The fishing cat Prionailurus viverrinus is a wetland specialist endemic to South and Southeast Asia. Nepal represents the northern limit of its biogeographic range, but comprehensive information on fishing cat distribution in Nepal is lacking. We compiled fishing cat occurrence records (n=154) from Nepal, available in published literature and unpublished data (2009 – 2020), to assess their distribution. Bioclimatic and environmental variables associated with their occurrence were used to predict the potential fishing cat range using MaxEnt modeling. Fishing cat distribution was influenced by elevation, precipitation of the warmest quarter (18_bio), precipitation of the driest month (14_bio) and land cover. Wetlands and forest cover were the important predictors of fishing cat distribution. The model predicted an area of 4.4% (6,679 km2) of Nepal as potential habitat for the fishing cat. About two third of the predicted potentially suitable habitat lies outside protected areas, however a large part of the highly suitable habitat (67%) falls within protected areas. The predicted habitat map serves as a reference for future investigation into fishing cat distribution as well as formulating and implementing effective conservation programs for fishing cats in Nepal. Fishing cat conservation initiatives should include habitats both inside and outside the protected areas to ensure long-term survival. We recommend conservation of wetland sites, surveys of fishing cats in the identified potential habitats, and study of their genetic connectivity and population status.

The collection of animal position data via GPS tracking devices has increased in quality and usage in recent years. Animal position and movement, although measured discretely, follows the same principles of kinematic motion, and as such, the process is inherently continuous and differentiable. I demonstrate the functionality and visual elegance of smoothing spline models. I discuss the challenges and benefits of implementing such an approach, and I provide an analysis of movement and social interaction of seven jaguars inhabiting the Taiamã Ecological Station, Pantanal, Brazil. In the analysis, I derive measures for pairwise distance, cooccurence and spatiotemporal associaton between jaguars, borrowing ideas from density estimation and information theory. These measures are feasible as a result of spline model estimation, and they provide a critical tool for a deeper investigation of cooccurence duration, frequency, and localized spatio-temporal relationships between animals.

Null hypothesis significance testing (NHST) and p-values are widespread in the cardiac surgical literature but are frequently misunderstood and misused. The purpose of the review is to discuss major disadvantages of p-values and suggest alternatives. We describe diagnostic tests, the prosecutor’s fallacy in the courtroom, and NHST, which involve inter-related conditional probabilities, to help clarify the meaning of p-values, and discuss the enormous sampling variability, or unreliability, of p-values. Finally, we use a cardiac surgical database and simulations to explore further issues involving p-values. In clinical studies, p-values provide a poor summary of the observed treatment effect, whereas the three- number summary provided by effect estimates and confidence intervals is more informative and minimises over-interpretation of a “significant” result. P-values are an unreliable measure of strength of evidence; if used at all they give only, at best, a very rough guide to decision making. Researchers should adopt Open Science practices to improve the trustworthiness of research and, where possible, use estimation (three-number summaries) or other better techniques.

Background: This study explores the strategy and effect of emergency surgical treatment for total anomalous pulmonary venous connection (TAPVC). Methods: From March 2009 to February 2020, 78 patients with TAPVC underwent emergency surgical correction. There were 51 males and 27 females. The median age was 39.5 days, and the median weight was 4.0 kg. The preoperative percutaneous oxygen saturation was 80.8±4.5%. Results: Of the cases investigated, seven died during the perioperative period, 16 had delayed chest closure, 19 had early pulmonary vein obstruction, two had secondary tracheal intubation, one had a brain complication, and one had third-degree atrioventricular block. Low weight, younger age, cardiopulmonary bypass time, and aortic cross-clamp time were identified as risk factors for early mortality. During the follow-up from four to 137 months, 12 cases did not respond to follow up. Ten patients died within one to six months after discharge. One patient underwent reoperation due to pulmonary vein obstruction. The longer hospital stays after operation and intensive care unit time were identified as risk factors for late mortality. Conclusions: Emergency surgery for severe TAPVC patients after admission had achieved good results in the near future. Prenatal diagnosis should be strengthened to save more patients. The higher late mortality rate indicates that such patients should strengthen post-discharge management to reduce the occurrence of post-discharge deaths.

Patients with severely calcified aorta undergoing conventional cardiac surgery are at increased risk for postoperative neurologic deficits. Implementation of cerebroprotective devices may substantially reduce or even eliminate the risk of adverse neurologic event, thus enabling surgical therapy, especially when interventional treatment cannot be considered an alternative option.

We submit this manuscript without an abstract because it is a Letter to the Editor.

Cryptococcosis is an invasive, opportunistic, fungal infection that predominantly effects the respiratory tract and central nervous system in immunocompromised patients. It is classically associated with defects in cellular immunity such as acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. Here we describe a case of life-threatening laryngitis, endobronchitis and pneumonia due to Cryptococcus neoformans in a teenager with hypogammaglobulinaemia. To the best of our knowledge, no previous cases of laryngeal cryptococcosis have been reported in the paediatric population.

This paper is concerned with the asymptotic stability and instability of solutions to a variable coefficient logarithmic wave equation with nonlinear damping and memory term. This model describes wave travelling through nonhomogeneous viscoelastic materials. By choosing appropriate multiplier and using weighted energy method, we prove the exponential decay of the energy. Besides, we also obtain the instability at the infinity of the solutions in the presence of the nonlinear damping.

