Pollination services from wild insects contribute to crop productivity around the world, but are at risk of decline in agricultural landscapes. Using highbush blueberry as a model system, we tested ...whether wildflower plantings established adjacent to crop fields would increase the abundance of wild pollinators during crop bloom and enhance pollination and yield. Plantings were seeded in 2009 with a mix of 15 perennial wildflower species that provided season‐long bloom and increased plant density and floral area during the subsequent 3 years. Honeybees visiting blueberry flowers had similar abundance in enhanced and control fields in all 4 years of this study, whereas wild bee and syrphid abundance increased annually in the fields adjacent to wildflower plantings. Crop pollination parameters including percentage fruit set, berry weight and mature seeds per berry were significantly greater in fields adjacent to wildflower plantings 3 and 4 years after seeding, leading to higher crop yields and with the associated revenue exceeding the cost of wildflower establishment and maintenance. Synthesis and applications. We suggest that provision of forage habitat for bees adjacent to pollinator‐dependent crops can conserve wild pollinators in otherwise resource‐poor agricultural landscapes. Over time, these plantings can support higher crop yields and bring a return on the initial investment in wildflower seed and planting establishment, also insuring against loss of managed pollinators. Further understanding of the importance of planting size, location and landscape context will be required to effectively implement this practice to support crop pollination.
Recent evidence highlights the value of wild-insect species richness and abundance for crop pollination worldwide. Yet, deliberate physical importation of single species (eg European honey bees) into ...crop fields for pollination remains the mainstream management approach, and implementation of practices to enhance crop yield (production per area) through wild insects is only just beginning. With few exceptions, studies measuring the impacts of pollinator-supporting practices on wild-insect richness and pollination service success - particularly in relation to long-term crop yield and economic profit - are rare. Here, we provide a general framework and examples of approaches for enhancing pollinator richness and abundance, quantity and quality of pollen on stigmas, crop yield, and farmers' profit, including some benefits detected only through long-term monitoring. We argue for integrating the promotion of wild-insect species richness with single-species management to benefit farmers and society.
Urban trees are at risk of stress due to heat island effects and the increased proportion of impervious areas surrounding them. Among pests of trees, insect borers such as bark beetles (Coleoptera: ...Curculionidae) and flatheaded borers (Coleoptera: Buprestidae) are some of the most devastating, frequently colonizing stressed trees. The objective of this study was to explore the effects of biotic and abiotic risk factors on borer attacks on trees in urban areas. In the summer of 2021 and 2022, this study was conducted in 50 urban sites in Atlanta and Augusta, Georgia (USA). Specific factors explored include overall tree health, differentially warmer maximum and minimum temperatures of sites compared to surrounding areas, tree species, and the percentage of impervious surface surrounding trees. Generalized linear models and zero-inflated models explored how these factors were related to damage from these borers. The number of borer attacks on trees increased with higher percentage impervious area. As the two most commonly encountered trees, Acer rubrum was found to be significantly more susceptible to attack from borers than Ulmus parvifolia. Unhealthy trees were more likely to experience more frequent and more severe borer attack. Trees with increased impervious cover around them as well as those with differentially warmer daily maximum and minimum temperatures relative to surrounding were more likely to be attacked.
This initiative is focused on building a global consensus around core diagnostic criteria for malnutrition in adults in clinical settings.
In January 2016, the Global Leadership Initiative on ...Malnutrition (GLIM) was convened by several of the major global clinical nutrition societies. GLIM appointed a core leadership committee and a supporting working group with representatives bringing additional global diversity and expertise. Empirical consensus was reached through a series of face-to-face meetings, telephone conferences, and e-mail communications.
A two-step approach for the malnutrition diagnosis was selected, i.e., first screening to identify “at risk” status by the use of any validated screening tool, and second, assessment for diagnosis and grading the severity of malnutrition. The malnutrition criteria for consideration were retrieved from existing approaches for screening and assessment. Potential criteria were subjected to a ballot among the GLIM core and supporting working group members. The top five ranked criteria included three phenotypic criteria (non-volitional weight loss, low body mass index, and reduced muscle mass) and two etiologic criteria (reduced food intake or assimilation, and inflammation or disease burden). To diagnose malnutrition at least one phenotypic criterion and one etiologic criterion should be present. Phenotypic metrics for grading severity as Stage 1 (moderate) and Stage 2 (severe) malnutrition are proposed. It is recommended that the etiologic criteria be used to guide intervention and anticipated outcomes. The recommended approach supports classification of malnutrition into four etiology-related diagnosis categories.
