Factors Influencing Reproductive Success of Ferruginous Hawks in the Uintah Basin, Utah

We examined factors that potentially influenced reproductive success in Ferruginous Hawks (Buteo regalis) in the Uintah Basin, Utah, and determined whether oil and gas well development was one of those factors. For three breeding seasons (2002–2004), we measured the number of nestlings, fledglings, and dispersed young that were produced by pairs of Ferruginous Hawks nesting within 2365 km2 managed by the Bureau of Land Management. We hypothesized that reproductive success would be influenced by nesting substrate, abundance of prey, distance to the closest occupied raptor nest, and distance to the closest active well. Although the Uintah Basin experienced a drought during our entire study, reproductive success was within the range of estimates reported in other studies in the Intermountain West. Each nesting pair produced an average of 1.9 nestlings, 1.3 fledglings, and 0.9 dispersed young. During our study, 17 nestlings and 14 fledglings died; 55% were due to avian predators, 16% to mammalian predators, 10% to unknown predators, 16% to natural causes, and 3% to unknown causes. Avian depredation may have resulted from increased competition among avian predators for scarce prey resources, or from increased use of juvenile Ferruginous Hawks as an alternative prey source by Golden Eagles (Aquila chrysaetos) in years of low lagomorph abundance. Our results suggest that the level of oil development that occurred during this study did not have an adverse effect on Ferruginous Hawk reproduction; the effect of a higher level of oil development was beyond the scope of this study

Rural Mental Health Care During a Global Health Pandemic: Addressing and Supporting the Rapid Transition to Tele-Mental Health

The adoption of tele-mental health by mental health professionals has been slow, especially in rural areas. Prior to 2020, less than half of mental health agencies offered tele-mental health for patients. In response to the global health pandemic in March of 2020, mental health therapists across the U.S. were challenged to make the rapid shift to tele-mental health to provide patient care. Given the lack of adoption of tele-mental health previously, immediate training in tele-mental health was needed. This article describes collaborative efforts between two mental health technology transfer centers and one addiction technology transfer center in rural regions of the U.S. in response to the rapid adoption of remote technologies to provide mental health services. A learning series of real-time tele-mental health trainings and supplemental materials were offered beginning in March 2020 to support this transition. A weekly learning series covered a variety of topics relevant to telehealth including technology basics, billing, state legislation, and working with children and adolescents. Given the demand of these initial training sessions, additional trainings were requested by agencies outside the regional technology transfer centers. To date, there have been more than 13,000 views of the tele-mental health webpage which includes recorded training sessions, handouts, and supplemental tele-mental health materials. The article also provides a summary of the questions and concerns highlighted by the more than 4,500 providers who joined the learning series, noting key rural and urban clinical and structural barriers to providing virtual care

Test-Retest Reliability of Standard Deviation of Lane Position as Assessed on a PC-Based Driving Simulator

Driving is an everyday activity that is commonly affected by neurologic disorders and medical treatments. A frequently used metric for assessing driving ability is the standard deviation of lane position (SDLP), or the amount that subjects “swerve” within their driving lane. This measurement has been used with individuals under the influence of alcohol, illicit drugs, and prescribed medications in both on-road and simulator studies. Although good test-retest reliability is critical if one is to measure change in individuals over time, there is surprisingly limited data regarding the test-retest reliability of SDLP. Objective. To examine the test-retest reliability of SDLP in subjects tested at (1) a 3-month retest interval (a time frame common to clinical trials), and (2) a year or longer retest interval (a time period over which one might track changes in neurologic patients. Methods. Group 1 completed retesting an average of 84 (s.d. = 8.1) days after their initial simulator assessment. Both HIV negative (HIV-; n = 16) and positive (HIV+; n = 13) subjects were included to explore short-term reliability in control and mildly ill patient groups. All HIV+ subjects were medically asymptomatic, and unlikely to experience HIV-related changes over this interval. Two HIV+ subjects were neuropsychologically (NP) impaired. Group 2 (n = 31), a different cohort, was retested an average of 19.8 (8.3) months after baseline. All subjects completed NP evaluations at baseline and follow-up, with NP status rated on a scale of 1 (above average) to 9 (severe impairment) by a clinician blinded to simulator performance. Twelve subjects (39%) were NP impaired. In order to examine reliability in a stable neurologic cohort, all subjects were selected because they remained at the same level of NP functioning at follow-up. SDLP was assessed in both groups using an interactive PC-based driving simulator that consisted of a monitor, steering wheel, and brake/accelerator pedals. Participants were required to maintain lane position while holding a constant speed (55 mph) and responding to divided attention tasks in the corner of the monitor. Group 2 completed an existing, standardized scenario (TOPS), while Group 1 completed a newly developed driving scenario. Both simulations lasted approximately 7 minutes. Results. Combined reliability for Group 1 was .74. Test-retest reliability was .68 for the HIVand .83 for the HIV+ subjects. For Group 2, SDLP was significantly correlated with NP functioning at baseline (r = .5, p = .005) and follow-up (r = .48, p = .006), with impaired subjects evidencing a higher SDLP than NP normal subjects at both baseline (mean of 1.9 vs 1.2; p = .006) and follow-up (1.7 vs 1.1, p = .01). Combined test-retest reliability for Group 2 was .86. The NP normal group had a test-retest reliability of .74; test-retest reliability for the NP impaired group was .87. Conclusions. SDLP is a reliable measure for periods ranging from months to years when assessed in cognitively stable subjects. As such, this may serve as a useful tool in tracking the effects of neurologic disorders and pharmacologic treatments on driving abilities

