Due to adverse snow and cloud conditions, only a few inventories are available for the maritime glaciers in New Zealand. These are difficult to compare as different approaches and baseline data have been used to create them. In consequence, glacier fluctuations in New Zealand over the past two decades are only known for a few glaciers based on field observations. Here we present the results of a new inventory for the ‘year 2000’ (some scenes are from 2001 and 2002) that is based on glacier outlines from a recently published inventory for the year 2016 and allowed consistent change assessment for nearly 3000 glaciers over this period. The year 2000 inventory was created by manual on-screen digitizing using Landsat ETM+ satellite imagery (15 m panchromatic band) in the background and the year 2016 outlines as a starting point. Major challenges faced were late and early seasonal snow, clouds and shadow, the geo-location mismatch between Landsat and Sentinel-2 as well as the correct interpretation of ice patches and ice under debris cover. In total, we re-mapped 2967 glaciers covering an area of 885.5 km2 in 2000, which is 91.7 km2 (or 10.4%) more than the 793.8 km2 mapped in 2016. Area change rates (mean rate −0.65% a−1) increase towards smaller glaciers. Strongest area loss from 2000 to 2016 occurred at elevations ~1900 m but the highest relative loss was found below 800 m a.s.l. In total, 109 glaciers split into two or more entities and 264 had wasted away by 2016.

Veterinary healthcare workers are in close contact with many different animals and might be at an increased risk of acquiring Clostridioides difficile. In this cross-sectional study, we assessed the prevalence and risk factors of C. difficile carriage in Dutch veterinary healthcare workers. Participants provided a faecal sample and filled out a questionnaire covering potential risk factors for C. difficile carriage. C. difficile culture positive isolates were polymerase chain reaction (PCR) ribotyped and the presence of toxin genes tcdA, tcdB and cdtA/cdtB was determined. Eleven of 482 [2.3%; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.3–4.0] veterinary healthcare workers were carriers of C. difficile. Three persons carried C. difficile ribotype 078 (0.6%; 95% CI 0.2–1.8). Risk factors for carriage were health/medication and hygiene related, including poor hand hygiene after patient (animal) contact, and did not include occupational contact with certain animal species. In conclusion, the prevalence of C. difficile carriage in veterinary healthcare workers was low and no indications were found that working in veterinary care is a risk for C. difficile carriage.

The development of performance measures is not a new concept in the disaster preparedness space. For over a decade, goals have been developed and tied to federal preparedness grant programs. However, these measures have been heavily criticized for their inability to truly measure preparedness. There is also growing frustration at the local level that these performance measures do not account for local readiness priorities or the outcome-driven value of emergency response activities. To define an appropriate theoretical framework for the development of performance measures, a review of the literature on existing planning and preparedness frameworks was conducted, with an iterative feedback process with a local health agency. This paper presents elements of that literature review that were most directly along with the conceptual framework that was used as a starting point for future iterations of a comprehensive performance measure development project.

This article examines candidate emails from the 2016–17 Conservative Party of Canada leadership race to explore how candidates communicated with party supporters on issues of moral traditionalism (for example, abortion and sexuality diversity) and minority religious accommodation. We find that the level of public support for a given policy position shaped how overtly candidates signalled their views, with those supporting moral traditionalism or restrictions on religious minorities tending to express their views covertly and vice versa. Message overtness also changed following the deadline for new members to join the party before the vote. This article marks the first systematic study of how party leadership candidates attempt to solicit support from particular party factions and how candidates’ appeals evolve throughout a campaign. The results also show that the high-profile debate around minority religious accommodation during the leadership race did not displace contestation between candidates over issues such as sexual or reproductive rights.

“I don't think there was ever a field of law which developed as explosively and dramatically as environmental law,” David Sive, a pioneering environmental lawyer, declared in a 1982 interview. “It was the great romance.” Along with new state and federal regulatory agencies and more than a dozen major environmental statutes passed in the 1970s, fledgling public interest environmental law firms emerged as a major force in national politics. The most prominent organizations, founded between 1967 and 1971, included the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP), Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), and the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund. Public Advocates and the Center for Law in the Public Interest, two California-based firms founded during these same years, also initiated key litigation. These small but powerful legal organizations—all predominantly funded by the Ford Foundation—quickly achieved landmark victories that helped to define the early successes of modern environmentalism. They delayed the Alaskan pipeline for more than 3 years, defeated a Disney resort proposed for the Sierra Nevada mountains, and helped push the pesticide DDT off the market in the United States. The organizations also foiled myriad plans for highways, airports, and power plants and pressed agencies to implement new environmental laws in the 1970s.