A consensus scheme for diagnosing malnutrition in adults in clinical settings on a global scale is proposed. Next steps are to secure further collaboration and endorsements from leading nutrition professional societies, to identify overlaps with syndromes like cachexia and sarcopenia, and to promote dissemination, validation studies, and feedback. The diagnostic construct should be re-considered every 3–5 years.
This paper outlines new methods to measure optical meteor fluxes for showers and sporadic sources. Many past approaches have found the collecting area of a detector at a fixed 100 km altitude, but ...this approach considers the full volume, finding the area in 2 km height intervals based on the position of the shower or sporadic source radiant and the population's velocity. Here, the stellar limiting magnitude is found every 10 min during clear periods and converted to a limiting meteor magnitude for the shower or sporadic source having fluxes measured, which is then converted to a limiting mass. The final output is a mass-limited flux for meteor showers or sporadic sources. Presented are the results of these flux methods as applied to the 2015 Perseid meteor shower as seen by the Meteoroid Environment Office's eight wide-field cameras. The peak Perseid flux on the night of 2015 August 13 was measured to be 0.002989 meteoroids/km2/hr down to 0.00051 g, corresponding to a ZHR of 100.7.
Summary
Rationale
This initiative is focused on building a global consensus around core diagnostic criteria for malnutrition in adults in clinical settings.
Methods
In January 2016, the Global ...Leadership Initiative on Malnutrition (GLIM) was convened by several of the major global clinical nutrition societies. GLIM appointed a core leadership committee and a supporting working group with representatives bringing additional global diversity and expertise. Empirical consensus was reached through a series of face‐to‐face meetings, telephone conferences, and e‐mail communications.
Results
A two‐step approach for the malnutrition diagnosis was selected, i.e., first screening to identify “at risk” status by the use of any validated screening tool, and second, assessment for diagnosis and grading the severity of malnutrition. The malnutrition criteria for consideration were retrieved from existing approaches for screening and assessment. Potential criteria were subjected to a ballot among the GLIM core and supporting working group members. The top five ranked criteria included three phenotypic criteria (weight loss, low body mass index, and reduced muscle mass) and two etiologic criteria (reduced food intake or assimilation, and inflammation or disease burden). To diagnose malnutrition at least one phenotypic criterion and one etiologic criterion should be present. Phenotypic metrics for grading severity as Stage 1 (moderate) and Stage 2 (severe) malnutrition are proposed. It is recommended that the etiologic criteria be used to guide intervention and anticipated outcomes. The recommended approach supports classification of malnutrition into four etiology‐related diagnosis categories.
Conclusion
A consensus scheme for diagnosing malnutrition in adults in clinical settings on a global scale is proposed. Next steps are to secure further collaboration and endorsements from leading nutrition professional societies, to identify overlaps with syndromes like cachexia and sarcopenia, and to promote dissemination, validation studies, and feedback. The diagnostic construct should be re‐considered every 3–5 years.
Children with cancer require adequate nutritional support to prevent malnutrition. This study investigated the impact of chemotherapy on anthropometrical status and body composition during the first ...six months of treatment. Anthropometrical status and body composition were measured at diagnosis, utilizing standardized protocols and validated S10 InBody bio-electrical impedance (BIA) measurements and compared to subsequent consecutive monthly follow-up measurements to plot changes over time during the first six months. Statistical significance was defined as p < 0.05. Forty-three newly diagnosed children (median age 4 years, IQR: 2.0-7.6; male-female ratio 1:0.9; 53% haematological malignancies and 47% solid tumors) were included. Prevalence of malnutrition varied, with under-nutrition 14% (mid-upper arm circumference (MUAC)/body mass index (BMI)), over-nutrition 9.3% (BMI) and stunting 7% at diagnosis. MUAC (14%) identified fewer participants with underlying muscle store depletion than BIA (41.8%). Chemotherapy exposure acutely exacerbated existing nutritional depletion during the first two months after diagnosis for all variables except fat mass (FM), with contrary effects on cancer type. Haematological malignancies had rapid increases in weight, BMI and FM. All patients had an acute loss of skeletal muscle mass. Nutritional improvement experienced by all cancer types during month two to three of treatment resulted in catch-up growth, with a significant increase in weight (chi
2
=40.43, p < 0.001), height (chi
2
=53.79, p < 0.001), BMI (chi
2
=16.32, p < 0.005), fat free mass (chi
2
=23.69, p < 0.003) and skeletal muscle mass (chi
2
=24.19, p < 0.001) after six months. Monthly nutritional assessments, including advanced body composition measurements, are essential to provide timely nutritional interventions to overcome the acute decline in nutritional reserves observed during the first two months of chemotherapy exposure.
