Hopelessness and Corruption: Overlooked Drivers of Migration from the Northern Triangle of Central America

This work briefly reviews the complex web of factors traditionally considered migration drivers. The authors’ interviews with migrants and their own work on anti-corruption efforts in Central America led them to hypothesize that something is missing from this traditional framework. Interviews with migrants in transit suggested that beyond any individual or combination of factors stood a profound lack of hope that the situation in their home country would improve.https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/jgi_research/1000/thumbnail.jp

Viral Hemorrhagic Septicemia Virus (Vhsv) Great Lakes Strain Ivb: Viral Detection, Mechanisms of Infection, and Host-Virus Interactions in the Yellow Perch (Perca Flavescens)

Viral hemorrhagic septicemia virus (VHSV) is one of the most devastating and problematic viral fish diseases to plague the European aquaculture industry, and due to its pathogenicity, disease course, mortality rates, and wide host range, remains one of the most pathogenic viral diseases of finfish worldwide. A new freshwater strain of viral hemorrhagic septicemia virus IVb (VHSV-IVb) in the Great Lakes has been found capable of infecting a wide number of naive species, and has been associated with large fish kills in the Midwestern United States since its discovery in 2005. In this study, the yellow perch, Perca flavescence, one such species documented in several fish kills affiliated with VHSV, was used as a research model to elucidate host-virus interactions to better understand the mechanisms of viral infection. A direct comparison of viral infection kinetics and net mortality among yellow perch stocks derived from distinct genetic and geographic regions found large variation in susceptibility to the disease, suggesting that genetic variance within a population can play a significant role in survival after infection with VHSV-IVb. Upon investigation of the early acute innate immune response after exposure to the VHS virus, a significant up-regulation of Mx expression in the liver, as well as the inflammatory response genes IL-1β and SAA, in all three tissues sampled, head kidney, spleen, and liver, was directly correlated to viral load indicating the role of these genes in the initial stages of infection. Viral load increased most rapidly in the head kidney and spleen, suggesting that potential down-regulation of Mx in these tissues may represent a viral strategy to increase replication. Finally, when the pathology and distribution of the virus were monitored in different tissues of adult fish exhibiting a low level of VHSV infection over time, the finding of significant viral load in the gills and blood suggest that the sampling of these tissues may offer a more accurate, non-lethal alternative to viral screening from the currently, more traditional and lethal cell culture analysis of the head kidney/spleen. A significant viral load in the brain, however, particularly in the later stages of infection, also suggests that latent virus may remain in the brain neurons undetected in asymptomatic carriers of the virus, classifying the VHS virus as neurotropic, as well as a hemorrhagic

A Walk Through the City of Edmonton

As an industry placement through the WISEST Summer Research Program, an opportunity was provided to work with the City of Edmonton in an exploration of careers in engineering and architecture. The focus and scope of this placement was mainly centred around the Integrated Infrastructure and Engineering Services at the City. Through shadowing multidisciplinary engineers, technologists and architects, experience in both administrative and more hands-on work was gained. Some career pathways that were explored include materials engineering, geotechnical engineering, facilities (structural, mechanical and electrical) engineering, environmental engineering, geomatics engineering, and architecture. Throughout the duration of the program, information about the different roles and their collaboration with each other was gathered. Instead of performing research in labs, absorption of information was conducted mainly through means of observation. The City of Edmonton provided opportunities to attend various site visits, building and lab tours, and even to meetings in downtown. Tasks such as reviewing reports and drawings, attending meetings, and sitting in on business calls, all demonstrated the administrative nature of engineering and architecture. On the other hand, the more hands-on aspects of engineering were also emphasised through tasks such as assisting with field work, on-site testing, sample collecting, and data logging. With Integrated Infrastructure Services (IIS), the collaborative and interconnected nature of these careers were displayed, as each branch worked in conjunction with each other. The role of each different type of engineering and architecture is further defined in sequential order of the stages that leads to the life cycle of a construction project. This shows the direct results of each career field in contributing to the development, progression and completion of a project

Working paper analysing the economic implications of the proposed 30% target for areal protection in the draft post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framewor

