Rescue, rehabilitation, and release of marine mammals: An analysis of current views and practices.

Stranded marine mammals have long attracted public attention. Those that wash up dead are, for all their value to science, seldom seen by the public as more than curiosities. Animals that are sick, injured, orphaned or abandoned ignite a different response. Generally, public sentiment supports any effort to rescue, treat and return them to sea. Institutions displaying marine mammals showed an early interest in live-stranded animals as a source of specimens -- in 1948, Marine Studios in St. Augustine, Florida, rescued a young short-finned pilot whale (Globicephala macrorhynchus), the first ever in captivity (Kritzler 1952). Eventually, the public as well as government agencies looked to these institutions for their recognized expertise in marine mammal care and medicine. More recently, facilities have been established for the sole purpose of rehabilitating marine mammals and preparing them for return to the wild. Four such institutions are the Marine Mammal Center (Sausalito, CA), the Research Institute for Nature Management (Pieterburen, The Netherlands), the RSPCA, Norfolk Wildlife Hospital (Norfolk, United Kingdom) and the Institute for Wildlife Biology of Christian-Albrects University (Kiel, Germany).(PDF contains 68 pages.

Lipid oxidation kinetics of ozone-processed shrimp during iced storage using peroxide value measurements

In this research, in situ generated ozone exposure/wash cycles of 1, 3, and 5 min applied to shrimp samples either before (BIS) or during iced storage (DIS) has been used to study the lipid oxidation kinetics using the peroxide values (PV). The induction period (IP) as well as PV at end of the IP (PVIP) have been obtained. The rate constants (k) as well as half-lives (t1/2) of hydroperoxides formation for different oxidation stages were calculated. The results showed that both IP and PVIP were lower with BIS (IP between 4.35±0.09 and 5.08±0.23 days; PVIP between 2.92±0.06 and 3.40±0.18 mEq kg−1) compared with DIS (IP between 5.92±0.12 and 6.14±0.09 days; PVIP between 4.49±0.17 and 4.56±0.10 mEq kg−1). The k value for DIS seemed to be the greater compared to BIS. In addition, whilst decreases and increases in t1/2 were found at propagation, respectively, for BIS and DIS, decreases and increases were only found at the induction of oxidation stage(s) for BIS. Further, the PV of ozone-processed samples would fit first order lipid oxidation kinetics independent of duration of ozone exposures. For the first time, PV measurements and fundamental kinetic principles have been used to describe how increasing ozone exposures positively affects the different oxidation stages responsible for the formation of hydroperoxides in ozone-processed shrimp

David St. Aubin (1952-2002)

Imagine the scene, Dave, strong, youthful and sharp-eyed, poised to leap off the bow of a swift-turning zodiac, hurl himself into the frigid Arctic waters, and deftly place a hoop-net over the head of a thrashing beluga whale. Each evening we would sit quietly on the cliffs, sharing the satisfaction of a good day's work .... The spectacle of the hundreds of belugas just below the bluff, rubbing in the shallows of Cunningham Inlet, made this one of Dave's favourite places. He was, after all, the one who had found out why belugas were there. ... Dave was the first to document that a whale could actually moult, in a peculiar kind of mammalian way. Dave started his research career as an assistant at the Arctic Biological Station, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, in Ste. Anne de Bellevue, Québec, .... Dave was clear in his vision and goals. In 1973, he decided on graduate training. Riding a wave of powerful recommendations, he arrived at the University of Guelph .... Dave earned his Master's degree and Ph.D., both with honours. ... From the moment Dave arrived at the university until the day he left 21 years later, ... three of us worked together from the Arctic to the tropics, from Maritime Canada to Florida, from Holman Island to South America to Hawaii- observing, studying, documenting, learning. ... In 1993, Dave went to Mystic Marine Life Aquarium as Director of Research and Veterinary Services. While south of the Canadian border, his interests and involvement in Arctic research grew stronger than ever. ... By today's measure, 50 years is a disappointingly short life, but Dave never wasted a moment and accomplished much. ..

Vitamin C in the Diet of Inuit Hunters From Holman, N.W.T.

