The Reproductive Biology of Small Fishes and the Clutch Concept: Combining Macroscopic and Histological Approaches

Accurate estimates of reproductive parameters important in understanding life history evolution and conservation of small fishes are dependent upon careful assignment of ovarian phases. Proper assignment is based upon the stages of propagule (oocyte) development, oocyte maturation and the location of any clutch or portion thereof within the ovaries. Macroscopic inspection and assignment of ovarian developmental phases have often been used for small freshwater fishes. By contrast, histological methods for assignment of reproductive phases have been developed and are widely used for marine fishes, but they have rarely been used for small freshwater fishes. We review oocyte development, ovum maturation, and the ovarian cycling process using both macroscopic and histological approaches which incorporate the clutch concept. New terminology, including three actively spawning phases based on macroscopic appearance of the clutch (actively spawning-maturation, actively spawning-hydration, actively spawning-ovulation), is proposed. We assert that combining histological and macroscopic methodologies, shown to be complementary, will allow a more accurate and precise understanding of the reproductive biology of small fishes—especially freshwater fishes experiencing effects of habitat change and loss of habitat

Sediment Management for Southern California Mountians, Coastal Plains and Shoreline. Part D: Special Inland Studies

In southern California the natural environmental system involves the continual relocation of sedimentary materials. Particles are eroded from inland areas where there is sufficient relief and, precipitation. Then, with reductions in hydraulic gradient along the stream course and at the shoreline, the velocity of surface runoff is reduced and there is deposition. Generally, coarse sand, gravel and larger particles are deposited near the base of the eroding surfaces (mountains and hills) and the finer sediments are deposited on floodplains, in bays or lagoons, and at the shoreline as delta deposits. Very fine silt and clay particles, which make up a significant part of the eroded material, are carried offshore where they eventually deposit in deeper areas. Sand deposited at the shoreline is gradually moved along the coast by waves and currents, and provides nourishment for local beaches. However, eventually much of this littoral material is also lost to offshore areas. Human developments in the coastal region have substantially altered the natural sedimentary processes, through changes in land use, the harvesting of natural resources (logging, grazing, and sand and gravel mining); the construction and operation of water conservation facilities and flood control structures; and coastal developments. In almost all cases these developments have grown out of recognized needs and have well served their primary purpose. At the time possible deleterious effects on the local or regional sediment balance were generally unforeseen or were felt to be of secondary importance. In 1975 a large-scale study of inland and coastal sedimentation processes in southern California was initiated by the Environmental Quality Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology and the Center for Coastal Studies at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. This volume is one of a series of reports from this study. Using existing data bases, this series attempts to define quantitatively inland and coastal sedimentation processes and identify the effects man has had on these processes. To resolve some issues related to long-term sediment management, additional research and data will be needed. In the series there are four Caltech reports that provide supporting studies for the summary report (EQL Report No. 17). These reports include: EQL Report 17-A Regional Geological History EQL Report 17-B Inland Sediment Movements by Natural Processes EQL Report 17-C Coastal Sediment Delivery by Major Rivers in Southern California EQL Report 17-D -- Special Inland Studies Additional supporting reports on coastal studies (shoreline sedimentation processes, control structures, dredging, etc.) are being published by the Center for Coastal Studies at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, California

Effects of Cyclic Hypoxia On Gene Expression and Reproduction In a Grass Shrimp, \u3ci\u3ePalaemonetes pugio\u3c/i\u3e

