Bias Region Research Articles

Ignoring variation in wood density drives substantial bias in biomass estimates across spatial scales

Rapid development of remote sensing and Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) technology has refined estimates of tree architecture and extrapolation of biomass across large spatial scales. Yet, current biomass maps show significant discrepancies and mismatch to independent ground data. A potential obstacle to accurate biomass estimation is the loss of information on wood density, which can vary at local and regional scales, in the extrapolation process. Here we investigate if variation in wood specific gravity (WSG) substantially impacts the distribution of above-ground biomass (AGB) across a range of scales from local plots to large regions. We collected wood cores and measured tree volume in 341 forest sites across large altitudinal and climatic gradients in Colombia. At all spatial scales, variation in WSG was substantial compared to variation in volume. Imputing study-wide average values of WSG induced regional biases in AGB estimates of almost 30%, consequently undervaluing the difference between forest areas of low and high average wood density. Further, neither stem size nor climate usefully predicted WSG when accounting for spatial dependencies among our sampling plots. These results suggest that remote sensing- and LiDAR-based projections to biomass estimates can be considerably improved by explicitly accounting for spatial variation in WSG, necessitating further research on the spatial distribution of WSG and potential environmental predictors to advance efficient and accurate large-scale mapping of biomass.

A framework for educating and empowering students by teaching about history and consequences of bias in STEM.

Racism and bias are pervasive in society—and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields are not immune to these issues. It is imperative that we educate ourselves and our students about the history and consequences of this bias in STEM, investigate the research showing bias toward marginalized groups, understand how to interpret misuses of science in perpetuating bias, and identify advances and solutions to overcome racism and bias throughout our professional and personal lives. Here, we present one model for teaching a universal course for participants of all professional stages to address these issues and initiate solutions. As very few institutions require students to enroll in courses on racism and bias in STEM or even offer such courses, our curriculum could be used as a blueprint for implementation across institutions. Ultimately, institutions and academic disciplines can incorporate this important material with more region and/or discipline specific studies of bias.

Impact of air–sea coupling on the simulation of Indian summer monsoon using a high-resolution Regional Earth System Model over CORDEX-SA

A new high-resolution Regional Earth System Model, namely ROM, has been implemented over CORDEX-SA towards examining the impact of air–sea coupling on the Indian summer monsoon characteristics. ROM's simulated mean ISM rainfall and associated dynamical and thermodynamical processes, including the representation of northward and eastward propagating convention bands, are closer to observation than its standalone atmospheric model component (REMO), highlighting the advantage of air–sea coupling. However, the value addition of air–sea coupling varies spatially with more significant improvements over regions with large biases. Bay of Bengal and the eastern equatorial Indian Ocean are the most prominent region where the highest added value is observed with a significant reduction up to 50–500% precipitation bias. Most of the changes in precipitation over the ocean are associated with convective precipitation (CP) due to the suppression of convective activity caused by the negative feedback due to the inclusion of air–sea coupling. However, CP and large-scale precipitation (LP) improvements show east–west asymmetry over the Indian land region. The substantial LP bias reduction is noticed over the wet bias region of western central India due to its suppression, while enhanced CP over eastern central India contributed to the reduction of dry bias. An insignificant change is noticed over Tibetan Plateau, northern India, and Indo Gangetic plains. The weakening of moisture-laden low-level Somalia Jets causes the diminishing of moisture supply from the Arabian Sea (AS) towards Indian land regions resulting in suppressed precipitation, reducing wet bias, especially over western central India. The anomalous high kinetic energy over AS, wind shear, and tropospheric temperature gradient in REMO compared to observation is substantially reduced in the ROM, facilitating the favourable condition for suppressing moisture feeding and hence the wet bias over west-central India in ROM. The warmer midlatitude in ROM than REMO over eastern central India strengthens the convection, enhancing precipitation results in reducing the dry bias. Despite substantially improved ROM’performance, it still exhibits some systematic biases (wet/dry) partially associated with the persistent warm/cold SST bias and land–atmosphere interaction.

