Modeling regional-scale wildland fire emissions with the wildland fire emissions information system

As carbon modeling tools become more comprehensive, spatial data are needed to improve quantitative maps of carbon emissions from fire. The Wildland Fire Emissions Information System (WFEIS) provides mapped estimates of carbon emissions from historical forest fires in the United States through a web browser. WFEIS improves access to data and provides a consistent approach to estimating emissions at landscape, regional, and continental scales. The system taps into data and tools developed by the U.S. Forest Service to describe fuels, fuel loadings, and fuel consumption and merges information from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and National Aeronautics and Space Administration on fire location and timing. Currently, WFEIS provides web access to Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) burned area for North America and U.S. fire-perimeter maps from the Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity products from the USGS, overlays them on 1-km fuel maps for the United States, and calculates fuel consumption and emissions with an open-source version of the Consume model. Mapped fuel moisture is derived from daily meteorological data from remote automated weather stations. In addition to tabular output results, WFEIS produces multiple vector and raster formats. This paper provides an overview of the WFEIS system, including the web-based system functionality and datasets used for emissions estimates. WFEIS operates on the web and is built using open-source software components that work with open international standards such as keyhole markup language (KML). Examples of emissions outputs from WFEIS are presented showing that the system provides results that vary widely across the many ecosystems of North America and are consistent with previous emissions modeling estimates and products

Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest volumes and characteristics during the COVID-19 pandemic

This article is made available for unrestricted research re-use and secondary analysis in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for the duration of the World Health Organization (WHO) declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic.Aim The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly impacted Emergency Medical Services (EMS) operations throughout the country. Some studies described variation in total volume of out-of-hospital cardiac arrests (OHCA) during the pandemic. We aimed to describe the changes in volume and characteristics of OHCA patients and resuscitations in one urban EMS system. Methods We performed a retrospective cohort analysis of all recorded atraumatic OHCA in Marion County, Indiana, from January 1, 2019 to June 30, 2019 and from January 1, 2020 to June 30, 2020. We described patient, arrest, EMS response, and survival characteristics. We performed paired and unpaired t-tests to evaluate the changes in those characteristics during COVID-19 as compared to the prior year. Data were matched by month to control for seasonal variation. Results The total number of arrests increased from 884 in 2019 to 1034 in 2020 (p = 0.016). Comparing 2019 to 2020, there was little difference in age [median 62 (IQR 59–73) and 60 (IQR 47–72), p = 0.086], gender (38.5% and 39.8% female, p = 0.7466, witness to arrest (44.3% and 39.6%, p = 0.092), bystander AED use (10.1% and 11.4% p = 0.379), bystander CPR (48.7% and 51.4%, p = 0.242). Patients with a shockable initial rhythm (19.2% and 15.4%, p = 0.044) both decreased in 2020, and response time increased by 18 s [6.0 min (IQR 4.5–7.7) and 6.3 min (IQR 4.7–8.0), p = 0.008]. 47.7% and 54.8% (p = 0.001) of OHCA patients died in the field, 19.7% and 19.3% (p = 0.809) died in the Emergency Department, 21.8% and 18.5% (p = 0.044) died in the hospital, 10.8% and 7.4% (p = 0.012) were discharged from the hospital, and 9.3% and 5.9% (p = 0.005) were discharged with Cerebral Performance Category score ≤ 2. Conclusion Total OHCA increased during the COVID-19 pandemic when compared with the prior year. Although patient characteristics were similar, initial shockable rhythm, and proportion of patients who died in the hospital decreased during the pandemic. Further investigation will explore etiologies of those findings

Inclusion of Flagellin during Vaccination against Influenza Enhances Recall Responses in Nonhuman Primate Neonates

