High resolution monitoring is fundamental to understand and predict the dynamics of ecological communities in an era of global change and biodiversity declines. While real-time and fully automated monitoring of the abiotic components of ecosystems has been possible for some time, monitoring the biotic components at different organizational scales, e.g. from individual behaviours and traits to the abundance and distribution of species, is far more challenging. Recent technological advancements offer potential solutions to achieve this through: (i) increasingly affordable high throughput recording hardware, which can collect rich multidimensional data, and (ii) increasingly accessible artificial intelligence approaches, which are able to extract ecological knowledge from large datasets. However, automating the monitoring of facets of ecological populations and communities via such technologies is still in its infancy, being primarily achieved at low spatiotemporal resolutions within specific stages of the monitoring workflow. Here, we review existing technologies for data recording and processing that enable automated monitoring of ecological communities. We then present novel frameworks that combine such technologies, forming fully automated pipelines to detect, track, classify, and count multiple species, and even record behavioural and morphological traits, at resolutions which have previously been impossible to achieve. Based on these rapidly developing technologies, we illustrate a solution to one of the greatest challenges in ecology and conservation: the ability to rapidly generate high resolution, multidimensional, and critically, standardized data across complex ecologies.

Understanding the factors that regulate the functioning of our ecosystems in response to environmental changes can help to maintain the stable provisioning of ecosystem services to mankind. This is especially relevant given the increased variability of environmental conditions due to human activities. In particular, maintaining a stable production and plant biomass during the growing season (intra-annual stability) despite pervasive and directional changes in temperature and precipitation through time can help to secure food supply to wild animals, livestock, and humans. Here, we conducted a 29-year field observational study in a temperate grassland to explore how the intra-annual stability of primary productivity is influenced by biotic and abiotic variables through time. In particular, we analyzed the relationship of community biomass intra-annual stability with plant diversity and seasonal distribution patterns of temperature and precipitation. We found that lower accumulated precipitation between June and September during the 29-year investigated contributed to lower intra-annual community stability because of a decrease in compensatory mechanisms among species (species asynchrony). Additionally, higher precipitation in July contributed to higher intra-annual stability because higher species richness with higher precipitation led to higher average intra-annual stability of all species in the community (species stability). In contrast, we found no evidence that temperature influenced community intra-annual stability. Our results indicates that ongoing reduced seasonal precipitation leading to reduced intra-annual stability in the temperate grassland, which has important theoretical significance for us to take active measures to deal with climate change.

The non-breeding period represents a significant part of an Afro-Palearctic migratory bird’s annual cycle. Decisions such as whether to remain at a single site and whether to return to it across years have important effects on aspects such as survival, future breeding success, migratory connectivity, and conservation. During this study, we colour-ringed > 300 Common Whitethroats Curruca communis and undertook daily resightings to understand site persistence and the degree of site fidelity throughout three non-breeding periods (November – April) in Nigeria. The probability of detecting a colour-ringed Whitethroat when it was present, was 0.33. Site persistence varied widely across individuals (1 – 165 days) and did not differ significantly with sex or year, though first-year birds remained for significantly shorter periods than adults. We believe that shorter residencies are likely due to the use of multiple stationary non-breeding sites rather than low winter survival. A minimum of 19% of individuals returned to the study site the following year and shifted, on average, 300 meters, suggesting that Whitethroats have a relatively high degree of between-years site fidelity at a very fine scale. An individual’s previous residency duration did not seem to determine its residency duration the following year. We suggest that spatial fidelity is high and constant through years, but temporal fidelity is not, and individual residency patterns vary, probably according to yearly and seasonal conditions. Our results highlight the complexity of the annual cycle of a single species and the importance of carrying out in situ, small scale research throughout a migrant’s annual cycle over several years.

Yersinia pseudotuberculosis is a rare Gram-negative bacillus that cause enterocolitis and terminal ileitis. We report the first Danish case with Y. pseudotuberculosis multiple pyogenic liver abscess presenting with six weeks intermittently fever, fatigue and weight loss. The patient was successfully treated with percutaneous drainage and intravenous piperacillin/tazobactam and oral ciprofloxacin.

