Scarlet & Silver Jubilee

Program listing performers and works performe

Scarlet & Silver Jubilee

Program listing performers and works performe

Amazing Americana!

Program listing performers and works performe

A Festschrift Recital: Celebrating Dr. Carol Kimball\u27s 36 Years at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Program listing performers and works performe

Averting biodiversity collapse in tropical forest protected areas

The rapid disruption of tropical forests probably imperils global biodiversity more than any other contemporary phenomenon¹⁻³. With deforestation advancing quickly, protected areas are increasingly becoming final refuges for threatened species and natural ecosystem processes. However, many protected areas in the tropics are themselves vulnerable to human encroachment and other environmental stresses⁴⁻⁹. As pressures mount, it is vital to know whether existing reserves can sustain their biodiversity. A critical constraint in addressing this question has been that data describing a broad array of biodiversity groups have been unavailable for a sufficiently large and representative sample of reserves. Here we present a uniquely comprehensive data set on changes over the past 20 to 30 years in 31 functional groups of species and 21 potential drivers of environmental change, for 60 protected areas stratified across the world’s major tropical regions. Our analysis reveals great variation in reserve ‘health’: about half of all reserves have been effective or performed passably, but the rest are experiencing an erosion of biodiversity that is often alarmingly widespread taxonomically and functionally. Habitat disruption, hunting and forest-product exploitation were the strongest predictors of declining reserve health. Crucially, environmental changes immediately outside reserves seemed nearly as important as those inside in determining their ecological fate, with changes inside reserves strongly mirroring those occurring around them. These findings suggest that tropical protected areas are often intimately linked ecologically to their surrounding habitats, and that a failure to stem broad-scale loss and degradation of such habitats could sharply increase the likelihood of serious biodiversity declines.Keywords: Ecology, Environmental scienc

Sentinel Lymph Node Mapping and its Relation to Biopsy

Sentinel lymph node (SLN) analysis has become the standard of care for initial regional lymph node assessment of breast malignancies and melanoma, replacing complete regional lymph node dissection for most patients. Although Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) codes 38500-38780 serve to identify lymph node biopsy, complete regional dissection procedures, and formal lymphadenectomy procedures, these codes were developed before the widespread acceptance of SLN mapping

Frequently Asked Questions about Coding for Breast Surgery

Coding for surgical services can be complicated due to the numerous rules, guidelines, and exceptions—all of which the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services frequently updates and revises. Consequently, the American College of Surgeons (ACS) General Surgery Coding and Reimbursement Committee (GSCRC) often receives questions about coding, particularly for breast surgery. This column responds to some frequently asked coding questions related to breast cancer operations, sentinel node biopsy, ultrasound-guided core biopsies, excision with wires, intraoperative assessment of margins, and more