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Abstract Background Cesarean section (CS) is the most frequently performed obstetric procedure globally, and postoperative pain remains a prominent concern. This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of the bilateral transversus abdominis plane (TAP) block in addressing this issue. Methods We performed a randomized trial in women with term pregnancies who underwent elective CS with spinal anesthesia. The women were randomized (1:1) to receive bilateral TAP or postoperative systemic analgesics (control group). The primary outcome was the effect on postoperative pain assessed using the numeric rating score (NRS) at 2, 6, 12, and 24 h in the postoperative period. Results At 2 and 6 h after the surgical procedure, there was a significant reduction in both resting (rNRS p = 0.004) and movement-related pain (dNRS p = 0.0001, p = 0.001 respectively). However, at 12 h, a reduction of dNRS was demonstrated (p = 0.0001), while no benefit was observed at rest. The percentage of women with NRS ≤ 4 was higher after the block at 2 h for both resting and movement-related pain (rNRS p = 0.010; dNRS p = 0.0001); at 6 and 12 h, it was only significant for dNRS (p = 0.002). Rescue doses of analgesics were significantly higher in the control group at 2, 6, and 12 h (p = 0.01, p = 0.0383, p = 0.0003 respectively). No complications with the procedure were recorded. Conclusion Bilateral TAP block has the potential to alleviate postoperative pain and reduce the need for additional analgesics after CS. Trial registration This study is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, number (NCT02801968), registered 28 May 2016, https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02801968?term=NCT02801968&draw=2&rank=1

Species distribution models (SDMs) are numerical tools that combine species occurrence (or abundance) data with environmental variables, to predict the species’ distribution spatially. SDMs are increasingly used for purposes of conservation planning and management of ecosystems. The model performance can be measured as the goodness-of-fit (GOF), which describes how well it fits (e.g., the discrepancy between the statistical model and the data observed). However, there is still a need for a deeper understanding of the ecological characteristics of the modelled species which can affect the accuracy of those models. Here, we compared the goodness-of-fit of SDMs, considering several ecological characteristics of 56 bird species: Most frequently used environment, body mass, home-range, species specialization index (SSI), diet specialization and detectability. All SDMs were performed on the same dataset, and the relative frequency of each species was also incorporated to account for occurrence heterogeneity. GOF of SDMs was not significantly correlated with species’ frequency, home-range, body mass, degree of detectability or level of diet specialization. Overall, the birds with more accurate SDMs (GOF) were species of grasslands and the GOF was positively associated with SSI, indicating that more habitat-specialized species are better predictable. Our findings suggest that is important to focus not only on statistical issues potentially related to model performance but also on ecological characteristics of single species because can improve the performance of modellistic procedures, increasing their predictive power.

The spin Hall effect and the inverse spin Hall effect are important spin-charge conversion mechanisms. The direct spin Hall effect induces a surface spin accumulation from a transverse charge current due to spin-orbit coupling even in nonmagnetic conductors. However, most detection schemes involve additional interfaces, leading to large scattering in reported data. Here we perform interface-free x-ray spectroscopy measurements at the Cu L_{3,2} absorption edges of highly Bi-doped Cu (Cu_{95}Bi_{5}). The detected x-ray magnetic circular dichroism signal corresponds to an induced magnetic moment of (2.2±0.5)×10^{−12} μ_{B} A^{−1} cm^{2} per Cu atom averaged over the probing depth, which is of the same order of magnitude as found for Pt measured by magneto-optics. The results highlight the importance of interface-free measurements to assess material parameters and the potential of CuBi for spin-charge conversion applications.