Foreign body aspiration is rare in children below 6 months of age. Very young children presenting with stridor, atypical croup presentation, and not responding accordingly, subglottic foreign body aspiration should be considered. These may not always be visible with bedside flexible endoscopy and may need investigation under anesthesia. We report 2 cases of devil's thorn aspiration in young infants. These children were left on the floor to play and devils thorn may be a danger lurking as the they have been deposited unknowingly by the shoes people wear and pick up by these young infants.

In the laryngeal foreign body caused by plate-shaped grilled liver, computed tomography imaging showed the presence of air along the pharyngeal wall between the wall and the meat, which can be mistaken as pharyngeal emphysema.

Marfan syndrome (MFS) an inherited disorder caused by FBN1 gene mutations, is well known to cause lethal aortic aneurysm and dissections at a relatively young age. Here, we report giant internal carotid artery aneurysms and porcelain aorta in an elderly patient with MFS.

Erythema multiforme is a reactive inflammatory mucocutaneous disorder. It is etiology varied from bacterial, viral or fungal infection to drug reaction. The aim was to report a case of drug induced oral erythema multiforme, in order to highlight it's clinical and histological features in addition to the therapeutic modalities.

Aim: Guidelines establish a framework for how therapeutics and vaccines are developed, assessed and approved. They influence which innovations are likely to be approved in the EU, and by that, they have an impact on the pipeline decisions taken by the research-based industry. This study analyses the level of acceptance for changes suggested by stakeholders within the authoring groups at the EMA. Methods: We looked at 87 guidelines from EMA Working Parties (WPs) launched for consultation between 2013-2017. Acceptance of stakeholder proposals and the time between the end of consultation and guideline adoption were studied as well as the openness of different Working Parties to accept changes. Results: Adoption of a guideline after the close of public consultation took at least 4 months, with average 12-16 months. The number of accepted and rejected comments were nearly equal across the stakeholders, with government having slightly higher chance for acceptance. Academia and NGOs had generally higher chances to have their comments accepted for general and indication-level guidelines. Government and individual companies had highest acceptance for molecule-level guidelines and trade associations for indication-level guidelines. The EMA WPs working with emerging technologies were more open to accept proposed changes. Conclusion: This pattern of progress in regulatory science at EMA demonstrates the essential and interrelated role of academia, industry, government and civil society – described as the quadruple helix model - to promote establishment of a strong innovation ecosystem in Europe. Further integration and utilisation of competences of each stakeholder is necessary for guideline development.

A document by Jordan Llerena-Velastegui. Click on the document to view its contents.

The maternally-inherited endosymbiont, Wolbachia, is known to alter the reproductive biology of its arthropod hosts for its benefit and can induce both positive and negative fitness effects in many hosts. Here we describe the effects of the maintenance of two distinct Wolbachia infections, one each from supergroups A and B, on the parasitoid host Nasonia vitripennis. We compare the effect of Wolbachia infections on various traits between the uninfected, single A infected, single B infected, and the double infected strains with their cured versions. Contrary to the previous reports, our results suggest that there is a significant cost associated with the maintenance of Wolbachia infections where traits like family size, fecundity, longevity, and rates of male copulation are compromised in Wolbachia infected strains. The double infected and supergroup B infection strains show higher Wolbachia titer than supergroup A. The double infected Wolbachia strain has the most detrimental impact on the host as compared to single infections. Moreover, there is a supergroup-specific negative impact on these wasps as the supergroup B infections elicit the most pronounced negative effects. These findings raise important questions on the mechanism of survival and maintenance of these reproductive parasites in arthropod hosts.

In this paper, we derive an Euler-Maruyama (EM) method for a class of multi-term fractional stochastic nonlinear differential equations, and prove its strong convergence. The strong convergence order of this EM method is $\min\{\alpha_{m}-0.5,~\alpha_{m}-\alpha_{m-1}\}$, where $\{\alpha_{i}\}_{i=1}^{m}$ is the order of Caputo fractional derivative satisfying that $1>\alpha_{m}>\alpha_{m-1}>\cdots>\alpha_{2}>\alpha_{1}>0$, $\alpha_{m}>0.5$, and $\alpha_{m}+\alpha_{m-1}>1$. Then, a fast implementation of this proposed EM method is also presented based on the sum-of-exponentials approximation technique. Finally, some numerical experiments are given to verify the theoretical results and computational efficiency of our EM method.

