Carbon Sequestration in Managed Temperate Coniferous Forests Under Climate Change

Management of temperate forests has the potential to increase carbon sinks and mitigate climate change. However, those opportunities may be confounded by negative climate change impacts. We therefore need a better understanding of climate change alterations to temperate forest carbon dynamics before developing mitigation strategies. The purpose of this project was to investigate the interactions of species composition, fire, management, and climate change in the Copper–Pine Creek valley, a temperate coniferous forest with a wide range of growing conditions. To do so, we used the LANDIS-II modelling framework including the new Forest Carbon Succession extension to simulate forest ecosystems under four different productivity scenarios, with and without climate change effects, until 2050. Significantly, the new extension allowed us to calculate the net sector productivity, a carbon accounting metric that integrates aboveground and belowground carbon dynamics, disturbances, and the eventual fate of forest products. The model output was validated against literature values. The results implied that the species optimum growing conditions relative to current and future conditions strongly influenced future carbon dynamics. Warmer growing conditions led to increased carbon sinks and storage in the colder and wetter ecoregions but not necessarily in the others. Climate change impacts varied among species and site conditions, and this indicates that both of these components need to be taken into account when considering climate change mitigation activities and adaptive management. The introduction of a new carbon indicator, net sector productivity, promises to be useful in assessing management effectiveness and mitigation activities

Does gender matter? A cross-national investigation of primary class-room discipline.

© 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis GroupFewer than 15% of primary school teachers in both Germany and the UK are male. With the on-going international debate about educational performance highlighting the widening gender achievement gap between girl and boy pupils, the demand for more male teachers has become prevalent in educational discourse. Concerns have frequently been raised about the underachievement of boys, with claims that the lack of male ‘role models’ in schools has an adverse effect on boys’ academic motivation and engagement. Although previous research has examined ‘teaching’ as institutional talk, men’s linguistic behaviour in the classroom remains largely ignored, especially in regard to enacting discipline. Using empirical spoken data collected from four primary school classrooms in both the UK and in Germany, this paper examines the linguistic discipline strategies of eight male and eight female teachers using Interactional Sociolinguistics to address the question, does teacher gender matter?Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

Characterisation of ferritin–lymphocyte ratio in COVID-19

Introduction: The ferritin–lymphocyte ratio (FLR) is a novel inflammatory biomarker for the assessment of acute COVID-19 patients. However, the prognostic value of FLR for predicting adverse clinical outcomes in COVID-19 remains unclear, which hinders its clinical translation. Methods: We characterised the prognostic value of FLR in COVID-19 patients, as compared to established inflammatory markers. Results: In 217 study patients (69 years [IQR: 55–82]; 60% males), FLR was weakly correlated with CRP (R = 0.108, p = 0.115) and white cell count (R = −0.144; p = 0.034). On ROC analysis, an FLR cut-off of 286 achieved a sensitivity of 86% and a specificity of 30% for predicting inpatient mortality (AUC 0.60, 95% CI: 0.53–0.67). The negative predictive values of FLR for ruling out mortality, non-invasive ventilation requirement and critical illness (intubation and/or ICU admission) were 86%, 85% and 93%, respectively. FLR performed similarly to CRP (AUC 0.60 vs. 0.64; p = 0.375) for predicting mortality, but worse than CRP for predicting non-fatal outcomes (all p 286 had worse inpatient survival than patients with FLR ≤ 286, p = 0.041. Conclusions: FLR has prognostic value in COVID-19 patients, and appears unrelated to other inflammatory markers such as CRP and WCC. FLR exhibits high sensitivity and negative predictive values for adverse clinical outcomes in COVID-19, and may be a good “rule-out” test. Further work is needed to improve the sensitivity of FLR and validate its role in prospective studies for guiding clinical management.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Tried and true: A survey of successfully promoted academic hospitalists

