One-half Billion Research Articles

The role of forest conversion, degradation, and disturbance in the carbon dynamics of Amazon indigenous territories and protected areas

Maintaining the abundance of carbon stored aboveground in Amazon forests is central to any comprehensive climate stabilization strategy. Growing evidence points to indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs) as buffers against large-scale carbon emissions across a nine-nation network of indigenous territories (ITs) and protected natural areas (PNAs). Previous studies have demonstrated a link between indigenous land management and avoided deforestation, yet few have accounted for forest degradation and natural disturbances-processes that occur without forest clearing but are increasingly important drivers of biomass loss. Here we provide a comprehensive accounting of aboveground carbon dynamics inside and outside Amazon protected lands. Using published data on changes in aboveground carbon density and forest cover, we track gains and losses in carbon density from forest conversion and degradation/disturbance. We find that ITs and PNAs stored more than one-half (58%; 41,991 MtC) of the region's carbon in 2016 but were responsible for just 10% (-130 MtC) of the net change (-1,290 MtC). Nevertheless, nearly one-half billion tons of carbon were lost from both ITs and PNAs (-434 MtC and -423 MtC, respectively), with degradation/disturbance accounting for >75% of the losses in 7 countries. With deforestation increasing, and degradation/disturbance a neglected but significant source of region-wide emissions (47%), our results suggest that sustained support for IPLC stewardship of Amazon forests is critical. IPLCs provide a global environmental service that merits increased political protection and financial support, particularly if Amazon Basin countries are to achieve their commitments under the Paris Climate Agreement.

Covering the Cover

Covering the Cover

Resveratrol suppresses NTHi-induced inflammation via up-regulation of the negative regulator MyD88 short.

Upper respiratory tract inflammatory diseases such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases (COPD) affect more than one-half billion people globally and are characterized by chronic inflammation that is often exacerbated by respiratory pathogens such as nontypeable Haemophilus influenzae (NTHi). The increasing numbers of antibiotic-resistant bacterial strains and the limited success of currently available pharmaceuticals used to manage the symptoms of these diseases present an urgent need for the development of novel anti-inflammatory therapeutic agents. Resveratrol has long been thought as an interesting therapeutic agent for various diseases including inflammatory diseases. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying its anti-inflammatory properties remain largely unknown. Here we show for the first time that resveratrol decreases expression of pro-inflammatory mediators in airway epithelial cells and in the lung of mice by enhancing NTHi-induced MyD88 short, a negative regulator of inflammation, via inhibition of ERK1/2 activation. Furthermore, resveratrol inhibits NTHi-induced ERK1/2 phosphorylation by increasing MKP-1 expression via a cAMP-PKA-dependent signaling pathway. Finally, we show that resveratrol has anti-inflammatory effects post NTHi infection, thereby demonstrating its therapeutic potential. Together these data reveal a novel mechanism by which resveratrol alleviates NTHi-induced inflammation in airway disease by up-regulating the negative regulator of inflammation MyD88s.

Trim28 Haploinsufficiency Triggers Bi-stable Epigenetic Obesity

SummaryMore than one-half billion people are obese, and despite progress in genetic research, much of the heritability of obesity remains enigmatic. Here, we identify a Trim28-dependent network capable of triggering obesity in a non-Mendelian, “on/off” manner. Trim28+/D9 mutant mice exhibit a bi-modal body-weight distribution, with isogenic animals randomly emerging as either normal or obese and few intermediates. We find that the obese-“on” state is characterized by reduced expression of an imprinted gene network including Nnat, Peg3, Cdkn1c, and Plagl1 and that independent targeting of these alleles recapitulates the stochastic bi-stable disease phenotype. Adipose tissue transcriptome analyses in children indicate that humans too cluster into distinct sub-populations, stratifying according to Trim28 expression, transcriptome organization, and obesity-associated imprinted gene dysregulation. These data provide evidence of discrete polyphenism in mouse and man and thus carry important implications for complex trait genetics, evolution, and medicine.Video

Assessing the Profitability of Avocado Production in South Florida in the Presence of Laurel Wilt

Laurel wilt (LW) is a lethal disease of trees in the Lauraceae plant family, including the economic significant commercial crop avocado, Persea americana. To date, an estimated one-half billion native trees have been destroyed by the disease in the southeastern United States, including the loss of significant and diverse taxa in the Everglades. In the US state of Florida, laurel wilt has spread rapidly throughout the South Florida commercial avocado production area. Since its arrival in 2011, LW has been responsible for the death of about 7000 trees or 1% of the production area. Given the destructive nature of this disease, there are major concerns over the future of the Florida avocado industry. Cost-effective management of LW remains an elusive goal, and current recommendations rely heavily on the early detection and destruction of affected trees (sanitation) in an effort to slow the spread of the disease. An empirical economic model is used to determine when all trees in an orchard affected by LW would need to be destroyed due to negative net returns.

