It is generally believed that the physiological consequences of stress could contribute to poor outcomes for patients being treated for cancer. However, despite preclinical and clinical evidence suggesting that stress promotes increased cancer-related mortality, a comprehensive understanding of the mechanisms involved in mediating these effects does not yet exist. We reviewed 47 clinical studies published between 2007 and 2020 to determine whether psychosocial stress affects clinical outcomes in cancer: 6.4% of studies showed a protective effect; 44.6% showed a harmful effect; 48.9% showed no association. These data suggest that psychosocial stress could affect cancer incidence and/or mortality, but the association is unclear. To shed light on this potentially important relationship, objective biomarkers of stress are needed to more accurately evaluate levels of stress and its downstream effects. As a potential candidate, the neuroendocrine signalling pathways initiated by stress are known to affect anti-tumour immune cells, and here we summarise how this may promote an immunosuppressive, pro-tumour microenvironment. Further research must be done to understand the relationships between stress and immunity to more accurately measure how stress affects cancer progression and outcome.

We develop a two-dimensional, plan-view formulation of ice-shelf flow and viscoelastic ice-shelf flexure. This formulation combines, for the first time, the shallow-shelf approximation for horizontal ice-shelf flow (and shallow-stream approximation for flow on lubricated beds such as where ice rises and rumples form), with the treatment of a thin-plate flexure. We demonstrate the treatment by performing two finite-element simulations: one of the relict pedestalled lake features that exist on some debris-covered ice shelves due to strong heterogeneity in surface ablation, and the other of ice rumpling in the grounding zone of an ice rise. The proposed treatment opens new venues to investigate physical processes that require coupling between the longitudinal deformation and vertical flexure, for instance, the effects of surface melting and supraglacial lakes on ice shelves, interactions with the sea swell, and many others.

Previous evidence confirms a relationship between the timing of food intake and weight loss. We aimed to evaluate the effect of late v. early evening meal (EEM) consumption on weight loss and cardiometabolic risk factors in women during a weight loss programme. Eighty-two healthy women (BMI 27−35 kg/m2; age 18−45 years) were randomly assigned to two groups: EEM group (eating at 19.00−19.30 hours) or late evening meal (LEM) group (eating at 22.30−23.00 hours), for 12 weeks. Compared with the LEM group, the EEM group had a greater mean reduction in weight (EEM: −6·74 (sd 1·92) kg; LEM: −4·81 (sd 2·22) kg; P < 0·001), BMI (EEM: −2·60 (sd 0·71) kg/m2; LEM: −1·87 (sd 0·85) kg/m2; P < 0·001), waist circumference (EEM: −8 (sd 3·25) cm; LEM: −6 (sd 3·05) cm, P = 0·007), total cholesterol (EEM: −0·51 (sd 0·19) mmol/l, LEM: −0·43 (sd 0·19) mmol/l, P = 0·038), TAG (EEM: −0·28 (sd 0·10) mmol/l, LEM: −0·19 (sd 0·10) mmol/l, P < 0·001) and homoeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance (EEM: −0·83 (sd 0·37); LEM: −0·55 (sd 0·28), P < 0·001) after 12 weeks. In conclusion, eating an earlier evening meal resulted in favourable changes in weight loss and plasma cardiometabolic risk markers during a weight loss programme.

Diurnal depth cycles of decimeter scale are observed in a supraglacial lake on the McMurdo Ice Shelf, Antarctica. We evaluate two possible causes: (1) tidal tilt of the ice shelf in response to the underlying ocean tide, and (2) meltwater input variation. We find the latter to be the most likely explanation of our observations. However, we do not rule out tidal tilt as a source of centimeter scale variations, and point to the possibility that other, larger supraglacial lake systems, particularly those on ice shelves that experience higher amplitude tidal tilts, such as in the Weddell Sea, may have depth cycles driven by ocean tide. The broader significance of diurnal cycles in meltwater depth is that, under circumstances where the ice shelf is thin, tidal-tilt amplitudes are high, and meltwater runoff rates are large, there may be associated flexure stresses that can contribute to ice-shelf fracture and destabilization. For the McMurdo Ice Shelf (~20–50 m thickness, ~ 1 m tidal amplitude and ~10 cm water-depth variations), these stresses amount to several 10's of kPa.

A 2018 workshop on the White Mountain Apache Tribe lands in Arizona examined ways to enhance investigations into cultural property crime (CPC) through applications of rapidly evolving methods from archaeological science. CPC (also looting, graverobbing) refers to unauthorized damage, removal, or trafficking in materials possessing blends of communal, aesthetic, and scientific values. The Fort Apache workshop integrated four generally partitioned domains of CPC expertise: (1) theories of perpetrators’ motivations and methods; (2) recommended practice in sustaining public and community opposition to CPC; (3) tactics and strategies for documenting, investigating, and prosecuting CPC; and (4) forensic sedimentology—uses of biophysical sciences to link sediments from implicated persons and objects to crime scenes. Forensic sedimentology served as the touchstone for dialogues among experts in criminology, archaeological sciences, law enforcement, and heritage stewardship. Field visits to CPC crime scenes and workshop deliberations identified pathways toward integrating CPC theory and practice with forensic sedimentology’s potent battery of analytic methods.

