Road avoidance and its energetic consequences for reptiles

CITATION: Paterson, J. E., et al. 2019. Road avoidance and its energetic consequences for reptiles. Ecology and Evolution, 9(17):9794-9803, doi:10.1002/ece3.5515.The original publication is available at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.comRoads are one of the most widespread human-caused habitat modifications that can increase wildlife mortality rates and alter behavior. Roads can act as barriers with variable permeability to movement and can increase distances wildlife travel to access habitats. Movement is energetically costly, and avoidance of roads could therefore impact an animal's energy budget. We tested whether reptiles avoid roads or road crossings and explored whether the energetic consequences of road avoidance decreased individual fitness. Using telemetry data from Blanding's turtles (Emydoidea blandingii; 11,658 locations of 286 turtles from 15 sites) and eastern massasaugas (Sistrurus catenatus; 1,868 locations of 49 snakes from 3 sites), we compared frequency of observed road crossings and use of road-adjacent habitat by reptiles to expected frequencies based on simulated correlated random walks. Turtles and snakes did not avoid habitats near roads, but both species avoided road crossings. Compared with simulations, turtles made fewer crossings of paved roads with low speed limits and more crossings of paved roads with high speed limits. Snakes made fewer crossings of all road types than expected based on simulated paths. Turtles traveled longer daily distances when their home range contained roads, but the predicted energetic cost was negligible: substantially less than the cost of producing one egg. Snakes with roads in their home range did not travel further per day than snakes without roads in their home range. We found that turtles and snakes avoided crossing roads, but road avoidance is unlikely to impact fitness through energetic expenditures. Therefore, mortality from vehicle strikes remains the most significant impact of roads on reptile populations.https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ece3.5515Publisher's versio

Rising rural body-mass index is the main driver of the global obesity epidemic in adults

Body-mass index (BMI) has increased steadily in most countries in parallel with a rise in the proportion of the population who live in cities(.)(1,2) This has led to a widely reported view that urbanization is one of the most important drivers of the global rise in obesity(3-6). Here we use 2,009 population-based studies, with measurements of height and weight in more than 112 million adults, to report national, regional and global trends in mean BMI segregated by place of residence (a rural or urban area) from 1985 to 2017. We show that, contrary to the dominant paradigm, more than 55% of the global rise in mean BMI from 1985 to 2017-and more than 80% in some low- and middle-income regions-was due to increases in BMI in rural areas. This large contribution stems from the fact that, with the exception of women in sub-Saharan Africa, BMI is increasing at the same rate or faster in rural areas than in cities in low- and middle-income regions. These trends have in turn resulted in a closing-and in some countries reversal-of the gap in BMI between urban and rural areas in low- and middle-income countries, especially for women. In high-income and industrialized countries, we noted a persistently higher rural BMI, especially for women. There is an urgent need for an integrated approach to rural nutrition that enhances financial and physical access to healthy foods, to avoid replacing the rural undernutrition disadvantage in poor countries with a more general malnutrition disadvantage that entails excessive consumption of low-quality calories.Peer reviewe

Height and body-mass index trajectories of school-aged children and adolescents from 1985 to 2019 in 200 countries and territories: a pooled analysis of 2181 population-based studies with 65 million participants

Summary Background Comparable global data on health and nutrition of school-aged children and adolescents are scarce. We aimed to estimate age trajectories and time trends in mean height and mean body-mass index (BMI), which measures weight gain beyond what is expected from height gain, for school-aged children and adolescents. Methods For this pooled analysis, we used a database of cardiometabolic risk factors collated by the Non-Communicable Disease Risk Factor Collaboration. We applied a Bayesian hierarchical model to estimate trends from 1985 to 2019 in mean height and mean BMI in 1-year age groups for ages 5–19 years. The model allowed for non-linear changes over time in mean height and mean BMI and for non-linear changes with age of children and adolescents, including periods of rapid growth during adolescence. Findings We pooled data from 2181 population-based studies, with measurements of height and weight in 65 million participants in 200 countries and territories. In 2019, we estimated a difference of 20 cm or higher in mean height of 19-year-old adolescents between countries with the tallest populations (the Netherlands, Montenegro, Estonia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina for boys; and the Netherlands, Montenegro, Denmark, and Iceland for girls) and those with the shortest populations (Timor-Leste, Laos, Solomon Islands, and Papua New Guinea for boys; and Guatemala, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Timor-Leste for girls). In the same year, the difference between the highest mean BMI (in Pacific island countries, Kuwait, Bahrain, The Bahamas, Chile, the USA, and New Zealand for both boys and girls and in South Africa for girls) and lowest mean BMI (in India, Bangladesh, Timor-Leste, Ethiopia, and Chad for boys and girls; and in Japan and Romania for girls) was approximately 9–10 kg/m2. In some countries, children aged 5 years started with healthier height or BMI than the global median and, in some cases, as healthy as the best performing countries, but they became progressively less healthy compared with their comparators as they grew older by not growing as tall (eg, boys in Austria and Barbados, and girls in Belgium and Puerto Rico) or gaining too much weight for their height (eg, girls and boys in Kuwait, Bahrain, Fiji, Jamaica, and Mexico; and girls in South Africa and New Zealand). In other countries, growing children overtook the height of their comparators (eg, Latvia, Czech Republic, Morocco, and Iran) or curbed their weight gain (eg, Italy, France, and Croatia) in late childhood and adolescence. When changes in both height and BMI were considered, girls in South Korea, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and some central Asian countries (eg, Armenia and Azerbaijan), and boys in central and western Europe (eg, Portugal, Denmark, Poland, and Montenegro) had the healthiest changes in anthropometric status over the past 3·5 decades because, compared with children and adolescents in other countries, they had a much larger gain in height than they did in BMI. The unhealthiest changes—gaining too little height, too much weight for their height compared with children in other countries, or both—occurred in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, New Zealand, and the USA for boys and girls; in Malaysia and some Pacific island nations for boys; and in Mexico for girls. Interpretation The height and BMI trajectories over age and time of school-aged children and adolescents are highly variable across countries, which indicates heterogeneous nutritional quality and lifelong health advantages and risks

