ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND
Insufficient sleep in adolescents has been shown to be associated with a wide variety of adverse outcomes, from poor mental and physical health to behavioral problems and lower ...academic grades. However, most high school students do not get sufficient sleep. Delaying school start times for adolescents has been proposed as a policy change to address insufficient sleep in this population and potentially to improve students' academic performance, reduce engagement in risk behaviors, and improve health.
METHODS
This article reviews 38 reports examining the association between school start times, sleep, and other outcomes among adolescent students.
RESULTS
Most studies reviewed provide evidence that delaying school start time increases weeknight sleep duration among adolescents, primarily by delaying rise times. Most of the studies saw a significant increase in sleep duration even with relatively small delays in start times of half an hour or so. Later start times also generally correspond to improved attendance, less tardiness, less falling asleep in class, better grades, and fewer motor vehicle crashes.
CONCLUSIONS
Although additional research is necessary, research results that are already available should be disseminated to stakeholders to enable the development of evidence‐based school policies.
► Increased stakeholder involvement does not necessarily lead to conservation success. ► Increased trust between stakeholders can increase conservation success. ► The independence of a process ...affects social and biodiversity outcomes. ► Underlying biodiversity conflicts need to be acknowledged and addressed. ► A mix of methods offers an effective way of evaluating stakeholder involvement.
The establishment of protected areas, such as Natura 2000, is a common approach to curbing biodiversity loss. But many of these areas are owned or managed by private actors. Policies indicate that their involvement should be encouraged to ensure long term success. However, to date there have been no systematic evaluations of whether local actor involvement in the management of protected areas does in fact contribute to the conservation of biodiversity, which is the expressed policy goal. Research incorporating both qualitative and quantitative data was carried out in three case studies in Scotland where local actor input was required in the development and/or implementation of Natura 2000 management plans. No relationship was found between the characteristics of the process of stakeholder involvement and stakeholders’ perceptions of future biodiversity outcomes. Social outcomes of increased stakeholder involvement, such as increased trust, did however increase the perceived likelihood of positive future biodiversity outcomes. The findings indicate that efforts aimed at increasing stakeholder involvement in the management of protected areas need to consider making processes more independent, and acknowledge and address underlying biodiversity conflicts. The findings also emphasise the need to evaluate multi-level conservation efforts in terms of processes, social outcomes and biodiversity outcomes.
Ambrosia artemisiifolia is an invasive weed in Europe with highly allergenic pollen. Populations are currently well established and cause significant health problems in the French Rhône valley, ...Austria, Hungary and Croatia but transient or casual introduced populations are also found in more Northern and Eastern European countries. A process-based model of weed growth, competition and population dynamics was used to predict the future potential for range expansion of A.artemisiifolia under climate change scenarios. The model predicted a northward shift in the available climatic niche for populations to establish and persist, creating a risk of increased health problems in countries including the UK and Denmark. This was accompanied by an increase in relative pollen production at the northern edge of its range. The southern European limit for A.artemisiifolia was not expected to change; populations continued to be limited by drought stress in Spain and Southern Italy. The process-based approach to modelling the impact of climate change on plant populations has the advantage over correlative species distribution models of being able to capture interactions of climate, land use and plant competition at the local scale. However, for this potential to be fully realised, additional empirical data are required on competitive dynamics of A.artemisiifolia in different crops and ruderal plant communities and its capacity to adapt to local conditions.
Humans fundamentally affect dispersal, directly by transporting individuals and indirectly by altering landscapes and natural vectors. This human-mediated dispersal (HMD) modifies long-distance ...dispersal, changes dispersal paths, and overall benefits certain species or genotypes while disadvantaging others. HMD is leading to radical changes in the structure and functioning of spatial networks, which are likely to intensify as human activities increase in scope and extent. Here, we provide an overview to guide research into HMD and the resulting rewiring of spatial networks, making predictions about the ecological and evolutionary consequences and how these vary according to spatial scale and the traits of species. Future research should consider HMD holistically, assessing the range of direct and indirect processes to understand the complex impacts on eco-evolutionary dynamics.
Research into human impacts on biodiversity would benefit from considering HMD as a central process, in particular the wide variety of anthropogenic influences on the dispersal of organisms.
