A cropping system assessment framework-Evaluating effects of introducing legumes into crop rotations

Methods are needed for the design and evaluation of cropping systems, in order to test the effects of introducing or reintroducing crops into rotations. The interaction of legumes with other crops (rotational effects) requires an assessment at the cropping system scale. The objective of this work is to introduce a cropping system framework to assess the impacts of changes in cropping systems in a participatory approach with experts, i.e., the integration of legumes into crop rotations and to demonstrate its application in two case studies. The framework consists of a rule-based rotation generator and a set of algorithms to calculate impact indicators. It follows a three-step approach: (i) generate rotations, (ii) evaluate crop production activities using environmental, economic and phytosanitary indicators, and (iii) design cropping systems and assess their impacts. Experienced agronomists and environmental scientists were involved at several stages of the framework development and testing in order to ensure the practicability of designed cropping systems. The framework was tested in Vastra Gotaland (Sweden) and Brandenburg (Germany) by comparing cropping systems with and without legumes. In both case studies, cropping systems with legumes reduced nitrous oxide emissions with comparable or slightly lower nitrate-N leaching, and had positive phytosanitary effects. In arable systems with grain legumes, gross margins were lower than in cropping systems without legumes despite taking pre-crop effects into account. Forage cropping systems with legumes had higher or equivalent gross margins and at the same time higher environmental benefits than cropping systems without legumes. The framework supports agronomists to design sustainable legume-supported cropping systems and to assess their impacts. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.Peer reviewe

Pediatric trauma and emergency surgery: an international cross-sectional survey among WSES members

Background: In contrast to adults, the situation for pediatric trauma care from an international point of view and the global management of severely injured children remain rather unclear. The current study investigates structural management of pediatric trauma in centers of different trauma levels as well as experiences with pediatric trauma management around the world. Methods: A web-survey had been distributed to the global mailing list of the World Society of Emergency Surgery from 10/2021-03/2022, investigating characteristics of respondents and affiliated hospitals, case-load of pediatric trauma patients, capacities and infrastructure for critical care in children, trauma team composition, clinical work-up and individual experiences with pediatric trauma management in response to patients´ age. The collaboration group was subdivided regarding sizes of affiliated hospitals to allow comparisons concerning hospital volumes. Comparable results were conducted to statistical analysis. Results: A total of 133 participants from 34 countries, i.e. 5 continents responded to the survey. They were most commonly affiliated with larger hospitals (> 500 beds in 72.9%) and with level I or II trauma centers (82.0%), respectively. 74.4% of hospitals offer unrestricted pediatric medical care, but only 63.2% and 42.9% of the participants had sufficient experiences with trauma care in children ≤ 10 and ≤ 5 years of age (p = 0.0014). This situation is aggravated in participants from smaller hospitals (p < 0.01). With regard to hospital size (≤ 500 versus > 500 in-hospital beds), larger hospitals were more likely affiliated with advanced trauma centers, more elaborated pediatric intensive care infrastructure (p < 0.0001), treated children at all ages more frequently (p = 0.0938) and have higher case-loads of severely injured children < 12 years of age (p = 0.0009). Therefore, the majority of larger hospitals reserve either pediatric surgery departments or board-certified pediatric surgeons (p < 0.0001) and in-hospital trauma management is conducted more multi-disciplinarily. However, the majority of respondents does not feel prepared for treatment of severe pediatric trauma and call for special educational and practical training courses (overall: 80.2% and 64.3%, respectively). Conclusions: Multi-professional management of pediatric trauma and individual experiences with severely injured children depend on volumes, level of trauma centers and infrastructure of the hospital. However, respondents from hospitals at all levels of trauma care complain about an alarming lack of knowledge on pediatric trauma management

Reducing the environmental impact of surgery on a global scale: systematic review and co-prioritization with healthcare workers in 132 countries

