Understanding the retinal basis of vision across species

The vertebrate retina first evolved some 500 million years ago in ancestral marine chordates. Since then, the eyes of different species have been tuned to best support their unique visuoecological lifestyles. Visual specializations in eye designs, large-scale inhomogeneities across the retinal surface and local circuit motifs mean that all species' retinas are unique. Computational theories, such as the efficient coding hypothesis, have come a long way towards an explanation of the basic features of retinal organization and function; however, they cannot explain the full extent of retinal diversity within and across species. To build a truly general understanding of vertebrate vision and the retina's computational purpose, it is therefore important to more quantitatively relate different species' retinal functions to their specific natural environments and behavioural requirements. Ultimately, the goal of such efforts should be to build up to a more general theory of vision

The impact of air pollution on terrestrial managed and natural vegetation

Although awareness that air pollution can damage vegetation dates back at least to the 1600s, the processes and mechanisms of damage were not rigorously studied until the late twentieth century. In the UK following the Industrial Revolution, urban air quality became very poor, with highly phytotoxic SO2 and NO2 concentrations, and remained that way until the mid-twentieth century. Since then both air quality, and our understanding of pollutants and their impacts, have greatly improved. Air pollutants remain a threat to natural and managed ecosystems. Air pollution imparts impacts through four major threats to vegetation are discussed through in a series of case studies. Gas-phase effects by the primary emissions of SO2 and NO2 are discussed in the context of impacts on lichens in urban areas. The effects of wet and dry deposited acidity from sulfur and nitrogen compounds are considered with a particular focus on forest decline. Ecosystem eutrophication by nitrogen deposition focuses on heathland decline in the Netherlands, and ground-level ozone at phytotoxic concentrations is discussed by considering impacts on semi-natural vegetation. We find that, although air is getting cleaner, there is much room for additional improvement, especially for the effects of eutrophication on managed and natural ecosystems

Balanced performance measurement in research hospitals: the participative case study of a haematology department

Background: The paper aims to review, design and implement a multidimensional performance measurement system for a public research hospital in order to address the complexity of its multifaceted stakeholder requirements and its double institutional aim of care and research. Method: The methodology relies on a participative case study performed by external researchers in close collaboration with the staff of an Italian research hospital. Results: The paper develops and applies a customized version of balanced scorecard based on a new set of performance measures. Our findings suggest that it can be considered an effective framework for measuring the research hospital performance, thanks to a combination of generalizable and context-specific factors. Conclusions: By showing how the balanced scorecard framework can be customized to research hospitals, the paper is especially of interest for complex healthcare organizations that are implementing management accounting practices. The paper contributes to the body of literature on the application of the balanced scorecard in healthcare through an examination of the challenges in designing and implementing this multidimensional performance tool. This is one of the first papers that show how the balanced scorecard model can be adapted to fit the specific requirements of public research hospitals