Neuregulin Signaling in Pieces—Evolution of the Gene Family

Paracrine and juxtacrine signaling via proteins expressed on the cell surface are an integral part of metazoan biology. More than one-half billion years ago epidermal growth factor (EGF) and its cognate receptor formed a functional binding partnership, which has been conserved through evolution in essentially all eubilaterate members of the animal kingdom. Early chordates spawned offspring of these seminal genes to begin the creation of new gene families and an expanded cell-cell signaling network, which included the Neuregulin (NRG) ligands and the erbB receptors. First appearance of ancestral NRG, represented in a NRG4-like gene in the lancelet Branchiostoma floridae, appears to have: 1) occurred in the common chordate ancestor prior to the divergence of lancelets (amphioxus), and; 2) antedated the formation of the receptor gene family. Orthologues of NRG1 and multiple erbB receptors found in the sea lamprey Petromyzon marinus suggest that several key events, which were required to expand and diversify these gene families, occurred in the common ancestor of agnathostomes and jawed vertebrates. These important inventions surely played major roles in the acquisition of multiple apomorphic features of the emerging vertebrate lineage.

Taxes and Religion: The Hobby Lobby Contraceptive Cases

Beginning in 2013, the federal government mandated that general business corporations include contraceptive and early abortion coverage in large employee health plans. Internal Revenue Code Section 4980D imposes a substantial excise tax on health plans violating the mandate. Indeed, for one company – Hobby Lobby – the expected annual tax is nearly one-half billion dollars. Dozens of “for profit” businesses have challenged the mandate on free exercise grounds, asserting claims under the First Amendment as well as under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. So far, courts have been reluctant to hold corporations have religious rights of their own; as a result, standing of a corporation to assert the religious beliefs and rights of owners has become the primary issue in the thirty-six separate cases moving through the courts. Courts are split on whether to grant standing; however, a large majority has used a variation of prudential or associational standing to grant preliminary injunctions against enforcement of the tax.On November 26, 2013, the Court granted certiorari in the Hobby Lobby and Conestoga cases, arising from the 10th and 3d Circuits. The 10th, sitting en banc, essentially ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby by paving the way for a preliminary injunction; in contrast, the 3d ruled again Conestoga. During the period it lacked an injunction, Hobby Lobby chose not to comply with the mandate, while Conestoga has complied (though it continues to raise constitutional objections).This article discusses the relationship of morality and religion to general business corporations. It concludes that over the past few decades, movements for social justice and corporate social responsibility have intertwined business corporations and moral issues, blurring the line between religion and commerce. It also concludes that courts should permit associational standing for closely-held corporations – particularly those electing S status for tax purposes – if the owners have unanimous (or near-unanimous) beliefs. It proposes a Faith Based Corporations Act (FBCA) as a vehicle for commercial businesses to declare their religious beliefs with state recognition.

Rationale for the use of Insulin Pumps and Continuous Glucose Monitoring in Adult Patients

It is unfortunate that, just as has been observed with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), there has been a significant increase in the prevalence of type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) throughout the world in the past decade. The International Diabetes Foundation reported that there will be more than one-half billion persons with diabetes by 2030, largely in emerging economies. China, India, and the United States will continue to lead the world with the largest numbers of persons with diabetes. Most persons with diabetes are between the ages of 40 and 59 years (1).

Validating the use of 137Cs measurements to estimate rates of soil redistribution by wind

Wind erosion has degraded over one-half billion hectares of land worldwide. 137Cesium ( 137Cs) has been used as a tracer to study long-term rates of soil redistribution by water and, to a lesser extent, by wind. Early studies assumed that the decline in 137Cs activity for a potentially eroded soil relative to that for an uneroded soil was linearly proportional to soil loss. More recently, models have emerged that consider the effects of soil cultivation and the particle surface area-dependent partitioning of 137Cs on soils. We investigated the partitioning of 137Cs in wind-eroded sediments and with soil surface samples sieved into contiguous ranges of particle sizes. We also compared the 137Cs activities and stratification of several adjacent soils with known wind erosion and deposition histories. Finally, we tested 137Cs-based soil loss models with measured data from sites with documented histories. 137Cs activities and mean particle diameters of aeolian samples agreed well with the 137Cs activities and respective mean diameters of the sieved surface soil samples. Good agreement between model estimations and measured data indicated that 137Cs models developed to estimate soil redistribution by water were also applicable to soil redistribution by wind provided that the models contained an appropriate particle size correction parameter.

