Search

Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) has become a priority for many states wanting to develop national blue economy plans and meet international obligations in response to the increasing cumulative impacts of human activities and climate change. In areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ), MSP is proposed as part of a package of solutions for multi-sectoral management at the ocean basin scale. To facilitate planning, maps showing the spatial distribution of marine biological diversity are required. In areas lacking data, like the South Atlantic, environmental proxies can be used to predict these distributions. We undertook broad-scale benthic habitat classification of the South Atlantic, employing two top-down approaches spanning from national waters to ABNJ. The first was non-hierarchical and clustered groups of environmental variables prior to combination; the second was hierarchical and clustered Principal Components of environmental variables. Areas of agreement between the two approaches were identified and results compared with existing national and global classifications and published biodiversity patterns. We highlight several habitat classes we can be cautiously confident represent variation in biological diversity, such as topographic features, frontal systems and some abyssal basins. We also identify critical gaps in our knowledge of regional biogeography and advocate for collaborative effort to compile benthic species records and promote further exploration of the region to address these gaps. These insights into the distribution of habitats have the potential to support sustainable use and conservation of biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction, enable transboundary and ocean basin scale management, and empower nations to make progress towards achieving Sustainable Development Goals.

Invasive non-native species are recognized as a major threat to island biodiversity, ecosystems, and economies globally. Preventing high-risk invasive non-native species from being introduced is the most cost-effective way to avoid their adverse impacts. We applied a horizon scanning approach to identify potentially invasive non-native species in the United Kingdom Overseas Territories (OTs), ranging from Antarctica to the Caribbean, and from the Pacific to the Atlantic. High-risk species were identified according to their potential for arrival, establishment and likely impacts to biodiversity and ecosystem function, economies and human health. Across OTs, 231 taxa were included on high-risk lists. The highest-ranking species were the Asian green mussel (Perna viridis), little fire ant (Wasmannia auropunctata), brown rat (Rattus norvegicus) and mesquite tree (Prosopis juliflora). Shipping containers were identified as the introduction pathway associated with the most species. The shared high-risk species and pathways identified provide a guide for other remote islands and archipelagos to focus ongoing biosecurity and surveillance aimed at preventing future incursions.

International audience; Despite increased awareness of the lack of gender equity in academia and a growing number of initiatives to address issues of diversity, change is slow, and inequalities remain. A major source of inequity is gender bias, which has a substantial negative impact on the careers, work-life balance, and mental health of underrepresented groups in science. Here, we argue that gender bias is not a single problem but manifests as a collection of distinct issues that impact researchers’ lives. We disentangle these facets and propose concrete solutions that can be adopted by individuals, academic institutions, and society

Here, we present the complete chloroplast genomes of Quercus × morehus , Q. wislizeni , and Q. kelloggii from California. The genomes are 161,119 to 161,130 bp and encode 132 genes. Quercus × morehus and Q. wislizeni are identical in sequence but differ from Q. kelloggii by three indels and eight SNPs.

Sepsis resulting from maternal infection is the second leading cause of pregnancy-related death. Although screening and initial care of a septic nonpregnant patient is standardized in nonpregnant adults, many challenges exist for early recognition and management of sepsis and septic shock in the obstetric population. Because most sepsis research excludes pregnant patients, there are many challenges that contribute to a lack of standardized approach to maternal sepsis. These challenges include inconsistent early warning sign criteria, lack of validated screening tools, adaptation of bundle components for maternal physiology, delivery considerations, and knowing when to transfer the patient to a higher level of care. To overcome these challenges, reduce variation in care, and improve patient outcomes, it is important for clinicians to plan, practice, and implement a maternal sepsis bundle.

Hemorrhage remains a leading cause of preventable maternal morbidity and mortality worldwide and in the United States. Postpartum hemorrhage is the number one cause of severe morbidity during hospitalization for birth, despite hospital, state, and national initiatives. In addition, studies show that more than 90% of maternal deaths related to obstetric hemorrhage are preventable. This article reviews relevant physiologic changes of pregnancy that may have an impact on hemorrhage management and describes collaborative approaches for management of hemorrhage in this unique population.

