The athletes heart-from acute stimulus to chronic adaptation.

Introduction: The complex phenomenon of the athlete's heart (AH) describes the chronic physiological structural and functional adaptation secondary to repeated exposure of an acute exercise stimulus.

Sources Of Data: This narrative review is based on published evidence.

Areas Of Agreement: Highly trained athletic individuals frequently display cardiac parameters which are suggestive of an AH and can exceed the traditional 'normal' limits.

Reintroduction of resistant frogs facilitates landscape-scale recovery in the presence of a lethal fungal disease.

Vast alteration of the biosphere by humans is causing a sixth mass extinction, driven in part by an increase in infectious diseases. The emergence of the lethal fungal pathogen Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) has devastated global amphibian biodiversity. Given the lack of any broadly applicable methods to reverse these impacts, the future of many amphibians appears grim.

Biopsy Proteome Score Performs Well as an Effect Measure in a Gluten Challenge Trial of Celiac Disease.

Background And Aims: Development of novel treatments for celiac disease is dependent on precise tools to monitor changes in gluten-induced mucosal damage. Current histology measures are subjective and difficult to standardize. Biopsy proteome scoring is an objective alternative to histology which is based on robust changes in biological pathways that directly reflect gluten-induced mucosal damage.

Data science competition for cross-site individual tree species identification from airborne remote sensing data.

Data on individual tree crowns from remote sensing have the potential to advance forest ecology by providing information about forest composition and structure with a continuous spatial coverage over large spatial extents. Classifying individual trees to their taxonomic species over large regions from remote sensing data is challenging. Methods to classify individual species are often accurate for common species, but perform poorly for less common species and when applied to new sites.

A Quantitative Systems Pharmacology Model Describing the Cellular Kinetic-Pharmacodynamic Relationship for a Live Biotherapeutic Product to Support Microbiome Drug Development.

Live biotherapeutic products (LBPs) are human microbiome therapies showing promise in the clinic for a range of diseases and conditions. Describing the kinetics and behavior of LBPs poses a unique modeling challenge because, unlike traditional therapies, LBPs can expand, contract, and colonize the host digestive tract. Here, we present a novel cellular kinetic-pharmacodynamic quantitative systems pharmacology model of an LBP.

How qualitative methods advance the study of causation in psychotherapy research.

The use of qualitative methods for investigating causation has been controversial ever since the "paradigm wars" of the 1980s. Quantitative and experimental researchers have largely dismissed the relevance of qualitative research for causal investigations, while many qualitative researchers have rejected the concept of causation entirely. However, a growing number of scholars, in both research methods and philosophy, have proposed an alternative perspective, one that sees quantitative and qualitative approaches as having complementary strengths and limitations in understanding causation.

Impact of handgrip exercise and ischemic preconditioning on local and remote protection against endothelial reperfusion injury in young men.

Ischemic preconditioning (IPC), cyclical bouts of nonlethal ischemia, provides immediate protection against ischemic injury, which is evident both locally and remotely. Given the similarities in protective effects of exercise with ischemic preconditioning, we examined whether handgrip exercise also offers protection against endothelial ischemia-reperfusion (IR) injury and whether this protection is equally present in the local (exercised) and remote (contralateral, nonexercised) arm. Fifteen healthy males (age, 24 ± 3 yr; body mass index, 25 ± 2 kg/m) attended the laboratory on three occasions.

The impact of age, sex, cardio-respiratory fitness, and cardiovascular disease risk on dynamic cerebral autoregulation and baroreflex sensitivity.

Background: Humans display an age-related decline in cerebral blood flow and increase in blood pressure (BP), but changes in the underlying control mechanisms across the lifespan are less well understood. We aimed to; (1) examine the impact of age, sex, cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk, and cardio-respiratory fitness on dynamic cerebral autoregulation and cardiac baroreflex sensitivity, and (2) explore the relationships between dynamic cerebral autoregulation (dCA) and cardiac baroreflex sensitivity (cBRS).

Methods: 206 participants aged 18-70 years were stratified into age categories.

Assessing the risk of human-to-wildlife pathogen transmission for conservation and public health.

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has led to increased concern over transmission of pathogens from humans to animals, and its potential to threaten conservation and public health. To assess this threat, we reviewed published evidence of human-to-wildlife transmission events, with a focus on how such events could threaten animal and human health. We identified 97 verified examples, involving a wide range of pathogens; however, reported hosts were mostly non-human primates or large, long-lived captive animals.

Warming weakens the night-time barrier to global fire.

Night-time provides a critical window for slowing or extinguishing fires owing to the lower temperature and the lower vapour pressure deficit (VPD). However, fire danger is most often assessed based on daytime conditions, capturing what promotes fire spread rather than what impedes fire. Although it is well appreciated that changing daytime weather conditions are exacerbating fire, potential changes in night-time conditions-and their associated role as fire reducers-are less understood.

Effectiveness of antifungal treatments during chytridiomycosis epizootics in populations of an endangered frog.

The recently-emerged amphibian chytrid fungus (Bd) has had an unprecedented impact on global amphibian populations, and highlights the urgent need to develop effective mitigation strategies. We conducted antifungal treatment experiments in wild populations of the endangered mountain yellow-legged frog during or immediately after Bd-caused mass die-off events. The objective of treatments was to reduce Bd infection intensity ("load") and in doing so alter frog-Bd dynamics and increase the probability of frog population persistence despite ongoing Bd infection.

Parenting Interventions for Refugees and Forcibly Displaced Families: A Systematic Review.

Globally, an estimated 79.5 million individuals have been displaced, nearly 40% of whom are children. Parenting interventions may have the potential to improve outcomes for displaced families.

Risky Development: Increasing Exposure to Natural Hazards in the United States.

