Arsenic and subclinical vascular damage in a sample of Italian young adults: a cross-sectional analysis

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Exposure to arsenic (As) increases cardiovascular risk. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relationship between As and intima-media...     

Lethal and sublethal effects of the natural and healthy spinosad-based formulation Tracer™ on tadpoles of two neotropical species

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - This paper presents the first acute toxicity data of the natural insecticide spinosad in amphibians. The sensitivity of two neotropical sympatric...     

Importance of timely metadata curation to the global surveillance of genetic diversity

Genetic diversity within species represents a fundamental yet underappreciated level of biodiversity. Because genetic diversity can indicate species resilience to changing climate, its measurement is relevant to many national and global conservation policy targets. Many studies produce large amounts of genome-scale genetic diversity data for wild populations, but most (87%) do not include the associated spatial and temporal metadata necessary for them to be reused in monitoring programs or for acknowledging the sovereignty of nations or Indigenous peoples. We undertook a distributed datathon to quantify the availability of these missing metadata and to test the hypothesis that their availability decays with time. We also worked to remediate missing metadata by extracting them from associated published papers, online repositories, and direct communication with authors. Starting with 848 candidate genomic data sets (reduced representation and whole genome) from the International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration, we determined that 561 contained mostly samples from wild populations. We successfully restored spatiotemporal metadata for 78% of these 561 data sets (n = 440 data sets with data on 45,105 individuals from 762 species in 17 phyla). Examining papers and online repositories was much more fruitful than contacting 351 authors, who replied to our email requests 45% of the time. Overall, 23% of our email queries to authors unearthed useful metadata. The probability of retrieving spatiotemporal metadata declined significantly as age of the data set increased. There was a 13.5% yearly decrease in metadata associated with published papers or online repositories and up to a 22% yearly decrease in metadata that were only available from authors. This rapid decay in metadata availability, mirrored in studies of other types of biological data, should motivate swift updates to data-sharing policies and researcher practices to ensure that the valuable context provided by metadata is not lost to conservation science forever.     

Engaging with the Ecological Footprint as a Decision-Making Tool: Process and Responses

Since the initial development of the Ecological Footprint in the early 1990s, the concept has gained increased interest amongst academics and practitioners internationally. In the UK, it is estimated that some 60 to 70 Ecological Footprint studies were undertaken between 1999 and 2004. Although the majority of interest in Ecological Footprinting has come from local government, a recent study has found that government officers involved in the formulation of council policy have not been able to engage with the Ecological Footprint as a process or use the results to inform policy decisions. This paper analyses how an Ecological Footprint has been developed for Cardiff, the capital city of Wales. The approach used to construct an Ecological Footprint for Cardiff has been significantly different to that which had been used previously in the UK, as it has involved a unique consortium of researchers at Cardiff University and policy development officers at Cardiff Council checking the quality of data used in the Footprint calculation, and developing a range of policy scenarios.     

Forests in common: Learning from diversity of community forest arrangements in Europe

Europe has a wealth of community forest arrangements. This paper aims to transcend the diversity of locally specific terms and forms, to highlight the value of considering them inclusively. Building on methods to make sense of diversity, we use reflexive grounded inquiry in fifteen cases in Italy, Scotland, Slovenia and Sweden. Within four dimensions (forest, community, relationships between them, and relationships with wider society), we identify 43 subdimensions to describe them collectively. Our approach shows how European arrangements contribute to wider discourses of collective natural resource management. Both tradition and innovation in Europe inform options for environmental governance. Arrangements challenge the distinction between ‘communities of place’ and ‘communities of interest’, with implications for social and environmental justice. They exemplify multilevel environmental governance through both vertical and horizontal connections. Emerging from long histories of political and environmental pressures, they have a role in enhancing society’s connection with nature and adaptive capacity.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1007/s13280-020-01377-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorised users.     

The Ergonomic Program Implementation Continuum (EPIC): Integration of health and safety - A process evaluation in the healthcare sector

IntroductionThis article presents a health and safety intervention model and the use of process evaluation to assess a participatory ergonomic intervention.MethodThe effectiveness of the Ergonomic Program Implementation Continuum (EPIC) was assessed at six healthcare pilot sites in Ontario, Canada. The model provided a framework to demonstrate evaluation findings.ResultsParticipants reported that EPIC was thorough and identified improvements related to its use. Participants believed the program contributed to advancing an organizational culture of safety (COS). Main barriers to program uptake included resistance to change and need for adequate funding and resources. The dedication of organizational leaders and consultant coaches was identified as essential to the program's success.Impact on IndustryIn terms of impact on industry, findings contribute to the evidence-based knowledge of health and safety interventions and support use of the framework for creating a robust infrastructure to advance organizational COS and link staff safety and wellness with patient safety in healthcare.     

Besides navigation accuracy: Gender differences in strategy selection and level of spatial confidence

A virtual version of the reorientation task was employed to test new behavioral measures of navigation strategies and spatial confidence within a gender-fair assessment approach. The results demonstrated that, from a behavioral point of view, women had lower level of spatial confidence than men regardless of level of accuracy. Moreover, the way men and women selected spatial strategies depended on the arrangement of spatial cues within the environment. In other terms women relied on landmarks under specific conditions compatible with an adaptive combination/associative model of spatial orientation. Finally, the present study emphasized the importance to assess gender differences taking into account specific affective variables and information selection processing, beyond accuracy.     

Chemical and biological characterisation of biofilms formed on different substrata in Tisza river (Hungary)

Natural biofilms were simultaneously grown on granite, polished granite, andesite, polycarbonate and Plexi-glass substrata for six weeks in the Tisza River. Biofilm production and abundance of algae were influenced by the substratum. Magnitude of the substratum effect was andesite相似文献