Prevention of ischemic myocardial contracture through hemodynamically controlled DCD

Purpose—Ischemic myocardial contracture (IMC) or ‘‘stoneheart’’ is a condition with rapid onset following circulatory death. It inhibits transplantability of hearts donated uponcirculatory death (DCD). We investigate the effectiveness of hemodynamic normalization upon withdrawal of life-sustaining therapy (WLST) in a large-animal controlled DCD model, with the hypothesis that reduction in cardiac work delays the onset of IMC. Methods—A large-animal study was conducted comprising of a control group (n = 6) receiving no therapy upon WLST, and a test group (n = 6) subjected to a protocol for fully automated computer-controlled hemodynamic drug administration. Onset of IMC within 1 h following circulatory death defined the primary end-point. Cardiac work estimates based on pressure-volume loop concepts were developed and used to provide insight into the effectiveness of the proposed computer-controlled therapy. Results—No test group individual developed IMC within 1 h, whereas all control group individuals did (4/6 within30 min). Conclusion—Automatic dosing of hemodynamic drugs in the controlled DCD context has the potential to prevent onset of IMC up to 1 h, enabling ethical and medically safe organ procurement. This has the potential to increase the use of DCD heart transplantation, which has been widely recognized as a means of meeting the growing demand for donor hearts

The SPLASH Action Group – Towards standardized sampling strategies in permafrost science

International audienceThe Action Group called ‘Standardized methods across Permafrost Landscapes: from Arctic Soils to Hydrosystems’ (SPLASH) is a community-driven effort aiming to provide a suite of standardized field strategies for sampling mineral and organic components in soils, sediments, and water across permafrost landscapes. This unified approach will allow data from different landscape interfaces, field locations and seasons to be shared and compared, thus improving our understanding of the processes occurring during lateral transport in circumpolar Arctic watersheds

Building on each other’s work - Impact and inspiration of permafrost research from 1998 to 2017

Research on permafrost has intensified in recent years, due to enhanced warming in the Arctic and in alpine regions, and the direct feedbacks between thawing permafrost and climate. To explore how scientists build on existing knowledge on permafrost and identify which studies inspire more research, we analyzed scientific articles published over two decades, before (1998-2007) and after (2008-2017) the 4th International Polar Year (2007/2008). We compared this bibliometric data to results from an online survey in which respondents were asked to list the most influential and inspiring publications on permafrost in their view. While publications per year have more than doubled for multidisciplinary geosciences from 1998 to 2017, permafrost publications have increased more than six-fold for the same period, according to bibliometric data from Web of Science. Permafrost publications have increased the most in journals focusing on biogeosciences (e.g. Journal of Geophysical Research - Biogeosciences) but also in the broader geoscience and science journals (e.g. Geophysical Research Letters, Nature), reflecting a shift towards more carbon-cycle focused research in later years. From the survey, many listed books as the most influential publications and comments also revealed that conferences, photographs, movies and (non-science) books inspire permafrost researchers. Keeping track on how knowledge is collectively built within a scientific discipline and community, can help us to identify how to design impactful studies and how to coordinate research efforts in a time when high quality and impact research is badly needed

“Frozen-Ground Cartoons”: Permafrost comics as an innovative tool for polar outreach, education, and engagement

Permafrost occupies 20 million square kilometres of Earth’s high-latitude and high-altitude landscapes. These regions are sensitive to climate change and human activities; hence, permafrost research is of considerable scientific and societal importance. However, the results of this research are generally not known by the general public. Communicating scientific concepts is an increasingly important task in the research world. Different ways to engage learners and incorporate narratives in teaching materials exist, yet they are generally underused. Here we report on an international scientific outreach project called “Frozen-Ground Cartoons”, which aims at making permafrost science accessible and fun for students, teachers, and parents through the creation of comic strips.We present the context in which the project was initiated, as well as recent education and outreach activities. The future phases of the project primarily involve a series of augmented reality materials, such as maps, photos, videos, and 3D drawings. With this project we aim to foster understanding of permafrost research among broader audiences, inspire future permafrost researchers, and raise public and science community awareness of polar science, education, outreach, and engagement

Es taut! Frozen-Ground Cartoons: Eine internationale Kooperation zwischen Künstlern und Permafrost-Wissenschaftlern