Losses from natural hazards are escalating dramatically, with more properties and critical infrastructure affected each year. Although the magnitude, intensity, and/or frequency of certain hazards has increased, development contributes to this unsustainable trend, as disasters emerge when natural disturbances meet vulnerable assets and populations. To diagnose development patterns leading to increased exposure in the conterminous United States (CONUS), we identified earthquake, flood, hurricane, tornado, and wildfire hazard hotspots, and overlaid them with land use information from the Historical Settlement Data Compilation data set.

Predicting subsurface sonar observations with satellite-derived ocean surface data in the California Current Ecosystem.

Vessel-based sonar systems that focus on the water column provide valuable information on the distribution of underwater marine organisms, but such data are expensive to collect and limited in their spatiotemporal coverage. Satellite data, however, are widely available across large regions and provide information on surface ocean conditions. If satellite data can be linked to subsurface sonar measurements, it may be possible to predict marine life over broader spatial regions with higher frequency using satellite observations.

Fusion neural networks for plant classification: learning to combine RGB, hyperspectral, and lidar data.

Airborne remote sensing offers unprecedented opportunities to efficiently monitor vegetation, but methods to delineate and classify individual plant species using the collected data are still actively being developed and improved. The Integrating Data science with Trees and Remote Sensing (IDTReeS) plant identification competition openly invited scientists to create and compare individual tree mapping methods. Participants were tasked with training taxon identification algorithms based on two sites, to then transfer their methods to a third unseen site, using field-based plant observations in combination with airborne remote sensing image data products from the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON).

The Evolving Landscape of Biomarkers in Celiac Disease: Leading the Way to Clinical Development.

Celiac disease is a common immune-mediated disease characterized by abnormal T-cell responses to gluten. For many patients, symptoms and intestinal damage can be controlled by a gluten-free diet, but, for some, this approach is not enough, and celiac disease progresses, with serious medical consequences. Multiple therapies are now under development, increasing the need for biomarkers that allow identification of specific patient populations and monitoring of therapeutic activity and durability.

Can exercise training enhance the repeated remote ischaemic preconditioning stimulus on peripheral and cerebrovascular function in high-risk individuals?

Background: Repeated exposure to remote ischaemic preconditioning (rIPC; short bouts of non-lethal ischaemia) enhances peripheral vascular function within 1 week; whereas, longer periods of rIPC (~ 1 year) may improve cerebral perfusion. Increasing the 'dose' of rIPC may lead to superior effects. Given the similarities between exercise and rIPC, we examined whether adding exercise to the rIPC stimulus leads to greater adaptation in systemic vascular function.

Using an e-Health Intervention to Reduce Prolonged Sitting in UK Office Workers: A Randomised Acceptability and Feasibility Study.

Low-cost workplace interventions are required to reduce prolonged sitting in office workers as this may improve employees' health and well-being. This study aimed to assess the acceptability and feasibility of an e-health intervention to reduce prolonged sitting among sedentary UK-based office workers. Secondary aims were to describe preliminary changes in employee health, mood and work productivity after using an e-health intervention.

Neural hierarchical models of ecological populations.

Neural networks are increasingly being used in science to infer hidden dynamics of natural systems from noisy observations, a task typically handled by hierarchical models in ecology. This article describes a class of hierarchical models parameterised by neural networks - neural hierarchical models. The derivation of such models analogises the relationship between regression and neural networks.

The impact of acute remote ischaemic preconditioning on cerebrovascular function.

Purpose: Remote ischaemic preconditioning (RIPC) refers to the protection conferred to tissues and organs via brief periods of ischaemia in a remote vascular territory, including the brain. Recent studies in humans report that RIPC provides neuroprotection against recurrent (ischaemic) stroke. To better understand the ability of RIPC to improve brain health, the present study explored the potential for RIPC to acutely improve cerebrovascular function.

Seven-day remote ischaemic preconditioning improves endothelial function in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus: a randomised pilot study.

Background: Remote ischaemic preconditioning (rIPC) may improve cardiac/cerebrovascular outcomes of ischaemic events. Ischaemic damage caused by cardiovascular/cerebrovascular disease are primary causes of mortality in type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Due to the positive effects from a bout of rIPC within the vasculature, we explored if daily rIPC could improve endothelial and cerebrovascular function.

Untangling the dynamics of persistence and colonization in microbial communities.

A central goal of community ecology is to infer biotic interactions from observed distributions of co-occurring species. Evidence for biotic interactions, however, can be obscured by shared environmental requirements, posing a challenge for statistical inference. Here, we introduce a dynamic statistical model, based on probit regression, that quantifies the effects of spatial and temporal covariance in longitudinal co-occurrence data.

Costimulation Induces CD4 T Cell Antitumor Immunity via an Innate-like Mechanism.

Chronic exposure to tumor-associated antigens inactivates cognate T cells, restricting the repertoire of tumor-specific effector T cells. This problem was studied here by transferring TCR transgenic CD4 T cells into recipient mice that constitutively express a cognate self-antigen linked to MHC II on CD11c-bearing cells. Immunotherapeutic agonists to CD134 plus CD137, "dual costimulation," induces specific CD4 T cell expansion and expression of the receptor for the Th2-associated IL-1 family cytokine IL-33.

Spatiotemporal prediction of wildfire size extremes with Bayesian finite sample maxima.

Wildfires are becoming more frequent in parts of the globe, but predicting where and when wildfires occur remains difficult. To predict wildfire extremes across the contiguous United States, we integrate a 30-yr wildfire record with meteorological and housing data in spatiotemporal Bayesian statistical models with spatially varying nonlinear effects. We compared different distributions for the number and sizes of large fires to generate a posterior predictive distribution based on finite sample maxima for extreme events (the largest fires over bounded spatiotemporal domains).