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Soft machines are a promising design paradigm for human-centric devices 1 , 2 and systems required to interact gently with their environment 3 , 4 . To enable soft machines to respond intelligently to their surroundings, compliant sensory feedback mechanisms are needed. Specifically, soft alternatives to strain gauges—with high resolution at low strain (less than 5 per cent)—could unlock promising new capabilities in soft systems. However, currently available sensing mechanisms typically possess either high strain sensitivity or high mechanical resilience, but not both. The scarcity of resilient and compliant ultra-sensitive sensing mechanisms has confined their operation to laboratory settings, inhibiting their widespread deployment. Here we present a versatile and compliant transduction mechanism for high-sensitivity strain detection with high mechanical resilience, based on strain-mediated contact in anisotropically resistive structures (SCARS). The mechanism relies upon changes in Ohmic contact between stiff, micro-structured, anisotropically conductive meanders encapsulated by stretchable films. The mechanism achieves high sensitivity, with gauge factors greater than 85,000, while being adaptable for use with high-strength conductors, thus producing sensors resilient to adverse loading conditions. The sensing mechanism also exhibits high linearity, as well as insensitivity to bending and twisting deformations—features that are important for soft device applications. To demonstrate the potential impact of our technology, we construct a sensor-integrated, lightweight, textile-based arm sleeve that can recognize gestures without encumbering the hand. We demonstrate predictive tracking and classification of discrete gestures and continuous hand motions via detection of small muscle movements in the arm. The sleeve demonstration shows the potential of the SCARS technology for the development of unobtrusive, wearable biomechanical feedback systems and human–computer interfaces. Strain gauges with both high sensitivity and high mechanical resilience, based on strain-mediated contact in anisotropically resistive structures, are demonstrated within a sensor-integrated, textile-based sleeve that can recognize human hand motions via muscle deformations.

A financial services supplier authorised in its home state that wishes to supply services cross-border into another state will, absent any relief, have in addition to meet the regulatory requirements of that host state to trade in it. Regulatory frictions including duplicative regulatory requirements are barriers to cross-border trade. This article considers certain techniques deployed to reduce such barriers, noting that trust plays a part in many of them. These techniques grant relief to incoming firms from obligations to comply with the regulatory requirements of a host state. They may take the form of unilateral arrangements, with or without any conditions. There may be assessments of equivalence as a basis for relief from compliance with the host state’s rules: deference to the home state’s regime, a basis for recognition, whether unilateral or mutual. Recognition may be given effect through a party’s domestic laws or in international law under the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) Article VII. A GATS Article VII agreement can relieve regulatory frictions in the financial services sector alone as there is no requirement for “substantial sectoral coverage” as required for regional trade agreements under GATS Article V. Mutual recognition agreements for financial services in international law are, however, few in number.

The northeastern United States is a predominately-forested region that, like most of the eastern U.S., has undergone a 400-year history of intense logging, land clearance for agriculture, and natural reforestation. This setting affords the opportunity to address a major ecological question: How similar are today's forests to those existing prior to European colonization? Working throughout a nine-state region spanning Maine to Pennsylvania, we assembled a comprehensive database of archival land-survey records describing the forests at the time of European colonization. We compared these records to modern forest inventory data and described: (1) the magnitude and attributes of forest compositional change, (2) the geography of change, and (3) the relationships between change and environmental factors and historical land use. We found that with few exceptions, notably the American chestnut, the same taxa that made up the pre-colonial forest still comprise the forest today, despite ample opportunities for species invasion and loss. Nonetheless, there have been dramatic shifts in the relative abundance of forest taxa. The magnitude of change is spatially clustered at local scales (<125 km) but exhibits little evidence of regional-scale gradients. Compositional change is most strongly associated with the historical extent of agricultural clearing. Throughout the region, there has been a broad ecological shift away from late successional taxa, such as beech and hemlock, in favor of early- and mid-successional taxa, such as red maple and poplar. Additionally, the modern forest composition is more homogeneous and less coupled to local climatic controls.

Rapid spread of disease is a hazard in our interconnected world. The chytrid fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis was identified in amphibian populations about 20 years ago and has caused death and species extinction at a global scale. Scheele et al. found that the fungus has caused declines in amphibian populations everywhere except at its origin in Asia (see the Perspective by Greenberg and Palen). A majority of species and populations are still experiencing decline, but there is evidence of limited recovery in some species. The analysis also suggests some conditions that predict resilience

Background Physical activity can improve health and wellbeing after cancer and may reduce cancer recurrence and mortality. To achieve such long-term benefits cancer survivors must be habitually active. This review evaluates the effectiveness of interventions in supporting maintenance of physical activity behaviour change among adults diagnosed with cancer and explores which intervention components and contextual features are associated with effectiveness. Methods Relevant randomised controlled trials (RCTs) were identified by a search of Ovid Medline, Ovid Embase and PsychINFO. Trials including adults diagnosed with cancer, assessed an intervention targeting physical activity and reported physical activity behaviour at baseline and ≥ 3 months post-intervention were included. The behaviour change technique (BCT) taxonomy was used to identify intervention components and the Template for Intervention Description and Replication to capture contextual features. Random effect meta-analysis explored between and within group differences in physical activity behaviour. Standardised mean differences (SMD) describe effect size. Results Twenty seven RCTs were included, 19 were pooled in meta-analyses. Interventions were effective at changing long-term behaviour; SMD in moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA) between groups 0.25; 95% CI = 0.16–0.35. Within-group pre-post intervention analysis yielded a mean increase of 27.48 (95% CI = 11.48-43.49) mins/wk. of MVPA in control groups and 65.30 (95% CI = 45.59–85.01) mins/wk. of MVPA in intervention groups. Ineffective interventions tended to include older populations with existing physical limitations, had fewer contacts with participants, were less likely to include a supervised element or the BCTs of ‘action planning’, ‘graded tasks’ and ‘social support (unspecified)’. Included studies were biased towards inclusion of younger, female, well-educated and white populations who were already engaging in some physical activity. Conclusions Existing interventions are effective in achieving modest increases in physical activity at least 3 months post-intervention completion. Small improvements were also evident in control groups suggesting low-intensity interventions may be sufficient in promoting small changes in behaviour that last beyond intervention completion. However, study samples are not representative of typical cancer populations. Interventions should consider a stepped-care approach, providing more intensive support for older people with physical limitations and others less likely to engage in these interventions.