Dieses Projekt startete im Oktober 2015 mit einer verrückten Idee: Schreiben und Einreichen eines Antrags auf Förderung einer internationalen, multidisziplinären und nicht-traditionell wissenschaftlichen Projektinitiative… innerhalb von 48 Stunden. Und es hat geklappt ! Eine Gruppe hoch motivierter, junger Forscher aus Kanada und Europa hat sich gebildet, um Kunst und Wissenschaft zu kombinieren und eine Reihe von Comics über Permafrost (gefrorene Böden) zu produzieren. Unser Ziel ist es, zu zeigen, wie wissenschaftliches Arbeiten im hohen Norden funktioniert, mit dem Schwerpunkt auf Geländearbeit und den schnellen Umweltveränderungen in der Arktis. Die Zielgruppe sind Kinder, Jugendliche, Eltern und Lehrer, mit dem allgemeinen Ziel, Permafrost zugänglicher und mit Spaß zu vermitteln. Denn ratet mal: Permafrost ist ein Gebiet von mehr als 20 Millionen km2 auf der Nordhalbkugel – ein riesiges Gebiet. Durch die Klimaerwärmung taut der Permafrost und wird zu instabil, um Häuser, Straßen und Flughäfen zu tragen. Durch das Auftauen von gefrorenem Boden werden außerdem Pflanzen- und Tierhabitate zerstört, die Wasserqualität und Ökologie von Seen beeinflusst und auf Grund der Freisetzung von Kohlenstoff als Treibhausgas in die Atmosphäre wird der Klimawandel sogar verstärkt. Daher betrifft Permafrost und seine Reaktion auf den Klimawandel uns alle. Die Internationale Permafrost Gemeinschaft (IPA) hat das Projekt als „Action Group“ von Beginn an unterstützt und seitdem sind noch viele weitere Sponsoren dazugekommen. Und hier sind wir nun: Zwei Jahre nach der ersten Idee. Ihr seid kurz davor das zu lesen, was das Ergebnis eines ständigen Austauschs zwischen Künstlern und Wissenschaftlern ist. Zunächst hatten wir eine Ausschreibungsrunde und erhielten 49 Bewerbungen von Künstlern aus 16 Ländern. Durch ein Bewertungsverfahren wählten wir zwei Künstlerinnen aus, um an diesem Projekt zu arbeiten: Noémie Ross aus Kanada und Heta Nääs aus Finnland. Mit den Beiträgen von Wissenschaftlern erstellten Noémie und Heta fantastische Cartoons, die ein paar der Veränderungen erklären, die in Permafrost-Gebieten passieren. Zum Beispiel: wie wird die Welt der Menschen und Tiere beeinflusst und was machen Forscher, um diese Prozesse besser zu verstehen, sodass sie den Einheimischen helfen können, innovative Wege zur Anpassung zu finden

Frozen-Ground Cartoons: An international collaboration between artists and permafrost scientists

Communicating science about a phenomenon found under ground and defined by its thermal properties in an easy, funny, and engaging way, can be a challenge. Two years ago, a group of young researchers from Canada and Europe united to tackle this problem by combining arts and science to produce a series of outreach comic strips about permafrost (frozen ground). Because this concerns us all. As the climate warms, permafrost thaws and becomes unstable for houses, roads and airports. The thawing also disrupts ecosystems, impacts water quality, and releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, making climate change even stronger. The Frozen Ground Cartoon project aims to present and explain permafrost research, placing emphasis on field work and the rapidly changing northern environment. The target audience is kids, youth, parents and teachers, with the general goal of making permafrost science more fun and accessible to the public. The project has so far produced 22 pages of comics through an iterative process of exchanging ideas between two artists and thirteen scientists. The project artists were selected through an application call that received 49 applications from artists in 16 countries. With input from scientists, artists Noémie Ross (Canada) and Heta Nääs (Finland) have created a set of beautiful, artistic, humoristic, and pedagogic comics. The comics are available for free download through the project web page (in English and Swedish), and printed copies have so far been handed out to school kids and general public in Europe and Canada. The next steps of this project are (1) to distribute the comics as wide as possible, (2) work towards translations into more languages, and (3) to evaluate the effectiveness of the science communication through the comics, in collaboration with schools and pedagogic experts

