5 research outputs found
A global open-source dataset of monthly irrigated and rainfed cropped areas (MIRCA-OS) for the 21st century
No full textThis article was originally published in Scientific Data. The version of record is available at: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-024-04313-w.
© The Author(s) 2025.
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.
This research was featured in UDaily on 5/19/2025 at: https://www.udel.edu/udaily/2025/may/global-crop-data-irrigation-agriculture/Crop production is among the most extensive human activities on the planet – with critical importance for global food security, land use, environmental burden, and climate. Yet despite the key role that croplands play in global land use and Earth systems, there remains little understanding of how spatial patterns of global crop cultivation have recently evolved and which crops have contributed most to these changes. Here we construct a new data library of subnational crop-specific irrigated and rainfed harvested area statistics and combine it with global gridded land cover products to develop a global gridded (5-arcminute) irrigated and rainfed cropped area (MIRCA-OS) dataset for the years 2000 to 2015 for 23 crop classes. These global data products support critical insights into the spatially detailed patterns of irrigated and rainfed cropland change since the start of the century and provide an improved foundation for a wide array of global assessments spanning agriculture, water resource management, land use change, climate impact, and sustainable development.We thank Gambhir Lamsal and Landon Marston for providing the harvested area statistics for the United States. E.A.K. and K.F.D. were supported by USDA Grant no. 2022-67019-37180 and the University of Alabama Global Water Security Center. E.A.K. was supported by the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Sciences (CUAHSI) through the Hydroinformatics Innovation Fellowship. S.H. was supported by the National Science Foundation Digital Transformation of Development Fellowship (#DGE- 2125913) and the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships Program (#DGE-1752814). S.S. was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (D.F.G., German Research Foundation) – SFB 1502/1-2022 – Projektnummer: 450058266
Reading Mario Rigoni Stern at primary school. Historical analysis and new perspectives
No full textopenI libri di lettura possono essere un utile strumento per valutare l’ampiezza e la consistenza dell’offerta formativa erogata nella scuola primaria. Al loro interno, talvolta, risulta carente l’attenzione che viene dedicata a scrittori di assoluto rilievo nel panorama letterario nazionale. È il caso, questo, di Mario Rigoni Stern. Nonostante il notevole successo di critica e pubblico riscosso in vita, l’opera dell’autore veneto non ha mai trovato piena affermazione nell’ambito delle proposte dedicate agli alunni del primo ciclo di istruzione. Se fino alla metà degli anni Novanta, infatti, soltanto il suo romanzo più noto, “Il sergente nella neve”, trovava collocazione nei testi scolastici, oggi il nome dello scrittore è scomparso quasi del tutto da questo scenario editoriale.
Partendo dalla ricostruzione del quadro storico dell’ultimo mezzo secolo, che ha visto un progressivo abbandono dell’opera rigoniana nella scuola primaria, il presente lavoro si prefigge di conseguire un duplice scopo: da una parte, comprendere quale sia il grado di familiarità degli insegnanti di oggi con l’opera di Rigoni Stern; dall’altra, porre enfasi sulle specifiche peculiarità narrative che rendono questo autore adatto all’esperienza letteraria dei bambini. Nello specifico, la ricostruzione del quadro storico avverrà attraverso l’analisi dei più diffusi libri di lettura che, nel corso dei decenni, sono stati adottati nella scuola primaria italiana. La notorietà dello scrittore presso la vasta popolazione degli insegnanti di oggi, invece, sarà valutata ricorrendo alla somministrazione di opportuni questionari. Le caratteristiche che rendono le opere in questione fruibili da parte dei bambini, infine, verranno messe in luce con appropriati rimandi alla variegata produzione di Rigoni Stern.
In conclusione, saranno presentate e discusse ipotetiche strategie di intervento che potrebbero, da un lato, favorire il potenziamento del patrimonio di conoscenze degli insegnanti in un’ottica di formazione continua e, dall’altro, stimolare negli alunni della scuola primaria la curiosità verso testimoni preziosi della nostra cultura.The reading books can be a useful tool for assessing the breadth and consistence of the educational offer provided at primary school. Sometimes, within them, very little attention is paid to authors of absolute prominence in the national literary landscape. That’s exactly what happened to Mario Rigoni Stern. Although he obtains critical and public success when he was alive, his work has never found full affirmation in the context of proposals aimed at primary school pupils. If until the mid-1990s only his best-known novel, “The Sergeant in the Snow”, found a place in the primary school textbooks, currently his name has almost completely disappeared from this specific publishing scenario.
