Cultural ecosystem services and the well-being of refugee communities

The growing field of research into cultural ecosystem services (CES) explores nonmaterial benefits that people receive from ecosystems. These studies have, however, largely overlooked refugee communities. To reduce this gap, we systematically review academic literature on refugee interactions with ecosystems to understand what cultural ecosystem services refugees may experience, and how these services affect their well-being. The results identify a broad range of CES that refugees experience, even though studies do not use CES terminology. Benefits include social relations, mental health, cultural heritage, education, recreation, identity, sense of place, aesthetic, spirituality, perspective, and existence value. Results also show that the majority of studies of refugee—ecosystem interactions occur in agricultural ecosystems. Findings suggest that interactions with ecosystems may ease the resettlement process and overall well-being, including mental health, in many ways. These findings enrich understanding of CES experienced by people of diverse (and in this case traumatic) backgrounds and provide practical implications for those who work in the field of refugee resettlement

The woods around the ivory tower: A systematic review examining the value and relevance of school forests in the United States

Throughout the United States, many institutions of higher education own forested tracts, often called school forests, which they use for teaching, research, and demonstration purposes. These school forests provide a range of benefits to the communities in which they are located. However, because administration is often decoupled from research and teaching, those benefits might not always be evident to the individuals who make decisions about the management and use of school forests, which may undervalue their services and put these areas at risk for sale, development, or over-harvesting to generate revenue. To understand what messages are being conveyed about the value and relevance of school forests, we conducted a systematic literature review and qualitatively coded the resulting literature content using an ecosystem services framework. While school forests provide many important benefits to academic and local communities, we found that most of the existing literature omits discussions about cultural ecosystem services that people may receive from school forests. We discuss the implications of this omission and make recommendations for addressing it

COVID-19 and human-nature relationships: Vermonters' activities in nature and associated nonmaterial values during the pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic has rapidly modified Earth's social-ecological systems in many ways; here we study its impacts on human-nature interactions. We conducted an online survey focused on peoples' relationships with the non-human world during the pandemic and received valid responses from 3,204 adult residents of the state of Vermont (U.S.A.). We analyzed reported changes in outdoor activities and the values associated with human-nature relationships across geographic areas and demographic characteristics. We find that participation increased on average for some activities (foraging, gardening, hiking, jogging, photography and other art, relaxing alone, walking, and watching wildlife), and decreased for others (camping, relaxing with others). The values respondents ranked as more important during the pandemic factored into two groups, which we label as "Nurture and Recreation values" and "Inspiration and Nourishment values." Using multinomial logistic regression, we found that respondents' preferences for changes in activity engagement and value factors are statistically associated with some demographic characteristics, including geography, gender, income, and employment status during the pandemic. Our results suggest that nature may play an important role in coping during times of crisis, but that the specific interactions and associated values that people perceive as most important may vary between populations. Our findings emphasize for both emergency and natural resources planning the importance of understanding variation in how and why people interact with and benefit from nature during crises

Near complete genome sequences from Southern Vietnam revealed local features of genetic diversity and intergenerational changes in SARS- CoV-2 variants in 2020–2021

Abstract Background Since its beginnings in 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic is still a problem of global medical concern. Southern Vietnam is one of the country's vast regions, including 20 provinces and the densely populated metropolis Ho Chi Minh City. A randomized retrospective study was performed to investigate the epidemiology and genetic diversity of COVID-19. Whole-genome sequencing of 126 SARS-CoV-2 samples collected from Southern Vietnam between January 2020 and December 2021 revealed the main circulating variants and their distribution. Methods Epidemiological data were obtained from the Department of Preventive Medicine of the Vietnamese Ministry of Health. To identify circulating variants, RNA, extracted from 126 nasopharyngeal swabs of patients with suspected COVID-19 were sequenced on Illunina MiSeq to obtain near complete genomes SARS-CoV-2. Results Due to the effectiveness of restrictive measures in Vietnam, it was possible to keep incidence at a low level. The partial relaxation of restrictive measures, and the spread of Delta lineages, contributed to the beginning of a logarithmic increase in incidence. Lineages 20A-H circulated in Southern Vietnam during 2020. Spread of the Delta lineage in Southern Vietnam began in March 2021, causing a logarithmic rise in the number of COVID-19 cases. Conclusions Pandemic dynamics in Southern Vietnam feature specific variations in incidence, and these reflect the success of the restrictive measures put in place during the early stages of the pandemic

