Global warming will affect the maximum potential abundance of boreal plant species

Forecasting the impact of future global warming on biodiversity requires understanding how temperature limits the distribution of species. Here we rely on Liebig's Law of Minimum to estimate the effect of temperature on the maximum potential abundance that a species can attain at a certain location. We develop 95%‐quantile regressions to model the influence of effective temperature sum on the maximum potential abundance of 25 common understory plant species of Finland, along 868 nationwide plots sampled in 1985. Fifteen of these species showed a significant response to temperature sum that was consistent in temperature‐only models and in all‐predictors models, which also included cumulative precipitation, soil texture, soil fertility, tree species and stand maturity as predictors. For species with significant and consistent responses to temperature, we forecasted potential shifts in abundance for the period 2041–2070 under the IPCC A1B emission scenario using temperature‐only models. We predict major potential changes in abundance and average northward distribution shifts of 6–8 km yr−1. Our results emphasize inter‐specific differences in the impact of global warming on the understory layer of boreal forests. Species in all functional groups from dwarf shrubs, herbs and grasses to bryophytes and lichens showed significant responses to temperature, while temperature did not limit the abundance of 10 species. We discuss the interest of modelling the ‘maximum potential abundance’ to deal with the uncertainty in the predictions of realized abundances associated to the effect of environmental factors not accounted for and to dispersal limitations of species, among others. We believe this concept has a promising and unexplored potential to forecast the impact of specific drivers of global change under future scenarios.202

Expression of Trichoderma reesei cellulases CBHI and EGI in Ashbya gossypii

To explore the potential of Ashbya gossypii as a host for the expression of recombinant proteins and to assess whether protein secretion would be more similar to the closely related Saccharomyces cerevisiae or to other filamentous fungi, endoglucanase I (EGI) and cellobiohydrolase I (CBHI) from the fungus Trichoderma reesei were successfully expressed in A. gossypii from plasmids containing the two micron sequences from S. cerevisiae, under the S. cerevisiae PGK1 promoter. The native signal sequences of EGI and CBHI were able to direct the secretion of EGI and CBHI into the culture medium in A. gossypii. Although CBHI activity was not detected using 4- methylumbelliferyl-β-D-lactoside as substrate, the protein was detected by Western blot using monoclonal antibodies. EGI activity was detectable, the specific activity being comparable to that produced by a similar EGI producing S. cerevisiae construct. More EGI was secreted than CBHI, or more active protein was produced. Partial characterization of CBHI and EGI expressed in A. gossypii revealed overglycosylation when compared with the native T. reesei proteins, but the glycosylation was less extensive than on cellulases expressed in S. cerevisiae.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT

Impact of cardiac surgery and neurosurgery patients on variation in severity-adjusted resource use in intensive care units

Publisher Copyright: © 2022Purpose: The resource use of cardiac surgery and neurosurgery patients likely differ from other ICU patients. We evaluated the relevance of these patient groups on overall ICU resource use. Methods: Secondary analysis of 69,862 patients in 17 ICUs in Finland, Estonia, and Switzerland in 2015–2017. Direct costs of care were allocated to patients using daily Therapeutic Intervention Scoring System (TISS) scores and ICU length of stay (LOS). The ratios of observed to severity-adjusted expected resource use (standardized resource use ratios; SRURs), direct costs and outcomes were assessed before and after excluding cardiac surgery or cardiac and neurosurgery. Results: Cardiac surgery and neurosurgery, performed only in university hospitals, represented 22% of all ICU admissions and 15–19% of direct costs. Cardiac surgery and neurosurgery were excluded with no consistent effect on SRURs in the whole cohort, regardless of cost separation method. Excluding cardiac surgery or cardiac surgery plus neurosurgery had highly variable effects on SRURs of individual university ICUs, whereas the non-university ICU SRURs decreased. Conclusions: Cardiac and neurosurgery have major effects on the cost structure of multidisciplinary ICUs. Extending SRUR analysis to patient subpopulations facilitates comparison of resource use between ICUs and may help to optimize resource allocation.Peer reviewe

Variation in Severity-Adjusted Resource use and Outcome for Neurosurgical Emergencies in the Intensive Care Unit.