During the spring and summer months the diet of three Inuit families living in a seal hunting camp south of Holman, N.W.T., was studied. A total of 13 food items including the most commonly eaten mammal, bird and plant species were analysed for Vitamin C in both the raw and cooked state. We document a daily intake of ascorbic acid of between 11 and 118 mg and estimate a mean dose of at least 30 mg. This is well above the levels documented in larger transitional culture villages by a recent Nutrition Canada report

Microcanonical studies on isoscaling

The exponential scaling of isotopic yields is investigated for sources of different sizes over a broad range of excitation energies and freeze-out volumes, in both primary and asymptotic stages of the decay in the framework of a microcanonical multifragmentation model. It was found that the scaling parameters have a strong dependence on the considered pair of equilibrated sources and excitation energy and are affected by the secondary particle emission of the break-up fragments. No significant influence of the freeze-out volume on the considered isotopic ratios has been observed. Deviations of microcanonical results from grandcanonical expectations are discussed.Comment: 19 pages, 6 figure

Mutagenesis of hepatitis C virus E1 protein affects its membrane-permeabilizing activity

The E1 glycoprotein of hepatitis C virus is a transmembrane glycoprotein with a C-terminal anchor domain. When expressed inEscherichia coli, E1 induces a change in membrane permeability that is toxic to the bacterial cell. The C-terminal hydrophobic region (aa 331–383) of E1 is mainly responsible for membrane association and for inducing changes in membrane permeability. These observed changes are similar to those produced inE. coliby influenza virus M2, human immunodeficiency virus gp41 and poliovirus 3AB proteins, whose hydrophobic domains are thought to cause pore formation in biological membranes. To further characterize the activity of E1 at a molecular level, the membrane-permeabilizing ability of a second internal hydrophobic region (aa 262–291) was examined by expressing different deletion mutants of E1 in anE. colisystem that is widely used for analysing membrane-active proteins from other animal viruses. Moreover, highly conserved amino acids in the C-terminal hydrophobic region were mutated to identify residues that are critical for inducing changes in membrane permeability. Analysis of cell growth curves of recombinant cultures and membrane-permeability assays revealed that synthesis of this fragment increased the flux of small compounds through the membrane and caused progressive cell lysis, suggesting that this domain has membrane-active properties. Furthermore, analysis of C-terminal mutants indicated that the conserved amino acids Arg339, Trp368and Lys370play a critical role in protein function, as both cell lysis and changes in membrane permeability induced by the wild-type clone could be blocked by substitutions in these positions

Thermodynamical features of multifragmentation in peripheral Au + Au Collisions at 35 A.MeV

The distribution of fragments produced in events involving the multifragmentation of excited sources is studied for peripheral Au + Au reactions at 35 A.MeV. The Quasi-Projectile has been reconstructed from its de-excitation products. An isotropic emission in its rest frame has been observed, indicating that an equilibrated system has been formed. The excitation energy of the Quasi-Projectile has been determined via calorimetry. A new event by event effective thermometer is proposed based on the energy balance. A peak in the energy fluctuations is observed related to the heat capacity, suggesting that the system undergoes a liquid-gas type phase transition at an excitation energy about 5 A.MeV and a temperature 4 - 6 MeV, dependent on the freeze-out hypothesis. By analyzing different regions of the Campi-plot, the events associated with the liquid and gas phases as well as the critical region are thermodynamically characterized. The critical exponents, tau, beta,gamma, extracted from the high moments of the charge distribution are consistent with a liquid-gas type phase transition.Comment: 44 pages, 16 Postscript figures, Fig14_nucl-ex.eps in colors, to be published in Nucl.Phys.A (1999

Eating and feeding disorders in pediatric age

Eating and feeding disorders are common in pediatric age and may be important to discover and recover the early symptoms in order to optimize the treatment and management

Properties of projectile-fragments in the 40^{40}Ar + 27^{27}Al reaction at 44 A MeV. Comparison with a multisequential decay model

GANIL-EXPResults on projectile fragment–fragment coincidences in the forward direction and for the reaction 40Ar + 27Al at 44 A MeV are presented and compared with the predictions of two different entrance channel models, a two-body and a three-body mechanism both followed by a binary multisequential decay including fission. This analysis shows that many features of the projectile decay products are well accounted for by the binary multisequential decay model. However the results depend critically upon the initial masses and excitation energies of the primary projectile fragments. In this respect, the three-body approach underestimates the excitation energy imparted to the primary fragments whereas the two-body scenario overestimates it. The present data put strong constraints on the initial excitation energy imparted to the primary fragments which appears to be intermediate between the predictions of the two models