Publications by authors named "Pollock L"

Article Synopsis
  • The biodiversity crisis is significantly impacting evolutionary history, threatening tetrapod species and their habitats.
  • Researchers mapped threatened evolutionary history for tetrapods, identifying 25 crucial EDGE Zones that are underprotected and face high human pressure.
  • These EDGE Zones, covering just 0.723% of the Earth's surface, contain a third of the world's threatened evolutionary history and many endemic species, indicating urgent action is needed to protect them.
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The past decade has yielded more biodiversity observations from community science than the past century of traditional scientific collection. This rapid influx of data is promising for overcoming critical biodiversity data shortfalls, but we also have vast untapped resources held in undigitized natural history collections. Yet, the ability of these undigitized collections to fill data gaps, especially compared against the constant accumulation of community science data, remains unclear.

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  • Microglia are immune cells in the central nervous system that respond to retinal damage by changing shape, moving to the injury site, and releasing inflammatory signals.
  • In zebrafish, inflammation triggers Müller glia to reprogram and proliferate, helping regenerate neurons after injury, while reducing microglia leads to less proliferation of these glial cells.
  • Surprisingly, despite having fewer microglia, zebrafish irf8 mutants can still regenerate healthy photoreceptors after light damage, indicating that other mechanisms may support retinal regeneration even without normal microglia function.
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  • During autumn/winter 2022, the UK saw an unusual rise in severe group A streptococcal infections in children, primarily manifesting as pneumonia with fluid in the lungs.
  • Clinicians documented 185 cases from children under 16, revealing that most patients were healthy prior to infection, with many also suffering from respiratory viral coinfections.
  • The study underscores the importance of routine vaccinations against common viruses and group A streptococcus, as well as the effectiveness of molecular testing to aid in diagnosis and reporting.
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Providing emergency care in low resource settings relies on delivery by lower cadres of health workers (LCHW). We describe the development, implementation and mixed methods evaluation of a mobile health (mHealth) triage algorithm based on the WHO Emergency, Triage, Assessment, and Treatment (ETAT) for primary-level care. We conducted an observational study design of implementation research.

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  • Many vertebrate species around the world, like mammals and birds, are seeing their populations decline a lot.
  • This study looks at how human activities, like pollution and farming, indirectly affect these species by harming their food sources and other interactions in the ecosystem.
  • The research found that two big threats, direct exploitation (like hunting) and agricultural practices, are putting a huge number of species and their relationships at risk in Europe.
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At macroecological scales, the provision of Nature's contributions to people (NCP) is mostly estimated with biophysical information, ignoring the ecological processes underlying them. This hinders our ability to properly quantify the impact of declining biodiversity and the provision of NCP. Here, we propose a framework that combines local-scale food web energy flux approaches and large-scale biodiversity models to evaluate ecosystem functions and flux-related NCP at extensive spatiotemporal scales.

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To meet the COP15 biodiversity framework in the European Union (EU), one target is to protect 30% of its land by 2030 through a resilient transnational conservation network. The European Alps are a key hub of this network hosting some of the most extensive natural areas and biodiversity hotspots in Europe. Here we assess the robustness of the current European reserve network to safeguard the European Alps' flora by 2080 using semi-mechanistic simulations.

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Background: Care home residents often experience polypharmacy (defined as taking five or more regular medicines). Therefore, we need to ensure that residents only take the medications that are appropriate or provide value (also known as medicines optimisation). To achieve this, deprescribing, or the reduction or stopping of prescription medicines that may no longer be providing benefit, can help manage polypharmacy and improve outcomes.

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The US Department of Health and Human Services guidelines on infant feeding among people with HIV have changed in response to (1) evidence of low risk of transmission via breast milk among individuals with consistent viral suppression, (2) considerations of equity and cultural norms, and (3) community desires. The 2023 guidelines recommend patient-centered shared decision-making. Individuals with HIV who are receiving antiretroviral therapy (ART) and have consistent viral suppression should be counseled on the options of for-mula feeding, feeding with banked donor milk, or breast (or chest) feeding, and nonjudgmentally supported in their decision.

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Objectives: To explore the factors that may help or hinder deprescribing practice for older people within care homes.

Design: Qualitative semistructured interviews using framework analysis informed by the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR).

Setting: Participants were recruited from two care home provider organisations (a smaller independently owned organisation and a large organisation) in England.

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New technologies for monitoring biodiversity such as environmental (e)DNA, passive acoustic monitoring, and optical sensors promise to generate automated spatiotemporal community observations at unprecedented scales and resolutions. Here, we introduce 'novel community data' as an umbrella term for these data. We review the emerging field around novel community data, focusing on new ecological questions that could be addressed; the analytical tools available or needed to make best use of these data; and the potential implications of these developments for policy and conservation.

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Global commitments to protect 30% of land by 2030 present an opportunity to combat the biodiversity crisis, but reducing extinction risk will depend on where countries expand protection. Here, we explore a range of 30×30 conservation scenarios that vary what dimension of biodiversity is prioritized (taxonomic groups, species-at-risk, biodiversity facets) and how protection is coordinated (transnational, national, or regional approaches) to test which decisions influence our ability to capture biodiversity in spatial planning. Using Canada as a model nation, we evaluate how well each scenario captures biodiversity using scalable indicators while accounting for climate change, data bias, and uncertainty.

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Article Synopsis
  • Multimorbidity, the presence of two or more long-term health conditions, poses significant challenges for health systems, leading to increased healthcare use and negative health outcomes, yet its associations with household and area characteristics are not well understood.
  • This study will analyze data from the SAIL Databank to explore how individual, household, and area factors impact health outcomes for individuals with multimorbidity, utilizing multilevel models to account for data complexity.
  • Findings may reveal how certain household and environmental factors could either mitigate or exacerbate health risks, providing insights for improving clinical practices and targeting healthcare resources effectively.
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Phylogenetic diversity (PD)-the evolutionary history of a set of species-is conceptually linked to the maintenance of yet-to-be-discovered benefits from biodiversity or "option value." We used global phylogenetic and utilization data for birds to test the PD option value link, under the assumption that the performance of sets of PD-maximizing species at capturing known benefits is analogous to selecting the same species at a point in human history before these benefits were realized. PD performed better than random at capturing utilized bird species across 60% of tests, with performance linked to the phylogenetic dispersion and prevalence of each utilization category.

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Following the failure to fully achieve any of the 20 Aichi biodiversity targets, the future of biodiversity rests in the balance. The Convention on Biological Diversity's Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) presents the opportunity to preserve nature's contributions to people (NCPs) for current and future generations by conserving biodiversity and averting extinctions. There is a need to safeguard the tree of life-the unique and shared evolutionary history of life on Earth-to maintain the benefits it bestows into the future.

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An outbreak of acute hepatitis of unknown aetiology in children was reported in Scotland in April 2022 and has now been identified in 35 countries. Several recent studies have suggested an association with human adenovirus with this outbreak, a virus not commonly associated with hepatitis. Here we report a detailed case-control investigation and find an association between adeno-associated virus 2 (AAV2) infection and host genetics in disease susceptibility.

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The risk of vertical transmission from breastfeeding with HIV (BFHIV) has been found to be very low in optimal scenarios with sustained maternal viral suppression during pregnancy and postpartum. Medical providers must account for the risk of this serious adverse event alongside parental autonomy, breastfeeding benefits, and patient values. To assess provider practices, comfort, and challenges with BFHIV, an online mixed-method survey was sent to breastfeeding and HIV provider listservs from June to July 2021.

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