Changes in climate patterns are dramatically influencing some agricultural areas. Arid, semi‐arid and coastal agricultural areas are especially vulnerable to climate change impacts on soil salinity. ...Inventorying and monitoring climate change impacts on salinity are crucial to evaluate the extent of the problem, to recognize trends and to formulate irrigation and crop management strategies that will maintain the agricultural productivity of these areas. Over the past three decades, Corwin and colleagues at the U.S. Salinity Laboratory (USSL) have developed proximal sensor and remote imagery methodologies for assessing soil salinity at multiple scales. The objective of this paper is to evaluate the impact climate change has had on selected agricultural areas experiencing weather pattern changes, with a focus on the use of proximal and satellite sensors to assess salinity development. Evidence presented in case studies for Californiaʼs San Joaquin Valley (SJV) and Minnesotaʼs Red River Valley (RRV) demonstrates the utility of these sensor approaches in assessing soil salinity changes due to changes in weather patterns. Agricultural areas are discussed where changes in weather patterns have increased root‐zone soil salinity, particularly in areas with shallow water tables (SJV and RRV), coastal areas with seawater intrusion (e.g., Bangladesh and the Gaza Strip) and water‐scarce areas potentially relying on degraded groundwater as an irrigation source (SJV and Murray‐Darling River Basin). Trends in salinization due to climate change indicate that the infrastructure and protocols to monitor soil salinity from field to regional to national to global scales are needed.
Highlights
Climate change will have a negative impact on agriculture, particularly in arid regions.
Proximal/remote sensors are useful to assess climate change impact on soil salinity across scales.
Salt‐water intrusion, shallow water tables and degraded water reuse will increase soil salinity.
Infrastructure and protocols to monitor soil salinity across multiple scales are needed.
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BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
It is shown from historical data and from modeling experiments that a proximate cause of the cold winter in North America in 2013–2014 was the pattern of sea surface temperature (SST) in the Pacific ...Ocean. Each of the three dominant modes of SST variability in the Pacific is connected to the tropics and has a strong expression in extratropical SST and weather patterns. Beginning in the middle of 2013, the third mode of SST variability was two standard deviations positive and has remained so through January 2015. This pattern is associated with high pressure in the northeast Pacific and low pressure and low surface temperatures over central North America. A large ensemble of model experiments with observed SSTs confirms that SST anomalies contributed to the anomalous winter of 2014.
Key Points
SST anomalies in the Pacific were a primary cause of the severe winter of 2014
Warmth in the tropical west Pacific led to cold in central North America
Specified SST model experiments replicate the observed teleconnections
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FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
To date, the precise prevalence of co-morbidity of anxiety and depression in the perinatal period is not well known. We aimed to estimate the prevalence of co-morbid anxiety and depression in the ...antenatal and postnatal periods. Systematic searches of multiple electronic databases were conducted for studies published between January 1950 and January 2016. We included 66 (24 published and 42 unpublished) studies incorporating 162 120 women from 30 countries. Prevalence of self-reported antenatal anxiety symptoms and mild to severe depressive symptoms was 9.5% 95% confidence interval (CI) 7.8-11.2, 17 studies, n = 25 592 and of co-morbid anxiety symptoms and moderate/severe depressive symptoms was 6.3% (95% CI 4.8-7.7, 17 studies, n = 27 270). Prevalence of a clinical diagnosis of any antenatal anxiety disorder and depression was 9.3% (95% CI 4.0-14.7, 10 studies, n = 3918) and of co-morbid generalized anxiety disorder and depression was 1.7% (95% CI 0.2-3.1, three studies, n = 3085). Postnatally between 1 and 24 weeks postpartum, the prevalence of co-morbid anxiety symptoms and mild to severe depressive symptoms was 8.2% (95% CI 6.5-9.9, 15 studies, n = 14 731), while co-morbid anxiety symptoms and moderate/severe depressive symptoms was 5.7% (95% CI 4.3-7.1, 13 studies, n = 20 849). The prevalence of a clinical diagnosis of co-morbid anxiety and depression was 4.2% (95% CI 1.9-6.6, eight studies, n = 3251). Prevalence rates did not differ with regard to year of publication, country income, selection bias and attrition bias. The results suggest that co-morbid perinatal anxiety and depression are prevalent and warrant clinical attention given the potential negative child developmental consequences if left untreated. Further research is warranted to develop evidence-based interventions for prevention, identification and treatment of this co-morbidity.
Since about 1980, the tropical Pacific has been anomalously cold, while the broader tropics have warmed. This has caused anomalous weather in midlatitudes as well as a reduction in the apparent ...sensitivity of the climate associated with enhanced low-cloud abundance over the cooler waters of the eastern tropical Pacific. Recent modeling work has shown that cooler temperatures over the Southern Ocean around Antarctica can lead to cooler temperatures over the eastern tropical Pacific. Here we suggest that surface wind anomalies associated with the Antarctic ozone hole can cause cooler temperatures over the Southern Ocean that extend into the tropics. We use the short-term variability of the Southern Annular Mode of zonal wind variability to show an association between surface zonal wind variations over the Southern Ocean, cooling over the Southern Ocean, and cooling in the eastern tropical Pacific. This suggests that the cooling of the eastern tropical Pacific may be associated with the onset of the Antarctic ozone hole.
Necrotizing Soft-Tissue Infections Stevens, Dennis L; Bryant, Amy E
The New England journal of medicine,
12/2017, Volume:
377, Issue:
23
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
The hallmarks of necrotizing fasciitis are friable superficial fascia, gray exudate without pus, and widespread tissue destruction. The infection is either polymicrobial or monomicrobial. Early ...surgical débridement and appropriate antibiotics are crucial for recovery.
