoforms, ancestral gene order and more.

OMA is an established resource to elucidate evolutionary relationships among genes from currently 2326 genomes covering all domains of life. OMA provides pairwise and groupwise orthologs, functional annotations, local and global gene order conservation (synteny) information, among many other functions. This update paper describes the reorganisation of the database into gene-, group- and genome-centric pages. Other new and improved features are detailed, such as reporting of the evolutionarily best conserved isoforms of alternatively spliced genes, the inferred local order of ancestral genes, phylogenetic profiling, better cross-references, fast genome mapping, semantic data sharing via RDF, as well as a special coronavirus OMA with 119 viruses from the Nidovirales order, including SARS-CoV-2, the agent of the COVID-19 pandemic. We conclude with improvements to the documentation of the resource through primers, tutorials and short videos. OMA is accessible at https://omabrowser.org

Physics of Solar Prominences: I - Spectral Diagnostics and Non-LTE Modelling

This review paper outlines background information and covers recent advances made via the analysis of spectra and images of prominence plasma and the increased sophistication of non-LTE (ie when there is a departure from Local Thermodynamic Equilibrium) radiative transfer models. We first describe the spectral inversion techniques that have been used to infer the plasma parameters important for the general properties of the prominence plasma in both its cool core and the hotter prominence-corona transition region. We also review studies devoted to the observation of bulk motions of the prominence plasma and to the determination of prominence mass. However, a simple inversion of spectroscopic data usually fails when the lines become optically thick at certain wavelengths. Therefore, complex non-LTE models become necessary. We thus present the basics of non-LTE radiative transfer theory and the associated multi-level radiative transfer problems. The main results of one- and two-dimensional models of the prominences and their fine-structures are presented. We then discuss the energy balance in various prominence models. Finally, we outline the outstanding observational and theoretical questions, and the directions for future progress in our understanding of solar prominences.Comment: 96 pages, 37 figures, Space Science Reviews. Some figures may have a better resolution in the published version. New version reflects minor changes brought after proof editin