In this paper, we adopt the optimize-then-discretize approach to solve parabolic optimal Dirichlet boundary control problem. First, we derive the first-order necessary optimality system, which includes the state, co-state equations and the optimality condition. Then, we propose Crank-Nicolson finite difference schemes to discretize the optimality system in 1D and 2D cases, respectively. In order to build the second order spatial approximation, we use the ghost points on the boundary in the schemes. We prove that the proposed schemes are unconditionally stable, compatible and second-order convergent in both time and space. To avoid solving the large coupled schemes directly, we use the iterative method. Finally, we present a numerical example to validate our theoretical analysis.

We report a rare and first case of combined cerebral venous sinus thrombosis and posterior internal carotid artery stroke in a 35-year-old female on combined oral contraceptive pills (COCP), presented with headache and vertigo, found to have extensive venous thrombosis and PICA territory ischemic infarct with persistently elevated factor VIII.

Here we present the case of an hepato-splenic-Tγδ-cell lymphoma interestingly occurring in a non-immunocompromised patient, with profuse telangiectasias giving originally misleading orientation towards the diagnosis of B angiotropic lymphoma.

A 72-year-old female used the oral phosphate binder lanthanum carbonate for 6 years, before discontinuing it after receiving a pancreas and kidney transplant. Now, 7 years after discontinuation, the patient developed bilious emesis. An upper gastrointestinal endoscopy showed an unspecific gastritis. Biopsies showed subepithelial crystalline deposits consistent with gastric lanthanosis.

Structural variations (SVs) have been associated with genetic diversity and adaptation in diverse taxa. Despite these observations, it is not yet clear what their relative importance is for microevolution, especially with respect to known drivers of diversity, e.g., nucleotide substitutions, in rapidly adapting species. Here we examine the significance of SVs in pesticide resistance evolution of the agricultural super-pest, the Colorado potato beetle, Leptinotarsa decemlineata. By employing a trio-binning procedure, we develop near chromosomal reference genomes to characterize structural variation within this species. These updated assemblies represent >100-fold improvement of contiguity and include derived pest and ancestral non-pest individuals. We identify >200,000 SVs, which appear to be non-randomly distributed across the genome as they co-occur with transposable elements. SVs intersect exons for genes associated with insecticide resistance, development, and transcription, most notably cytochrome P450 (CYP) genes. To understand the role that SVs might play in adaptation, we incorporate an additional 66 genomes among pest and non-pest populations of North America into the SV graph. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and SVs have a similar proportion in coding and non-coding regions of the genome, but there is a deficit of SNPs in SVs, suggesting SVs may be under selection. Using multiple lines of evidence, we identify 28 positively selected genes that include 337 SVs and 442 outlier SNPs. Among these, there are four associated with insecticide resistance. Two of these genes (CYP4g15 and glycosyltransferase-13) are physically linked by a structural variant and have previously been shown to be co-induced during insecticide exposure.

Stent migration due to haemodynamic drag remains the primary cause of type I endoleak, potentially leading to aneurysm rupture. The prevalence of migration and endoleak can be partially attributed to deficiencies in stent-graft radial spring design and a lack in understanding of the mechanical properties of endovascular stents. A converged finite element model of a custom radial extensometer was developed, fit, and validated using experimental results for bare stent wire (”uncovered”) with outer diameter of 12 mm stent. During stent constriction to 50 % of the original cross- sectional area, a comparison of experimental and modeled results produced an r2 value of 0.946, a standard error of 0.099 N, and a mean percent error of 1.69 %. This validated finite element model can be used to analyze the mechanisms responsible for radial force generation in 316L stainless steel self-expanding endovascular stents, as well as to evaluate new stent designs.

Diversity-stability relationships in grasslands depend on the environment. Climate change and soil degradation potentially alter soil pH and community stability within grassland environments, although it remains unclear how soil acidity and alkalinity affect diversity-stability relationships. We conducted a three-year experiment of acidification and alkalization treatments in an arid grassland in northern China, and found that increasing and decreasing soil pH reduced community species richness, community diversity, community and dominant species asynchrony, and biomass stability. Soil acidification reduced community stability by reducing dominant species stability. Soil alkalization reduced community stability by reducing species asynchrony and dominant species stability. Acidification significantly enhanced the availabilities of soil NO3—N, P, and K, but did not affect the concentrations of soil total C, N, and P. By contrast, alkalization significantly reduced soil total C and N, but did not affect the availabilities of soil N, P, and K. Structural equation model analysis revealed that altered soil pH affected soil nutrients associated with species asynchrony and community stability, which indicated the importance of soil nutrients in driving community stability. Our results suggest that soil pH–mediated community stability is mainly driven by dominant species stability rather than diversity. This study provides novel insights indicating that arid grassland stability would be weakened under changing soil pH, subsequently leading to land degradation and reducing long‐term productivity and sustainability.

Recently, only two splice-site mutations of the UBE2A gene have been observed in patients with X-linked ID type Nascimento (XLID). We found a novel splice site mutation in UBE2A (c.241+1 G>A) and novel clinical appearances, including a typical four-finger line and erected head unstable.

Cutis Vertcis gyrata is an uncommon neurocutaneous syndrome characterized by excessive growth of the skin of the scalp or the face, forming folds of similar aspect to cerebral cortex gyri. Three categories have been individualized: the primary form, essential or non-essential, and the secondary form.

Euglycemic DKA (EKDA) is a variant of DKA. In this case report, we discuss the course of COVID-19 infection in a pregnant woman with gestational diabetes who developed severe euglycemic diabetic ketoacidosis triggered by various precipitating factors, including starvation, caused by Covid-19 infection and its gastrointestinal effects.