Restoring the Heart: A Community Vision for the Neighborhood of Aldenville

The goal of the Master of Regional Planning Studio is to develop a student’s techniques for collecting, analyzing, and synthesizing spatial and non-spatial data and then presenting that collective data in a manner (i.e., report, video, presentation, and charettes) that is understandable to academics, professionals, and the public. Planning Studio allows students to integrate knowledge from coursework and research, and apply such knowledge to resolving representative planning problems. At UMASS Amherst, these problems are found in neighborhood, rural, urban, and/or regional settings. For the Fall 2017 Planning Studio, Chicopee tasked the Masters of Regional Planning Studio to prepare a vision plan that focuses on improving Chicopee’s public engagement and land-use in Aldenville. The vision plan will contain a multi-question survey that will query Chicopee residents on their opinions of Chicopee, overall, and/or the neighborhood of Aldenville. In addition, the vision plan will also include two proposed land-use studies (zoning, land-use, pedestrian access, design, street improvements) for the neighborhood of Aldenville. This project has 6 goals: § Goal 1: Develop an outreach/engagement process that includes community survey materials (in hard-copy and digital formats) for distribution to Aldenville residents and stakeholders. The Planning Studio shall develop these materials understanding the City’s intended re-use of materials in a City-wide comprehensive visioning process. § Goal 2: Experiment with non-traditional modes of community engagement to maximize variety and volume of community response and data collection. § Goal 3: Analyze data collected from the outreach/engagement process to best inform the neighborhood visioning process and final Aldenville Vision Plan. § Goal 4: Develop a comprehensive understanding and graphic representation of major neighborhood destinations within Aldenville from which a more connected neighborhood concept can be developed. § Goal 5: Document, analyze, and discuss neighborhood opportunities and challenges (informed by the Community Outreach/Public Engagement Process) to advance visions for improving connectivity within the neighborhood and broadening the potential for Aldenville to function as a destination for all City residents as well as visitors from outside the City. § Goal 6: Document and prioritize destinations within Aldenville and propose urban design interventions to improve these destinations while using these destinations as anchors in a larger neighborhood network

A genomic catalog of Earth’s microbiomes

The reconstruction of bacterial and archaeal genomes from shotgun metagenomes has enabled insights into the ecology and evolution of environmental and host-associated microbiomes. Here we applied this approach to >10,000 metagenomes collected from diverse habitats covering all of Earth’s continents and oceans, including metagenomes from human and animal hosts, engineered environments, and natural and agricultural soils, to capture extant microbial, metabolic and functional potential. This comprehensive catalog includes 52,515 metagenome-assembled genomes representing 12,556 novel candidate species-level operational taxonomic units spanning 135 phyla. The catalog expands the known phylogenetic diversity of bacteria and archaea by 44% and is broadly available for streamlined comparative analyses, interactive exploration, metabolic modeling and bulk download. We demonstrate the utility of this collection for understanding secondary-metabolite biosynthetic potential and for resolving thousands of new host linkages to uncultivated viruses. This resource underscores the value of genome-centric approaches for revealing genomic properties of uncultivated microorganisms that affect ecosystem processes

Erratum to: 36th International Symposium on Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1186/s13054-016-1208-6.]

Elective Cancer Surgery in COVID-19-Free Surgical Pathways During the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic: An International, Multicenter, Comparative Cohort Study.

