Requirements for documentation, data collection and scientific evaluations

This chapter describes the process and evaluation behind several of the flexibility elements introduced into the Basic Regulation. Firstly, it describes how a fishery may be granted a “high survival exemption” (HSE) or “de minimis” to the Landing Obligation, for a particular regulated species. It details the process of generating any exemption supporting evidence by Member States and the evaluation process. The impact of the Landing Obligation on the scientific advice for setting fishing opportunities is also described as well as the annual reporting process. The final section deals with the challenges faced by the main players in this whole process

Correlation versus Causation? Pharmacovigilance of the Analgesic Flupirtine Exemplifies the Need for Refined Spontaneous ADR Reporting

Annually, adverse drug reactions result in more than 2,000,000 hospitalizations and rank among the top 10 causes of death in the United States. Consequently, there is a need to continuously monitor and to improve the safety assessment of marketed drugs. Nonetheless, pharmacovigilance practice frequently lacks causality assessment. Here, we report the case of flupirtine, a centrally acting non-opioid analgesic. We re-evaluated the plausibility and causality of 226 unselected, spontaneously reported hepatobiliary adverse drug reactions according to the adapted Bradford-Hill criteria, CIOMS score and WHO-UMC scales. Thorough re-evaluation showed that only about 20% of the reported cases were probable or likely for flupirtine treatment, suggesting an incidence of flupirtine-related liver injury of 1∶ 100,000 when estimated prescription data are considered, or 0.8 in 10,000 on the basis of all 226 reported adverse drug reactions. Neither daily or cumulative dose nor duration of treatment correlated with markers of liver injury. In the majority of cases (151/226), an average of 3 co-medications with drugs known for their liver liability was observed that may well be causative for adverse drug reactions, but were reported under a suspected flupirtine ADR. Our study highlights the need to improve the quality and standards of ADR reporting. This should be done with utmost care taking into account contributing factors such as concomitant medications including over-the-counter drugs, the medical history and current health conditions, in order to avoid unjustified flagging and drug warnings that may erroneously cause uncertainty among healthcare professionals and patients, and may eventually lead to unjustified safety signals of useful drugs with a reasonable risk to benefit ratio

Avoidance of host resistance in the oviposition-site preferences of rose bitterling

A contemporary outcome of dynamic host–parasite coevolution can be driven by the adaptation of a parasite to exploit its hosts at the population and species levels (parasite specialisation) or by local host adaptations leading to greater host resistance to sympatric parasite populations (host resistance). We tested the predominance of these two scenarios using cross-infection experiments with two geographically distant populations of the rose bitterling, Rhodeus ocellatus, a fish brood parasite of freshwater mussels, and four populations of their mussel hosts (two Anodonta woodiana and two Unio douglasiae populations) with varying degrees of geographic sympatry and local coexistence. Our data support predictions for host resistance at the species level but no effect of local coexistence between specific populations. Rhodeus ocellatus showed a preference for allopatric host populations, irrespective of host species. Host mussel response, in terms of ejection of R. ocellatus eggs, was stronger in the more widespread and abundant host species (A. woodiana) and this response tended to be higher in sympatric populations. These outcomes provide support for the importance of host resistance in bitterling oviposition-site decisions, demonstrating that host choice by R. ocellatus is adaptive by minimizing egg ejections. These findings imply that R. ocellatus, and potentially other bitterling species, may benefit from exploiting novel hosts, which may not possess appropriate adaptive responses to parasitism

An experimental and kinetic modeling study on nitric oxide formation in premixed C3 alcohols flames

This study provides new quantitative NO concentrations measurements in n-propanol + air and i-propanol + air flames together with a new combustion kinetic model. The heat flux method was employed to stabilize propyl alcohols flames and the initial gas conditions were set to 323 K, 1 atm, and ϕ=0.7-1.4. Saturated laser-induced fluorescence was employed to measure NO concentration in the post-combustion region. The presented and literature models, namely the POLIMI and Bohon et al. (2018) kinetic mechanisms, were assessed against new experimental data. Experimental results showed a higher NO formation in the thermal zone for n-propanol flames, whereas i-propanol flames indicate a higher amount of NO formed at fuel-rich conditions. Overall among the tested models, the present mechanism exhibited the best agreement in emulating NO experimental profiles; conversely, numerical simulations from the POLIMI model showed significant inconsistencies at fuel-rich conditions and the Bohon et al. (2018) model was unable to reproduce the measured data, notably underpredicting experimental values at all investigated conditions. However, the present model manifested some uncertainties in reproducing NO formation in the prompt region; therefore, in connection with this important aspect, the new experimental data obtained in this work will provide a valid support to further develop more reliable kinetic models

Nanoplasmonic electron acceleration by attosecond-controlled forward rescattering in silver clusters

Accelerating electrons to high energy and controlling their properties on ultrafast timescales is challenging. Here the authors show controlled acceleration of electron bunches using forward scattering in the resonantly enhanced polarization field of silver clusters driven by a phase-tuned two-color laser field