Investigating the timecourse of accessing conversational implicatures during incremental sentence interpretation

Many contextual inferences in utterance interpretation are explained as following from the nature of conversation and the assumption that participants are rational. Recent psycholinguistic research has focussed on certain of these ‘Gricean’ inferences and have revealed that comprehenders can access them in online interpretation. However there have been mixed results as to the time-course of access. Some results show that Gricean inferences can be accessed very rapidly, as rapidly as any other contextually specified information (Sedivy, 2003; Grodner, Klein, Carbery, & Tanenhaus, 2010); while other studies looking at the same kind of inference suggest that access to Gricean inferences are delayed relative to other aspects of semantic interpretation (Huang & Snedeker, 2009; in press). While previous timecourse research has focussed on Gricean inferences that support the online assignment of reference to definite expressions, the study reported here examines the timecourse of access to scalar implicatures, which enrich the meaning of an utterance beyond the semantic interpretation. Even if access to Gricean inference in support of reference assignment may be rapid, it is still unknown whether genuinely enriching scalar implicatures are delayed. Our results indicate that scalar implicatures are accessed as rapidly as other contextual inferences. The implications of our results are discussed in reference to the architecture of language comprehension

The Initial Economic Burden of Femur Fractures on Informal Caregivers in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

BackgroundFemur fracture patients require significant in-hospital care. The burden incurred by caregivers of such patients amplifies the direct costs of these injuries and remains unquantified. Aim Here we aim to establish the in-hospital economic burden faced by informal caregivers of femur fracture patients. Methods 70 unique caregivers for 46 femoral shaft fracture patients were interviewed. Incurred economic burden was determined by the Human Capital Approach, using standardized income data to quantify productivity loss (in $USD). Linear regression assessed the relationship between caregiver burden and patient time-in-hospital.ResultsThe average economic burden incurred was$149, 9% of a caregiver’s annual income and positively correlated with patient time in hospital (p<0.01). Conclusion Caregivers of patients treated operatively for femur fractures lost a large portion of their annual income, and this loss increased with patient time in hospital. These indirect costs of femur fracture treatment constitute an important component of the total injury burden

How U.S. Ocean Policy and Market Power Can Reform the Coral Reef Wildlife Trade

As the world’s largest importer of marine ornamental species for the aquaria, curio, home décor, and jewelry industries, the United States has an opportunity to leverage its considerable market power to promote more sustainable trade and reduce the effects of ornamental trade stress on coral reefs worldwide. Evidence indicates that collection of some coral reef animals for these trades has caused virtual elimination of local populations, major changes in age structure, and promotion of collection practices that destroy reef habitats. Management and enforcement of collection activities in major source countries such as Indonesia and the Philippines remain weak. Strengthening US trade laws and enforcement capabilities combined with increasing consumer and industry demand for responsible conservation can create strong incentives for improving management in source countries. This is particularly important in light of the March 2010 failure of the parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) to take action on key groups of corals

Cost-Effectiveness Analysis of Efforts to Reduce Risk of Type 2 Diabetes and Cardiovascular Disease in Southwestern Pennsylvania, 2005-2007

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2938403/pdf/PCD75A109.pd

Species distribution modelling for plant communities: stacked single species or multivariate modelling approaches?

