A record-linkage study of the development of hepatocellular carcinoma in persons with hepatitis C infection in Scotland

We investigated trends in first time hospital admissions and deaths attributable to hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in a large population based cohort of 22 073 individuals diagnosed with hepatitis C viral (HCV) infection through laboratory testing in Scotland in 1991 2006. We identified new cases of HCC through record linkage to the national inpatient hospital discharge database and deaths registry. A total of 172 persons diagnosed with HCV were admitted to hospital or died with first time mention of HCC. Hepatocellular carcinoma incidence increased between 1996 and 2006 (average annual change of 6.1, 95% confidence interval (CI):0.9 11.6%, P¼0.021). The adjusted relative risk of HCC was greater for males (hazard ratio¼2.7, 95% CI: 1.7 4.2), for those aged 60 years or older (hazard ratio ¼2.7, 95% CI: 1.9 4.1) compared with 50 59 years, and for those with a previous alcohol related hospital admission (hazard ratio¼2.5, 95% CI: 1.7 3.7). The risk of individuals diagnosed with HCV developing HCC was greatlyincreased compared with the general Scottish population (standardised incidence ratio¼127, 95% CI: 102 156). Owing to the advancing age of the Scottish HCV diagnosed population, the annual number of HCC cases is projected to increase, with a consequent increasing burden on the public healthcare system

Applying refinement to the use of mice and rats in rheumatoid arthritis research

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a painful, chronic disorder and there is currently an unmet need for effective therapies that will benefit a wide range of patients. The research and development process for therapies and treatments currently involves in vivo studies, which have the potential to cause discomfort, pain or distress. This Working Group report focuses on identifying causes of suffering within commonly used mouse and rat ‘models’ of RA, describing practical refinements to help reduce suffering and improve welfare without compromising the scientific objectives. The report also discusses other, relevant topics including identifying and minimising sources of variation within in vivo RA studies, the potential to provide pain relief including analgesia, welfare assessment, humane endpoints, reporting standards and the potential to replace animals in RA research

Advances in multiple sclerosis research in 2009

The following review summarizes the progress in multiple sclerosis research published in the Journal of Neurology in 2009

Biomechanics of Running Indicates Endothermy in Bipedal Dinosaurs

One of the great unresolved controversies in paleobiology is whether extinct dinosaurs were endothermic, ectothermic, or some combination thereof, and when endothermy first evolved in the lineage leading to birds. Although it is well established that high, sustained growth rates and, presumably, high activity levels are ancestral for dinosaurs and pterosaurs (clade Ornithodira), other independent lines of evidence for high metabolic rates, locomotor costs, or endothermy are needed. For example, some studies have suggested that, because large dinosaurs may have been homeothermic due to their size alone and could have had heat loss problems, ectothermy would be a more plausible metabolic strategy for such animals.Here we describe two new biomechanical approaches for reconstructing the metabolic rate of 14 extinct bipedal dinosauriforms during walking and running. These methods, well validated for extant animals, indicate that during walking and slow running the metabolic rate of at least the larger extinct dinosaurs exceeded the maximum aerobic capabilities of modern ectotherms, falling instead within the range of modern birds and mammals. Estimated metabolic rates for smaller dinosaurs are more ambiguous, but generally approach or exceed the ectotherm boundary.Our results support the hypothesis that endothermy was widespread in at least larger non-avian dinosaurs. It was plausibly ancestral for all dinosauriforms (perhaps Ornithodira), but this is perhaps more strongly indicated by high growth rates than by locomotor costs. The polarity of the evolution of endothermy indicates that rapid growth, insulation, erect postures, and perhaps aerobic power predated advanced “avian” lung structure and high locomotor costs