BACKGROUND: Academic hospital medicine is a new and rapidly growing field. Hospitalist faculty members often fill roles not typically held by other academic faculty, maintain heavy clinical workloads, and participate in nontraditional activities. Because of these differences, there is concern about how academic hospitalists may fare in the promotions process. OBJECTIVE: To determine factors critical to the promotion of successfully promoted hospitalists who have achieved the rank of either associate professor or professor. DESIGN: A cross‐sectional survey. PARTICIPANTS: Thirty‐three hospitalist faculty members at 22 academic medical centers promoted to associate professor rank or higher between 1995 and 2008. MEASUREMENTS: Respondents were asked to describe their institution, its promotions process, and the activities contributing to their promotion. We identified trends across respondents. RESULTS: Twenty‐six hospitalists responded, representing 20 institutions (79% response rate). Most achieved promotion in a nontenure track (70%); an equal number identified themselves as clinician‐administrators and clinician educators (40%). While hospitalists were engaged in a wide range of activities in the traditional domains of service, education, and research, respondents considered peer‐reviewed publication to be the most important activity in achieving promotion. Qualitative responses demonstrated little evidence that being a hospitalist was viewed as a hindrance to promotion. CONCLUSIONS: Successful promotion in academic hospital medicine depends on accomplishment in traditional academic domains, raising potential concerns for academic hospitalists with less traditional roles. This study may provide guidance for early‐career academic hospitalists and program leaders. Journal of Hospital Medicine 2011. © 2011 Society of Hospital MedicinePeer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/86910/1/894_ftp.pd

Low CRB-65 scores effectively rule out adverse clinical outcomes in COVID-19 irrespective of chest radiographic abnormalities

Background: CRB-65 ( C onfusion; R espiratory rate ≥ 30/min; B lood pressure ≤ 90/60 mmHg; age ≥ 65 years) is a risk score for prognosticating patients with COVID-19 pneumonia. However, a significant proportion of COVID-19 patients have normal chest X-rays (CXRs). The influence of CXR abnormalities on the prognostic value of CRB-65 is unknown, limiting its wider applicability. Methods: We assessed the influence of CXR abnormalities on the prognostic value of CRB-65 in COVID-19. Results: In 589 study patients (71 years (IQR: 57–83); 57% males), 186 (32%) had normal CXRs. On ROC analysis, CRB-65 performed similarly in patients with normal vs. abnormal CXRs for predicting inpatient mortality (AUC 0.67 ± 0.05 vs. 0.69 ± 0.03). In patients with normal CXRs, a CRB-65 of 0 ruled out mortality, NIV requirement and critical illness (intubation and/or ICU admission) with negative predictive values (NPVs) of 94%, 98% and 99%, respectively. In patients with abnormal CXRs, a CRB-65 of 0 ruled out the same endpoints with NPVs of 91%, 83% and 86%, respectively. Patients with low CRB-65 scores had better inpatient survival than patients with high CRB-65 scores, irrespective of CXR abnormalities (all p < 0.05). Conclusions: CRB-65, CXR and CRP are independent predictors of mortality in COVID-19. Adding CXR findings (dichotomised to either normal or abnormal) to CRB-65 does not improve its prognostic accuracy. A low CRB-65 score of 0 may be a good rule-out test for adverse clinical outcomes in COVID-19 patients with normal or abnormal CXRs, which deserves prospective validation.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Prognostic interaction between expression of p53 and estrogen receptor in patients with node-negative breast cancer: results from IBCSG Trials VIII and IX

Introduction: The prognostic significance of p53 protein expression in early breast cancer remains uncertain, with some but not all studies finding an association with poorer outcomes. Estrogen receptor (ER) expression is both a positive prognostic marker and predictive of response to endocrine therapies. The relationship between these biomarkers is unknown. Methods: We constructed tissue microarrays (TMAs) from available pathological material from 1113 patients participating in two randomized clinical trials comparing endocrine therapy alone versus chemo-endocrine therapy in node-negative breast cancer. Expression of p53 defined as >10% positive nuclei was analyzed together with prior immunohistochemical assays of ER performed at central pathological review of whole tumor sections. Results: ER was present (i.e. >1% positive tumor cell nuclei) in 80.1% (880/1092). p53 expression was significantly more frequent when ER was absent, 125/212 (59%) than when ER was present, 171/880 (19%), p <0.0001. A significant qualitative interaction was observed such that p53 expression was associated with better disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) among patients whose tumors did not express ER, but worse DFS and OS among patients whose tumors expressed ER. The interaction remained significant after allowance for pathologic variables, and treatment. Similar effects were seen when luminal and non-luminal intrinsic subtypes were compared. Conclusions: Interpretation of the prognostic significance of p53 expression requires knowledge of concurrent expression of ER. The reason for the interaction between p53 and ER is unknown but may reflect qualitatively different p53 mutations underlying the p53 expression in tumors with or without ER expression. Trial registration Current Controlled Trials ACTRN12607000037404 (Trial VIII) and ACTRN12607000029493 (Trial IX)