The American Approach to Health Insurance

Dans cet article, publie pour la premiere fois dans le Quarterly Vol. 12, No 2, 1934, l'A. presente l'approche americaine de l'assurance sante, qu'il compare a l'approche europeenne, dont une premiere partie retrace les grandes etapes historiques (au Royaume-Uni et en Allemagne). L'arriere-plan historique de l'assurance maladie, telle qu'elle s'est developpee en Europe, est economique, son premier objectif ayant ete la protection du revenu, le remboursement des soins medicaux y etant un objectif second. Si l'experience europeenne est pleine d'enseignements, le cas des Etats-Unis necessite une approche differente, du fait que les couts des soins medicaux mettent desormais en jeu des sommes plus importantes et affectent bien plus de gens que ne le fait la perte de salaire due a la maladie, et aussi du fait que la provision d'un soin medical adequat, curatif et preventif, implique des possibilites plus importantes que dans l'ancien temps, pour soulager la souffrance, promouvoir la sante, augmenter l'efficacite economique. L'A. conclut ainsi son article par une serie de recommandations pour un systeme de sante plus stable, dans lequel les soins medicaux seraient pris en charge par l'assurance maladie, soutenue par l'impot.

Modelling lake sediment geochemical distribution using principal component, indicator kriging and multifractal power-spectrum analysis: a case study from Gowganda, Ontario

Combined geostatistical and multifractal power-spectrum modelling of geochemical distributions can provide suitable indicators of metal dispersion, and is capable of analysing complex problems for targeting potential areas for mineral exploration. A case study analysing lake sediment geochemical data for the Gowganda area is presented and development of the methodology for spatial analysis of the data is described. The Gowganda-Cobalt area of northeastern Ontario is a textbook example of Co, Ag-Co vein-type deposit, which by 1984 had yielded one-half billion ounces of Ag. The area is also known for shear-zone-hosted Au mineralization. This paper uses the spatial and geometric distribution of lake sediment data to discriminate geochemical anomalies from background values. The application of two geostatistical techniques (spatial principal component analysis and indicator kriging) allows the estimation of geochemical distributions by utilizing their statistical and spatial properties. The newly developed multifractal power-spectrum method additionally allows for the geochemical distributions to be modelled by their multifractal Fourier-transformed power-spectrum characteristics. Verification of the estimates produced by these techniques has been enabled through spatial analysis of bedrock geology and mineral deposit occurrences in the area.

Customer Switching Behavior in Online Services: An Exploratory Study of the Role of Selected Attitudinal, Behavioral, and Demographic Factors

With a quarter of a billion Internet users worldwide and estimates of more than one-half billion people online by the year 2003, growth in the online services industry has been exponential. With this growth has come concern about customer “churn”, a concern that parallels issues of customer switching behavior in services industries in general. This manuscript reports results of two field studies, conducted among two randomly selected samples of online service users, that investigate the degree to which selected behavioral (information that customers used when making the online service decision, their service usage), attitudinal (risk-taking propensity), and demographic (income and education) factors are effective in discriminating between continuers and switchers. The research in Study 1 is replicated in Study 2 and extended to consider additional attitudinal factors of satisfaction and involvement. Implications for managers and researchers are discussed.

Production Risk, Acreage Decisions and Implications for Revenue Insurance Programs

Revenue insurance programs are an increasingly popular alternative to direct price supports or federal farm income support programs. Such insurance programs are likely to have effects on cropping patterns, particularly if coverage is not universal. These effects on cropping patterns in turn may have unintended environmental consequences. This paper explores the relationship between production risk, cropping patterns and revenue insurance programs. These relationships are first examined using mathematical and statistical models of acreage response. An empirical analysis of these relationships is then performed using economic and environmental data from 421 counties in the Corn Belt, which in turn is used in a simulation analysis to predict changes in crop acreage under two revenue insurance programs. The results confirm that revenue insurance will alter cropping patterns. The effects of these acreage changes are likely to involve environmental consequences, as the counties most prone to acreage shifts are also those with higher potential for environmental damage.Les programmes d'assurance du revenu gagnent de plus en plus en popularité en tant que solution de rechange aux mesures directes de soutien des prix ou aux programmes fédéraux de soutien du revenu agricole. Les programmes d'assurance de ce genre auront sans doute des répercussions sur les systémes de culture, surtout en l'absence d'une couverture universelle. Ces répercussions pourront avoir des conséquences inattendues sur l'environnement. Les auteurs examinent les liens qui existent entre les risques de production, les systémes de culture et les programmes d'assurance du revenu. Pour cela, ils recourent d'abord à des modéles mathématiques et statistiques afin d'étudier la variation de la superficie des cultures. Ils procèdent ensuite à une analyse empirique des mêmes liens à partir des données économiques et environnementales recueillies dans 421 comtés de la ceinture de culture du maïs, avant de s'en servir dans une simulation qui prévoit la variation de la superficie cultivée consécutivement à l'introduction de deux programmes d'assurance du revenu. Les résultats confirment que les programmes de ce genre modifieront les systémes de culture. La variation de la superficie cultivée devrait avoir des répercussions sur l'environnement, car les comtés où la superficie cultivée changera le plus probablement sont aussi ceux où les risques de pollution sont les plus grands.