Exploring Fold Space Preferences of New-born and Ancient Protein Superfamilies

The evolution of proteins is one of the fundamental processes that has delivered the diversity and complexity of life we see around ourselves today. While we tend to define protein evolution in terms of sequence level mutations, insertions and deletions, it is hard to translate these processes to a more complete picture incorporating a polypeptide's structure and function. By considering how protein structures change over time we can gain an entirely new appreciation of their long-term evolutionary dynamics. In this work we seek to identify how populations of proteins at different stages of evolution explore their possible structure space. We use an annotation of superfamily age to this space and explore the relationship between these ages and a diverse set of properties pertaining to a superfamily's sequence, structure and function. We note several marked differences between the populations of newly evolved and ancient structures, such as in their length distributions, secondary structure content and tertiary packing arrangements. In particular, many of these differences suggest a less elaborate structure for newly evolved superfamilies when compared with their ancient counterparts. We show that the structural preferences we report are not a residual effect of a more fundamental relationship with function. Furthermore, we demonstrate the robustness of our results, using significant variation in the algorithm used to estimate the ages. We present these age estimates as a useful tool to analyse protein populations. In particularly, we apply this in a comparison of domains containing greek key or jelly roll motifs

24-h sheltering behaviour of individually kept horses during Swedish summer weather

Provision of shelter for horses kept on summer pasture is rarely considered in welfare guidelines, perhaps because the benefits of shelter in warm conditions are poorly documented scientifically. For cattle, shade is a valued resource during summer and can mitigate the adverse effects of warm weather on well-being and performance. We found in a previous study that horses utilized shelters frequently in summer. A shelter with a roof and closed on three sides (shelter A) was preferred and can reduce insect pressure whereas a shelter with roof and open on three sides was not utilized. However, shelter A restricts the all-round view of a horse, which may be important for horses as flight animals. Therefore, we studied whether a shelter with roof, where only the upper half of the rear wall was closed (shelter B), would be utilized while maintaining insect protection properties and satisfying the horses’ sense for security. A third shelter was offered with walls but no roof (shelter C) to evaluate whether the roof itself is an important feature from the horse’s perspective. Eight Warmblood horses were tested each for 2 days, kept individually for 24 h in two paddocks with access to shelters A and B, or shelters A and C, respectively. Shelter use was recorded continuously during the night (1800–2400 h, 0200–0600 h) and the following day (0900–1600 h), and insect defensive behaviour (e.g., tail swish) in instantaneous scan samples at 5-min intervals during daytime

The Water Bugs (Heteroptera: Nepomorpha) of the Guyana Region

NEPOMORPHA OF THE GUYANA REGION The Nepomorpha of the Guyana Region are keyed out and described. In addition distributional, faunistical and comparative notes on the species are given. New species and subspecies: Ochterus aeneifrons surinamensis, O. tenebrosus; Limnocoris fittkaui surinamensis; Ranatra adelomorpha; Neoplea globoidea; Buenoa amnigenopsis; Tenagobia pseudoromani from Suriname and Ranatra ornitheia from Guyana. New synonyms (junior ones between parenthesis): Gelaslocorus flavus flavus Guér. (G. nebulosus nebulosus Guér.); Pelocoris impicticollis Stål (P. horváthi Mont.), P. poeyi (Guér.) not identical with P. femoratus (P.-B.) (P. convexus Nieser), P. procurrens White (P. minutus Mont.); Belostoma bicavum Lauck ( B. parvoculum Lauck); Ranatra doesburgi De Carlo (R. usingeri De C.), R. macrophthalma H.-S. (R. surinamensis De C.), R. mediana Mont. (R. williamsi Kuitert), R. obscura Mont. (R. annulipes White 1879 not Stål), R. sarmentoi De C. (R. ameghinoi De C.); Buenoa amnigenopsis n. sp. ( B. amnigenus Nieser 1968, 1970 not White), B. amnigenus (White) (B. amnigenoidea Nieser 1970), B. nitida Truxal (B. doesburgi Nieser); Heterocorixa surinamensis Nieser ( H. boliviensis Nieser 1970 not Hungerford); Tenagobia incerta Lundbl. ( T. signata and T. serrata in part, Nieser 1970 not White and Deay respectively), T. socialis (White) (T. serrata in part, Nieser 1970 not Deay)