Quaternary geology of the Northern Great Plains

The Great Plains physiographic province lies east of the Rocky Mountains and extends from southern Alberta and Saskatchewan nearly to the United States-Mexico border. This chapter covers only the northern part of the unglaciated portion of this huge region, from Oklahoma almost to the United StatesCanada border, a portion that herein will be referred to simply as the Northern Great Plains (Fig. 1). This region is in the rain shadow of the Rocky Mountains. Isoheyets are roughly longitudinal, and mean annual precipitation decreases from about 750 mm at the southeastern margin to less than 380 mm in the western and northern parts (Fig. 2). Winters typically are cold with relatively little precipitation, mostly as snow; summers are hot with increased precipitation, chiefly associated with movement of Pacific and Arctic air masses into warm, humid air masses from the Gulf of Mexico. Vegetation is almost wholly prairie grassland, due to the semiarid, markedly seasonal climate. The Northern Great Plains is a large region of generally low relief sloping eastward from the Rocky Mountains toward the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. Its basic bedrock structure is a broad syncline, punctuated by the Black Hills and a few smaller uplifts, and by structural basins such as the Williston, Powder River, and Denver-Julesburg Basins (Fig. 3). Its surface bedrock is chiefly Cretaceous and Tertiary sediments, with small areas of older rocks in the Black Hills, central Montana, and eastern parts of Wyoming, Kansas, and Oklahoma. During the Laramide orogeny (latest Cretaceous through Eocene), while the Rocky Mountains and Black Hills were rising, synorogenic sediments (frequently with large amounts of volcanic ash from volcanic centers in the Rocky Mountains) were deposited in the subsiding Denver-Julesburg, Powder River, and other basins. From Oligocene to Miocene time, sedimentation generally slowed with declining tectonism and volcanism in the Rocky Mountains. However, since the later Miocene, epeirogenic uplift, probably associated with the East Pacific Rise, affected the Great Plains and particularly the Rocky Mountains. During the last 10 m.y. the Rocky Mountain front has risen 1.5 to 2 km, and the eastern margin of the Great Plains 100 to 500 m (Gable and Hatton, 1983), with half to one-quarter of these amounts during the last 5 m.y. Thus, during the later Miocene the Great Plains became a huge aggrading piedmont sloping gently eastward from the Rocky Mountains and Black Hills, with generally eastward drainage, on which the Ogallala Formation and equivalents was deposited. The Ogallala underlies the High Plains Surface, the highest and oldest geomorphic surface preserved in this region. It has been completely eroded along some parts of the western margin of the region (e.g., the Colorado Piedmont), but eastward, it (and its equivalents, such as the Flaxville gravels in Montana) locally is preserved as caprock or buried by Quaternary sediments (Alden, 1924, 1932; Howard, 1960; Stanley, 1971, 1976; Pearl, 1971; Scott, 1982; Corner and Diffendal, 1983; Diffendal and Corner, 1984; Swinehart and others, 1985; Aber, 1985). During the Pliocene, regional aggradation slowly changed to dissection by the principal rivers. In the western part of the region the rivers flowed eastward, but the continental drainage divide Figure 3. Major bedrock structures of the Northern Great Plains. extended northeast from the Black Hills through central South Dakota, far south of its present position. The ancestral upper Missouri, Little Missouri, Yellowstone, and Cheyenne Rivers drained northeast to Hudson Bay, whereas the ancestral White, Platte, and Arkansas Rivers went to the Gulf of Mexico (Fig 4A). Their courses are marked by scattered surface and subsurface gravel remnants; in Montana and North Dakota, deposits of the preglacial Missouri River and its tributaries are buried deeply beneath glacial and other sediments (Howard, 1960; Bluemle, 1972)

Seeing the way: visual sociology and the distance runner's perspective

Employing visual and autoethnographic data from a two‐year research project on distance runners, this article seeks to examine the activity of seeing in relation to the activity of distance running. One of its methodological aims is to develop the linkage between visual and autoethnographic data in combining an observation‐based narrative and sociological analysis with photographs. This combination aims to convey to the reader not only some of the specific subcultural knowledge and particular ways of seeing, but also something of the runner's embodied feelings and experience of momentum en route. Via the combination of narrative and photographs we seek a more effective way of communicating just how distance runners see and experience their training terrain. The importance of subjecting mundane everyday practices to detailed sociological analysis has been highlighted by many sociologists, including those of an ethnomethodological perspective. Indeed, without the competence of social actors in accomplishing these mundane, routine understandings and practices, it is argued, there would in fact be no social order