Comparison of Group Size, Abundance Estimates and Movement Patterns of Common Bottlenose Dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) in Mississippi Sound, Mississippi

Common bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus; dolphins) inhabiting Mississippi Sound (MSS) in the north-central Gulf of Mexico (GMx) are considered a part of a single stock of dolphins that includes Bay Boudreau and Lake Borgne by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). MSS is bounded by the mainland (north) and several barrier islands (south). Dolphins inhabiting coastal waters directly south of the barrier islands constitute part of the Northern Coastal Stock. Abundance in MSS has been reported to fluctuate seasonally, with higher abundances of dolphins estimated in summer versus winter. Analysis of covariance was used to compare previous abundance estimates. Results indicated significantly more dolphins in the summer and when boats were used as survey platforms. To explore the possibility of finer scale distributions of dolphins within MSS based on movement patterns of individuals, from 2002 to 2005, 78 photo-identification surveys were conducted that sampled four zones in MSS: one Inner-Sound zone near Round Island, two Outer-Sound zones on the northern sides of Horn Island and Petit Bois Island and one Coastal zone outside MSS south of Petit Bois Island. Analysis of variance was used to test for main effects of zone, season (summer and winter) and presence of calves on mean group size. There were no interactions of main effects. Mean group sizes were significantly larger in Outer-Sound zones, in summer and when a calf was present in the group. Limited movement was observed between the Inner-Sound zone and the other zones. Seventy-seven individual dolphins (40%) were sighted both within and outside MSS, therefore spanning two NMFS stock units. Larger summer group sizes at Outer-Sound zones could reflect a seasonal concentration of dolphins, possibly due to zone differences that may increase prey resources or protection. The finding that some individual dolphins routinely use north and south sides of the barrier islands suggested stock boundary modification could be warranted

Integrating Personality And Emotion For Human Crowd Simulation

Existing research attempts to create realistic crowd simulations by incorporating personality and emotion into intelligent agents. However, personality and emotion were considered separately in existing studies, where the interactions of them are ignored. The main objective of this paper is to propose and implement a framework for crowd simulation with integration of the impacts and interactions of personality and emotion. An interactive solution based on the proposed framework is also developed for visualizing the crowd navigation behavior and collecting the related trajectory data. Three simulated scenarios: pass through, narrow passage, and emergence situation are used to validate the framework and compare the results with recent studies

Psychological and Socio-Psychological Factors in Behavioral Simulation of Human Crowds

This paper aims to synthesis existing research efforts to provide an integrated view of behavioral model designs and relevant theoretical frameworks of heterogeneous agents for crowd simulations. Most existing studies considered only limited parameters by including a few selected personalities traits, emotion, and group characteristics for specific scenarios and applications. Most often, these factors are implemented with limited reference to theoretical psychology and cognitive models. This study attempts to synthesis existing research effort and outlines opportunities, challenges, and promising areas for future research for integrating psychological and socio-psychological factors in crowd behavior simulations

Evidence for the Validity of a Tool for Improved Pressure Ulcer Staging by the Non-Expert in the Live Patient

Background and Purpose: Pressure ulcers (PrUs) are a costly issue for the health care system. The utilization of a tool that increases the accuracy of PrU identification and staging may allow the health care team to better manage these wounds. The purpose of this study was to determine the validity of the NE1 Wound Assessment Tool (NE1 WAT) for increasing the wound assessment accuracy of novice nurses. Subjects: A convenience sample of 11 novice nurses evaluated 11 wounds on eight patients at a 730 bed, hospital in Las Vegas, Nevada. Methods: Subjects assessed 11 wounds on the patients independently. They then received brief orientation to the NE1 WAT. The subjects then re-assessed the same 11 wounds utilizing the NE1 WAT. Accuracy in wound assessment was then compared when performed with and without the tool. Results: Wilcoxon signed-rank tests were used to compare scores before and after training on how to use the tool. The subjects showed a significant improvement in pressure ulcer staging (p=.005), identification of wounds other than pressure ulcers (p = .024), and overall score across all aspects of wound assessment when using the NE1 WAT (p = .017). Discussion: This study provides evidence for the validity of the NE1 WAT. Improved wound assessment would likely improve care. Due to Medicare billing rules, the NE1 WAT has the potential to impact hospital remuneration. Conclusion: Following brief orientation on tool use, there was increased accuracy of novice nurse wound assessment on live patients

Survival, density, and abundance of common bottlenose dolphins in Barataria Bay (USA) following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill

To assess potential impacts of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in April 2010, we conducted boat-based photo-identification surveys for common bottlenose dolphins Tursiops truncatus in Barataria Bay, Louisiana, USA (~230 km2, located 167 km WNW of the spill center). Crews logged 838 h of survey effort along pre-defined routes on 10 occasions between late June 2010 and early May 2014. We applied a previously unpublished spatial version of the robust design capture-recapture model to estimate survival and density. This model used photo locations to estimate density in the absence of study area boundaries and to separate mortality from permanent emigration. To estimate abundance, we applied density estimates to saltwater (salinity > ~8 ppt) areas of the bay where telemetry data suggested that dolphins reside. Annual dolphin survival varied between 0.80 and 0.85 (95% CIs varied from 0.77 to 0.90) over 3 yr following the Deepwater Horizon spill. In 2 non-oiled bays (in Florida and North Carolina), historic survival averages approximately 0.95. From June to November 2010, abundance increased from 1300 (95% CI ± ~130) to 3100 (95% CI ± ~400), then declined and remained between ~1600 and ~2400 individuals until spring 2013. In fall 2013 and spring 2014, abundance increased again to approximately 3100 individuals. Dolphin abundance prior to the spill was unknown, but we hypothesize that some dolphins moved out of the sampled area, probably northward into marshes, prior to initiation of our surveys in late June 2010, and later immigrated back into the sampled area.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Network-based atrophy modelling in the common epilepsies: a worldwide ENIGMA study