Multifunctional spintronic device based on zigzag SiC nanoribbon heterojunction via edge asymmetric dual-hydrogenation

The authors propose a method to obtain the multifunctional spintronic device by investigating the spin-resolved transport characteristics of zigzag SiC nanoribbon (zSiCNR) heterojunction via edge asymmetric dual-hydrogenation. The spin-resolved band structures show that the dual-hydrogenation on edge C or Si atoms all can change the initial metallicity of the pristine zSiCNR with the edge mono-hydrogenation to semiconductor in the presence of ferromagnetic field. The spin-resolved current-voltage characteristics of the zSiCNR heterojunction can show spin current rectification in the same rectify direction under the parallel magnetic field. The up-spin rectification ratio of our junction can be close to 10 13 at −0.5 V, which is much larger than rectification ratios of the previous junctions induced by the anti-parallel magnetic field. The zSiCNR heterojunction also exhibits a perfect spin filtering behavior with 100% spin filtering efficiency in both positive and negative bias regions under the anti-parallel magnetic field. More interestingly, the magnetoresistance is achieved by manipulating the external magnetic field in our zSiCNR heterojunction with the giant magnetoresistance ratio 5000% at 0.5 V. Therefore, the zSiCNR heterojunction via edge asymmetric dual-hydrogenation can be designed into the multifunctional spintronic devices, which has broad application prospects in the field of future spintronics. • Zigzag silicon carbon nanoribbon has potential in spin devices. • Giant spin current rectification is obtained in the presence of a ferromagnetic field. • Maximum spin current rectification ratios is closing to 10 13 . • Perfect spin filtering and magnetoresistance behaviors are also obtained.

Strain-modulated electronic transport in two-dimensional carbon allotropes

Carbon has various allotropes showing rich physical properties. Here, we take net C and net W as the research objects. They are all composed of carbonic squares C4, hexagons C6, and octagons C8, but with different compositions. Using the combination of density functional theory calculations and non-equilibrium Green’s function method, we study the significant changes in electronic structures and transport behaviors in response to external strain. For net C, tunable negative differential resistance (NDR) is observed. The NDR bias region can be moved and widened, while its peak-to-valley ratio can be increased from the original 1.14 to largest 2.67. The electrical conductivity of net W exhibits a very good linear relationship within a large strain range from −4% to +4%, and it can be increased to 219.9%. By analyzing their band structures, the effective regulations of strain on both the NDR and linear conductivity are explained. These results show not only the differences from deformation for various carbon rings under strain but also a certain guiding significance for applications in electronic devices.

The effects of ocean surface waves on global intraseasonal prediction: case studies with a coupled CFSv2.0–WW3 system

Abstract. This article describes the implementation of a coupling between a global forecast model (CFSv2.0) and a wave model (WW3) and investigates the effects of ocean surface waves on the air–sea interface in the new framework. Several major wave-related processes, including the Langmuir mixing, the Stokes–Coriolis force with entrainment, air–sea fluxes modified by the Stokes drift, and momentum roughness length, are evaluated in two groups of 56 d experiments, one for boreal winter and the other for boreal summer. Comparisons are made against in situ buoys, satellite measurements, and reanalysis data to evaluate the influence of waves on intraseasonal prediction of sea surface temperature (SST), 2 m air temperature (T02), mixed layer depth (MLD), 10 m wind speed (WSP10), and significant wave height (SWH). The wave-coupled experiments show that overestimated SSTs and T02s, as well as underestimated MLDs at mid-to-high latitudes in summer from original CFSv2.0, are significantly improved due to enhanced vertical mixing generated by the Stokes drift. For WSP10s and SWHs, the wave-related processes generally reduce biases in regions where WSP10s and SWHs are overestimated. On the one hand, the decreased SSTs stabilize the marine atmospheric boundary layer and weaken WSP10s and then SWHs. On the other hand, the increased roughness length due to waves reduces the originally overestimated WSP10s and SWHs. In addition, the effects of the Stokes drift and current on air–sea fluxes also rectify WSP10s and SWHs. These cases are helpful for the future development of the two-way CFSv2.0–wave coupled system.

Governing infrastructure, development and inequality around deindustrialized US cities

ABSTRACT This paper examines the interaction of regional spatial patterns and multiscalar governance processes of water infrastructure systems and economic development networks around US cities following deindustrialization. Deindustrialization contributed to significant hardships in cities and their surrounding regions, such as increasing blight, ageing infrastructure and fiscal constraints. These challenges combine and multiply in central cities, often alongside population and economic growth in other parts of a metropolitan area. The study applies the emerging infrastructural regionalism framework to questions of how economic development networks and infrastructure systems are designed and governed to distribute value across the urban landscape. The comparative case study focuses on Scranton, Pennsylvania, and Providence, Rhode Island, where the cities’ water infrastructure systems represent two different responses to their changing position in the region. In both cases this analysis shows how governance is fragmented across supra-municipal scales and metropolitan institutions in ways that reduce the power of central cities and that enable uneven redevelopment. The findings inform how an equitable approach to governing infrastructure and development requires addressing regional biases in vertical hierarchies and reorienting public policies towards central cities.

