Publications by authors named "Andrew Taber"

A global assessment of the status of tertiary, vocational, and technical forest education and training found deficits in inclusion of knowledge and student diversity. Coverage of forest services and cultural and social issues was characterized as weak in the curricula of many programs. The inclusion of traditional and Indigenous knowledge was frequently poor or absent.

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Article Synopsis
  • Comprehensive global range maps for all existing mammal species are crucial for biodiversity studies and conservation efforts, facilitating better understanding of their distribution.
  • The maps are created through a meticulous process involving digital interpretation, georeferencing, and alignment across multiple taxonomic databases, including HMW, CMW, and MDD.
  • Although expert maps have limitations in detail and precision, the provided georeferenced shapefiles, accompanied by species metadata, enhance accessibility and the potential for future updates through an online platform.
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The potential for conservation of individual species has been greatly advanced by the International Union for Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) development of objective, repeatable, and transparent criteria for assessing extinction risk that explicitly separate risk assessment from priority setting. At the IV World Conservation Congress in 2008, the process began to develop and implement comparable global standards for ecosystems. A working group established by the IUCN has begun formulating a system of quantitative categories and criteria, analogous to those used for species, for assigning levels of threat to ecosystems at local, regional, and global levels.

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Using data for 25,780 species categorized on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List, we present an assessment of the status of the world's vertebrates. One-fifth of species are classified as Threatened, and we show that this figure is increasing: On average, 52 species of mammals, birds, and amphibians move one category closer to extinction each year. However, this overall pattern conceals the impact of conservation successes, and we show that the rate of deterioration would have been at least one-fifth again as much in the absence of these.

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Background: According to national recommendations, colonoscopy withdrawal time (WT) on negative screening examinations should average more than 6 minutes because this time is associated with a higher rate of polyp detection. Attempts have been made to increase the WT; however, simply knowing that a quality measure, such as the WT, is being monitored, by itself, may improve the quality of an examination.

Objective: To measure changes in the polyp detection rate associated with recording the WT.

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Colorectal cancer risk is increased in shift workers with presumed circadian disruption. Intestinal epithelial cell proliferation is gated throughout each day by the circadian clock. Period 2 (Per2) is a key circadian clock gene.

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International conservation planning at the end of the twentieth century is dominated by coarse-filter, supra-organismal approaches to conservation that may be insufficient to conserve certain species such as the jaguar (   Panthera onca). If we are to retain broadly distributed species into the next century, we need to plan explicitly for their survival across their entire geographic range and through political boundaries while recognizing the variety of ecological roles the species plays in different habitats. In March 1999 the Wildlife Conservation Society sponsored a priority-setting and planning exercise for the jaguar across its range, from northern Mexico to northern Argentina.

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