Starting from the reconstruction of the last half century historical framework concerning the gradual abandonment of the Rigoni Stern’s work, this dissertation is aimed to achieve a dual purpose. On one hand, the goal is to gain insight into how much primary school teachers are familiar with Mario Rigoni Stern’s work. On the other hand, the aim is to emphasize those narrative features that make this author suitable for being read by children. More precisely, the reconstruction of historical framework will take place through the analysis of the most popular reading books which, over the decades, have been adopted at Italian primary school. The degree of teachers’ familiarity with our author, instead, will be assessed through the administration of appropriate questionnaires. Lastly, in order to highlight the appropriateness of Rigoni Stern novels for reading at the primary school, a brief compendium of some significant excerpts from his work will be presented.
Finally, the very last part of this thesis will be focused on some hypothetical strategies for improving the strength of teachers continuing education processes. These strategies, if properly designed, can stimulate pupils’ curiosity about valuable personalities of our culture
Effect of Hemoadsorption for Cytokine Removal in Pneumococcal and Meningococcal Sepsis
No full textBacterial meningitis and septicemia are invasive bacterial diseases, representing a significant cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Both conditions are characterized by an impressive inflammatory response, resulting rapidly in cerebral edema, infarction, hydrocephalus, and septic shock with multiple organ failure. Despite advances in critical care, outcome and prognosis remain critical. Available adjunctive treatments to control the inflammatory response have shown encouraging results in the evolution of patients with sepsis and systemic inflammation, but meningococcal or pneumococcal infection has not been investigated. We herein report five patients with similar critical pathological conditions, characterized by pneumococcal or meningococcal sepsis and treated with hemoadsorption for cytokine removal. All patients showed a progressive stabilization in hemodynamics along with a rapid and marked reduction of catecholamine dosages, a stabilization in metabolic disorders, and less-than-expected loss of extremities. Therapy proved to be safe and well tolerated. From this first experience, extracorporeal cytokine removal seems to be a valid and safe therapy in the management of meningococcal and pneumococcal diseases and may contribute to the patient stabilization and prevention of severe sequelae. Further studies are required to confirm efficacy in a larger context
The politics of journalistic creativity: expressiveness, authenticity and de-authorization
No full textThis article begins with the assertion that creativity in journalism has moved from being a matter of guile and ingenuity to being about expressiveness, and that this reflects a broader cultural shift from professional expertise to the authenticity of personal expression as dominant modes of valorization. It then seeks to unpack the normative baggage that underpins the case for creativity in the cultural industries. First, there is a prioritization of agency, which does not stand up against the phenomenological argument that we do not own our own practices. Second, creative expression is not necessarily more free, simply alternately structured. As with Judith Butler’s performativity model, contemporary discourses of creativity assume it to have a unique quality by which it eludes determination (relying on tropes of fluidity), whereas it can be countered that it is in spontaneous, intuitive practice that we are at our least agencical. Third, the article argues against the idea that by authorizing journalists (and audiences) to express themselves, creativity is democratizing, since the always-already nature of recognition means that subjects can only voice their position within an established terrain rather than engage active positioning
Oxygenation improvement and duration of prone positioning are associated with ICU mortality in mechanically ventilated COVID-19 patients
No full textBackground: Prone position has been diffusely applied in mechanically ventilated COVID-19 patients. Our aim is ascertaining the association between the physiologic response and the length of the first cycle of prone position and intensive care unit (ICU) mortality. Methods: International registry including COVID-19 adult patients who underwent prone positioning. We measured the difference for arterial partial pressure of oxygen to inspired fraction of oxygen ratio (PaO2/FiO2), ventilatory ratio, and respiratory system compliance (Crs) between baseline supine position and at either the end of the first cycle of prone position (Delta-PP) or re-supination (Delta-PostPP). Results: We enrolled 1816 patients from 53 centers. Delta-PP and Delta-PostPP for PaO2/FiO2 were both associated with ICU mortality [OR (95% CI) 0.48 (0.38, 0.59), and OR (95% CI) 0.60 (0.52, 0.68), respectively]. Ventilatory ratio had a non-linear relationship with ICU mortality for Delta-PP (p = 0.022) and Delta-PostPP (p = 0.004). Delta-PP, while not Delta-PostPP, for Crs was associated with ICU mortality [OR (95% CI) 0.80 (0.65, 0.98)]. The length of the first cycle of prone position showed an inverse relationship with ICU mortality [OR (95% CI) 0.82 (0.73, 0.91)]. At the multivariable analysis, the duration of the first cycle of prone position, Delta-PP and Delta-PostPP for PaO2/FiO2, and Delta-PostPP for ventilatory ratio were independently associated with ICU mortality. Conclusion: In COVID-19 patients with acute respiratory failure receiving invasive mechanical ventilation and prone positioning, the physiological response to prone position is associated with ICU mortality. Prolonging the duration of the first cycle of prone position is associated with improved survival