Perpendicular Manganite Magnetic Tunnel Junctions Induced by Interfacial Coupling.

The half-metallic manganite oxide La2/3Sr1/3MnO3 (LSMO) has a very high spin polarization of ∼100%, making it ideal for ferromagnetic electrodes to realize tunneling magnetoresistance (TMR). Because of the in-plane magnetic anisotropy of the ferromagnetic LSMO electrode, which leads to the density limit of memory, realizing perpendicular tunneling in manganite-based magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJ) is critical for future applications. Here, we design and fabricate manganite-based MTJs composed of alternately stacked cobaltite and manganite layers that demonstrate strong perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) induced by interfacial coupling. Moreover, spin-dependent tunneling behaviors with an out-of-plane magnetic field were observed in the perpendicular MTJs. We found that the direct tunneling effect plays a dominant role in the low bias region during the transport behavior of devices, which is associated with thermionic emission of electrons or oxygen vacancies in the high bias region. Our works of realizing perpendicular tunneling in manganite-based MTJs lead to new approaches for designing and developing all-oxide spintronic devices.

Ethnic and Regional Differences in the Management of Angina: The Way Forward.

For decades, there has been great interest in ethnic differences in the management of angina and stable cardiovascular disease. Clinical decisionmaking is known to be both consciously and unconsciously influenced by a patient's demographics, and this is due to in part to differences in clinical guidance and opinion. However, the evidence supporting such decision-making is sparse. Nonetheless, there is overwhelming evidence that international, national, regional, institutional, departmental and individual bias disproportionately affect subgroups of the population, resulting in adverse patient outcomes. While without doubt there will be rapid advancements in individualised therapies over the coming years and decades, the most beneficial immediate action clinicians can take is to reduce disparities in both the evidence base and care provision. Doing so will require great collaborative effort.

Impact of Meteorological Uncertainties in the Methane Retrieval Ground Segment of the MERLIN Lidar Mission

MERLIN (MEthane Remote sensing LIdar missioN) is a Franco-German space mission designed to provide weighted columns of atmospheric methane through an inversion of the lidar signal using a priori information on the atmospheric state. Uncertainties about the meteorological parameters of the observed scene used in the ground segment contribute to the error budget on the retrieved methane column. With the LIDSIM (LIDar SIMulator) data simulator and the PROLID (PROcessor LIDar) inversion processor developed for MERLIN, we perform an impact experiment using ECMWF (European Centre for Medium Weather Range Forecast) ensemble forecast data. In addition, we estimate the standard deviation of the error in the methane column due to the meteorological uncertainties to be about 0.6 ppb. In addition, we innovate by discussing the impact of interpolations both in time and space, focusing on vertical extrapolations under the topography by using state-of-the-art methods to determine from the scatter between these methods the range in which the actual profile should be. We conclude that, in areas where the topography variations exceed 10 m over 10 km, an additional random error of 0.1 ppb is due to our lack of knowledge of the adjustment of atmospheric profiles to terrain. Finally, we point out that further work needs to be performed on temporal interpolation. Indeed, the 3 h time interpolation of atmospheric tides can create regional biases of up to 2 ppm (which is a major problem for models trying to identify methane sinks and sources).

Dactylogyridae 2022: a meta-analysis of phylogenetic studies and generic diagnoses of parasitic flatworms using published genetic and morphological data

Dactylogyridae is one of the most studied families of parasitic flatworms with more than 1000 species and 166 genera described to date including ecto- and endoparasites. Dactylogyrid monogeneans were suggested as model organisms for host-parasite macroevolutionary and biogeographical studies due to the scientific and economic importance of some of their host lineages. Consequently, an array of phylogenetic research into different dactylogyrid lineages has been produced over the past years but the last family-wide study was published 16 years ago. Here, we provide a meta-analysis of the phylogenetic relationships of Dactylogyridae including representatives of all genera with available molecular data (n = 67). First, we investigate the systematic informativeness of morphological characters widely used to diagnose dactylogyrid genera through a parsimony analysis of the characters, character mapping, and phylogenetic comparative methods. Second, we provide an overview of the current state of the systematics of the family and its subfamilies, and summarise potentially poly- and paraphyletic genera. Third, we elaborate on the implications of taxonomic, citation, and confirmation bias in past studies. Fourth, we discuss host range, biogeographical, and freshwater-marine patterns. We found two well-supported macroclades which we assigned to the subfamilies Dactylogyrinae and Ancyrocephalinae. These subfamilies further include 16 well-supported clades with only a few synapomorphies that could be deduced from generic diagnoses in the literature. Furthermore, few morphological characters considered systematically informative at the genus level display a strong phylogenetic signal. However, the parsimony analysis suggests that these characters provide little information on the relationships between genera. We conclude that a strong taxonomic bias and low coverage of DNA sequences and regions limit knowledge on morphological and biogeographical evolutionary patterns that can be inferred from these results. We propose addressing potential citation and confirmation biases through a ‘level playing field’ multiple sequence alignment as provided by this study.