Detection of Polioviruses Type 2 among Migrant Children Arriving to the Russian Federation from a Country with a Registered Poliomyelitis Outbreak

The widespread use of the oral poliovaccine from Sabin strains (tOPV) radically reduced poliomyelitis incidence worldwide. However, OPV became a source of neurovirulent vaccine-derived polioviruses (VDPVs). Currently, circulating type 2 VDPVs (cVDPV2) are the leading cause of poliomyelitis. The novel OPV type 2 vaccine (nOPV2), based on genetically modified Sabin strain with increased genetic stability and reduced risk of cVDPV formation, has been used to combat cVDPV2 outbreaks, including one in Tajikistan in 2021. In order to identify the importation of cVDPV2 and nOPV2-derivates, stool samples from 12,127 healthy migrant children under 5 years of age arriving from Tajikistan were examined in Russia (March 2021–April 2022). Viruses were isolated in cell culture and identified via intratype differentiation RT-PCR, VP1 and whole-genome sequencing. cVDPV2 isolates closely related with the Tajikistan one were isolated from two children, and nOPV2-derived viruses were detected in specimens from 106 children from 37 regions of Russia. The duration of nOPV2 excretion ranged from 24 to 124 days post-vaccination. nOPV2 isolates contained 27 mutations per genome (0.36%) on average, with no critical genetic changes, which confirms the genetic stability of nOPV2 during field use. The possibility of epidemiologically significant poliovirus introduction into polio-free countries has been confirmed. The screening of special populations, including migrants, is required to maintain epidemiological well-being

ILC Reference Design Report Volume 1 - Executive Summary

The International Linear Collider (ILC) is a 200-500 GeV center-of-mass high-luminosity linear electron-positron collider, based on 1.3 GHz superconducting radio-frequency (SCRF) accelerating cavities. The ILC has a total footprint of about 31 km and is designed for a peak luminosity of 2x10^34 cm^-2s^-1. This report is the Executive Summary (Volume I) of the four volume Reference Design Report. It gives an overview of the physics at the ILC, the accelerator design and value estimate, the detector concepts, and the next steps towards project realization.The International Linear Collider (ILC) is a 200-500 GeV center-of-mass high-luminosity linear electron-positron collider, based on 1.3 GHz superconducting radio-frequency (SCRF) accelerating cavities. The ILC has a total footprint of about 31 km and is designed for a peak luminosity of 2x10^34 cm^-2s^-1. This report is the Executive Summary (Volume I) of the four volume Reference Design Report. It gives an overview of the physics at the ILC, the accelerator design and value estimate, the detector concepts, and the next steps towards project realization

ILC Reference Design Report Volume 4 - Detectors

This report, Volume IV of the International Linear Collider Reference Design Report, describes the detectors which will record and measure the charged and neutral particles produced in the ILC's high energy e+e- collisions. The physics of the ILC, and the environment of the machine-detector interface, pose new challenges for detector design. Several conceptual designs for the detector promise the needed performance, and ongoing detector R&D is addressing the outstanding technological issues. Two such detectors, operating in push-pull mode, perfectly instrument the ILC interaction region, and access the full potential of ILC physics.This report, Volume IV of the International Linear Collider Reference Design Report, describes the detectors which will record and measure the charged and neutral particles produced in the ILC's high energy e+e- collisions. The physics of the ILC, and the environment of the machine-detector interface, pose new challenges for detector design. Several conceptual designs for the detector promise the needed performance, and ongoing detector R&D is addressing the outstanding technological issues. Two such detectors, operating in push-pull mode, perfectly instrument the ILC interaction region, and access the full potential of ILC physics