58 pages, 5 figures, 3 tables- The World Economic Forum now ranks biodiversity loss as a top-five risk to the global economy, and the draft post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework proposes an expansion of conservation areas to 30% of the earth’s surface by 2030 (hereafter the “30% target”), using protected areas (PAs) and other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs). - Two immediate concerns are how much a 30% target might cost and whether it will cause economic losses to the agriculture, forestry and fisheries sectors. - Conservation areas also generate economic benefits (e.g. revenue from nature tourism and ecosystem services), making PAs/Nature an economic sector in their own right. - If some economic sectors benefit but others experience a loss, high-level policy makers need to know the net impact on the wider economy, as well as on individual sectors. [...]A. Waldron, K. Nakamura, J. Sze, T. Vilela, A. Escobedo, P. Negret Torres, R. Button, K. Swinnerton, A. Toledo, P. Madgwick, N. Mukherjee were supported by National Geographic and the Resources Legacy Fund. V. Christensen was supported by NSERC Discovery Grant RGPIN-2019-04901. M. Coll and J. Steenbeek were supported by EU Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 817578 (TRIATLAS). D. Leclere was supported by TradeHub UKRI CGRF project. R. Heneghan was supported by Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, Acciones de Programacion Conjunta Internacional (PCIN-2017-115). M. di Marco was supported by MIUR Rita Levi Montalcini programme. A. Fernandez-Llamazares was supported by Academy of Finland (grant nr. 311176). S. Fujimori and T. Hawegawa were supported by The Environment Research and Technology Development Fund (2-2002) of the Environmental Restoration and Conservation Agency of Japan and the Sumitomo Foundation. V. Heikinheimo was supported by Kone Foundation, Social Media for Conservation project. K. Scherrer was supported by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 682602. U. Rashid Sumaila acknowledges the OceanCanada Partnership, which funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). T. Toivonen was supported by Osk. Huttunen Foundation & Clare Hall college, Cambridge. W. Wu was supported by The Environment Research and Technology Development Fund (2-2002) of the Environmental Restoration and Conservation Agency of Japan. Z. Yuchen was supported by a Ministry of Education of Singapore Research Scholarship Block (RSB) Research FellowshipPeer reviewe

TRY plant trait database – enhanced coverage and open access

Plant traits - the morphological, anatomical, physiological, biochemical and phenological characteristics of plants - determine how plants respond to environmental factors, affect other trophic levels, and influence ecosystem properties and their benefits and detriments to people. Plant trait data thus represent the basis for a vast area of research spanning from evolutionary biology, community and functional ecology, to biodiversity conservation, ecosystem and landscape management, restoration, biogeography and earth system modelling. Since its foundation in 2007, the TRY database of plant traits has grown continuously. It now provides unprecedented data coverage under an open access data policy and is the main plant trait database used by the research community worldwide. Increasingly, the TRY database also supports new frontiers of trait‐based plant research, including the identification of data gaps and the subsequent mobilization or measurement of new data. To support this development, in this article we evaluate the extent of the trait data compiled in TRY and analyse emerging patterns of data coverage and representativeness. Best species coverage is achieved for categorical traits - almost complete coverage for ‘plant growth form’. However, most traits relevant for ecology and vegetation modelling are characterized by continuous intraspecific variation and trait–environmental relationships. These traits have to be measured on individual plants in their respective environment. Despite unprecedented data coverage, we observe a humbling lack of completeness and representativeness of these continuous traits in many aspects. We, therefore, conclude that reducing data gaps and biases in the TRY database remains a key challenge and requires a coordinated approach to data mobilization and trait measurements. This can only be achieved in collaboration with other initiatives

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Essentially biased: why people are fatalistic about genes

We propose that people are genetic essentialists—that is, they tend to think of genetic attributions as being immutable, of a specific etiology, natural, and dividing people into homogenous and discrete groups. Although there are rare conditions where genes operate in these kinds of deterministic ways, people overgeneralize from these to the far more common conditions where genes are not at all deterministic. These essentialist biases are associated with some harmful outcomes such as racism, sexism, pessimism in the face of illnesses, political polarization, and support for eugenics, while at the same time they are linked with increased tolerance and sympathy for gay rights, mental illness, and less severe judgments of responsibility for crime. We will also discuss how these essentialist biases connect with the burgeoning direct-to-consumer genomics industry and various kinds of genetic engineering. Overall, these biases appear rather resistant to efforts to reduce them, although genetics literacy predicts weaker essentialist tendencies

American College of Rheumatology Provisional Criteria for Clinically Relevant Improvement in Children and Adolescents With Childhood-Onset Systemic Lupus Erythematosus

10.1002/acr.23834ARTHRITIS CARE & RESEARCH715579-59