Distribution update of the Arabian wolf (Canis lupus pallipes) from Saudi Arabia

Since the first Arabian wolf records in late 1880’s from northern and central Saudi Arabia their actual distribution has been sketchy with wolves never viewed as being very common throughout their range. Although widespread throughout Saudi Arabia earlier publications indicate wolves either from the mountainous south western Asir, northern rocky areas bordering Jordan or the central areas around Riyadh. Being an understudied species, Arabian wolves are probably more widespread than currently documented and accordingly the species is listed as Least Concern (LC) with a stable population trend with a CITES protection status of CITES Appendix II. The status of wolves in Saudi Arabia is difficult to determine due to a lack of research and systematic census although estimated numbers vary between 500 and 700 animals. The only official census in Saudi Arabia to date was conducted during late 1999 and early 2000 by Sinibaldi et al. (2000) who concluded that the overall numbers might be higher albeit still in a decreasing trend. The aim of this paper is to update the distribution of Arabian wolf in Saudi Arabia by providing recent locations and data from unpublished field reports difficult to access from outside Saudi Arabia

Blanford's fox confirmed in the At-Tubaiq Protected Area (northern Saudi Arabia) and the Ibex Reserve (central Saudi Arabia)

Confirmed - new records - of Blanford's fox Vulpes cana from the At-Tubaiq Protected Area in northern Saudi Arabia and the Ibex Reserve in central Saudi Arabia extends the recognised range of the species within Saudi Arabia and the Arabian Peninsula

Predators persecuted in the Asir Region, South-western Saudi Arabia.

Predators are never popular in rural farming areas where they are viewed as actual or potential stock raiders and consequently actively persecuted where encountered. As a result of this human- predator conflict numbers of especially the bigger predators such as leopard, wolf and hyena have declined dramatically throughout their natural range in Saudi Arabia. Globally Wolves (Canis lupus) are classified as Least Concern (Mech & Boitani 2008) while striped hyena (Hyaena hyaena) is classified as Near Threatened (Arumugam, Wagner & Mills 2008) by the IUCN. According to Mech & Boitani (2004) 500 to 600 Arabian wolves (C. l. pallipes Sykes 1831) are estimated from the Arabian Peninsula while Nader (1996) views wolves with more or less stable populations in Saudi Arabia although still considered rare. Striped hyena, with populations estimated between 300 to 400 animals, is steadily declining in Saudi Arabia (Nader 1996) and expected at lower densities than wolves

Visualizing Natural Image Statistics

Natural image statistics is an important area of research in cognitive sciences and computer vision. Visualization of statistical results can help identify clusters and anomalies as well as analyze deviation, distribution and correlation. Furthermore, they can provide visual abstractions and symbolism for categorized data. In this paper, we begin our study of visualization of image statistics by considering visual representations of power spectra, which are commonly used to visualize different categories of images. We show that they convey a limited amount of statistical information about image categories and their support for analytical tasks is ineffective. We then introduce several new visual representations, which convey different or more information about image statistics. We apply ANOVA to the image statistics to help select statistically more meaningful measurements in our design process. A task-based user evaluation was carried out to compare the new visual representations with the conventional power spectra plots. Based on the results of the evaluation, we made further improvement of visualizations by introducing composite visual representations of image statistics

Nivolumab combined with brentuximab vedotin for R/R primary mediastinal large B-cell lymphoma: a 3-year follow-up.

Patients with relapsed/refractory primary mediastinal large B-cell lymphoma (R/R PMBL) have poor responses to salvage therapy. Nivolumab and brentuximab vedotin (BV) showed promising early efficacy in patients with R/R PMBL in the phase 1/2 open-label, multicenter CheckMate 436 study; we report safety and efficacy findings from the 3-year follow-up. Patients who were eligible were aged ≥15 years with R/R PMBL previously treated with either high-dose chemotherapy plus autologous hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) or ≥2 prior multiagent chemotherapies, and had Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status scores of 0 to 1 and CD30 expression of ≥1%. Patients were treated with nivolumab 240 mg and BV 1.8 mg/kg once every 3 weeks until disease progression or unacceptable toxicity. Primary end point was objective response rate (ORR); secondary end points included complete response rate, duration of response, progression-free survival (PFS), and overall survival (OS). Safety was monitored throughout. At final database lock (30 March 2022), 29 patients had received nivolumab plus BV; median follow-up was 39.6 months. Investigator-assessed ORR was 73.3%; median time to response was 1.3 months (range, 1.1-4.8). Median PFS was 26.0 months; median OS was not reached. PFS and OS rates at 24 months were 55.5% (95% confidence interval [CI], 32.0-73.8) and 75.5% (95% CI, 55.4-87.5), respectively. The most frequently occurring grade 3/4 treatment-related adverse event was neutropenia. Consolidative HCT was received by 12 patients, with a 100-day complete response rate of 100.0%. This 3-year follow-up showed long-term efficacy for nivolumab plus BV in R/R PMBL, with no new safety signals. This trial was registered at www.clinicaltrials.gov as #NCT02581631

Adenocarcinoma of the third and fourth portion of the duodenum: a case report and review of the literature

A 65-year-old woman presented with abdominal pain, weight loss, fatigue, and microcytic anemia. Esophagogastroduodenoscopy, until the second part of duodenum, was normal. Ultrasound and computed tomography demonstrated a solid mass in the distal duodenum. A repeat endoscopy confirmed an ulcerative, intraluminar mass in the third and fourth part of the duodenum. Segmental resection of the third and fourth portion of the duodenum was performed. Histology revealed an adenocarcinoma. On the 4th postoperative day, the patient developed severe acute pancreatitis leading to multiple organ failure and died on the 30th postoperative day