31 research outputs found
Reduced fire severity offers near-term buffer to climate-driven declines in conifer resilience across the western United States
Increasing fire severity and warmer, drier postfire conditions are making forests in the western United States (West) vulnerable to ecological transformation. Yet, the relative importance of and interactions between these drivers of forest change remain unresolved, particularly over upcoming decades. Here, we assess how the interactive impacts of changing climate and wildfire activity influenced conifer regeneration after 334 wildfires, using a dataset of postfire conifer regeneration from 10,230 field plots. Our findings highlight declining regeneration capacity across the West over the past four decades for the eight dominant conifer species studied. Postfire regeneration is sensitive to high-severity fire, which limits seed availability, and postfire climate, which influences seedling establishment. In the near-term, projected differences in recruitment probability between low- and high-severity fire scenarios were larger than projected climate change impacts for most species, suggesting that reductions in fire severity, and resultant impacts on seed availability, could partially offset expected climate-driven declines in postfire regeneration. Across 40 to 42% of the study area, we project postfire conifer regeneration to be likely following low-severity but not high-severity fire under future climate scenarios (2031 to 2050). However, increasingly warm, dry climate conditions are projected to eventually outweigh the influence of fire severity and seed availability. The percent of the study area considered unlikely to experience conifer regeneration, regardless of fire severity, increased from 5% in 1981 to 2000 to 26 to 31% by mid-century, highlighting a limited time window over which management actions that reduce fire severity may effectively support postfire conifer regeneration. © 2023 the Author(s)
Assumption without representation: the unacknowledged abstraction from communities and social goods
We have not clearly acknowledged the abstraction from unpriceable âsocial goodsâ (derived from
communities) which, different from private and public goods, simply disappear if it is attempted to
market them. Separability from markets and economics has not been argued, much less established.
Acknowledging communities would reinforce rather than undermine them, and thus facilitate
the production of social goods. But it would also help economics by facilitating our understanding
of â and response to â financial crises as well as environmental destruction and many social problems,
and by reducing the alienation from economics often felt by students and the public
What Price Sugar? Land, Labor, and Revolution
[First paragraph] Sugar, Slavery, and Society: Perspectives on the Caribbean, India, the Mascarenes, and the United States. Bernard Moitt (ed.). Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2004. vii + 203 pp. (Cloth US 65.00)
Tropical Babylons: Sugar and the Making of the Atlantic World, 1450-1680. Stuart B. Schwartz (ed.). Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004. xiii + 347 pp. (Paper US 22.50) These two books illustrate the fascination that sugar, slavery, and the plantation still exercise over the minds of scholars. One of them also reflects an interest in the influence these have had on the modern world. For students of the history of these things the Schwartz collection is in many ways the more useful. It seeks to fill a lacuna left by the concentration of monographs on the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, suggesting that we know less about the history of sugar than we thought we did. Perhaps in no other single place is such a range of information on so wide an area presented in such detail for so early a period. Ranging from Iberia to the Caribbean and including consumption as well as production of sugar, with a nod to the slave trade and a very useful note on weights and currencies, this volume is a gold mine of information. It considers (briefly) the theoretical meaning as well as the growing of this important crop, contrasting its production in Iberia with that on the Atlantic islands of Madeira and the Canaries, colonized by Iberian powers, and continuing the contrast with SĂŁo TomĂ©, off the coast of Africa, and on to Brazil and the Spanish American empire before ending with the British in Barbados. In the transit, it of necessity considers and complicates the meaning of âsugar revolutionâ and shows how scholars using that term do not always mean the same thing. John McCusker and Russell Menard, for example, tackling a cornerstone of the traditional interpretation of the development of sugar, argue that there was no âsugar revolutionâ in Barbados; economic change had already begun before sugarâs advent, though sugar may have accelerated it, and yet sugar production was transformed on the island. They also undercut, without quite denying, the significance of the Dutch role in the process. Schwartz, while questioning, lings to the traditional expression if not the traditional outlook, seeing in Barbados âthe beginning of the sugar revolutionâ (p. 10)
