Falling Behind: Processing and Enforcing Permits for Animal Agriculture Operations in Maryland is Lagging

After decades of failed interstate agreements, the Chesapeake Bay is choking on too many nutrients. The estuary’s last, best chance of recovery is the Environmental Protection Agency\u27s Total Maximum Daily Load (“TMDL”) program, also known as a pollution diet. To meet this deadline, all polluters, including large animal farms, will need to sharply reduce the pollutants they release into the Bay. The Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) must ensure that each Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (“CAFO”) has developed a facility-specific permit that details when and where manure is applied to fields and how waste is stored and handled. Then the state needs to make sure the CAFOs follow their plans by conducting regular inspections. This Issue Alert finds that MDE has been unable to issue permits for these major sources of pollution in a timely way. Specifically, the state has not registered nearly 30 percent of regulated animal farms, thus missing out on tens of thousands of pounds of pollution reduction in the Chesapeake Bay

Consequences for Cleanup: EPA Gets Serious about Weak Watershed Improvement Plans

In a landmark series of reports issued on June 26, 2014, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) put the seven jurisdictions that pollute the Chesapeake Bay on notice that their plans for reducing nitrogen, phosphorous, and sediment fall short of where they must be to make cleanup by 2025 a reality. By EPA’s reckoning, Pennsylvania and Delaware were furthest off the mark, but Maryland, New York, Virginia, and West Virginia face EPA action if they fail to substantially improve their plans. Of the seven jurisdictions, only Washington, D.C. escaped serious criticism

Local multiresolution order in community detection

Community detection algorithms attempt to find the best clusters of nodes in an arbitrary complex network. Multi-scale ("multiresolution") community detection extends the problem to identify the best network scale(s) for these clusters. The latter task is generally accomplished by analyzing community stability simultaneously for all clusters in the network. In the current work, we extend this general approach to define local multiresolution methods, which enable the extraction of well-defined local communities even if the global community structure is vaguely defined in an average sense. Toward this end, we propose measures analogous to variation of information and normalized mutual information that are used to quantitatively identify the best resolution(s) at the community level based on correlations between clusters in independently-solved systems. We demonstrate our method on two constructed networks as well as a real network and draw inferences about local community strength. Our approach is independent of the applied community detection algorithm save for the inherent requirement that the method be able to identify communities across different network scales, with appropriate changes to account for how different resolutions are evaluated or defined in a particular community detection method. It should, in principle, easily adapt to alternative community comparison measures.Comment: 19 pages, 11 figure

Knowledge Integration and Diffusion: Measures and Mapping of Diversity and Coherence

I present a framework based on the concepts of diversity and coherence for the analysis of knowledge integration and diffusion. Visualisations that help understand insights gained are also introduced. The key novelty offered by this framework compared to previous approaches is the inclusion of cognitive distance (or proximity) between the categories that characterise the body of knowledge under study. I briefly discuss the different methods to map the cognitive dimension

Stimulation of neutrophil functions by C5adesArg: an in vitro model of haemodialysis

Cuprophane membranes during haemodialysis significantly increase the plasma levels of C5adesArg (maximal 55 μg C5aadesArg/1 blood after 30 min) whereas Hemophane or Polysulphonemembranes induce only low plasma levels of C5adesArg. C5adesArg generated in vitro by yeast incubation of autologous plasma stimulates PMN chemotaxis and oxidative metabolism but has no effect on enzyme release. Preincubation of whole blood with C5adesArg causes aggregation and changed oxidative burst activity of the isolated PMN. These changes are similar to those found in cells from patients after haemodialysis with cuprophane membranes. So the elevated plasma levels of C5adesArg after haemodialysis explain some of the changes in PMN functions, but additional mechanisms have to be assumed