Heterogeneous contributions of change in population distribution of body mass index to change in obesity and underweight NCD Risk Factor Collaboration (NCD-RisC)

From 1985 to 2016, the prevalence of underweight decreased, and that of obesity and severe obesity increased, in most regions, with significant variation in the magnitude of these changes across regions. We investigated how much change in mean body mass index (BMI) explains changes in the prevalence of underweight, obesity, and severe obesity in different regions using data from 2896 population-based studies with 187 million participants. Changes in the prevalence of underweight and total obesity, and to a lesser extent severe obesity, are largely driven by shifts in the distribution of BMI, with smaller contributions from changes in the shape of the distribution. In East and Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, the underweight tail of the BMI distribution was left behind as the distribution shifted. There is a need for policies that address all forms of malnutrition by making healthy foods accessible and affordable, while restricting unhealthy foods through fiscal and regulatory restrictions

The strategic use of intellectual and industrial property laws to maintain and extend a dominant position in the pharmaceutical industry

It is assumed at the outset of this thesis that there is a public interest in the purchase of prescribed drugs at the lowest aggregate price consistent with the maintenace of reseach and development in the pharmaceutical field. The thesis investigates the operation of intellectual property law in this area and its effect on prices, investment, research and the availability of new drugs. The principal focus is on the United Kingdom but the conclusions reached may be validly applied to other jurisdictions. Each chapter is devoted to a specific branch of the law with a view to demonstrating how its exploitation by pharmaceutical firms has operated in the detriment of the public by virtually eliminating competition and thereby increasing prices. The unique nature of the pharmaceutical industry renders the desirability of exclusive rights in this area highly questionable and the abolition or curtailment of all forms of protection for pharmaceutical products is advocated

The strategic use of intellectual and industrial property laws to maintain and extend a dominant position in the pharmaceutical industry

It is assumed at the outset of this thesis that there is a public interest in the purchase of prescribed drugs at the lowest aggregate price consistent with the maintenace of reseach and development in the pharmaceutical field. The thesis investigates the operation of intellectual property law in this area and its effect on prices, investment, research and the availability of new drugs. The principal focus is on the United Kingdom but the conclusions reached may be validly applied to other jurisdictions. Each chapter is devoted to a specific branch of the law with a view to demonstrating how its exploitation by pharmaceutical firms has operated in the detriment of the public by virtually eliminating competition and thereby increasing prices. The unique nature of the pharmaceutical industry renders the desirability of exclusive rights in this area highly questionable and the abolition or curtailment of all forms of protection for pharmaceutical products is advocated

The strategic use of intellectual and industrial property laws to maintain and extend a dominant position in the pharmaceutical industry

It is assumed at the outset of this thesis that there is a public interest in the purchase of prescribed drugs at the lowest aggregate price consistent with the maintenace of reseach and development in the pharmaceutical field. The thesis investigates the operation of intellectual property law in this area and its effect on prices, investment, research and the availability of new drugs. The principal focus is on the United Kingdom but the conclusions reached may be validly applied to other jurisdictions. Each chapter is devoted to a specific branch of the law with a view to demonstrating how its exploitation by pharmaceutical firms has operated in the detriment of the public by virtually eliminating competition and thereby increasing prices. The unique nature of the pharmaceutical industry renders the desirability of exclusive rights in this area highly questionable and the abolition or curtailment of all forms of protection for pharmaceutical products is advocated.Law, Peter A. Allard School ofGraduat

Understanding the Design Values of Baby Books : Materiality, Co-presence, and Remediation

In this article we analyze the design values of selected baby books published in England, the United States and Italy across 100 years. The examples we focus on are What is This? What is That? (1905) of the Dean’s Rag books series, Pat the Bunny (1940), I PRELIBRI (1980), and Wiggle! March! (2009) of the Indestructibles series. We group these books into two pairs of simple or complex designs, based on either a drive for durability or the aim to provide a multisensory experience: the Dean’s Rag books and the Indestructibles form one set, and Pat the Bunny and I PRELIBRI the second. We approach the books by examining the relationships among the materiality, narrative and formal design elements, the implied co-presence of a young child and adult care, issues of context and gender, and how the later examples remediate or rework the materials and beliefs of the earlier ones in a contemporary manner.CC BY 4.0 DEED© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V. 2023Published: 15 November 2023</p

Arts@Tech

Welcoming remarks by Melissa Foulger, artistic director of DramaTech, Rebecca Rouse, LMC Ph.D. student, and Dean Jacquelyn Royster, Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts; Introduction by Dr. Aaron Bobick, Chair of the Council of the Arts.Presented on February 28, 2013 in the DramaTech Theater.Runtime: 08:38 minutes.Funded by Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts, The School of Literature, Media and Communication, The GVU Center, DramaTech, and The Ferst Center for the Art