Selection of Reserves for Woodland Caribou Using an Optimization Approach

Habitat protection has been identified as an important strategy for the conservation of woodland caribou (Rangifer tarandus). However, because of the economic opportunity costs associated with protection it is unlikely that all caribou ranges can be protected in their entirety. We used an optimization approach to identify reserve designs for caribou in Alberta, Canada, across a range of potential protection targets. Our designs minimized costs as well as three demographic risk factors: current industrial footprint, presence of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus), and climate change. We found that, using optimization, 60% of current caribou range can be protected (including 17% in existing parks) while maintaining access to over 98% of the value of resources on public lands. The trade-off between minimizing cost and minimizing demographic risk factors was minimal because the spatial distributions of cost and risk were similar. The prospects for protection are much reduced if protection is directed towards the herds that are most at risk of near-term extirpation

Long-term species, sexual and individual variations in foraging strategies of fur seals revealed by stable isotopes in whiskers

Background: Individual variations in the use of the species niche are an important component of diversity in trophic interactions. A challenge in testing consistency of individual foraging strategy is the repeated collection of information on the same individuals. Methodology/Principal Findings: The foraging strategies of sympatric fur seals (Arctocephalus gazella and A. tropicalis) were examined using the stable isotope signature of serially sampled whiskers. Most whiskers exhibited synchronous delta C-13 and delta N-15 oscillations that correspond to the seal annual movements over the long term (up to 8 years). delta C-13 and delta N-15 values were spread over large ranges, with differences between species, sexes and individuals. The main segregating mechanism operates at the spatial scale. Most seals favored foraging in subantarctic waters (where the Crozet Islands are located) where they fed on myctophids. However, A. gazella dispersed in the Antarctic Zone and A. tropicalis more in the subtropics. Gender differences in annual time budget shape the seal movements. Males that do not perform any parental care exhibited large isotopic oscillations reflecting broad annual migrations, while isotopic values of females confined to a limited foraging range during lactation exhibited smaller changes. Limited inter-individual isotopic variations occurred in female seals and in male A. tropicalis. In contrast, male A. gazella showed large inter-individual variations, with some males migrating repeatedly to high-Antarctic waters where they fed on krill, thus meaning that individual specialization occurred over years. Conclusions/Significance: Whisker isotopic signature yields unique long-term information on individual behaviour that integrates the spatial, trophic and temporal dimensions of the ecological niche. The method allows depicting the entire realized niche of the species, including some of its less well-known components such as age-, sex-, individual- and migration-related changes. It highlights intrapopulation heterogeneity in foraging strategies that could have important implications for likely demographic responses to environmental variability

Small mammal responses to Amazonian forest islands are modulated by their forest dependence

Hydroelectric dams have induced widespread loss, fragmentation and degradation of terrestrial habitats in lowland tropical forests. Yet their ecological impacts have been widely neglected, particularly in developing countries, which are currently earmarked for exponential hydropower development. Here we assess small mammal assemblage responses to Amazonian forest habitat insularization induced by the 28-year-old Balbina Hydroelectric Dam. We sampled small mammals on 25 forest islands (0.83–1466 ha) and four continuous forest sites in the mainland to assess the overall community structure and species-specific responses to forest insularization. We classified all species according to their degree of forest-dependency using a multi-scale approach, considering landscape, patch and local habitat characteristics. Based on 65,520 trap-nights, we recorded 884 individuals of at least 22 small mammal species. Species richness was best predicted by island area and isolation, with small islands ( 200 ha; 10.8 ± 1.3 species) and continuous forest sites (∞ ha; 12.5 ± 2.5 species) exhibited similarly high species richness. Forest-dependent species showed higher local extinction rates and were often either absent or persisted at low abundances on small islands, where non-forest-dependent species became hyper-abundant. Species capacity to use non-forest habitat matrices appears to dictate small mammal success in small isolated islands. We suggest that ecosystem functioning may be highly disrupted on small islands, which account for 62.7% of all 3546 islands in the Balbina Reservoir