A comprehensive framework for assessing the accuracy and uncertainty of global above-ground biomass maps

Over the past decade, several global maps of above-ground biomass (AGB) have been produced, but they exhibit significant differences that reduce their value for climate and carbon cycle modelling, and also for national estimates of forest carbon stocks and their changes. The number of such maps is anticipated to increase because of new satellite missions dedicated to measuring AGB. Objective and consistent methods to estimate the accuracy and uncertainty of AGB maps are therefore urgently needed. This paper develops and demonstrates a framework aimed at achieving this. The framework provides a means to compare AGB maps with AGB estimates from a global collection of National Forest Inventories and research plots that accounts for the uncertainty of plot AGB errors. This uncertainty depends strongly on plot size, and is dominated by the combined errors from tree measurements and allometric models (inter-quartile range of their standard deviation (SD) = 30–151 Mg ha−1). Estimates of sampling errors are also important, especially in the most common case where plots are smaller than map pixels (SD = 16–44 Mg ha−1). Plot uncertainty estimates are used to calculate the minimum-variance linear unbiased estimates of the mean forest AGB when averaged to 0.1∘. These are used to assess four AGB maps: Baccini (2000), GEOCARBON (2008), GlobBiomass (2010) and CCI Biomass (2017). Map bias, estimated using the differences between the plot and 0.1∘ map averages, is modelled using random forest regression driven by variables shown to affect the map estimates. The bias model is particularly sensitive to the map estimate of AGB and tree cover, and exhibits strong regional biases. Variograms indicate that AGB map errors have map-specific spatial correlation up to a range of 50–104 km, which increases the variance of spatially aggregated AGB map estimates compared to when pixel errors are independent. After bias adjustment, total pantropical AGB and its associated SD are derived for the four map epochs. This total becomes closer to the value estimated by the Forest Resources Assessment after every epoch and shows a similar decrease. The framework is applicable to both local and global-scale analysis, and is available at https://github.com/arnanaraza/PlotToMap. Our study therefore constitutes a major step towards improved AGB map validation and improvement.

Using Radar Rainfall to Explain the Occurrence of a 2012 Soil Slip Near Mt. LeConte, TN, USA

ABSTRACT A storm on August 5, 2012, triggered a soil slip that mobilized into a debris flow in a relatively remote part of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, 2 km southwest of Mt. LeConte, TN. A rain gauge at Mt. LeConte Resort, recorded manually at 07:00 Eastern Time each day, reported 92.46 mm of rainfall on August 6, 2012, to the National Weather Service. Near Composite Reflectivity (NCR) and Digital Precipitation Array (DPA) products from the Knoxville, TN, NEXRAD Doppler weather radar station for August 5 and 6, 2012, were used to infer the storm's rainfall intensity and duration details. NCR products consist of the maximum radar reflectivity value from all 14 elevation angles scanned for each 1.09 km2 cell, which users must convert to precipitation depth. DPA products are rain rate (in./hr) calculated with a National Weather Service model that uses radar reflectivity and automated rain gauge measurements to assign regional bias factors to each complete radar scan of the atmosphere surrounding the radar station using a national grid system composed of 17.12 km2 cells. Cumulative NCR inferred rain depth was 90.65 mm at the Mt. LeConte gauge location and 69.23 mm at the soil slip location. The cumulative DPA rain depth was 47.64 mm at the gauge. The maximum 15 minute NCR precipitation intensity was 39.61 mm/hr at the Mt. LeConte gauge location and 63.24 mm/hr at the soil slip location. The timing of the soil slip probably coincided with a 20-minute-long interval of maximum intensity precipitation.