Surface debris covers much of the western portion of the McMurdo Ice Shelf and has a strong influence on the local surface albedo and energy balance. Differential ablation between debris-covered and debris-free areas creates an unusual heterogeneous surface of topographically low, high-ablation, and topographically raised (‘pedestalled’), low-ablation areas. Analysis of Landsat and MODIS satellite imagery from 1999 to 2018, alongside field observations from the 2016/2017 austral summer, shows that pedestalled relict lakes (‘pedestals’) form when an active surface meltwater lake that develops in the summer, freezes-over in winter, resulting in the lake-bottom debris being masked by a high-albedo, superimposed, ice surface. If this ice surface fails to melt during a subsequent melt season, it experiences reduced surface ablation relative to the surrounding debris-covered areas of the ice shelf. We propose that this differential ablation, and resultant hydrostatic and flexural readjustments of the ice shelf, causes the former supraglacial lake surface to become increasingly pedestalled above the lower topography of the surrounding ice shelf. Consequently, meltwater streams cannot flow onto these pedestalled features, and instead divert around them. We suggest that the development of pedestals has a significant influence on the surface-energy balance, hydrology and flexure of the ice shelf.

Seismograms acquired on the McMurdo Ice Shelf, Antarctica, during an Austral summer melt season (November 2016–January 2017) reveal a diurnal cycle of seismicity, consisting of hundreds of thousands of small ice quakes limited to a 6–12 hour period during the evening, in an area where there is substantial subsurface melting. This cycle is explained by thermally induced bending and fracture of a frozen surface superimposed on a subsurface slush/water layer that is supported by solar radiation penetration and absorption. A simple, one-dimensional model of heat transfer driven by observed surface air temperature and shortwave absorption reproduces the presence and absence (as daily weather dictated) of the observed diurnal seismicity cycle. Seismic event statistics comparing event occurrence with amplitude suggest that the events are generated in a fractured medium featuring relatively low stresses, as is consistent with a frozen surface superimposed on subsurface slush. Waveforms of the icequakes are consistent with hydroacoustic phases at frequency $ {\bf \gt} \bf 75\,{\bf Hz}$ and flexural-gravity waves at frequency $ \bf {\bf \lt}25\,{\bf Hz}$. Our results suggest that seismic observation may prove useful in monitoring subsurface melting in a manner that complements other ground-based methods as well as remote sensing.

In Norway, incidence of sporadic domestically acquired salmonellosis is low, and most frequently due to Salmonalla Typhimurium. We investigated the risk factors for sporadic Salmonella infections in Norway to improve control and prevention measures. Surveillance data for all Salmonella infections from 2000 to 2015 were analysed for seasonality and proportion associated with domestic reservoirs, hedgehogs and wild birds. A prospective case–control study was conducted from 2010 to 2012 by recruiting cases from the Norwegian Surveillance System for Communicable Diseases and controls from the Norwegian Population Registry (389 cases and 1500 controls). Univariable analyses using logistic regression were conducted and a multivariable model was developed using regularised/penalised logistic regression. In univariable analysis, eating snow, dirt, sand or playing in a sandbox (aOR 4.14; CI 2.15–7.97) was associated with salmonellosis. This was also the only exposure significantly associated with illness in the multivariable model. Since 2004, 34.2% (n = 354) of S. Typhimuirum cases had an MLVA profile linked to a domestic reservoir. A seasonal trend with a peak in August for all Salmonella types and in February for S. Typhimurium was observed. Indirect exposure to domestic reservoirs remains a source of salmonellosis in Norway, particularly for children. Information to the public about avoiding environmental exposure should be strengthened and initiatives to combat salmonellosis in the food chain should be reinforced.

Although food from grazed animals is increasingly sought by consumers because of perceived animal welfare advantages, grazing systems provide the farmer and the animal with unique challenges. The system is dependent almost daily on the climate for feed supply, with the importation of large amounts of feed from off farm, and associated labour and mechanisation costs, sometimes reducing economic viability. Furthermore, the cow may have to walk long distances and be able to harvest feed efficiently in a highly competitive environment because of the need for high levels of pasture utilisation. She must, also, be: (1) highly fertile, with a requirement for pregnancy within ~80 days post-calving; (2) ‘easy care’, because of the need for the management of large herds with limited labour; (3) able to walk long distances; and (4) robust to changes in feed supply and quality, so that short-term nutritional insults do not unduly influence her production and reproduction cycles. These are very different and are in addition to demands placed on cows in housed systems offered pre-made mixed rations. Furthermore, additional demands in environmental sustainability and animal welfare, in conjunction with the need for greater system-level biological efficiency (i.e. ‘sustainable intensification’), will add to the ‘robustness’ requirements of cows in the future. Increasingly, there is evidence that certain genotypes of cows perform better or worse in grazing systems, indicating a genotype×environment interaction. This has led to the development of tailored breeding objectives within countries for important heritable traits to maximise the profitability and sustainability of their production system. To date, these breeding objectives have focussed on the more easily measured traits and those of highest relative economic importance. In the future, there will be greater emphasis on more difficult to measure traits that are important to the quality of life of the animal in each production system and to reduce the system’s environmental footprint.

