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Rheotaxis is a robust, multisensory behavior with many potential benefits for fish and other aquatic organisms. Visual (optic flow) cues appear to be sufficient for rheotaxis, but other sensory cues can clearly compensate for the loss of vision. Nevertheless, the nature of multisensory interactions and the relative contributions of different senses under varying conditions are poorly understood - largely because there is so little description of the actual behavior. Here, we examined the effects of different flow speeds and different sensory conditions on the spatiotemporal dynamics of rheotaxis. Although the overall ability of giant danio (Devario aequipinnatus) to head upstream is largely unaffected by either unimodal or bimodal deprivation of visual and/or lateral line senses, the spatiotemporal form of the behavior is altered in subtle ways. When deprived of vision, fish move further upstream, but the angular accuracy of the upstream heading is reduced. In addition, visually deprived fish exhibit left/right sweeping movements near the upstream barrier at low flow speeds. Sweeping movements are abolished when these fish are additionally deprived of lateral line information. These results indicate that fish adopt different sensorimotor strategies to compensate for the loss of one or more senses and that the nature of multisensory interactions is a complex function of flow speed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fish eggs and larvae were analysed from 63 vertically stratified plankton hauls in the Irish Sea and southern North Sea. The dominant species were sprat (Sprattus sprattus), dragonet (Callionymus spp.), dab (Limanda limanda) and to a lesser extent rockling species, sandeel (Ammodytes spp.), whiting (Merlangius merlangus) and flounder (Platichthys flesus). There was little difference between species in the vertical distribution of either eggs or larvae. Most were concentrated in the upper 50 m of the water column, eggs in progressively increasing numbers towards the surface and larvae with a sub-surface peak at a depth of 10–15 m. The vertical distribution of eggs extended deeper in the water column than larvae, possibly due to some combination of eggs being spawned deeper and their passive susceptibility to turbulent mixing. There were no significant differences between day and night distributions and under mixed or isothermal conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Larvae of sprat (Sprattus sprattus) from mixed and stratified water column sites in the German Bight of the North Sea were assessed for nutritional condition by analysis of total carbon and nitrogen and the lipid fractions triacylglycerol (TAG), cholesterol, and polar lipids. There was no indication of any significant variation in condition index related to diel sampling periodicity, based either on percentage carbon composition or TAG/cholesterol ratio. Inclusion of growth data from otolith ring counts with the carbon and lipid results identified larvae at 9-10 mm in length as being in relatively poor condition. There was some evidence from carbon analysis to suggest that larvae in poor condition were more prevalent at the stratified site than the mixed; however, microzooplankton analysis showed mean food abundance for larvae was slightly higher at the mixed site. The results from the condition analyses and the validity of the methods is discussed in relation to studies of survival of fish larvae. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A numerical circulation and transport model system was used to simulate the dispersion of larvae of blue whiting, Micromesistius poutassou (Risso) in the eastern North Atlantic. The area of the model extends from the northern Bay of Biscay to the Norwegian Sea and covers the shelf-edge and adjacent waters at a horizontal resolution of around 20 km in 16 vertical layers. Larval input data were based on the long-term mean distribution, abundance and seasonal occurrence of larvae, derived from historical information. The circulation model was run using tidal forcing and climatological density fields as well as both climatological meteorological forcing and actual six-hourly wind stress fields for 1994 and 1995. Transport from the main spawning areas to the west of the British Isles and north of Porcupine Bank was associated with currents along the shelf-edge and in the Rockall Trough. Tracers were either dispersed to the north and north-east along the shelf-edge, extending into the northern North Sea and Norwegian Sea, or were retained in the Rockall Gyre and over Porcupine Bank. A less intense southerly flow from Porcupine Bank was observed both under climatological conditions and in the 1995 simulation, when winds were more variable than in 1994. The results based on the 1995 meteorological conditions showed the most extreme retention of tracers in the Rockall Trough/shelf-edge area west of Scotland and a low penetration of tracers onto the shelf. These results are discussed in relation to the observed distribution of 0-group juveniles and to indices of year-class strength - in particular, in relation to the 1995 year class, which is the highest year-class estimate of blue whiting on record. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among non-human animals, crows, octopuses and honeybees are well-known for their complex brains and cognitive abilities. Widening the lens from the idiosyncratic abilities of exemplars like these to those of animals across the phylogenetic spectrum begins to reveal the ancient evolutionary process by which complex brains and cognition first arose in different lineages. The distribution of 35 phenotypic traits in 17 metazoan lineages reveals that brain and cognitive complexity in only three lineages (vertebrates, cephalopod mollusks, and euarthropods) can be attributed to the pivotal role played by body, sensory, brain and motor traits in active visual sensing and visuomotor skills. Together, these pivotal traits enabled animals to transition from largely reactive to more proactive behaviors, and from slow and two-dimensional motion to more rapid and complex three-dimensional motion. Among pivotal traits, high-resolution eyes and laminated visual regions of the brain stand out because they increased the processing demands on and the computational power of the brain by several orders of magnitude. The independent acquisition of pivotal traits in cognitively complex (CC) lineages can be explained as the completion of several multi-trait transitions over the course of evolutionary history, each resulting in an increasing level of complexity that arises from a distinct combination of traits. Whereas combined pivotal traits represent the highest level of complexity in CC lineages, combined traits at lower levels characterize many non-CC lineages, suggesting that certain body, sensory and brain traits may have been linked (the trait-linkage hypothesis) during the evolution of both CC and non-CC lineages.