Abstract Background Healthcare cannot achieve net-zero carbon without addressing operating theatres. The aim of this study was to prioritize feasible interventions to reduce the environmental impact of operating theatres. Methods This study adopted a four-phase Delphi consensus co-prioritization methodology. In phase 1, a systematic review of published interventions and global consultation of perioperative healthcare professionals were used to longlist interventions. In phase 2, iterative thematic analysis consolidated comparable interventions into a shortlist. In phase 3, the shortlist was co-prioritized based on patient and clinician views on acceptability, feasibility, and safety. In phase 4, ranked lists of interventions were presented by their relevance to high-income countries and low–middle-income countries. Results In phase 1, 43 interventions were identified, which had low uptake in practice according to 3042 professionals globally. In phase 2, a shortlist of 15 intervention domains was generated. In phase 3, interventions were deemed acceptable for more than 90 per cent of patients except for reducing general anaesthesia (84 per cent) and re-sterilization of ‘single-use’ consumables (86 per cent). In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for high-income countries were: introducing recycling; reducing use of anaesthetic gases; and appropriate clinical waste processing. In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for low–middle-income countries were: introducing reusable surgical devices; reducing use of consumables; and reducing the use of general anaesthesia. Conclusion This is a step toward environmentally sustainable operating environments with actionable interventions applicable to both high– and low–middle–income countries

Modelling regional agricultural land use and climate change adaptation strategies in 4 case study regions Northern Germany

Agricultural land use in Northern Germany is characterized by a gradient of decreasing precipitation from west to east. Climate change is expected to increase temperature and decrease summer precipitation. In the context of a nationally funded project we aim to analyze climate change adaptation strategies for agricultural land use. The research is focused in 4 study regions from Eastern to Western Germany. The presented modelling approach analyses agricultural land use under climate change and for three policy scenarios (business as usual, biodiversity and climate protection). The biodiversity and climate protection scenarios each reserve area for specific scenario objectives: 10% for specific biodiversity measures and 20% for N-fixing legumes in case of the climate protection scenario. All scenarios are executed for three time steps representing year 2010, 2020 and 2030 with a constant yield increase, extrapolated from past observations. Building on IACS data for a farm typology and expert assessments of current and future land use options, we applied a linear programming farm model. Prices are exogenous and derived from CAPRI model runs for 2020 and 2030. First preliminary results show strong impacts of price assumptions and yield assessments. This results in 2020 in lower gross margins for a number of crops and finally to higher set aside areas in eastern Germany. For 2030 input–output price relations are more favourable for farmers and thus lead to lower set aside areas

Modelling approach and first results on irrigation as climate change adaptation strategy of the project NaLaMa-nT

The project NaLaMa-nT examines in the context of climate change sustainable development paths of land use in four different rural districts in Northern Germany. These districts were chosen along a soil-climate gradient from west to east with increasing water deficit for plant growth caused by both: decreasing rain fall and decreasing soil quality. In front of this background different trends and developments of agricultural production can be derived from analysing, modelling and comparing existing production systems and conditions of the different regions. One assumption developed from existing climate projections is that climate change will cause increasing water deficits for plant growth – especially in the eastern part of Germany. An obvious solution is to intensify agricultural production using existing irrigation methods that can reduce the yield risk and thus stabilize income from agriculture by avoiding yield failures and increasing the overall yield level. Therefore we build a modelling approach which allows an economic analysis both on the crop production activity level as well on the farm level. The data base comprises data representing recent production techniques and added optional irrigation techniques. The yields and input level changes are derived from literature studies and expert interviews. The farm structure is represented and modeled based on typical farms chosen from an IACS-data farm typology with different production potentials and patterns. First results will be presented in April

"Hinter uns kann keiner mehr zurück“. Die Etablierung der NS-Gedenkstätten als eine unendliche deutsche Erfolgsgeschichte – und wie sie trotzdem als kritischer Handlungsraum dienen können

Bischoff S, Chmiel C, Farber J, Hecker J. "Hinter uns kann keiner mehr zurück“. Die Etablierung der NS-Gedenkstätten als eine unendliche deutsche Erfolgsgeschichte – und wie sie trotzdem als kritischer Handlungsraum dienen können. In: Georgi V, Lücke M, Meyer-Hamme J, Spielhaus R, eds. Geschichten im Wandel. Neue Perspektiven für die Erinnerungskultur in der Migrationsgesellschaft. Public history - angewandte Geschichte. Vol 10. Bielefeld: Transcript; 2022: 373–384

