Resurveys Reveal Potential Population Increases of the Himalayan Griffon in Central West Nepal

ABSTRACT The Himalayan Griffon (Gyps himalayensis) is listed as near threatened and its populations are poorly monitored. During late May and early June of 2013, 2014, and 2016, we resurveyed transects that were originally sampled 2002–2006. These transects were within the Annapurna region of Nepal. From 2010 through 2020, we also monitored a breeding colony of Himalayan Griffons within the Arghakhanchi District of Nepal. The number of non-adults, adults, and total Himalayan Griffons counted along the transects approximately doubled from the previous counts. At the colony, the number of breeding pairs and young fledged increased during the study (yearly growth rate [r] = 0.049 and 0.089, respectively). The number of offspring fledged per breeding pair also increased (r = 0.040). Our results are encouraging, but we only surveyed a small portion of the global population and over a relatively short time period. We recommend expanded and coordinated population monitoring for this species across its range.

The role of antiviral treatment in curbing the COVID-19 pandemic: a modeling study.

Despite the development of safe and effective vaccines, effective treatments for COVID-19 disease are still desperately needed. Recently, two antiviral drugs have shown to be effective in reducing hospitalizations in clinical trials. In the present work, we use an agent-based mathematical model to assess the potential population impact of the use of antiviral treatments in four countries, corresponding to four current levels of vaccination coverage: Kenya, Mexico, United States (US) and Belgium, with 1.5, 38, 57 and 74% of their populations vaccinated. For each location, we varied antiviral coverage and antiviral effect in reducing viral load (25, 50, 75 or 100% reduction). Irrespective of location, widespread antiviral treatment of symptomatic infections (≥50% coverage) is expected to prevent the majority of COVID-19 deaths. Furthermore, even treating 20% of adult symptomatic infections, is expected to reduce mortality by a third in all countries, irrespective of the assumed treatment efficacy in reducing viral load. Our results suggest that early antiviral treatment is needed to mitigate transmission, with early treatment (within two days of symptoms) preventing 50% more infections compared to late treatment (started on days 3 to 5 after developing symptoms). Our results highlight the synergistic effect of vaccination and antiviral treatment: as vaccination rate increased, antiviral treatment had a bigger impact on overall transmission. These results suggest that antiviral treatments can become a strategic tool that, in combination with vaccination, can significantly control SASRS-CoV-2 transmission and reduce COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths.

Comparing Cannabis Use Disorder in the General Population with Cannabis Treatment Seekers Using Multi-Source National Datasets: Who Receives Treatment?

<b><i>Introduction:</i></b> Given the increased prevalence of cannabis use in Ireland and increase in cannabis potency, this study aimed to estimate the size of the potential population in Ireland that may be in need of cannabis treatment and the percentage of people with cannabis use disorder (CUD) who actually access treatment. We also compared the profile of those with CUD in the general population to those who receive treatment for their cannabis use to explore whether certain subgroups are more or less likely to enter treatment. <b><i>Method:</i></b> This was a retrospective, multi-source database study. Data were obtained from (1) Ireland’s 2014/2015 national general population survey (GPS) on drug use and (2) treatment data from the Irish National Drug Treatment Reporting System (NDTRS) for 2015. The profiles of GPS cases with CUD and NDTRS cases were compared using 2-sided <i>t</i> tests designed for independent samples. <b><i>Results:</i></b> The prevalence of last year cannabis use among adults aged 15 and older was 6.5% and the prevalence of CUD was 2.6%, representing 94,515 of the Irish population. A total of 4,761 cases entered treatment for problem cannabis use. NDTRS treatment cases were significantly more likely than GPS cases to be unemployed (63.7% vs. 26.6%) and have no or primary level only educational attainment (56.3% vs. 21.2%). Over half (53.3%) of NDTRS cases first used cannabis before the age of 15 years, compared to 14.7% of CUD cases in the population. <b><i>Discussion/Conclusion:</i></b> Our findings suggest that earlier users and those with more complex or disadvantaged lives are more likely to seek treatment. A broad population health approach that engages multiple sectors such as health, social welfare, and education is recommended to ensure that there is increased opportunity for people with CUD to be identified and signposted towards treatment.

