bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Outcomes in Anomalous Aortic Origin of a Coronary Artery Following a Prospective Standardized Approach
Authors: Molossi Silvana , Agrawal Hitesh , Mery Carlos M. , Krishnamurthy Rajesh , Masand Prakash , Sexson Tejtel S. Kristen , Noel Cory V. , Qureshi Athar M. , Jadhav Siddharth P. , McKenzie E. Dean , Fraser Charles D.
Published: February 2020

Background:

Anomalous aortic origin of a coronary artery (CA) is the second leading cause of sudden cardiac death in young athletes. Management is controversial and longitudinal follow-up data are sparse. We aim to evaluate outcomes in a prospective study of anomalous aortic origin of CA patients following a standardized algorithm.

Methods:

Patients with anomalous aortic origin of a CA were followed prospectively from December 2012 to April 2017. All patients were evaluated following a standardized algorithm, and data were reviewed by a dedicated multidisciplinary team. Assessment of myocardial perfusion was performed using stress imaging. High-risk patients (high-risk anatomy—anomalous left CA from the opposite sinus, presence of intramurality, abnormal ostium—and symptoms or evidence of myocardial ischemia) were offered surgery or exercise restriction (if deemed high risk for surgical intervention). Univariate and multivariable analyses were used to determine predictors of high risk.

Results:

Of 201 patients evaluated, 163 met inclusion criteria: 116 anomalous right CA (71%), 25 anomalous left CA (15%), 17 single CA (10%), and 5 anomalous circumflex CA (3%). Patients presented as an incidental finding (n=80, 49%), with exertional (n=31, 21%) and nonexertional (n=32, 20%) symptoms and following sudden cardiac arrest/shock (n=5, 3%). Eighty-two patients (50.3%) were considered high risk. Predictors of high risk were older age at diagnosis, black race, intramural course, and exertional syncope. Most patients (82%) are allowed unrestrictive sports activities. Forty-seven patients had surgery (11 anomalous left CA and 36 anomalous right CA), 3 (6.4%) remained restricted from sports activities. All patients are alive at a median follow-up of 1.6 (interquartile range, 0.7–2.8) years.

Conclusions:

In this prospective cohort of patients with anomalous aortic origin of a CA, most have remained free of exercise restrictions. Development of a multidisciplinary team has allowed a consistent approach and may have implications in risk stratification and long-term prognosis.
Memantine Protects From Exacerbation of Ischemic Stroke and Blood Brain Barrier Disruption in Mild But Not Severe Hyperhomocysteinemia
Authors: Gu Sean X. , Sonkar Vijay K. , Katare Parmeshwar B. , Kumar Rahul , Kruger Warren D. , Arning Erland , Bottiglieri Teodoro , Lentz Steven R. , Dayal Sanjana
Published: February 2020

Background

Hyperhomocysteinemia is a risk factor for ischemic stroke; however, a targeted treatment strategy is lacking partly because of limited understanding of the causal role of homocysteine in cerebrovascular pathogenesis.

Methods and Results

In a genetic model of cystathionine beta synthase (
CBS
) deficiency, we tested the hypothesis that elevation in plasma total homocysteine exacerbates cerebrovascular injury and that memantine, a N‐methyl‐D‐aspartate receptor antagonist, is protective. Mild or severe elevation in plasma total homocysteine was observed in
Cbs+/−
(6.1±0.3 μmol/L) or
Cbs−/−
(309±18 μmol/L) mice versus
Cbs+/+
(3.1±0.6 μmol/L) mice. Surprisingly,
Cbs−/−
and
Cbs+/−
mice exhibited similar increases in cerebral infarct size following middle cerebral artery ischemia/reperfusion injury, despite the much higher total homocysteine levels in
Cbs−/−
mice. Likewise, disruption of the blood brain barrier was observed in both
Cbs+/−
and
Cbs−/−
mice. Administration of the N‐methyl‐D‐aspartate receptor antagonist memantine protected
Cbs+/−
but not
Cbs−/−
mice from cerebral infarction and blood brain barrier disruption. Our data suggest that the differential effect of memantine in
Cbs+/−
versus
Cbs−/−
mice may be related to changes in expression of N‐methyl‐D‐aspartate receptor subunits.
Cbs−/−
, but not
Cbs+/−
mice had increased expression of
NR
2B subunit, which is known to be relatively insensitive to homocysteine.