Cyclic changes in dissolved oxygen occur naturally in shallow estuarine systems, yet little is known about the adaptations and responses of estuarine organisms to cyclic hypoxia. Here we examine the responses of Palaemonetes pugio, a species of grass shrimp, to cyclic hypoxia (1.5-8 mg/l dissolved oxygen; 4.20-22.42 kPa) at both the molecular and organismal levels. We measured alterations in gene expression in hepatopancreas tissue of female grass shrimp using custom cDNA macroarrays. After short-term (3-d) exposure to cyclic hypoxia, mitochondrial manganese superoxide dismutase (MnSOD) was upregulated and 70-kd heat shock proteins (HSP70) were downregulated. After 7-d exposure, nuclear genes encoding mitochondrial proteins (ribosomal protein S2, ATP synthase, very-long-chain specific acyl-CoA dehydrogenase [VLCAD]) were downregulated, whereas mitochondrial phosphoenol pyruvate carboxykinase (PEP Cbk) was upregulated. After 14 d, vitellogenin and apolipoprotein A1 were upregulated. Taken together, these changes suggest a shift in metabolism toward gluconeogenesis and lipid export. Long-term (77-d) exposure to hypoxia showed that profiles of gene expression returned to pre-exposure levels. These molecular responses differ markedly from those induced by chronic hypoxia. At the organismal level, cyclic hypoxia reduces the number of broods and eggs a female can produce. Demographic analysis showed a lower estimated rate of population growth in grass shrimp exposed to both continuous and short-term cyclic hypoxia, suggesting population-level impacts on grass shrimp

Time, Money, or Knowledge: What factors are associated with implementing youth cooking programs?

Research suggests participating in youth hands-on cooking programs, like those offered by Extension and 4-H, can improve nutrition behaviors and reduce the risk for obesity. We surveyed [STATE] Extension professionals (n = 127) to explore factors (e.g., employee characteristics, resources, county demographics) related to offering youth hands-on cooking programs and curricula used. Over 2/3 of participants offer programs and reported creating their own curriculum. More years of experience, having received Extension Specialist training, and increased confidence were positively related to offering these programs. Results suggest training could increase confidence and program implementation and standard curricula may be needed

Conflict and HIV: A framework for risk assessment to prevent HIV in conflict-affected settings in Africa

In sub-Saharan Africa, HIV/AIDS and violent conflict interact to shape population health and development in dramatic ways. HIV/AIDS can create conditions conducive to conflict. Conflict can affect the epidemiology of HIV/AIDS. Conflict is generally understood to accelerate HIV transmission, but this view is simplistic and disregards complex interrelationships between factors that can inhibit and accelerate the spread of HIV in conflict and post conflict settings, respectively. This paper provides a framework for understanding these factors and discusses their implications for policy formulation and program planning in conflict-affected settings

Generic 3D Representation via Pose Estimation and Matching

Though a large body of computer vision research has investigated developing generic semantic representations, efforts towards developing a similar representation for 3D has been limited. In this paper, we learn a generic 3D representation through solving a set of foundational proxy 3D tasks: object-centric camera pose estimation and wide baseline feature matching. Our method is based upon the premise that by providing supervision over a set of carefully selected foundational tasks, generalization to novel tasks and abstraction capabilities can be achieved. We empirically show that the internal representation of a multi-task ConvNet trained to solve the above core problems generalizes to novel 3D tasks (e.g., scene layout estimation, object pose estimation, surface normal estimation) without the need for fine-tuning and shows traits of abstraction abilities (e.g., cross-modality pose estimation). In the context of the core supervised tasks, we demonstrate our representation achieves state-of-the-art wide baseline feature matching results without requiring apriori rectification (unlike SIFT and the majority of learned features). We also show 6DOF camera pose estimation given a pair local image patches. The accuracy of both supervised tasks come comparable to humans. Finally, we contribute a large-scale dataset composed of object-centric street view scenes along with point correspondences and camera pose information, and conclude with a discussion on the learned representation and open research questions.Comment: Published in ECCV16. See the project website http://3drepresentation.stanford.edu/ and dataset website https://github.com/amir32002/3D_Street_Vie

A Mobile Prenatal Care App to Reduce In-Person Visits: Prospective Controlled Trial.

