Invasive american mink mustela vison in wetlands of the cape horn biosphere reserve, southern Chile: What are they eating?

The impact of alien American mink on the native fauna of oceanic islands has been demonstrated in a number of locations. In the sub-Antarctic Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve of southern Chile the species is currently expanding in an area where the native fauna evolved in the absence of terrestrial predators. To evaluate any emerging problems we therefore investigated seasonal variation in prey use by mink on Navarino Island within the Reserve. We identified undigested remains in 414 scats collected from the shores of 27 ponds over JanuaryNovember 2006. Diet consisted mainly of mammals and birds. Mammals, including both native and exotic rodents, were the predominant prey in all seasons but birds were of equal importance during the summer (when birds breed and their abundance and diversity increases on the island). Exotic rodents were the only identifiable mammalian prey item during winter. Native wetland birds constituted a substantial proportion of mink diet, and greater than that reported in other areas. Many birds breeding on Navarino Island are ground-nesting, a strategy that evolved in the absence of native mammalian predators. Considering the international importance of this region, our results emphasize the need for an assessment of the impact of mink predation on the populations of native prey.Fil: Ibarra, Jose Tomas. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile; ChileFil: Fasola, Laura. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Austral de Investigaciones Científicas; Argentina. University of Oxford; Reino UnidoFil: Macdonald, David W.. University of Oxford; Reino UnidoFil: Ricardo, Rozzi. Universidad de Magallanes; ChileFil: Cristián, Bonacic. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile; Chil

Revisiting the use of remission criteria for rheumatoid arthritis by excluding patient global assessment: An individual meta-analysis of 5792 patients

Objectives: To determine the impact of excluding patient global assessment (PGA) from the American College of Rheumatology (ACR)/European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) Boolean remission criteria, on prediction of radiographic and functional outcome of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Methods: Meta-analyses using individual patient data from randomised controlled trials testing the efficacy of biological agents on radiographic and functional outcomes at ≥2 years. Remission states were defined by 4 variants of the ACR/EULAR Boolean definition: (i) tender and swollen 28-joint counts (TJC28/SJC28), C reactive protein (CRP, mg/dL) and PGA (0-10=worst) all ≤1 (4V-remission); (ii) the same, except PGA >1 (4V-near-remission); (iii) 3V-remission (i and ii combined; similar to 4V, but without PGA); (iv) non-remission (TJC28 >1 and/or SJC28 >1 and/or CRP >1). The most stringent class achieved at 6 or 12 months was considered. Good radiographic (GRO) and functional outcome (GFO) were defined as no worsening (ie, change in modified total Sharp score (ΔmTSS) ≤0.5 units and ≤0.0 Health Assessment Questionnaire-Disability Index points, respectively, during the second year). The pooled probabilities of GRO and GFO for the different definitions of remission were estimated and compared. Results: Individual patient data (n=5792) from 11 trials were analysed. 4V-remission was achieved by 23% of patients and 4V-near-remission by 19%. The probability of GRO in the 4V-near-remission group was numerically, but non-significantly, lower than that in the 4V-remission (78 vs 81%) and significantly higher than that for non-remission (72%; difference=6%, 95% CI 2% to 10%). Applying 3V-remission could have prevented therapy escalation in 19% of all participants, at the cost of an additional 6.1%, 4.0% and 0.7% of patients having ΔmTSS >0.0, >0.5 and >5 units over 2 years, respectively. The probability of GFO (assessed in 8 trials) in 4V-near-remission (67%, 95% CI 63% to 71%) was significantly lower than in 4V-remission (78%, 74% to 81%) and similar to non-remission (69%, 66% to 72%). Conclusion: 4V-near-remission and 3V-remission have similar validity as the original 4V-remission definition in predicting GRO, despite expected worse prediction of GFO, while potentially reducing the risk of overtreatment. This supports further exploration of 3V-remission as the target for immunosuppressive therapy complemented by patient-oriented targets

Analysis of Electrostatic Turbulence Drive in Texas Helimak.

