Search

The phreatomagmatic eruption of Taal Volcano in Batangas, Philippines, in January 2020 resulted in a massive ash plume covering a large portion of nearby provinces, including Metro Manila. This event caused damage and disruptions to various sectors, including agriculture, the environment, health, infrastructure, and aviation. The challenge of managing the vast amount of collected tephra environmental waste prompted the initiative of converting it into a useful material. This study characterizes and evaluates the quality of the collected tephra as a potential raw material for the construction industry, based on the Philippine National Standard (PNS) 07:2018, to ensure structural integrity and public safety. Four ashfall samples from strategic locations, identified by the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (PHIVOLCS), were obtained and analysed for specific chemical parameters using various analytical techniques. The results suggest that tephra has potential as a raw material for ground-level structures. However, further treatment is necessary to reduce the concentration of certain constituents. The material met the standard specifications for SiO2, MgO, and SO3. However, the levels of Al2O3, Fe2O3, total alkali, loss on ignition, and water-soluble and acid-soluble Cl− exceeded the threshold limits set by PNS 07:2018 and EN 197-1:2000.

In Fall 2015, Amherst College students held a four-day sit-in in unity with student protests occurring all over the United States highlighting barriers to inclusion of underrepresented and marginalized students.Following appeals for action, students partnered with faculty and staff in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) to develop the Being Human in STEM (HSTEM) Initiative. HSTEM involves exploring past diversity and inclusion efforts in STEM, sharing one’s own experiences in STEM with others, and developing student-driven projects to improve belonging in STEM. In this student, faculty, and staff co-authored paper, we describe the origin of HSTEM; share student, faculty and staff reflections on our experiences with HSTEM; and present two inquiry projects examining HSTEM impact. We discuss lessons learned and recommendations for diversity and inclusion efforts in higher education, both in and beyond STEM, emphasizing the power of an initiative that was originated by and remains driven by student partners.

The article is a publication of materials from the 2020 excavations at the Selitrennoye settlement in the Kharabali district of the Astrakhan region. In 2019, as a result of laying a gas pipeline, a trench was dug in the protected zone of an archaeological site of federal significance. In 2020, security and rescue excavations were carried out, as a result of which a large multi-room building with half-timbered walls was discovered. 19 premises for various purposes were investigated. Among them are hall for receiving guests with an iwan in the northern part, a front room with sufas around the perimeter, living rooms with sufas, kangs and tandoors. The floors in the rooms were laid with baked bricks on lime mortar and covered with a layer of alabaster on top. The walls and sufas were also plastered with alabaster mortar. Monochrome and polychrome tiles and stamped ganch (raw stucco) elements were used as decoration. The presence of halls with iwans in the building itself and in its annex allows it to be classified as a palace-type manor building.

Abstract Pig-to-human xenotransplantation is rapidly approaching the clinical arena; however, it is unclear which immunomodulatory regimens will effectively control human immune responses to pig xenografts. Here, we transplant a gene-edited pig kidney into a brain-dead human recipient on pharmacologic immunosuppression and study the human immune response to the xenograft using spatial transcriptomics and single-cell RNA sequencing. Human immune cells are uncommon in the porcine kidney cortex early after xenotransplantation and consist of primarily myeloid cells. Both the porcine resident macrophages and human infiltrating macrophages express genes consistent with an alternatively activated, anti-inflammatory phenotype. No significant infiltration of human B or T cells into the porcine kidney xenograft is detectable. Altogether, these findings provide proof of concept that conventional pharmacologic immunosuppression may be able to restrict infiltration of human immune cells into the xenograft early after compatible pig-to-human kidney xenotransplantation.

Bronchiectasis presents a significant challenge due to its rising prevalence, associated economic burden and clinical heterogeneity. This review synthesises contemporary understanding and literature of bronchiectasis exacerbations, addressing the transition from stable state to exacerbations, underlining the importance of early and precise recognition, rigorous severity assessment, prompt treatment, and prevention measures, as well as emphasising the need for strategies to assess and improve early and long-term patient outcomes. The review highlights the interplay between stable state phases and exacerbations in bronchiectasis, introducing the concept of “exogenous and endogenous changes in airways homeostasis” and the “adapted island model” with a particular focus on “frequent exacerbators”, a group of patients associated with specific clinical characteristics and worse outcomes. The pathophysiology of exacerbations is explored through the lens of microbial and nonmicrobial triggers and the presence and the activity of comorbidities, elaborating on the impact of both exogenous insults, such as infections and pollution, and endogenous factors such as inflammatory endotypes. Finally, the review proposes a multidisciplinary approach to care, integrating advancements in precision medicine and biomarker research, paving the way for tailored treatments that challenge the traditional antibiotic paradigm.