Objectives: Pediatric end-of-life (EOL) care at home is often provided by community palliative care (CPC) nurses who do not specialize in pediatrics. This study aimed to better understand the challenges CPC nurses face when providing EOL care to children at home. Methods: A total of 52 CPC nurses across New South Wales (NSW), Australia, participated in an online survey about their training, attitudes, and experiences regarding the provision of home-based pediatric EOL care. Participants were asked to reflect back over a "negative" experience of caring for a child at EOL, where things did not go as well as hoped, and a "positive" EOL care experience, where nurses perceived that care of the child and family went well, and respond to questions about these experiences. Results: Confidence of CPC nurses when providing EOL care to pediatric patients was significantly lower than when caring for adults ( p 's < .05). Most respondents expressed the desire for more training in pediatric EOL care. Cases identified as negative by CPC nurses did not significantly differ from positive cases in terms of the timing of the referral to CPC, clinical symptoms at EOL, or how well informed the nurses felt. Siblings were present at EOL in 74% of the negative experiences and 86% of the positive experiences, reportedly receiving significantly poorer support in the negative experiences ( p  = .002). Conclusion: This research contributes to an improved understanding of the challenges associated with home-based pediatric EOL care and highlights potential areas for improvement in CPC service delivery and training., Competing Interests: Declaration of Conflicting InterestsThe authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Paediatric Palliative Care Ambulance Plans ('Plans') are used by New South Wales Ambulance (Australia) to support the care needs of children with life-limiting conditions. We aimed to describe the population of children with Plans and provide details regarding Plan completion, paramedic responses during ambulance callouts, and correspondence between Plan recommendations and paramedic responses. Plans lodged in January 2017-December 2019 were retrospectively coded for demographic information, completeness and care preferences. Associated paramedic callout notes (January 2018-December 2019) were coded for paramedic responses. Of 141 Plans retrieved, 38 (41.3% of those providing suggested medications) suggested medication use outside general paramedic scope of practice. Of 199 associated ambulance callouts, reasons for callout included symptom management, planned transfer, death notification and end-of-life care. Over two-thirds of callouts ( n = 135, 67.8%) occurred after-hours. Most paramedic callouts ( n = 124, 62.3%), excluding planned transfers, resulted in children being transported. Paramedic interventions corresponded with interventions suggested in Plans. However, only 24 (25.3%) of paramedic callout notes documented Plans being sighted. This study provided detailed information about children with palliative care needs for whom Plans were being used, the nature of these Plans and associated paramedic callouts. However, it is not known how paramedics were influenced by Plans., Competing Interests: Declaration of conflicting interestsThe author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Infectious disease data can often involve complex spatial patterns intermixed with temporal trends. Archetypal Analysis is a method to mine complex spatio-temporal data, and can be used to discover the dynamics of spatial patterns. The application of Archetypal Analysis to epidemiological data is relatively new, and here we present one of the first applications on COVID-19 data from March 13, 2020 to April 26, 2022, for the counties of Montana, USA. We present three views of the data set decomposed with Archetypal Analysis. First, we evaluate the entire 56 county data set. Second, we use a mutual information calculation to remove counties whose dynamics are mainly independent from the other counties, reducing the set to 17 counties. Finally, we analyze the top ten counties in terms of population size to focus on the dynamics in the large cities in the state. For each data set, we analyze four significant disease outbreaks across Montana. Archetypal Analysis uncovers distinct spatial patterns for each outbreak and demonstrates that each has a unique trajectory across the state., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Stone et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Background: Flucloxacillin-induced hepatotoxicity is well established in adults. However, there are few paediatric studies of flucloxacillin-induced hepatotoxicity despite this drug being among the most commonly prescribed in children. We aimed to determine the incidence of flucloxacillin-induced hepatotoxicity in children receiving IV therapy as well as identify risk factors for this adverse drug reaction., Methods: We undertook a 2 year retrospective audit of children aged 0-18 years admitted to the Royal Children's Hospital (March 2019 to March 2021) who had liver function tests determined before and after receiving IV flucloxacillin for at least 24 hours duration. Causality was assessed using the Roussel Uclaf Causality Assessment Method and Naranjo criteria., Results: Overall, the incidence of hepatotoxicity was 66/393 (17%). The median age of children with hepatotoxicity was 1.1 years (IQR 0.3-11.9), 43 (65%) received two or more concomitant hepatotoxic medications and 23 (35%) were receiving total parenteral nutrition. The median timing of onset of hepatotoxicity after commencement of flucloxacillin was 4 days (range 2-7). Severe hepatotoxicity (Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events grade 3 or above) occurred in 9/66 (14%) for bilirubin, 13/66 (20%) for ALT and 10/66 (15%) for GGT. Predisposing factors for hepatotoxicity were increasing age (OR 1.06 per additional year, 95% CI 1.01-1.10, P = 0.02), with adolescents aged 12-18 years having the highest risk (OR 5.10, 95% CI 2.02-12.85, P = 0.001), and two or more concomitant hepatotoxic medications (OR 2.51, 95% CI 1.02-6.18, P = 0.05). The median time to resolution of hepatotoxicity after cessation of flucloxacillin was 5 days (range 2-10)., Conclusions: In children, older patients and those receiving two or more concomitant hepatotoxic medications are at greater risk of flucloxacillin-induced hepatotoxicity., (© The Author(s) 2023. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.)