A first assessment of operator compliance and dolphin behavioural responses during swim-with-dolphin programs for three species of Delphinids in the Azores

The popularity of swim-with wild dolphin programs around the world is fast growing, with the studies required to investigate their impact lagging behind. In the Azores, species targeted include the short-beaked common (Delphinus delphis), the bottlenose (Tursiops truncatus) and the Atlantic spotted dolphin (Stenella frontalis). To evaluate the effects of this activity on local dolphin populations, and thus provide support for management decisions, dolphin response data were collected onboard commercial boats off São Miguel Island between 2013 and 2015. All three species revealed high degree of neutral and avoidance behaviours, and very low approach rates. Tursiops showed higher frequency of neutral responses than Delphinus, while Stenella both avoided and approached more frequently than the other species. When boats intersected the path of dolphin groups, avoidance responses were more likely and the duration of swims was shorter. Swims were also shorter when animals were resting and travelling, and when groups were smaller. The operators generally complied with the legislation, except in respect to the number of swim attempts per dolphin group, which was higher than the legal maximum. Improvement of the current legislation and concurrent reinforcement of controls is essential to avoid detrimental long-term effects of this activity on dolphin populations in the Azores.This research was partially supported by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) through the COMPETE – Operational Competitiveness Programme and national funds through FCT – Foundation for Science and Technology, under the project PEst-C/MAR/LA0015/2013, by the Strategic Funding UID/Multi/04423/2013 through national funds provided by FCT – Foundation for Science and Technology and European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), in the framework of the programme PT2020 and by cE3c funding (Ref:UID/BIA/003329/2013). It was also partly supported by CIRN (Centro de Investigação de Recursos Naturais, University of the Azores), and CIIMAR (Interdisciplinary Centre of Marine and Environmental Research, Porto, Portugal). A. Cecchetti was supported by the Regional Fund for Science through the scholarship M.3.1.2/F/036/2011. K.A. Stockin was supported by a Royal Society of New Zealand Te Aparangi Rutherford Discovery Fellowship.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A importância dos estudos de impacto das atividades turísticas sobre os padrões comportamentais dos cetáceos

O impacto das atividades turísticas no comportamento dos cetáceos é um assunto que tem sido estudado em diferentes áreas geográficas e para diferentes espécies. Trata-se de um tema que recentemente está a tornar-se ainda mais importante devido ao grande desenvolvimento das atividades de observação de cetáceos em certas regiões, como as Canárias, assim como de práticas mais intrusivas, como a natação com golfinhos. […].info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Diverse perspectives of cat owners indicate barriers to and opportunities for managing cat predation of wildlife

This is the final version. Available on open access from Wiley via the DOI in this recordData availability: All quantitative data and additional information associated with this study have been deposited at www.zenodo.org and can be found at doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3755683Policy proposals to address predation of wildlife by domestic cats (Felis catus) include reducing cat populations, regulating ownership, educating owners, and restricting cats’ outdoor access. Such proposals rarely account for cat owners’ perspectives, however, and are frequently met with strong, principled opposition. We conducted a Q‐methodological study to investigate the views of domestic cat owners in the UK on the roaming and hunting behaviors of their pets. We identified five distinctive cat‐owner perspectives: (1) Concerned Protectors focus on cat safety, (2) Freedom Defenders prioritize cat independence and oppose restrictions on behavior, (3) Tolerant Guardians believe outdoor access is important for cats but dislike their hunting, (4) Conscientious Caretakers feel some responsibility for managing their cats’ hunting, and (5) Laissez‐faire Landlords were largely unaware of the issues surrounding roaming and hunting behavior. Most participants valued outdoor access for cats and opposed confinement to prevent hunting; cat confinement policies are therefore unlikely to find support among owners in the UK. To address this conservation challenge, we argue that generic policies will be less effective than multidimensional strategies offering owners practical husbandry approaches that are compatible with their diverse circumstances, capabilities, and senses of responsibility

Resource orchestration strategies with retrials for latency-sensitive network slicing over distributed telco clouds

The new radio technologies (i.e. 5G and beyond) will allow a new generation of innovative services operated by vertical industries (e.g. robotic cloud, autonomous vehicles, etc.) with more stringent QoS requirements, especially in terms of end-to-end latency. Other technological changes, such as Network Function Virtualization (NFV) and Software-Defined Networking (SDN), will bring unique service capabilities to networks by enabling flexible network slicing that can be tailored to the needs of vertical services. However, effective orchestration strategies need to be put in place to offer latency minimization while also maximizing resource utilization for telco providers to address vertical requirements and increase their revenue. Looking at this objective, this paper addresses a latency-sensitive orchestration problem by proposing different strategies for the coordinated selection of virtual resources (network, computational, and storage resources) in distributed DCs while meeting vertical requirements (e.g., bandwidth demand) for network slicing. Three orchestration strategies are presented to minimize latency or the blocking probability through effective resource utilization. To further reduce the slice request blocking, orchestration strategies also encompass a retrial mechanism applied to rejected slice requests. Regarding latency, two components were considered, namely processing and network latency. An extensive set of simulations was carried out over a wide and composite telco cloud infrastructure in which different types of data centers coexist characterized by a different network location, size, and processing capacity. The results compare the behavior of the strategies in addressing latency minimization and service request fulfillment, also considering the impact of the retrial mechanism.This work was supported in part by the Department of Excellence in Robotics and Artificial Intelligence by Ministero dell’Istruzione, dell’Università e della Ricerca (MIUR) to Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, and in part by the Project 5GROWTH under Agreement 856709

