Search

In Europe, problems with the use of pingers on larger fishing vessels have raised the question as to whether pingers would be practical on smaller vessels, which are a large proportion of the European static net fishing fleet. In this study, four netting vessels less than 10m long used AQUAmark pingers on part of their nets off the southwest coast of Britain over a 12 month period. Boat skippers recorded ease of use. Acoustic click detectors were deployed on test and control nets to assess the response of cetaceans to the pingers. No significant practical problems, apart from premature failure of pingers, were encountered. During the study, only one harbour porpoise was bycaught, in an unpingered net. In 650 days of acoustic data from pingered and non-pingered nets, matched by location, date and boat, there was a highly significant reduction in the number of porpoise clicks recorded at nets with pingers to 48% of the number predicted from the number recorded at control nets (range 35–51%). To assess habituation, single, modified pingers that were active for alternate seven hour periods were moored below a click detector at two sites, one of which has strong tides and high levels of associated ambient noise. This study showed a stronger pinger effect at the quiet site and a much reduced effect at the noisy site. There was evidence of a period of exclusion of porpoises following pinger use that could exceed seven hours, and no evidence of habituation. Results suggest that pingers are practical on small vessels, that they reduce harbour porpoise activity around nets and are therefore likely to reduce bycatch. Easier means of detecting pinger failure are needed. Pingers should be considered as a bycatch mitigation method in small vessel fisheries using bottom set nets.

Objective This study aimed to develop and internally validate risk prediction models for predicting groin wound surgical site infections (SSIs) following arterial intervention and to evaluate the utility of existing risk prediction models for this outcome. Methods Data from the Groin wound Infection after Vascular Exposure (GIVE) multicentre cohort study were used. The GIVE study prospectively enrolled 1 039 consecutive patients undergoing an arterial procedure through 1 339 groin incisions. An overall SSI rate of 8.6% per groin incision, and a deep/organ space SSI rate of 3.8%, were reported. Eight independent predictors of all SSIs, and four independent predictors of deep/organ space SSIs were included in the development and internal validation of two risk prediction models. A systematic search of the literature was conducted to identify relevant risk prediction models for their evaluation. Results The “GIVE SSI risk prediction model” (“GIVE SSI model”) and the “GIVE deep/organ space SSI risk prediction model” (“deep SSI model”) had adequate discrimination (C statistic 0.735 and 0.720, respectively). Three other groin incision SSI risk prediction models were identified; both GIVE risk prediction models significantly outperformed these other risk models in this cohort (C statistic 0.618 – 0.629; p Conclusion Two models were created and internally validated that performed acceptably in predicting “all” and “deep” groin SSIs, outperforming current existing risk prediction models in this cohort. Future studies should aim to externally validate the GIVE models.

Severe forms of epidermolysis bullosa (EB) can involve the external eye, causing erosive corneal disease. This is the first case, to our knowledge, to report the use of gold weight implants with the aim of correcting cicatricial lagophthalmos in a patient with EB. Our case highlights that with appropriate perioperative care and careful surgical technique, upper eyelid loading procedures can be performed safely in individuals with EB.

Grasslands are important for their ecological values and for agricultural activities such as livestock production worldwide. Efficient grassland management is vital to these values and activities, and remote sensing technologies are increasingly being used to characterize the spatiotemporal variation of grasslands to support those management practices. For this study, Sentinel-2 satellite imagery was used as an input to develop an open-source and automated monitoring system (Sen2Grass) to gain field-specific grassland information on the national and regional level for any given time range as of January 2016. This system was implemented in a cloud-computing platform (StellaSpark Nexus) designed to process large geospatial data streams from a variety of sources and was tested for a number of parcels from the Haus Riswick experimental farm in Germany. Despite outliers due to fluctuating weather conditions, vegetation index time series suggested four distinct growing cycles per growing season. Established relationships between vegetation indices and grassland yield showed poor to moderate positive trends, implying that vegetation indices could be a potential predictor for grassland biomass and chlorophyll content. However, the inclusion of larger and additional datasets such as Sentinel-1 imagery could be beneficial to developing more robust prediction models and for automatic detection of mowing events for grasslands.

Background: Living in deprived areas is associated with poorer outcomes after certain vascular procedures and surgical site infection in other specialties. Our primary objective was to determine whether living in more income-deprived areas was associated with groin wound surgical site infection after arterial intervention. Secondary objectives were to determine whether living in more income-deprived areas was associated with mortality and clinical consequences of surgical site infection. Methods: Postal code data for patients from the United Kingdom who were included in the Groin Wound Infection after Vascular Exposure (GIVE) multicenter cohort study was used to determine income deprivation, based on index of multiple deprivation (IMD) data. Patients were divided into three IMD groups for descriptive analysis. Income deprivation score was integrated into the final multivariable model for predicting surgical site infection. Results: Only patients from England had sufficient postal code data, analysis included 772 groin incisions (624 patients from 22 centers). Surgical site infection occurred in 9.7% incisions (10.3% of patients). Surgical site infection was equivalent between income deprivation tertiles (tertile 1 = 9.5%; tertile 2 = 10.3%; tertile 3 = 8.6%; p = 0.828) as were the clinical consequences of surgical site infection and mortality. Income deprivation was not associated with surgical site infection in multivariable regression analysis (odds ratio [OR], 0.574; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.038-8.747; p = 0.689). Median age at time of procedure was lower for patients living in more income-deprived areas (tertile 1 = 68 years; tertile 2 = 72 years; tertile 3 = 74 years; p

