Assessing a Multi-Platform Data Fusion Technique in Capturing Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Heterogeneous Dryland Ecosystems in Topographically Complex Terrain

Water-limited ecosystems encompass approximately 40% of terrestrial land mass and play a critical role in modulating Earth’s climate and provisioning ecosystem services to humanity. Spaceborne remote sensing is a critical tool for characterizing ecohydrologic patterns and advancing the understanding of the interactions between atmospheric forcings and ecohydrologic responses. Fine to medium scale spatial and temporal resolutions are needed to capture the spatial heterogeneity and the temporally intermittent response of these ecosystems to environmental forcings. Techniques combining complementary remote sensing datasets have been developed, but the heterogeneous nature of these regions present significant challenges. Here we investigate the capacity of one such approach, the Spatial and Temporal Adaptive Reflectance Fusion Model (STARFM) algorithm, to map Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) at 30 m spatial resolution and at a daily temporal resolution in an experimental watershed in southwest Idaho, USA. The Dry Creek Experimental Watershed captures an ecotone from a sagebrush steppe ecosystem to evergreen needle-leaf forests along an approximately 1000 m elevation gradient. We used STARFM to fuse NDVI retrievals from the MODerate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and Landsat during the course of a growing season (April to September). Specifically we input to STARFM a pair of Landsat NDVI retrievals bracketing a sequence of daily MODIS NDVI retrievals to yield daily estimates of NDVI at resolutions of 30 m. In a suite of data denial experiments we compared these STARFM predictions against corresponding Landsat NDVI retrievals and characterized errors in predicted NDVI. We investigated how errors vary as a function of vegetation functional type and topographic aspect. We find that errors in predicting NDVI were highest during green-up and senescence and lowest during the middle of the growing season. Absolute errors were generally greatest in tree-covered portions of the watershed and lowest in locations characterized by grasses/bare ground. On average, relative errors in predicted average NDVI were greatest in grass/bare ground regions, on south-facing aspects, and at the height of the growing season. We present several ramifications revealed in this study for the use of multi-sensor remote sensing data for the study of spatiotemporal ecohydrologic patterns in dryland ecosystems

The Effects of Olfactory Enrichment on Shelter Dog Behavior

Shelter environments are stressful for dogs due to loud noises and unfamiliar surroundings. Previous research showed that exposure to some scents resulted in reductions in activity and vocalizations in shelter dogs. We investigated the effects of two calming (lavender and vetiver) and two stimulating (lemon and rosemary) essential oils on crate position and active, resting, and stress behaviors. There were 8, 5-min observations conducted each week per dog, split between baseline and scent exposure. Our analysis using the Wilcoxon Signed-Rank test found that dogs exposed to lavender (n = 13), lemon (n = 10), rosemary (n = 13), and vetiver (n = 12) did not show a significant difference in crate position or amount of time they engaged in stress, resting, or active behaviors compared to baseline. The lack of behavioral improvement indicates that scent enrichment alone may not be enough to have a significant effect on shelter dog behavior

Longitudinal associations between physical activity and other health behaviours during the COVID-19 pandemic: A fixed effects analysis

Background: Government enforced restrictions on movement during the COVID-19 pandemic are likely to have had profound impacts on the daily behaviours of many individuals, including physical activity (PA). Given the pre-pandemic evidence for associations between PA and other health behaviours, changes in PA during the pandemic may have been detrimental for other health behaviours. This study aimed to evaluate whether changes in PA during and after the first national lockdown in the United Kingdom (UK) were associated with concurrent changes in other health behaviours, namely alcohol consumption, sleep, nutrition quality, diet quantity and sedentary time. / Methods: Data were derived from the UCL COVID-19 Social Study. The analytical sample consisted of 52,784 adults followed weekly across 22 weeks of the pandemic from 23rd March to 23rd August 2020. Data were analysed using fixed effects regression. / Results: There was significant within-individual variation in both PA and other health behaviours throughout the study period. Increased PA was positively associated with improved sleep and nutrition quality. However, increases in PA also showed modest associations with increased alcohol consumption and sedentary time. / Conclusion: Our findings indicate that, whilst the first wave of COVID-19 restrictions were in place, increases in PA were associated with improved sleep and better diet. Encouraging people to engage in PA may therefore lead to positive change in other health behaviours in times of adversity. However, increases in PA were also associated with more engagement in the negative health behaviours of alcohol consumption and sedentary time. These associations could be a result of increases in available leisure time for many people during COVID-19 restrictions and require further investigation to inform future public health guidance

Factors shaping the timing of later entry into parenthood: narratives of choice and constraint