PeRL:A circum-Arctic Permafrost Region Pond and Lake database

Ponds and lakes are abundant in Arctic permafrost lowlands. They play an important role in Arctic wetland ecosystems by regulating carbon, water, and energy fluxes and providing freshwater habitats. However, ponds, i.e., waterbodies with surface areas smaller than 1. 0 × 104ĝ€m2, have not been inventoried on global and regional scales. The Permafrost Region Pond and Lake (PeRL) database presents the results of a circum-Arctic effort to map ponds and lakes from modern (2002-2013) high-resolution aerial and satellite imagery with a resolution of 5ĝ€m or better. The database also includes historical imagery from 1948 to 1965 with a resolution of 6ĝ€m or better. PeRL includes 69 maps covering a wide range of environmental conditions from tundra to boreal regions and from continuous to discontinuous permafrost zones. Waterbody maps are linked to regional permafrost landscape maps which provide information on permafrost extent, ground ice volume, geology, and lithology. This paper describes waterbody classification and accuracy, and presents statistics of waterbody distribution for each site. Maps of permafrost landscapes in Alaska, Canada, and Russia are used to extrapolate waterbody statistics from the site level to regional landscape units. PeRL presents pond and lake estimates for a total area of 1. 4 × 106ĝ€km2 across the Arctic, about 17ĝ€% of the Arctic lowland ( < ĝ€300ĝ€mĝ€a.s.l.) land surface area. PeRL waterbodies with sizes of 1. 0 × 106ĝ€m2 down to 1. 0 × 102ĝ€m2 contributed up to 21ĝ€% to the total water fraction. Waterbody density ranged from 1. 0 × 10 to 9. 4 × 101ĝ€kmĝ'2. Ponds are the dominant waterbody type by number in all landscapes representing 45-99ĝ€% of the total waterbody number. The implementation of PeRL size distributions in land surface models will greatly improve the investigation and projection of surface inundation and carbon fluxes in permafrost lowlands. Waterbody maps, study area boundaries, and maps of regional permafrost landscapes including detailed metadata are available at https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.868349

Data for wetlandscapes and their changes around the world

Geography and associated hydrological, hydroclimate and land-use conditions and their changes determine the states and dynamics of wetlands and their ecosystem services. The influences of these controls are not limited to just the local scale of each individual wetland but extend over larger landscape areas that integrate multiple wetlands and their total hydrological catchment – the wetlandscape. However, the data and knowledge of conditions and changes over entire wetlandscapes are still scarce, limiting the capacity to accurately understand and manage critical wetland ecosystems and their services under global change. We present a new Wetlandscape Change Information Database (WetCID), consisting of geographic, hydrological, hydroclimate and land-use information and data for 27 wetlandscapes around the world. This combines survey-based local information with geographic shapefiles and gridded datasets of large-scale hydroclimate and land-use conditions and their changes over whole wetlandscapes. Temporally, WetCID contains 30-year time series of data for mean monthly precipitation and temperature and annual land-use conditions. The survey-based site information includes local knowledge on the wetlands, hydrology, hydroclimate and land uses within each wetlandscape and on the availability and accessibility of associated local data. This novel database (available through PANGAEA https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.907398; Ghajarnia et al., 2019) can support site assessments; cross-regional comparisons; and scenario analyses of the roles and impacts of land use, hydroclimatic and wetland conditions, and changes in whole-wetlandscape functions and ecosystem services

Priorities and interactions of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with focus on wetlands

Wetlands are often vital physical and social components of a country's natural capital, as well as providers of ecosystem services to local and national communities. We performed a network analysis to prioritize Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets for sustainable development in iconic wetlands and wetlandscapes around the world. The analysis was based on the information and perceptions on 45 wetlandscapes worldwide by 49 wetland researchers of the GlobalWetland Ecohydrological Network (GWEN). We identified three 2030 Agenda targets of high priority across the wetlandscapes needed to achieve sustainable development: Target 6.3-'Improve water quality'; 2.4-'Sustainable food production'; and 12.2-'Sustainable management of resources'. Moreover, we found specific feedback mechanisms and synergies between SDG targets in the context of wetlands. The most consistent reinforcing interactions were the influence of Target 12.2 on 8.4-'Efficient resource consumption'; and that of Target 6.3 on 12.2. The wetlandscapes could be differentiated in four bundles of distinctive priority SDG-targets: 'Basic human needs', 'Sustainable tourism', 'Environmental impact in urban wetlands', and 'Improving and conserving environment'. In general, we find that the SDG groups, targets, and interactions stress that maintaining good water quality and a 'wise use' of wetlandscapes are vital to attaining sustainable development within these sensitive ecosystems. © 2019 by the authors

Correction: Priorities and interactions of sustainable development goals (SDGs) with focus on wetlands. Water 2019, 11, 619 doi: 10.3390/w11030619

10.3390/w12010088Water (Switzerland)1218