Microbial colonization of mucosal tissues during infancy plays an instrumental role in the development and education of the host mammalian immune system. These early-life events can have ...long-standing consequences: facilitating tolerance to environmental exposures or contributing to the development of disease in later life, including inflammatory bowel disease, allergy, and asthma. Recent studies have begun to define a critical period during early development in which disruption of optimal host-commensal interactions can lead to persistent and in some cases irreversible defects in the development and training of specific immune subsets. Here, we discuss the role of early-life education of the immune system during this "window of opportunity," when microbial colonization has a potentially critical impact on human health and disease.
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BFBNIB, NMLJ, NUK, ODKLJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
Polysaccharide A (PSA), the archetypical immunomodulatory molecule of the gut commensal Bacteroides fragilis, induces regulatory T cells to secrete the anti-inflammatory cytokine interleukin-10 ...(IL-10). The cellular mediators of PSA’s immunomodulatory properties are incompletely understood. In a mouse model of colitis, we find that PSA requires both innate and adaptive immune mechanisms to generate protection. Plasmacytoid DCs (PDCs) exposed to PSA do not produce proinflammatory cytokines, but instead they specifically stimulate IL-10 secretion by CD4+ T cells and efficiently mediate PSA-afforded immunoprotection. PSA induces and preferentially ligates Toll-like receptor 2 on PDCs but not on conventional DCs. Compared with other TLR2 ligands, PSA is better at enhancing PDC expression of costimulatory molecules required for protection against colitis. PDCs can thus orchestrate the beneficial immunoregulatory interaction of commensal microbial molecules, such as PSA, through both innate and adaptive immune mechanisms.
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•Plasmacytoid DCs are required for B. fragilis PSA-mediated protection against colitis•In vivo protection is induced by adoptive transfer of PDCs exposed to PSA in vitro•PSA-induced PDC immunoregulatory phenotype is TLR2 dependent•Cognate PDC-CD4+ T cell interactions are critical for PSA-mediated immunoregulation
Bacteroides fragilis polysaccharide A (PSA) is an archetypical immunomodulatory molecule derived from a gut commensal. Dasgupta et al. demonstrate that the immune modulatory properties of PSA are mediated by plasmacytoid dendritic cells, enabling PSA to confer IL-10-dependent protection in murine models of colonic and central nervous system inflammation.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
This scientific commentary refers to ‘Neurologic sequelae of COVID-19 are determined by immunologic imprinting from previous coronaviruses’ by Spatola et al. (https://doi.org/10.1093/brain/awad155).
Most parameters that influence the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) signal experience a temperature dependence. The fact that MRI can be used for non-invasive measurements of temperature and ...temperature change deep inside the human body has been known for over 30 years. Today, MR temperature imaging is widely used to monitor and evaluate thermal therapies such as radio frequency, microwave, laser, and focused ultrasound therapy. In this paper we cover the physical principles underlying the biological applications of MR temperature imaging and discuss practical considerations and remaining challenges. For biological tissue, the MR signal of interest comes mostly from hydrogen protons of water molecules but also from protons in, e.g., adipose tissue and various metabolites. Most of the discussed methods, such as those using the proton resonance frequency (PRF) shift, T
, T
, and diffusion only measure temperature change, but measurements of absolute temperatures are also possible using spectroscopic imaging methods (taking advantage of various metabolite signals as internal references) or various types of contrast agents. Currently, the PRF method is the most used clinically due to good sensitivity, excellent linearity with temperature, and because it is largely independent of tissue type. Because the PRF method does not work in adipose tissues, T
- and T
-based methods have recently gained interest for monitoring temperature change in areas with high fat content such as the breast and abdomen. Absolute temperature measurement methods using spectroscopic imaging and contrast agents often offer too low spatial and temporal resolution for accurate monitoring of ablative thermal procedures, but have shown great promise in monitoring the slower and usually less spatially localized temperature change observed during hyperthermia procedures. Much of the current research effort for ablative procedures is aimed at providing faster measurements, larger field-of-view coverage, simultaneous monitoring in aqueous and adipose tissues, and more motion-insensitive acquisitions for better precision measurements in organs such as the heart, liver, and kidneys. For hyperthermia applications, larger coverage, motion insensitivity, and simultaneous aqueous and adipose monitoring are also important, but great effort is also aimed at solving the problem of long-term field drift which gets interpreted as temperature change when using the PRF method.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
Models from phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) robustly predict that the rate of increase in global-mean precipitation with global-mean surface temperature increase is much ...less than the rate of increase of water vapor. The goal of this paper is to explain in detail the mechanisms by which precipitation increase is constrained by radiative cooling. Changes in clear-sky atmospheric radiative cooling resulting from changes in temperature and humidity in global warming simulations are in good agreement with the multimodel, global-mean precipitation increase projected by GCMs (∼1.1 W m−2K−1).
In an atmosphere with fixed specific humidity, radiative cooling from the top of the atmosphere (TOA) increases in response to a uniform temperature increase of the surface and atmosphere, while atmospheric cooling by exchange with the surface decreases because the upward emission of longwave radiation from the surface increases more than the downward longwave radiation from the atmosphere. When a fixed relative humidity (RH) assumption is made, however, uniform warming causes a much smaller increase of cooling at the TOA, and the surface contribution reverses to an increase in net cooling rate due to increased downward emission from water vapor. Sensitivity of precipitation changes to lapse rate changes is modest when RH is fixed. Carbon dioxide reduces TOA emission with only weak effects on surface fluxes, and thus suppresses precipitation. The net atmospheric cooling response and thereby the precipitation response to CO₂-induced warming at fixed RH are mostly contributed by changes in surface fluxes. The role of clouds is discussed.
Intermodel spread in the rate of precipitation increase across the CMIP5 simulations is attributed to differences in the atmospheric cooling.
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BFBNIB, DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
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