Epilithic diatoms (Bacillariophyta) from cloud forest and alpine streams in Bolivia, South America II: A preliminary report on the diatoms from Sorata, Department of La Paz

Un total de siete muestras de epiHton fueron colectadas en rios dentro de ungradiente altitudinal en el bosque nublado de Bokvia, cerca de la capital La Paz. Laflora diatomologica es diversa v no se encontraron patrones altitudinales claros. Talflora esta compuesta por especies cosmopolitas y taxa restringidos a los Andes con losgeneros Gompbonema, Nit^schia, Engonopsis v Engonema agrupando al mayor numero deespecies e individuos con mayores frecuencias. La flora esta tambien representada porvarios taxa alcalifilos y alcaKbiontes, reflejando los altos valores de pH de los rios. Las caracteristicas de los sitios muestreados, asi como una lista de taxa y figurasrepresentativas se presentan en este trabajo

Kumanoa mahlacensis (Batrachospermales, Rhodophyta) en un marjal costero mediterráneo, una nueva especie para la flora ficológica contiental europea

Morphological characters and molecular sequence data of the plastid-encoded RUBISCO large subunit gen (rbcL) confirmed the first record of Kumanoa mahlacensis (S. Kumano & W.A. Bowden-Kerby) Entwisle, M.L. Vis, W.B. Chiasson, Necchi & A.R. Sherwood in Europe from a Spanish Mediterranean coastal wetland. The genus Kumanoa has a worldwide distribution and inhabits in both lotic and lentic habitats, but information about the ecological requirements of species is scarce. In this study, the morphology and ecology of Spanish material is described in order to gain a broader insight of the distribution of species from Mediterranean areas.El estudio de los caracteres morfológicos y las secuencias del gen plastidial (rbcL) que codifica la subunidad mayor de la enzima RUBISCO han confirmado la presencia de Kumanoa mahlacensis (S. Kumano & W.A. Bowden-Kerby) Entwisle, M.L. Vis, W.B. Chiasson, Necchi & A.R. Sherwood en Europa, en un marjal costero mediterráneo del levante español. El género Kumanoa presenta una distribución mundial y habita tanto en ambientes lóticos como leníticos; sin embargo existe poca información sobre los requerimientos ecológicos de esta especie. En este trabajo se describe la morfología y ecología del material recolectado en España con el objetivo de obtener una visión más amplia de su distribución y de su presencia en áreas mediterráneas

The qualitative transparency deliberations: insights and implications

In recent years, a variety of efforts have been made in political science to enable, encourage, or require scholars to be more open and explicit about the bases of their empirical claims and, in turn, make those claims more readily evaluable by others. While qualitative scholars have long taken an interest in making their research open, reflexive, and systematic, the recent push for overarching transparency norms and requirements has provoked serious concern within qualitative research communities and raised fundamental questions about the meaning, value, costs, and intellectual relevance of transparency for qualitative inquiry. In this Perspectives Reflection, we crystallize the central findings of a three-year deliberative process—the Qualitative Transparency Deliberations (QTD)—involving hundreds of political scientists in a broad discussion of these issues. Following an overview of the process and the key insights that emerged, we present summaries of the QTD Working Groups’ final reports. Drawing on a series of public, online conversations that unfolded at www.qualtd.net, the reports unpack transparency’s promise, practicalities, risks, and limitations in relation to different qualitative methodologies, forms of evidence, and research contexts. Taken as a whole, these reports—the full versions of which can be found in the Supplementary Materials—offer practical guidance to scholars designing and implementing qualitative research, and to editors, reviewers, and funders seeking to develop criteria of evaluation that are appropriate—as understood by relevant research communities—to the forms of inquiry being assessed. We dedicate this Reflection to the memory of our coauthor and QTD working group leader Kendra Koivu

The impact of biologics and tofacitinib on cardiovascular risk factors and outcomes in patients with rheumatic disease: a systematic literature review

Introduction Rheumatic diseases are autoimmune, inflammatory diseases often associated with cardiovascular (CV) disease, a major cause of mortality in these patients. In recent years, treatment with biologic and targeted synthetic disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs), either as monotherapy or in combination with other drugs, have become the standard of treatment. In this systematic literature review, we evaluated the effect of treatment with biologic or tofacitinib on the CV risk and outcomes in these patients. Methods A systematic search was performed in MEDLINE, Embase, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, and Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews for articles reporting on CV risk and events in patients with rheumatic disease treated with a biologic agent or tofacitinib. Articles identified were subjected to two levels of screening. Articles that passed the first level based on title and abstract were assessed on full-text evaluation. The quality of randomized clinical trials was assessed by Jadad scoring system and the quality of the other studies and abstracts was assessed using the Downs and Black instrument. The data extracted included study design, baseline patient characteristics, and measurements of CV risk and events. Results Of the 5722 articles identified in the initial search, screening yielded 105 unique publications from 90 unique studies (33 clinical trials, 39 prospective cohort studies, and an additional 18 retrospective studies) that reported CV risk outcomes. A risk of bias analysis for each type of report indicated that they were of good or excellent quality. Importantly, despite some limitations in data reported, there were no indications of significant increase in adverse CV events or risk in response to treatment with the agents evaluated. Conclusions Treatment with biologic or tofacitinib appears to be well-tolerated with respect to CV outcomes in these patients