An Anxious Pursuit: Agricultural Innovation and Modernity in the Lower South, 1730â1815. By Joyce E. Chaplin. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993. Pp. xvii, 411. $45.00
Rice and the making of South Carolina : an introductory essay
Originally, Carolinians grew rice on dry land, but early in the eighteenth century, cultivation spread to swampy fresh water areas. Until the 1850s, rice reigned supreme. But large-scale rice production was limited to the tidal marshes and inland
swamp, while cotton became profitable statewide after the invention of the cotton gin. In its heyday, however, rice made a few hundred planters extremely wealthy. It also contributed to cross culturation and the making of Carolina as a rich cultural hybrid. In this essay, it is this aspect of rice cultivation that Professor Littlefield describes
Antiâinflammatory mechanisms in cancer research: Characterization of a distinct M2âlike macrophage model derived from the THPâ1 cell line
Abstract Aims Macrophages play an essential role in cancer development. Tumorâassociated macrophages (TAMs) have predominantly M2âlike attributes that are associated with tumor progression and poor patient survival. Numerous methods have been reported for differentiating and polarizing macrophages in vitro, but there is no standardized and validated model for creating TAMs. Primary cells show varying cytokine responses depending on their origin and functional studies utilizing these cells may lack generalization and validity. A distinct cell lineâderived TAMâlike M2 subtype is required to investigate the mechanisms mediated by antiâinflammatory TAMs in vitro. Our previous work demonstrated a standardized protocol for creating an M2 subtype derived from a human THPâ1 cell line. The cell expression profile, however, has not been validated. The aim of this study was to characterize and validate the TAMâlike M2 subtype macrophage created based on our protocol to introduce them as a standardized model for cancer research. Methods and results Using qRTâPCR and ELISA, we demonstrated that proinflammatory, antiâinflammatory, and tumorâassociated marker expression changed during THPâ1âderived marcrophage development in vitro, mimicking a TAMârelated profile (e.g., TNFα, ILâ1ÎČ). The antiâinflammatory marker ILâ8/CXCL8, however, is most highly expressed in young M0 macrophages. Flow cytometry showed increased expression of CD206 in the final TAMâlike M2 macrophage. Singleâcell RNAâsequencing analysis of primary human monocytes and colon cancer tissue macrophages demonstrated that cell lineâderived M2 macrophages resembled a TAMârelated gene profile. Conclusions The THPâ1âderived M2 macrophage based on a standardized cell line model represents a distinct antiâinflammatory TAMâlike phenotype with an M2a subtype profile. This model may provide a basis for in vitro investigation of functional mechanisms in a variety of antiâinflammatory settings, particularly colon cancer development
RETURN OF THE KING: TIME-SERIES PHOTOMETRY OF FO AQUARIIâS INITIAL RECOVERY FROM ITS UNPRECEDENTED 2016 LOW STATE
Contraction and expansion of partially saturated hot mix asphalt samples exposed to freezeâthaw cycles
A grant-based experiment to train clinical investigators: the AACR/ASCO methods in clinical cancer research workshop
To address the need for clinical investigators in oncology, AACR and ASCO established the Methods in Clinical Cancer Research Workshop (MCCRW). The workshop's objectives were to: (1) provide training in the methods, design, and conduct of clinical trials; (2) ensure that clinical trials met federal and international ethical guidelines; (3) evaluate the effectiveness of the workshop; and (4) create networking opportunities for young investigators with mentoring senior faculty. Educational methods included: (1) didactic lectures; (2) Small Group Discussion Sessions; (3) Protocol Development Groups; (4) one-on-one mentoring. Learning focused on the development of an IRB-ready protocol, which was submitted on the last day of the workshop. Evaluation methods included: (1) pre- and post-workshop tests; (2) students' workshop evaluations; (3) faculty's ratings of protocol development; (4) students' productivity in clinical research after the workshop; (5) an independent assessment of the workshop. From 1996-2014, 1932 students from diverse backgrounds attended the workshop. There was a significant improvement in the students' level of knowledge from the pre- to the post-workshop exams (p < 0.001). Across the classes, student evaluations were very favorable. At the end of the workshop, faculty rated 92-100% of the students' protocols as ready for IRB submission. Intermediate and long-term follow-ups indicated that more than 92% of students were actively involved in patientrelated research, and 66% had implemented five or more protocols. This NCI-sponsored MCCRW has had a major impact on the training of clinicians in their ability to design and implement clinical trials in cancer research