The Role of Gardens in Integrated Conservation Practice

Gardens and horticulturists play an increasingly important role in plant conservation, both in situ and ex situ. Integrated research and conservation of species intends to work across fields to connect science to conservation practice by engaging actors from different sectors, including gardens. The case of integrated conservation of Quercus brandegeei, a microendemic oak species in Baja California Sur, Mexico, is presented as an example of a collaboration between gardens and academic researchers to create a species-specific conservation plan that incorporates horticultural knowledge

Systematic hand-held echocardiography in patients hospitalized with acute coronary syndrome

Aims: Transthoracic echocardiography is recommended in all patients with acute coronary syndrome but is time-consuming and lacks an evidence base. We aimed to assess the feasibility, diagnostic accuracy and time-efficiency of hand-held echocardiography in patients with acute coronary syndrome and describe the impact of echocardiography on clinical management in this setting.Methods and results: Patients with acute coronary syndrome underwent both hand-held and transthoracic echocardiography with agreement between key imaging parameters assessed using kappa statistics. The immediate clinical impact of hand-held echocardiography in this population was systematically evaluated.Overall, 262 patients (65±12 years, 71% male) participated. Agreement between hand-held and transthoracic echocardiography was good-to-excellent (kappa 0.60-1.00) with hand-held echocardiography having an overall negative predictive value of 95%. Hand-held echocardiography was performed rapidly (7.7±1.6 min) and completed a median of 5 [interquartile range 3-20] hours earlier than transthoracic echocardiography. Systematic hand-held echocardiography in all patients with acute coronary syndrome identified an important cardiac abnormality in 50% and the clinical management plan was changed by echocardiography in 42%. In 85% of cases, hand-held echocardiography was sufficient for patient decision-making and transthoracic echocardiography was no longer deemed necessary.Conclusions: In patients with acute coronary syndrome, hand-held echocardiography provides comparable results to transthoracic echocardiography, can be more rapidly applied and gives sufficient imaging information for decision-making in the vast majority of patients. Systematic echocardiography has clinical impact in half of patients, supporting the clinical utility of echocardiography in this population, and providing an evidence-base for current guidelines.Keywords: acute coronary syndrome; clinical impact; diagnostic accuracy; hand-held echocardiography

Avocados become a global commodity : consequences for landscapes and people

The boom in global avocado consumption has transformed the landscape of Michoacán, Mexico – one of the largest avocado-producing regions in the world. Rapid deforestation threatens the native pine-oak forests of this region and impacts the ecosystem services they provide. Further, the fast-paced growth of the avocado industry has impacted socioeconomic dynamics in the state. This dissertation examines the avocado trade as a telecoupled human-environmental system to understand its socioecological impacts in the Avocado Belt of Michoacán. The research presented here investigates the spatial footprint of avocado expansion, with a land change model that examines past deforestation and projects avocado expansion into the future according to physical and social landscape variables. Additionally, an analysis of ecosystem carbon assesses how landscape heterogeneity affects the amount of carbon lost to such land change. Finally, a qualitative social analysis uses theories from economic sociology and human geography to explore the contradictions within neoliberal commodification logic and the socioecological embeddedness of this market. Taken altogether, this research provides important insights on how to make the avocado commodity chain more sustainable and to improve global food systems more generally.Geography and the Environmen

Explaining Divergent Community Forestry Trajectories in Costa Rica, Mexico, and Peru: A Historical Institutionalist Account

5th International Conference on Public Polic

Learning Through Policy Pathways: Towards a Practitioner Oriented Protocol for Championing Environmental and Social Outcomes “on the ground”.

International Public Policy Worksho