BACKGROUND: Risk-appropriate prenatal care has been asserted as a way for the cost-effective delivery of prenatal care. A virtual care model for prenatal care has the potential to provide patient-tailored, risk-appropriate prenatal educational content and may facilitate vital sign and weight monitoring between visits. Previous studies have demonstrated a safe reduction in the frequency of in-person prenatal care visits among low-risk patients but have noted a reduction in patient satisfaction. OBJECTIVE: The primary objective of this study was to test the effectiveness of a mobile prenatal care app to facilitate a reduced in-person visit schedule for low-risk pregnancies while maintaining patient and provider satisfaction. METHODS: This controlled trial compared a control group receiving usual care with an experimental group receiving usual prenatal care and using a mobile prenatal care app. The experimental group had a planned reduction in the frequency of in-person office visits, whereas the control group had the usual number of visits. The trial was conducted at 2 diverse outpatient obstetric (OB) practices that are part of a single academic center in Washington, DC, United States. Women were eligible for enrollment if they presented to care in the first trimester, were aged between 18 and 40 years, had a confirmed desired pregnancy, were not considered high-risk, and had an iOS or Android smartphone that they used regularly. We measured the effectiveness of a virtual care platform for prenatal care via the following measured outcomes: the number of in-person OB visits during pregnancy and patient satisfaction with prenatal care. RESULTS: A total of 88 patients were enrolled in the study, 47 in the experimental group and 41 in the control group. For patients in the experimental group, the average number of in-person OB visits during pregnancy was 7.8 and the average number in the control group was 10.2 (P=.01). There was no statistical difference in patient satisfaction (P\u3e.05) or provider satisfaction (P\u3e.05) in either group. CONCLUSIONS: The use of a mobile prenatal care app was associated with reduced in-person visits, and there was no reduction in patient or provider satisfaction. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT02914301; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02914301 (Archived by WebCite at http://www.webcitation.org/76S55M517)

Strategies designed to help healthcare professionals to recruit participants to research studies.

BACKGROUND: Identifying and approaching eligible participants for recruitment to research studies usually relies on healthcare professionals. This process is sometimes hampered by deliberate or inadvertent gatekeeping that can introduce bias into patient selection. OBJECTIVES: Our primary objective was to identify and assess the effect of strategies designed to help healthcare professionals to recruit participants to research studies. SEARCH METHODS: We performed searches on 5 January 2015 in the following electronic databases: Cochrane Methodology Register, CENTRAL, MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, British Nursing Index, PsycINFO, ASSIA and Web of Science (SSCI, SCI-EXPANDED) from 1985 onwards. We checked the reference lists of all included studies and relevant review articles and did citation tracking through Web of Science for all included studies. SELECTION CRITERIA: We selected all studies that evaluated a strategy to identify and recruit participants for research via healthcare professionals and provided pre-post comparison data on recruitment rates. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS: Two review authors independently screened search results for potential eligibility, read full papers, applied the selection criteria and extracted data. We calculated risk ratios for each study to indicate the effect of each strategy. MAIN RESULTS: Eleven studies met our eligibility criteria and all were at medium or high risk of bias. Only five studies gave the total number of participants (totalling 7372 participants). Three studies used a randomised design, with the others using pre-post comparisons. Several different strategies were investigated. Four studies examined the impact of additional visits or information for the study site, with no increases in recruitment demonstrated. Increased recruitment rates were reported in two studies that used a dedicated clinical recruiter, and five studies that introduced an automated alert system for identifying eligible participants. The studies were embedded into trials evaluating care in oncology mainly but also in emergency departments, diabetes and lower back pain. AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS: There is no strong evidence for any single strategy to help healthcare professionals to recruit participants in research studies. Additional visits or information did not appear to increase recruitment by healthcare professionals. The most promising strategies appear to be those with a dedicated resource (e.g. a clinical recruiter or automated alert system) for identifying suitable participants that reduced the demand on healthcare professionals, but these were assessed in studies at high risk of bias.We would like to acknowledge the support of the Methodology theme of theCancer ExperiencesCollaborative (CECo), who have supported this review.This is the final published version. It first appeared at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/14651858.MR000036.pub2/abstract