Peatlands and plantations in Sumatra, Indonesia : Complex realities for resource governance, rural development and climate change mitigation

Peatlands play a crucial role in Indonesia's economic development, and in its stated goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Improved peatland management - including a national moratorium on the granting of any new conversion licenses - forms a cornerstone of Indonesia's climate change mitigation commitment. At the same time, rapid expansion of the plantation sector is driving wide-scale drainage and conversion of peat swamp ecosystems. The province of Riau, in central Sumatra, finds itself at the crossroads of these conflicting agendas. This essay presents a case study of three islands on Riau's east coast affected by industrial timber plantation concessions. It examines the divergent experiences, perceptions and responses of communities on the islands. A mix of dramatic protests, localised everyday actions and constructive dialogue has succeeded in delaying or perhaps halting one of the concessions, while negotiations and contestation with the other two continue. With the support of regional and national non-governmental organisations and local government, communities are pursuing alternative development strategies, including the cultivation of sago, which requires no peat drainage. While a powerful political economy of state and corporate actors shapes the contours of socio-environmental change, local social movements can alter trajectories of change, promoting incremental improvements and alternative pathways

Invasion Ecology goes to town : from disdain to sympathy

How can one understand the increasing interest in “urban invasions”, or biological invasions in urban environments? We argue that interest in urban invasions echoes a broader evolution in how ecologists view “the city” in relation to “the natural”. Previously stark categorical distinctions between urban and natural, human and wild, city and ecology have foundered. Drawing on conceptual material and an analysis of key texts, we first show how the ecological sciences in general – and then invasion science in particular – previously had a blind spot for cities, despite a number of important historical and continental European exceptions. Then, we document the advent of an urban turn in ecology and, more recently, in invasion ecology, and how this has challenged fundamental concepts about “nativity”, “naturalness”, and human agency in nature. The urban turn necessitates more explicit and direct attention to human roles and judgements. Ecology has moved from contempt (or indifference) for cities, towards interest or even sympathy

The Effect of Hot Gas in WMAP's First Year Data

By cross-correlating templates constructed from the 2 Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) Extended Source (XSC) catalogue with WMAP's first year data, we search for the thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich signature induced by hot gas in the local Universe. Assuming that galaxies trace the distribution of hot gas, we select regions on the sky with the largest projected density of galaxies. Under conservative assumptions on the amplitude of foreground residuals, we find a temperature decrement of -35 $\pm$ 7 $\mu$K ($\sim 5\sigma$ detection level, the highest reported so far) in the $\sim$ 26 square degrees of the sky containing the largest number of galaxies per solid angle. We show that most of the reported signal is caused by known galaxy clusters which, when convolved with the average beam of the WMAP W band channel, subtend a typical angular size of 20--30 arcmins. Finally, after removing from our analyses all pixels associated with known optical and X-ray galaxy clusters, we still find a tSZ decrement of -96 $\pm$ 37 $\mu$K in pixels subtending about $\sim$ 0.8 square degrees on the sky. Most of this signal is coming from five different cluster candidates in the Zone of Avoidance (ZoA), present in the Clusters In the ZoA (CIZA) catalogue. We found no evidence that structures less bound than clusters contribute to the tSZ signal present in the WMAP data.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures, matches accepted version in ApJ Letter

Farmer-Managed Natural Regeneration Enhances Rural Livelihoods in Dryland West Africa

Declining agricultural productivity, land clearance and climate change are compounding the vulnerability of already marginal rural populations in West Africa. 'Farmer-Managed Natural Regeneration' (FMNR) is an approach to arable land restoration and reforestation that seeks to reconcile sustained food production, conservation of soils and protection of biodiversity. It involves selecting and protecting the most vigorous stems regrowing from live stumps of felled trees, pruning off all other stems, and pollarding the chosen stems to grow into straight trunks. Despite widespread enthusiasm and application of FMNR by environmental management and development projects, to date, no research has provided a measure of the aggregate livelihood impact of community adoption of FMNR. This paper places FMNR in the context of other agroforestry initiatives, then seeks to quantify the value of livelihood outcomes of FMNR. We review published and unpublished evidence about the impacts of FMNR, and present a new case study that addresses gaps in the evidence base. The case study focuses on a FMNR project in the district of Talensi in the semi-arid Upper East Region in Ghana. The case study employs a Social Return on Investment (SROI) analysis, which identifies proxy financial values for non-economic as well as economic benefits. The results demonstrate income and agricultural benefits, but also show that asset creation, increased consumption of wild resources, health improvements and psycho-social benefits created more value in FMNR-adopting households during the period of the study than increases in income and agricultural yields

