Summary The changing epidemiology of yellow fever and continued reports of rare but serious adverse events associated with yellow fever vaccine have drawn attention to the need to revisit criteria ...for the designation of areas with risk for yellow fever virus activity, and to revise the vaccine recommendations for international travel. WHO convened a working group of international experts to review factors important for the transmission of yellow fever virus and country-specific yellow fever information, to establish criteria for additions to or removal from the list of countries with risk for yellow fever virus transmission, to update yellow fever risk maps, and to revise the recommendations for vaccination for international travel. This report details the recommendations made by the working group about criteria for the designation of risk and specific changes to the classification of areas with risk for transmission of yellow fever virus.
This special issue presents a collection of papers covering the environmental fate, effects, and risk of pesticides in tropical environments, which is expected to facilitate improved management of ...pesticides. Environmental monitoring programs of surface and ground waters in the tropics, including areas of high ecological value, have detected several relatively polar pesticides at concentrations that are of ecological concern. Novel monitoring techniques have the capacity to reveal the spatial and temporal extent of such risks. To best manage these pesticides, their sorption, dissipation rates, leaching, and runoff potential need to be better understood. On these aspects, important insights have been provided by several studies within this issue. Improved understanding of the environmental fate, effects, and risks through studies presented in this special issue is crucial for minimizing the nontarget impacts of pesticides on biodiversity-rich tropical regions.
Selective adsorption of SO2 is realized in a porous metal–organic framework material, and in‐depth structural and spectroscopic investigations using X‐rays, infrared, and neutrons define the ...underlying interactions that cause SO2 to bind more strongly than CO2 and N2.
Atypical teratoid/rhabdoid tumor (AT/RT) is an aggressive, early-childhood brain tumor without standard effective treatment. To our knowledge, we conducted the first AT/RT-specific cooperative group ...trial, ACNS0333, to examine the efficacy and safety of intensive postoperative chemotherapy and focal radiation to treat AT/RT.
Patients from birth to 22 years of age with AT/RT were eligible. After surgery, they received 2 courses of multiagent chemotherapy, followed by 3 courses of high-dose chemotherapy with peripheral blood stem cell rescue and involved-field radiation therapy. Timing of radiation was based on patient age and disease location and extent. Central testing of tumor and blood for
status was mandated. Tumor molecular subclassification was performed retrospectively. The primary analysis was event-free survival (EFS) for patients < 36 months of age compared with a cooperative groups' historical cohort. Although accrual was based on the therapeutic question, potential prognostic factors, including age, tumor location, M stage, surgical resection, order of therapy, germline status, and molecular subtype, were explored.
Of 65 evaluable patients, 54 were < 36 months of age. ACNS0333 therapy significantly reduced the risk of EFS events in patients < 36 months of age compared with the historical cohort (
< .0005; hazard rate, 0.43; 95% CI, 0.28 to 0.66). Four-year EFS and overall survival for the entire cohort were 37% (95% CI, 25% to 49%) and 43% (95% CI, 31% to 55%), respectively. Timing of radiation did not affect survival, and 91% of relapses occurred by 2 years from enrollment. Treatment-related deaths occurred in 4 patients.
The ACNS0333 regimen dramatically improved survival compared with historical therapies for patients with AT/RT. Clinical characteristics and molecular subgrouping suggest prognostic differences. ACNS0333 results lay a foundation on which to build future studies and incorporate testing of new therapeutic agents.
Modification of terrestrial sediment fluxes can result in increased sedimentation and turbidity in receiving waters, with detrimental impacts on coral reef ecosystems. Preventing anthropogenic ...sediment reaching coral reefs requires a better understanding of the specific characteristics, sources and processes generating the anthropogenic sediment, so that effective watershed management strategies can be implemented. Here, we review and synthesise research on measured runoff, sediment erosion and sediment delivery from watersheds to near-shore marine areas, with a strong focus on the Burdekin watershed in the Great Barrier Reef region, Australia. We first investigate the characteristics of sediment that pose the greatest risk to coral reef ecosystems. Next we track this sediment back from the marine system into the watershed to determine the storage zones, source areas and processes responsible for sediment generation and run-off.