Conclusions

These data provide experimental evidence that even a mild increase in plasma total homocysteine can exacerbate cerebrovascular injury and suggest that N‐methyl‐D‐aspartate receptor antagonism may represent a strategy to prevent reperfusion injury after acute ischemic stroke in patients with mild hyperhomocysteinemia.
Topology of Networks in Generalized Musical Spaces
Authors: Buongiorno Nardelli Marco
Published: February 2020

The abstraction of musical structures as mathematical objects in a geometrical space is one of the major accomplishments of contemporary music theory. The author generalizes the concept of musical spaces as networks and derives compositional design principles via network topology analysis. This approach provides a framework for analysis and quantification of similarity of musical objects and structures and suggests a way to relate such measures to human perception of different musical entities. Finally, network analysis provides alternative ways of interpreting the compositional process by quantifying emergent behaviors with well-established statistical mechanics. Interpreting the latter as probabilistic randomness in the network, the author develops novel compositional design frameworks.
Introduction to the Special Issue on ‘Charisma’
Authors: Freudenberg Maren , Weitzel Tim
Published: February 2020

The introduction to the special issue on ‘charisma’ offers a very brief overview of the development of the concept in the social sciences and various critiques and intersecting debates. It casts a close look at Max Weber’s sometimes contradictory use of the concept and the different ways he conceptualized it in his sociology of religion and his sociology of domination. It then examines alternative theoretical approaches to ‘charisma’ that emerge in the course of the twentieth century before outlining this special issue’s contribution to the conceptual debate and the individual articles’ operationalization of the term by viewing charisma as relational, communicative, procedural, as well as related to ideas, practices, and objects.
The Charisma of Script: The Quran and the Hadith in Neo-Salafi Online Community
Authors: Tabti Samira
Published: February 2020

The purpose of this paper is to analyze textual practices in contemporary neo-Salafi online groups. The neo-Salafis’ approach to religious text sources is particular, in that it tends to privilege literalistic interpretations of the Quran and the Hadith. Particularly, what is known as ‘the authentic Hadith sources’ plays a special role in questions regarding ways to conduct one’s own life. This article regards the neo-Salafi understanding of the Quran and the Hadiths as textual charismatic authorities that enable a direct and ‘authentic’ access to ‘pure’ religion. The present article will connect the question of the mediated immediacy of religion to a Salafi concept of textual charismatic authority articulated by its own notion of ‘authenticity.’
The taxonomic status of Ruschia stricta var. turgida and R. promontorii and a new name for R. vaginata (Ruschieae, Aizoaceae)

Authors: KLAK CORNELIA , SCHMIEDEL UTE , BRUYNS PETER V.
Published: February 2020

The taxonomic position of two succulent members of the Ruschieae (Aizoaceae), Ruschia stricta var. turgida and R. promontorii, that are currently placed in Amphibolia, is revised on account of new morphological information. Ruschia stricta var. turgida, endemic to the Knersvlakte (Western Cape, South Africa), is characterized by 6-locular fruits, the lack of closing bodies and the lack of filamentous staminodes. Amphibolia has 5-locular fruits with closing bodies and flowers with filamentous staminodes. Consequently, R. stricta var. turgida cannot belong to Amphibolia. On account of differences in the fruits and inflorescences, we recognize R. stricta var. turgida as a distinct species. We show that R. promontorii is different from Amphibolia laevis, of which it has been considered to be a synonym. In particular, these two differ by their ecological preferences and by certain morphological features. In addition, a new name, Ruschia vaginella, is published for the illegitimate Ruschia vaginata.
Redescription of the tadpole of Leptodactylus natalensis Lutz (Anura: Leptodactylidae), an inhabitant of the Brazilian Atlantic Forest
Authors: DUBEUX MARCOS J. M. , DA SILVA THAIS D. , MOTT TAMÍ , DO NASCIMENTO FILIPE A. C.
Published: February 2020

The Neotropical foam-nesting genus Leptodactylus Fitzinger is currently composed of 75 species (Frost 2019) divided into four monophyletic species groups (De Sá et al. 2014). The L. melanonotus species group includes 17 species delimited by five adult osteological character-states (De Sá et al. 2014). Leptodactylus natalensis Lutz is the only species of the L. melanonotus species group that occurs in north of the Brazilian Atlantic Rain Forest (De Sá et al. 2014; Almeida et al. 2016) and whose type locality is the municipality of Natal, state of Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil (Lutz 1930). The tadpole of this species was briefly described by Oliveira & Lírio-Júnior (2000) based on a single individual from the municipality of Aracaju, state of Sergipe, Brazil. Herein, we present a complete redescription of the tadpole of this species, including morphometric data and interpopulational variation. Besides, we provide comparisons with all members of the L. melanonotus group.
Earth Sounds
Authors: Tortell Philippe D.
Published: February 2020

This chapter presents two embedded musical compositions drawn from various environmental climate data, offering listeners a stark audio-perspective on the impacts of humans on the climate system over the past century. The first, Ice Core Walk, is a musical representation of temperature and CO2 data taken from the 3 km-long Vostok ice core in East Antarctica. The second is a clip taken from Earth Symphony, which draws on a wide range of Earth System data sets, and which ‘sonifies’ the data into a musical score by creating a process in which music is performed directly by the data.
Impatient Earth
Authors: Harte John , Socolow Robert
Published: February 2020