Abstract Background Accurate haemodynamic monitoring in the prehospital setting is essential. Non-invasive blood pressure measurement is susceptible to vibration and motion artefact, especially at extremes of hypotension and hypertension: invasive arterial blood pressure (IABP) monitoring is a potential solution. This study describes the largest series to date of cases of IABP monitoring being initiated prehospital. Methods This retrospective observational study was conducted at East Anglian Air Ambulance (EAAA), a UK helicopter emergency medical service (HEMS). It included all patients attended by EAAA who underwent arterial catheterisation and initiation of IABP monitoring between 1st February 2015 and 20th April 2023. The following data were retrieved for all patients: sex; age; aetiology (medical cardiac arrest, other medical emergency, trauma); site of arterial cannulation; operator role (doctor/paramedic); time of insertion and, where applicable, times of pre-hospital emergency anaesthesia, and return of spontaneous circulation following cardiac arrest. Descriptive analyses were performed to characterise the sample. Results 13,556 patients were attended: IABP monitoring was initiated in 1083 (8.0%) cases, with a median age 59 years, of which 70.8% were male. 546 cases were of medical cardiac arrest: in 22.4% of these IABP monitoring was initiated during cardiopulmonary resuscitation. 322 were trauma cases, and the remaining 215 were medical emergencies. The patients were critically unwell: 981 required intubation, of which 789 underwent prehospital emergency anaesthesia; 609 received vasoactive medication. In 424 cases IABP monitoring was instituted en route to hospital. Conclusion This study describes over 1000 cases of prehospital arterial catheterisation and IABP monitoring in a UK HEMS system and has demonstrated feasibility at scale. The high-fidelity of invasive arterial blood pressure monitoring with the additional benefit of arterial blood gas analysis presents an attractive translation of in-hospital critical care to the prehospital setting.

The Gulf of Maine in the northwestern Atlantic Ocean is one of the world’s fastest warming marine regions. Changes in ocean conditions are affecting growth, survival, and distribution of American lobster (Homarus americanus), which supports iconic fisheries along the coast of Maine, USA. In this study, we analyzed 15 years of oral records from the Maine Fishermen’s Climate Roundtables to explore fishermen’s observations of and responses to social–ecological changes. Fishermen reported an overall shift in lobster biomass further east and offshore, resulting in strategic expansion of fishing seasons and areas. Biomass shifts were thought to be connected to increases in temperature, decreases in salinity, a shift in ocean currents, and a loss of predator species. Fishing strategies were categorized according to five domains of adaptive capacity, but the majority of fishers’ responses fell into two domains: “access to assets” and “diversity and flexibility”. Strategies within these domains included increased expansion into federal lobster fisheries and extension of fishing seasons. Fishermen highlighted data gaps that need to be addressed to meet the challenges of climate change. Fisheries learning exchanges, such as the Climate Roundtables, create social networks that foster knowledge sharing to support the continued viability of local livelihoods.

Abstract The fibrin network is one of the main components of thrombi. Altered fibrin network properties are known to influence the development and progression of thrombotic disorders, at least partly through effects on the mechanical stability of fibrin. Most studies investigating the role of fibrin in thrombus properties prepare clots under static conditions, missing the influence of blood flow which is present in vivo. In this study, plasma clots in the presence and absence of flow were prepared inside a Chandler loop. Recitrated plasma from healthy donors were spun at 0 and 30 RPM. The clot structure was characterized using scanning electron microscopy and confocal microscopy and correlated with the stiffness measured by unconfined compression testing. We quantified fibrin fiber density, pore size, and fiber thickness and bulk stiffness at low and high strain values. Clots formed under flow had thinner fibrin fibers, smaller pores, and a denser fibrin network with higher stiffness values compared to clots formed in absence of flow. Our findings indicate that fluid flow is an essential factor to consider when developing physiologically relevant in vitro thrombus models used in researching thrombectomy outcomes or risk of embolization. Graphical Abstract

The nucleus incertus (NI), a conserved hindbrain structure implicated in the stress response, arousal, and memory, is a major site for production of the neuropeptide relaxin-3. On the basis of goosecoid homeobox 2 (gsc2) expression, we identified a neuronal cluster that lies adjacent to relaxin 3a (rln3a) neurons in the zebrafish analogue of the NI. To delineate the characteristics of the gsc2 and rln3a NI neurons, we used CRISPR/Cas9 targeted integration to drive gene expression specifically in each neuronal group, and found that they differ in their efferent and afferent connectivity, spontaneous activity, and functional properties. gsc2 and rln3a NI neurons have widely divergent projection patterns and innervate distinct subregions of the midbrain interpeduncular nucleus (IPN). Whereas gsc2 neurons are activated more robustly by electric shock, rln3a neurons exhibit spontaneous fluctuations in calcium signaling and regulate locomotor activity. Our findings define heterogeneous neurons in the NI and provide new tools to probe its diverse functions.

