Spatial and Temporal Variability of Trace and Macro Elements in the Red Crab Pleuroncodes planipes in the Pacific Coast of the Baja California Peninsula, Mexico.

The red crab, Pleuroncodes planipes, is a decapod crustacean abundant off the Pacific coast of the Baja California Peninsula. This species is caught and used in preparing animal feed, such as flour, particularly for aquaculture. Levels of calcium (Ca), cadmium (Cd), copper (Cu), iron (Fe), lead (Pb), magnesium (Mg), manganese (Mn), nickel (Ni), phosphorus (P), and zinc (Zn) were measured in red crabs collected from three geographic zones during three cruises in different seasons. Significant differences were found in the levels of Ca, Cd, Cu, Fe, Mg, Ni, P, and Zn between the two El Niño years (cruises C1 and C3, based on a threshold of ±0.5 °C for the Oceanic Niño Index). The highest concentrations of most elements were observed in the south of the Baja California Peninsula, a highly productive area influenced by upwelling events. Our findings suggest that while environmental temperature plays a central role in the benthic or pelagic distribution of red crabs, their content and variability of trace and macro elements appear to be associated with the presence of oceanic conditions, such as upwelling and potential changes in the composition of their diet associated with the depth in which these crustaceans are collected.

Appropriateness and Economic Analysis of Conventional Circulating Biomarkers Assessment in Early Breast Cancer: A Real-World Experience from the E.Pic.A Study.

The risk of relapse for early breast cancer (BC) patients persists even after decades and to date, no specific and sensitive effective circulating biomarker for recurrence prediction has been identified yet. The international guidelines do not recommend the assessment of the serum tumor markers CEA and CA15-3 in the follow-up of asymptomatic early BC patients. In our institute, IRCCS Istituto Romagnolo per lo Studio dei Tumori (IRST) "Dino Amadori", as part of the E.Pic.A study, which was designed to assess the economic appropriateness of integrated care pathways in early BC, the use of CEA and CA15-3 as circulating tumor biomarkers in early BC patients was evaluated in 1502 patients one year after surgery, from 2015 to 2018, with an overall expense of EUR 51,764. A total of EUR 47,780 (92%) was used for execution of circulating tumor markers in early BC patients with stage 0, I and II tumors, neglecting the current guidelines and considered inappropriate by our professional board. We found that no patients with stage I BC experienced relapse in the 365 days after surgery, and in any case examination of the circulating markers CEA and CA15-3 was considered crucial for diagnosis of relapse. Our findings suggest that this inadequacy is a low-value area, supporting the reallocation of economic resources for interventions of a higher value for patients.

Modeling and controlling the spread of epidemic with various social and economic scenarios.

We propose a dynamical model for describing the spread of epidemics. This model is an extension of the SIQR (susceptible-infected-quarantined-recovered) and SIRP (susceptible-infected-recovered-pathogen) models used earlier to describe various scenarios of epidemic spreading. As compared to the basic SIR model, our model takes into account two possible routes of contagion transmission: direct from the infected compartment to the susceptible compartment and indirect via some intermediate medium or fomites. Transmission rates are estimated in terms of average distances between the individuals in selected social environments and characteristic time spans for which the individuals stay in each of these environments. We also introduce a collective economic resource associated with the average amount of money or income per individual to describe the socioeconomic interplay between the spreading process and the resource available to infected individuals. The epidemic-resource coupling is supposed to be of activation type, with the recovery rate governed by the Arrhenius-like law. Our model brings an advantage of building various control strategies to mitigate the effect of epidemic and can be applied, in particular, to modeling the spread of COVID-19.

Operationalising coastal resilience to flood and erosion hazard: A demonstration for England.

Resilience is widely seen as an important attribute of coastal systems and, as a concept, is increasingly prominent in policy documents. However, there are conflicting ideas on what constitutes resilience and its operationalisation as an overarching principle of coastal management remains limited. In this paper, we show how resilience to coastal flood and erosion hazard could be measured and applied within policy processes, using England as a case study. We define resilience pragmatically, integrating what is presently a disparate set of policy objectives for coastal areas. Our definition uses the concepts of resistance, recovery and adaptation, to consider how the economic, social and environmental dimensions of coastal systems respond to change. We develop a set of composite indicators for each dimension, grounded empirically with reference to national geospatial datasets. A prototype Coastal Resilience Model (CRM) has been developed, which combines the dimensions and generates a quantitative resilience index. We apply it to England's coastal hazard zone, capturing a range of different stakeholder perspectives using relative indicator weightings. The illustrative results demonstrate the practicality of formalising and quantifying resilience. To re-focus national policy around the stated desire of enhancing resilience to coastal flooding and erosion would require firm commitment from government to monitor progress towards resilience, requiring extension of the present risk-based approach, and a consensus methodology in which multiple (and sometimes conflicting) stakeholder values are explicitly considered. Such a transition may also challenge existing governance arrangements at national and local levels, requiring incentives for coastal managers to engage with and apply this new approach, more departmental integration and inter-agency cooperation. The proposed Coastal Resilience Model, with the tools to support planning and measure progress, has the potential to help enable this transition.

National Gross Domestic Product, Science Interest, and Science Achievement: A Direct Replication and Extension of the Tucker-Drob, Cheung, and Briley (2014) Study.

We replicated the study by Tucker-Drob, Cheung, and Briley (2014), who found that the association between science interest and science knowledge depended on economic resources at the family, school, and national levels, using data from the 2006 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). In more economically prosperous families, schools, and nations, student interest was more strongly correlated with actual knowledge. Here, we investigated whether these results still held despite substantial changes to educational and economic systems over roughly a decade. Using similar data from PISA 2015 ( N = 537,170), we found largely consistent results. Students from more economically advantaged homes, schools, and nations exhibited a stronger link between interests and knowledge. However, these moderation effects were substantially reduced, and the main effect of science interest increased by nearly 25%, driven almost entirely by families of low socioeconomic status and nations with low gross domestic product. The interdependence of interests and resources is robust but perhaps weakening with educational progress.