The review determined that only a small proportion of the sediment that has been eroded from the watershed makes it to the mid and outer reefs. The sediment transported >1km offshore is generally the clay to fine silt (<4–16μm) fraction, yet there is considerable potential for other terrestrially derived sediment fractions (<63μm) to be stored in the near-shore zone and remobilised during wind and tide driven re-suspension. The specific source of the fine clay sediments is still under investigation; however, the Bowen, Upper Burdekin and Lower Burdekin sub-watersheds appear to be the dominant source of the clay and fine silt fractions. Sub-surface erosion is the dominant process responsible for the fine sediment exported from these watersheds in recent times, although further work on the particle size of this material is required. Maintaining average minimum ground cover >75% will likely be required to reduce runoff and prevent sub-soil erosion; however, it is not known whether ground cover management alone will reduce sediment supply to ecologically acceptable levels.
•This paper reviews the impact of sediment delivery to coral reefs.•The sources, processes and management options of excess sediment are discussed.•The synthesis is based primarily on measured data sets.•The approaches and outcomes are relevant to coral reefs around the world.
The exceptional survival of Middle Pleistocene wooden spears at Schöningen (Germany) and Clacton-on-Sea (UK) provides tantalizing evidence for the widespread use of organic raw materials by early ...humans. At Clacton, less well-known organic artefacts include modified bones that were identified by the Abbé Henri Breuil in the 1920s. Some of these pieces were described and figured by Hazzledine Warren in his classic 1951 paper on the flint industry from the Clacton Channel, but they have been either overlooked in subsequent studies or dismissed as the product of natural damage. We provide the first detailed analysis of two Clactonian bone tools found by Warren and a previously unrecognized example recovered in 1934 during excavations directed by Mary Leakey. Microscopic examination of percussion damage suggests the bones were used as knapping hammers to shape or resharpen flake tools. Early Palaeolithic bone tools are exceedingly rare, and the Clacton examples are the earliest known organic knapping hammers associated with a core-and-flake (Mode 1) lithic technology. The use of soft hammers for knapping challenges the consensus that Clactonian flintknapping was undertaken solely with hard hammerstones, thus removing a major technological and behavioural difference used to distinguish the Clactonian from late Acheulean handaxe (Mode 2) industries.
Perceptions of the policy leanings of government agencies are an important component of an agency’s political environment, and an agency’s political environment can greatly influence how agencies ...formulate and implement public policy. We use a recent survey of federal executives to measure the perceptions of the ideological leanings of twice as many agencies as previously possible. Our estimates compare reassuringly to extant measures based on both expert evaluations and aggregations of the opinions of those working within agencies. We also develop a novel measure of perceptions of workforce skill. Given the prominence of the concepts of agency ideology and skill in theories of executive branch politics, the estimates we generate provide important opportunities for understanding agencies’ political environments and their implications for policy making. The generation of these measures also illustrates an approach to measuring hard-to-observe characteristics that could usefully be adopted in other contexts.
The 2-electron reduced form of the polyoxometalate silicotungstic acid (H
SiW
O
) is shown to be an effective and selective hydrogenation agent for a range of nitroarenes without the need for any ...co-catalyst. The ease of generation of the active species and its recyclability suggest that a new approach to this important class of chemical conversions is possible.
The etiology of liver diseases has changed in recent years, but its impact on the comparative burden of liver cancer between males and females is unclear. We estimated sex differences in the burden ...of liver cancer across 204 countries and territories from 2010 to 2019.
We analyzed temporal trends in the burden of liver cancer using the methodology framework of the 2019 Global Burden of Disease study. We estimated annual frequencies and age-standardized rates (ASRs) of liver cancer incidence, death, and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) by sex, country, region, and etiology of liver disease. Globally in 2019, the frequency of incident cases, deaths, and DALYs due to liver cancer were 376,483, 333,672, and 9,048,723 in males, versus 157,881, 150,904, and 3,479,699 in females. From 2010 to 2019, the incidence ASRs in males increased while death and DALY ASRs remained stable; incidence, death, and DALY ASRs in females decreased. Death ASRs for both sexes increased only in the Americas and remained stable or declined in remaining regions. In 2019, hepatitis B was the leading cause of liver cancer death in males, and hepatitis C in females. From 2010 to 2019, NASH had the fastest growing death ASRs in males and females. The ratio of female-to-male death ASRs in 2019 was lowest in hepatitis B (0.2) and highest in NASH (0.9).
The overall burden of liver cancer is higher in males, although incidence and death ASRs from NASH-associated liver cancer in females approach that of males.
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