Over one-half billion years of head conservation? Expression of an ems class gene in Hydractinia symbiolongicarpus (Cnidaria: Hydrozoa).

We report the isolation of an empty spiracles class homeodomain-containing gene, Cn-ems, from the hydrozoan Hydractinia symbiolongicarpus, the first gene of this class characterized in a lower metazoan. Cn-ems was found to be expressed in the head of gastrozooids, specifically in endodermal epithelial cells of the taeniolae of the hypostome. Cn-ems is not expressed in gonozooids, which lack taeniolae. Experimental conversion of the posterior region of the planula larva into head structures up-regulates expression of the gene. These findings establish that the association of ems-class genes with head structures preceded the evolution of bilateral symmetry.

The Local Politics of Land Reclamation in the Lower Yangzi Highlands

THE LOCAL POLITICS OF LAND RECLAMATION IN THE LOWER YANGZI HIGHLANDS* Anne Osborne Long-term demographic, economic and ecological trends made themselves felt with increasing urgency in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in China. These trends posed new problems and exacerbated old ones, and yet offered novel opportunities as well. Land use changed in response, leading to expanded reclamation of new lands, as well as intensified use of those long under cultivation. This altered the standards by which land was judged as valuable or wasteland, and therefore redefined the landscape in new economic terms. Control of the landscape and ofreclamation became more problematic, the subject of sometimes fierce competition. This paper studies the local politics of this competition, the struggles between different interest groups at the local level to control land reclamation for their own purposes. The secular trends which redefined the landscape are well-known. The population of China began to grow rapidly in the late Ming dynasty. It reached a high of around 150 million at the end of the sixteenth century, fell and recovered in the seventeenth century, more than doubled in the eighteenth century, and continued to grow in the nineteenth to reach around 430 million at mid-century, and one-half billion by its end.1 Malthusian checks of massive proportions—war, flood, drought, famine, disease—merely created ripples in this upward surge. The rapid demographic growth in late Ming and Qing China was accompanied by long-term growth in agricultural production and great expansion in the commercial economy. The late imperial period was also marked by progressive deterioration of the environment in some of the most important and productive agricultural regions in China. Best studied to date in the Middle Yangzi,2 reclamation of new lands made potentially prof- *I would like to thank Stephen Averill, Mary Backus Rankin, and Susan Naquin, as well as the panelists and audience at the panel on The Politics of Land Development in Eighteenth Century China at the American Historical Association's Annual Meeting in 1992, and the anonymous reviewers for Late Imperial China for their comments on earlier versions of this paper. I am grateful to Rider College for financial support for this research. 1LaVeIy, Lee and Wang 1990:816. 2WiIl 1980a; Perdue 1982, 1987. Late Imperial China Vol. 15, No. 1 (June 1994): 1-46 1 2 Anne Osborne itable by demographic and commercial expansion increased agricultural risk, and in some cases may have lowered long-term productivity in both lowland and highland environments. In the lowlands, excessive reclamation around lakes and rivers cut off some lands from irrigation, and destroyed the natural basins for seasonal high water that prevented flooding during runoff and rainy seasons and preserved water for irrigation in the dry season. In the highlands, deforestation often led to serious erosion, which might expose sterile subsoil or bare rock, and prevent further agricultural use of the degraded land, or even reestablishment of native vegetation. The erosion increased the risk to agriculture in the valleys, by silting up lakes, rivers and irrigation works. Loss of population due to a combination of natural and manmade disasters periodically reversed some of this reclamation, but the cycle soon started again, as population recovered and expanded to new levels. After each such cycle, the next began in an increasingly degraded environment. These long-term trends contributed to a fourth: increasing span-of-control problems for the state. It is well-known that the Chinese government and bureaucratic structure did not expand in proportion to population growth during the last thousand years of imperial rule. The number of counties actually fell slightly between the high points in Ming and Qing, while the population more than tripled. Not only would each magistrate, on average, have more than three times as many people under his jurisdiction; counties in the core areas were consolidated to allow for the creation of new counties on the frontier. So span-of-control problems were not limited to an ineffective government presence on the frontier; they included as well a reduced presence in the core areas of the empire.3 Its power stretched thin over a rapidly-expanding population , its revenues' unable to keep pace with...

