Interactions between shorebirds and benthic invertebrates at Culbin Sands lagoon, NE Scotland: effects of avian predation on their prey community density and structure

In the North Sea, during autumn-winter, intertidal flats often receive a massive influx of migratory shorebirds (wildfowl, waders and seabirds), which utilise the high prey densities that are available. The present study was conducted at Culbin Sands lagoon, NE Scotland, in 1994-1996, to investigate benthic invertebrate standing stock, and the energy flow from benthic invertebrates to shorebirds. Benthic invertebrate standing stock was estimated to be 500 kJ m(-2) yr(-1), and shorebird consumption efficiency to be 18% of the available standing stock. A series of manipulative field experiments were then conducted to test the effects of shorebirds on benthic invertebrate densities and community structure. Birds were excluded from caged areas (exclosures), and benthic invertebrate densities (total and by class size) in caged and uncaged areas were compared for each season separately. During autumn-winter, especially the gastropod Hydrobia ulvae and larger-sized (> 15 mm) clams Macoma balthica were observed to be the roost impacted species, being significantly more abundant in bird-exclosures than in bird-accessed areas.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Matrix shift operators applied to Markov chains

Call number: LD2668 .T4 1968 B69Master of Scienc

Low-energy Bluetooth for Detecting Real-world Penetrance of Bystander Naloxone Kits: A Pilot Study

Opioid overdose is a growing public health emergency in the United States. The antidote naloxone must be administered rapidly after opioid overdose to prevent death. Bystander or take-home naloxone programs distribute naloxone to opioid users and other community members to increase naloxone availability at the time of overdose. However, data describing the natural history of take- home naloxone in the hands of at-risk individuals is lacking. To understand patterns of naloxone uptake in at-risk users, we developed a smart naloxone kit that uses low-energy Bluetooth (BLE) to unobtrusively detect the transit of naloxone through a hospital campus. In this paper, we describe development of the smart naloxone kit and results from the first 10 participants in our pilot study

Emergency endovascular management of peripheral artery aneurysms and pseudoaneurysms - a review.

Endovascular stenting has been successfully employed in the management of aortic aneurysms; however, its use in managing peripheral arterial conditions remains questionable. We review the utility of endovascular technique in the management of peripheral arterial conditions like aneurysms, pseudoaneurysms and arterio-venous fistulas in the emergency setting. Though long term data about graft patency rates is not yet available, the endovascular approach appears to be a useful minimally invasive technique in situations where open repair is either difficult or not feasible.RIGHTS : This article is licensed under the BioMed Central licence at http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/license which is similar to the 'Creative Commons Attribution Licence'. In brief you may : copy, distribute, and display the work; make derivative works; or make commercial use of the work - under the following conditions: the original author must be given credit; for any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are

Doxycycline inhibits elastin degradation and reduces metalloproteinase activity in a model of aneurysmal disease

AbstractPurpose: Abdominal aortic aneurysms are characterized by degradation of the extracellular matrix, with a reduction in the elastin concentration of the arterial media. These changes are mediated by increased levels of endogenous metalloproteinases (MMPs) within the aorta, which provide a potential therapeutic target for pharmacologic agents aimed at reducing the growth rate of small aneurysms. In this study, the ability of doxycycline—an MMP inhibitor—to reduce matrix degradation was assessed in a previously described model of aneurysmal disease that used a brief pulse of elastase to induce MMP production and elastin degradation in arterial organ cultures. Methods: Porcine aortic segments (n = 8) were preincubated in exogenous pancreatic elastase for 24 hours before culture in standard conditions for 13 days with both 1 and 10 mg/L doxycycline. Control segments were cultured both without doxycycline and without elastase. At the termination of culture, MMPs were extracted from the tissue and quantified by a combination of substrate gel enzymography and immunoblotting. The volume fractions of elastin and collagen were determined by stereologic analysis of sections stained with Miller's elastin and van Gieson's stain. Results: Stereologic analysis demonstrated a significant preservation of elastin in aorta treated with doxycycline 10 mg/L (p < 0.001) and demonstrated that this preservation was accompanied by a significant reduction in MMP-9 activity (p < 0.02). Immunoblotting for tissue inhibitors of metalloproteinases (TIMP-1 and TIMP-2) showed no decreased production in the doxycycline-treated groups. Conclusions: Therapeutic ranges of doxycycline significantly inhibited elastin degradation and MMP-9 production within aortic organ cultures. These data suggest that doxycycline may have a potential application in reducing the growth rates of small abdominal aortic aneurysms. (J Vasc Surg 1998;27:354-61.