Purpose We aimed to identify evidence supporting emergency vehicle technology in out-of-vehicle systems and in-vehicle-systems that can be used by people with hearing impairment. Methods We conducted a systematized review to determine what technologies, at any readiness level, are currently being developed in the area of emergency vehicle detection technology. The studies and websites of technologies for emergency vehicles that are currently available to the general public were identified by searching in one electronic database, Scopus and grey literature using Google, respectively. Results A total of 359 studies were retrieved from Scopus. The grey literature search identified 189 websites related to the search terms under study. Technological devices have included satellite, out-of-vehicle and in-vehicle technology. The analysis shows that most of the technologies are at the stage of laboratory testing. Knowing the availability and the level of readiness of devices, as well as their effectiveness, provides rehabilitation professionals with tools for making evidence-based recommendations to clients with hearing impairment. Knowing which devices are available also provides information to individuals living with hearing impairment so that they can play an active role in the decision-making process of acquiring the existing technologies. Conclusions So far, few technologies have been identified, and most of them are in the laboratory development stage (i.e., low product readiness level). These results indicate a justified need for the development of new in-vehicle technologies to detect emergency vehicles and actions to transform the new devices into products that are available for people with hearing impairment. IMPLICATIONS FOR REHABILITATION There is a need to design new assistive technology devices that are intended to detect emergency service vehicles, which in turn may reduce stress and anxiety related to driving for people with hearing impairment. The majority of the included articles discussed siren detection, with only three discussing the necessary next step of communication to humans. Due to the research being in its early stages, the evidence for emergency vehicle technology on health and participation-related outcomes in people living with hearing impairment is unknown. Most websites do not include information on where to purchase emergency vehicle technology or how much the devices cost, thus making it difficult for people with hearing impairment or rehabilitation professionals to make informed decisions about acquiring these technologies.

An animal’s ability to respond optimally to changing environmental conditions is paramount to successfully reproducing and thus maximizing fitness. Studies on photoperiod-induced changes in neural thyroid hormone metabolism have conclusively linked environmental cues to the neuroendocrine reproductive axis of birds and mammals. Whether this conserved mechanism also transduces changes in environmental temperature, however, has not been fully addressed. We investigated whether the hormone melatonin mediates the effects of low-temperature dormancy on thyroid hormone metabolism within the hypothalamus of red-sided garter snakes (Thamnophis sirtalis parietalis). To address this question, we used immunohistochemistry to assess changes in thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) in the infundibulum of the pituitary and deiodinase 3 (Dio3) and gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) in the hypothalamus. We also asked if changes in TSH, Dio3, and/or GnRH immunoreactivity are associated with changes in male courtship behavior. In contrast to our predictions, 6 weeks of dormancy at 4°C significantly decreased the number of TSH-labeled cells in the infundibulum. It is possible that the observed decrease in TSH is related to the release of snakes from temperature refractoriness, but this idea needs further testing. Treatment of snakes with the melatonin precursor 5-hydroxytryptophan during dormancy at 4°C both reversed the temperature-induced change in TSH immunoreactivity and disrupted the temporal pattern of male courtship behavior. These results suggest that TSH cells within the infundibulum are both modulated by temperature and sensitive to changes in melatonin. As predicted, male snakes hibernated at an elevated temperature of 12°C for 6 weeks and treated with vehicle showed no change in TSH-, Dio3-, or GnRH-immunoreactive cell number. Treatment of snakes with the melatonin receptor antagonist luzindole was not sufficient in rescuing the effects of dormancy at 12°C on TSH immunoreactivity or courtship behavior. However, luzindole-treated snakes showed a significant increase in GnRH-immunoreactive cell number, suggesting that melatonin exerts an inhibitory effect on GnRH in garter snakes. In summary, our results provide critical insights into the mechanisms that mediate the effects of temperature on reproductive physiology and behavior.

Learning disabilities are currently conceptualised as involving underlying weaknesses in cognitive processing, which has prompted growing interest in cognitive interventions that may alleviate lear...

Although research shows that affect and motivation-related variables influence the amplitude of the Reward Positivity (RewP) event-related potential (ERP), motivational direction (approach versus avoidance) and affective valence (positive versus negative) have been confounded. As a negatively valenced yet approach motivation-related emotion, anger can be used to tease apart motivational direction versus affective valence contributions to the RewP amplitude. The present study examined the relation between trait anger and RewP. Participants were 98 young adult student volunteers who completed the Doors reward task and self-report questionnaires. Their asymmetric frontal cortical activity during resting baseline was also examined. Results revealed that trait anger was positively correlated with the RewP amplitude. The present study contributes to the literature by providing novel evidence for the link between trait anger and the RewP.

In the emerging literature on resilience in relation to food security, a growing number of studies stress the need to expand our analysis beyond conventional socio-economic factors such as assets or social capital, and to consider less tangible elements such as risk perception, self-efficacy or aspiration. Drawing on the recent literature and the authors’ own experience, a conceptual framework of subjective resilience is proposed. The framework helps locating the subjective element of resilience within the wider resilience conceptualization as currently developed in the literature on food security and to clarify how it links to the more tangible elements of that conceptualization. Empirical data are then used to test the framework. The analysis demonstrates the relevance of the concept of subjective resilience and the central role that psychosocial factors and individual perceptions play in people’s construct of resilience in the context of humanitarian and food security crises. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of those findings.