Background: Surgical site infections (SSIs) of groin wounds are a common and potentially preventable cause of morbidity, mortality and healthcare costs in vascular surgery. Our aim was to define the contemporaneous rate of groin SSIs, determine clinical sequelae, and identify risk factors for SSI. Method: An international multicentre prospective observational cohort study of consecutive patients undergoing groin incision for femoral vessel access in vascular surgery was undertaken over 3 months, follow up was 90 days. The primary outcome was incidence of groin wound SSI. Results: 1337 groin incisions (1039 patients) from 37 centres were included. 115 groin incisions (8.6%) developed SSI, of which 62 (4.6%) were superficial. Patients who developed an SSI had a significantly longer length of hospital stay (6 vs 5 days, p=0.005), a significantly higher rate of post-operative acute kidney injury (19.6% vs 11.7%, p=0.018), with no significant difference in 90-day mortality. Female sex, Body Mass Index≥30kg/m2, ischaemic heart disease, aqueous betadine skin preparation, bypass/patch use (vein, xenograft or prosthetic) and increased operative time were independent predictors of SSI. Conclusion: Groin infections which are clinically apparent to the treating vascular unit are frequent and their development carries significant clinical sequelae. Risk factors include modifiable and non-modifiable variables.

International audience; Effective grassland management practices require a good understanding of soil and vegetation properties, that can be quantified by farmers’ knowledge and remote sensing techniques. Many systems have been proposed in the past for grassland monitoring, but open-source alternatives are increasingly being preferred. In this paper, a system is proposed to process data in an open-source and automated way. This system made use of Sentinel-2 data to support grassland management at Haus Riswick in the region around Kleve, Germany, retrieved with help of a platform called Sentinelsat that was developed by ESA. Consecutive processing steps consisted of atmospheric correction, cloud masking, clipping the raster data, and calculation of vegetation indices. First results from 2018 resembled the mowing regime of the area with four growing cycles, although outliers were detected due to a lack of data caused by cloud cover. Moreover, that year’s extremely dry summer was visible in the time-series pattern as well. The proposed script is a primary version of a processing chain, which is suitable to be further expanded for more advanced data pre-processing and data analysis in the future.

Basking sharks Cetorhinus maximus have undergone widespread historic exploita- tion in the northeast Atlantic and are of conservation concern. A greater knowledge of their spatial and temporal habitat use is required to better inform subsequent monitoring and management strategies. Techniques such as light-based geolocation have provided great insights into individ- ual movements, but currently available data do not permit extrapolation to the population level. Public recording schemes may, however, help to fill shortfalls in data gathering, especially when analysed in conjunction with data from these other techniques. We analysed 11 781 records (from 1988 to 2008) from 2 public recording databases operating in the UK. We describe 3 sightings hotspots: western Scotland, Isle of Man and southwest England, and highlight the marked season- ality of basking shark sightings, which were at their greatest during the northeast Atlantic sum- mer (June to August). We further highlight a significant correlation between the duration of the sightings season in each year and the North Atlantic Oscillation, an atmosphereocean climate oscillation that has been linked to forcing of marine ecosystems. We augment patterns from public sightings records with effort-related data collected by boat-based transects at 2 regional sightings hotspots (western Scotland and southwest England). Analysis of reported body size data indicated that the annual proportion of small sharks ( 6 m) remained constant. These patterns may be indicative of a population recovery fol- lowing systematic harvesting in the 20th century.

Using Ivan Illich's seminal works, Deschooling Society and Tools for Conviviality as touchstones, this paper returns to further pursue the thrust of my article in iJADE 25.3 (2006), ‘Domain poisoning: the redundancy of current models of assessment through art’, and might be considered as a more radical addendum. The central strand of Illich's work on ‘deschooling’ is an indictment of the trend to dehumanisation and the counterproductivity which results from institutionalisation. This paper argues that it is time to revisit Illich's call for deschooling with particular reference to the teaching of art and design, and, in turn, to look at the construct of the art teacher for the twenty-first century as connoisseur/critic/animateur, aloof from the world of domain-based assessment. As has been suggested many times before within these pages and beyond, accountability makes teachers risk averse. In short, this article suggests that it is time that we took a structural risk and removed this glass ceiling to aspiration while calling for complete deregulation of art and design education and the reinstatement of the art teacher as an autonomous ‘agent of change’.

Cetacean species and their habitats are under threat and effective marine management mitigation strategies require knowledge and understanding of cetacean ecology. This requires data that are challenging and expensive to obtain; incidental sightings/strandings data are potential underused resources. In this study, incidental cetacean sightings (N = 6631) and strandings (N = 1856) in coastal waters of Cornwall, south-west Britain (1991 to 2008) were analysed for evidence of spatial and temporal patterns or trends. Eighteen species were recorded sighted and/or stranded; key species were identified as bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus), harbour porpoise (Phocoena phocoena), common dolphin (Delphinus delphis), Risso's dolphin (Grampus griseus) and minke whale (Balaenoptera acutorostrata). There were significant decreases in bottlenose dolphin sightings and pod size but an increase in harbour porpoise and minke whale sightings. Cetacean strandings showed a recent decrease over time although there was a significant positive trend in harbour porpoise strandings that correlated with sightings. Incidence of sightings and strandings were both greater on the south coast than the north coast. When Marine Tour Operator data were analysed, distinct species-specific inshore and offshore habitat use was evident. With rigorous interrogation and editing, significant patterns and trends were gained from incidentally collected data, highlighting the importance of public engagement with such recording schemes and the potential of these underused resources.

IN HIGH-TECH BUSINESSES, innovation is crucial. To nurture this element of success, Tom Hardy believes design managers must create an environment in which there is a creative tension between a shared vision—stability—and open-ended risk-taking—instability While the approach might not generate immediate quarterly earnings, Hardy is convinced this balancing act, which integrates input from many sources, will result in long-term value through the development of distinctive products that are strategic leaders in their markets.