Do mixed fire regimes shape plant flammability and post-fire recovery strategies?

The development of frameworks for better-understanding ecological syndromes and putative evolutionary strategies of plant adaptation to fire has recently received a flurry of attention, including a new model hypothesizing that plants have diverged into three different plant flammability strategies due to natural selection. We provide three case studies of pyromes/taxa (Pinus, the Proteaceae of the Cape Floristic Region, and Eucalyptus) that, contrary to model assumptions, reveal that plant species often exhibit traits of more than one of these flammability and post-fire recovery strategies. We propose that such multiple-strategy adaptations have been favoured as bet-hedging strategies in response to selective pressure from mixed-fire regimes experienced by these species over evolutionary time

Determining level of care appropriateness in the patient journey from acute care to rehabilitation

Background: The selection of patients for rehabilitation, and the timing of transfer from acute care, are important clinical decisions that impact on care quality and patient flow. This paper reports utilization review data on inpatients in acute care with stroke, hip fracture or elective joint replacement, and other inpatients referred for rehabilitation. It examines reasons why acute level of care criteria are not met and explores differences in decision making between acute care and rehabilitation teams around patient appropriateness and readiness for transfer. Methods: Cohort study of patients in a large acute referral hospital in Australia followed with the InterQual utilization review tool, modified to also include reasons why utilization criteria are not met. Additional data on team decision making about appropriateness for rehabilitation, and readiness for transfer, were collected on a subset of patients. Results: There were 696 episodes of care (7189 bed days). Days meeting acute level of care criteria were 56% (stroke, hip fracture and joint replacement patients) and 33% (other patients, from the time of referral). Most inappropriate days in acute care were due to delays in processes/scheduling (45%) or being more appropriate for rehabilitation or lower level of care (30%). On the subset of patients, the acute care team and the utilization review tool deemed patients ready for rehabilitation transfer earlier than the rehabilitation team (means of 1.4, 1.3 and 4.0 days from the date of referral, respectively). From when deemed medically stable for transfer by the acute care team, 28% of patients became unstable. From when deemed stable by the rehabilitation team or utilization review, 9% and 11%, respectively, became unstable. Conclusions: A high proportion of patient days did not meet acute level of care criteria, due predominantly to inefficiencies in care processes, or to patients being more appropriate for an alternative level of care, including rehabilitation. The rehabilitation team was the most accurate in determining ongoing medical stability, but at the cost of a longer acute stay. To avoid inpatients remaining in acute care in a state of \u27terra nullius\u27, clinical models which provide rehabilitation within acute care, and more efficient movement to a rehabilitation setting, is required. Utilization review could have a decision support role in the determination of medical stability

Enantioselective, intermolecular benzylic C–H amination catalysed by an engineered iron-haem enzyme

C–H bonds are ubiquitous structural units of organic molecules. Although these bonds are generally considered to be chemically inert, the recent emergence of methods for C–H functionalization promises to transform the way synthetic chemistry is performed. The intermolecular amination of C–H bonds represents a particularly desirable and challenging transformation for which no efficient, highly selective, and renewable catalysts exist. Here we report the directed evolution of an iron-containing enzymatic catalyst—based on a cytochrome P450 monooxygenase—for the highly enantioselective intermolecular amination of benzylic C–H bonds. The biocatalyst is capable of up to 1,300 turnovers, exhibits excellent enantioselectivities, and provides access to valuable benzylic amines. Iron complexes are generally poor catalysts for C–H amination: in this catalyst, the enzyme's protein framework confers activity on an otherwise unreactive iron-haem cofactor