Fifty years ago, Harte and Socolow edited Patient Earth: a collection of essays that addressed pressing environmental issues of the day. Their chapter reads as a retrospective piece following the introduction of the present volume, and is structured so as to compare and contrast Patient Earth with Earth 2020. Harte and Socolow carefully assess their choices of topics in Patient Earth, highlighting how environmentalism in 1970 was deeply intertwined with three other contemporary concerns – wilderness and the non-human environment, militarism and population – three topics which are scarcely present in Earth 2020. These three previous concerns have been replaced by two new ones: planetary-scale thinking and environmental justice. Harte and Socolow address the American-centric focus of Patient Earth’s case studies, their light treatment of the intersection between poverty and environment, and the three-component model of social change driving Patient Earth: science-policy-activism. While Earth 2020 addresses issues ignored by Patient Earth – e.g., sea level, ice, forests and fisheries – both books are silent on the overuse of antibiotics, and uncontrollable epidemics (topics which must also be brought into the discussion). They close their chapter with a measured consideration of the balance, or lack thereof, between scientific knowledge and public policy and activism.
Politics and Law
Authors: May Elizabeth
Published: February 2020

In this chapter, May reviews the five decades of environmental law and policy since the first Earth Day, 1970, which prompted the United Nations to plan first international conference discussing the threats to our environment – the 1972 Stockholm Conference. Two threads are identified in the emergence and practice of environmental governance: the global North–South Divide (1970–1990), and the emergence of Global Corporate Rule (1990 onwards). Between 1970–1990, wealthy industrialized countries started to look at controlling pollution through science-based regulations and policy, confronting issues that were solved at local and regional scales, without recognizing the uneven burdens and responsibilities of global environmental degradation. Consequently, developing countries boycotted what was decried as the wealthy countries’ agenda, for pollution was not seen as a priority for nations unable to feed their people. The second thread identified by May highlights the tragic effect of trade on environmental policies, and the overlooked impact of the rise of corporate power in humanity’s failure to respond to the climate crisis. The 1990s saw the emergence of trade organizations who had the power to overturn environmental policies and treatises if they posed barriers to international trade. May believes we have failed to take appropriate action, but it is not too late. She calls for us to deconstruct global corporate rule and put the global survival before corporate greed.
Energy
Authors: Wilson Elizabeth J. , Grove Nielsen Elias
Published: February 2020

Modern energy has transformed how humans move, eat, live and play, while also radically altering our impact on Planet Earth. As the climate tipping point looms, energy dependence continues to grow, and energy system decarbonization is more critical than ever. While there has been significant progress on the transition to renewable energy sources, 80% of energy consumed still comes from fossil fuels. A major factor here is the imbalance of energy wealth: the energy rich, who have the luxury of not having to think about energy, are declining in their energy use and call for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, while the energy poor, the 1.1 billion people who live without access to electricity, have a meagre energy use which does not contribute to global climate change. It is in the energy middle – the 4.4. billion citizens across the globe with access to energy, but with varying degrees of reliability and affordability – where greenhouse gas emissions are growing most rapidly. Real change will only occur with coordinated global action, implementing a systematic change in how we use energy. As we build our energy systems to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, we must also adapt them to the realities of climate change. Humanity now faces the daunting challenge of creating energy systems that can both mitigate and adapt to changing climates across countries with different economic realities. The energy rich, the energy poor, and those in-between have different needs, risks, and responsibilities, but we all face a common threat in climate change.
Forests
Authors: Aitken Sally N.
Published: February 2020

In our fast-paced world, where almost any destination is a commercial flight away, it is easy to lose a sense of the incremental changes to our habitats. Aitken asks us to consider trees as the bell-weather of climate change. Her overview starts in the boreal forests of Canada, where warming temperatures have had a doubly negative effect on trees through the spread of insects, whose damage was previously kept in check by colder annual temperatures. In turn, these habitats have also witnessed the devastating impact of wildfires. Globally, the prospects are yet more chilling. In California alone, over 150 million trees have been lost in recent years due to consistent seasons of drought. The climate-induced effects on trees perhaps pales in comparison to the indiscriminate global destruction of forests by humans. Tropical forests have suffered in particular as the demand for meat and cheap palm oil used in processed foods has devastated vast swathes of the Amazonian and southeast Asian rainforests, now permanently lost to cattle ranches and monoculture plantations. Aitken notes throughout that the recently fashionable idea of planting trees is no magic wand. Planting trees globally cannot simply be a like-for-like replacement for the vast, intricately connected and unimaginably biodiverse ecosystems represented by the world’s forests. Instead we must focus on the absolute necessity of halting current rates of deforestation and finding sustainable ways of managing forest habitats, and the lives of communities that depend on them. Looking further, the future of humanity depends on the hugely complex, and seemingly insurmountable, task of remodeling our global energy, production and transportation networks. We must begin now.
Air
Authors: Abbatt Jon
Published: February 2020

