‘Mind the gap’ - mapping services for young people with ADHD transitioning from child to adult mental health services

Background: Once considered to be a disorder restricted to childhood, Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is now recognised to persist into adult life. However, service provision for adults with ADHD is limited. Additionally, there is little guidance or research on how best to transition young people with ADHD from child to adult services. Method: We report the findings of a survey of 96 healthcare professionals working in children’s (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services and Community Paediatrics) and adult services across five NHS Trusts within the East Midlands region of England to gain a better understanding of the current provision of services for young people with ADHD transitioning into adult mental health services. Results: Our findings indicate a lack of structured guidelines on transitioning and little communication between child and adult services. Child and adult services had differing opinions on what they felt adult services should provide for ADHD cases. Adult services reported feeling ill-prepared to deal with ADHD patients, with clinicians in these services citing a lack of specific knowledge of ADHD and a paucity of resources to deal with such cases. Conclusions: We discuss suggestions for further research, including the need to map the national provision of services for adults with ADHD, and provide recommendations for commissioned adult ADHD services. We specifically advocate an increase in ADHD-specific training for clinicians in adult services, the development of specialist adult ADHD clinics and greater involvement of Primary Care to support the work of generic adult mental health services in adult ADHD management

Sometimes Sperm Whales (Physeter macrocephalus) Cannot Find Their Way Back to the High Seas: A Multidisciplinary Study on a Mass Stranding

BACKGROUND: Mass strandings of sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) remain peculiar and rather unexplained events, which rarely occur in the Mediterranean Sea. Solar cycles and related changes in the geomagnetic field, variations in water temperature and weather conditions, coast geographical features and human activities have been proposed as possible causes. In December 2009, a pod of seven male sperm whales stranded along the Adriatic coast of Southern Italy. This is the sixth instance from 1555 in this basin. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Complete necropsies were performed on three whales whose bodies were in good condition, carrying out on sampled tissues histopathology, virology, bacteriology, parasitology, and screening of veins looking for gas emboli. Furthermore, samples for age determination, genetic studies, gastric content evaluation, stable isotopes and toxicology were taken from all the seven specimens. The animals were part of the same group and determined by genetic and photo-identification to be part of the Mediterranean population. Causes of death did not include biological agents, or the "gas and fat embolic syndrome", associated with direct sonar exposure. Environmental pollutant tissue concentrations were relatively high, in particular organochlorinated xenobiotics. Gastric content and morphologic tissue examinations showed a prolonged starvation, which likely caused, at its turn, the mobilization of lipophilic contaminants from the adipose tissue. Chemical compounds subsequently entered the blood circulation and may have impaired immune and nervous functions. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: A multi-factorial cause underlying this sperm whales' mass stranding is proposed herein based upon the results of postmortem investigations as well as of the detailed analyses of the geographical and historical background. The seven sperm whales took the same "wrong way" into the Adriatic Sea, a potentially dangerous trap for Mediterranean sperm whales. Seismic surveys should be also regarded as potential co-factors, even if no evidence of direct impact has been detected

Uncertainty matters: ascertaining where specimens in natural history collections come from and its implications for predicting species distributions

Natural history collections (NHCs) represent an enormous and largely untapped wealth of information on the Earth's biota, made available through GBIF as digital preserved specimen records. Precise knowledge of where the specimens were collected is paramount to rigorous ecological studies, especially in the field of species distribution modelling. Here, we present a first comprehensive analysis of georeferencing quality for all preserved specimen records served by GBIF, and illustrate the impact that coordinate uncertainty may have on predicted potential distributions. We used all GBIF preserved specimen records to analyse the availability of coordinates and associated spatial uncertainty across geography, spatial resolution, taxonomy, publishing institutions and collection time. We used three plant species across their native ranges in different parts of the world to show the impact of uncertainty on predicted potential distributions. We found that 38% of the 180+ million records provide coordinates only and 18% coordinates and uncertainty. Georeferencing quality is determined more by country of collection and publishing than by taxonomic group. Distinct georeferencing practices are more determinant than implicit characteristics and georeferencing difficulty of specimens. Availability and quality of records contrasts across world regions. Uncertainty values are not normally distributed but peak at very distinct values, which can be traced back to specific regions of the world. Uncertainty leads to a wide spectrum of range sizes when modelling species distributions, potentially affecting conclusions in biogeographical and climate change studies. In summary, the digitised fraction of the world's NHCs are far from optimal in terms of georeferencing and quality mainly depends on where the collections are hosted. A collective effort between communities around NHC institutions, ecological research and data infrastructure is needed to bring the data on a par with its importance and relevance for ecological research