Particular species or genotypes benefit from increased dispersal ability under HMD, including new linkages among areas of suitable habitat; conversely, others suffer from loss of dispersal opportunities and linkages, as well as increased costs.
In total, HMD is expected to rewire spatial networks through the reconfiguration of links among nodes, particularly by changing the distances over which individuals disperse and the creation of highly connected nodes (hubs).
As human impacts on the environment increase, ecology and conservation will benefit from considering rewiring holistically, assessing both the positive and negative impacts of HMD on eco-evolutionary dynamics.
To examine the effects of obesity and frequent mental distress (FMD) on the relationship of sleep duration with coronary heart disease (CHD), stroke, and diabetes.
Cross-sectional study.
...Population-based surveillance.
There were 54,269 adults age 45 y or older who completed the 2010 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System survey in 14 states.
Nearly one third (31.1% or an estimated 11.1 million) of respondents age 45 y and older reported being short sleepers (≤ 6 h), 64.8% being optimal sleepers (7-9 h), and 4.1% being long sleepers (≥ 10 h) in a 24-h period. Compared with the optimal sleep duration, both short and long sleep durations were significantly associated with obesity, FMD (mental health was not good ≥ 14 days during the past 30 days), CHD, stroke, and diabetes after controlling for sex, age, race/ethnicity, and education. The U-shaped relationships of sleep duration with CHD, stroke, and diabetes were moderately attenuated by FMD. The relationship between sleep duration and diabetes was slightly attenuated by obesity.
Sleep duration had U-shaped relationships with leading chronic diseases. Further prospective studies are needed to determine how mental health and maintenance of a normal weight may interact with sleep duration to prevent chronic diseases.
•Little extant climate change communication research examines the impact of imagery.•Perceived authenticity and credibility importantly influenced image evaluations.•Familiar climate images were ...easily understood but also attracted cynicism.•Images of ‘solutions’ produced positive affective responses and less polarization.•Images of ‘impacts’ produced greater intentions towards personal behavioral change.
Imagery plays a central role in climate change communication. But whereas research on the verbal communication of climate change has proliferated, far fewer studies have focused on visual communication. Correspondingly, relatively little is known about how to effectively engage the public using the visual medium. The current research is the first mixed methods, cross-national investigation of public perceptions of climate images, with a focus on photographic climate change imagery. Four structured discussion groups in the UK and Germany (N=32) and an international survey with an embedded experiment in the UK, Germany and the US (N=3014) were conducted to examine how different types of climate change imagery were evaluated. The qualitative research pointed to the importance of the perceived authenticity and credibility of the human subjects in climate images, as well as widespread negativity towards images depicting protests and demonstrations. Images of climate ‘solutions’ produced positive emotional responses in the survey and were less polarizing for climate change skeptics, but they were also the least motivating of action. Familiar climate images (such as a polar bear on melting ice) were easily understood in the survey (and evaluated positively as a consequence) but viewed with cynicism in discussion groups. We present a detailed discussion of these and other key findings in this paper and describe a novel application of the data through an online image library for practitioners which accompanies the research (www.climatevisuals.org).
Niche shifts of nonnative plants can occur when they colonize novel climatic conditions. However, the mechanistic basis for niche shifts during invasion is poorly understood and has rarely been ...captured within species distribution models. We quantified the consequence of between-population variation in phenology for invasion of common ragweed (Ambrosia artemisiifolia L.) across Europe. Ragweed is of serious concern because of its harmful effects as a crop weed and because of its impact on public health as a major aeroallergen. We developed a forward mechanistic species distribution model based on responses of ragweed development rates to temperature and photoperiod. The model was parameterized and validated from the literature and by reanalyzing data from a reciprocal common garden experiment in which native and invasive populations were grown within and beyond the current invaded range. It could therefore accommodate between-population variation in the physiological requirements for flowering, and predict the potentially invaded ranges of individual populations. Northern-origin populations that were established outside the generally accepted climate envelope of the species had lower thermal requirements for bud development, suggesting local adaptation of phenology had occurred during the invasion. The model predicts that this will extend the potentially invaded range northward and increase the average suitability across Europe by 90% in the current climate and 20% in the future climate. Therefore, trait variation observed at the population scale can trigger a climatic niche shift at the biogeographic scale. For ragweed, earlier flowering phenology in established northern populations could allow the species to spread beyond its current invasive range, substantially increasing its risk to agriculture and public health. Mechanistic species distribution models offer the possibility to represent niche shifts by varying the traits and niche responses of individual populations. Ignoring such effects could substantially underestimate the extent and impact of invasions.