Objective: This study explores the choices and constraints affecting timing of parenthood among those who became parents in their mid-thirties and early forties and how their fertility decisions were both affected by and negotiated within the interplay of different temporal frameworks. Background: Recent decades have seen a trend towards postponement of parenthood in many countries. Explanations for this delay include structural factors, changing social norms and the influence of the social meanings of age. The study assesses the influence of these factors on perceptions of the ‘right’ time to become parents. Method: The study draws on qualitative interviews with 23 women and men who participated in the third British National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (Natsal-3) survey and had a first child when they were aged between 33 and 46. Results: Prerequisites for parenthood were seen as financial security, a suitable home and a steady relationship. Educational attainment and the achievement of personal and lifestyle goals affected the age at which parenthood was considered as were individual circumstances. Age was less influential than life stage as a criterion for readiness although, for women, chronological age was a decisive factor. Conclusions: Choice in shaping personal biographies was greater among participants than it would have been for previous generations but its consequences acted to constrain options regarding the timing of parenthood. Time taken to fulfil personal and professional ambitions, changing social norms regarding the appropriate age for parenthood as well as individual and structural factors resulted in less predictable life trajectories.</p

Early childhood lung function is a stronger predictor of adolescent lung function in cystic fibrosis than early Pseudomonas aeruginosa infection

Pseudomonas aeruginosa has been suggested as a major determinant of poor pulmonary outcomes in cystic fibrosis (CF), although other factors play a role. Our objective was to investigate the association of early childhood Pseudomonas infection on differences in lung function in adolescence with CF

Randomized Trial of a Single-Session Growth Mind-Set Intervention for Rural Adolescents’ Internalizing and Externalizing Problems

Objective. Adolescents living in rural regions of the United States face substantial barriers to accessing mental health services, creating needs for more accessible, non-stigmatizing, briefer interventions. Research suggests that single-session “growth mindset” interventions (GM-SSIs)—which teach the belief that personal traits are malleable through effort—may reduce internalizing and externalizing problems in adolescents. However, GM-SSIs have not been evaluated among rural youth, and their effects on internalizing and externalizing problems have not been assessed within a single trial, rendering their relative benefits for different problem types unclear. We examined whether a computerized GM-SSI could reduce depressive symptoms, social anxiety symptoms, and conduct problems in adolescent girls from rural areas of the U.S. Method. Tenth-grade girls (N=222, M age=15.2, 38% white, 25% Black, 29% Hispanic) from four rural, low-income high schools in the Southeastern United States were randomized to receive a 45-minute GM-SSI or a computer-based, active control program, teaching healthy sexual behaviors. Girls self-reported depression symptoms, social anxiety symptoms, and conduct problem behaviors at baseline and four-month follow-up. Results. Relative to girls in the control group, girls receiving the GM-SSI reported modest but significantly greater reductions in depressive symptoms (d=.23) and likelihood of reporting elevated depressive symptoms (d=.29) from baseline to follow-up. GM-SSI effects were nonsignificant for social anxiety symptoms, although a small effect size emerged in the hypothesized direction (d=.21), and nonsignificant for change in conduct problems (d=.01). Conclusions. A free-of-charge, 45-minute GM-SSI may help reduce internalizing distress, especially depression—but not conduct problems—in rural adolescent girls

Conservation practice could benefit from routine testing and publication of management outcomes

Effective conservation requires a step change in the way practitioners can contribute to science and can have access to research outputs. The journal Conservation Evidence was established in 2004 to help practitioners surmount several obstacles they face when attempting to document the effects of their conservation actions scientifically. It is easily and freely accessible online. It is free to publish in and it enables global communication of the effects of practical trials and experiments, which are virtually impossible to get published in most scientific journals. The driving force behind Conservation Evidence is the need to generate and share scientific information about the effects of interventions