Nutrition Strategies for Triathlon

Contemporary sports nutrition guidelines recommend that each athlete develop a personalised, periodised and practical approach to eating that allows him or her to train hard, recover and adapt optimally, stay free of illness and injury and compete at their best at peak races. Competitive triathletes undertake a heavy training programme to prepare for three different sports while undertaking races varying in duration from 20 min to 10 h. The everyday diet should be adequate in energy availability, provide CHO in varying amounts and timing around workouts according to the benefits of training with low or high CHO availability and spread high-quality protein over the day to maximise the adaptive response to each session. Race nutrition requires a targeted and well-practised plan that maintains fuel and hydration goals over the duration of the specific event, according to the opportunities provided by the race and other challenges, such as a hot environment. Supplements and sports foods can make a small contribution to a sports nutrition plan, when medical supplements are used under supervision to prevent/treat nutrient deficiencies (e.g. iron or vitamin D) or when sports foods provide a convenient source of nutrients when it is impractical to eat whole foods. Finally, a few evidence-based performance supplements may contribute to optimal race performance when used according to best practice protocols to suit the triathlete’s goals and individual responsiveness

Open Education as a threshold concept in Teacher Education: a theoretical framework for further research

Threshold concept framework: A threshold concept can be considered as akin to a portal, opening up a new and previously inaccessible way of thinking about something. It represents a transformed way of understanding, or interpreting, or viewing something without which the learner cannot progress. As a consequence of comprehending a threshold concept there may thus be a transformed internal view of subject matter, subject landscape, or even worldview (Meyer and Land, 2003). Threshold concepts have been explored in many disciplines (Bradbeer, 2006) and may have a key role for the transformation of the students? learning experience (Cousin, 2006). Since open education has implications for innovation and change (Peter and Deimann, 2013), we suggest exploring it as a threshold concept. There are five main attributes defined originally by Meyer and Land (2003) and three more have also been listed stemming from comments made by the authors (UCL, 2013): transformative, troublesome, irreversible, integrative, bounded, discursive, reconstitutive and liminal. Openness as a threshold concept: 1. Transformative - Is openness transformative for students involved in open educational practices? 2. Troublesome - What difficulties do students face when being involved in open educational practices? 3. Irreversible - How do students? perceptions change when being involved in open educational practices? How do these changes impact visions of their own future professional careers? 4. Liminality - How can the progressive change towards the open movement be scaffolded? How can feedback help in the construction of authentic open educational practices? 5. Discursive - What kind of narrative do students involved in open educational practices develop? Does it reflect authentic construction of the open movement understanding? This is the theoretical framework for future research about openness as a threshold concept. More research is needed to obtain data that would throw light on how to address each particular attribute. This is an open call to those interested in going further in this line of research

Laparoscopy in management of appendicitis in high-, middle-, and low-income countries: a multicenter, prospective, cohort study.

BACKGROUND: Appendicitis is the most common abdominal surgical emergency worldwide. Differences between high- and low-income settings in the availability of laparoscopic appendectomy, alternative management choices, and outcomes are poorly described. The aim was to identify variation in surgical management and outcomes of appendicitis within low-, middle-, and high-Human Development Index (HDI) countries worldwide. METHODS: This is a multicenter, international prospective cohort study. Consecutive sampling of patients undergoing emergency appendectomy over 6 months was conducted. Follow-up lasted 30 days. RESULTS: 4546 patients from 52 countries underwent appendectomy (2499 high-, 1540 middle-, and 507 low-HDI groups). Surgical site infection (SSI) rates were higher in low-HDI (OR 2.57, 95% CI 1.33-4.99, p = 0.005) but not middle-HDI countries (OR 1.38, 95% CI 0.76-2.52, p = 0.291), compared with high-HDI countries after adjustment. A laparoscopic approach was common in high-HDI countries (1693/2499, 67.7%), but infrequent in low-HDI (41/507, 8.1%) and middle-HDI (132/1540, 8.6%) groups. After accounting for case-mix, laparoscopy was still associated with fewer overall complications (OR 0.55, 95% CI 0.42-0.71, p < 0.001) and SSIs (OR 0.22, 95% CI 0.14-0.33, p < 0.001). In propensity-score matched groups within low-/middle-HDI countries, laparoscopy was still associated with fewer overall complications (OR 0.23 95% CI 0.11-0.44) and SSI (OR 0.21 95% CI 0.09-0.45). CONCLUSION: A laparoscopic approach is associated with better outcomes and availability appears to differ by country HDI. Despite the profound clinical, operational, and financial barriers to its widespread introduction, laparoscopy could significantly improve outcomes for patients in low-resource environments. TRIAL REGISTRATION: NCT02179112