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The feeding habitats of Great (Ardea alba) and Snowy (Egretta thula) egrets at the Great Marsh in Northeastern Massachusetts, USA, were characterized through field observations over two years during the breeding seasons of 2012 and 2013. Both species were from a large breeding colony making a daily commute to the Great Marsh for foraging. Habitats at the Great Marsh were delineated as marsh pools, the vegetated marsh, impoundments, open water, tidal flats, and tidal creeks and ditches. Observations (45 counts in 2012 and 48 in 2013) consisted of recording the number of birds, behavior (feeding or not), habitat, and the time of observation and relating these observations to the tidal cycle. The preferred feeding habitats of Snowy Egrets were in marsh pools and along the edges of large impoundments. The preferred feeding habitats of Great Egrets were on the marsh platform, particularly at high tides, and marsh pools. An analysis of physical characteristics with locations of feeding sites revealed no consistent patterns. Certain sites would occasionally support large numbers of feeding Great and Snowy egrets one day only to be ignored the next day at the same tide. The results suggest that Great and Snowy egrets are opportunistic in their selection of feeding sites at the Great Marsh. A future of wetter marshes might provide more feeding opportunities for Great and Snowy egrets, at least in the short-term.

A dynamic diagnostic tool for quantification of factors influencing well productivity decline is presented in this paper. The diagnostic tool helps identify well stimulation candidates and potentially uplift in production. Wells in deep water reservoirs show significant rate decline with time due to various causes including: changing reservoir properties (e.g. reduction in rock permeability because of compaction), degradation of completion efficiency (e.g. increasing skin), and changes in fluid flow conditions (e.g., single phase to multiphase flow). Rate decline due to an increase in skin can be mitigated by a properly designed well stimulation job, while other causes of rate decline related to changes in formation properties and/or multiphase fluid production may not be remediated and requires a long-term reservoir management plan. Engineers routinely screen for well stimulation candidates based on the decline in well productivity index. Diagnostics and quantification of primary and secondary contributing factors for well productivity decline play an important role in candidate selection. In this work, practical workflows are presented to remove the effects of rock compaction, fluid properties changes, and multiphase flow effects from the estimated productivity index. The presented workflow uses the recently developed multiphase well testing method by Kamal et al (2018) to estimate the changes in the relative permeability values, so total fluid viscosity values can be estimated to remove fluid properties changes and multiphase flow effects at each analyzed pressure buildup test, and the estimated absolute permeability is used to remove compaction effects. The workflow provides a dynamic diagnostic tool for monitoring well productivity changes to identify the main causes of productivity decline and quantify effects on the normalized productivity index. The presented workflow is validated using synthetic cases covering a wide range of reservoir and fluid properties as well as wellbore conditions. A field example from the Gulf of Mexico is presented to show the practical use of the proposed workflows as it ensures an accurate and reliable process for properly selecting candidates for well stimulation. The field case shows a total reduction in the normalized well productivity index up to 53% due to combined impacts of fluid properties changes, multiphase, and compaction.

You’re in a tough negotiation. The guy across the table is unconcerned, backed up by his cronies, prepared to wait you out. There is no legal recourse. You need power, real power. Like this: “Mr. President, may I see you outside, alone, for just a moment?” “Certainly,” Serb president Slobodan Milosevic replies, with that smug self-assurance characteristic of his dictatorship. “Mr. President,” I begin, looking at him eye-to-eye that day in 1998 and speaking in an even voice, “perhaps you don’t understand, but the United Nations has directed that you pull out your excess forces from Kosovo now. And if you don’t, NATO is going to tell me to bomb you, and I will bomb you good.”

Mifepristone medical abortion has been a valuable addition to the reproductive health options of women. Aspects of its provision have however sometimes limited its accessibility and use. This article summarizes existing evidence for simplifying the provision of medical abortion and thus increasing its availability. We identify three ways through which medical abortion provision might be simplified based on existing evidence and suggest five additional simplifications that require further research to confirm their safety and efficacy.

Misoprostol – a drug developed and approved originally for the prevention of gastric ulcers – has shown itself to be safe, effective and acceptable for uterine evacuation in the context of induced abortion and failed pregnancy. Many practitioners consider it to be the treatment of choice for these indications, despite the fact that, as of now, nearly all such use remains off-label. In the absence of regulatory guidelines, a great deal of research on misoprostol for uterine evacuation has been conducted – research that both suggests desirable approaches to treatment and highlights areas of continuing uncertainty. It is hoped that summarizing these data can both assist practitioners in their work and spur movement towards optimized regimens and the eventual registration of misoprostol for these uses.

To test the feasibility, safety, and efficacy of home use of two doses of misoprostol for medical abortion (MA) in European settings.One hundred thirty women (100 in Sweden, 30 in France) presenting for first-trimester MA were administered oral mifepristone in the clinic and sent home with two 400 microg doses of misoprostol, along with instructions to take the misoprostol at 24 h intervals. Women were also asked to complete a daily symptom diary. Outcomes of interest included effectiveness, side-effects, and adherence to and acceptability of the home-use regimen.Three women (all in France) were lost to follow-up. Of the remaining 127 women, 124 (98%) had a successful MA. All women adhered successfully to the home-use regimen, and satisfaction with home use was high (98%). Most women experienced noticeable, if transitory, side effects after both the first and second doses of misoprostol (97% and 94%, respectively).Misoprostol may successfully and satisfactorily be used at home as part of a MA regimen in European settings as it has been for years in the US. Further research to determine if two doses of misoprostol are more effective than a single dose would be useful.

Genetic studies in Drosophila and mice have shown that eyes absent (eya) is an important and conserved transcriptional regulator of development. Along with eyeless/Pax6, sine oculis, and dachshund, eya genes function as master regulators in eye development and can induce ectopic eye formation. Furthermore, the loss-of-function mutants of these genes in the fly causes partial or complete loss of the compound eye, and this is associated with inappropriate apoptosis. Conversely, ectopic eyeless expression in the context of eyes absent or sine oculis mutations results in apoptosis, suggesting that the proper ratio of these factors regulates apoptosis. Here we report that enforced expression of fly eya or of one of its mammalian homologs, Eya2, triggers rapid apoptosis in interleukin-3-dependent 32D.3 murine myeloid cells, which express Eya family members but not Pax6. Eya-induced cell death overrides survival factors and has many features typical of apoptosis, including plasma and mitochondrial membrane changes and caspase activation. Eya-induced apoptosis is blocked by Bcl-2 overexpression but not by the broad-spectrum caspase inhibitor z-VAD.fmk, suggesting that mitochondria are a major target in Eya-induced apoptosis. These results support the concept that inappropriate changes in the steady state levels of Eya proteins may trigger programmed cell deaths during development.