A Fate Worse Than Warming? Stratospheric Aerosol Injection and Global Catastrophic Risk

Injecting particles into atmosphere to reflect sunlight, stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI), represents a potential technological solution to the threat of climate change. But could the cure be worse than the disease? Understanding low probability, yet plausible, high-impact cases is critical to prudent climate risk management and SAI deliberation. But analyses of such high impact outcomes are lacking in SAI research. This paper helps resolve this gap by investigating SAI's contributions to global catastrophic risk. We split SAI's contributions to catastrophic risk into four interrelated dimensions:1. Acting as a direct catastrophic risk through potentially unforeseen ecological blowback.2. Interacting with other globally catastrophic hazards like nuclear war.3. Exacerbating systemic risk (risks that cascade and amplify across different systems);4. Acting as a latent risk (risk that is dormant but can later be triggered).The potential for major unforeseen environmental consequences seems highly unlikely but is ultimately unknown. SAI plausibly interacts with other catastrophic calamities, most notably by potentially exacerbating the impacts of nuclear war or an extreme space weather event. SAI could contribute to systemic risk by introducing stressors into critical systems such as agriculture. SAI's systemic stressors, and risks of systemic cascades and synchronous failures, are highly understudied. SAI deployment more tightly couples different ecological, economic, and political systems. This creates a precarious condition of latent risk, the largest cause for concern. Thicker SAI masking extreme warming could create a planetary Sword of Damocles. That is, if SAI were removed but underlying greenhouse gas concentrations not reduced, there would be extreme warming in a very short timeframe. Sufficiently large global shocks could force SAI termination and trigger SAI's latent risk, compounding disasters and catastrophic risks. Across all these dimensions, the specific SAI deployment, and associated governance, is critical. A well-coordinated use of a small amount of SAI would incur negligible risks, but this is an optimistic scenario. Conversely, larger use of SAI used in an uncoordinated manner poses many potential dangers. We cannot equivocally determine whether SAI will be worse than warming. For now, a heavy reliance on SAI seems an imprudent policy response.</jats:p

Cushing's ulcer: Further reflections

BACKGROUND: Brain tumors, traumatic head injury, and other intracranial processes including infections, can cause increased intracranial pressure and lead to overstimulation of the vagus nerve. As a result, increased secretion of gastric acid may occur which leads to gastro-duodenal ulcer formation known as Cushing's ulcer. METHODS: A review of original records of Dr. Harvey Cushing's patients suffering from gastro-duodenal ulcers was performed followed by a discussion of the available literature. We also reviewed the clinical records of the patients never reported by Cushing to gain his perspective in describing this phenomenon. Dr. Cushing was intrigued to investigate gastro-duodenal ulcers as he lost patients to acute gastrointestinal perforations following successful brain tumor operations. It is indeed ironic that Harvey Cushing developed a gastro-duodenal ulcer in his later years with failing health. RESULTS: Clinically shown by Cushing's Yale Registry, a tumor or lesion can disrupt this circuitry, leading to gastroduodenal ulceration. Cushing said that it was "reasonable to believe that the perforations following posterior fossa cerebellar operations were produced in like fashion by an irritative disturbance either of fiber tracts or vagal centers in the brain stem." CONCLUSION: Harvey Cushing's pioneering work depicted in his Yale registry serves as a milestone for continuing research that can further discern this pathway

The Evaluation and Followup of Children Referred to Pediatric Endocrinologists for Short Stature

Objective. To characterize the pediatric endocrinologists' evaluation and followup of short-statured patients. Study Design. Observational study of 21,548 short-statured children (April 1996 to December 1999). Baseline demographics, laboratory testing, height standard deviation score (SDS), target height, and height relative to target height were analyzed at initial and return visits with the specialist. Patients were scheduled for at least one return visit and no recombinant human growth hormone therapy was administered. Results. Mean patient age was 8.6 years with a mean height SDS of −2.1. Patients were predominantly male (69%), prepubertal (73%), and white (76%). Few screening tests were obtained during initial evaluation. Nearly 40% of children did not return for their second scheduled visit. The follow-up rate was unrelated to demographics or degree of short stature. Conclusions. Low return rates limit specialists' ability to monitor growth or obtain laboratory testing over time. Further studies are needed to determine which tests should be obtained at the initial clinic visit as well as the basis for the low return rate in this group of children

eClinic: increasing use of telehealth as a risk reduction strategy during the covid-19 pandemic

Prior to the covid-19 pandemic, telehealth was already being rapidly adopted nationally by healthcare systems. During the covid-19 pandemic, increased use of telehealth may be considered as a risk reduction strategy. Benefits of this strategy may be conferred to both patients and health providers.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/155565/1/Kemp_Williams_Alam_eClinic.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/155565/4/DeepBluepermissions_agreement-CCBYandCCBY-NC_ORCID.pdfDescription of Kemp_Williams_Alam_eClinic.pdf : ArticleDescription of DeepBluepermissions_agreement-CCBYandCCBY-NC_ORCID.pdf : Deep Blue sharing agreemen

