Exploring Campylobacter seasonality across Europe (2008-2016) using The European Surveillance System TESSy

Background: Campylobacteriosis is the most commonly reported food-borne infection in the European Union, with an annual number of cases estimated at around 9 million. In many countries, campylobacteriosis has a striking seasonal peak during early/ mid-summer. In the early 2000s, several publications reported on campylobacteriosis seasonality across Europe and associations with temperature and precipitation. Subsequently, many European countries have introduced new measures against this foodborne disease. Aim: To examine how the seasonality of campylobacteriosis varied across Europe from 2008–16, to explore associations with temperature and precipitation, and to compare these results with previous studies. We also sought to assess the utility of the European Surveillance System TESSy for cross-European seasonal analysis of campylobacteriosis. Methods: Ward’s Minimum Variance Clustering was used to group countries with similar seasonal patterns of campylobacteriosis. A two-stage multivariate meta-analysis methodology was used to explore associations with temperature and precipitation. Results: Nordic countries had a pronounced seasonal campylobacteriosis peak in mid-to late summer (weeks 29–32), while most other European countries had a less pronounced peak earlier in the year. The United Kingdom, Ireland, Hungary and Slovakia had a slightly earlier peak (week 24). Campylobacteriosis cases were positively associated with temperature and, to a lesser degree, precipitation. Conclusion: Across Europe, the strength and timing of campylobacteriosis peaks have remained similar to those observed previously. In addition, TESSy is a useful resource for cross-Euro-pean seasonal analysis of infectious diseases such as campylobacteriosis, but its utility depends upon each country’s reporting infrastructure

Plantago campestris (Plantaginaceae), a rare new species from southern Brazil, supported by phylogenomic and morphological evidence

High-throughput sequencing, when combined with taxonomic expertise, is a powerful tool to refine and advance taxonomic classification, including at the species level. In the present work, a new species, Plantago campestris, is described out of the P. commersoniana species complex, based on phylogenomic and morphological evidence. The main morphological characters that distinguish the new species from P. commersoniana are the glabrous posterior sepals and the slightly broader leaves. The new species is known from only three localities, all in natural high-elevation grasslands in Paraná and Santa Catarina states, southern Brazil. According to the IUCN criteria new species should be assessed as Endangered (EN). We present field photographs of P. campestris and related species, and we provide an identification key to the species previously included within the circumscription of P. commersoniana

Hunting for ecological indicators: are large herbivore skeleton measures from harvest data useful proxies for monitoring?

Hunter-collected data and samples are used as indices of population performance, and monitoring programs often take advantage of such data as ecological indicators. Here, we establish the relationships between measures of skeleton size (lower jawbone length and hind-leg length) and autumn carcass mass of slaughtered individuals of known age and sex of the high Arctic and endemic Svalbard reindeer (Rangifer tarandus platyrhynchus). We assess these relationships using a long-term monitoring dataset derived from hunted or culled reindeer. The two skeleton measures were generally strongly correlated within age class. Both jaw length (R2 = 0.78) and hind-leg length (R2 = 0.74) represented good proxies of carcass mass. These relationships were primarily due to an age effect (i.e. due to growth) as the skeleton measures reached an asymptotic size at 4–6 years of age. Accordingly, strong positive correlations between skeleton measures and carcass mass were mainly evident at the young age classes (range r [0.45–0.84] for calves and yearlings). For the adults, these relationships weakened due to skeletal growth ceasing in mature animals causing increased variance in mass with age—potentially due to the expected substantial impacts of annual environmental fluctuations. As proxies for carcass mass, skeleton measurements should therefore be limited to young individuals. Although body mass is the ‘gold standard’ in monitoring large herbivores, our results indicate that skeleton measures collected by hunters only provide similar valuable information for young age classes, particularly calves and yearlings. In sum, jaw length and hind-leg length function as proxies identical to body mass when documenting the impacts of changing environmental conditions on important state variables for reindeer and other herbivores inhabiting highly variable environments. Arctic · Citizen science · Hunter-collected data · Life history · Terrestrial large herbivoreHunting for ecological indicators: are large herbivore skeleton measures from harvest data useful proxies for monitoring?publishedVersio

Petri Nets and Other Models of Concurrency

This paper retraces, collects, and summarises contributions of the authors --- in collaboration with others --- on the theme of Petri nets and their categorical relationships to other models of concurrency

