| 1. |
- Hudson, Lawrence N, et al.
(författare)
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The database of the PREDICTS (Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems) project
- 2017
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Ingår i: Ecology and Evolution. - : John Wiley & Sons. - 2045-7758. ; 7:1, s. 145-188
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The PREDICTS project-Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems (www.predicts.org.uk)-has collated from published studies a large, reasonably representative database of comparable samples of biodiversity from multiple sites that differ in the nature or intensity of human impacts relating to land use. We have used this evidence base to develop global and regional statistical models of how local biodiversity responds to these measures. We describe and make freely available this 2016 release of the database, containing more than 3.2 million records sampled at over 26,000 locations and representing over 47,000 species. We outline how the database can help in answering a range of questions in ecology and conservation biology. To our knowledge, this is the largest and most geographically and taxonomically representative database of spatial comparisons of biodiversity that has been collated to date; it will be useful to researchers and international efforts wishing to model and understand the global status of biodiversity.
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| 2. |
- Ademuyiwa, Adesoji O., et al.
(författare)
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Determinants of morbidity and mortality following emergency abdominal surgery in children in low-income and middle-income countries
- 2016
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Ingår i: BMJ Global Health. - : BMJ Publishing Group Ltd. - 2059-7908. ; 1:4
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: Child health is a key priority on the global health agenda, yet the provision of essential and emergency surgery in children is patchy in resource-poor regions. This study was aimed to determine the mortality risk for emergency abdominal paediatric surgery in low-income countries globally.Methods: Multicentre, international, prospective, cohort study. Self-selected surgical units performing emergency abdominal surgery submitted prespecified data for consecutive children aged <16 years during a 2-week period between July and December 2014. The United Nation's Human Development Index (HDI) was used to stratify countries. The main outcome measure was 30-day postoperative mortality, analysed by multilevel logistic regression.Results: This study included 1409 patients from 253 centres in 43 countries; 282 children were under 2 years of age. Among them, 265 (18.8%) were from low-HDI, 450 (31.9%) from middle-HDI and 694 (49.3%) from high-HDI countries. The most common operations performed were appendectomy, small bowel resection, pyloromyotomy and correction of intussusception. After adjustment for patient and hospital risk factors, child mortality at 30 days was significantly higher in low-HDI (adjusted OR 7.14 (95% CI 2.52 to 20.23), p<0.001) and middle-HDI (4.42 (1.44 to 13.56), p=0.009) countries compared with high-HDI countries, translating to 40 excess deaths per 1000 procedures performed.Conclusions: Adjusted mortality in children following emergency abdominal surgery may be as high as 7 times greater in low-HDI and middle-HDI countries compared with high-HDI countries. Effective provision of emergency essential surgery should be a key priority for global child health agendas.
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| 3. |
- Hudson, Lawrence N., et al.
(författare)
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The PREDICTS database : a global database of how local terrestrial biodiversity responds to human impacts
- 2014
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Ingår i: Ecology and Evolution. - : Wiley. - 2045-7758. ; 4:24, s. 4701-4735
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Biodiversity continues to decline in the face of increasing anthropogenic pressures such as habitat destruction, exploitation, pollution and introduction of alien species. Existing global databases of species' threat status or population time series are dominated by charismatic species. The collation of datasets with broad taxonomic and biogeographic extents, and that support computation of a range of biodiversity indicators, is necessary to enable better understanding of historical declines and to project - and avert - future declines. We describe and assess a new database of more than 1.6 million samples from 78 countries representing over 28,000 species, collated from existing spatial comparisons of local-scale biodiversity exposed to different intensities and types of anthropogenic pressures, from terrestrial sites around the world. The database contains measurements taken in 208 (of 814) ecoregions, 13 (of 14) biomes, 25 (of 35) biodiversity hotspots and 16 (of 17) megadiverse countries. The database contains more than 1% of the total number of all species described, and more than 1% of the described species within many taxonomic groups - including flowering plants, gymnosperms, birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, beetles, lepidopterans and hymenopterans. The dataset, which is still being added to, is therefore already considerably larger and more representative than those used by previous quantitative models of biodiversity trends and responses. The database is being assembled as part of the PREDICTS project (Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems - ). We make site-level summary data available alongside this article. The full database will be publicly available in 2015.
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| 4. |
- Izadi, Zara, et al.
