Implementing adaptive management into a climate change adaptation strategy for a drowning New England salt marsh

Due to climate change and other anthropogenic stressors, future conditions and impacts facing coastal habitats are unclear to coastal resource managers. Adaptive management strategies have become an important tactic to compensate for the unknown environmental conditions that coastal managers and restoration ecologists face. Adaptive management requires extensive planning and resources, which can act as barriers to achieve a successful project. These barriers also create challenges in incorporating adaptive management into climate change adaptation strategies. This case study describes and analyzes the Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council\u27s approach to overcome these challenges to implement a successful adaptive management project to restore a drowning salt marsh using the climate change adaptation strategy, sediment enhancement, at Quonochontaug Pond in Charlestown, RI. Through effective communication and active stakeholder involvement, this project successfully incorporated interdisciplinary partner and stakeholder collaborations and developed an iterative learning strategy that highlights the adaptive management method

The Dark Side of Information and Communication Technologies: The View from the Industry-Level of Analysis

The Year 2000 problem spurred companies to rethink investments in information and communication technologies (ICT). Many used the Y2K problem as an opportunity to renew ICT infrastructures, to install integrated enterprise packages, and to pursue new opportunities for ICT-enabled value such as e-commerce, supply chain management, and customer relationship management. Some evidence suggests that these efforts have had substantial payoffs in terms of shareholder value. But can such firm-level benefits persist when competitors catch up or when the success of leaders drives inefficient producers out of business? This panel features NSF-funded researchers whose studies have examined the impacts of ICT at the industry-level of analysis. They show significant industry-level ICT-enabled impacts with potentially negative implications for the firms competing within industries. In the Information Systems field, the ability to gain competitive advantage with ICT has long been an important theme. Although some researchers warned that ICT might contribute to the destruction of competitive advantage, by far the majority of the discourse has centered on how individual firms should invest in ICT. When taking an industry-level view of ICT-enabled competitive advantage, however, we can see its potential dark side. Among the risks ICT poses to the firms in an industry are these: • Fundamentally reducing the cost structure of an industry such that some firms can no longer compete and that others experience squeezed margins • Destruction of in-house competencies (e.g., through radical process change or business process outsourcing) • Investments in ICT are required as a condition of doing business without providing any bottom-line benefits • Increased dependency on external ICT providers leading to business inflexibility and lack of ICT knowledg

Age-related changes in T lymphocytes of patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma

Introduction The number of aging cancer patients has increased continuously and will do so further in the future. The immune system of elderly people experiences critical changes over the time. Therefore, tumor-induced changes in the immune system are believed to differ in young and elderly cancer patients as well. Methods The effect of aging on the immune system was measured in peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBL) of healthy volunteers (n = 48, 21–84 yrs.) divided into three different age groups. Seventy years was set as a cut-off for defining subjects as elderly. Results were compared to two groups of adult cancer patients, which donated PBL and tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL): young cancer patients (40–69 yrs.; blood: n = 13; TIL: n = 17) and elderly cancer patients (70–90 yrs.; blood: n = 20; TIL: n = 15) with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC). Frequencies and phenotypes of CD4+ and CD8+ T cells as well as regulatory T cells (Treg) were assessed by flow cytometry. Results We observed lower frequencies of CD8+ cytotoxic T cells during aging in both groups. Frequencies of tumor infiltrating regulatory T cells were significantly higher than in the peripheral blood but showed a significant decline in older tumor patients. With increasing age, expression of immunosuppressive CD73 and CCR7 was lower and expression of PD1 elevated on peripheral T cells in healthy volunteers and tumor patients. Conclusion Immunosenescence takes place in healthy donors and cancer patients. Our results suggest that in elderly tumor patients, the immune system is impaired and the tumor-induced immune escape is less pronounced. The increased expression of PD1 implies the potential for effective immunotherapies in elderly, as treatment with checkpoint inhibitors could be more beneficial for elderly HNSCC patients

Contributions of organic and inorganic matter to sediment volume and accretion in tidal wetlands at steady state

A mixing model derived from first principles describes the bulk density (BD) of intertidal wetland sediments as a function of loss on ignition (LOI). The model assumes that the bulk volume of sediment equates to the sum of self-packing volumes of organic and mineral components or BD = 1/[LOI/k1 + (1-LOI)/k2], where k1 and k2 are the self-packing densities of the pure organic and inorganic components, respectively. The model explained 78% of the variability in total BD when fitted to 5075 measurements drawn from 33 wetlands distributed around the conterminous United States. The values of k1 and k2 were estimated to be 0.085 ± 0.0007 g cm−3 and 1.99 ± 0.028 g cm−3, respectively. Based on the fitted organic density (k1) and constrained by primary production, the model suggests that the maximum steady state accretion arising from the sequestration of refractory organic matter is ≤ 0.3 cm yr−1. Thus, tidal peatlands are unlikely to indefinitely survive a higher rate of sea-level rise in the absence of a significant source of mineral sediment. Application of k2 to a mineral sediment load typical of East and eastern Gulf Coast estuaries gives a vertical accretion rate from inorganic sediment of 0.2 cm yr−1. Total steady state accretion is the sum of the parts and therefore should not be greater than 0.5 cm yr−1 under the assumptions of the model. Accretion rates could deviate from this value depending on variation in plant productivity, root:shoot ratio, suspended sediment concentration, sediment-capture efficiency, and episodic events