Amid the bleaker assessments of other contributions, this chapter offers a rare success story, outlining how we have been quicker to mitigate the harm wrought on Earth’s atmosphere. This is, in part, due to the directly visible nature of our impacts: London’s ‘Great Smog’ in 1952; satellite images of a gaping hole in the Ozone layer in the 1980s; the accumulation of ground level ozone, reacting with lead in gasoline fumes, in Los Angeles; acid rain. These indicators led to a series of decisive measures: the UK Clean Air Act in 1956; the banning of CFCs beginning with the Montreal Protocol in 1987; the introduction of catalytic converters; and subsequent amendments to the US Clean Air Act in 1996. These successes aside, the chapter emphasizes the greater threat of air-borne particulate matter that continues to contribute to pollution and is harder to eradicate. This will continue to be an issue as forests are burned, as inefficient fuel usage for cooking in developing nations persists, and as industrial activities – twinned to the inexorable rise of urban populations – continue. The chapter ends on the hope that a combination of technological innovation, transformation of the global energy network and effective public policy can enact the fundamental changes needed to protect our atmosphere.
Geoengineering
Authors: MacMartin Douglas G. , Ricke Katharine L.
Published: February 2020

When we think of tackling climate change, we think about reducing CO2 emissions. Whilst this is essential, it is no longer enough. MacMartin and Ricke examine the failures of current carbon dioxide removal (CDR) strategies, all of which fail to satisfy three essential criteria: scalability, economic viability, and lack of detrimental local impacts. In the face of future uncertainty, there is another tactic – in addition to mitigation and carbon dioxide removal – that Macmartin and Ricke propose: ‘solar geoengineering’, an approach aiming to reduce global warming by decreasing the amount of incoming energy from the sun. Such ideas were first discussed in the 1960s, but remained mostly on the fringe until 2006. At its most basic level, geoengineering seeks to modify the radiation balance of Earth by increasing the amount of energy sent back into space, and this chapter discusses how it might be possible to accomplish this – from mimicking the cooling effect that occurs after large volcanic eruptions to enhancing the formation of reflective low clouds over the ocean. However, these approaches present both technical challenges and significant questions to be addressed – from physical effects to broader societal issues impacting ethics and international relations. If CO2 emissions continue unabated, there will be an increase in the amount of geoengineering required to compensate, and future generations would be committed to maintaining it indefinitely. In order for it to be effective, geoengineering must be considered as a supplement and not a substitute, used alongside CO2 reduction, and accompanied by a development in the capacity of international governance to make sound decisions.
Imaging Earth
Authors: Burtynsky Edward
Published: February 2020

How does an international award-winning photographer and documentary-maker help us understand our transfigured planet? Edward Burtynsky charts his own trajectory, from exploring the Canadian wilderness as a child, to his development as an artist responding to the last century's explosion of industry and technology, which has resulted in immense disruption to our planet. Almost every landscape on earth is now scarred and manipulated by our insatiable appetite for progress. Across the course of more than four decades, Burtynsky has used his images, taken on vast geological scales, to both document and question the effects our rapid and widespread changes have on our collective home. His career has mirrored our concerns. In the 1980s, he captured landscapes rendered bare through the extractive processes of industrialization – mines, quarries and railways. In the 1990s, he documented the unseen and forgotten end-product of our consumption: abandoned cities of waste, metal, plastic and tires – the detritus of modernity. As we passed a new millennium the focus shifted from photographing vast oil-fields and refineries to our manipulation and depletion of water. As we continue through the Anthropocene – an era defined by our destruction and engineering of Earth's natural resources and processes – the author continues to believe in the power of images as poetry and narrative. Such images force us to confront our role in a world buckling under the weight of our economic and consumptive overdrive.
Sea Level Rise, 1970-2070
Authors: Kopp Robert E.
Published: February 2020

What will climate scientists of the future have to say when assessing our generation’s impact on the Planet? Adopting a viewpoint fifty years from now, this chapter reflects upon a worrying future reality. Kopp focuses on the latest predictive models of sea-level rise, to hold our collective efforts at mitigating climate change to account. Looking to the past, he notes that, only in the 1970s did the global sea-rise, first identified three decades previously, garner widespread scientific attention. Throughout the chapter, the global picture is contrasted with local variations in sea-level rise, dependent on factors such as the geo-physics of ice sheets (which in some regions have led to recorded falls in levels), local ground sediment types and human activity. Applying the current trajectory of change, the chapter notes pointedly that, had the Paris Agreement been implemented, we could have avoided a 3°C rise in temperature and a 60-cm global sea-rise. The chapter nonetheless offers some hope that we can better adapt to local sea-level rise, predicting future government legislation in line with previous responses to emergencies, e.g., the flooding caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Globally, however, the picture is bleaker, as the grim prospect of unborn, but already alphabetically assigned, cyclones make adaptation increasingly difficult.
Climate Negotiation
Authors: Lyster Rosemary
Published: February 2020