Disentangling the effect of regional SST bias on the double-ITCZ problem

This study investigates the causes of the double intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ) bias, characterized by too northward northern Pacific ITCZ, too dry equatorial Pacific, and too zonally elongated southern Pacific rainband. While the biases within one fully coupled model GFDL CM2.1 are examined, the large-scale bias patterns are broadly common to CMIP5/6 models. We disentangle the individual contribution of regional sea surface temperature (SST) biases to the double-ITCZ bias pattern using a series of slab ocean model experiments. A previously suggested Southern Ocean warm bias effect in displacing the zonal-mean ITCZ southward is manifested in the northern Pacific ITCZ while having little contribution to the zonally elongated wet bias south of the equatorial Pacific. The excessive southern Pacific precipitation is instead induced by the warm bias along the west coast of South America. The Southern Ocean bias effect on the zonal-mean ITCZ position is diminished by the neighboring midlatitude bias of opposite sign in GFDL CM2.1. As a result, the northern extratropical cold bias turns out to be most responsible for a southward-displaced zonal-mean ITCZ. However, this southward ITCZ displacement results from the northern Pacific branch, so ironically fixing the extratropical biases only deteriorates the northern Pacific precipitation bias. Thus, we emphasize that the zonal-mean diagnostics poorly represent the spatial pattern of the tropical Pacific response. Examination of longitude-latitude structure indicates that the overall tropical precipitation bias is mostly locally driven from the tropical SST bias. While our model experiments are idealized with no ocean dynamics, the results shed light on where preferential foci should be applied in model development to improve particular features of tropical precipitation bias.

Uncertainty in Aerosol Optical Depth From Modern Aerosol‐Climate Models, Reanalyses, and Satellite Products

AbstractDespite the implication of aerosols for the radiation budget, there are persistent differences in data for the aerosol optical depth (τ) for 1998–2019. This study presents a comprehensive evaluation of the large‐scale spatio‐temporal patterns of mid‐visible τ from modern data sets. In total, we assessed 94 different global data sets from eight satellite retrievals, four aerosol‐climate model ensembles, one operational ensemble product, two reanalyses, one climatology and one merged satellite product. We include the new satellite data SLSTR and aerosol‐climate simulations from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) and the Aerosol Comparisons between Observations and Models Phase 3 (AeroCom‐III). Our intercomparison highlights model differences and observational uncertainty. Spatial mean τ for 60°N – 60°S ranges from 0.124 to 0.164 for individual satellites, with a mean of 0.14. Averaged τ from aerosol‐climate model ensembles fall within this satellite range, but individual models do not. Our assessment suggests no systematic improvement compared to CMIP5 and AeroCom‐I. Although some regional biases have been reduced, τ from both CMIP6 and AeroCom‐III are for instance substantially larger along extra‐tropical storm tracks compared to the satellite products. The considerable uncertainty in observed τ implies that a model evaluation based on a single satellite product might draw biased conclusions. This underlines the need for continued efforts to improve both model and satellite estimates of τ, for example, through measurement campaigns in areas of particularly uncertain satellite estimates identified in this study, to facilitate a better understanding of aerosol effects in the Earth system.

Land transpiration-evaporation partitioning errors responsible for modeled summertime warm bias in the central United States

Earth system models (ESMs) from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) experiment exhibit a well-known summertime warm bias in mid-latitude land regions – most notably in the central contiguous United States (CUS). The dominant source of this bias is still under debate. Using validated datasets and both coupled and off-line modeling, we find that the CUS summertime warm bias is driven by the incorrect partitioning of evapotranspiration (ET) into its canopy transpiration and soil evaporation components. Specifically, CMIP6 ESMs do not effectively use available rootzone soil moisture for summertime transpiration and instead rely excessively on shallow soil and canopy-intercepted water storage to supply ET. As such, expected summertime precipitation deficits in CUS induce a negative ET bias into CMIP6 ESMs and a corresponding positive temperature bias via local land-atmosphere coupling. This tendency potentially biases CMIP6 projections of regional water stress and summertime air temperature variability under elevated CO2 conditions.