Although evidence suggests that poor sleep is associated with chronic disease, little research has been conducted to assess the relationships between insufficient sleep, frequent mental distress (FMD ...≥14 days during the past 30 days), obesity, and chronic disease including diabetes mellitus, coronary heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, asthma, and arthritis.
Data from 375,653 US adults aged ≥ 18 years in the 2009 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System were used to assess the relationships between insufficient sleep and chronic disease. The relationships were further examined using a multivariate logistic regression model after controlling for age, sex, race/ethnicity, education, and potential mediators (FMD and obesity).
The overall prevalence of insufficient sleep during the past 30 days was 10.4% for all 30 days, 17.0% for 14-29 days, 42.0% for 1-13 days, and 30.6% for zero day. The positive relationships between insufficient sleep and each of the six chronic disease were significant (p < 0.0001) after adjustment for covariates and were modestly attenuated but not fully explained by FMD. The relationships between insufficient sleep and both diabetes and high blood pressure were also modestly attenuated but not fully explained by obesity.
Assessment of sleep quantity and quality and additional efforts to encourage optimal sleep and sleep health should be considered in routine medical examinations. Ongoing research designed to test treatments for obesity, mental distress, or various chronic diseases should also consider assessing the impact of these treatments on sleep health.
Aim: Although global trade is implicated in biological invasions, the assumption that trade networks explain the large-scale distributions of non-native species remains largely untested. We addressed ...this by analysing relationships between global trade networks and plant pest invasion. Location: Forty-eight countries in Europe and the Mediterranean. Time period: Current. Major taxa studied: Four hundred and twenty-two non-native plant pests (173 invertebrates, 166 pathogens, 83 plants). Methods: Ten types of connectivity index were developed, representing potential roles of trade networks, air transport links, geographical proximity, climatic similarity and source country wealth in facilitating invasion. Generalized linear mixed models (GLMMs) identified the connectivity index that best explained both historical and recent invasion. Then, more complex GLMMs were developed including connectivity through trade networks for multiple commodities relevant for pests (live plants, forest products, fruit and vegetables and seeds) and species' transport associations with those commodities. Results: Total import volumes, species' global prevalence and connectivity measures based on air transport, geographical distance or climate did not explain invasion as well as connectivity through global trade networks. Invasion was strongly promoted by agricultural imports from countries in which the focal species was present and that were climatically similar to the importing country. However, live plant imports from nearby countries provided a better explanation of the most recent invasions. Connectivity through multiple trade networks predicted invasion better than total agricultural trade, and there was support for our hypothesis that species known to be transported with a particular network had greater sensitivity to its connectivity. Main conclusions: Our findings show that patterns of invasion are governed to a large extent by global trade networks connecting source areas for non-native species and the dispersal of those species through multiple trade networks. This enhances potential for developing a predictive framework to improve risk assessment, biosecurity and surveillance for invasions.
It is a privilege to be invited to contribute to the Festschrift dedicated to Professor Johan Buitendag, Emeritus Dean, Faculty of Theology and Religion at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. ...While his own work often examined the relationship between theology and natural science, he was also passionate about ecumenism and, in that spirit, the present essay utilised what might be described as an inductive approach to an important ecumenical question, the unity between Methodists and Catholics. Ecumenical dialogue is often undertaken from a theological and dogmatic perspective. This essay took a different approach in that it sought to inductively examine what might be described as the inner logic of two ecclesial systems (Methodist and Catholic). In doing so, it was premised upon an Aristotelian philosophical principle, epistemic fit, in that it presupposed that both these ecclesial bodies possess an intrinsic logic that can be brought to the surface in order to exhibit parallel contours in the wider ecclesial terrain.Contribution: This article fits well within the scope of HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies in that it contributed to a new subdiscipline in epistemology, which explores the conceptual and epistemological dimensions of ecclesiology. Using the concept of epistemic fit, the article offered an inductive approach to some of the practical issues that emerge in ecumenical dialogue.
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