Over the past fifty years a growing body of work has sought to address the problem of planning for transportation in the long-term future through scenario building. Such thinking has generally been ...restricted to issues concerned with environmental sustainability and the ‘images’ of future transport so created are usually weak in terms of their social sustainability content, either treating social issues superficially, or ignoring them entirely, or even creating images that are socially undesirable. At the same time, there has generally been a marked decrease over the past twenty years in socially oriented Utopian thinking. As a direct result of these two factors, hardly any consideration has been given recently to imagining socially sustainable views of transport in a future utopia. The key underlying aim of this paper is to provide some background thinking about how this lack might be addressed. To do so, it examines concepts about utopia in terms of their form, content, and function, and considers possible reasons for the recent decline in Utopian thinking and their ‘replacement’ by a type of futures-thinking that is referred to as dystopian avoidance. It then examines transport characteristics of Utopian thinking in urban planning in the 20th century and considers various ‘antinomies of transport’ with respect to future Utopias. Based upon the insights gained, the paper comments on two existing ‘practical’ sets of transport-related scenarios in terms of their Utopian and dystopian characteristics. One particular result is that the Utopian aspects of these scenario sets in terms of their social content are relatively weak, in line with the hypothesised recent general decline in (social) Utopian thinking. Various conclusions are made which emphasise the usefulness of Utopian thinking in transport planning, particularly in participatory approaches. It is suggested that three elements of the transport system should be separately ‘utopianised’: The mobility of people and goods; physical aspects that facilitate or inhibit such mobility; and the system of governance with respect to formulating and implementing transport policy.
Forest edges influence more than half of the world's forests and contribute to worldwide declines in biodiversity and ecosystem functions. However, predicting these declines is challenging in ...heterogeneous fragmented landscapes. Here we assembled a global dataset on species responses to fragmentation and developed a statistical approach for quantifying edge impacts in heterogeneous landscapes to quantify edge-determined changes in abundance of 1,673 vertebrate species. We show that the abundances of 85% of species are affected, either positively or negatively, by forest edges. Species that live in the centre of the forest (forest core), that were more likely to be listed as threatened by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), reached peak abundances only at sites farther than 200-400 m from sharp high-contrast forest edges. Smaller-bodied amphibians, larger reptiles and medium-sized non-volant mammals experienced a larger reduction in suitable habitat than other forest-core species. Our results highlight the pervasive ability of forest edges to restructure ecological communities on a global scale.
Decades of research suggest that species richness depends on spatial characteristics of habitat patches, especially their size and isolation. In contrast, the habitat amount hypothesis predicts that ...(1) species richness in plots of fixed size (species density) is more strongly and positively related to the amount of habitat around the plot than to patch size or isolation; (2) habitat amount better predicts species density than patch size and isolation combined, (3) there is no effect of habitat fragmentation per se on species density and (4) patch size and isolation effects do not become stronger with declining habitat amount. Data on eight taxonomic groups from 35 studies around the world support these predictions. Conserving species density requires minimising habitat loss, irrespective of the configuration of the patches in which that habitat is contained.
Analysis of a global set of 35 studies suggests that habitat amount, rather than patch area, isolation or fragmentation per se, determined species richness in sample plots at scales ranging from 13 to 11 000 ha. Minimising species losses requires protecting and restoring as much habitat as possible, irrespective of the configuration of that habitat.
Evaluate the efficacy and safety of dual neutralisation of interleukin (IL)-17A and IL-17F with bimekizumab, a monoclonal IgG1 antibody, in addition to certolizumab pegol (CZP) in patients with ...rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and inadequate response (IR) to certolizumab pegol.
During this phase 2a, double-blind, proof-of-concept (PoC) study (NCT02430909), patients with moderate-to-severe RA received open-label CZP 400 mg at Weeks 0, 2 and 4, and 200 mg at Week 6. Patients with IR at Week 8 (Disease Activity Score 28-joint count C-reactive protein (DAS28(CRP))>3.2) were randomised 2:1 to CZP (200 mg every 2 weeks (Q2W)) plus bimekizumab (240 mg loading dose then 120 mg Q2W) or CZP plus placebo. The primary efficacy and safety variables were change in DAS28(CRP) between Weeks 8 and 20 and incidence of treatment-emergent adverse events (TEAEs).
Of 159 patients enrolled, 79 had IR at Week 8 and were randomised to CZP plus bimekizumab (n=52) or CZP plus placebo (n=27). At Week 20, there was a greater reduction in DAS28(CRP) in the CZP-IR plus bimekizumab group compared with the CZP-IR plus placebo group (99.4% posterior probability). The most frequent TEAEs were infections and infestations (CZP plus bimekizumab, 50.0% (26/52); CZP plus placebo, 22.2% (6/27)).
PoC was confirmed based on the rapid decrease in disease activity achieved with 12 weeks of CZP plus bimekizumab. No unexpected or new safety signals were identified when neutralising IL-17A and IL-17F in patients with RA concomitantly treated with CZP, but the rate of TEAEs was higher with dual inhibition.
Outcome measures for physiotherapy in a primary health care setting should be evaluated before physiotherapy becomes widely available in general practice. The aim of this study was to assess changes ...in outcome measures in patients with spinal problems treated with bed rest, advice and analgesia ('traditional' treatment) and with manual/manipulative physiotherapy ('active' treatment). A retrospective analysis was carried out of computerized records of patients treated in primary care with manual and manipulative physiotherapy for spinal problems and a group with a similar age/sex/diagnosis profile who were given traditional treatment. Outcome measures in the 12 months following the initial diagnosis were: referrals, recurrences, casualty attendances, X-rays and number of prescribed analgesic and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory agents (NSAIDs). In the active group, there were 231 lumbar and 154 cervical patients, and 82 and 75, respectively, in the traditional group. There was a significant decrease in the recurrence rate odds ratio (OR) = 0.56, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.37-0.84 and in the numbers attending casualty (OR = 0.19, 95% CI 0.04-0.76) for 'active' compared with 'traditional' patients. For patients with cervical problems, there was a significant decrease in the active group of NSAIDs prescribed (P < 0.05). Certain outcomes of spinal problems are improved by the provision of manipulative physiotherapy in general practice.
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