We are happy to announce our work on MMAS special issue “Integro-differential models of natural and anthropogenic processes and phenomena” is successfully completed, so please enjoy original and high-quality contributions related to the mathematical theory of such processes and phenomena including the models, computational algorithms and analysis and mathematical methods regarded as new and promising for the understanding the problems arise both in natural and anthropogenic conditions.

Soil cracks significantly affect preferential flow; however, there are some uncertainties associated with the effect of soil cracks on preferential flow in karst areas in southwest China. In this study, ground-penetrating radar (GPR) was applied to pedons to investigate the soil crack properties (inclusion, width, and configuration). Blue dye tracing experiments were designed, based on geophysical detection results, to assess the influences of inclusions (sand grains and rock fragments), crack width (1, 1.5, and 2 cm), and configuration (I-shape, V-shape, and Λ-shape) on the preferential flow. Our results indicated that (1) GPR envelope can describe the configuration of isolated soil cracks; (2) the Brilliant Blue FCF (C.I. Food Blue 2) infiltration rate and depth were over 1.5 times slower and 1.2–3.8 times lower those of water, respectively, during infiltration; (3) soil cracks can accelerate infiltration and increase the maximum dye-penetration depth, cumulative infiltration, and wetting front depth by at least an average of 5.2% and 63.2%, respectively; and (4) the I- and Λ-shaped soil crack configurations contributed to preferential flow, while the flow was not observed along the V-shaped configuration crack pore paths. The I-shaped configurations, with a width of 1.5 cm, were filled with rock fragments and had higher preferential flow ratios (18.2%–52.3%) and length indexes (4.0%–33.8%) than those of other configurations. Inclusions, crack widths, and configurations had significant influences on preferential flow ( p < 0.05). The influence of soil crack properties on preferential flow cannot be neglected during vegetation restoration and groundwater security processes in karst areas.

Insight into the rainfall-soil moisture (SM) response to land cover is critical for soil hydrological process modeling and management. In this study, five typical land-cover types (forest, shrub, grass, crop, and bare land) and four rainfall patterns (heavy, intermediate, light, and continuous rains) were selected to assess the effects of SM response characteristics on the Loess Plateau of China. We monitored SM at five depths on each land-cover type at 1-h intervals over the growing season of 2019. The results showed that rainfall patterns and land-cover typestogether determined the SM response process and infiltration efficiency. A minimum accumulated rainfall amount of 5 mm was the threshold to trigger a 10-cm SM response. Rain events with higher intensity and smaller sum triggered a quick surface SM response, while larger amounts could percolate deeper and faster. Land-cover change significantly altered the rainfall-SM response dynamics and rainwater utilization efficiency after 20 years of ecological construction. Revegetation sites (mean values of forest, shrub, and grass) increased the soil wetting depth by 14.7%, shortened the SM response time by 27.3%, and accelerated the SM wetting front velocity by 67.2%, which promoted a 35.2% rainfall transformation rate (RTR) across the 1-m profile over all rainfall events (R 1-13). Moreover, planted forest showed the highest RTR of R 1-13 and the maximal increase in soil water storage, which did not aggravate the soil water deficit across the 1-m profile over the growing season. Therefore, we present evidence that planted forests, instead of shrubs, may be beneficial for water conservation if precipitation is greater than 550 mm. The findings of this study prove the role of revegetation on rainwater infiltration capacity and efficiency and can help improve the management of afforestation in arid and semiarid regions.

Solitary fibrous tumours (SFT) are a rare group of spindle cell neoplasm of submesothelial origin with malignant potential. Here, we are presenting a case of a 45-years-old male patient, who presented with recurrent episodes of hypoglycemia spells and later on, it was diagnosed that hypoglycemic spells were secondary to fibroma.

DERMATOFIBROSARCOMAPROTUBERANS (DFSP) is a rare recurrent fibrohistiocytic tumor. Given the limitation of available diagnostic modalities in a resource poor setting, diagnosis can be confusing. As most of the tumors recur with time, our case of complete cure was interesting phenomenon observed in our case

This case report displays some of the possible complications of sumatriptan poisoning, including nephritic syndrome.