The death of Ella Kissi-Debrah in 2013 will be forever notable as the first instance in the United Kingdom of air pollution being recorded as contributing to the death of an individual. Whilst in itself a monumental shift in consideration of air pollution and the impact on human health, the recording by the coroner of Ella’s death as having been contributed to by air pollution has significant human rights implications. This piece considers the circumstances surrounding both Ella’s death and the report of the coroner and connects these to decisions of the European Court of Human Rights. It presents the argument that the failure to address a known risk to life presented by air pollution could constitute a breach of the right to life protected by Article 2 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR). Cases in which environmental conditions are found by the Court to have breached Article 2 are rare, but this paper contends that the formal acknowledgement of the threat of air pollution as a result of Ella’s death means that failure to address it meets this threshold.

The IntCal family of radiocarbon (14C) calibration curves is based on research spanning more than three decades. The IntCal group have collated the 14C and calendar age data (mostly derived from primary publications with other types of data and meta-data) and, since 2010, made them available for other sorts of analysis through an open-access database. This has ensured transparency in terms of the data used in the construction of the ratified calibration curves. As the IntCal database expands, work is underway to facilitate best practice for new data submissions, make more of the associated metadata available in a structured form, and help those wishing to process the data with programming languages such as R, Python, and MATLAB. The data and metadata are complex because of the range of different types of archives. A restructured interface, based on the “IntChron” open-access data model, includes tools which allow the data to be plotted and compared without the need for export. The intention is to include complementary information which can be used alongside the main 14C series to provide new insights into the global carbon cycle, as well as facilitating access to the data for other research applications. Overall, this work aims to streamline the generation of new calibration curves.

As COVID-19 was declared a health emergency in March 2020, there was immense demand for information about the novel pathogen. This paper examines the clinician-reported impact of Project ECHO COVID-19 Clinical Rounds on clinician learning. Primary sources of study data were Continuing Medical Education (CME) Surveys for each session from the dates of March 24, 2020 to July 30, 2020 and impact surveys conducted in November 2020, which sought to understand participants’ overall assessment of sessions. Quantitative analyses included descriptive statistics and Mann-Whitney testing. Qualitative data were analyzed through inductive thematic analysis. Clinicians rated their knowledge after each session as significantly higher than before that session. 75.8% of clinicians reported they would ‘definitely’ or ‘probably’ use content gleaned from each attended session and clinicians reported specific clinical and operational changes made as a direct result of sessions. 94.6% of respondents reported that COVID-19 Clinical Rounds helped them provide better care to patients. 89% of respondents indicated they ‘strongly agree’ that they would join ECHO calls again.COVID-19 Clinical Rounds offers a promising model for the establishment of dynamic peer-to-peer tele-mentoring communities for low or no-notice response where scientifically tested or clinically verified practice evidence is limited.

This article examines the relationship between senators' personal religious affiliations and their roll-call voting record on organized labor's policy agenda. While an impressive body of literature now demonstrates clear connections between religion and representation in the U.S. Congress, fewer studies have linked religion to issues outside of the realm of cultural and moral policy. Based on a data set spanning 1980 through 2020, our findings show that evangelical Protestants are significantly the most opposed to organized labor's legislative agenda, while Jewish senators are the most supportive. Other religions fall in between, depending on the decade. The findings imply that the reach of religion in Congress may run even deeper than is commonly understood. It extends beyond the culture wars to one of the most salient issue cleavages in the modern history of the American politics.

Radiocarbon (14C) ages cannot provide absolutely dated chronologies for archaeological or paleoenvironmental studies directly but must be converted to calendar age equivalents using a calibration curve compensating for fluctuations in atmospheric 14C concentration. Although calibration curves are constructed from independently dated archives, they invariably require revision as new data become available and our understanding of the Earth system improves. In this volume the international 14C calibration curves for both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, as well as for the ocean surface layer, have been updated to include a wealth of new data and extended to 55,000 cal BP. Based on tree rings, IntCal20 now extends as a fully atmospheric record to ca. 13,900 cal BP. For the older part of the timescale, IntCal20 comprises statistically integrated evidence from floating tree-ring chronologies, lacustrine and marine sediments, speleothems, and corals. We utilized improved evaluation of the timescales and location variable 14C offsets from the atmosphere (reservoir age, dead carbon fraction) for each dataset. New statistical methods have refined the structure of the calibration curves while maintaining a robust treatment of uncertainties in the 14C ages, the calendar ages and other corrections. The inclusion of modeled marine reservoir ages derived from a three-dimensional ocean circulation model has allowed us to apply more appropriate reservoir corrections to the marine 14C data rather than the previous use of constant regional offsets from the atmosphere. Here we provide an overview of the new and revised datasets and the associated methods used for the construction of the IntCal20 curve and explore potential regional offsets for tree-ring data. We discuss the main differences with respect to the previous calibration curve, IntCal13, and some of the implications for archaeology and geosciences ranging from the recent past to the time of the extinction of the Neanderthals.

Early researchers of radiocarbon levels in Southern Hemisphere tree rings identified a variable North-South hemispheric offset, necessitating construction of a separate radiocarbon calibration curve for the South. We present here SHCal20, a revised calibration curve from 0–55,000 cal BP, based upon SHCal13 and fortified by the addition of 14 new tree-ring data sets in the 2140–0, 3520–3453, 3608–3590 and 13,140–11,375 cal BP time intervals. We detail the statistical approaches used for curve construction and present recommendations for the use of the Northern Hemisphere curve (IntCal20), the Southern Hemisphere curve (SHCal20) and suggest where application of an equal mixture of the curves might be more appropriate. Using our Bayesian spline with errors-in-variables methodology, and based upon a comparison of Southern Hemisphere tree-ring data compared with contemporaneous Northern Hemisphere data, we estimate the mean Southern Hemisphere offset to be 36 ± 27 14C yrs older.