Plasma turbulence and particle transport in Texas Helimak change with the radial electric field profile modified by an external voltage bias. When the bias is positive, the turbulence shows enhanced level and broadband spectra with extreme events, similar to the turbulence in tokamak scrape-‐off layer. However, negative bias reduces the turbulence level and decreases the spectrum widths. Moreover, for negative biased shots, the particle transport is strongly affected by a wave particle resonant interaction. On the other hand, for positive bias values, the plasma presents a transport barrier in the reversed shear flow region

Dual target strategy: a proposal to mitigate the risk of overtreatment and enhance patient satisfaction in rheumatoid arthritis

Commentary - abstract not available

Using Line Profiles to Test the Fraternity of Type Ia Supernovae at High and Low Redshifts

Using archival data of low-redshift (z < 0.01) Type Ia supernovae (SN Ia) and recent observations of high-redshift (0.16 < z <0.64; Matheson et al. 2005) SN Ia, we study the "uniformity'' of the spectroscopic properties of nearby and distant SN Ia. We find no difference in the measures we describe here. In this paper, we base our analysis solely on line-profile morphology, focusing on measurements of the velocity location of maximum absorption (vabs) and peak emission (vpeak). We find that the evolution of vabs and vpeak for our sample lines (Ca II 3945, Si II 6355, and S II 5454, 5640) is similar for both the low- and high-redshift samples. We find that vabs for the weak S II 5454, 5640 lines, and vpeak for S II 5454, can be used to identify fast-declining [dm15 > 1.7] SN Ia, which are also subluminous. In addition, we give the first direct evidence in two high-z SN Ia spectra of a double-absorption feature in Ca II 3945, an event also observed, though infrequently, in low-redshift SN Ia spectra (6/22 SN Ia in our local sample). We report for the first time the unambiguous and systematic intrinsic blueshift of peak emission of optical P-Cygni line profiles in Type Ia spectra, by as much as 8000 km/s. All the high-z SN Ia analyzed in this paper were discovered and followed up by the ESSENCE collaboration, and are now publicly available.Comment: 28 pages (emulateapj), 15 figures; accepted for publication in A

Spectroscopy of High-Redshift Supernovae from the ESSENCE Project: The First Two Years

We present the results of spectroscopic observations of targets discovered during the first two years of the ESSENCE project. The goal of ESSENCE is to use a sample of ~200 Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) at moderate redshifts (0.2 < z < 0.8) to place constraints on the equation of state of the Universe. Spectroscopy not only provides the redshifts of the objects, but also confirms that some of the discoveries are indeed SNe Ia. This confirmation is critical to the project, as techniques developed to determine luminosity distances to SNe Ia depend upon the knowledge that the objects at high redshift are the same as the ones at low redshift. We describe the methods of target selection and prioritization, the telescopes and detectors, and the software used to identify objects. The redshifts deduced from spectral matching of high-redshift SNe Ia with low-redshift SNe Ia are consistent with those determined from host-galaxy spectra. We show that the high-redshift SNe Ia match well with low-redshift templates. We include all spectra obtained by the ESSENCE project, including 52 SNe Ia, 5 core-collapse SNe, 12 active galactic nuclei, 19 galaxies, 4 possibly variable stars, and 16 objects with uncertain identifications.Comment: 38 pages, 9 figures (many with multiple parts), submitted to A

Thermal Structure and Dynamics of Saturn's Northern Springtime Disturbance

This article combined several infrared datasets to study the vertical properties of Saturn's northern springtime storm. Spectroscopic observations of Saturn's northern hemisphere at 0.5 and 2.5 / cm spectral resolution were provided by the Cassini Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS, 17). These were supplemented with narrow-band filtered imaging from the ESO Very Large Telescope VISIR instrument (16) to provide a global spatial context for the Cassini spectroscopy. Finally, nightside imaging from the Cassini Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS, 22) provided a glimpse of the undulating cloud activity in the eastern branch of the disturbance. Each of these datasets, and the methods used to reduce and analyse them, will be described in detail below. Spatial maps of atmospheric temperatures, aerosol opacity and gaseous distributions are derived from infrared spectroscopy using a suite of radiative transfer and optimal estimation retrieval tools developed at the University of Oxford, known collectively as Nemesis (23). Synthetic spectra created from a reference atmospheric model for Saturn and appropriate sources of spectroscopic line data (6, 24) are convolved with the instrument function for each dataset. Atmospheric properties are then iteratively adjusted until the measurements are accurately reproduced with physically-realistic temperatures, compositions and cloud opacities