Eight grand challenges in socio-environmental systems modeling

Modeling is essential to characterize and explore complex societal and environmental issues in systematic and collaborative ways. Socio-environmental systems (SES) modeling integrates knowledge and perspectives into conceptual and computational tools that explicitly recognize how human decisions affect the environment. Depending on the modeling purpose, many SES modelers also realize that involvement of stakeholders and experts is fundamental to support social learning and decision-making processes for achieving improved environmental and social outcomes. The contribution of this paper lies in identifying and formulating grand challenges that need to be overcome to accelerate the development and adaptation of SES modeling. Eight challenges are delineated: bridging epistemologies across disciplines; multi-dimensional uncertainty assessment and management; scales and scaling issues; combining qualitative and quantitative methods and data; furthering the adoption and impacts of SES modeling on policy; capturing structural changes; representing human dimensions in SES; and leveraging new data types and sources. These challenges limit our ability to effectively use SES modeling to provide the knowledge and information essential for supporting decision making. Whereas some of these challenges are not unique to SES modeling and may be pervasive in other scientific fields, they still act as barriers as well as research opportunities for the SES modeling community. For each challenge, we outline basic steps that can be taken to surmount the underpinning barriers. Thus, the paper identifies priority research areas in SES modeling, chiefly related to progressing modeling products, processes and practices.</jats:p

Position paper: Open web-distributed integrated geographic modelling and simulation to enable broader participation and applications

© 2020 The Authors Integrated geographic modelling and simulation is a computational means to improve understanding of the environment. With the development of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and web technologies, it is possible to conduct open, extensible integrated geographic modelling across a network in which resources can be accessed and integrated, and further distributed geographic simulations can be performed. This open web-distributed modelling and simulation approach is likely to enhance the use of existing resources and can attract diverse participants. With this approach, participants from different physical locations or domains of expertise can perform comprehensive modelling and simulation tasks collaboratively. This paper reviews past integrated modelling and simulation systems, highlighting the associated development challenges when moving to an open web-distributed system. A conceptual framework is proposed to introduce a roadmap from a system design perspective, with potential use cases provided. The four components of this conceptual framework - a set of standards, a resource sharing environment, a collaborative integrated modelling environment, and a distributed simulation environment - are also discussed in detail with the goal of advancing this emerging field

Allergen-specific immunotherapy provides immediate, long-term and preventive clinical effects in children and adults: the effects of immunotherapy can be categorised by level of benefit -the centenary of allergen specific subcutaneous immunotherapy

Allergen Specific Immunotherapy (SIT) for respiratory allergic diseases is able to significantly improve symptoms as well as reduce the need for symptomatic medication, but SIT also has the capacity for long-term clinical effects and plays a protective role against the development of further allergies and symptoms. The treatment acts on basic immunological mechanisms, and has the potential to change the pathological allergic immune response. In this paper we discuss some of the most important achievements in the documentation of the benefits of immunotherapy, over the last 2 decades, which have marked a period of extensive research on the clinical effects and immunological background of the mechanisms involved. The outcome of immunotherapy is described as different levels of benefit from early reduction in symptoms over progressive clinical effects during treatment to long-term effects after discontinuation of the treatment and prevention of asthma. The efficacy of SIT increases the longer it is continued and immunological changes lead to potential long-term benefits. SIT alone and not the symptomatic treatment nor other avoidance measures has so far been documented as the therapy with long-term or preventive potential. The allergic condition is driven by a subset of T-helper lymphocytes (Th2), which are characterised by the production of cytokines like IL-4, and IL-5. Immunological changes following SIT lead to potential curative effects. One mechanism whereby immunotherapy suppresses the allergic response is through increased production of IgG4 antibodies. Induction of specific IgG4 is able to influence the allergic response in different ways and is related to immunological effector mechanisms, also responsible for the reduced late phase hyperreactivity and ongoing allergic inflammation. SIT is the only treatment which interferes with the basic pathophysiological mechanisms of the allergic disease, thereby creating the potential for changes in the long-term prognosis of respiratory allergy. SIT should not only be recognised as first-line therapeutic treatment for allergic rhinoconjunctivitis but also as secondary preventive treatment for respiratory allergic diseases

Pseudomonas aeruginosa Population Structure Revisited

At present there are strong indications that Pseudomonas aeruginosa exhibits an epidemic population structure; clinical isolates are indistinguishable from environmental isolates, and they do not exhibit a specific (disease) habitat selection. However, some important issues, such as the worldwide emergence of highly transmissible P. aeruginosa clones among cystic fibrosis (CF) patients and the spread and persistence of multidrug resistant (MDR) strains in hospital wards with high antibiotic pressure, remain contentious. To further investigate the population structure of P. aeruginosa, eight parameters were analyzed and combined for 328 unrelated isolates, collected over the last 125 years from 69 localities in 30 countries on five continents, from diverse clinical (human and animal) and environmental habitats. The analysed parameters were: i) O serotype, ii) Fluorescent Amplified-Fragment Length Polymorphism (FALFP) pattern, nucleotide sequences of outer membrane protein genes, iii) oprI, iv) oprL, v) oprD, vi) pyoverdine receptor gene profile (fpvA type and fpvB prevalence), and prevalence of vii) exoenzyme genes exoS and exoU and viii) group I pilin glycosyltransferase gene tfpO. These traits were combined and analysed using biological data analysis software and visualized in the form of a minimum spanning tree (MST). We revealed a network of relationships between all analyzed parameters and non-congruence between experiments. At the same time we observed several conserved clones, characterized by an almost identical data set. These observations confirm the nonclonal epidemic population structure of P. aeruginosa, a superficially clonal structure with frequent recombinations, in which occasionally highly successful epidemic clones arise. One of these clones is the renown and widespread MDR serotype O12 clone. On the other hand, we found no evidence for a widespread CF transmissible clone. All but one of the 43 analysed CF strains belonged to a ubiquitous P. aeruginosa “core lineage” and typically exhibited the exoS+/exoU− genotype and group B oprL and oprD alleles. This is to our knowledge the first report of an MST analysis conducted on a polyphasic data set