The objective of this study was to describe the provision of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation acute care consultations in the United States and Canada. Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation department chairs/division directors at academic centers in Canada and the United States were mailed an 18-item questionnaire. Seven of 13 (54%) Canadian and 26/78 (33%) American surveys were returned. A majority of Canadian and American academic institutions provide acute care consultations; however, there were some national differences. American institutions see larger volumes of patients, and more American respondents indicated using a dedicated acute care consultation service model compared with Canadians.

Introduction: Understanding the spatial distribution of opioid abuse at the local level may facilitate community intervention strategies. The purpose of this analysis was to apply spatial analytical methods to determine clustering of opioid-related emergency medical services (EMS) responses in the City of Calgary. Methods: Using opioid-related EMS responses in the City of Calgary between January 1st through October 31st, 2017, we estimated the dissemination area (DA) specific spatial randomness effects by incorporating the spatial autocorrelation using intrinsic Gaussian conditional autoregressive model and generalized linear mixed models (GLMM). Global spatial autocorrelation was evaluated by Morans I index. Both Getis-Ord Gi and the LISA function in Geoda were used to estimate the local spatial autocorrelation. Two models were applied: 1) Poisson regression with DA-specific non-spatial random effects; 2) Poisson regression with DA-specific G-side spatial random effects. A pseudolikelihood approach was used for model comparison. Two types of cluster analysis were used to identify the spatial clustering. Results: There were 1488 opioid-related EMS responses available for analysis. Of the responses, 74% of the individuals were males. The median age was 33 years ( IQR: 26-42 years) with 65% of individuals between 20 and 39 years, and 27% between 40 and 64 years. In 62% of EMS responses, poisoning/overdose was the chief complaint. The global Morans Index implied the presence of global spatial autocorrelation. Comparing the two models applied suggested that the spatial model provided a better fit for the adjusted opioid-related EMS response rate. Calgary Center and East were identified as hot spots by both types of cluster analysis. Conclusion: Spatial modeling has a better predictability to assess potential high risk areas and identify locations for community intervention strategies. The clusters identified in Calgarys Center and East may have implications for future response strategies.

Supraglacial lakes are known to trigger Antarctic ice-shelf instability and break-up. However, to date, no study has focused on lakes on Greenland's floating termini. Here, we apply lake boundary/area and depth algorithms to Landsat 8 imagery to analyse the inter- and intraseasonal evolution of supraglacial lakes across Petermann Glacier's (81°N) floating tongue from 2014 to 2016, while also comparing these lakes to those on the grounded ice. Lakes start to fill in June and quickly peak in total number, volume and area in late June/early July in response to increases in air temperatures. However, through July and August, total lake number, volume and area all decline, despite sustained high temperatures. These observations may be explained by the transportation of meltwater into the ocean by a river, and by lake drainage events on the floating tongue. Further, as mean lake depth remains relatively constant during this time, we suggest that a large proportion of the lakes that drain, do so completely, likely by rapid hydrofracture. The mean areas of lakes on the tongue are only ~20% of those on the grounded ice and exhibit lower variability in maximum and mean depth, differences likely attributable to the contrasting formation processes of lakes in each environment.

We conduct minimal-channel direct numerical simulations of turbulent flow over two-dimensional rectangular bars aligned in the spanwise direction. This roughness has often been described as $d$-type, as the roughness function $\unicode[STIX]{x0394}U^{+}$ is thought to depend only on the outer-layer length scale (pipe diameter, channel half-height or boundary layer thickness). This is in contrast to conventional engineering rough surfaces, named $k$-type, for which $\unicode[STIX]{x0394}U^{+}$ depends on the roughness height, $k$. The minimal-span rough-wall channel is used to circumvent the high cost of simulating high Reynolds number flows, enabling a range of bars with varying aspect ratios to be investigated. The present results show that increasing the trough-to-crest height, $k$, of the roughness while keeping the width between roughness bars, ${\mathcal{W}}$, fixed in viscous units, results in non-$k$-type behaviour although this does not necessarily indicate $d$-type behaviour. Instead, for deep surfaces with $k/{\mathcal{W}}\gtrsim 3$, the roughness function appears to depend only on ${\mathcal{W}}$ in viscous units. In these situations, the flow no longer has any information about how deep the roughness is and instead can only ‘see’ the width of the fluid gap between the bars.