Regardless of the number of international studies and reports predicting crisis, nothing has stopped decline of ecosystems and natural resources. The most recent reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) provide clear warnings that climate change is happening fast. Lyster charts the activity of the international community since the first Earth Day, and demonstrates why and in what respects they have failed. An important first step was the 1987 Brundtland Report, around the same time the IPCC was established to advise the UN on the Earth’s climate. This led to the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development, and the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, where developed countries agreed to cap overall emissions by the end of 2012. A major point of contention here was that the Protocol did not require developing countries to meet targets. The 2016 Paris Agreement, which aims to limit the increase in global average temperature, marked the first time that both developed and developing countries are compelled to act. Finally, Lyster explores how efforts to deal with the climate crisis have often been thwarted by domestic election cycles in fossil fuel-developed economies, pointing to a lack of knowledge and/or political will on the part of many politicians to lead a national discussion on the imperative to take action.
Knowing Earth
Authors: Jasanoff Sheila
Published: February 2020

Philosophers and scientists of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment believed that by increasing knowledge of how the world works, humans would be liberated from superstition, and that reason would follow learning. However, in its engagement with science, modern environmentalism appears to have turned back the clock on this view of Enlightenment. While environmentalism was born into science and technical expertise, it matured in an era of skepticism, and few believe that science and technology will enable humanity to become effective planetary stewards. As Jasanoff observes, Rachel Carson’s seminal broadside Silent Spring (1962) is credited with helping to ignite a social movement. This led to important studies and changes in environmental laws and policies throughout the 1970s. But despite this, backlash against environmental expertise, especially in the United States, gained momentum, and this backlash continues to this day. While advancements in environmentalism has made large strides and impacted policies – such as the Montreal Protocol, an international pact to phase out production of fluorocarbons – the story of climate science traces a less triumphalist narrative line. In turn, political action on climate change has failed to keep up with the urgency of scientific predictions. Most recently, with President Trump pulling out of the Paris Agreement, due to economic rather than environmental reasons. In this chapter, Jasanoff outlines how the events of the past half-century have taught us that gains in scientific understanding will not translate into wise policies for the human future. Instead, the politics of environmental science in the next half-century will have to build on the understanding that science and planetary stewardship are co-produced.
Fish
Authors: Sumaila U. Rashid , Pauly Daniel
Published: February 2020

Only now, as innumerable species of fish face extinction, are we realizing that their supply is not inexhaustible. The industrial revolution spawned trawlers that were no longer reliant on the natural elements for their power and hoovered up the vast, easily accessible supplies of coastal biomass. Today, the well-oiled machine of commercial fishing, pressed on by the economic imperatives of national fishery departments, forges ever further into deeper water and distant latitudes, laying waste to entire marine ecosystems. When fish stocks began collapsing all over the globe from the mid-twentieth century onwards, greater attention was paid to the effects of vast mechanized ships, totally removing entire webs of biodiversity and indiscriminately damaging habitats with fishing equipment. As ever, implementation has fallen far short of global agreements on quotas and protected marine areas. Governments either do not realize the implications of what marine scientists are telling them or are beholden to powerful fisheries lobbies. At the present rate, industrial fishing will continue to decimate fish populations, with insufficient time for overexploited populations to recover. This will have tragic effects on the diversity of cascading marine food chains, with predictable, and inevitable, consequences.
The Global Chemical Experiment
Authors: Sunderland Elsie , Wagner Charlotte
Published: February 2020

In this chapter, Sunderland and Wagner examine society’s historical relationship with chemical toxicants and how exposure to such toxicants has reached a global scale since the first Earth Day. This increase in exposure is due, in part, to population growth, which has caused an increased reliance on chemicals, both natural and synthetic. For the vast majority of these chemicals, we have only a limited understanding of how they will behave once released into the environment. They turn their attention to a fundamental problem with synthetic chemicals – their persistence in nature, which means that they do not readily break down following release into air, water or soils. As a result, the blood of nearly every mammal on the planet now contains a cocktail of toxicants. Sunderland and Wagner further examine how public awareness of the health risks associated with exposure to contaminants is only prevalent when the health risks are visible or result in death. After delving into what we have learnt over the past several decades through exposures to a wider range of anthropogenic chemicals, they turn their attention to issues in regulating the production and release of toxicants into the environment, emphasizing especially the tendency to adopt reactionary rather than proactive approaches. Advocacy and public outrage still remain the most effective method for enacting changes in chemical use and releases. However, addressing the global chemical experiment requires a new kind of thinking about environmental issues – one that does not isolate chemical engineers from environmental toxicologists and health scientists, and one which increasingly uses screening tools prior to widespread use of chemicals.
Earth and Plastic
Authors: Geyer Roland
Published: February 2020