Ethical issues in autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT) in advanced breast cancer: A systematic literature review

BACKGROUND: An effectiveness assessment on ASCT in locally advanced and metastatic breast cancer identified serious ethical issues associated with this intervention. Our objective was to systematically review these aspects by means of a literature analysis. METHODS: We chose the reflexive Socratic approach as the review method using Hofmann's question list, conducted a comprehensive literature search in biomedical, psychological and ethics bibliographic databases and screened the resulting hits in a 2-step selection process. Relevant arguments were assembled from the included articles, and were assessed and assigned to the question list. Hofmann's questions were addressed by synthesizing these arguments. RESULTS: Of the identified 879 documents 102 included arguments related to one or more questions from Hofmann's question list. The most important ethical issues were the implementation of ASCT in clinical practice on the basis of phase-II trials in the 1990s and the publication of falsified data in the first randomized controlled trials (Bezwoda fraud), which caused significant negative effects on recruiting patients for further clinical trials and the doctor-patient relationship. Recent meta-analyses report a marginal effect in prolonging disease-free survival, accompanied by severe harms, including death. ASCT in breast cancer remains a stigmatized technology. Reported health-related-quality-of-life data are often at high risk of bias in favor of the survivors. Furthermore little attention has been paid to those patients who were dying. CONCLUSIONS: The questions were addressed in different degrees of completeness. All arguments were assignable to the questions. The central ethical dimensions of ASCT could be discussed by reviewing the published literature

Effects of preoperative plasma exchange therapy with albumin replacement fluid on blood coagulation in patients undergoing ABO-incompatible living-donor kidney transplantation using rotational thromboelastometry

Abstract Background ABO-incompatible living-donor kidney transplantation (LDKT) requires immunotherapy and plasma exchange therapy (PEX). PEX with albumin replacement fluid reportedly decreases fibrinogen levels. However, no reports have described the effects of PEX with albumin replacement fluid on blood coagulation parameters and blood loss during the perioperative period. Therefore, we investigated the effects of preoperative PEX on blood coagulation parameters and blood loss during the perioperative period in patients undergoing ABO-incompatible LDKT as measured by rotational thromboelastometry (ROTEM®). Methods Twenty-eight patients undergoing LDKT were divided into the PEX group (ABO incompatible with PEX, n = 13) and non-PEX group (ABO compatible without PEX, n = 15). ROTEM® parameters, standard laboratory test parameters, bleeding volume, and transfusion volume were compared between PEX and non-PEX group. MCEplatelet, which represents platelet contribution to clot strength and where “MCE” stands for maximum clot elasticity, was calculated from the difference in MCE between EXTEM and FIBTEM. Results The bleeding volume during surgery and the intensive care unit (ICU) stay was significantly higher in the PEX than non-PEX group (p < 0.01). Maximum clot firmness (MCF) of EXTEM (MCFEXTEM), MCFFIBTEM, and MCEplatelet was significantly lower in the PEX than non-PEX group (p < 0.01). In the PEX group, the bleeding volume during surgery was very strongly correlated with the baseline MCFEXTEM and MCEplatelet, and the bleeding volume during the ICU stay was strongly correlated with the postoperative MCFEXTEM and MCEplatelet. Conclusions These results suggest that the increased blood loss in the PEX group during surgery and the ICU stay was associated with decreased platelet contribution to clot strength as measured by ROTEM®. Trial registration UMIN-Clinical Trial Registry UMIN000018355. Registered 21 July 2015

A sustainable future supply of sediment for the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta?

Recent research highlights that delta submergence is an important issue for the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna (GBM) delta. The only factor that could potentially offset losses in delta surface elevation is a sustainable supply of fluvial sediment. River sediments therefore have considerable economic and social value for ecosystem services and those they support. Analysis, using the HydroTrend model, indicates that an increase in the climate-driven supply of fluvial sediment to the GBM delta has the potential, through accelerated aggradation on the delta surface, to offset some of the adverse impacts of climate change due to rising sea levels in the Bay of Bengal. However, anthropogenic disconnections, such as dams, flood defences and polders disturbances, have the possibility to negatively affect this process

Satellite-Based Estimation of Water Discharge and Runoff in the Magdalena River, Northern Andes of Colombia

Satellite-derived data provide important information about river characteristics such as channel geometry, water surface area, water levels, and floodplain extension (Rokni et al. 2015; Schumann and Moller 2015; Smith 1997