Terrestrial camera traps: essential tool for the detection and future monitoring of the Critically Endangered Sira curassow Pauxi koepckeae

The only known population of Sira curassow Pauxi koepckeae resides within the Sira Communal Reserve, a chain of isolated and high-elevation outcrops of the Peruvian Andes. The species has previously been detected on just a handful of occasions, is thought to number less than 400 adult individuals and is Critically Endangered according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List. As such, evaluating potential monitoring techniques to study the Sira curassow is of crucial importance to best inform future management strategies. We performed a preliminary assessment of camera traps to detect and collect novel ecological information on the Sira curassow. We used 17 cameras placed at regular altitudinal intervals (either 50 or 100 m) between 800 and 1800 m above sea level, 2 cameras placed at important habitat features, and 2 additional cameras placed on trails to assess hunting activity. Cameras were left in situ for 6 mo (March-September 2015). Sira curassows were detected at 26% of survey locations, totalling 19 independent detections. This resulted in an overall occupancy estimate of 0.25 across the whole transect and 0.55 across the current known elevational range. All records occurred between 1150 and 1500 m. Finally, we detail new ecological information obtained from the camera trap footage, readdress current threats to the species and provide recommendations regarding future monitoring

Activity monitoring in patients with depression : A systematic review

Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.Peer reviewedPreprin

Industry Career Guide: IT-BPO

Off-shoring describes the relocation by a company of its business processes like manufacturing, operations, and support processes to other countries, particularly in global production networks. Outsourcing involves the contracting of a third party to perform the necessary processes within the company. The recent development of the ability of companies to outsource suppliers outside the nation gave rise to the concept of off-shoring which not only implies foreign inputs to work domestically, but involves cross-country collaborations as well. The Off-shoring and Outsourcing (O&O) Industry is known widely as the IT-BPO (Information Technology – Business Process Outsourcing) industry. The industry is relatively new, but the dynamism it exhibits is great. Global O&O has grown to 15% in 2008, which is the third largest around the world. In 2008, the industry contributes 3.6% of Philippine GDP and 12.36% of exports which is particular in the export of services

Global Perspectives and Experiences of Community Psychologists for the Promotion of Social Change and the Construction of Radical Solidarities

In this special issue we seek to document and learn from exemplars from around the world of interventions and other forms of applied work in organisational, community, and everyday social settings that are aimed at producing social change and changing oppressive social and cultural realities. This introduction presents the colonial origins of oppression and strategies for building social change based on radical solidarity. Colonialism, violence, and social inequality are interconnected. We realize that it is urgent to generate solitarily social change to transform these historical and transnational realities of oppression. Social change is realized through the praxis developed in historically deprived community contexts, respecting individuals' cultural and identity characteristics. Radical solidarity is necessary to question possible practices of colonial tutelage of communities. Likewise, praxis for social change must be developed creatively at the various levels of action and respect the intersectional trajectories of groups and individuals. We present diverse praxis experiences for social change in different contexts and levels of action developed by community psychologists, seeking to build a network of radical solidarity focused on dismantling colonial power

Global Perspectives and Experiences of Community Psychologists for the Promotion of Social Change and the Construction of Radical Solidarities

In this special issue we seek to document and learn from exemplars from around the world of interventions and other forms of applied work in organisational, community, and everyday social settings that are aimed at producing social change and changing oppressive social and cultural realities. This introduction presents the colonial origins of oppression and strategies for building social change based on radical solidarity. Colonialism, violence, and social inequality are interconnected. We realize that it is urgent to generate solitarily social change to transform these historical and transnational realities of oppression. Social change is realized through the praxis developed in historically deprived community contexts, respecting individuals' cultural and identity characteristics. Radical solidarity is necessary to question possible practices of colonial tutelage of communities. Likewise, praxis for social change must be developed creatively at the various levels of action and respect the intersectional trajectories of groups and individuals. We present diverse praxis experiences for social change in different contexts and levels of action developed by community psychologists, seeking to build a network of radical solidarity focused on dismantling colonial power

Properties of Healthcare Teaming Networks as a Function of Network Construction Algorithms

