Where they dominate coastlines, seagrass beds are thought to have a fundamental role in maintaining populations of exploited species. Thus, Mediterranean seagrass beds are afforded protection, yet no ...attempt to determine the contribution of these areas to both commercial fisheries landings and recreational fisheries expenditure has been made. There is evidence that seagrass extent continues to decline, but there is little understanding of the potential impacts of this decline. We used a seagrass residency index, that was trait and evidence based, to estimate the proportion of Mediterranean commercial fishery landings values and recreation fisheries total expenditure that can be attributed to seagrass during different life stages. The index was calculated as a weighted sum of the averages of the estimated residence time in seagrass (compared with other habitats) at each life stage of the fishery species found in seagrass. Seagrass‐associated species were estimated to contribute 30%–40% to the value of commercial fisheries landings and approximately 29% to recreational fisheries expenditure. These species predominantly rely on seagrass to survive juvenile stages. Seagrass beds had an estimated direct annual contribution during residency of €58–91 million (4% of commercial landing values) and €112 million (6% of recreation expenditure) to commercial and recreational fisheries, respectively, despite covering <2% of the area. These results suggest there is a clear cost of seagrass degradation associated with ineffective management of seagrass beds and that policy to manage both fisheries and seagrass beds should take into account the socioeconomic implications of seagrass loss to recreational and commercial fisheries.
Context
Qualitative research is widely accepted as a legitimate approach to inquiry in health professions education (HPE). To secure this status, qualitative researchers have developed a variety of ...strategies (e.g. reliance on post‐positivist qualitative methodologies, use of different rhetorical techniques, etc.) to facilitate the acceptance of their research methodologies and methods by the HPE community. Although these strategies have supported the acceptance of qualitative research in HPE, they have also brought about some unintended consequences. One of these consequences is that some HPE scholars have begun to use terms in qualitative publications without critically reflecting on: (i) their ontological and epistemological roots; (ii) their definitions, or (iii) their implications.
Objectives
In this paper, we share our critical reflections on four qualitative terms popularly used in the HPE literature: thematic emergence; triangulation; saturation, and member checking.
Methods
We discuss the methodological origins of these terms and the applications supported by these origins. We reflect critically on how these four terms became expected of qualitative research in HPE, and we reconsider their meanings and use by drawing on the broader qualitative methodology literature.
Conclusions
Through this examination, we hope to encourage qualitative scholars in HPE to avoid using qualitative terms uncritically and non‐reflexively.
Constructionism in academic medicine matters. It encourages educators and researchers to question taken-for-granted assumptions, paying close attention to socially and historically contingent ...meanings. In this Invited Commentary, the authors explain what constructionism is; examine its ontological, epistemological, and axiological underpinnings; and outline its common methodologies and methods. Although constructivism favors the individual, constructionism privileges the social as the controlling force behind the construction of meaning. Where micro-constructionism attends to the minutiae of language, macro-constructionism focuses on broader discourses reproduced through material and social practices and structures. While social constructionists might situate themselves at any point on the relativist–realist continuum, many constructionists focus on constructionism as epistemology (the nature of knowledge) rather than ontology (the nature of reality). From an epistemological standpoint, constructionism asserts that how we come to know the world is constructed through social interaction. Constructionism thus values language, dialogue, and context, in addition to internal coherence between epistemology, methodology, and methods. Constructionism similarly values the concepts of dependability, authenticity, credibility, confirmability, reflexivity, and transferability. It also embraces the researcher–researched relationship. Given the privileging of language, qualitative methodologies and methods are key in constructionism, with constructionist-type questions focusing on how people speak. Here, the authors encourage the reader to develop an understanding of constructionism to re-vision academic medicine through a constructionist lens.
We add to the emerging body of literature highlighting cracks in the foundation of the mainstream energy transition narrative. We offer a tripartite analysis that re-characterizes the climate crisis ...within its broader context of ecological overshoot, highlights numerous collectively fatal problems with so-called renewable energy technologies, and suggests alternative solutions that entail a contraction of the human enterprise. This analysis makes clear that the pat notion of “affordable clean energy” views the world through a narrow keyhole that is blind to innumerable economic, ecological, and social costs. These undesirable “externalities” can no longer be ignored. To achieve sustainability and salvage civilization, society must embark on a planned, cooperative descent from an extreme state of overshoot in just a decade or two. While it might be easier for the proverbial camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for global society to succeed in this endeavor, history is replete with stellar achievements that have arisen only from a dogged pursuit of the seemingly impossible.
Homo sapiens has evolved to reproduce exponentially, expand geographically, and consume all available resources. For most of humanity’s evolutionary history, such expansionist tendencies have been ...countered by negative feedback. However, the scientific revolution and the use of fossil fuels reduced many forms of negative feedback, enabling us to realize our full potential for exponential growth. This natural capacity is being reinforced by growth-oriented neoliberal economics—nurture complements nature. Problem: the human enterprise is a ‘dissipative structure’ and sub-system of the ecosphere—it can grow and maintain itself only by consuming and dissipating available energy and resources extracted from its host system, the ecosphere, and discharging waste back into its host. The population increase from one to eight billion, and >100-fold expansion of real GWP in just two centuries on a finite planet, has thus propelled modern techno-industrial society into a state of advanced overshoot. We are consuming and polluting the biophysical basis of our own existence. Climate change is the best-known symptom of overshoot, but mainstream ‘solutions’ will actually accelerate climate disruption and worsen overshoot. Humanity is exhibiting the characteristic dynamics of a one-off population boom–bust cycle. The global economy will inevitably contract and humanity will suffer a major population ‘correction’ in this century.