Most large (over a kilometre in diameter) near-Earth asteroids are now known, but recognition that airbursts (or fireballs resulting from nuclear-weapon-sized detonations of meteoroids in the ...atmosphere) have the potential to do greater damage than previously thought has shifted an increasing portion of the residual impact risk (the risk of impact from an unknown object) to smaller objects. Above the threshold size of impactor at which the atmosphere absorbs sufficient energy to prevent a ground impact, most of the damage is thought to be caused by the airburst shock wave, but owing to lack of observations this is uncertain. Here we report an analysis of the damage from the airburst of an asteroid about 19 metres (17 to 20 metres) in diameter southeast of Chelyabinsk, Russia, on 15 February 2013, estimated to have an energy equivalent of approximately 500 (±100) kilotons of trinitrotoluene (TNT, where 1 kiloton of TNT = 4.185×10(12) joules). We show that a widely referenced technique of estimating airburst damage does not reproduce the observations, and that the mathematical relations based on the effects of nuclear weapons--almost always used with this technique--overestimate blast damage. This suggests that earlier damage estimates near the threshold impactor size are too high. We performed a global survey of airbursts of a kiloton or more (including Chelyabinsk), and find that the number of impactors with diameters of tens of metres may be an order of magnitude higher than estimates based on other techniques. This suggests a non-equilibrium (if the population were in a long-term collisional steady state the size-frequency distribution would either follow a single power law or there must be a size-dependent bias in other surveys) in the near-Earth asteroid population for objects 10 to 50 metres in diameter, and shifts more of the residual impact risk to these sizes.
Abstract
Very long baseline interferometric (VLBI) localizations of repeating fast radio bursts (FRBs) have demonstrated a diversity of local environments: from nearby star-forming regions to ...globular clusters. Here we report the VLBI localization of FRB 20201124A using an ad hoc array of dishes that also participate in the European VLBI Network (EVN). In our campaign, we detected 18 bursts from FRB 20201124A at two separate epochs. By combining the visibilities from both epochs, we were able to localize FRB 20201124A with a 1
σ
uncertainty of 2.7 mas. We use the relatively large burst sample to investigate astrometric accuracy and find that for ≳20 baselines (≳7 dishes) we can robustly reach milliarcsecond precision even using single-burst data sets. Subarcsecond precision is still possible for single bursts, even when only ∼6 baselines (four dishes) are available. In such cases, the limited
uv
coverage for individual bursts results in very high side-lobe levels. Thus, in addition to the peak position from the dirty map, we also explore smoothing the structure in the dirty map by fitting Gaussian functions to the fringe pattern in order to constrain individual burst positions, which we find to be more reliable. Our VLBI work places FRB 20201124A 710 ± 30 mas (1
σ
uncertainty) from the optical center of the host galaxy, consistent with originating from within the recently discovered extended radio structure associated with star formation in the host galaxy. Future high-resolution optical observations, e.g., with Hubble Space Telescope, can determine the proximity of FRB 20201124A’s position to nearby knots of star formation.
Optimal nutritional support in childhood cancer relies on the adequate provision of energy. This study investigated the impact of chemotherapy on resting energy expenditure (REE) during the first six ...months of treatment and the accuracy of predictive equations in calculating said requirements of newly diagnosed children with cancer.
REE was measured at diagnosis utilising a validated bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) mobile unit and compared with three predictive equations (Schofield 1985, World Health Organization WHO 1985 and the Recommended Dietary Allowance RDA 1989). Agreement and accuracy of these equations were tested by determining bias and agreement rates and displayed using the Bland-Altman plot. Baseline values were plotted against monthly follow-up measurements over time. Statistical significance was 5% and a priori limits of agreement set between 90% and 110% of measured REE.
Forty-three newly diagnosed children with median age 4 years (IQR 2.0-7.6) were measured prior to chemotherapy initiation. Compared with measured REE (mean ± SD) 719.53 ± 206.29 kcal/day, all predictive equations significantly overestimated REE: WHO 1985 (889.75 ± 323.31 kcal/day; 23% overestimation), Schofield 1985 (899.62 ± 336.10 kcal/day; 25% overestimation) and RDA (1647.67 ± 481.06 kcal/day; 129% overestimation) (p < 0.001). Despite significant proportionate bias in all three equations (p < 0.001), the intra-class consistency coefficient showed good reliability for the Schofield 1985 (0.864) and WHO 1985 (0.849) equations. Though statistically significant (chi-square = 23.11, p < 0.003), the overall 1 kcal/kg (1.3%) increase for all cancer types at six months may not be clinically significant.
Existing predictive equations are unable to calculate REE accurately at childhood cancer diagnosis, highlighting the need for future investigations into the development of cancer-specific equations.
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