Decoding speech from intracranial recordings serves two main purposes: understanding the neural correlates of speech processing and decoding speech features for targeting speech neuroprosthetic devices. Intracranial recordings have high spatial and temporal resolution, and thus offer a unique opportunity to investigate and decode the electrophysiological dynamics underlying speech processing. In this review article, we describe current approaches to decoding different features of speech perception and production - such as spectrotemporal, phonetic, phonotactic, semantic, and articulatory components - using intracranial recordings. A specific section is devoted to the decoding of imagined speech, and potential applications to speech prosthetic devices. We outline the challenges in decoding human language, as well as the opportunities in scientific and neuroengineering applications.

Background The issues faced by young people transitioning out of government care are complex, and improving outcomes requires the collaboration of multiple stakeholders (Lopez & Allen, 2007). Objective, participants, and setting In Vancouver, Western Canada, 60 agencies and 20 youth from government care are working in partnership using a collective impact approach to address the systemic issues and barriers to healthy development that youth from care experience. Collective impact is an approach to tackling complex social problems which requires collaboration across government, business, funders, charitable organizations, and community members to achieve significant and lasting social change (Hanleybrown et al., 2012). The Vancouver collective operates working groups (co-chaired by youth with care experience) that are addressing challenges in the areas of education, employment, housing, meaningful connections (e.g., sustainable family-type supports), health, wellness and culture. Methods A mixed-method evaluation has included quantitative and qualitative data, collected through outcomes, diaries, surveys, and focus groups, to measure process and outcomes. Results Findings help to inform the ongoing development and activities of the collective. Findings indicate the collective is making progress in meeting its goals. Partners continue to be engaged and committed to improving outcomes for youth transitioning out of care, and there are improvements in a number of key areas such as education, collaborative working, and youth engagement. Conclusion A collective impact approach that includes youth’s voices, and collaboration across multiple stakeholders, can increase the likelihood of improving outcomes for young people transitioning out of government care.

SummaryReconstructing intended speech from neural activity using brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) holds great promises for people with severe speech production deficits. While decoding overt speech has progressed, decoding imagined speech have met limited success, mainly because the associated neural signals are weak and variable hence difficult to decode by learning algorithms. Using three electrocorticography datasets totalizing 1444 electrodes from 13 patients who performed overt and imagined speech production tasks, and based on recent theories of speech neural processing, we extracted consistent and specific neural features usable for future BCIs, and assessed their performance to discriminate speech items in articulatory, phonetic, vocalic, and semantic representation spaces. While high-frequency activity provided the best signal for overt speech, both low- and higher-frequency power and local cross-frequency contributed to successful imagined speech decoding, in particular in phonetic and vocalic, i.e. perceptual, spaces. These findings demonstrate that low-frequency power and cross-frequency dynamics contain key information for imagined speech decoding, and that exploring perceptual spaces offers a promising avenue for future imagined speech BCIs.

In this chapter, we describe a three-part fully online model for the professional development of middle school mathematics teachers. While the model could be applied to any context, we created it for rural mathematics teachers to provide them access to high-quality professional development and to demonstrate that we could move face-to-face experiences to an online context without losing interactional qualities or intellectual rigor. We describe the model and how we researched it. This chapter contributes to understanding how online contexts provide opportunities to collect and analyze data in ways that would be difficult to accomplish in face-to-face settings.

An essential resource for clinicians of varying levels of experience from student to very specializer, "Working with Voice Disorders" provides practical insight and direction into all aspects of voice disorders from assessment and diagnosis to intervention and case management. This second edition retains the successful format of mixing theory and practice, a melding of scientific knowledge with clinical art, which was such a feature of the first edition. In recognition of changes in practice and theory over the past decade, it contains a wealth of new, up-to-date, evidence based material. This blends with a practical approach to clinical efficiencies and management of the voice service. The second edition of "Working with Voice Disorders" provides a sound theoretical framework to this specialism and also offers a rich variety of tried and tested, practical and photocopiable resource material, which is the result of the authors' wide experience, accumulated over several decades in the field of voice therapy. The multi-dimensional structure of the manual allows the clinician to look, not only at specific aspects of patient management, but also at aspects such as clinical effectiveness, clinical efficiencies and service management. The authors' aim is that this resource should provide clinicians with a pragmatic, patient-centred, easy to use and accessible resource, facilitating and informing decision-making along the clinical journey from referral to discharge. The contents of this title include: Anatomy overview; The Spectrum of Voice Disorders; The Case History; Assessment; Treatment Strategies; Management Strategies; Service Provision; Over 50 pages of practical, photocopiable exercises. Photocopiable Appendices: Voice Care Advice; Voice Disorders Summary Chart; Voice Assessment Sheet; Voice Record Sheet; and, Voice Diary.