The Search for the Missing Baryons at Low Redshift

At low redshift, only about one-tenth of the known baryons lie in galaxies or the hot gas seen in galaxy clusters and groups. Models posit that these "missing baryons" are in gaseous form in overdense filaments that connect the much denser virialized groups and clusters. About 30% are cool (<1E5 K) and are detected in Ly alpha absorption studies, but about half is predicted to lie in the 1E5-1E7 K regime. Gas is detected in the 2-5E5 K range through OVI absorption studies (7% of the baryons) and possibly near 1E5 K from broad Ly absorption (20% of the baryons). Hotter gas (0.5-2E6 K) is detected at zero redshift by OVII and OVIII K X-ray absorption, and the OVII line strengths seem to correlate with the Galactic soft X-ray background, so it is probably produced by Galactic Halo gas, rather than a Local Group medium. There are no compelling detections of the intergalactic hot gas (0.5-10E6 K) either in absorption or emission and these upper limits are consistent with theoretical models. Claimed X-ray absorption lines are not confirmed, while most of the claims of soft emission are attributable to artifacts of background subtraction and field-flattening. The missing baryons should become detectable with moderate improvements in instrumental sensitivity.Comment: To appear in Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Vol 45 (Sept 2007) 44 pages, including 11 figure

Femoral vs sciatic nerve block to provide analgesia after medial open wedge high tibial osteotomy in the setting of multimodal analgesia: A randomized, controlled, single-blinded trial.

Medial open wedge high tibial osteotomy (MOW HTO) is associated with moderate to severe postoperative pain. The proximal part of the tibia is innervated by branches from the femoral nerve anteriorly and the sciatic nerve posteriorly. There is a paucity of information regarding the optimal peripheral nerve block for postoperative analgesia with minimal impact on motor function. This study tested the hypothesis that a femoral nerve block provides superior analgesia to a sciatic nerve block after MOW HTO in the setting of multimodal analgesia. Randomized controlled single-blind trial. Operating room, postoperative recovery area and ward, up to 6 postoperative months. Fifty patients undergoing MOW HTO. Interventions were femoral or sciatic nerve block under ultrasound guidance. For each intervention, a total of 100 mg of ropivacaine was injected. Postoperative pain treatment followed a pre-defined protocol with intravenous patient-controlled analgesia of morphine, paracetamol, and ibuprofen. The primary outcome was intravenous morphine consumption at 24 h postoperatively. Secondary outcomes included rest and dynamic pain scores (on a numeric rating scale out of 10) at 2, 24 and 48 h postoperatively. Functional outcomes included the Short Form-12, Knee injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score, and International Knee Documentation Committee (IKDC) scores measured at 6 months postoperatively. Mean [95% confidence interval] i.v. morphine consumption at 24 postoperative hours were 24 mg [15 mg,33 mg] in the femoral nerve block group and 24 mg [16 mg,32 mg] in the sciatic nerve block group (p = 0.98). There were no significant differences in the secondary outcomes between groups. This trial failed to demonstrate that a femoral nerve block provides superior analgesia to a sciatic nerve block after MOW HTO under general anesthesia in the setting of multimodal analgesia. There was no significant difference in quality of life and functional outcomes at 6 months postoperatively between groups. Trial registry number:Clinicaltrials.com - NCT05728294; Kofam.ch - SNCTP000003048 | BASEC2018-01774

A kinesin motor in a force-producing conformation

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Kinesin motors hydrolyze ATP to produce force and move along microtubules, converting chemical energy into work by a mechanism that is only poorly understood. Key transitions and intermediate states in the process are still structurally uncharacterized, and remain outstanding questions in the field. Perturbing the motor by introducing point mutations could stabilize transitional or unstable states, providing critical information about these rarer states.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Here we show that mutation of a single residue in the kinesin-14 Ncd causes the motor to release ADP and hydrolyze ATP faster than wild type, but move more slowly along microtubules in gliding assays, uncoupling nucleotide hydrolysis from force generation. A crystal structure of the motor shows a large rotation of the stalk, a conformation representing a force-producing stroke of Ncd. Three C-terminal residues of Ncd, visible for the first time, interact with the central β-sheet and dock onto the motor core, forming a structure resembling the kinesin-1 neck linker, which has been proposed to be the primary force-generating mechanical element of kinesin-1.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Force generation by minus-end Ncd involves docking of the C-terminus, which forms a structure resembling the kinesin-1 neck linker. The mechanism by which the plus- and minus-end motors produce force to move to opposite ends of the microtubule appears to involve the same conformational changes, but distinct structural linkers. Unstable ADP binding may destabilize the motor-ADP state, triggering Ncd stalk rotation and C-terminus docking, producing a working stroke of the motor.</p