ABSTRACT Influenza virus can cause life-threatening infections in neonates and young infants. Although vaccination is a major countermeasure against influenza, current vaccines are not approved for use in infants less than 6 months of age, in part due to the weak immune response following vaccination. Thus, there is a strong need to develop new vaccines with improved efficacy for this vulnerable population. To address this issue, we established a neonatal African green monkey (AGM) nonhuman primate model that could be used to identify effective influenza vaccine approaches for use in young infants. We assessed the ability of flagellin, a Toll-like receptor 5 (TLR5) agonist, to serve as an effective adjuvant in this at-risk population. Four- to 6-day-old AGMs were primed and boosted with inactivated PR8 influenza virus (IPR8) adjuvanted with either wild-type flagellin or inactive flagellin with a mutation at position 229 (m229), the latter of which is incapable of signaling through TLR5. Increased IgG responses were observed following a boost, as well as at early times after challenge, in infants vaccinated with flagellin-adjuvanted IPR8. Inclusion of flagellin during vaccination also resulted in a significantly increased number of influenza virus-specific T cells following challenge compared to the number in infants vaccinated with the m229 adjuvant. Finally, following challenge infants vaccinated with IPR8 plus flagellin exhibited a reduced pathology in the lungs compared to that in infants that received IPR8 plus m229. This study provides the first evidence of flagellin-mediated enhancement of vaccine responses in nonhuman primate neonates. IMPORTANCE Young infants are particularly susceptible to severe disease as a result of influenza virus infection. Compounding this is the lack of effective vaccines for use in this vulnerable population. Here we describe a vaccine approach that results in improved immune responses and protection in young infants. Incorporation of flagellin during vaccination resulted in increased antibody and T cell responses together with reduced disease following virus infection. These results suggest that flagellin may serve as an effective adjuvant for vaccines targeted to this vulnerable population

Smoking remains associated with education after controlling for social background and genetic factors in a study of 18 twin cohorts

We tested the causality between education and smoking using the natural experiment of discordant twin pairs allowing to optimally control for background genetic and childhood social factors. Data from 18 cohorts including 10,527 monozygotic (MZ) and same-sex dizygotic (DZ) twin pairs discordant for education and smoking were analyzed by linear fixed effects regression models. Within twin pairs, education levels were lower among the currently smoking than among the never smoking co-twins and this education difference was larger within DZ than MZ pairs. Similarly, education levels were higher among former smoking than among currently smoking co-twins, and this difference was larger within DZ pairs. Our results support the hypothesis of a causal effect of education on both current smoking status and smoking cessation. However, the even greater intra-pair differences within DZ pairs, who share only 50% of their segregating genes, provide evidence that shared genetic factors also contribute to these associations.Peer reviewe

‘Central London under siege’: Diaspora, ‘race’ and the right to the (global) city

Drawing upon an ethnography of recent Congolese diasporic protests in central London, this article pays attention to the traversal histories of ‘race’ and the postcolonial dynamics that precede the emergence of a contemporary diasporic ‘right to the city’ movement. The authors critically engage with Henri Lefebvre’s ‘right to the city’ as a way of explaining how the urban is not only the site but also, increasingly, a stake in urban protests. In doing so the authors relocate urban centrality – its meaning, symbolic power and heuristic status in protests – in a context where activists’ claims are not restricted to one city or, simply, the political present. Rather, protestors talk about making geopolitical connections between local and global scales and contemporary and historical injustices. Drawing upon Simone’s notion of ‘black urbanism’, the authors claim to enrich Lefebvre’s original formulation by unpacking the complex performative dimensions of protest as they intersect with race and, more specifically, blackness and postcolonialism. It is concluded that activists’ experience is fundamentally ambivalent; they are at once enchanted and disenchanted with protest in central London

Randomized controlled trial of meat compared with multimicronutrient-fortified cereal in infants and toddlers with high stunting rates in diverse settings

Background: Improved complementary feeding is cited as a critical factor for reducing stunting. Consumption of meats has been advocated, but its efficacy in low-resource settings has not been tested

Getting a Head Start: Diet, Sub-Adult Growth, and Associative Learning in a Seed-Eating Passerine

Developmental stress, and individual variation in response to it, can have important fitness consequences. Here we investigated the consequences of variable dietary protein on the duration of growth and associative learning abilities of zebra finches, Taeniopygia guttata, which are obligate graminivores. The high-protein conditions that zebra finches would experience in nature when half-ripe seed is available were mimicked by the use of egg protein to supplement mature seed, which is low in protein content. Growth rates and relative body proportions of males reared either on a low-protein diet (mature seed only) or a high-protein diet (seed plus egg) were determined from body size traits (mass, head width, and tarsus) measured at three developmental stages. Birds reared on the high-protein diet were larger in all size traits at all ages, but growth rates of size traits showed no treatment effects. Relative head size of birds reared on the two diets differed from age day 95 onward, with high-diet birds having larger heads in proportion to both tarsus length and body mass. High-diet birds mastered an associative learning task in fewer bouts than those reared on the low-protein diet. In both diet treatments, amount of sub-adult head growth varied directly, and sub-adult mass change varied inversely, with performance on the learning task. Results indicate that small differences in head growth during the sub-adult period can be associated with substantial differences in adult cognitive performance. Contrary to a previous report, we found no evidence for growth compensation among birds on the low-protein diet. These results have implications for the study of vertebrate cognition, developmental stress, and growth compensation