Estudando e valorizando os cetáceos dos Açores

Nos Açores ocorrem pelo menos 25 espécies diferentes de cetáceos (baleias e golfinhos). Algumas podem observar-se facilmente durante todo o ano, mas outras são menos visíveis, quer por ocorrerem apenas em épocas específicas quer pelo seu comportamento furtivo. Todas as espécies de cetáceos estão protegidas legalmente, e algumas têm um estatuto de conservação que requer medidas especiais de gestão. Estas medidas requerem, no entanto, conhecimentos de base sobre abundância e distribuição que infelizmente é insuficiente. Para além dos argumentos conservacionistas os cetáceos constituem um recurso económico relevante para o sector do turismo nos Açores. Por esta razão torna-se ainda mais importante o seu estudo: só um bom conhecimento dos padrões de distribuição e de comportamento permitirá garantir uma boa gestão do recurso. […].info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Oral health-related quality of life in partially edentulous patients before and after implant therapy: a 2-year longitudinal study

The aim of this study was to measure the Oral Health-Related Quality of Life (OHRQoL) before and after a prosthodontic implant therapy so to determine the physical and psychological impact of implant-supported fixed partial dentures (IFPD) rehabilitation among edentulous patients. Methods. 50 partially edentulous patients aged 40-70 years, treated with IFPD, completed the OHRQoL questionnaire before the implant surgery (Time 0) and 2 years after their whole implant-prosthetic rehabilitation (Time 1). The questionnaire was proposed in a short version of Oral Health Impact Profile (OHIP-14, range 0-56) and analyzed through the ‘additive method’. We evaluated statistical mean, standard deviation, median, variance and mode of all OHIP-14 domains and the statistical significance about oral changes at Time 0 and Time 1 using the Chi-square test (p-values 0.05). Patients with I and IV Kennedy’s class edentulism showed better improvement (p < 0.05). Preoperative and post-treatment assessments of OHRQoL exhibited significant differences. The IFPD treatment had a positive effect on the OHRQoL, which improved better in patients with I and IV Kennedy’s edentulous class

Are supramodality and cross-modal plasticity the yin and yang of brain development? From blindness to rehabilitation

Research in blind individuals has primarily focused for a long time on the brain plastic reorganization that occurs in early visual areas. Only more recently, scientists have developed innovative strategies to understand to what extent vision is truly a mandatory prerequisite for the brain’s fine morphological architecture to develop and function. As a whole, the studies conducted to date in sighted and congenitally blind individuals have provided ample evidence that several ‘visual’ cortical areas develop independently from visual experience and do process information content regardless of the sensory modality through which a particular stimulus is conveyed: a property named supramodality. At the same time, lack of vision leads to a structural and functional reorganization within 'visual' brain areas, a phenomenon known as cross-modal plasticity. Cross-modal recruitment of the occipital cortex in visually deprived individuals represents an adaptative compensatory mechanism that mediates processing of non-visual inputs. Supramodality and cross-modal plasticity appear to be the 'yin and yang' of brain development: supramodal is what takes place despite the lack of vision, whereas cross-modal is what happens because of lack of vision. Here we provide a critical overview of the research in this field and discuss the implications that these novel findings have for the development of educative/rehabilitation approaches and sensory substitution devices in sensory-impaired individuals

Atomic force microscopy of bacteria from periodontal subgingival biofilm: Preliminary study results

OBJECTIVE: Atomic force microscope (AFM) is a technology that allows analysis of the nanoscale morphology of bacteria within biofilm and provides details that may be better useful for understanding the role of bacterial interactions in the periodontal disease. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Five patients with periodontal ≥5 mm pockets diagnosed as generalized periodontitis and five patients with slight gingivitis were selected for the investigation. Bacteria biofilms were collected and morphologically investigated by AFM application. RESULTS: The investigation revealed how periodontitis bacteria are characterized by specific morphologic features of the cell wall. The major representative species of bacteria causing periodontal diseases have been reproduced by a three-dimensional reconstruction showing the bacteria surface details. CONCLUSIONS: The presence of complex glycocalyx structures, bacteriophage-like vesicles, spirochetes (classic and cystic morphology) and bacterial co-aggregation has been identified by the AFM analysis. The results suggest that AFM is a reliable technique for studying bacterial morphology and for examining microbial interactions in dental plaque