In summer 1970, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology conducted a ground-breaking computer simulation to study the interactions between humans and the environment. The project examined what could happen to the planet's resources as a result of exponential growth in the population. Results, published in a controversial 1972 book entitled The Limits to Growth, showed dire prognoses about the consequences of the continued growth of the human population and the global economy. Today, nearly half a century after the MIT study, there is growing consensus that environmental pollution caused by wastes and emissions is of far greater concern than depletion of non-renewable resources. Fossil fuels are a case in point – the true environmental constraint on the burning of fossil fuels is not its depletion, but the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) released into the environment. In turn, not all fossil fuels are burned – today, 14% of oil production and 8% of natural gas extraction is used to make petrochemicals, such as plastics and fertilizers. In this chapter, Geyer outlines the growth of the plastics industry – an industry that is barely seventy years old, but which has expanded drastically in the last decades: half of all plastic ever made by humankind was produced in just the last thirteen years. Since conventional plastic polymers don’t biodegrade, but rather disperse into the environment as micro-plastics, wherever we look for plastic we find it – arctic sea ice, rain, tap water, bottled water, beer. Geyer examines the full extent of the environmental damage caused by plastic waste, outlines how traditional approaches to solid waste management are unable to cope with the ever-growing amount of this waste, and proposes several alternative solutions for waste management. The chapter calls for substantial reductions in the amount of materials we produce and use in general, in order to avoid further increases of CO2 in the atmosphere, plastic in the oceans and nitrogen in our estuaries and coastal waters.
Fresh Water
Authors: Hering Janet G.
Published: February 2020

This chapter outlines the ways in which fresh water is crucial to all of us in myriad ways, and the challenges we face when disrupting natural hydrodynamic systems. Since improvements made in sanitation in the nineteenth century, wealthy countries have largely alleviated the effects of water-borne disease and lack of safe drinking water. However, it is precisely modern, urbanized society that has caused the most damage to marine systems, through pollution, eutrophication (introduction of nutrients) and hydro-electric dams, in service of its industrial development. For developing countries, the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) recognized, in 2015, the increasing need for access to safe drinking water. The chapter emphasizes that the past models of water management in industrialized nations, which have come at huge ecological and social costs, should be regarded critically by developing regions, desperate to utilize water systems for growing urban populations. Hering advocates learning from the successes and failures of wealthy countries; developing sustainable, balanced approaches to agriculture (particularly the use of fertilizer) and waste management; and implementing decentralized, locally-appropriate methods of water-management.
Medical Sports Rehabilitation Deep Learning System of Sports Injury Based on MRI Image Analysis
Authors: Ba Hongbing
Published: February 2020

Medical sports rehabilitation deep learning system of sports injury based on MRI image analysis is proposed in this paper. Preparation activities are various body exercises that are purposely performed before physical education, training, and competition. It is a transitional phase
from the static state to the moving state of the human body. Preparatory activities can improve the excitability of the central nervous system, improve the ability of the cerebral cortex to analyze and judge movements, and thus make the movement more coordinated and accurate. At the same time
prepare activity can also improve the respiratory and circulatory system functions and reduce the muscles, ligaments of the sticky nature and the contraction of muscles for speed and strength, in order to maximize the capacity of the physical movement and injury prevention campaign ready.
Therefore, how to use the MRI image to numerically analyze the mentioned task is essential. We integrate the deep learning model to propose the novel image enhancement and recognition model to undertake the task of medical sports rehabilitation system. The experimental result proves the performance
is robust.
Classification of Alzheimer’s Disease via Eight-Layer Convolutional Neural Network with Batch Normalization and Dropout Techniques
Authors: Jiang Xianwei , Chang Liang , Zhang Yu-Dong
Published: February 2020

More than 35 million patients are suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and this number is growing, which puts a heavy burden on countries around the world. Early detection is of benefit, in which the deep learning can aid AD identification effectively and gain ideal results. A novel
eight-layer convolutional neural network with batch normalization and dropout techniques for classification of Alzheimer’s disease was proposed. After data augmentation, the training dataset contained 7399 AD patient and 7399 HC subjects. Our eight-layer CNN-BN-DO-DA method yielded a
sensitivity of 97.77%, a specificity of 97.76%, a precision of 97.79%, an accuracy of 97.76%, a F1 of 97.76%, and a MCC of 95.56% on the test set, which achieved the best performance in seven state-of-the-art approaches. The results strongly demonstrate that this method can effectively assist
the clinical diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease.
Multi-Scale Feature Fusion Convolutional Neural Network for Concurrent Segmentation of Left Ventricle and Myocardium in Cardiac MR Images
Authors: Qi Lin , Zhang Haoran , Cao Xuehao , Lyu Xuyang , Xu Lisheng , Yang Benqiang , Ou Yangming
Published: February 2020