Rock Ptarmigan (Lagopus muta) breeding habitat use in northern Sweden

This is the postprint version of the article. The published article can be located at www.springerlink.comAlpine and arctic tundra regions are likely to retract as a result of climate warming and concerns have been raised over the status of the Rock Ptarmigan (Lagopus muta). In Fennoscandia, the Rock Ptarmigan has low population abundance, and predictions based on harvest statistics show population declines throughout the range. In this study, we used a long-term opportunistic dataset of Rock Ptarmigan observations, environmental predictors derived from a digital vegetation map and a digital elevation model to describe the breeding distribution at three different ecological scales. Patterns of spatial distribution were similar across all the three study scales. The presence of permanent snow-fields positively influenced the occurrence of Rock Ptarmigan at the territory and landscape scale. Open vegetation, rock-dominated areas and, in particular, dry heath influenced Rock Ptarmigan presence positively at all scales. Altitude and terrain heterogeneity were important variables at all scales, with higher probabilities of Rock Ptarmigan being present at intermediate altitude ranges, with a high degree of terrain heterogeneity. This is the first study to describe Rock Ptarmigan breeding distribution in Fennoscandia and our findings yield new insights into the environmental variables that are important for the spatial distribution of Rock Ptarmigan during the breeding season. When planning conservation efforts, this information should be used to inform management regarding the protection of core areas and buffer zones related to the conservation and harvest management of the Rock Ptarmigan.2014-09-3

Targeted sequencing supports morphology and embryo features in resolving the classification of Cyperaceae tribe Fuireneae s.l.

Molecular phylogenetic studies based on Sanger sequences have shown that Cyperaceae tribe Fuireneae s.l. is paraphyletic. However, taxonomic sampling in these studies has been poor, topologies have been inconsistent, and support for the backbone of trees has been weak. Moreover, uncertainty still surrounds the morphological limits of Schoenoplectiella, a genus of mainly small, amphicarpic annuals that was recently segregated from Schoenoplectus. Consequently, despite ample evidence from molecular analyses that Fuireneae s.l. might consist of two to four tribal lineages, no taxonomic changes have yet been made. Here, we use the Angiosperms353 enrichment panel for targeted sequencing in order to: (1) clarify the relationships of Fuireneae s.l. with the related tribes Abildgaardieae, Eleocharideae and Cypereae; (2) define the limits of Fuireneae s.s., and (3) test the monophyly of Fuireneae s.l. genera with emphasis on Schoenoplectus and Schoenoplectiella. Using more than a third of Fuireneae s.l. diversity, our phylogenomic analyses strongly support six genera and four major Fuireneae s.l. clades that we recognise as tribes: Bolboschoeneae stat.nov., Fuireneae s.s., Schoenoplecteae, and Pseudoschoeneae tr.nov. These results are consistent with morphological, micromorphological (nutlet epidermal cell shape), and embryo differences detected for each tribe. At the generic level, most sub‐Saharan African perennials currently treated in Schoenoplectus are transferred to Schoenoplectiella. Our targeted sequencing results show that these species are nested in Schoenoplectiella, and their treatment here is consistent with micromorphological and embryo characters shared by all Schoenoplectiella species. Keys to recognised tribes and genera are provided

Scenario-Driven Development of Service-Oriented Systems

Service-oriented architecture (SOA) is a software architectural style, which relies on reusable and composable services. In addition to software-orientation, SOA includes a business viewpoint, so that business requirements can be captured as high level business processes. Business processes can be implemented, for example, as an orchestration of different service components. Individual services participate in the overall execution of business processes by providing elementary service activities. In addition to flexibility and services reuse, bridging of business and information technology (IT) views is one of the claimed benefits of SOA. Development of service-based systems includes a range of different activities. However, development of service-based systems is still lacking systematic and tool vendor independent practices and development methods. In this thesis, a development process for a service provider, called Service Product Development Process (SPDP), is presented. It consists of several development phases and related activities. The input for SPDP includes high level business process requirements. The result of the process is a new service-based product to be added to the service provider’s product portfolio. The purpose of this thesis is to study the applicability and the benefits of applying a scenario-driven approach, a type of requirement-driven development, for the development of service-based systems. Scenarios are used to capture functional system requirements as simple message sequences given as UML sequence diagrams. The scenario-driven approach is applied to different phases of SPDP including business process development, service specification, and service realization. The proposed scenario-driven approach is not limited to the SPDP context. It is rather a general purpose framework for development of service-based systems or products, called SceDA. SceDA includes three independent scenario-based methods, which are targeted to support different development phases of service-based systems. One of the three methods is used for scenario-based business process development. The other two methods are targeted at service development, in particular, service specification and service realization. Service specification is supported by a method for automatically mining and re-documenting the development rules as scenarios. To support service realization, a method for generating source code for individual service and client applications has been developed. Each method includes a description of the developed tool support and a case study.Case studies are used for constructing and evaluating the three scenario-based methods developed. Each method is applied as a case study in the context of development phases of SPDP. In the first case study, scenario-driven business process development method is applied. Two other case studies concern constructing and using scenarios for application development. One case study utilizes the scenario mining method. In the other case study, the code generation method is applied

