Antivitamin K drugs in stroke prevention.

Among the different subtypes of ischaemic strokes, almost 20 % are of cardiac origin. Different are the causes of cardioembolic stroke, but the most common is the atrial fibrillation, a supraventricular arrhythmia. Appropriate use of antiplatelet drugs and anticoagulants after transient ischaemic attack (TIA) or ischaemic stroke depends on whether the underlying cause is cardioembolic or of presumed arterial origin. Adequate antiplatelet therapy is recommended for secondary prevention after cerebral ischaemia of presumed arterial origin, whether for patients with TIA and ischaemic stroke of cardiac origin, mainly due to atrial fibrillation. Vitamin K antagonists (VKAs) are highly effective in preventing recurrent ischaemic stroke but have important limitations and are thus underused. Current guidelines still regard Vitamin K Antagonists at INR 2·0-3·0 to be the standard treatment after cerebral ischaemia of cardiac origin for patients who can tolerate them. In this setting antiplatelet therapy provides an alternative when oral anticoagulation is contraindicated or when patient choice or compliance limits choice of therapy, but is much less effective than VKAs. Recent trial data performed with new anticogulants such as the factor Xa and thrombin inhibitors will need to be taken into account, in order to prevent several of the clinical problems actually related to VKAs use

Food habits, selectivity, and foraging modes of the school shark Galeorhinus galeus

The foraging ecology of the school shark Galeorhinus galeus was studied in Anegada Bay, Argentina, during the seasonal occurrence of this species in Argentinean waters (October to April) from 1998 to 2001. Of the 408 individuals examined, 168 (41.2%) had food remains in their stomachs. The proportion of individuals with food remains was negatively correlated with total length. In general, the diet was composed mainly of teleosts (98.5% IRI [index of relative importance]), with invertebrates and chondrichthyans as minor prey. The diet varied ontogenetically and seasonally. Juveniles and adults differed in their consumption of invertebrates, with juveniles preying more on benthic invertebrates, mainly the octopus Octopus tehuelchus, and adults on squid. From December to February, adults preyed mainly on benthic teleosts (almost exclusively the Atlantic midshipman Porichthys porosissimus), while from March to April the consumption of squid increased. A comparison of numbers of prey in stomachs with abundance of prey in the environment in March and April showed that, in these months, juveniles selected invertebrates and demersal teleosts and avoided pelagic teleosts and chondricthyan prey, and adults selected squid and avoided pelagic teleosts. This indicates that, during this period, G. galeus is not an opportunistic predator. The mean size of prey increased with increasing shark length, but even large sharks consumed small prey. All shark sizes consumed prey fragments that were significantly larger than other prey consumed whole. This indicates that G. galeus is able to overcome gape limitation by mutilating prey, and that the ontogenetic diet shift was not due to a change in the ability to seize prey.Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Muse

Life History Traits of Sperm Whales Physeter macrocephalus Linnaeus, 1758 Stranded along Italian Coasts (Cetartiodactyla: Physeteridae)

We investigated the relationship between age and body length, and age at sexual maturity of Physeter macrocephalus individuals stranded along the Italian coast. Our molecular analysis shows that all our samples belong to the C.001.002 haplotype, shared between Atlantic and Mediterranean populations. We show that males attain sexual maturity at 10 years, similar to those from other marine areas. However, considering the same body length class, Mediterranean males are older than Atlantic ones. Our finding of a Mediterranean pregnant female of only 6.5 m in length and an assessed age of 24–26 years is particularly noteworthy, considering that females reach sexual maturity at about 9 years and 9 m of total length in other regions. Comparing our results with the literature data, we highlight the positive correlation between lifespan, adult body length and weight of males from the Mediterranean and Atlantic Ocean. Regardless of whether the relatively small size of Mediterranean specimens is a consequence of an inbreeding depression or an adaptation to less favorable trophic conditions, we recommend to closely monitor this population from a conservation perspective. In fact, its low genetic diversity likely corresponds to a relatively limited ability to respond to environmental changes compared with other populations

Peer norm guesses and self-reported attitudes towards performance-related pay

Due to a variety of reasons, people see themselves differently from how they see others. This basic asymmetry has broad consequences. It leads people to judge themselves and their own behavior differently from how they judge others and others’ behavior. This research, first, studies the perceptions and attitudes of Greek Public Sector employees towards the introduction of Performance-Related Pay (PRP) systems trying to reveal whether there is a divergence between individual attitudes and guesses on peers’ attitudes. Secondly, it is investigated whether divergence between own self-reported and peer norm guesses could mediate the acceptance of the aforementioned implementation once job status has been controlled for. This study uses a unique questionnaire of 520 observations which was designed to address the questions outlined in the preceding lines. Our econometric results indicate that workers have heterogeneous attitudes and hold heterogeneous beliefs on others’ expectations regarding a successful implementation of PRP. Specifically, individual perceptions are less skeptical towards PRP than are beliefs on others’ attitudes. Additionally, we found that managers are significantly more optimistic than lower rank employees regarding the expected success of PRP systems in their jobs. However, they both expect their peers to be more negative than they themselves are

Aggregate Unemployment Decreases Individual Returns to Education

On the basis of a theoretical model, we argue that higher aggregate unemployment affects individual returns to education. We therefore include aggregate unemployment and an interaction term between unemployment and the individual education level in a standard Mincer equation. Our results show that an increase in regional unemployment by 1% decreases the returns to education by 0.005 percentage points. This implies that higher skilled employees are better sheltered from labour market changes with respect to their jobs but encounter larger wage changes than less skilled employees. Differences in regional unemployment can in addition almost fully explain the observed large differences in regional returns to education. We use representative individual data and regional panel variation in unemployment between different German regions and for different employee groups. We demonstrate that our results are robust with respect to aggregation bias, time lags and potential endogeneity of the unemployment variable

Global Diversity Hotspots and Conservation Priorities for Sharks

Sharks are one of the most threatened groups of marine animals, as high exploitation rates coupled with low resilience to fishing pressure have resulted in population declines worldwide. Designing conservation strategies for this group depends on basic knowledge of the geographic distribution and diversity of known species. So far, this information has been fragmented and incomplete. Here, we have synthesized the first global shark diversity pattern from a new database of published sources, including all 507 species described at present, and have identified hotspots of shark species richness, functional diversity and endemicity from these data. We have evaluated the congruence of these diversity measures and demonstrate their potential use in setting priority areas for shark conservation. Our results show that shark diversity across all species peaks on the continental shelves and at mid-latitudes (30–40 degrees N and S). Global hotspots of species richness, functional diversity and endemicity were found off Japan, Taiwan, the East and West coasts of Australia, Southeast Africa, Southeast Brazil and Southeast USA. Moreover, some areas with low to moderate species richness such as Southern Australia, Angola, North Chile and Western Continental Europe stood out as places of high functional diversity. Finally, species affected by shark finning showed different patterns of diversity, with peaks closer to the Equator and a more oceanic distribution overall. Our results show that the global pattern of shark diversity is uniquely different from land, and other well-studied marine taxa, and may provide guidance for spatial approaches to shark conservation. However, similar to terrestrial ecosystems, protected areas based on hotspots of diversity and endemism alone would provide insufficient means for safeguarding the diverse functional roles that sharks play in marine ecosystems