PURPOSE: As cancer surgery restarts after the first COVID-19 wave, health care providers urgently require data to determine where elective surgery is best performed. This study aimed to determine whether COVID-19-free surgical pathways were associated with lower postoperative pulmonary complication rates compared with hospitals with no defined pathway. PATIENTS AND METHODS: This international, multicenter cohort study included patients who underwent elective surgery for 10 solid cancer types without preoperative suspicion of SARS-CoV-2. Participating hospitals included patients from local emergence of SARS-CoV-2 until April 19, 2020. At the time of surgery, hospitals were defined as having a COVID-19-free surgical pathway (complete segregation of the operating theater, critical care, and inpatient ward areas) or no defined pathway (incomplete or no segregation, areas shared with patients with COVID-19). The primary outcome was 30-day postoperative pulmonary complications (pneumonia, acute respiratory distress syndrome, unexpected ventilation). RESULTS: Of 9,171 patients from 447 hospitals in 55 countries, 2,481 were operated on in COVID-19-free surgical pathways. Patients who underwent surgery within COVID-19-free surgical pathways were younger with fewer comorbidities than those in hospitals with no defined pathway but with similar proportions of major surgery. After adjustment, pulmonary complication rates were lower with COVID-19-free surgical pathways (2.2% v 4.9%; adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 0.62; 95% CI, 0.44 to 0.86). This was consistent in sensitivity analyses for low-risk patients (American Society of Anesthesiologists grade 1/2), propensity score-matched models, and patients with negative SARS-CoV-2 preoperative tests. The postoperative SARS-CoV-2 infection rate was also lower in COVID-19-free surgical pathways (2.1% v 3.6%; aOR, 0.53; 95% CI, 0.36 to 0.76). CONCLUSION: Within available resources, dedicated COVID-19-free surgical pathways should be established to provide safe elective cancer surgery during current and before future SARS-CoV-2 outbreaks

Elective cancer surgery in COVID-19-free surgical pathways during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic: An international, multicenter, comparative cohort study

PURPOSE As cancer surgery restarts after the first COVID-19 wave, health care providers urgently require data to determine where elective surgery is best performed. This study aimed to determine whether COVID-19–free surgical pathways were associated with lower postoperative pulmonary complication rates compared with hospitals with no defined pathway. PATIENTS AND METHODS This international, multicenter cohort study included patients who underwent elective surgery for 10 solid cancer types without preoperative suspicion of SARS-CoV-2. Participating hospitals included patients from local emergence of SARS-CoV-2 until April 19, 2020. At the time of surgery, hospitals were defined as having a COVID-19–free surgical pathway (complete segregation of the operating theater, critical care, and inpatient ward areas) or no defined pathway (incomplete or no segregation, areas shared with patients with COVID-19). The primary outcome was 30-day postoperative pulmonary complications (pneumonia, acute respiratory distress syndrome, unexpected ventilation). RESULTS Of 9,171 patients from 447 hospitals in 55 countries, 2,481 were operated on in COVID-19–free surgical pathways. Patients who underwent surgery within COVID-19–free surgical pathways were younger with fewer comorbidities than those in hospitals with no defined pathway but with similar proportions of major surgery. After adjustment, pulmonary complication rates were lower with COVID-19–free surgical pathways (2.2% v 4.9%; adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 0.62; 95% CI, 0.44 to 0.86). This was consistent in sensitivity analyses for low-risk patients (American Society of Anesthesiologists grade 1/2), propensity score–matched models, and patients with negative SARS-CoV-2 preoperative tests. The postoperative SARS-CoV-2 infection rate was also lower in COVID-19–free surgical pathways (2.1% v 3.6%; aOR, 0.53; 95% CI, 0.36 to 0.76). CONCLUSION Within available resources, dedicated COVID-19–free surgical pathways should be established to provide safe elective cancer surgery during current and before future SARS-CoV-2 outbreaks

Guidelines for the use and interpretation of assays for monitoring autophagy (4th edition)1.

In 2008, we published the first set of guidelines for standardizing research in autophagy. Since then, this topic has received increasing attention, and many scientists have entered the field. Our knowledge base and relevant new technologies have also been expanding. Thus, it is important to formulate on a regular basis updated guidelines for monitoring autophagy in different organisms. Despite numerous reviews, there continues to be confusion regarding acceptable methods to evaluate autophagy, especially in multicellular eukaryotes. Here, we present a set of guidelines for investigators to select and interpret methods to examine autophagy and related processes, and for reviewers to provide realistic and reasonable critiques of reports that are focused on these processes. These guidelines are not meant to be a dogmatic set of rules, because the appropriateness of any assay largely depends on the question being asked and the system being used. Moreover, no individual assay is perfect for every situation, calling for the use of multiple techniques to properly monitor autophagy in each experimental setting. Finally, several core components of the autophagy machinery have been implicated in distinct autophagic processes (canonical and noncanonical autophagy), implying that genetic approaches to block autophagy should rely on targeting two or more autophagy-related genes that ideally participate in distinct steps of the pathway. Along similar lines, because multiple proteins involved in autophagy also regulate other cellular pathways including apoptosis, not all of them can be used as a specific marker for bona fide autophagic responses. Here, we critically discuss current methods of assessing autophagy and the information they can, or cannot, provide. Our ultimate goal is to encourage intellectual and technical innovation in the field