Embedding multidimensional grids into optimal hypercubes

Let $G$ and $H$ be graphs, with $|V(H)|\geq |V(G)|$, and $f:V(G)\rightarrow V(H)$ a one to one map of their vertices. Let $dilation(f) = max\{ dist_{H}(f(x),f(y)): xy\in E(G) \}$, where $dist_{H}(v,w)$ is the distance between vertices $v$ and $w$ of $H$. Now let $B(G,H)$ = $min_{f}\{ dilation(f) \}$, over all such maps $f$. The parameter $B(G,H)$ is a generalization of the classic and well studied "bandwidth" of $G$, defined as $B(G,P(n))$, where $P(n)$ is the path on $n$ points and $n = |V(G)|$. Let $[a_{1}\times a_{2}\times \cdots \times a_{k} ]$ be the $k$-dimensional grid graph with integer values $1$ through $a_{i}$ in the $i$'th coordinate. In this paper, we study $B(G,H)$ in the case when $G = [a_{1}\times a_{2}\times \cdots \times a_{k} ]$ and $H$ is the hypercube $Q_{n}$ of dimension $n = \lceil log_{2}(|V(G)|) \rceil$, the hypercube of smallest dimension having at least as many points as $G$. Our main result is that $$B( [a_{1}\times a_{2}\times \cdots \times a_{k} ],Q_{n}) \le 3k,$$ provided $a_{i} \geq 2^{22}$ for each $1\le i\le k$. For such $G$, the bound $3k$ improves on the previous best upper bound $4k+O(1)$. Our methods include an application of Knuth's result on two-way rounding and of the existence of spanning regular cyclic caterpillars in the hypercube.Comment: 47 pages, 8 figure

Estimating preharvest density, adult sex ratio, and fecundity of white-tailed deer using noninvasive sampling techniques

Adult sex ratio and fecundity (juveniles per female) are key population parameters in sustainable wildlife management, but inferring these requires abundance estimates of at least three age/sex classes of the population (male and female adults and juveniles). Prior to harvest, we used an array of 36 wildlife camera traps during 2 and 3 weeks in the early autumn of 2016 and 2017, respectively. We recorded white-tailed deer adult males, adult females, and fawns from the pictures. Simultaneously, we collected fecal DNA (fDNA) from 92 20 m x 20 m plots placed in 23 clusters of four plots between the camera traps. We identified individuals from fDNA samples with microsatellite markers and estimated the total sex ratio and population density using spatial capture-recapture (SCR). The fDNA-SCR analysis concluded equal sex ratio in the first year and female bias in the second year, and no difference in space use between sexes (fawns and adults combined). Camera information was analyzed in a spatial capture (SC) framework assuming an informative prior for animals' space use, either (a) as estimated by fDNA-SCR (same for all age/sex classes), (b) as assumed from the literature (space use of adult males larger than adult females and fawns), or (c) by inferring adult male space use from individually identified males from the camera pictures. These various SC approaches produced plausible inferences on fecundity, but also inferred total density to be lower than the estimate provided by fDNA-SCR in one of the study years. SC approaches where adult male and female were allowed to differ in their space use suggested the population had a female-biased adult sex ratio. In conclusion, SC approaches allowed estimating the preharvest population parameters of interest and provided conservative density estimates

Watershed information system, A

Submitted to Office of Water Research and Technology, U.S. Department of Interior.Bibliography: pages 96-97.OWRT Project no. B-160-COLO, Part II; Grant agreement no. 14-34-0001-7145