St. John's Daily Star, 1919-05-13

The St. John's Daily Star was published daily except Sunday between 17 April 1915 - 23 July 1921

Pediatric trauma and emergency surgery: an international cross-sectional survey among WSES members

Abstract Background In contrast to adults, the situation for pediatric trauma care from an international point of view and the global management of severely injured children remain rather unclear. The current study investigates structural management of pediatric trauma in centers of different trauma levels as well as experiences with pediatric trauma management around the world. Methods A web-survey had been distributed to the global mailing list of the World Society of Emergency Surgery from 10/2021–03/2022, investigating characteristics of respondents and affiliated hospitals, case-load of pediatric trauma patients, capacities and infrastructure for critical care in children, trauma team composition, clinical work-up and individual experiences with pediatric trauma management in response to patients´ age. The collaboration group was subdivided regarding sizes of affiliated hospitals to allow comparisons concerning hospital volumes. Comparable results were conducted to statistical analysis. Results A total of 133 participants from 34 countries, i.e. 5 continents responded to the survey. They were most commonly affiliated with larger hospitals (> 500 beds in 72.9%) and with level I or II trauma centers (82.0%), respectively. 74.4% of hospitals offer unrestricted pediatric medical care, but only 63.2% and 42.9% of the participants had sufficient experiences with trauma care in children ≤ 10 and ≤ 5 years of age (p = 0.0014). This situation is aggravated in participants from smaller hospitals (p  500 in-hospital beds), larger hospitals were more likely affiliated with advanced trauma centers, more elaborated pediatric intensive care infrastructure (p < 0.0001), treated children at all ages more frequently (p = 0.0938) and have higher case-loads of severely injured children < 12 years of age (p = 0.0009). Therefore, the majority of larger hospitals reserve either pediatric surgery departments or board-certified pediatric surgeons (p < 0.0001) and in-hospital trauma management is conducted more multi-disciplinarily. However, the majority of respondents does not feel prepared for treatment of severe pediatric trauma and call for special educational and practical training courses (overall: 80.2% and 64.3%, respectively). Conclusions Multi-professional management of pediatric trauma and individual experiences with severely injured children depend on volumes, level of trauma centers and infrastructure of the hospital. However, respondents from hospitals at all levels of trauma care complain about an alarming lack of knowledge on pediatric trauma management

Identification of shared risk loci and pathways for bipolar disorder and schizophrenia

Bipolar disorder (BD) is a highly heritable neuropsychiatric disease characterized by recurrent episodes of mania and depression. BD shows substantial clinical and genetic overlap with other psychiatric disorders, in particular schizophrenia (SCZ). The genes underlying this etiological overlap remain largely unknown. A recent SCZ genome wide association study (GWAS) by the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium identified 128 independent genome-wide significant single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). The present study investigated whether these SCZ-associated SNPs also contribute to BD development through the performance of association testing in a large BD GWAS dataset (9747 patients, 14278 controls). After re-imputation and correction for sample overlap, 22 of 107 investigated SCZ SNPs showed nominal association with BD. The number of shared SCZ-BD SNPs was significantly higher than expected (p = 1.46x10-8 ). This provides further evidence that SCZassociated loci contribute to the development of BD. Two SNPs remained significant after Bonferroni correction. The most strongly associated SNP was located near TRANK1, which is a reported genome-wide significant risk gene for BD. Pathway analyses for all shared SCZ-BD SNPs revealed 25 nominally enriched gene-sets, which showed partial overlap in terms of the underlying genes. The enriched gene-sets included calcium- and glutamate signaling, neuropathic pain signaling in dorsal horn neurons, and calmodulin binding. The present data provide further insights into shared risk loci and disease-associated pathways for BD and SCZ. This may suggest new research directions for the treatment and prevention of these two major psychiatric disorders