Optimising short- and long-term outcomes for children and patients with CHD depends on continued scientific discovery and translation to clinical improvements in a coordinated effort by multiple stakeholders. Several challenges remain for clinicians, researchers, administrators, patients, and families seeking continuous scientific and clinical advancements in the field. We describe a new integrated research and improvement network – Cardiac Networks United – that seeks to build upon the experience and success achieved to-date to create a new infrastructure for research and quality improvement that will serve the needs of the paediatric and congenital heart community in the future. Existing gaps in data integration and barriers to improvement are described, along with the mission and vision, organisational structure, and early objectives of Cardiac Networks United. Finally, representatives of key stakeholder groups – heart centre executives, research leaders, learning health system experts, and parent advocates – offer their perspectives on the need for this new collaborative effort.

The Caledonides of Britain and Ireland include terranes attributed to both Laurentian and Gondwanan sources, separated along the Solway line. Gondwanan elements to the south have been variably assigned to the domains Ganderia and East Avalonia. The Midland Platform forms the core of East Avalonia but its provenance is poorly known. Laser ablation split-stream analysis yields information about detrital zircon provenance by providing simultaneous U–Pb and Lu–Hf data from the same ablated volume. A sample of Red Callavia Sandstone from uppermost Cambrian Stage 3 of the Midland Platform yields a U–Pb age spectrum dominated by Neoproterozoic and Palaeoproterozoic sources, resembling those in the Welsh Basin, the Meguma Terrane of Nova Scotia and NW Africa. Initial εHf values suggest that the Neoproterozoic zircon component was derived mainly from crustal sources < 2 Ga, and imply that the more evolved Palaeoproterozoic grains were transported into the basin from an older source terrane, probably the Eburnean Orogen of West Africa. A sample from Cambrian Stage 4 in the Bray Group of the Leinster–Lakesman Terrane shows, in contrast, a distribution of both U–Pb ages and εHf values closely similar to those of the Gander Terrane in Newfoundland and other terranes attributed to Ganderia, interpreted to be derived from the margin of Amazonia. East Avalonia is clearly distinct from Ganderia, but shows evidence for older crustal components not present in West Avalonia of Newfoundland. These three components of the Appalachian–Caledonide Orogen came from distinct sources on the margin of Cambrian Gondwana.

The existing paleoenvironmental data from the Australian arid zone lack sensitivity and come from only a few sites. Macrofossils and pollen from four dated middens of the stick-nest rat (Leporillus spp.) were analyzed from two sites in Western Australia. Animal and plant macrofossil remains were well preserved and provided evidence of change in species distribution within the last 1150 yr. Brush-tail possum and golden bandicoot have contracted their ranges in the recent past, possibly since the introduction of cats into Australia. An undescribed lacewing was also a significant find. Pollen preserved in parts of the same midden and in middens from different sites indicates that records are sensitive to the composition of the local vegetation when the midden was built. Pollen spectra are quite different from playa lakes, which record largely regional vegetation. Pollen preserved in the fecal pellets, desiccated urine, and grass mat nesting material provided similar information but some differences were apparent, suggesting dietary preferences were reflected in the fecal component. The pollen record suggested a trend to less-wooded vegetation cover in central Australia between 900 and 300 yr B.P.

Marketing agreements and orders have been used for several decades by various commodity groups in an effort to stabilize and increase the level of farm income. These programs are tools to be used in a “self-help” fashion. They do not automatically solve an industry's marketing problems. For instance, if an industry has continuous interseasonal supply control difficulties, a marketing agreement may actually aggravate the problem it was intended to solve. However, intraseasonal volume controls can relieve short-run imbalances in supply while not adversely affecting consumers. Merging long-run and short-run perspectives is the problem that creates difficulty in program evaluation.

The Paleogene Order Taeniodonta Cope, 1876—peculiar heavy-bodied mammals, some with evergrowing cheek teeth—are grouped with the Late Cretaceous eutherian Cimolestes Marsh, 1889, along with a host of other taxa in a superordinal group, the Cimolesta. Taeniodonts were thought to have arisen from Cimolestes indirectly, through Paleocene Procerberus Sloan and Van Valen, 1965. The recently described Paleocene Alveugena Eberle, 1999, until now known only from the upper dentition, has been put forth as a transitional form between cimolestids and taeniodonts on phylogenetic and biostratigraphic grounds. An older taeniodont, the Late Cretaceous Schowalteria Fox and Naylor, 2003, has since been described, complicating taeniodont origins. We describe here a lower jaw that we refer to Alveugena from the lower part of the Ludlow Member of the Fort Union Formation in North Dakota. The lower jaw comes from strata of early Early Paleocene age (Puercan 1 North American Land Mammal Age) ~8.5 m above a Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary, identified using palynological criteria. A cladistic analysis is here presented using new data on Schowalteria and Alveugena, added to that of Cimolestes, Procerberus formicarum Sloan and Van Valen, 1965, P. grandis Middleton and Dewar, 2004, and Onychodectes. This analysis revealed Alveugena as the sister taxon of the taeniodonts but with a closer relationship to Cimolestes than Procerberus, suggesting that taeniodonts evolved from a Cimolestes-like ancestor. We discuss the age relations of early taeniodonts and related taxa and propose a scenario of ancestor-descendent relations that minimizes, but does not eliminate, implied stratigraphic gaps.