The Effects Of N, P And Crude Oil On The Decomposition Of Spartina Alterniflora Belowground Biomass

We conducted a laboratory experiment to examine how the decomposition of particulate belowground organic matter from a salt marsh is enhanced, or not, by different mixtures of crude oil, nitrogen (N), or phosphorus (P) acting individually or synergistically. The experiment was conducted in 3.8 L sampling chambers producing varying quantities of gas whose volume was used as a surrogate measure of organic decomposition under anaerobic conditions. Gas production after 28 days, from highest to lowest, was +NP = +N \u3e\u3e\u3e +P, or +oil. The gas production under either +P or +oil conditions was indistinguishable from gas production in the control chamber. Nitrogen, not phosphorus, or +NP, was the dominant factor controlling organic decomposition rates in these experiments. The implication for organic salt marsh soils is that shoreline erosion is enhanced by salt marsh oiling, presumably by its toxicity, but not by its effect on the decomposition rates of plant biomass belowground. Nutrient additions, on the other hand, may compromise the soil strength, creating a stronger disparity in soil strength between upper and lower soil layers leading to marsh loss. Nutrient amendments intended to decrease oil concentration in the marsh may not have the desired effect, and are likely to decrease soil strength, thereby enhancing marsh-to-water conversions in organic salt marsh soils

Enhanced cellular migration and prolonged chondrogenic differentiation in decellularized cartilage scaffolds under dynamic culture conditions

Lesions of aural, nasal and tracheal cartilage are frequently reconstructed by complex surgeries which are based on harvesting autologous cartilage from other locations such as the rib. Cartilage tissue engineering (CTE) is regarded as a promising alternative to attain vital cartilage. Nevertheless, CTE with nearly natural properties poses a significant challenge to research due to the complex reciprocal interactions between cells and extracellular matrix which have to be imitated and which are still not fully understood. Thus, we used a custom-made glass bioreactor to enhance cell migration into decellularized porcine cartilage scaffolds (DECM) and mimic physiological conditions. The DECM seeded with human nasal chondrocytes (HPCH) were cultured in the glass reactor for 6 weeks and examined by histological and immunohistochemical staining, biochemical analyses and real time-PCR at 14, 28 and 42 days. The migration depth and the number of migrated cells were quantified by computational analysis. Compared to the static cultivation, the dynamic culture (DC) fostered migration of HPCH into deeper tissue layers. Furthermore, cultivation in the bioreactor enhanced differentiation of the cells during the first 14 days, but differentiation diminished in the course of further cultivation. We consider the DC in the presented bioreactor as a promising tool to facilitate CTE and to help to better understand the complex physiological processes during cartilage regeneration. Maintaining differentiation of chondrocytes and improving cellular migration by further optimizing culture conditions is an important prerequisite for future clinical application

Increasing mean age of head and neck cancer patients at a German tertiary referral center

Background: The impact of demographic change on the age at diagnosis in German head and neck cancer (HNC) patients is unclear. Here we present an evaluation of aging trends in HNC at a tertiary referral center. Methods: Retrospective cohort study on aging trends at the initial diagnosis of newly diagnosed patients with HNC between 2004 and 2018 at the head and neck cancer center Ulm in relation to demographic data of the catchment area. Results: The study population consisted of 2450 individuals diagnosed with HNC with a mean age of 62.84 (±11.67) years. We observed a significant increase in annual incidence rates and mean age over time. Mean age among HNC patients increased significantly more than among the population in the catchment area. Whereas the incidence rate of patients <50 years did not change, the incidence of HNC patients aged ≥70 years increased the most. The mean patient age in the main tumor sites increased significantly. Surprisingly, HPV-positive patients were not younger than HPV-negative patients, but showed a non-significant trend towards a higher mean age (63.0 vs. 60.7 years). Conclusions: Increasing incidence rates in older patients pose a challenge for health care systems. A nationwide study is needed to assess the dynamics and impact of aging on the incidence of HNC

Computational and Serologic Analysis of Novel and Known Viruses in Species Human Adenovirus D in Which Serology and Genomics Do Not Correlate

In November of 2007 a human adenovirus (HAdV) was isolated from a bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) sample recovered from a biopsy of an AIDS patient who presented with fever, cough, tachycardia, and expiratory wheezes. To better understand the isolated virus, the genome was sequenced and analyzed using bioinformatic and phylogenomic analysis. The results suggest that this novel virus, which is provisionally named HAdV-D59, may have been created from multiple recombination events. Specifically, the penton, hexon, and fiber genes have high nucleotide identity to HAdV-D19C, HAdV-D25, and HAdV-D56, respectively. Serological results demonstrated that HAdV-D59 has a neutralization profile that is similar yet not identical to that of HAdV-D25. Furthermore, we observed a two-fold difference between the ability of HAdV-D15 and HAdV-D25 to be neutralized by reciprocal antiserum indicating that the two hexon proteins may be more similar in epitopic conformation than previously assumed. In contrast, hexon loops 1 and 2 of HAdV-D15 and HAdV-D25 share 79.13 and 92.56 percent nucleotide identity, respectively. These data suggest that serology and genomics do not always correlate