Possibly the greatest change confronting the practitioner and student of remote sensing in the period since the first edition of this text appeared in 1986 has been the enormous improvement in ...accessibility to image processing technology. Falling hardware and software costs, combined with an increase in functionality through the development of extremely versatile user interfaces, has meant that even the user unskilled in computing now has immediate and ready access to powerful and flexible means for digital image analysis and enhancement. An understanding, at algorithmic level, of the various methods for image processing has become therefore even more important in the past few years to ensure the full capability of digital image processing is utilised. This period has also been a busy one in relation to digital data supply. Several nations have become satellite data gatherers and providers, using both optical and microwave technology. Practitioners and researchers are now faced, therefore, with the need to be able to process imagery from several sensors, together with other forms of spatial data. This has been driven, to an extent, by developments in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) which, in tum, have led to the appearance of newer image processing procedures as adjuncts to more traditional approaches.
Radiocarbon (14C) ages cannot provide absolutely dated chronologies for archaeological or paleoenvironmental studies directly but must be converted to calendar age equivalents using a calibration ...curve compensating for fluctuations in atmospheric 14C concentration. Although calibration curves are constructed from independently dated archives, they invariably require revision as new data become available and our understanding of the Earth system improves. In this volume the international 14C calibration curves for both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, as well as for the ocean surface layer, have been updated to include a wealth of new data and extended to 55,000 cal BP. Based on tree rings, IntCal20 now extends as a fully atmospheric record to ca. 13,900 cal BP. For the older part of the timescale, IntCal20 comprises statistically integrated evidence from floating tree-ring chronologies, lacustrine and marine sediments, speleothems, and corals. We utilized improved evaluation of the timescales and location variable 14C offsets from the atmosphere (reservoir age, dead carbon fraction) for each dataset. New statistical methods have refined the structure of the calibration curves while maintaining a robust treatment of uncertainties in the 14C ages, the calendar ages and other corrections. The inclusion of modeled marine reservoir ages derived from a three-dimensional ocean circulation model has allowed us to apply more appropriate reservoir corrections to the marine 14C data rather than the previous use of constant regional offsets from the atmosphere. Here we provide an overview of the new and revised datasets and the associated methods used for the construction of the IntCal20 curve and explore potential regional offsets for tree-ring data. We discuss the main differences with respect to the previous calibration curve, IntCal13, and some of the implications for archaeology and geosciences ranging from the recent past to the time of the extinction of the Neanderthals.
Natriuretic peptide NP; B‐type NP (BNP), N‐terminal proBNP (NT‐proBNP), and midregional proANP (MR‐proANP) concentrations are quantitative plasma biomarkers for the presence and severity of ...haemodynamic cardiac stress and heart failure (HF). End‐diastolic wall stress, intracardiac filling pressures, and intracardiac volumes seem to be the dominant triggers. This paper details the most important indications for NPs and highlights 11 key principles underlying their clinical use shown below.
NPs should always be used in conjunction with all other clinical information.
NPs are reasonable surrogates for intracardiac volumes and filling pressures.
NPs should be measured in all patients presenting with symptoms suggestive of HF such as dyspnoea and/or fatigue, as their use facilitates the early diagnosis and risk stratification of HF.
NPs have very high diagnostic accuracy in discriminating HF from other causes of dyspnoea: the higher the NP, the higher the likelihood that dyspnoea is caused by HF.
Optimal NP cut‐off concentrations for the diagnosis of acute HF (very high filling pressures) in patients presenting to the emergency department with acute dyspnoea are higher compared with those used in the diagnosis of chronic HF in patients with dyspnoea on exertion (mild increase in filling pressures at rest).
Obese patients have lower NP concentrations, mandating the use of lower cut‐off concentrations (about 50% lower).
In stable HF patients, but also in patients with other cardiac disorders such as myocardial infarction, valvular heart disease, atrial fibrillation or pulmonary embolism, NP concentrations have high prognostic accuracy for death and HF hospitalization.
Screening with NPs for the early detection of relevant cardiac disease including left ventricular systolic dysfunction in patients with cardiovascular risk factors may help to identify patients at increased risk, therefore allowing targeted preventive measures to prevent HF.
BNP, NT‐proBNP and MR‐proANP have comparable diagnostic and prognostic accuracy.
In patients with shock, NPs cannot be used to identify cause (e.g. cardiogenic vs. septic shock), but remain prognostic.
NPs cannot identify the underlying cause of HF and, therefore, if elevated, must always be used in conjunction with cardiac imaging.
New biomarkers are being evaluated for their ability to advance the management of patients with heart failure. Despite a large pool of interesting candidate biomarkers, besides natriuretic peptides ...virtually none have succeeded in being applied into the clinical setting. In this review, we examine the most promising emerging candidates for clinical assessment and management of patients with heart failure. We discuss high‐sensitivity cardiac troponins (Tn), procalcitonin, novel kidney markers, soluble suppression of tumorigenicity 2 (sST2), galectin‐3, growth differentiation factor‐15 (GDF‐15), cluster of differentiation 146 (CD146), neprilysin, adrenomedullin (ADM), and also discuss proteomics and genetic‐based risk scores. We focused on guidance and assistance with daily clinical care decision‐making. For each biomarker, analytical considerations are discussed, as well as performance regarding diagnosis and prognosis. Furthermore, we discuss potential implementation in clinical algorithms and in ongoing clinical trials.
Potential usage of biomarkers in the heart failure spectrum.
Aboriginal Australians represent one of the longest continuous cultural complexes known. Archaeological evidence indicates that Australia and New Guinea were initially settled approximately 50 ...thousand years ago (ka); however, little is known about the processes underlying the enormous linguistic and phenotypic diversity within Australia. Here we report 111 mitochondrial genomes (mitogenomes) from historical Aboriginal Australian hair samples, whose origins enable us to reconstruct Australian phylogeographic history before European settlement. Marked geographic patterns and deep splits across the major mitochondrial haplogroups imply that the settlement of Australia comprised a single, rapid migration along the east and west coasts that reached southern Australia by 49-45 ka. After continent-wide colonization, strong regional patterns developed and these have survived despite substantial climatic and cultural change during the late Pleistocene and Holocene epochs. Remarkably, we find evidence for the continuous presence of populations in discrete geographic areas dating back to around 50 ka, in agreement with the notable Aboriginal Australian cultural attachment to their country.
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