Once the shovel hits the ground : Evaluating the management of complex implementation processes of public-private partnership infrastructure projects with qualitative comparative analysis

Much attention is being paid to the planning of public-private partnership (PPP) infrastructure projects. The subsequent implementation phase – when the contract has been signed and the project ‘starts rolling’ – has received less attention. However, sound agreements and good intentions in project planning can easily fail in project implementation. Implementing PPP infrastructure projects is complex, but what does this complexity entail? How are projects managed, and how do public and private partners cooperate in implementation? What are effective management strategies to achieve satisfactory outcomes? This is the fi rst set of questions addressed in this thesis. Importantly, the complexity of PPP infrastructure development imposes requirements on the evaluation methods that can be applied for studying these questions. Evaluation methods that ignore complexity do not create a realistic understanding of PPP implementation processes, with the consequence that evaluations tell us little about what works and what does not, in which contexts, and why. This hampers learning from evaluations. What are the requirements for a complexity-informed evaluation method? And how does qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) meet these requirements? This is the second set of questions addressed in this thesis

ExploreASL: an image processing pipeline for multi-center ASL perfusion MRI studies

Arterial spin labeling (ASL) has undergone significant development since its inception, with a focus on improving standardization and reproducibility of its acquisition and quantification. In a community-wide effort towards robust and reproducible clinical ASL image processing, we developed the software package ExploreASL, allowing standardized analyses across centers and scanners. The procedures used in ExploreASL capitalize on published image processing advancements and address the challenges of multi-center datasets with scanner-specific processing and artifact reduction to limit patient exclusion. ExploreASL is self-contained, written in MATLAB and based on Statistical Parameter Mapping (SPM) and runs on multiple operating systems. To facilitate collaboration and data-exchange, the toolbox follows several standards and recommendations for data structure, provenance, and best analysis practice. ExploreASL was iteratively refined and tested in the analysis of >10,000 ASL scans using different pulse-sequences in a variety of clinical populations, resulting in four processing modules: Import, Structural, ASL, and Population that perform tasks, respectively, for data curation, structural and ASL image processing and quality control, and finally preparing the results for statistical analyses on both single-subject and group level. We illustrate ExploreASL processing results from three cohorts: perinatally HIV-infected children, healthy adults, and elderly at risk for neurodegenerative disease. We show the reproducibility for each cohort when processed at different centers with different operating systems and MATLAB versions, and its effects on the quantification of gray matter cerebral blood flow. ExploreASL facilitates the standardization of image processing and quality control, allowing the pooling of cohorts which may increase statistical power and discover between-group perfusion differences. Ultimately, this workflow may advance ASL for wider adoption in clinical studies, trials, and practice

Investigation of the Molecular and Morphological Variability in Batrachospermum Arcuatum (Batrachospermales, Rhodophyta) from Geographically Distant Locations

[[abstract]]Phylogeographic patterns in Batrachospermum arcuatum were investigated using the mitochondrial intergenic spacer between the cytochrome oxidase subunit 2 and 3 (cox2-3 spacer) from locations worldwide. Sixteen locations were sampled in six regions as follows: three locations in Bulgaria, two in China, three in the northwestern United States, one in New Zealand, six in Hawaii and one in Taiwan. Sequencing of 107 individuals resulted in 12 haplotypes. In the United States and Bulgaria, there was considerable sequence divergence among haplotypes. Likewise in the Hawaiian Islands, there was variation among haplotypes, and each island appeared to have a single haplotype represented. Three closely related haplotypes were present at the Taiwan location. The New Zealand sample was identical to one of the haplotypes from the northwestern United States. Individuals representing the 12 cox2-3 spacer haplotypes were sequenced for the rbcL gene. In the combined analysis, the Hawaii and Taiwan samples were a well-supported clade as were two Bulgaria samples. The US and New Zealand haplotypes formed a well-supported clade and likewise the China samples, but the relationship of the third Bulgaria haplotype to these others was unresolved. The specimens showed morphological variation among localities and regions, but no morphological features appeared to be diagnostic of the molecular results. Batrachospermum arcuatum appears to be a widespread taxon with considerable morphological plasticity that does not coincide with the substantial molecular variation. Alternatively, B. arcuatum may harbour cryptic species. There appears to be a temperate origin of the taxon and a derived group of haplotypes from tropical regions