Wildlife population changes across eastern europe after the collapse of socialism

When political regimes fall, economic conditions change and wildlife protection can be undermined. Eastern European countries experienced turmoil following the collapse of socialism in the early 1990s, raising the question of how wildlife was affected. We show that the aftermath of the collapse changed the population growth rates of various wildlife taxa. We analyzed populations of moose (Alces alces), wild boar (Sus scrofa), red deer (Cervus elaphus), roe deer (Capreolus capreolus), brown bear (Ursus arctos), Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx), and gray wolf (Canis lupus) in nine countries. Population growth rates changed in 32 out of 49 time series. In the countries that reformed slowly, many species exhibited rapid population declines, and population growth rates changed in 83% of the time series. In contrast, in countries with fast post- socialism reforms, many populations increased rapidly, and growth rates changed in only 48% of time series. Our results suggest that the direction and frequency of the changes were associated with socioeconomic conditions, and that wildlife populations can be greatly affected by socioeconomic upheavals

Toward an operative diagnosis in sepsis: a latent class approach

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Recent data have suggested that 18 million of new sepsis cases occur each year worldwide, with a mortality rate of almost 30%. There is not consensus on the clinical definition of sepsis and, because of lack of training or simply unawareness, clinicians often miss or delay this diagnosis. This is especially worrying; since there is strong evidence supporting that early treatment is associated with greater clinical success. There are some difficulties for sepsis diagnosis such as the lack of an appropriate gold standard to identify this clinical condition. This situation has hampered the assessment of the accuracy of clinical signs and biomarkers to diagnose sepsis.</p> <p>Methods/design</p> <p>Cross-sectional study to determine the operative characteristics of three biological markers of inflammation and coagulation (D-dimer, C-reactive protein and Procalcitonin) as diagnostic tests for sepsis, in patients admitted to hospital care with a presumptive infection as main diagnosis.</p> <p>Discussion</p> <p>There are alternative techniques that have been used to assess the accuracy of tests without gold standards, and they have been widely used in clinical disciplines such as psychiatry, even though they have not been tested in sepsis diagnosis. Considering the main importance of diagnosis as early as possible, we propose a latent class analysis to evaluate the accuracy of three biomarkers to diagnose sepsis.</p

The middle/late Eocene transition in the Eastern Carpathians (Romania) based on foraminifera and calcareous nannofossil assemblages

Foraminiferal and calcareous nannofossil assemblages from the Eastern Carpathians (northern part of the Tarcău Nappe, Romania) were documented and correlated in order to reconstruct the palaeonvironmental settings and provide a biostratigraphic framework of the Plopu Formation. The benthic foraminiferal assemblages are dominated by flysch-type agglutinated taxa, suggesting a bathyal palaeodepth with frequent oscillations of the carbon compensation depth. The agglutinated foraminifera morphogroup analyses suggest different levels of organic matter influx and oxygenation. Both the foraminifera and calcareous nannofossil assemblages suggest a shift between the warm mid Eocene to the cooler late Eocene climate. Biostratigraphic data based on calcareous nannofossils (NP15–NP19/NNTe8–NNTe12 biozones) helped to establish the age of the formation. Four assemblages of benthic agglutinated foraminifera (Psammosiphonella cylindrica – Nothia excelsa; Paratrochamminoides spp. – Trochamminoides spp.; Karrerulina spp.– Reticulophragmium amplectens; Spiroplectammina spectabilis) correlated with calcareous nannofossil bioevents supported the placement of the mid to late Eocene transition within the Plopu Formation

Meda Inequality for Rearrangements of the Convolution on the Heisenberg Group and Some Applications

The Meda inequality for rearrangements of the convolution operator on the Heisenberg group &#x210D;n is proved. By using the Meda inequality, an O&#39;Neil-type inequality for the convolution is obtained. As applications of these results, some sufficient and necessary conditions for the boundedness of the fractional maximal operator M&#x03A9;,&#x03B1; and fractional integral operator I&#x03A9;,&#x03B1; with rough kernels in the spaces Lp(&#x210D;n) are found. Finally, we give some comments on the extension of our results to the case of homogeneous groups