Summary Background The loss of a normal airway is devastating. Attempts to replace large airways have met with serious problems. Prerequisites for a tissue-engineered replacement are a suitable ...matrix, cells, ideal mechanical properties, and the absence of antigenicity. We aimed to bioengineer tubular tracheal matrices, using a tissue-engineering protocol, and to assess the application of this technology in a patient with end-stage airway disease. Methods We removed cells and MHC antigens from a human donor trachea, which was then readily colonised by epithelial cells and mesenchymal stem-cell-derived chondrocytes that had been cultured from cells taken from the recipient (a 30-year old woman with end-stage bronchomalacia). This graft was then used to replace the recipient's left main bronchus. Findings The graft immediately provided the recipient with a functional airway, improved her quality of life, and had a normal appearance and mechanical properties at 4 months. The patient had no anti-donor antibodies and was not on immunosuppressive drugs. Interpretation The results show that we can produce a cellular, tissue-engineered airway with mechanical properties that allow normal functioning, and which is free from the risks of rejection. The findings suggest that autologous cells combined with appropriate biomaterials might provide successful treatment for patients with serious clinical disorders. Funding Ministerio de Sanidad y Consumo, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Fondo de Investigación Sanitaria, Spain; Charles Courtenay-Cowlin Fund, University of Bristol; UK Arthritis Research Campaign; and the James Tudor Foundation.
The genetic architecture of schizophrenia is complex, involving risk alleles ranging from common alleles of weak effect to rare alleles of large effect, the best exemplar of the latter being large ...copy number variants (CNVs). It is currently unknown whether pathophysiology in those with defined rare mutations overlaps with that in other individuals with the disorder who do not share the same rare mutation. Under an extreme heterogeneity model, carriers of specific high-penetrance mutations form distinct subgroups. In contrast, under a polygenic threshold model, high-penetrance rare allele carriers possess many risk factors, of which the rare allele is the only one, albeit an important, factor. Under the latter model, cases with rare mutations can be expected to share some common risk alleles, and therefore pathophysiological mechanisms, with cases without the same mutation. Here we show that, compared with controls, individuals with schizophrenia who have known pathogenic CNVs carry an excess burden of common risk alleles (P=2.25 × 10(-17)) defined from a genome-wide association study largely based on individuals without known CNVs. Our finding is not consistent with an extreme heterogeneity model for CNV carriers, but does offer support for the polygenic threshold model of schizophrenia. That this is so provides support for the notion that studies aiming to model the effects of rare variation may uncover pathophysiological mechanisms of relevance to those with the disorder more widely.
Diabet. Med. 28, 508–515 (2011)
The Joint British Diabetes Societies guidelines for the management of diabetic ketoacidosis (these do not cover Hyperosmolar Hyperglycaemic Syndrome) are available in ...full at:
(i)
http://www.diabetes.org.uk/About_us/Our_Views/Care_recommendations/The‐Management‐of‐Diabetic‐Ketoacidosis‐in‐Adults;
(ii)
http://www.diabetes.nhs.uk/publications_and_resources/reports_and_guidance;
(iii)
http://www.diabetologists‐abcd.org.uk/JBDS_DKA_Management.pdf.
This article summarizes the main changes from previous guidelines and discusses the rationale for the new recommendations.
The key points are:
Monitoring of the response to treatment
(i)
The method of choice for monitoring the response to treatment is bedside measurement of capillary blood ketones using a ketone meter.
(ii)
If blood ketone measurement is not available, venous pH and bicarbonate should be used in conjunction with bedside blood glucose monitoring to assess treatment response.
(iii)
Venous blood should be used rather than arterial (unless respiratory problems dictate otherwise) in blood gas analysers.
(iv)
Intermittent laboratory confirmation of pH, bicarbonate and electrolytes only.
Insulin administration
(i)
Insulin should be infused intravenously at a weight‐based fixed rate until the ketosis has resolved.
(ii)
When the blood glucose falls below 14 mmol/l, 10% glucose should be added to allow the fixed‐rate insulin to be continued.
(iii)
If already taking, long‐acting insulin analogues such as insulin glargine (Lantus®, Sanofi Aventis, Guildford, Surry, UK) or insulin detemir (Levemir®, Novo Nordisk, Crawley, West Sussex, UK.) should be continued in usual doses.
Delivery of care
(i)
The diabetes specialist team should be involved as soon as possible.
(ii)
Patients should be nursed in areas where staff are experienced in the management of ketoacidosis.
In a Formal Comment, Rees and Wackernagel defend their global Ecological Footprint calculations against criticisms in this issue of
PLOS Biology
that they are potentially misleading.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
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