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Global glacier mass balance decreased rapidly over the last two decades, exceeding mass loss from the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets. In Greenland, peripheral glaciers and ice caps (GICs) cover only ~5% of Greenland's area but contributed ~20% of the island's ice mass loss between 2000 and 2018. Although Greenland GIC mass loss due to surface meltwater runoff has been estimated using atmospheric models, mass lost to changes in ice discharge into oceans (i.e., dynamic mass loss) remains unquantified. We use the flux gate method to estimate discharge from Greenland's 585 marine-terminating peripheral glaciers between 1985 and 2018, and compute dynamic mass loss as the discharge anomaly relative to the 1985–98 period. Greenland GICs discharged between 2.94 ± 0.23 and 4.03 ± 0.23 Gt a−1 from 1985 to 1998, depending on the gap-filling method, and abruptly increased to 5.10 ± 0.21 Gt a−1 from 1999 to 2018. The resultant ~1–2 Gt a−1 dynamic mass loss was driven by synchronous widespread acceleration around Greenland. The mass loss came predominantly from the southeast region, which contains 39% of the glaciers. Although changes in discharge over time were small relative to surface mass-balance changes, our speed and discharge time series suggest these glaciers may quickly accelerate in response to changes in climate.

Knowledge of snow and firn-density change is needed to use elevation-change measurements to estimate glacier mass change. Additionally, firn-density evolution on glaciers is closely connected to meltwater percolation, refreezing and runoff, which are key processes for glacier mass balance and hydrology. Since 2016, the U.S. Geological Survey Benchmark Glacier Project has recovered firn cores from a site on Wolverine Glacier in Alaska's Kenai Mountains. We use annual horizons in repeat cores to track firn densification and meltwater retention over seasonal and interannual timescales, and we use density measurements to quantify how the firn air content (FAC) changes through time. The results suggest the firn is densifying due primarily to compaction rather than refreezing. Liquid-water retention in the firn is transient, likely due to gravity-fed drainage and irreducible-water-content decreases that accompany decreasing porosity. We show that the uncertainty (±60 kg m−3) in the commonly used volume-to-mass conversion factor of 850 kg m−3 is an underestimation when glacier-wide FAC variability exceeds 12% of the glacier-averaged height change. Our results demonstrate how direct measurements of firn properties on mountain glaciers can be used to better quantify the uncertainty in geodetic volume-to-mass conversions.

While global glacier mass balance has decreased rapidly over the last two decades, mass loss has been greatest in regions with marine-terminating glaciers. In Greenland, peripheral glaciers and ice caps (GICs) cover only ~5% of Greenland’s area but contributed ~14-20% of the island’s ice mass loss between 2003-2008. Although Greenland GIC’s mass loss due to surface meltwater runoff have been estimated using atmospheric models, mass loss due to changes in ice discharge into surrounding ocean basins (i.e., dynamic mass loss) remains unquantified. Here, we use the flux gate method to estimate discharge from Greenland’s 594 marine-terminating peripheral glaciers between 1985 – 2018, and compute dynamic mass loss as the discharge anomaly relative to the 1985-1998 period. Greenland GIC discharge averages 2.14 Gt/yr from 1985-1998 and abruptly increases to an average of 3.87 Gt/yr from 1999-2018, indicating a -1.72 Gt/yr mass anomaly. This mass loss is driven by synchronous widespread acceleration around Greenland and, like the ice sheet, is primarily caused by changes in discharge from a small number of glaciers with larger discharge. These estimates indicate that although Greenland GICs are small, they are sensitive to changes in climate and should not be overlooked in future analyses of glacier dynamics and mass loss.

A patient in California, USA, with rare and usually fatal Balamuthia mandrillaris granulomatous amebic encephalitis survived after receiving treatment with a regimen that included the repurposed drug nitroxoline. Nitroxoline, which is a quinolone typically used to treat urinary tract infections, was identified in a screen for drugs with amebicidal activity against Balamuthia.

Background Clinicians and patients have reported fragmentation in the primary and tertiary healthcare interface. However, perspectives of service navigation and the impacts of fragmentation are not well defined, particularly for patients transitioning to dialysis. This study aimed to define patient perspectives of the functioning of the health service interface and impacts on healthcare experiences and engagement, informing patient-centred and outcomes-focused service models. Methods A qualitative study was conducted through semi-structured interviews with 25 dialysis patients (16 males) aged 34–78 receiving dialysis across a multi-site tertiary service. Transcripts were analysed thematically. Results Three main themes were identified: (1) The Changing Nature of General Practitioner (GP) Patient Relationships; (2) Ownership and Leadership in Kidney Care; and (3) The Importance of Nephrologist—GP Communications. Patients perceived an unreliable primary-tertiary service interface which lacked coordinated care and created challenges for primary care continuity. These impacted perceptions of healthcare provider expertise and confidence in healthcare systems. Patients subsequently increased the healthcare sought from tertiary kidney clinicians. The fractured interface led some to coordinate communication between health sectors, to support care quality, but this caused additional stress. Conclusions A fragmented primary-tertiary healthcare interface creates challenges for patient service navigation and can negatively impact patient experiences, leading to primary care disengagement, reduced confidence in health care quality and increased stress. Future studies are imperative for assessing initiatives facilitating health system integration, including communication technologies, healthcare provider training, patient empowerment, and specific outcomes in health, economic and patient experience measures, for patients transitioning to dialysis. Graphical abstract

Introduction Although much work has been done on US abortion ideology, less is known relative to the psychological processes that distinguish personal abortion beliefs or how those beliefs are communicated to others. As part of a forthcoming probability-based sampling designed study on US abortion climate, we piloted a study with a controlled sample to determine whether psychological indicators guiding abortion beliefs can be meaningfully extracted from qualitative interviews using natural language processing (NLP) substring matching. Of particular interest to this study is the presence of cognitive distortions—markers of rigid thinking—spoken during interviews and how cognitive distortion frequency may be tied to rigid, or firm, abortion beliefs. Methods We ran qualitative interview transcripts against two lexicons. The first lexicon, the cognitive distortion schemata (CDS), was applied to identify cognitive distortion n-grams (a series of words) embedded within the qualitative interviews. The second lexicon, the Linguistic Inquiry Word Count (LIWC), was applied to extract other psychological indicators, including the degrees of (1) analytic thinking, (2) emotional reasoning, (3) authenticity, and (4) clout. Results People with polarized abortion views (i.e., strongly supportive of or opposed to abortion) had the highest observed usage of CDS n-grams, scored highest on authenticity, and lowest on analytic thinking. By contrast, people with moderate or uncertain abortion views (i.e., people holding more complex or nuanced views of abortion) spoke with the least CDS n-grams and scored slightly higher on analytic thinking. Discussion and conclusion Our findings suggest people communicate about abortion differently depending on their personal abortion ideology. Those with strong abortion views may be more likely to communicate with authoritative words and patterns of words indicative of cognitive distortions—or limited complexity in belief systems. Those with moderate views are more likely to speak in conflicting terms and patterns of words that are flexible and open to change—or high complexity in belief systems. These findings suggest it is possible to extract psychological indicators with NLP from qualitative interviews about abortion. Findings from this study will help refine our protocol ahead of full-study launch.