Acquiring 21st Century Skills: gaining insight in the design and applicability of a serious game with 4C-ID

Despite the growth of interest in serious games, there is little systematic guidance on how to assure a game fits the instruction required. Game design frameworks are still under development and do not help to articulate the educational merits of a game to a teacher nor fit with their background. In this paper we discuss the results of a GaLA workshop which examined how a widely applied instructional design model, 4C-ID, can ease the uptake of serious games by offering teachers a model fitting their background to assess games on the applicability for their learning contexts. The paper will introduce the 4C-ID model and its use in the CHERMUG project with the design of mini-games for research methods and statistics. Next, we will discuss how workshop participants used the 4C-ID model to evaluate two games on their applicability for a given learning context. The participants indicated that the approach can support teachers in deciding if and how to use a given serious game.The work described in this paper was partially supported by the European Community under the Lifelong Learning Programme project CHERMUG nr. 519023-LLP-1-2011-1-UK-KA3-KA3MP. The paper does not represent the opinion of the European Community, and the European Community is not responsible for any use that might be made of its content

Chandra Detection of a TypeII Quasar at z=3.288

We report on observations of a TypeII quasar at redshift z=3.288, identified as a hard X-ray source in a 185 ks observation with the Chandra X-ray Observatory and as a high-redshift photometric candidate from deep, multiband optical imaging. CXOJ084837.9+445352 (hereinafter CXO52) shows an unusually hard X-ray spectrum from which we infer an absorbing column density N(H) = (4.8+/-2.1)e23 / cm2 (90% confidence) and an implied unabsorbed 2-10 keV rest-frame luminosity of L(2-10) = 3.3e44 ergs/s, well within the quasar regime. Hubble Space Telescope imaging shows CXO52 to be elongated with slight morphological differences between the WFPC2 F814W and NICMOS F160W bands. Optical and near-infrared spectroscopy of CXO52 show high-ionization emission lines with velocity widths ~1000 km/s and flux ratios similar to a Seyfert2 galaxy or radio galaxy. The latter are the only class of high-redshift TypeII luminous AGN which have been extensively studied to date. Unlike radio galaxies, however, CXO52 is radio quiet, remaining undetected at radio wavelengths to fairly deep limits, f(4.8GHz) < 40 microJy. High-redshift TypeII quasars, expected from unification models of active galaxies and long-thought necessary to explain the X-ray background, are poorly constrained observationally with few such systems known. We discuss recent observations of similar TypeII quasars and detail search techniques for such systems: namely (1) X-ray selection, (2) radio selection, (3) multi-color imaging selection, and (4) narrow-band imaging selection. Such studies are likely to begin identifying luminous, high-redshift TypeII systems in large numbers. We discuss the prospects for these studies and their implications to our understanding of the X-ray background.Comment: 28 pages, 5 figures; to appear in The Astrophysical Journa

Time trends, projections, and spatial distribution of low birthweight in Australia, 2009–2030: Evidence from the National Perinatal Data Collection

Introduction: Infants with low birthweight (LBW, birthweight <2500 g) have increased in many high-resource countries over the past two decades. This study aimed to investigate the time trends, projections, and spatial distribution of LBW in Australia, 2009–2030. Methods: We used standard aggregate data on 3 346 808 births from 2009 to 2019 from Australia's National Perinatal Data Collection. Bayesian linear regression model was used to estimate the trends in the prevalence of LBW in Australia. Results: We found that the prevalence of LBW was 6.18% in 2009, which has increased to 6.64% in 2019 (average annual rate of change, AARC = +0.76%). If the national trend remains the same, the projected prevalence of LBW in Australia will increase to 7.34% (95% uncertainty interval, UI = 6.99, 7.68) in 2030. Observing AARC across different subpopulations, the trend of LBW was stable among Indigenous mothers, whereas it increased among non-Indigenous mothers (AARC = +0.81%). There is also an increase among the most disadvantaged mothers (AARC = +1.08%), birthing people in either of two extreme age groups (AARC = +1.99% and +1.53% for <20 years and ≥40 years, respectively), and mothers who smoked during pregnancy (AARC = +1.52%). Spatiotemporal maps showed that some of the Statistical Area level 3 (SA3) in Northern Territory and Queensland had consistently higher prevalence for LBW than the national average from 2014 to 2019. Conclusion: Overall, the prevalence of LBW has increased in Australia during 2009–2019; however, the trends vary across different subpopulations. If trends persist, Australia will not achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) target of a 30% reduction in LBW by 2030. Centering and supporting the most vulnerable subpopulations is vital to progress the SDGs and improves perinatal and infant health in Australia