(författare)
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Environmental and societal factors associated with COVID-19-related death in people with rheumatic disease : an observational study
- 2022
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Ingår i: The Lancet Rheumatology. - : Elsevier. - 2665-9913. ; 4:9, s. e603-e613
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: Differences in the distribution of individual-level clinical risk factors across regions do not fully explain the observed global disparities in COVID-19 outcomes. We aimed to investigate the associations between environmental and societal factors and country-level variations in mortality attributed to COVID-19 among people with rheumatic disease globally.Methods: In this observational study, we derived individual-level data on adults (aged 18–99 years) with rheumatic disease and a confirmed status of their highest COVID-19 severity level from the COVID-19 Global Rheumatology Alliance (GRA) registry, collected between March 12, 2020, and Aug 27, 2021. Environmental and societal factors were obtained from publicly available sources. The primary endpoint was mortality attributed to COVID-19. We used a multivariable logistic regression to evaluate independent associations between environmental and societal factors and death, after controlling for individual-level risk factors. We used a series of nested mixed-effects models to establish whether environmental and societal factors sufficiently explained country-level variations in death.Findings: 14 044 patients from 23 countries were included in the analyses. 10 178 (72·5%) individuals were female and 3866 (27·5%) were male, with a mean age of 54·4 years (SD 15·6). Air pollution (odds ratio 1·10 per 10 μg/m3 [95% CI 1·01–1·17]; p=0·0105), proportion of the population aged 65 years or older (1·19 per 1% increase [1·10–1·30]; p<0·0001), and population mobility (1·03 per 1% increase in number of visits to grocery and pharmacy stores [1·02–1·05]; p<0·0001 and 1·02 per 1% increase in number of visits to workplaces [1·00–1·03]; p=0·032) were independently associated with higher odds of mortality. Number of hospital beds (0·94 per 1-unit increase per 1000 people [0·88–1·00]; p=0·046), human development index (0·65 per 0·1-unit increase [0·44–0·96]; p=0·032), government response stringency (0·83 per 10-unit increase in containment index [0·74–0·93]; p=0·0018), as well as follow-up time (0·78 per month [0·69–0·88]; p<0·0001) were independently associated with lower odds of mortality. These factors sufficiently explained country-level variations in death attributable to COVID-19 (intraclass correlation coefficient 1·2% [0·1–9·5]; p=0·14).Interpretation: Our findings highlight the importance of environmental and societal factors as potential explanations of the observed regional disparities in COVID-19 outcomes among people with rheumatic disease and lay foundation for a new research agenda to address these disparities.
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| 6. |
- Clark, Andrew G., et al.
(författare)
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Evolution of genes and genomes on the Drosophila phylogeny
- 2007
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Ingår i: Nature. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0028-0836 .- 1476-4687. ; 450:7167, s. 203-218
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Comparative analysis of multiple genomes in a phylogenetic framework dramatically improves the precision and sensitivity of evolutionary inference, producing more robust results than single-genome analyses can provide. The genomes of 12 Drosophila species, ten of which are presented here for the first time (sechellia, simulans, yakuba, erecta, ananassae, persimilis, willistoni, mojavensis, virilis and grimshawi), illustrate how rates and patterns of sequence divergence across taxa can illuminate evolutionary processes on a genomic scale. These genome sequences augment the formidable genetic tools that have made Drosophila melanogaster a pre-eminent model for animal genetics, and will further catalyse fundamental research on mechanisms of development, cell biology, genetics, disease, neurobiology, behaviour, physiology and evolution. Despite remarkable similarities among these Drosophila species, we identified many putatively non-neutral changes in protein-coding genes, non-coding RNA genes, and cis-regulatory regions. These may prove to underlie differences in the ecology and behaviour of these diverse species.
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| 7. |
- Key, Timothy J., et al.
(författare)
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Carotenoids, retinol, tocopherols, and prostate cancer risk : pooled analysis of 15 studies
- 2015
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Ingår i: American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. - : Elsevier BV. - 0002-9165 .- 1938-3207. ; 102:5, s. 1142-1157
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: Individual studies have suggested that circulating carotenoids, retinol, or tocopherols may be associated with prostate cancer risk, but the studies have not been large enough to provide precise estimates of associations, particularly by stage and grade of disease. Objective: The objective of this study was to conduct a pooled analysis of the associations of the concentrations of 7 carotenoids, retinol, alpha-tocopherol, and gamma-tocopherol with risk of prostate cancer and to describe whether any associations differ by stage or grade of the disease or other factors. Design: Principal investigators of prospective studies provided individual participant data for prostate cancer cases and controls. Risk by study-specific fifths of each biomarker was estimated by using multivariable-adjusted conditional logistic regression in matched case-control sets. Results: Data were available for up to 11,239 cases (including 1654 advanced stage and 1741 aggressive) and 18,541 controls from 15 studies. Lycopene was not associated with overall risk of prostate cancer, but there was statistically significant heterogeneity by stage of disease, and the OR for aggressive disease for the highest compared with the lowest fifth of lycopene was 0.65 (95% CI: 0.46, 0.91; P-trend = 0.032). No other carotenoid was significantly associated with overall risk of prostate cancer or with risk of advanced-stage or aggressive disease. For retinol, the OR for the highest compared with the lowest fifth was 1.13 (95% CI: 1.04, 1.22; P-trend = 0.015). For alpha-tocopherol, the OR for the highest compared with the lowest fifth was 0.86 (95% CI: 0.78, 0.94; P-trend < 0.001), with significant heterogeneity by stage of disease; the OR for aggressive prostate cancer was 0.74 (95% CI: 0.59, 0.92; P-trend = 0.001). gamma-Tocopherol was not associated with risk. Conclusions: Overall prostate cancer risk was positively associated with retinol and inversely associated with alpha-tocopherol, and risk of aggressive prostate cancer was inversely associated with lycopene and alpha-tocopherol. Whether these associations reflect causal relations is unclear.
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