The article deals with analysis of the main elements of the Golden Horde house interior. The interior of a “Mongolian” house consists of an adobe bench – sufa, a hearth, most often a tandoor and a horizontal chimney – kang bed-stove. A washbasin – toshnau – could be made in the floor. These elements are present not only in poor one-room houses, but are required for any living space, including in rich aristocratic estates. The main “furniture” is a U-shaped or L-shaped sufa, which can occupy most of the room. Specialists associate it with the Mongolian tradition, but similar sufas have been widespread in Central Asia since the early Middle Ages. The heating system of Golden Horde houses is represented by kangs, which have been known in the Far East since the early Iron Age. The oven for baking flatbreads, the tandoor, is most likely of Central Asian origin, since similar ovens have been known in this region since the Bronze Age. The U-shaped sufa, kang and tandoor form a kind of “triad” that characterizes the interior of not only the simplest one-room “Mongolian” house, but also any living space in rich multi-room estates in the Golden Horde. In addition to these three elements, a washbasin – toshnau, which was also brought to the Golden Horde from Central Asia, can be made in the floor of living rooms. Thus, most of the living room elements of the Golden Horde house were borrowed from Central Asia. Only the heating system in the form of kangs can be considered unambiguously Mongolian. The combination of tandoor, kang and large U-shaped sufa is a Golden Horde tradition, which later became widespread.

The COVID19 pandemic unfolded in a complex environment and understanding the situation was a crucial part of the pandemic response in South Africa. This should have led to the interest of the South African public in accountability/corruption, crisis, emergency, and disaster during pandemic as an exceptional situation. A software tool, namely a Google-linked plugin, was used in this study to assess the relevant trends and to obtain an idea about the qualitative drivers in the increasing interest. The interest in ‘crisis’ during the 2004-2022, as well as during the COVID19 pandemic, can be considered low and also does not exhibit a clear relationship with time. The South African public’s interest in ‘emergency’ as a keyword was driven by a combination of everyday concerns and the interest in the state of emergency. The level of relative interest in emergency could be considered low to medium, in comparison to other search terms South Africans searched for using Google. There seems to be an increasing interest in the ‘disaster’ search term increased on the relative scale after the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. However, significance of this term remained low relative to other search terms on Google in South Africa during the COVID19 pandemic. Decrease in the political stability and the (perceived) rise of violence in South Africa increased the South Africa population’s interest in accountability and corruption. However, the relevant index accounted for only 29.6 % of variability in the public interest in the accountability and corruption in South Africa. Interest in ‘emergency’ increased with decreasing political stability and the (perceived) rise of violence in South Africa. The same trend was observed for the regulatory quality of governance and government effectiveness indices. That conclusion is supported by the second power of the relevant Spearman correlation coefficients ranged from 51.73 to 77.9 %.

We characterized the antibody composition of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) convalescent plasma (CCP) and the immunologic responses of hospitalized COVID-19 patients after receiving CCP or nonimmune fresh frozen plasma. Despite selection of CCP with significantly higher total immunoglobulin G than recipients, neutralizing antibody levels did not differ between donor plasma and CCP recipients.

Anthropogenic stressors such as land-use change, habitat degradation, and climate change stress inland fish populations globally. Such ecological disturbances can affect actors throughout the social-ecological system by contributing to uncertainty in landings, landing prices, and coastal incomes. Most literature to date on the resilience of the fishing sector has focused on fishing (production), fisheries management, and the livelihoods of fishers, whereas little attention has been paid to the post-harvest sector and the livelihoods of fish processors, logistics providers, wholesalers, and retailers. In the empirical case of the small-scale usipa ( Engraulicypris sardella ) trade in Malawi, we investigated the impacts of price volatility, a form of uncertainty, on small-scale fish retailers’ livelihood outcomes. By concentrating on fish retailers in the downstream region of the value chain, we provide new insight into how small-scale fisheries actors in the broader fish food system experience and adapt to uncertainty. We find that price volatility negatively impacts net income for retailers, and that an important adaptive strategy is spatial arbitrage. However, gender dynamics and access to capital limit retailers’ ability to employ the spatial arbitrage adaptive strategy.