Risk factors for severe outcomes following 2009 influenza A (H1N1) infection: a global pooled analysis

Background Since the start of the 2009 influenza A pandemic (H1N1pdm), the World Health Organization and its member states have gathered information to characterize the clinical severity of H1N1pdm infection and to assist policy makers to determine risk groups for targeted control measures. Methods and Findings Data were collected on approximately 70,000 laboratory-confirmed hospitalized H1N1pdm patients, 9,700 patients admitted to intensive care units (ICUs), and 2,500 deaths reported between 1 April 2009 and 1 January 2010 from 19 countries or administrative regions—Argentina, Australia, Canada, Chile, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong SAR, Japan, Madagascar, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Thailand, the United States, and the United Kingdom—to characterize and compare the distribution of risk factors among H1N1pdm patients at three levels of severity: hospitalizations, ICU admissions, and deaths. The median age of patients increased with severity of disease. The highest per capita risk of hospitalization was among patients <5 y and 5–14 y (relative risk [RR] = 3.3 and 3.2, respectively, compared to the general population), whereas the highest risk of death per capita was in the age groups 50–64 y and ≥65 y (RR = 1.5 and 1.6, respectively, compared to the general population). Similarly, the ratio of H1N1pdm deaths to hospitalizations increased with age and was the highest in the ≥65-y-old age group, indicating that while infection rates have been observed to be very low in the oldest age group, risk of death in those over the age of 64 y who became infected was higher than in younger groups. The proportion of H1N1pdm patients with one or more reported chronic conditions increased with severity (median = 31.1%, 52.3%, and 61.8% of hospitalized, ICU-admitted, and fatal H1N1pdm cases, respectively). With the exception of the risk factors asthma, pregnancy, and obesity, the proportion of patients with each risk factor increased with severity level. For all levels of severity, pregnant women in their third trimester consistently accounted for the majority of the total of pregnant women. Our findings suggest that morbid obesity might be a risk factor for ICU admission and fatal outcome (RR = 36.3). Conclusions Our results demonstrate that risk factors for severe H1N1pdm infection are similar to those for seasonal influenza, with some notable differences, such as younger age groups and obesity, and reinforce the need to identify and protect groups at highest risk of severe outcomes

Evolution and revolution: Anarchist geographies, modernity and poststructuralism

International audienceThis paper addresses the recent rediscovery of anarchist geographies and its implications in current debates on the ‘foundations’ of science and knowledge. By interrogating both recent works and original texts by early anarchist geographers who have greater influence on present-day literature such as Elisée Reclus (1830-1905) and Pyotr Kropotkin (1842-1921), I discuss the possible uses of a poststructuralist critique for this line of research by first challenging ‘postanarchist’ claims that so-called ‘classical anarchism’, allegedly biased by essentialist naturalism, should be entirely dismissed by contemporary scholarship. My main argument is that early anarchist geographers used the intellectual tools available in their day to build a completely different ‘discourse’, criticising the ways in which science and knowledge were constructed. As they openly contested ideas of linear progress, racism and European supremacy, as well as anthropocentrism and dichotomized definitions of ‘man’ and ‘nature’, it is hard to make them fit simplistic definitions. The body of work I address stresses their possible contributions to critical, anarchist and radical scholarship through their idea of knowledge, not limited to what is now called ‘discourse analysis’, but engaging with social movements in order to transform society