SUMMARY Epilepsy is increasingly conceptualized as a network disorder. In this cross-sectional mega-analysis, we integrated neuroimaging and connectome analysis to identify network associations with atrophy patterns in 1,021 adults with epilepsy compared to 1,564 healthy controls from 19 international sites. In temporal lobe epilepsy, areas of atrophy co-localized with highly interconnected cortical hub regions, whereas idiopathic generalized epilepsy showed preferential subcortical hub involvement. These morphological abnormalities were anchored to the connectivity profiles of distinct disease epicenters, pointing to temporo-limbic cortices in temporal lobe epilepsy and fronto-central cortices in idiopathic generalized epilepsy. Indices of progressive atrophy further revealed a strong influence of connectome architecture on disease progression in temporal lobe, but not idiopathic generalized, epilepsy. Our findings were reproduced across individual sites and single patients, and were robust across different analytical methods. Through worldwide collaboration in ENIGMA-Epilepsy, we provided novel insights into the macroscale features that shape the pathophysiology of common epilepsies

PI3Kδ and primary immunodeficiencies.

Primary immunodeficiencies are inherited disorders of the immune system, often caused by the mutation of genes required for lymphocyte development and activation. Recently, several studies have identified gain-of-function mutations in the phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K) genes PIK3CD (which encodes p110δ) and PIK3R1 (which encodes p85α) that cause a combined immunodeficiency syndrome, referred to as activated PI3Kδ syndrome (APDS; also known as p110δ-activating mutation causing senescent T cells, lymphadenopathy and immunodeficiency (PASLI)). Paradoxically, both loss-of-function and gain-of-function mutations that affect these genes lead to immunosuppression, albeit via different mechanisms. Here, we review the roles of PI3Kδ in adaptive immunity, describe the clinical manifestations and mechanisms of disease in APDS and highlight new insights into PI3Kδ gleaned from these patients, as well as implications of these findings for clinical therapy

The ENIGMA-Epilepsy working group: Mapping disease from large data sets

Epilepsy is a common and serious neurological disorder, with many different constituent conditions characterized by their electro clinical, imaging, and genetic features. MRI has been fundamental in advancing our understanding of brain processes in the epilepsies. Smaller‐scale studies have identified many interesting imaging phenomena, with implications both for understanding pathophysiology and improving clinical care. Through the infrastructure and concepts now well‐established by the ENIGMA Consortium, ENIGMA‐Epilepsy was established to strengthen epilepsy neuroscience by greatly increasing sample sizes, leveraging ideas and methods established in other ENIGMA projects, and generating a body of collaborating scientists and clinicians to drive forward robust research. Here we review published, current, and future projects, that include structural MRI, diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), and resting state functional MRI (rsfMRI), and that employ advanced methods including structural covariance, and event‐based modeling analysis. We explore age of onset‐ and duration‐related features, as well as phenomena‐specific work focusing on particular epilepsy syndromes or phenotypes, multimodal analyses focused on understanding the biology of disease progression, and deep learning approaches. We encourage groups who may be interested in participating to make contact to further grow and develop ENIGMA‐Epilepsy

Event-based modelling in temporal lobe epilepsy demonstrates progressive atrophy from cross-sectional data

OBJECTIVE: Recent work has shown that people with common epilepsies have characteristic patterns of cortical thinning, and that these changes may be progressive over time. Leveraging a large multi-centre cross-sectional cohort, we investigated whether regional morphometric changes occur in a sequential manner, and whether these changes in people with mesial temporal lobe epilepsy and hippocampal sclerosis (MTLE-HS) correlate with clinical features. METHODS: We extracted regional measures of cortical thickness, surface area and subcortical brain volumes from T1-weighted (T1W) MRI scans collected by the ENIGMA-Epilepsy consortium, comprising 804 people with MTLE-HS and 1,625 healthy controls from 25 centres. Features with a moderate case-control effect size (Cohen's d≥0.5) were used to train an Event-Based Model (EBM), which estimates a sequence of disease-specific biomarker changes from cross-sectional data and assigns a biomarker-based fine-grained disease stage to individual patients. We tested for associations between EBM disease stage and duration of epilepsy, age of onset and anti-seizure medicine (ASM) resistance. RESULTS: In MTLE-HS, decrease in ipsilateral hippocampal volume along with increased asymmetry in hippocampal volume was followed by reduced thickness in neocortical regions, reduction in ipsilateral thalamus volume and, finally, increase in ipsilateral lateral ventricle volume. EBM stage was correlated to duration of illness (Spearman's ρ=0.293, p=7.03x10-16 ), age of onset (ρ=-0.18, p=9.82x10-7 ) and ASM resistance (AUC=0.59, p=0.043, Mann-Whitney U test). However, associations were driven by cases assigned to EBM stage zero, which represents MTLE-HS with mild or non-detectable abnormality on T1W MRI. SIGNIFICANCE: From cross-sectional MRI, we reconstructed a disease progression model that highlights a sequence of MRI changes that aligns with previous longitudinal studies. This model could be used to stage MTLE-HS subjects in other cohorts and help establish connections between imaging-based progression staging and clinical features