Gold standard neuroimaging modalities such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), positron emission tomography (PET), and more recently electrocorticography (ECoG) have provided profound insights regarding the neural mechanisms underlying the processing of language, but they are limited in applications involving naturalistic language production especially in developing brains, during face-to-face dialogues, or as a brain-computer interface. High-density diffuse optical tomography (HD-DOT) provides high-fidelity mapping of human brain function with comparable spatial resolution to that of fMRI but in a silent and open scanning environment similar to real-life social scenarios. Therefore, HD-DOT has potential to be used in naturalistic settings where other neuroimaging modalities are limited. While HD-DOT has been previously validated against fMRI for mapping the neural correlates underlying language comprehension and covert (i.e., “silent”) language production, HD-DOT has not yet been established for mapping the cortical responses to overt (i.e., “out loud”) language production. In this study, we assessed the brain regions supporting a simple hierarchy of language tasks: silent reading of single words, covert production of verbs, and overt production of verbs in normal hearing right-handed native English speakers (n = 33). First, we found that HD-DOT brain mapping is resilient to movement associated with overt speaking. Second, we observed that HD-DOT is sensitive to key activations and deactivations in brain function underlying the perception and naturalistic production of language. Specifically, statistically significant results were observed that show recruitment of regions in occipital, temporal, motor, and prefrontal cortices across all three tasks after performing stringent cluster-extent based thresholding. Our findings lay the foundation for future HD-DOT studies of imaging naturalistic language comprehension and production during real-life social interactions and for broader applications such as presurgical language assessment and brain-machine interfaces.

While substantial research has shown the relationship between earlier mathematics coursetaking and later mathematics achievement, recent research suggests that mathematics motivation is an important predictor of grade 12 mathematics achievement as well. The current study extends this research by examining the role of mathematics identity at grade 11 for grade 12 mathematics achievement, and whether differences in self- versus other- appraisals of whether a student is "a mathematics person" are related to mathematics achievement after taking mathematics motivation into account. We use a unique dataset from a sample of U.S. students who participated in both the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 and grade 12 National Assessment of Educational Progress mathematics assessment. The analyses reveal that the stronger the students' mathematics identity the better their grade 12 mathematics achievement even after accounting for students' mathematics and science course-taking patterns, their STEM grade point average (STEM GPA), prior mathematics achievement (measured at grade 9) and background characteristics. While initial analyses suggested that higher mathematics achievement is also associated with perceived appraisals by others being more positive than self-appraisals with respect to being "a math person," that relationship was found to be non-significant when other variables in the model are included. The theoretical implications of the study's findings are discussed.

Abstract Background Although alcohol use disorder can complicate depression management, there is no standard process for assessing AUD symptoms (i.e., AUD diagnostic criteria) in primary care for patients who screen positive for depression. This study characterizes the association between depressive symptoms and high-risk drinking reported by primary care patients on screening measures in routine care. Then, using data from a novel clinical program, this study characterizes the association between depressive symptoms and AUD symptoms reported by primary care patients with high-risk drinking via an Alcohol Symptom Checklist. Methods In this cross-sectional study, electronic health record data were obtained from patients who visited 33 Kaiser Permanente Washington primary care clinics between 03/2018 and 02/2020 and completed depression (PHQ-2) and alcohol consumption (AUDIT-C) screening measures as part of routine care (N = 369,943). Patients who reported high-risk drinking (AUDIT-C scores 7–12) also completed an Alcohol Symptom Checklist where they reported the presence or absence of 11 AUD criteria as defined by the DSM-5 (N = 8,184). Generalized linear models estimated and compared the prevalence of high-risk drinking (AUDIT-C scores 7–12) and probable AUD (2–11 AUD symptoms on Alcohol Symptom Checklists) for patients with and without positive depression screens. Results Patients who screened positive for depression had a 131% higher prevalence of high-risk drinking than those who screened negative (5.2% vs. 2.2%; p

Students with disabilities are disciplined at disproportionately high rates, despite federal laws designed to ensure disciplinary protection. We examine the association between disability and discipline using a novel approach, investigating whether behavior problems trigger special education referral, and if disciplinary outcomes change once students are enrolled. Using longitudinal data from an urban school district, we estimate lagged variance decomposition models that disaggregate the outcomes of special education services from the behavioral characteristics that prompt disciplinary responses. We find that (1) ongoing disruptive behavior leads to placement in special education and (2) receiving special education is associated with a reduced likelihood of punishment. Earlier identification is vital in order to treat, rather than punish, disruptive behavior.