Network models of healthcare systems can be used to examine how providers collaborate, communicate, refer patients to each other. Most healthcare service network models have been constructed from patient claims data, using billing claims to link patients with providers. The data sets can be quite large, making standard methods for network construction computationally challenging and thus requiring the use of alternate construction algorithms. While these alternate methods have seen increasing use in generating healthcare networks, there is little to no literature comparing the differences in the structural properties of the generated networks. To address this issue, we compared the properties of healthcare networks constructed using different algorithms and the 2013 Medicare Part B outpatient claims data. Three different algorithms were compared: binning, sliding frame, and trace-route. Unipartite networks linking either providers or healthcare organizations by shared patients were built using each method. We found that each algorithm produced networks with substantially different topological properties. Provider networks adhered to a power law, and organization networks to a power law with exponential cutoff. Censoring networks to exclude edges with less than 11 shared patients, a common de-identification practice for healthcare network data, markedly reduced edge numbers and greatly altered measures of vertex prominence such as the betweenness centrality. We identified patterns in the distance patients travel between network providers, and most strikingly between providers in the Northeast United States and Florida. We conclude that the choice of network construction algorithm is critical for healthcare network analysis, and discuss the implications for selecting the algorithm best suited to the type of analysis to be performed.Comment: With links to comprehensive, high resolution figures and networks via figshare.co

TRIPS Implementation in Developing Countries

This chapter sketches future scenarios of TRIPS implementation in developing countries by looking at past experience, current trends and by comparing historical and cross-country patterns. The chapter focuses on the three largest emerging economies - Brazil, India and China (BICs), since they are those with the highest potential to shape the intellectual property regime. Through international contestation, domestic implementation and even novel rule-making, they have been able to ensure that some flexibilities in the implementation of TRIPS remain. Their domestic policies and coalition-building efforts have been followed by many other developing countries. Shifts in the political economies of Brazil and India towards 2025 due to increased patenting and rise in innovation could mean that they will calibrate or even drop their opposition to TRIPS. China will likely be an innovation giant by then and eager to join the club of proponents of strong and enforceable intellectual property (IP) rights. In the area of access and benefit sharing of genetic resources and related traditional knowledge (ABS), the BICs are likely to remain opposed to stringent IP, and could even become active rule-makers. A degree of homologation between the TRIPS and the Nagoya Protocol, which has codified ABS, appears likely. In general, access to health, as one of the typically contentious domains of IP law and policy, is likely to remain a hotly debated issue. Challenges to pharmaceutical patents by developing countries that use TRIPS flexibilities will continue, as will the efforts by industrialized countries to constrain the available flexibilities through bilateral and regional trade agreements. Overall, the domain of IP law and policy is likely to remain complex and dynamic, with different interests colliding. This may reduce the chances of new multilateral law-making - for instance in the area of substantive patent law, while increasing the chances of new rule-making through domestic practice by BICs in the shadow of the TRIPS

Aberrant repair and fibrosis development in skeletal muscle

The repair process of damaged tissue involves the coordinated activities of several cell types in response to local and systemic signals. Following acute tissue injury, infiltrating inflammatory cells and resident stem cells orchestrate their activities to restore tissue homeostasis. However, during chronic tissue damage, such as in muscular dystrophies, the inflammatory-cell infiltration and fibroblast activation persists, while the reparative capacity of stem cells (satellite cells) is attenuated. Abnormal dystrophic muscle repair and its end stage, fibrosis, represent the final common pathway of virtually all chronic neurodegenerative muscular diseases. As our understanding of the pathogenesis of muscle fibrosis has progressed, it has become evident that the muscle provides a useful model for the regulation of tissue repair by the local microenvironment, showing interplay among muscle-specific stem cells, inflammatory cells, fibroblasts and extracellular matrix components of the mammalian wound-healing response. This article reviews the emerging findings of the mechanisms that underlie normal versus aberrant muscle-tissue repair

Accurate quantification of apoptosis progression and toxicity using a dielectrophoretic approach

A loss of ability of cells to undergo apoptosis (programmed cell death, whereby the cell ceases to function and destroys itself) is commonly associated with cancer, and many anti-cancer interventions aim to restart the process. Consequently, the accurate quantification of apoptosis is essential in understanding the function and performance of new anti-cancer drugs. Dielectrophoresis has previously been demonstrated to detect apoptosis more rapidly than other methods, and is low-cost, label-free and rapid, but has previously been unable to accurately quantify cells through the apoptotic process because cells in late apoptosis disintegrate, making cell tracking impossible. In this paper we use a novel method based on light absorbance and multi-population tracking to quantify the progress of apoptosis, benchmarking against conventional assays including MTT, trypan blue and Annexin-V. Analyses are performed on suspension and adherent cells, and using two apoptosis-inducing agents. IC50 measurements compared favourably to MTT and were superior to trypan blue, whilst also detecting apoptotic progression faster than Annexin-V