The global population of the Critically Endangered Raso Lark Alauda razae was estimated in January 2003 at 93–103 birds and in November 2003 at 76–87 birds. Of these, only 25–35% were females. Counts were based on observations of individually colour-ringed and measured birds. Birds were not breeding during the January visit, and were concentrated in two small areas at opposite ends of the island of Raso. This distribution differed substantially from that recorded previously during the breeding season. Three different feeding strategies were apparent: flocking, aggregating around key resources and feeding singly or in pairs. Birds moving to new feeding areas immediately adopted the feeding strategy of other birds present. Birds were seen drinking seawater on several occasions. In November 2003, birds were breeding but nest survival was extremely low due to high rates of egg predation. No evidence was detected of introduced predators on Raso. However, a population of feral cats was found on nearby Santa Luzia, prohibiting natural colonization or deliberate introduction of Raso Lark to the island, despite much apparently suitable habitat there. Faecal analyses showed that these cats feed largely on skinks. Increased tourism development on neighbouring islands is identified as a potential threat to the species.

New radiocarbon calibration curves, IntCal04 and Marine04, have been constructed and internationally ratified to replace the terrestrial and marine components of IntCal98. The new calibration data sets extend an additional 2000 yr, from 0–26 cal kyr BP (Before Present, 0 cal BP = AD 1950), and provide much higher resolution, greater precision, and more detailed structure than IntCal98. For the Marine04 curve, dendrochronologically-dated tree-ring samples, converted with a box diffusion model to marine mixed-layer ages, cover the period from 0–10.5 cal kyr BP. Beyond 10.5 cal kyr BP, high-resolution marine data become available from foraminifera in varved sediments and U/Th-dated corals. The marine records are corrected with site-specific 14C reservoir age information to provide a single global marine mixed-layer calibration from 10.5–26.0 cal kyr BP. A substantial enhancement relative to IntCal98 is the introduction of a random walk model, which takes into account the uncertainty in both the calendar age and the 14C age to calculate the underlying calibration curve (Buck and Blackwell, this issue). The marine data sets and calibration curve for marine samples from the surface mixed layer (Marine04) are discussed here. The tree-ring data sets, sources of uncertainty, and regional offsets are presented in detail in a companion paper by Reimer et al. (this issue).

The first meeting of the IntCal04 working group took place at Queen's University Belfast from April 15 to 17, 2002. The participants are listed as co-authors of this report. The meeting considered criteria for the acceptance of data into the next official calibration dataset, the importance of including reliable estimates of uncertainty in both the radiocarbon ages and the cal ages, and potential methods for combining datasets. This preliminary report summarizes the criteria that were discussed, but does not yet give specific recommendations for inclusion or exclusion of individual datasets.

The effect of nonhydrostatic stresses on the solid phase epitaxial growth rate of crystalline Si(100) into self-implanted amorphous surface layers has been measured. Uniaxial stresses of up to 6 kbar (0.6 GPa) were attained by bending wafers over SiO2 rods and annealing at a temperature too low for plastic deformation to relieve the stress in the crystal, but high enough for solid phase epitaxial growth to proceed. The growth rate on the tensile side was greater than that on the compressive side of the wafer, in marked contrast to the enhancement observed from hydrostatic pressure. The phenomenology of an “activation strain”, the nonhydrostatic analogue of the activation volume, has been developed to characterize the results. Combined with the measurement of the activation volume, the measurement reported here permits us to characterize to first order the entire activation strain tensor corresponding to the transition state for solid phase epitaxy of Si(lOO). We conclude that the transition state for this process is “short and fat”; that is, the fluctuation to the transition state involves an expansion in the two in-plane directions and a contraction in the direction normal to the surface large enough to make the overall volume change negative. The symmetry of the measured activation strain tensor is inconsistent with all bulk point defect mechanisms for solid phase epitaxy. The relevance of the activation strain formalism to heteroepitaxy and vapor phase epitaxy is discussed.