BACKGROUND The correlation between the standardized resource use ratio (SRUR) and standardized hospital mortality ratio (SMR) for neurosurgical emergencies is not known. We studied SRUR and SMR and the factors affecting these in patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI), nontraumatic intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH), and subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH). METHODS We extracted data of patients treated in six university hospitals in three countries (2015-2017). Resource use was measured as SRUR based on purchasing power parity-adjusted direct costs and either intensive care unit (ICU) length of stay (costSRURlength of stay) or daily Therapeutic Intervention Scoring System scores (costSRURTherapeutic Intervention Scoring System). Five a priori defined variables reflecting differences in structure and organization between the ICUs were used as explanatory variables in bivariable models, separately for the included neurosurgical diseases. RESULTS Out of 28,363 emergency patients treated in six ICUs, 6,162 patients (22%) were admitted with a neurosurgical emergency (41% nontraumatic ICH, 23% SAH, 13% multitrauma TBI, and 23% isolated TBI). The mean costs for neurosurgical admissions were higher than for nonneurosurgical admissions, and the neurosurgical admissions corresponded to 23.6-26.0% of all direct costs related to ICU emergency admissions. A higher physician-to-bed ratio was associated with lower SMRs in the nonneurosurgical admissions but not in the neurosurgical admissions. In patients with nontraumatic ICH, lower costSRURs were associated with higher SMRs. In the bivariable models, independent organization of an ICU was associated with lower costSRURs in patients with nontraumatic ICH and isolated/multitrauma TBI but with higher SMRs in patients with nontraumatic ICH. A higher physician-to-bed ratio was associated with higher costSRURs for patients with SAH. Larger units had higher SMRs for patients with nontraumatic ICH and isolated TBI. None of the ICU-related factors were associated with costSRURs in nonneurosurgical emergency admissions. CONCLUSIONS Neurosurgical emergencies constitute a major proportion of all emergency ICU admissions. A lower SRUR was associated with higher SMR in patients with nontraumatic ICH but not for the other diagnoses. Different organizational and structural factors seemed to affect resource use for the neurosurgical patients compared with nonneurosurgical patients. This emphasizes the importance of case-mix adjustment when benchmarking resource use and outcomes

Erratum to: 36th International Symposium on Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1186/s13054-016-1208-6.]

A922 Sequential measurement of 1 hour creatinine clearance (1-CRCL) in critically ill patients at risk of acute kidney injury (AKI)

Meeting abstrac

Mortality prediction in intensive care units including premorbid functional status improved performance and internal validity

Objective: Prognostic models are key for benchmarking intensive care units (ICUs). They require up-to-date predictors and should report transportability properties for reliable predictions. We developed and validated an in-hospital mortality risk prediction model to facilitate benchmarking, quality assurance, and health economics evaluation. Study Design and Setting: We retrieved data from the database of an international (Finland, Estonia, Switzerland) multicenter ICU cohort study from 2015 to 2017. We used a hierarchical logistic regression model that included age, a modified Simplified Acute Physiology Score-II, admission type, premorbid functional status, and diagnosis as grouping variable. We used pooled and meta-analytic cross-validation approaches to assess temporal and geographical transportability. Results: We included 61,224 patients treated in the ICU (hospital mortality 10.6%). The developed prediction model had an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve 0.886, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.882-0.890; a calibration slope 1.01, 95% CI (0.99-1.03); a mean calibration -0.004, 95% CI (-0.035 to 0.027). Although the model showed very good internal validity and geographic discrimination transportability, we found substantial heterogeneity of performance measures between ICUs (I-squared: 53.4-84.7%). Conclusion: A novel framework evaluating the performance of our prediction model provided key information to judge the validity of our model and its adaptation for future use. (c) 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY license ( http:// creativecommons.org/ licenses/ by/ 4.0/ )Peer reviewe

Study of the thermal stress in a Pb-free half-bump solder joint under current stressing

The thermal stress in a Sn3.5Ag1Cu half-bump solder joint under a 3.82×108 A/m2 current stressing was analyzed using a coupled-field simulation. Substantial thermal stress accumulated around the Al-to-solder interface, especially in the Ni+(Ni,Cu)3Sn4 layer, where a maximal stress of 138 MPa was identified. The stress gradient in the Ni layer was about 1.67×1013 Pa/m, resulting in a stress migration force of 1.82×10-16 N, which is comparable to the electromigration force, 2.82×10-16 N. Dissolution of the Ni+(Ni,Cu)3Sn4 layer, void formation with cracks at the anode side, and extrusions at the cathode side were observe