Coastal Conservation Lands Update (2005)

The Complex Systems Research Center (CSRC) at the University of New Hampshire has developed, implemented, and coordinated the GRANIT GIS clearinghouse since its inception in the mid 1980’s. One of the primary data sets maintained by CSRC and served through the clearinghouse is the Conservation and Protected Lands Data Layer. This data set contains a digital record of parcels of land of two or more acres that are mostly undeveloped and are protected from future development. Smaller parcels that adjoin previously mapped parcels or represent unique features, such as a bog or state-owned boat ramp, may also be included in this data layer. Through the GRANIT Conservation Lands Data Layer Update project, data on current protected lands were collected, reviewed, and processed for 48 communities in seacoast NH, including the 42 towns within the NH Estuaries Project area. GRANIT staff contacted each community’s conservation commission, as well as all quasi-public entities and land trusts active in the region, to solicit updates and additions to the data set. Concurrently, staff from the NH Office of Energy and Planning contacted the state and federal agencies that manage property in the seacoast to request comparable information. Through this collaborative process, 166 new tracts covering over 6,000 acres were added to the database. In addition, information on 122 existing tracts was modified to incorporate the reported corrections

GRANIT Conservation Lands Data Layer Update

The Complex Systems Research Center (CSRC) at the University of New Hampshire has developed, implemented, and coordinated the GRANIT GIS clearinghouse since its inception in the mid 1980’s. One of the primary data sets maintained by CSRC and served through the clearinghouse is the GRANIT Conservation and Protected Lands Data Layer. This data set contains a digital record of parcels of land of two or more acres that are mostly undeveloped and are protected from future development. Smaller parcels that adjoin previously mapped parcels or represent unique features, such as a bog or state-owned boat ramp, may also be included in the data layer. Through the GRANIT Conservation Lands Data Layer Update project, current protected lands data were collected, reviewed, and processed for the 47-community area within the NH Estuaries Project study area. GRANIT staff contacted each community’s conservation commission to solicit updates. Concurrently, staff from the Society for the Protection of NH Forests contacted the active land trusts in the region. Through this collaborative process, 235 tracts covering 6,997 acres were added to the database. In addition to new tracts, information for existing tracts was modified to incorporate any reported corrections. The resulting, updated data set is available to municipal decision-makers, the land trust community, and the general public through the GRANIT web site (www.granit.sr.unh.edu) and the GRANIT Conservation Lands Viewer (www.granitmap.sr.unh.edu)

Omecamtiv mecarbil in chronic heart failure with reduced ejection fraction, GALACTIC‐HF: baseline characteristics and comparison with contemporary clinical trials

Aims: The safety and efficacy of the novel selective cardiac myosin activator, omecamtiv mecarbil, in patients with heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF) is tested in the Global Approach to Lowering Adverse Cardiac outcomes Through Improving Contractility in Heart Failure (GALACTIC‐HF) trial. Here we describe the baseline characteristics of participants in GALACTIC‐HF and how these compare with other contemporary trials. Methods and Results: Adults with established HFrEF, New York Heart Association functional class (NYHA) ≥ II, EF ≤35%, elevated natriuretic peptides and either current hospitalization for HF or history of hospitalization/ emergency department visit for HF within a year were randomized to either placebo or omecamtiv mecarbil (pharmacokinetic‐guided dosing: 25, 37.5 or 50 mg bid). 8256 patients [male (79%), non‐white (22%), mean age 65 years] were enrolled with a mean EF 27%, ischemic etiology in 54%, NYHA II 53% and III/IV 47%, and median NT‐proBNP 1971 pg/mL. HF therapies at baseline were among the most effectively employed in contemporary HF trials. GALACTIC‐HF randomized patients representative of recent HF registries and trials with substantial numbers of patients also having characteristics understudied in previous trials including more from North America (n = 1386), enrolled as inpatients (n = 2084), systolic blood pressure < 100 mmHg (n = 1127), estimated glomerular filtration rate < 30 mL/min/1.73 m2 (n = 528), and treated with sacubitril‐valsartan at baseline (n = 1594). Conclusions: GALACTIC‐HF enrolled a well‐treated, high‐risk population from both inpatient and outpatient settings, which will provide a definitive evaluation of the efficacy and safety of this novel therapy, as well as informing its potential future implementation

Escherichia coli Data-Driven Strain Design Using Aggregated Adaptive Laboratory Evolution Mutational Data

[Image: see text] Microbes are being engineered for an increasingly large and diverse set of applications. However, the designing of microbial genomes remains challenging due to the general complexity of biological systems. Adaptive Laboratory Evolution (ALE) leverages nature’s problem-solving processes to generate optimized genotypes currently inaccessible to rational methods. The large amount of public ALE data now represents a new opportunity for data-driven strain design. This study describes how novel strain designs, or genome sequences not yet observed in ALE experiments or published designs, can be extracted from aggregated ALE data and demonstrates this by designing, building, and testing three novel Escherichia coli strains with fitnesses comparable to ALE mutants. These designs were achieved through a meta-analysis of aggregated ALE mutations data (63 Escherichia coli K-12 MG1655 based ALE experiments, described by 93 unique environmental conditions, 357 independent evolutions, and 13 957 observed mutations), which additionally revealed global ALE mutation trends that inform on ALE-derived strain design principles. Such informative trends anticipate ALE-derived strain designs as largely gene-centric, as opposed to noncoding, and composed of a relatively small number of beneficial variants (approximately 6). These results demonstrate how strain design efforts can be enhanced by the meta-analysis of aggregated ALE data

Enforcing Emissions Trading when Emissions Permits are Bankable

We propose enforcement strategies for emissions trading programs with bankable emissions permits that guarantee complete compliance with minimal enforcement costs. Our strategies emphasize imperfect monitoring supported by a high unit penalty for reporting violations, and tying this penalty directly to equilibrium permit prices. This approach is quite different from several existing enforcement strategies that emphasize high unit penalties for emissions in excess of permit holdings. Our analysis suggests that a high penalty for excess emissions cannot be used to conserve monitoring effort, and that it may actually increase the amount of monitoring necessary to maintain compliance. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, Inc. 2005compliance, enforcement, emissions trading, permit banking, L51, Q28,

A protocol for scoping reviews on the role of whole-body and dedicated body-part magnetic resonance imaging for assessment of adult and juvenile idiopathic inflammatory myopathies

Currently, standardized magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scoring systems and protocols for assessment of idiopathic inflammatory myopathies (IIMs) in children and adults are lacking. Therefore, we will perform a scoping review of the literature to collate and evaluate the existing semi-quantitative and quantitative MRI scoring systems and protocols for the assessment and monitoring of skeletal muscle involvement in patients with IIMs. The aim is to compile evidence-based information that will facilitate the future development of a universal standardized MRI scoring system for both research and clinical applications in IIM. A systematic search of electronic databases (PubMed, EMBASE, and Cochrane) will be undertaken to identify relevant articles published between January 2000 and October 2023. Data will be synthesized narratively. This scoping review seeks to comprehensively summarize and evaluate the evidence on the scanning protocols and scoring systems used in the assessment of diagnosis, disease activity, and damage using skeletal muscle MRI in IIMs. The results will allow the development of consensus recommendations for clinical practice and enable the standardization of research methods for the MRI assessment of skeletal muscle changes in patients with IIMs