Assessing Health Resources Equipped with Hemodynamic Rooms in the Portuguese-Spanish Borderland: Cross-Border Cooperation Strategies as a Possible Solution

Portugal and Spain share one of the greatest European borderland areas. This fact has direct impacts on a large territory and consequently on the communities’ living in it. Still, even if the border areas represent an essential fraction of the territory, planning policies have not resulted in specific cooperation programs that could enable sharing general leisure and recreation assets and infrastructures and collaboration in critical domains—i.e., the case of the health sector. The present study aims to assess the territorial accessibility to the hemodynamic rooms by the potential population of the Spanish-Portuguese transition areas that may suffer an acute myocardial infarction. Contextually, this study employed a spatial interaction model based on the three-step floating catchment area method (method-3SFCA). By applying these methods, it was possible to develop a map of accessibility to health infrastructures equipped with hemodynamics rooms on both sides of the border that may answer the Spanish-Portuguese border populations’ needs. Besides, while granting valuable information for decision-makers regarding the need to develop new infrastructures to guarantee that even considering cross border cooperation, everyone gets access to a hemodynamics room within the critical intervention period.

The impact of Covid-19 vaccination on the Italian healthcare system: a scenario analysis

Introduction: The objective of this study is to estimate the effects of the national immunisation strategy for Covid-19 in Italy on the national healthcare system. Methods: An epidemiological scenario analysis was developed in order to simulate the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the Italian national healthcare system in 2021. Hospitalisations, ICU admissions and death rates were modelled based on 2020 data. We forecast the impact of the introduction of a primary prevention strategy on the national healthcare system by considering vaccine efficacy, availability of doses and potential population coverage over time. Results: In the absence of immunisation, between 57,000 and 63,000 additional deaths are forecast in 2021. Based on the assumptions underlying the two epidemiological scenarios from the 2020 data, our model predicts that cumulative hospital admissions in 2021 will range from 3.4 to 3.9 million. The deployment of vaccine immunisation has the potential to control the evolution of 2021 infections and avoid from 60 to 67 percent of deaths compared to not vaccinating. Conclusions: In order to inform Italian policymakers on delivering a mass vaccination programme, this study highlights and detects some key factors that must be controlled to ensure that immunisation targets will be met in reasonable time.

Annual abundance of common Kestrels (Falco tinnunculus) is negatively associated with second generation anticoagulant rodenticides

Rats and mice can damage food and agricultural products as well as transmit diseases, thereby requiring control of their numbers. Application of Second Generation Anticoagulant Rodenticides (SGARs) often reduces rodent numbers locally. However, predators eating rodents, including non-target species, that have consumed SGARs may be secondarily exposed and potentially lethally poisoned. Here we study whether SGARs may have contributed to the widespread population declines of a rodent-eating raptor, the Common Kestrel (Falco tinnunculus) in the UK. We show that 161 (66.8%) of the 241 Kestrels submitted for ecotoxicology tests between 1997 and 2012 had detectable levels of at least one SGAR in their livers. Adult Kestrels had significantly higher prevalence of SGARs than juveniles, suggesting accumulation of SGARs through time. The prevalence and concentrations of individual SGARs in Kestrels were significantly higher in England than in Scotland. SGAR prevalence in Kestrels were positively associated with some land cover types, primarilyarable cerealsandbroad-leaved woodland, and negatively associated with mainlymean elevation, probably reflecting variation in SGAR usage across land cover types. By using volunteer-collected data on national Kestrel abundance 1997–2012, we show that there is a negative correlation between the Kestrel population index in a specific year and the concentration of bromadialone as well as the total SGAR concentration in the same year. Although correlative, this is the first study to provide evidence for a potential population-limiting effect of SGARs on a raptor.

