Search

Cumulative human impacts across the world's oceans are considerable. We therefore examined a single model taxonomic group, the penguins (Spheniscidae), to explore how marine species and communities might be at risk of decline or extinction in the southern hemisphere. We sought to determine the most important threats to penguins and to suggest means to mitigate these threats. Our review has relevance to other taxonomic groups in the southern hemisphere and in northern latitudes, where human impacts are greater. Our review was based on an expert assessment and literature review of all 18 penguin species; 49 scientists contributed to the process. For each penguin species, we considered their range and distribution, population trends, and main anthropogenic threats over the past approximately 250 years. These threats were harvesting adults for oil, skin, and feathers and as bait for crab and rock lobster fisheries; harvesting of eggs; terrestrial habitat degradation; marine pollution; fisheries bycatch and resource competition; environmental variability and climate change; and toxic algal poisoning and disease. Habitat loss, pollution, and fishing, all factors humans can readily mitigate, remain the primary threats for penguin species. Their future resilience to further climate change impacts will almost certainly depend on addressing current threats to existing habitat degradation on land and at sea. We suggest protection of breeding habitat, linked to the designation of appropriately scaled marine reserves, including in the High Seas, will be critical for the future conservation of penguins. However, large-scale conservation zones are not always practical or politically feasible and other ecosystem-based management methods that include spatial zoning, bycatch mitigation, and robust harvest control must be developed to maintain marine biodiversity and ensure that ecosystem functioning is maintained across a variety of scales.

Recommendations for the diagnosis of lung tumors almost limit the use of fresh frozen sections to the evaluation of resection margins. In pathology pretherapeutic methods for assessment of clinically suspected lung cancer are favored over intraoperative frozen section diagnosis. For the interdisciplinary management of uncertain lung findings diagnostic methods, such as cytopathology and examination of biopsy material are available. The use of rapid on-site evaluation (ROSE) in cytopathology is limited due to the lack of necessary personnel. Diagnosis of unclear pulmonary lesions or distinction of metastases from primary lung tumors by intraoperative frozen sections is therefore limited to exceptional cases that were not resolved by preoperative biopsies. Such rare cases require a common consensus strategy between thoracic surgeons and pathologists in a preoperative tumor board.

Between January and March 1994 and between January and June 1995 we used Global Location Sensors(GLS) to determine the feeding areas of King Penguins Aptenodytes patagonicus breeding at Possession Island, Crozet Archipalago. In both years, the preferred feeding area during summer was located about 300 km south of the island, being slightly more distant in 1995. Mean foraging trip duration was 5.7±1.1 days (n = 6) during summer 1994 and 8.9±3.7 days (n = 9) during summer 1995, respectively. During summer the travelling speed of the King Penguins studied was highest at the first and last days of the foraging trip (c. 8 km/h). During the middle days of foraging trips travelling speeds were much lower (< 5 km/h). In early winter, between late April and mid-June 1995, two King Penguins equipped with GLSs executed foraging trips with durations of 53 and 59 days, respectively. Both birds travelled beyond 60°S with maximum distances to the colony of 1600 and 1800 km, respectively, and total distances covered of about 5000 km. The winter trips were characterized by alternating periods of higher and lower distances covered, indicating a highly variable feeding success at different localities. The relationships between foraging trip duration (days) and maximum distance to the colony (km) and total distance covered (km) were calculated to be maximum distance = 210 + 27 d and total distance = 340 + 85 d.

This report represents the condensed documentation of the computer-based laboratory automation system RADRAR (Remote Analytical Data Acquisition and Reduction) for the analytical laboratory of a reprocessing facility for high temperature reactor fuel elements. The essential tasks of the system are on-line open-loop process control based on in-line measurements and automation of the offline analytical laboratory. The in-line measurements (at 55 tanks of the chemical process area) provide density-, liquid-, level-, and temperature values. The concentration value of a single component may easily be determined, if the solution consists of no more than two phases. The automation of the off-line analytical laboratory contains laboratory organization including sample management and data organization and computer-aided sample transportation control, data acquisition and data processing at chemical and nuclear analytical devices. The computer system consists of two computer-subsystems: a front end system for sample central registration and in-line process control and a central size system for the off-line analytical tasks. The organization of the application oriented system uses a centralized data base. Similar data processing functions concerning different analytical management tasks are structured into the following subsystem: man machine interface, interrupt- and data acquisition system, data base, protocol service and data processing. The procedures for the laboratory managernent (organization and experiment sequences) are defined by application data bases. Following the project phases, engineering requirements-, design-, assembly-, start up- and test run phase are described. In additionfigures on expenditure and experiences are given and the system concept is discussed.