Mifepristone Pretreatment for the Medical Management of Early Pregnancy Loss

BACKGROUND Medical management of early pregnancy loss is an alternative to uterine aspira-tion, but standard medical treatment with misoprostol commonly results in treat-ment failure. We compared the efficacy and safety of pretreatment with mifepris-tone followed by treatment with misoprostol with the efficacy and safety of misoprostol use alone for the management of early pregnancy loss. METHODS We randomly assigned 300 women who had an anembryonic gestation or in whom embryonic or fetal death was confirmed to receive pretreatment with 200 mg of mifepristone, administered orally, followed by 800 µg of misoprostol, adminis-tered vaginally (mifepristone-pretreatment group), or 800 µg of misoprostol alone, administered vaginally (misoprostol-alone group). Participants returned 1 to 4 days after misoprostol use for evaluation, including ultrasound examination, by an in-vestigator who was unaware of the treatment-group assignments. Women in whom the gestational sac was not expelled were offered expectant management, a second dose of misoprostol, or uterine aspiration. We followed all participants for 30 days after randomization. Our primary outcome was gestational sac expulsion with one dose of misoprostol by the first follow-up visit and no additional intervention within 30 days after treatment. RESULTS Complete expulsion after one dose of misoprostol occurred in 124 of 148 women (83.8%; 95% confidence interval [CI], 76.8 to 89.3) in the mifepristone-pretreat-ment group and in 100 of 149 women (67.1%; 95% CI, 59.0 to 74.6) in the miso-prostol-alone group (relative risk, 1.25; 95% CI, 1.09 to 1.43). Uterine aspiration was performed less frequently in the mifepristone-pretreatment group than in the misoprostol-alone group (8.8% vs. 23.5%; relative risk, 0.37; 95% CI, 0.21 to 0.68). Bleeding that resulted in blood transfusion occurred in 2.0% of the women in the mifepristone-pretreatment group and in 0.7% of the women in the misoprostol-alone group (P = 0.31); pelvic infection was diagnosed in 1.3% of the women in each group. CONCLUSIONS Pretreatment with mifepristone followed by treatment with misoprostol resulted in a higher likelihood of successful management of first-trimester pregnancy loss than treatment with misoprostol alone. (Funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development; PreFaiR ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT02012491.

Aerodynamic Roughness Length Estimation with Lidar and Imaging Spectroscopy in a Shrub-Dominated Dryland

The aerodynamic roughness length (Z0m) serves an important role in the flux exchange between the land surface and atmosphere. In this study, airborne lidar (ALS), terrestrial lidar (TLS), and imaging spectroscopy data were integrated to develop and test two approaches to estimate Z0m over a shrub dominated dryland study area in south-central Idaho, USA. Sensitivity of the two parameterization methods to estimate Z0m was analyzed. The comparison of eddy covariance-derived Z0m and remote sensing-derived Z0m showed that the accuracy of the estimated Z0m heavily depends on the estimation model and the representation of shrub (e.g., Artemisia tridentata subsp. wyomingensis) height in the models. The geometrical method (RA1994) led to 9 percent (~0.5 cm) and 25% (~1.1 cm) errors at site 1 and site 2, respectively, which performed better than the height variability-based method (MR1994) with bias error of 20 percent and 48 percent at site 1 and site 2, respectively. The RA1994 model resulted in a larger range of Z0m than the MR1994 method. We also found that the mean, median and 75th percentiles of heights (H75) from ALS provides the best Z0 m estimates in the MR1994 model, while the mean, median, and MLD (Median Absolute Deviation from Median Height), as well as AAD (Mean Absolute Deviation from Mean Height) heights from ALS provides the best Z0m estimates in the RA1994 model. In addition, the fractional cover of shrub and grass, distinguished with ALS and imaging spectroscopy data, provided the opportunity to estimate the frontal area index at the pixel-level to assess the influence of grass and shrub on Z0m estimates in the RA1994 method. Results indicate that grass had little effect on Z0m in the RA1994 method. The Z0m estimations were tightly coupled with vegetation height and its local variance for the shrubs. Overall, the results demonstrate that the use of height and fractional cover from remote sensing data are promising for estimating Z0m, and thus refining land surface models at regional scales in semiarid shrublands

An NFkB activity calculator to delineate signaling crosstalk: type I and II interferons enhance NFkB via distinct mechanisms

Nuclear factor kappa B (NFκB) is a transcription factor that controls inflammation and cell survival. In clinical histology, elevated NFκB activity is a hallmark of poor prognosis in inflammatory disease and cancer, and may be the result of a combination of diverse micro-environmental constituents. While previous quantitative studies of NFκB focused on its signaling dynamics in single cells, we address here how multiple stimuli may combine to control tissue level NFκB activity. We present a novel, simplified model of NFκB (SiMoN) that functions as an NFκB activity calculator. We demonstrate its utility by exploring how type I and type II interferons modulate NFκB activity in macrophages. Whereas, type I IFNs potentiate NFκB activity by inhibiting translation of IκBα and by elevating viral RNA sensor (RIG-I) expression, type II IFN amplifies NFκB activity by increasing the degradation of free IκB through transcriptional induction of proteasomal cap components (PA28). Both cross-regulatory mechanisms amplify NFκB activation in response to weaker (viral) inducers, while responses to stronger (bacterial or cytokine) inducers remain largely unaffected. Our work demonstrates how the NFκB calculator can reveal distinct mechanisms of crosstalk on NFκB activity in interferon-containing microenvironments