Accurate segmentation of the blood pool of left ventricle (LV) and myocardium (or left ventricular epicardium, MYO) from cardiac magnetic resonance (MR) can help doctors to quantify LV ejection fraction and myocardial deformation. To reduce doctor’s burden of manual segmentation,
in this study, we propose an automated and concurrent segmentation method of the LV and MYO. First, we employ a convolutional neural network (CNN) architecture to extract the region of interest (ROI) from short-axis cardiac cine MR images as a preprocessing step. Next, we present a multi-scale
feature fusion (MSFF) CNN with a new weighted Dice index (WDI) loss function to get the concurrent segmentation of the LV and MYO. We use MSFF modules with three scales to extract different features, and then concatenate feature maps by the short and long skip connections in the encoder and
decoder path to capture more complete context information and geometry structure for better segmentation. Finally, we compare the proposed method with Fully Convolutional Networks (FCN) and U-Net on the combined cardiac datasets from MICCAI 2009 and ACDC 2017. Experimental results demonstrate
that the proposed method could perform effectively on LV and MYOs segmentation in the combined datasets, indicating its potential for clinical application.
Application of Computed Tomographic Image Reconstruction Algorithms Based on Filtered Back-Projection in Diagnosis of Bone Trauma Diseases
Authors: Li Xianyu , He Yulin , Hua Qun
Published: February 2020

Objective: To improve the diagnostic rate of bone trauma diseases by applying image reconstruction algorithm based on filtered back-projection to CT images of bone trauma. Methods: Sixty-three patients with bone trauma in our hospital were selected. After hospitalization,
63 patients took satisfactory localization images to make the lesions on the localization images close to or even exceed the resolution of conventional X-ray films. After scanning, the post-processing workstation software was used for post-processing of image reconstruction algorithm based
on filtered back-projection. Finally, the diagnostic accuracy of X-ray plain film, common CT image and image examination based on filtered back-projection was compared statistically. Results: Among 63 cases of bone trauma, 48 cases were found by routine CT cross-sectional examination.
The image reconstruction algorithm based on filtered back-projection was applied to all cases of wrist ulnar and trauma examination. The three-dimensional imaging can display the length, direction, shape of articular surface and fracture end of bone trauma as well as the size and spatial position
of free small bone fragments stereoscopically and accurately. The relationship between bone trauma and placement. Discussion: Experiments show that when the projection data are complete, the filtering back-projection algorithm can reconstruct the image better, and the overall evaluation
of the new filtering function is the best. Usually, the projection data are often incomplete, sometimes even seriously insufficient. At this time, it is necessary to adopt iterative reconstruction algorithm. However, no matter which algorithm is adopted, the reconstruction speed and accuracy
are improved, and the quality of the reconstructed image is improved. It remains the direction of future efforts. The FBP method is the basic common algorithm for reconstructing image, and it is also the basis of many other algorithms. It is widely used in medical CT and other fields. Conclusion:
The improved CT image reconstruction algorithm based on filtered back-projection has high application value in the diagnosis of bone trauma diseases. By comparing the three indexes of serial processing time, information transfer interface and image noise, the suspicious site of bone trauma
can be diagnosed clearly. In recent years, with the popularization of CT and the emergence of spiral CT, it has a good guiding significance for defining clinical diagnosis and treatment.
Improvement of Design Parameters for Health Monitoring in Wearable Fitness Device: A Fuzzy Analytic Kano Approach
Authors: Tan Yongsheng , Cui Junjie , Chen Hui
Published: February 2020

The development of cloud storage and integrated technology makes traditional health-monitoring devices change towards the direction of wearable intelligence. The most prominent of wearables is miniaturization, but multifunction is also required to meet the diversity needs of users.
Under these contradictory conditions, the optimization of design parameters to meet user needs become one critical factor for the success of wearable devices. Accordingly, the probe of user needs for wearable fitness device attracted many researchers’ attention. These studies mainly
draw the outline of user preferences or depicted critical design factors at the early development stage, but they were short of analyzing specific design parameters for the product already on the market. Therefore, this study aims to classify and then rank design parameters in a more comprehensive
manner in order to improve end user satisfaction. Specifically, 146 experienced users’ responses for one wearable activity tracker were collected to extract user preferences by combining fuzzy sets and Kano model. Finally, by virtue of satisfaction increment index (SII) and dissatisfaction
decrement index (DDI), the rank of design parameters for improvement is obtained.
Students of Purdue Observing Tornadic Thunderstorms for Research (SPOTTR) A Severe Storms Field Work Course at Purdue University
Authors: Tanamachi Robin L. , Dawson Daniel T. , Parker Loran Carleton
Published: February 2020

