Seasonal Movements, Migratory Behavior, and Site Fidelity of West Indian Manatees along the Atlantic Coast of the United States as Determined by Radio-telemetry

The study area encompassed the eastern coasts of Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina, including inland waterways such as the St. Johns River (Fig. 1). Manatees inhabited the relatively narrow band of water that lies between the barrier beaches and the mainland, occasionally venturing into the ocean close to shore. Between Miami and Fernandina Beach, Florida, 19 inlets provided manatees with corridors between the intracoastal waters and the Atlantic Ocean; the distance between adjacent inlets averaged 32 km(SD = 24 km) and varied from 3 to 88 km. Habitats used by manatees along this 900-km stretch ofcoastline varied widely and included estuaries, lagoons, rivers and creeks, shallow bays and sounds, and ocean inlets. Salinities in most areas were brackish, but ranged from completely fresh to completely marine. The predominant communities of aquatic vegetation also varied geographically and with salinity: seagrass meadows and mangrove swamps in brackish and marine waters along the southern half of peninsular Florida; salt marshes in northeastern Florida and Georgia; benthic macroalgae in estuarine and marine habitats; and a variety of submerged, floating, and emergent vegetation in freshwater rivers, canals, and streams throughout the region. Radio-telemetry has been used successfully to track manatees in other regions ofFlorida (Bengtson 1981, Powell and Rathbun 1984, Lefebvre and Frohlich 1986, Rathbun et al. 1990) and Georgia (Zoodsma 1991), but these early studies relied primarily on conventional VHF (very high frequency) transmitters and were limited in their spatial and temporal scope (see O'Shea and Kochman 1990 for overview). Typically, manatees were tagged at a thermal refuge in the winter and then tracked until the tag detached, usually sometime between the spring and fall of the same year. Our study differs from previous research on manatee movements in several important respects. First, we relied heavily on data from satellite-monitored transmitters using the Argos system, which yielded a substantially greater number of locations and more systematic collection of data compared to previous VHF tracking studies (Deutsch et al. 1998). Second, our tagging and tracking efforts encompassed the entire range of manatees along the Atlantic coast, from the Florida Keys to South Carolina, so inferences were not limited to a small geographic area. Third, we often used freshwater to lure manatees to capture sites, which allowed tagging in all months of the year; this provided more information about summer movement patterns than had previous studies which emphasized capture and tracking at winter aggregations. Finally, the study spanned a decade, and success in retagging animals and in replacing transmitters allowed long-term tracking ofmany individuals. This provided the opportunity to investigate variation in seasonal movements, migratory behavior, and site fidelity across years for individual manatees. (254 page document.

Accommodating quality and service improvement research within existing ethical principles

Funds were provided by a Canadian Institute of Health Research grant (Nominated PI: Monica Taljaard, PJT – 153045). Funds were also generously provided by Charles Weijer, who is funded by a Tier 1 Canadian Research Chair.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Alkahest NuclearBLAST : a user-friendly BLAST management and analysis system

BACKGROUND -: Sequencing of EST and BAC end datasets is no longer limited to large research groups. Drops in per-base pricing have made high throughput sequencing accessible to individual investigators. However, there are few options available which provide a free and user-friendly solution to the BLAST result storage and data mining needs of biologists. RESULTS -: Here we describe NuclearBLAST, a batch BLAST analysis, storage and management system designed for the biologist. It is a wrapper for NCBI BLAST which provides a user-friendly web interface which includes a request wizard and the ability to view and mine the results. All BLAST results are stored in a MySQL database which allows for more advanced data-mining through supplied command-line utilities or direct database access. NuclearBLAST can be installed on a single machine or clustered amongst a number of machines to improve analysis throughput. NuclearBLAST provides a platform which eases data-mining of multiple BLAST results. With the supplied scripts, the program can export data into a spreadsheet-friendly format, automatically assign Gene Ontology terms to sequences and provide bi-directional best hits between two datasets. Users with SQL experience can use the database to ask even more complex questions and extract any subset of data they require. CONCLUSION -: This tool provides a user-friendly interface for requesting, viewing and mining of BLAST results which makes the management and data-mining of large sets of BLAST analyses tractable to biologists

Extended Work Duration and the Risk of Self-Reported Percutaneous Injuries in Interns