Validation of Recent Altimeter Missions at Non-Dedicated Tide Gauge Stations in the Southeastern North Sea

Consistent calibration and monitoring is a basic prerequisite for providing a reliable time series of global and regional sea-level variations from altimetry. The precisions of sea-level measurements and regional biases for six altimeter missions (Jason-1/2/3, Envisat, Saral, Sentinel-3A) are assessed in this study at 11 GNSS-controlled tide gauge stations in the German Bight (SE North Sea) for the period 2002 to 2019. The gauges are partly located at the open water, and partly at the coast close to mudflats. The altimetry is extracted at virtual stations with distances from 2 to 24 km from the gauges. The processing is optimized for the region and adjusted for the comparison with instantaneous tide gauge readings. An empirical correction is developed to account for mean height gradients and slight differences of the tidal dynamics between the gauge and altimetry, which improves the agreement between the two data sets by 15–75%. The precision of the altimeters depends on the location and mission and ranges from 1.8 to 3.7 cm if the precision of the gauges is 2 cm. The accuracy of the regional mission biases is strongly dependent on the mean sea surface heights near the stations. The most consistent biases are obtained based on the CLS2011 model with mission-dependent accuracies from 1.3 to 3.4 cm. Hence, the GNSS-controlled tide gauges operated operationally by the German Waterway and Shipping Administration (WSV) might complement the calibration and monitoring activities at dedicated CalVal stations.

Metabolomic Alteration in the Plasma of Wild Rodents Environmentally Exposed to Lead: A Preliminary Study.

Lead poisoning is often considered a traditional disease; however, the specific mechanism of toxicity remains unclear. The study of Pb-induced alterations in cellular metabolic pathways is important to understand the biological response and disorders associated with environmental exposure to lead. Metabolomics studies have recently been paid considerable attention to understand in detail the biological response to lead exposure and the associated toxicity mechanisms. In the present study, wild rodents collected from an area contaminated with lead (N = 18) and a control area (N = 10) were investigated. This was the first ever experimental metabolomic study of wildlife exposed to lead in the field. While the levels of plasma phenylalanine and isoleucine were significantly higher in a lead-contaminated area versus the control area, hydroxybutyric acid was marginally significantly higher in the contaminated area, suggesting the possibility of enhancement of lipid metabolism. In the interregional least-absolute shrinkage and selection operator (lasso) regression model analysis, phenylalanine and isoleucine were identified as possible biomarkers, which is in agreement with the random forest model. In addition, in the random forest model, glutaric acid, glutamine, and hydroxybutyric acid were selected. In agreement with previous studies, enrichment analysis showed alterations in the urea cycle and ATP-binding cassette transporter pathways. Although regional rodent species bias was observed in this study, and the relatively small sample size should be taken into account, the present results are to some extent consistent with those of previous studies on humans and laboratory animals.

Workshop Compiled

Learning Objectives 1. Will learn Cultural formulation, particularly as it applies to minorities,2. Learn the major socio-political changes in Free India3. Learn the concepts of implicit bias, internalized casteism4. Learn concepts of caste, racism, sexism, class isms and how they influence an individual, family and shape their belief system5. Learn to apply these aspects to design and implement treatment interventions DSM 5 Cultural Formulation Interview comprises sections; 1. Cultural Definition of the Problem 2. Cultural Perceptions of Cause;3. Psychosocial Songstress and Cultural Features of Vulnerability and Resilience 4.Cultural Identity of the Individual. 5. Cultural Factors Affecting Self-Coping and Past Help-Seeking. 6. Cultural Factors Affecting Current Help Seeking and Cultural Features of the Relationship Between the Individual and the Clinician. The CFI can be used to promote culturally competent practice that clarifies the meanings and expectations of health, illness, and treatment from the patient’s perspective. useful in cases of: cultural differences that complicate diagnostic assessment; and difficulties with engagement.Since India attained it’s independence major sociopolitical changes and challenges contributed to emergence of understanding and role of caste, class, gender, regional biases. and giving an opportunity and need to infuse some of following concepts into enhancing use of CFI.“A just society is that society in which ascending sense of reverence and descending sense of contempt is dissolved into the creation of a compassionate society” B.R. Ambedkar“Reading Dr. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar bridges the gap between what most Indians are schooled to believe in and the reality we experience every day of our lives.”— Arundhati RoyMethods. The presenters will present, discuss the above mentioned aspects using clinical, case based material and present ways of addressing, helping patients,families to work through the issues presented and enhance their lives.CONCLUSION>Cultural sensitivity and competence in assessment, and management are as important as other aspects. Continued research on cultural aspects along with biological aspects is required to understand the interplay of all factors.PresentersRama Rao Gogineni,MD rgoginenimd@gmail.com (Chair)Neil Aggarwal, MD Neil.Aggarwal@nyspi.columbia.eduShridhar Sharma,MD sharma.shridhar@gmail.comRoy Kallivayalil MD roykalli@gmail.com

Altmetric Scores in Conservation Science have Gender and Regional Biases

Altmetric Scores in Conservation Science have Gender and Regional Biases