A summer course has been developed at Purdue University that leverages students’ intrinsic desire to observe tornadoes as a motivator for learning severe storms forecasting. Relative to previous “storm chasing” courses described in the literature, the Students of Purdue Observing Tornadic Thunderstorms for Research (SPOTTR) course is enhanced by active learning exercises, career exploration activities, and the inclusion of research-grade meteorological instrumentation in order to provide an authentic in-field experiential learning scenario. After teaching severe weather forecasting skills and deployment techniques for several meteorological instruments (such as a mobile radar, radiosondes, and disdrometers), the instructors then guide the students on a 1-week field trip to the Great Plains, where the group executes a miniature field campaign to collect high-quality meteorological observations in and near severe storms. On days with no targetable severe weather, the participants visit sites deemed beneficial to the students’ professional development. The final week of the course is spent performing retrospective case studies based on the observations collected, and distilling lessons learned. Surveys given to SPOTTR students show that students’ understanding of severe storms forecasting, technical skills, and career aspirations all improved as a result of having participated in the SPOTTR course, affirming the efficacy of the course design.
Tropical Widening: From Global Variations to Regional Impacts
Authors: Staten Paul W. , Grise Kevin M. , Davis Sean M. , Karnauskas Kristopher B. , Waugh Darryn W. , Maycock Amanda C. , Fu Qiang , Cook Kerry , Adam Ori , Simpson Isla R. , Allen Robert J , Rosenlof Karen , Chen Gang , Ummenhofer Caroline C. , Quan Xiao-Wei , Kossin James P. , Davis Nicholas A. , Son Seok-Woo
Published: February 2020

Over the past 15 years, numerous studies have suggested that the sinking branches of Earth’s Hadley circulation and the associated subtropical dry zones have shifted poleward over the late twentieth century and early twenty-first century. Early estimates of this tropical widening from satellite observations and reanalyses varied from 0.25° to 3° latitude per decade, while estimates from global climate models show widening at the lower end of the observed range. In 2016, two working groups, the U.S. Climate Variability and Predictability (CLIVAR) working group on the Changing Width of the Tropical Belt and the International Space Science Institute (ISSI) Tropical Width Diagnostics Intercomparison Project, were formed to synthesize current understanding of the magnitude, causes, and impacts of the recent tropical widening evident in observations. These working groups concluded that the large rates of observed tropical widening noted by earlier studies resulted from their use of metrics that poorly capture changes in the Hadley circulation, or from the use of reanalyses that contained spurious trends. Accounting for these issues reduces the range of observed expansion rates to 0.25°–0.5° latitude decade‒1—within the range from model simulations. Models indicate that most of the recent Northern Hemisphere tropical widening is consistent with natural variability, whereas increasing greenhouse gases and decreasing stratospheric ozone likely played an important role in Southern Hemisphere widening. Whatever the cause or rate of expansion, understanding the regional impacts of tropical widening requires additional work, as different forcings can produce different regional patterns of widening.
Decomposition of the Atlantic Multidecadal Variability in a Historical Climate Simulation
Authors: Colfescu Ioana , Schneider Edwin K.
Published: February 2020

The Atlantic multidecadal variability (AMV) modulates various climate features worldwide with enormous societal and economic implications, including variations in hurricane activity in the Atlantic, sea level, West African and Indian monsoon rainfall, European climate, and hemispheric-scale surface temperature. Leading hypotheses regarding the nature and origin of AMV focus primarily on its links with oceanic and coupled ocean–atmosphere internal variability, and on its response to external forcing. The role of another possible process, that of atmospheric noise forcing of the ocean, has received less attention. This is addressed here by means of historical coupled simulations and diagnostic experiments, which isolate the influences of external and atmospheric noise forcings. Our findings show that external forcing is an important driver of the simulated AMV. They also demonstrate that weather noise is key in driving the simulated internal AMV in the southern part (0°–60°N) of the AMV region, and that weather noise forcing is responsible for up to 10%–20% of the multidecadal internal SST variability in some isolated areas of the subpolar gyre region. Ocean dynamics independent from the weather noise forcing is found to be the dominant cause of multidecadal SST in the northern part of the AMV region.
The Observation-Based Application of a Regional Thermohaline Inverse Method to Diagnose the Formation and Transformation of Water Masses North of the OSNAP Array from 2013 to 2015
Authors: Mackay Neill , Wilson Chris , Holliday N. Penny , Zika Jan D.
Published: February 2020

The strength of the meridional overturning circulation (MOC) in the North Atlantic is dependent upon the formation of dense waters that occurs at high northern latitudes. Wintertime deep convection in the Labrador and Irminger Seas forms the intermediate water mass known as Labrador Sea Water (LSW). Changes in the rate of formation and subsequent export of LSW are thought to play a role in MOC variability, but formation rates are uncertain and the link between formation and export is complex. We present the first observation-based application of a recently developed regional thermohaline inverse method (RTHIM) to a region encompassing the Arctic and part of the North Atlantic subpolar gyre for the years 2013, 2014, and 2015. RTHIM is a novel method that can diagnose the formation and export rates of water masses such as the LSW identified by their temperature and salinity, apportioning the formation rates into contributions from surface fluxes and interior mixing. We find LSW formation rates of up to 12 Sv (1 Sv ≡ 106 m3 s−1) during 2014–15, a period of strong wintertime convection, and around half that value during 2013 when convection was weak. We also show that the newly convected water is not exported directly, but instead is mixed isopycnally with warm, salty waters that have been advected into the region, before the products are then exported. RTHIM solutions for 2015 volume, heat, and freshwater transports are compared with observations from a mooring array deployed for the Overturning in the Subpolar North Atlantic Program (OSNAP) and show good agreement, lending validity to our results.