A Quantitative Framework to Study Potential Benefits and Harms of Multi-cancer Early Detection Testing

BackgroundMulti-cancer tests permit identification of multiple cancers with one blood draw. The objective of this study was to quantify potential population impact of a multi-cancer test.MethodsWe formulate mathematical expressions for expected numbers of (1) individuals exposed to unnecessary confirmation tests (UCT), (2) cancers detected (CD), and (3) lives saved (LS) given disease prevalence and mortality and the test’s performance and expected mortality reduction. We consider additions of colorectal, liver, lung, ovary, and pancreatic cancer to a test for breast cancer using published performance characteristics of a multi-cancer test and prevalence of each cancer at ages 50, 60, or 70 based on 5-year incidence rates and corresponding 15-year probabilities of cancer death in the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results registry, assuming 20% mortality reduction for each.ResultsUCT depends on screening age but is overwhelmingly determined by overall specificity of the test and is relatively insensitive to the types and number of cancers included. For a given overall specificity, UCT/CD is most favorable for higher-prevalence cancers (e.g., UCT/CD = 5.6 for breast+lung versus 6.5 for breast+liver at age 50). Under a common mortality reduction, UCT/LS is most favorable when the test includes higher-mortality cancers (e.g., UCT/LS = 48.5 for breast+lung versus 74.7 for breast+liver at age 50).ConclusionsThe harm-benefit tradeoffs of multi-cancer testing depend on the number and type of cancers included. Overall specificity is paramount for controlling unnecessary confirmation tests. For a given overall specificity, multi-cancer tests should prioritize prevalent and/or lethal cancers for which curative treatments exist.

The use of negative control outcomes in Mendelian randomization to detect potential population stratification

A key assumption of Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis is that there is no association between the genetic variants used as instruments and the outcome other than through the exposure of interest. One way in which this assumption can be violated is through population stratification, which can introduce confounding of the relationship between the genetic variants and the outcome and so induce an association between them. Negative control outcomes are increasingly used to detect unobserved confounding in observational epidemiological studies. Here we consider the use of negative control outcomes in MR studies to detect confounding of the genetic variants and the exposure or outcome. As a negative control outcome in an MR study, we propose the use of phenotypes which are determined before the exposure and outcome but which are likely to be subject to the same confounding as the exposure or outcome of interest. We illustrate our method with a two-sample MR analysis of a preselected set of exposures on self-reported tanning ability and hair colour. Our results show that, of the 33 exposures considered, genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of adiposity and education-related traits are likely to be subject to population stratification that is not controlled for through adjustment, and so any MR study including these traits may be subject to bias that cannot be identified through standard pleiotropy robust methods. Negative control outcomes should therefore be used regularly in MR studies to detect potential population stratification in the data used.

Characterizations of Pareto-Nash Equilibria for Multiobjective Potential Population Games

This paper studies the characterizations of (weakly) Pareto-Nash equilibria for multiobjective population games with a vector-valued potential function called multiobjective potential population games, where agents synchronously maximize multiobjective functions with finite strategies via a partial order on the criteria-function set. In such games, multiobjective payoff functions are equal to the transpose of the Jacobi matrix of its potential function. For multiobjective potential population games, based on Kuhn-Tucker conditions of multiobjective optimization, a strongly (weakly) Kuhn-Tucker state is introduced for its vector-valued potential function and it is proven that each strongly (weakly) Kuhn-Tucker state is one (weakly) Pareto-Nash equilibrium. The converse is obtained for multiobjective potential population games with two strategies by utilizing Tucker’s Theorem of the alternative and Motzkin’s one of linear systems. Precisely, each (weakly) Pareto-Nash equilibrium is equivalent to a strongly (weakly) Kuhn-Tucker state for multiobjective potential population games with two strategies. These characterizations by a vector-valued approach are more comprehensive than an additive weighted method. Multiobjective potential population games are the extension of population potential games from a single objective to multiobjective cases. These novel results provide a theoretical basis for further computing (weakly) Pareto-Nash equilibria of multiobjective potential population games and their practical applications.

IoT-Based Smart Agriculture

Smart farming is an evolving concept since IoT sensors are capable of providing agricultural field information and then acting on the basis of user feedback. The main factor in improving the yield of efficient crops is the control of environmental conditions. There is a small yard, farmland, or a plantation area for most of us. However, our busy timetable does not allow us to manage it well. But we can easily accomplish it with the use of technology. So, the authors make an IoT-based smart farming system that can control soil moisture. As data has become a critical component in modern agriculture to assist producers with critical decisions and make a decision with objective data obtained from sensors, significant advantages emerge. This chapter explores the current state of advanced farm management systems by revisiting each critical phase, from data collection in crop fields to variable rate applications, in order for growers to make informed decisions save money while also protecting the environment and transforming how food is grown to meet potential population growth.