The Impact of the Introduction of Total Mesorectal Excision on Local Recurrence Rate and Survival in Rectal Cancer: Long-Term Results

Purpose: To investigate the influence of the introduction of total mesorectal excision (TME) on local recurrence rate and survival in patients with rectal cancer. Methods: A total of 171 consecutive patients underwent anterior or abdominoperineal resection for primary rectal cancer. When the TME technique was introduced, the clinical setting, including the surgeons, remained the same. Group 1 (1993-95, n=53) underwent conventional surgery and group 2 (1995-2001, n=118) underwent TME. All patients were followed for 7years or until death. Results: Between the two groups, no statistically significant differences were present with regards to patient-, treatment-, or tumor-related characteristics apart from the time point of radiotherapy. The total local recurrence rates were 11 of 53 (20.8%) in group 1 and 7 of 118 (5.9%) in group 2, and the rates of isolated local recurrences were 6 of 53 (11.3%) in group 1 and 2 of 118 (1.7%) in group 2. Both differences were highly statistically significant. The disease-free survival in groups 1 and 2 was 60.4 and 65.3% at 5years, and 58.5 and 65.3% at 7years, respectively. Excluding patients with synchronous or metachronous distant metastasis from the analysis, both the disease-free survival and the cancer-specific survival were statistically significantly better in group 2 than in group 1. No statistically significant difference between the two groups was detected regarding the overall survival. Conclusions: The introduction of TME led to an impressive reduction of the local recurrence rate. Survival is mainly determined by the occurrence of distant metastasis, but TME seems to improve survival in patients without systemic diseas

Chance long-distance or human-mediated dispersal? How Acacia s.l. farnesiana attained its pan-tropical distribution

Acacia s.l. farnesiana, which originates from Mesoamerica, is the most widely distributed Acacia s.l. species across the tropics. It is assumed that the plant was transferred across the Atlantic to southern Europe by Spanish explorers, and then spread across the Old World tropics through a combination of chance long-distance and human-mediated dispersal. Our study uses genetic analysis and information from historical sources to test the relative roles of chance and human-mediated dispersal in its distribution. The results confirm the Mesoamerican origins of the plant and show three patterns of human- mediated dispersal. Samples from Spain showed greater genetic diversity than those from other Old World tropics, suggesting more instances of transatlantic introductions from the Americas to that country than to other parts of Africa and Asia. Individuals from the Philippines matched a population from South Central Mexico and were likely to have been direct, trans-Pacific introductions. Australian samples were genetically unique, indicating that the arrival of the species in the continent was independent of these European colonial activities. This suggests the possibility of pre-European human- mediated dispersal across the Pacific Ocean. These significant findings raise new questions for biogeographic studies that assume chance or transoceanic dispersal 2 for disjunct plant distributions

Missing baryons, bulk flows and the E-mode polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background

If the peculiar motion of galaxy groups and clusters indeed resembles that of the surrounding baryons, then the kinetic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (kSZ) pattern of those massive halos should be closely correlated to the kSZ pattern of all surrounding electrons. Likewise, it should also be correlated to the CMB E-mode polarization field generated via Thomson scattering after reionization. We explore the cross-correlation of the kSZ generated in groups and clusters to the all sky E-mode polarization in the context of upcoming CMB experiments like Planck, ACT, SPT or APEX. We find that this cross-correlation is effectively probing redshifts below $z=3-4$ (where most of baryons cannot be seen), and that it arises in the very large scales ($l<10$). The significance with which this cross-correlation can be measured depends on the Poissonian uncertainty associated to the number of halos where the kSZ is measured and on the accuracy of the kSZ estimations themselves. Assuming that Planck can provide a cosmic variance limited E-mode polarization map at $l<20$ and S/N $\sim 1$ kSZ estimates can be gathered for all clusters more massive than $10^{14} M_{\odot}$, then this cross-correlation should be measured at the 2--3 $\sigma$ level. Further, if an all-sky ACT or SPT type CMB experiment provides similar kSZ measurements for all halos above $10^{13} M_{\odot}$, then the cross-correlation total signal to noise (S/N) ratio should be at the level of 4--5. A detection of this cross-correlation would provide direct and definite evidence of bulk flows and missing baryons simultaneously.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, submitted to A&