AIM: Landscape management and conservation planning require maps of vegetation composition and structure over large regions. Species distribution models (SDMs) are often used for individual species, but projects mapping multiple species are rarer. We compare maps of plant community composition assembled by stacking results from many SDMs with multivariate maps constructed using nearest-neighbor imputation. LOCATION: Western Cascades ecoregion, Oregon and California, USA. METHODS: We mapped distributions and abundances of 28 tree species over 4,007,110 ha at 30-m resolution using three approaches: SDMs using machine learning (random forest) to yield: (1) binary (RF_Bin); (2) basal area (abundance; RF_Abund) predictions; and (3) multi-species basal area predictions using a nearest-neighbor imputation variant based on random forest (RF_NN). We evaluated accuracy of binary predictions for all models, compared area mapped with plot-based areal estimates, assessed species abundance at two spatial scales and evaluated communities for species richness, problematic compositional errors and overall community composition. RESULTS: RF_Bin yielded the strongest binary predictions (median True Skill Statistics; RF_Bin: 0.57, RF_NN: 0.38, RF_Abund: 0.27). Plot-scale predictions of abundance were poor for RF_Abund and RF_NN (median Agreement Coefficient (AC): -1.77 and -2.28), but strong when summarized over 50-km radius tessellated hexagons (median AC for both: 0.79). RF_Abund’s strength with abundance and weakness with binary predictions stems from predicting small values instead of zeros. The number of zero value predictions from RF_NN was closest to counts of zeros in the plot data. Correspondingly, RF_NN’s map-based species area estimates closely matched plot-based area estimates. RF_NN also performed best for community-level accuracy metrics. CONCLUSIONS: RF_NN was the best technique for building a broad-scale map of diversity and composition because the modelling framework maintained inter-species relationships from the input plot data. Re-assembling communities from single variable maps often yielded unrealistic communities. Although RF_NN rarely excelled at single species predictions of presence or abundance, it was often adequate to many (but not all) applications in both dimensions. We discuss our results in the context of map utility for applications in the fields of ecology, conservation and natural resource management planning. We highlight how RF_NN is well-suited for mapping current but not future vegetation.Keywords: Plant community composition, Vegetation mapping, Species distribution modelling, Random forest, Nearest-neighbor imputation, Western OregonKeywords: Plant community composition, Vegetation mapping, Species distribution modelling, Random forest, Nearest-neighbor imputation, Western Orego

The NICHD protocol:a review of an internationally-used evidence-based tool for training child forensic interviewers

PurposeThis article reviews an evidence-based tool for training child forensic interviewers called the NICHD Protocol, with a specific focus on how the Protocol is being adapted in various countries.Design/methodology/approachWe include international contributions from experienced trainers, practitioners, and scientists, who are already using the Protocol or whose national or regional procedures have been directly influenced by the NICHD Protocol research (Canada, Finland, Israel, Japan, Korea, Norway, Portugal, Scotland, and United States). Throughout the review, these experts comment on: How and when the Protocol was adopted in their country; who uses it; training procedures; challenges to implementation and translation; and other pertinent aspects. We aim to further promote good interviewing practice by sharing the experiences of these international experts.FindingsThe NICHD Protocol can be easily incorporated into existing training programs worldwide and is available for free. It was originally developed in English and Hebrew and is available in several other languages.Originality/valueThis article reviews an evidence-based tool for training child forensic interviewers called the NICHD Protocol. It has been extensively studied and reviewed over the past 20 years. This article is unique in the it is the first to bring together practitioners who are actually responsible for training forensic interviewers and conducting forensic interviews from all around the world

A randomised controlled trial of laser scanning and casting for the construction of ankle foot orthoses

Study Design: Randomised controlled trial with blinding of orthotists and patients to the construction technique used. Background: Three-dimensional laser scanning has been used for patient measurement for cranial helmets and spinal braces. Ankle foot orthoses are commonly prescribed for children with orthopaedic conditions. This trial sought to compare ankle foot orthoses produced by laser scanning or traditional plaster casting. Objectives: Assessment of the effectiveness and efficiency of using laser scanning to produce AFOs. Methods: A randomised double blind trial comparing fabrication of AFOs from casts or laser scans. Results: The time spent in the rectification and moulding of scanned AFOs was around 50% less than for cast AFOs. A non-significant increase of 9 days was seen in the time to delivery to the patient for LSCAD/CAM. There was a higher incidence of problems with the scan-based AFOs at delivery of the device, but no difference in how long the AFOs lasted. Costs associated with laser scanning were not significantly different from traditional methods of AFO manufacture. Conclusions: Compared with conventional casting techniques laser scan based AFO manufacture neither significantly improved the quality of the final product nor delivered a useful saving in time