Whole-Exome Sequencing Identifies Homozygous AFG3L2 Mutations in a Spastic Ataxia-Neuropathy Syndrome Linked to Mitochondrial m-AAA Proteases

We report an early onset spastic ataxia-neuropathy syndrome in two brothers of a consanguineous family characterized clinically by lower extremity spasticity, peripheral neuropathy, ptosis, oculomotor apraxia, dystonia, cerebellar atrophy, and progressive myoclonic epilepsy. Whole-exome sequencing identified a homozygous missense mutation (c.1847G>A; p.Y616C) in AFG3L2, encoding a subunit of an m-AAA protease. m-AAA proteases reside in the mitochondrial inner membrane and are responsible for removal of damaged or misfolded proteins and proteolytic activation of essential mitochondrial proteins. AFG3L2 forms either a homo-oligomeric isoenzyme or a hetero-oligomeric complex with paraplegin, a homologous protein mutated in hereditary spastic paraplegia type 7 (SPG7). Heterozygous loss-of-function mutations in AFG3L2 cause autosomal-dominant spinocerebellar ataxia type 28 (SCA28), a disorder whose phenotype is strikingly different from that of our patients. As defined in yeast complementation assays, the AFG3L2Y616C gene product is a hypomorphic variant that exhibited oligomerization defects in yeast as well as in patient fibroblasts. Specifically, the formation of AFG3L2Y616C complexes was impaired, both with itself and to a greater extent with paraplegin. This produced an early-onset clinical syndrome that combines the severe phenotypes of SPG7 and SCA28, in additional to other “mitochondrial” features such as oculomotor apraxia, extrapyramidal dysfunction, and myoclonic epilepsy. These findings expand the phenotype associated with AFG3L2 mutations and suggest that AFG3L2-related disease should be considered in the differential diagnosis of spastic ataxias

Educational attainment of same-sex and opposite-sex dizygotic twins : An individual-level pooled study of 19 twin cohorts

Comparing twins from same- and opposite-sex pairs can provide information on potential sex differences in a variety of outcomes, including socioeconomic-related outcomes such as educational attainment. It has been suggested that this design can be applied to examine the putative role of intrauterine exposure to testosterone for educational attainment, but the evidence is still disputed. Thus, we established an international database of twin data from 11 countries with 88,290 individual dizygotic twins born over 100 years and tested for differences between twins from same- and opposite-sex dizygotic pairs in educational attainment. Effect sizes with 95% confidence intervals (CI) were estimated by linear regression models after adjusting for birth year and twin study cohort. In contrast to the hypothesis, no difference was found in women (β = −0.05 educational years, 95% CI −0.11, 0.02). However, men with a same-sex co-twin were slightly more educated than men having an opposite-sex co-twin (β = 0.14 educational years, 95% CI 0.07, 0.21). No consistent differences in effect sizes were found between individual twin study cohorts representing Europe, the USA, and Australia or over the cohorts born during the 20th century, during which period the sex differences in education reversed favoring women in the latest birth cohorts. Further, no interaction was found with maternal or paternal education. Our results contradict the hypothesis that there would be differences in the intrauterine testosterone levels between same-sex and opposite-sex female twins affecting education. Our findings in men may point to social dynamics within same-sex twin pairs that may benefit men in their educational careers.Peer reviewe

Genetic and environmental variation in educational attainment : an individual-based analysis of 28 twin cohorts

We investigated the heritability of educational attainment and how it differed between birth cohorts and cultural-geographic regions. A classical twin design was applied to pooled data from 28 cohorts representing 16 countries and including 193,518 twins with information on educational attainment at 25 years of age or older. Genetic factors explained the major part of individual differences in educational attainment (heritability: a(2)=0.43; 0.41-0.44), but also environmental variation shared by co-twins was substantial (c(2)=0.31; 0.30-0.33). The proportions of educational variation explained by genetic and shared environmental factors did not differ between Europe, North America and Australia, and East Asia. When restricted to twins 30 years or older to confirm finalized education, the heritability was higher in the older cohorts born in 1900-1949 (a(2)=0.44; 0.41-0.46) than in the later cohorts born in 1950-1989 (a(2)=0.38; 0.36-0.40), with a corresponding lower influence of common environmental factors (c(2)=0.31; 0.29-0.33 and c(2)=0.34; 0.32-0.36, respectively). In conclusion, both genetic and environmental factors shared by co-twins have an important influence on individual differences in educational attainment. The effect of genetic factors on educational attainment has decreased from the cohorts born before to those born after the 1950s.Peer reviewe