Trial Designs Likely to Meet Valid Long-Term Alzheimer's Disease Progression Effects: Learning from the Past, Preparing for the Future

The International Society for CNS Clinical Trials and Methodology (ISCTM) held its 4th Annual Autumn Conference in Toronto, Ontario, October 6-7, 2008. The purpose of the present report is to provide an overview of one of the sessions at the conference which focused on the designs and methodologies to be applied in clinical trials of new treatments for Alzheimer's disease (AD) with purported “disease-modifying” effects. The session began with a discussion of how neuroimaging has been applied in multiple sclerosis clinical trials (another condition for which disease modification claims have been achieved). The next two lectures provided a pharmaceutical industry perspective on some of the specific challenges and possible solutions for designing trials to measure disease progression and/or modification. The final lecture provided an academic viewpoint and the closing discussion included additional academic and regulatory perspectives on trial designs, methodologies, and statistical issues relevant to the disease modification concept

Ocean Bottom Seismometer Augmentation of the Philippine Sea Experiment (OBSAPS) cruise report

The Ocean Bottom Seismometer Augmentation to the Philippine Sea Experiment (OBSAPS, April-May, 2011, R/V Revelle) addresses the coherence and depth dependence of deep-water ambient noise and signals. During the 2004 NPAL Experiment in the North Pacific Ocean, in addition to predicted ocean acoustic arrivals and deep shadow zone arrivals, we observed "deep seafloor arrivals" that were dominant on the seafloor Ocean Bottom Seismometer (OBS) (at about 5000m depth) but were absent or very weak on the Distributed Vertical Line Array (DVLA) (above 4250m depth). These "deep seafloor arrivals" (DSFA) are a new class of arrivals in ocean acoustics possibly associated with seafloor interface waves. The OBSAPS cruise had three major research goals: a) identification and analysis of DSFAs occurring at short (1/2CZ) ranges in the 50 to 400Hz band, b) analysis of deep sea ambient noise in the band 0.03 to 80Hz, and c) analysis of the frequency dependence of BR and SRBR paths as a function of frequency. On OBSAPS we deployed a fifteen element VLA from 12 to 852m above the seafloor, four short-period OBSs and two long-period OBSs and carried out an 11.5day transmission program using a J15-3 acoustic source.Funding was provided by the Office of Naval Research under Contract Nos. N00014-10-1-0994 and N00014-10-1-0987

Preliminary Ground-Based Observation for the Soil Moisture Measurement Validation of ADEOS II-AMSR/AMSR-E

研究概要:AMSR-E(2002年3月打ち上げ予定)とAMSR (2002年11月打ち上げ予定)の土壌水分測定アルゴリズムの検証のために、モンゴル高原で地上検証用試験地の設定と検証のための準備観測(モニタリングと集中土壌水分・植物水分移動観測)を行った。試験地内の降雨分布および土壌水分と植物水分の分布には地域的な差異があることが分かると共に変化幅も検証に値するものであることが分かった

Prematurity and respiratory outcomes program (PROP): Study protocol of a prospective multicenter study of respiratory outcomes of preterm infants in the United States

Background With improved survival rates, short- and long-term respiratory complications of premature birth are increasing, adding significantly to financial and health burdens in the United States. In response, in May 2010, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) funded a 5-year $18.5 million research initiative to ultimately improve strategies for managing the respiratory complications of preterm and low birth weight infants. Using a collaborative, multi-disciplinary structure, the resulting Prematurity and Respiratory Outcomes Program (PROP) seeks to understand factors that correlate with future risk for respiratory morbidity. Methods/Design The PROP is an observational prospective cohort study performed by a consortium of six clinical centers (incorporating tertiary neonatal intensive care units [NICU] at 13 sites) and a data-coordinating center working in collaboration with the NHLBI. Each clinical center contributes subjects to the study, enrolling infants with gestational ages 23 0/7 to 28 6/7 weeks with an anticipated target of 750 survivors at 36 weeks post-menstrual age. In addition, each center brings specific areas of scientific focus to the Program. The primary study hypothesis is that in survivors of extreme prematurity specific biologic, physiologic and clinical data predicts respiratory morbidity between discharge and 1 year corrected age. Analytic statistical methodology includes model-based and non-model-based analyses, descriptive analyses and generalized linear mixed models. Discussion PROP incorporates aspects of NICU care to develop objective biomarkers and outcome measures of respiratory morbidity in the <29 week gestation population beyond just the NICU hospitalization, thereby leading to novel understanding of the nature and natural history of neonatal lung disease and of potential mechanistic and therapeutic targets in at-risk subjects