Dimethyl fumarate in patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19 (RECOVERY): a randomised, controlled, open-label, platform trial

Dimethyl fumarate (DMF) inhibits inflammasome-mediated inflammation and has been proposed as a treatment for patients hospitalised with COVID-19. This randomised, controlled, open-label platform trial (Randomised Evaluation of COVID-19 Therapy [RECOVERY]), is assessing multiple treatments in patients hospitalised for COVID-19 (NCT04381936, ISRCTN50189673). In this assessment of DMF performed at 27 UK hospitals, adults were randomly allocated (1:1) to either usual standard of care alone or usual standard of care plus DMF. The primary outcome was clinical status on day 5 measured on a seven-point ordinal scale. Secondary outcomes were time to sustained improvement in clinical status, time to discharge, day 5 peripheral blood oxygenation, day 5 C-reactive protein, and improvement in day 10 clinical status. Between 2 March 2021 and 18 November 2021, 713 patients were enroled in the DMF evaluation, of whom 356 were randomly allocated to receive usual care plus DMF, and 357 to usual care alone. 95% of patients received corticosteroids as part of routine care. There was no evidence of a beneficial effect of DMF on clinical status at day 5 (common odds ratio of unfavourable outcome 1.12; 95% CI 0.86-1.47; p = 0.40). There was no significant effect of DMF on any secondary outcome

Gully Mapping and Erosion Volume Calculation: A 3D approach using Cartosat-1 Stereo Images

International Symposium on Gully Erosion11101-101Australi

Three-Dimensional Identification and Mapping of Gullies Using Cartosat-1 imagery, International Forum on Geoscience and Oceanography

International Forum on Geoscience and Oceanography11Chin

Bed-bank relationship and flood characterisation in the upper reach of the brahmaputra valley, assam

Brahmaputra valley relief of upper Assam in India bears plenty of evidences to suggest active structural control as well as remarkable unevenness in sediment budgeting. These two major forcings cause highly variable bed-bank relationships along different reaches of the Brahmaputra’s channel belt. Under steady average annual precipitation in decadal scale, flood vulnerability can be taken as directly proportional to the decreasing rate of bed-bank elevation difference. Normally, average bed elevation of the highest order river of a given valley reach is the base level of the reach. Bed-bank architecture over the years shows different reach scale possibilities. A big braided river like the Brahmaputra shows alternating narrower ‘nodes’ and wider ‘internodes’. Usually, nodes are deeper and anti-nodes are shallower. Reach scale widening of rivers over time on many occasions is accompanied by shallowing tendency as well. For the upper reach of the Brahmaputra River and the valley, reach scale plano-temporal variability for the period 1915–2015 was monitored. From the confluence of three major rivers, the Siang, the Dibang and the Lohit, up to 230 km downstream, 23 reaches each of 10 km width were chosen. Essentially we have four findings. First, by measuring plano-temporal variability of sandbar/channel areas we could locate reaches having steady rate of aggradation; secondly, two indices for depths and widths were developed which help to identify normalised deeper zones and zones showing normalised widening tendency over three different average widths (1915, 1975 and 2015). This also helps to test the validity of the general assumption whether shallower reaches show a general trend of widening or not for the upper reach of the Brahmaputra valley. Thirdly, by assuming discretisation of the flow into equal width reaches, probable flood inundation areas were identified for incremental jumps of water levels over the average bank elevations by 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0 and 2.5 m assuming absence of embankments. Lastly, assuming complete embankments for both the banks exclude the possibility of immediate flooding but accelerate thereby the river bed construction and practically zero bank construction which can be interpreted in terms of disaster incubation. For uniform aggradation all along the river bed of the study area, reaches having river bed elevation equal or higher than the bank elevation will be more prone towards embankment breaches. Accordingly, for different aggradation thickness values of 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0 and 2.5 m within the channel belt, the incubation of vulnerability for different reaches of both the banks was identified

Geography’s Role in Nurturing Postgraduate Students

10.1111/geoj.12100Geographical Journal1814427-43

Disaster risk reduction, modern science and local knowledge: perspectives from Timor-Leste

Local knowledge and modern science are both valuable inputs to environmental Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) approaches. Local knowledge for DRR is particularly important in countries where government capabilities are limited and where long-standing customary practices of natural resource management still exist and may be harnessed for governance purposes. Modern science can add value by expanding the knowledge base using methods not available to local people through empirical studies and using theory in data-poor locations to fill empirical gaps and test empirically derived inferences. Timor-Leste is an impoverished post-conflict nation prone to disasters from connected threats of droughts, floods and landslides and human dependence on low yield, shifting agriculture. In this paper, the results of community meetings in the catchments of the Laclo and Caraulun rivers are compared with scientific research to identify explanations of hazard cause and effect. The major difference between the two knowledge spheres is that while local people shared causal connections with scientific explanations they also simultaneously held 'naturalist' explanations of disasters. In particular, they attributed environmental disasters to the failure to put to rest the spirits of the many people killed during the previous decades of militarised occupation. The paper considers the implications of these findings for developing effective governance and preparedness policies for DRR in Timor Leste and evaluates recent developments

Solute transport and solutional denu-dation rate of carbonate karst in the semi-arid Zagros region (southwes-tern Iran)

We conducted a one-year-long study of solute load measured three times per month in three neighboring subwatersheds (Alashtar, Khorram Abad, and Biranshahr) located in the Karkheh River basin in the Zagros region of southwestern Iran. Research was focused on the chemical composition of water (solute load), karst denudation rate, spatial and temporal variability, as well as comparison of solute load with suspended load. Results show that Ca-Mg-HCO3 is the dominant water type that reflects the lithological characteristics of the catchment areas. Lack of seasonal fluctuation of solute load and absence of dilution during high water levels but evident seasonal course of discharge defines the highest solute flux during the annual maximum of discharge in spring months. The highest solute flux is related to flood events. High annual variation of Na+ concentration compared to conservative Cl- as well as Chloro-Alkali indexes (CAI and CAI2) suggests that Na+ adsorption and desorption during ion-exchange reactions occur in the regolith. This Na+ variability, to some extent, explains weak Ca2+ and Mg2+ dilution effect during high water levels. During the measurement period (2014-2015), solute flux calculated per catchment area amounted to 49-69 t km(-2) a(-1) (tons per km per year). The chemical composition of water and discharge shows by far the highest chemical denudation of limestones and dolomites (87-89 %), while dissolution of gypsum is of minor importance (11-13 %). As a result, the carbonate karst solutional denudation rate is between 0.010 and 0.040 mm a(-1), where the higher values are more probable for longer periods due to the relatively low discharge during the spring of 2015. Comparison of dissolved and suspended loads indicates that the transport of suspended load is an order of magnitude less than transport of the dissolved load; the only exception is one flash flood event when suspended load exceeded the dissolved load. Besides a small decrease in solute flux as well as carbonate karst dissolution rates from NW to SE, no large hydrochemical differences between the three subwatersheds were detected