Complete zygomatic arches in the Late Quaternary sloth Neocnus from La Altagracia province, Dominican Republic

Specimens of the extinct sloth genus Neocnus recovered from northwestern La Altagracia Province, Dominican Republic exhibit a unique zygomatic arch. The arch consists of the jugal anteriorly fused to the maxilla and the zygomatic arch ligament fully ossified between the jugal and the zygomatic process of the temporal bone. Evidence of the novel ossification is seen in adult and juvenile individuals. This occurrence is also unexpected as Neocnus individuals are 40 times smaller than the next sloth genus (e.g. Nothrotheriops) with a secondarily complete arch. No known species of Neocnus exhibits any of these jugal and zygomatic features and thus these specimens may represent a new species

Case study: Treatment of oral and locomotory stereotypic behaviors in a mature sow

A 32-month-old female 225-kg nonpregnant cross-bred Newsham sow presented a 6-week history of stereotypic behaviors when housed in a laboratory research facility. A behavioral examination over 12 daylight hours revealed 3 main stereotypic motor patterns, namely (1) oral-nasal gate manipulation defined as placement of the snout between the bars of the pen gate with repetitive, forceful up and down movement; (2) head weaving defined as repetitive lateral head and snout movement toward the pen gates while rocking back and forth on her forequarters with hooves remaining on ground at all times; and (3) body weaving defined as repetitive shifting of body weight from one side to the other with front hooves lifting alternately off the ground. The sow performed the oral-nasal gate manipulation and head and body weaving 4.0%, 12.4%, and 6.8% of her total baseline time budget, respectively. The presumptive diagnosis was oral-nasal and locomotory stereotypies. Three treatments were used to mitigate the duration and frequency of these stereotypic behaviors. Treatment 1—Social treatment (change social stimuli by providing visual and nose-to-nose contact with different neighboring sows); Treatment 2—Forage treatment (change foraging substrates by providing peat moss as a rooting substrate); and Treatment 3—Space treatment (change pen configuration by increasing space). The sow performed the oral-nasal gate manipulation and head and body weaving 0%, 0.4%, and 0.1% of her total time budget, respectively; social treatment: the sow performed the oral-nasal gate manipulation and head and body weaving 0.9%, 15.3%, and 11.3% of her total time budget, respectively; and forage treatment: the sow performed the oral-nasal gate manipulation and head and body weaving 0.5%, 28.0%, and 15.5% of her total time budget, respectively. This study is one of the first reports to evaluate the treatment of established stereotypies in a mature sow. Results suggest the promise of environmental enrichment as an effective treatment strategy. Further research is needed to evaluate the persistence of these behavioral changes and relative importance of different environmental manipulations provided

Turning a lost reef ecosystem into a national restoration program

Achieving a sustainable socioecological future now requires large-scale environmental repair across legislative borders. Yet, enabling large-scale conservation is complicated by policy-making processes that are disconnected from socioeconomic interests, multiple sources of knowledge, and differing applications of policy. We considered how a multidisciplinary approach to marine habitat restoration generated the scientific evidence base, community support, and funding needed to begin the restoration of a forgotten, functionally extinct shellfish reef ecosystem. The key actors came together as a multidisciplinary community of researchers, conservation practitioners, recreational fisher communities, and government bodies that collaborated across sectors to rediscover Australia's lost shellfish reefs and communicate the value of its restoration. Actions undertaken to build a case for large-scale marine restoration included synthesizing current knowledge on Australian shellfish reefs and their historical decline, using this history to tell a compelling story to spark public and political interest, integrating restoration into government policy, and rallying local support through community engagement. Clearly articulating the social, economic, and environmental business case for restoration led to state and national funding for reef restoration to meet diverse sustainability goals (e.g., enhanced biodiversity and fisheries productivity) and socioeconomic goals (e.g., job creation and recreational opportunities). A key lesson learned was the importance of aligning project goals with public and industry interests so that projects could address multiple political obligations. This process culminated in Australia's largest marine restoration initiative and shows that solutions for large-scale ecosystem repair can rapidly occur when socially valued science acts on political opportunities

Vertical integration and firm boundaries : the evidence

Since Ronald H. Coase's (1937) seminal paper, a rich set of theories has been developed that deal with firm boundaries in vertical or input–output structures. In the last twenty-five years, empirical evidence that can shed light on those theories also has been accumulating. We review the findings of empirical studies that have addressed two main interrelated questions: First, what types of transactions are best brought within the firm and, second, what are the consequences of vertical integration decisions for economic outcomes such as prices, quantities, investment, and profits. Throughout, we highlight areas of potential cross-fertilization and promising areas for future work

Unlocking the power of big data in new product development

This study explores how big data can be used to enable customers to express unrecognised needs. By acquiring this information, managers can gain opportunities to develop customer-centred products. Big data can be defined as multimedia-rich and interactive low-cost information resulting from mass communication. It offers customers a better understanding of new products and provides new, simplified modes of large-scale interaction between customers and firms. Although previous studies have pointed out that firms can better understand customers’ preferences and needs by leveraging different types of available data, the situation is evolving, with increasing application of big data analytics for product development, operations and supply chain management. In order to utilise the customer information available from big data to a larger extent, managers need to identify how to establish a customer-involving environment that encourages customers to share their ideas with managers, contribute their know-how, fiddle around with new products, and express their actual preferences. We investigate a new product development project at an electronics company, STE, and describe how big data is used to connect to, interact with and involve customers in new product development in practice. Our findings reveal that big data can offer customer involvement so as to provide valuable input for developing new products. In this paper, we introduce a customer involvement approach as a new means of coming up with customer-centred new product development

ICAR: endoscopic skull‐base surgery

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