Context: In their first year of postgraduate training, interns commonly work shifts that are longer than 24 hours. Extended-duration work shifts are associated with increased risks of automobile crash, particularly during a commute from work. Interns may be at risk for other occupation-related injuries. Objective: To assess the relationship between extended work duration and rates of percutaneous injuries in a diverse population of interns in the United States. Design, Setting, and Participants: National prospective cohort study of 2737 of the estimated 18 447 interns in US postgraduate residency programs from July 2002 through May 2003. Each month, comprehensive Web-based surveys that asked about work schedules and the occurrence of percutaneous injuries in the previous month were sent to all participants. Case-crossover within-subjects analyses were performed. Main Outcome Measures: Comparisons of rates of percutaneous injuries during day work (6:30 am to 5:30 pm) after working overnight (extended work) vs day work that was not preceded by working overnight (nonextended work). We also compared injuries during the nighttime (11:30 pm to 7:30 am) vs the daytime (7:30 am to 3:30 pm). Results: From a total of 17 003 monthly surveys, 498 percutaneous injuries were reported (0.029/intern-month). In 448 injuries, at least 1 contributing factor was reported. Lapse in concentration and fatigue were the 2 most commonly reported contributing factors (64% and 31% of injuries, respectively). Percutaneous injuries were more frequent during extended work compared with nonextended work (1.31/1000 opportunities vs 0.76/1000 opportunities, respectively; odds ratio [OR], 1.61; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.46-1.78). Extended work injuries occurred after a mean of 29.1 consecutive work hours; nonextended work injuries occurred after a mean of 6.1 consecutive work hours. Injuries were more frequent during the nighttime than during the daytime (1.48/1000 opportunities vs 0.70/1000 opportunities, respectively; OR, 2.04; 95% CI, 1.98-2.11). Conclusion: Extended work duration and night work were associated with an increased risk of percutaneous injuries in this study population of physicians during their first year of clinical training

Antigenic and genetic characterization of a divergent African virus, Ikoma lyssavirus

In 2009, a novel lyssavirus (subsequently named Ikoma lyssavirus, IKOV) was detected in the brain of an African civet (Civettictis civetta) with clinical rabies in the Serengeti National Park of Tanzania. The degree of nucleotide divergence between the genome of IKOV and those of other lyssaviruses predicted antigenic distinction from, and lack of protection provided by, available rabies vaccines. In addition, the index case was considered likely to be an incidental spillover event, and therefore the true reservoir of IKOV remained to be identified. The advent of sensitive molecular techniques has led to a rapid increase in the discovery of novel viruses. Detecting viral sequence alone, however, only allows for prediction of phenotypic characteristics and not their measurement. In the present study we describe the in vitro and in vivo characterization of IKOV, demonstrating that it is (1) pathogenic by peripheral inoculation in an animal model, (2) antigenically distinct from current rabies vaccine strains and (3) poorly neutralized by sera from humans and animals immunized against rabies. In a laboratory mouse model, no protection was elicited by a licensed rabies vaccine. We also investigated the role of bats as reservoirs of IKOV. We found no evidence for infection among 483 individuals of at least 13 bat species sampled across sites in the Serengeti and Southern Kenya

Formation and Evolution of Planetary Systems: Cold Outer Disks Associated with Sun-like stars

We present the discovery of debris systems around three solar mass stars based upon observations performed with the Spitzer Space Telescope as part of a Legacy Science Program, ``the Formation and Evolution of Planetary Systems'' (FEPS). We also confirm the presence of debris around two other stars. All the stars exhibit infrared emission in excess of the expected photospheres in the 70 micron band, but are consistent with photospheric emission at <= 33 micron. This restricts the maximum temperature of debris in equilibrium with the stellar radiation to T < 70 K. We find that these sources are relatively old in the FEPS sample, in the age range 0.7 - 3 Gyr. Based on models of the spectral energy distributions, we suggest that these debris systems represent materials generated by collisions of planetesimal belts. We speculate on the nature of these systems through comparisons to our own Kuiper Belt, and on the likely planet(s) responsible for stirring the system and ultimately releasing dust through collisions. We further report observations of a nearby star HD 13974 (d =11 pc) that is indistinguishable from a bare photosphere at both 24 micron and 70 micron. The observations place strong upper limits on the presence of any cold dust in this nearby system (L_IR/L_* < 10^{-5.2}).Comment: 31 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in Ap

HST and Spitzer Observations of the HD 207129 Debris Ring

A debris ring around the star HD 207129 (G0V; d = 16.0 pc) has been imaged in scattered visible light with the ACS coronagraph on the Hubble Space Telescope and in thermal emission using MIPS on the Spitzer Space Telescope at 70 microns (resolved) and 160 microns (unresolved). Spitzer IRS (7-35 microns) and MIPS (55-90 microns) spectrographs measured disk emission at >28 microns. In the HST image the disk appears as a ~30 AU wide ring with a mean radius of ~163 AU and is inclined by 60 degrees from pole-on. At 70 microns it appears partially resolved and is elongated in the same direction and with nearly the same size as seen with HST in scattered light. At 0.6 microns the ring shows no significant brightness asymmetry, implying little or no forward scattering by its constituent dust. With a mean surface brightness of V=23.7 mag per square arcsec, it is the faintest disk imaged to date in scattered light.Comment: 28 pages, 8 figure