Glutamine is thought to have beneficial effects on the metabolic and stress response to severe injury. Clinical trials involving patients with burns and other critically ill patients have shown conflicting results regarding the benefits and risks of glutamine supplementation. In a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial, we assigned patients with deep second- or third-degree burns (affecting ≥10% to ≥20% of total body-surface area, depending on age) within 72 hours after hospital admission to receive 0.5 g per kilogram of body weight per day of enterally delivered glutamine or placebo. Trial agents were given every 4 hours through a feeding tube or three or four times a day by mouth until 7 days after the last skin grafting procedure, discharge from the acute care unit, or 3 months after admission, whichever came first. The primary outcome was the time to discharge alive from the hospital, with data censored at 90 days. We calculated subdistribution hazard ratios for discharge alive, which took into account death as a competing risk. A total of 1209 patients with severe burns (mean burn size, 33% of total body-surface area) underwent randomization, and 1200 were included in the analysis (596 patients in the glutamine group and 604 in the placebo group). The median time to discharge alive from the hospital was 40 days (interquartile range, 24 to 87) in the glutamine group and 38 days (interquartile range, 22 to 75) in the placebo group (subdistribution hazard ratio for discharge alive, 0.91; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.80 to 1.04; P = 0.17). Mortality at 6 months was 17.2% in the glutamine group and 16.2% in the placebo group (hazard ratio for death, 1.06; 95% CI, 0.80 to 1.41). No substantial between-group differences in serious adverse events were observed. In patients with severe burns, supplemental glutamine did not reduce the time to discharge alive from the hospital. (Funded by the U.S. Department of Defense and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research; RE-ENERGIZE ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT00985205.).

Land use and climate change have complex and interacting effects on naturally dynamic forest landscapes. To anticipate and adapt to these changes, it is necessary to understand their individual and aggregate impacts on forest growth and composition. We conducted a simulation experiment to evaluate regional forest change in Massachusetts, USA over the next 50 years (2010-2060). Our objective was to estimate, assuming a linear continuation of recent trends, the relative and interactive influence of continued growth and succession, climate change, forest conversion to developed uses, and timber harvest on live aboveground biomass (AGB) and tree species composition. We examined 20 years of land use records in relation to social and biophysical explanatory variables and used regression trees to create \"probability-of-conversion\" and \"probability-of-harvest\" zones. We incorporated this information into a spatially interactive forest landscape simulator to examine forest dynamics as they were affected by land use and climate change. We conducted simulations in a full-factorial design and found that continued forest growth and succession had the largest effect on AGB, increasing stores from 181.83 Tg to 309.56 Tg over 50 years. The increase varied from 49%% to 112%% depending on the ecoregion within the state. Compared to simulations with no climate or land use, forest conversion reduced gains in AGB by 23.18 Tg (or 18%%) over 50 years. Timber harvests reduced gains in AGB by 5.23 Tg (4%%). Climate change (temperature and precipitation) increased gains in AGB by 17.3 Tg (13.5%%). Pinus strobus and Acer rubrum were ranked first and second, respectively, in terms of total AGB throughout all simulations. Climate change reinforced the dominance of those two species. Timber harvest reduced Quercus rubra from 10.8%% to 9.4%% of total AGB, but otherwise had little effect on composition. Forest conversion was generally indiscriminate in terms of species removal. Under the naïve assumption that future land use patterns will resemble the recent past, we conclude that continued forest growth and recovery will be the dominant mechanism driving forest dynamics over the next 50 years, and that while climate change may enhance growth rates, this will be more than offset by land use, primarily forest conversion to developed uses.

In the field of X-ray microcomputed tomography (μCT) there is a growing need to reduce acquisition times at high spatial resolution (approximate micrometers) to facilitate in vivo and high-throughput operations. The state of the art represented by synchrotron light sources is not practical for certain applications, and therefore the development of high-brightness laboratory-scale sources is crucial. We present here imaging of a fixed embryonic mouse sample using a compact laser–plasma-based X-ray light source and compare the results to images obtained using a commercial X-ray μCT scanner. The radiation is generated by the betatron motion of electrons inside a dilute and transient plasma, which circumvents the flux limitations imposed by the solid or liquid anodes used in conventional electron-impact X-ray tubes. This X-ray source is pulsed (duration <30 fs), bright (>1010 photons per pulse), small (diameter <1 μm), and has a critical energy >15 keV. Stable X-ray performance enabled tomographic imaging of equivalent quality to that of the μCT scanner, an important confirmation of the suitability of the laser-driven source for applications. The X-ray flux achievable with this approach scales with the laser repetition rate without compromising the source size, which will allow the recording of high-resolution μCT scans in minutes.

We review and synthesize information on invasions of nonnative forest insects and diseases in the United States, including their ecological and economic impacts, pathways of arrival, distribution within the United States, and policy options for reducing future invasions. Nonnative insects have accumulated in United States forests at a rate of