Factors and Guidelines to be Considered in Offering Treatment to Patients With End-Stage Renal Disease: A Personal Opinion

The most beautiful object I have ever seen in a photograph, in all my life, is the planet Earth seen from the distance of the moon, hanging there in space and obviously alive. Although it seems at first glance to be made up of innumerable separate species of living things, on closer examination everyone of its working parts, including us, is interdependently connected to all other working parts. It is, to put it one way, the only truly closed ecosystem any of us know about. To put it another way, it is an organism and it came into being about four and one-half billion years ago. It came alive with a life of its own, I shall guess, 3.7 billion years ago today, and I wish it a happy birthday and a long life ahead, for our children and their grandchildren and theirs and theirs and theirs. I Lewis Thomas

U.S. population in the 21st century: Which scenario is reasonable?

A major Census Bureau study released in January 1989 has evoked renewed warnings in the media and among some population analysts that the U.S. faces population decline in the next century if it does not increase fertility and/or raise immigration. The report's middle scenario rests on an assumed future total fertility rate (TFR) of 1.8, life expectancy of 81.2 years, and net immigration of 500,000 annually. These mid-range assumptions would yield a United States population of 268 million by 2000, peaking at 302 million in 2040 and falling to 292 million by 2080. Questionable assumptions in the report's most likely scenario are discussed. These are: The report's low growth scenario projects future population size that is more reassuring than alarming: 264 million in 2000, rising to 288 million in 2030, and falling to 266 million in 2080. Thus, in ninety years the United States would still have 20 million more people than now. While some fear that such slow growth will lower United States influence and bring labor shortages and an aging population, the nation's quality of life would be less at risk with a population of 266 million than with one approaching the one-half billion projected by the Census report's high estimates.

The Open Cluster M67 as a Fundamental Standard of Reference for Stellar Properties

With the possible exception of the Hyades, M67 is the best-studied star cluster. Accurate photoelectric photometry exists well down onto the main sequence and proper motion studies have isolated cluster stars from the field. From photometry and spectroscopy, its composition is determined to be almost exactly the same as the Sun, with an age about one-half billion years less. This similarity to the Sun permits an accurate determination of distance to M67 independently of other distance measurements. Using the Sun as a reference, the distance modulus of M67 is found to be 9.48 mag. An extensive analysis of possible sources of error leads to an uncertainty (standard error) of ± 0.15 mag., with the chief sources of error being the color index of the Sun, the composition of the cluster, and its age. The M67 distance uncertainty compares favorably with Hanson's (1975) Hyades modulus of 3.29 ± 0.08.

The Jackson Flood of 1979 A Public Policy Disaster

Abstract In April 1979, the Pearl River in Mississippi inflicted damage estimated at one-half billion dollars in the city of Jackson and surrounding areas. Most property damage accrued to development built in the floodplain since the previous major flood in 1961. This development was encouraged by public investment, including a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers flood control project completed in 1968 which proved unreliable. Issues for national flood policy posed by the Jackson experience include the need for (1) land use regulations as concomitants to flood control structures, (2) improved coordination between different levels and units of government sharing jurisdiction over floodplains, (3) consideration of inter-jurisdictional effects in the allocation of flood protection resources, (4) location of vital public services outside floodplains, and (5) revision of post-disaster recovery policies to encourage mitigation of future losses.

Transnational Corporations and the Third World's Right to Eat: The Caribbean

With some one-half billion malnourished people subsisting across the globe today, Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which advocates the right of a person to an adequate diet has acquired supreme importance.' Yet the individual's right to eat cannot be separated from the network of human institutions in which he or she is entwined and whose impact that person experiences, consciously or unconsciously, throughout life. Since the right to eat in the first instance is increasingly viewed as an economic problem, the impact of large economic institutions on this right has become a topic of growing concern. Further, because the malnourishment crisis is largely a problem of Third World countries, and because multinational or transnational corporations (MNCs or TNCs) of the First World play a substantial economic role in these polities, the effect of these celebrated engines of on basic human rights has been increasingly called into question.2 Although TNCs, through their investments in Third World countries, undoubtedly bring a certain degree of aggregate growth, the benefits of that development have been less than equally distributed across social classes. An increase in wealth does not necessarily imply an increase in the enjoyment of rights.3