Snake bites recorded by veterinary practices in Australia

Objective To determine the extent of the snake bite problem in domestic animals, its regional significance and the effects of antivenom treatment.
Design A questionnaire was designed seeking information on the number and type of domestic animals referred, whether treated or untreated, type of snakes and management of the bite.
Procedure The survey form was sent to 10% of veterinary surgeons, selected at random throughout Australia.
Results The response of 106 veterinary surgeons revealed that snake bite in domestic animals is frequent, with an estimated 6200 cases reported annually. Bites were more prominent in rural (78%) than urban areas (22%) with brown, tiger and black snakes accounting for 76%, 13% and 6% of cases, respectively. Cats and dogs were the most frequently reported victims. Ninety-one percent of cats and 75% of dogs survived following the administration of antivenom whereas 66% of cats and 31% of dogs survived without antivenom. Overall, in 33% of cases antivenom was not used, and venom detection kits were used in only 1% of cases. A number of drugs were used in various combinations with or without antivenom and intravenous fluids in the treatment of animals with snake bite, but their role in reducing the severity of envenomations was not assessed.
Clinical implications Antivenom significantly improves the chances of survival of domestic animals bitten by snakes.     

The UK Women's Cohort Study: comparison of vegetarians, fish-eaters and meat-eaters

BACKGROUND: This paper describes the development of the UK Women's Cohort Study and presents cohort baseline characteristics. METHODS: In total, 35,372 women, aged 35-69 years at recruitment, were selected to ensure a wide range of dietary intakes. Diet was assessed by a 217-item food-frequency questionnaire (FFQ). Detailed lifestyle information was collected by postal questionnaire. Vegetarians, fish-eaters and meat-eaters were compared. RESULTS: The cohort women are mainly white, well-educated, middle-class and married with children. They are health-conscious with only 11% current smokers and 58% taking dietary supplements. Twenty-eight per cent of subjects self-report as being vegetarian and 1% as vegan. However, only 18% are defined as 'vegetarian' from the FFQ. Fat provides 32% of energy; vitamin and mineral intakes are high, with a broad range of intakes. Meat-eaters are older, with a higher body mass index (BMI) and the lowest intakes of carbohydrate, fibre, vitamin C, folate, iron and calcium. Other fish-eaters are similar to vegetarians. Vegetarians have the lowest intakes of protein, fat and saturated fat. Oily fish-eaters have the lowest BMI; are the least likely to smoke or use full-fat milk; and are the most likely to use dietary supplements and consume the most fruit and vegetables. Oily fish-eaters have the highest total energy intake and vegetarians the lowest. Semi-skimmed milk, bread, potatoes, wine, bananas and muesli are important contributors to energy for all groups. CONCLUSION: A large cohort of middle-aged women has been created encompassing a wide range of different eating patterns, including diets currently of interest to research into protection against cancer and coronary heart disease. Participants will be followed up to study the effects of different food and nutrient intakes on long-term health outcomes.     

The Recession and the New Economy of the West: The Familiar Boom and Bust Cycle?

The U.S. West has gone through many periods of economic boom and bust, most of which were associated with rapid rises and declines in commodity markets. The recent structural shift toward a primarily service‐based economy begs the question of whether the driving forces behind the cycles of boom and bust also may be shifting away from commodities toward people and their resources. This paper explores several factors that contributed to growth in the 1990s and 2000s: asking whether these factors created any advantages or disadvantages during the most recent recession and whether the shift away from commodity production to a knowledge‐ and human capital‐intensive economy has implications for how local areas experience the boom–bust cycle.     

Does the invasive plant,Impatiens glandulifera,promote soil erosion along the riparian zone? An investigation on a small watercourse in northwest Switzerland

Purpose

The invasive plant, Impatiens glandulifera (common English name: Himalayan Balsam), is now found in many river catchments in most European countries. Its preference for damp, nutrient-rich soils, along with its intolerance to cold weather and rapid dieback, has implicated it in promoting soil erosion along the riparian zone. Despite the implication, its influence on the sediment dynamics of river systems remains unconfirmed. This communication reports the preliminary findings of ongoing work to investigate a possible link between I. glandulifera and accelerated erosion rates in inland river systems.

Materials and methods

Erosion pins, a micro-profile bridge, and a digital caliper were employed to measure changes in the soil surface profile (SSP) at six separate locations, each contaminated with I. glandulifera, along the riparian zone of a small watercourse in northwest Switzerland. Changes in SSP were also measured at an identical number of nearby locations supporting natural vegetation, in order to establish baseline erosion conditions. Soil surface profiles at all 12 locations were re-measured on seven separate occasions, from October 2012 to May 2013. This covers the time before dieback occurred to the germination and seasonal regrowth of new plants.

Results and discussion

A total of 720 individual SSP measurements were recorded during the above monitoring period. Increasingly negative values relative to initial values were documented at most transects, indicating a net reduction in soil surface elevations. This is interpreted as evidence of the removal (i.e., erosion) of surface material. Paired samples statistical analysis of the data indicate that erosion from contaminated sites was significantly greater than erosion from topographically comparable reference sites (t?=?5.758; P?<?0.05; N?=?359) supporting natural vegetation.

Conclusions

The results provide tentative yet compelling evidence that I. glandulifera promotes soil erosion along the riparian zone of the watercourse investigated. Given the unrelenting spread of this notoriously invasive plant throughout inland river systems in many countries, the likelihood of greater quantities of nutrient-rich sediment entering into aquatic environments may steadily reduce water quality in all affected catchments. An absence of effective control measures capable of halting or even slowing its rate of invasion may make it increasingly difficult for affected European Union member states to meet and then maintain key water quality standards set by the Water Framework Directive (WFD) when fully implemented in 2015.     

三种蔬菜氮肥效应曲线的比较研究

本文选取英国ADAS.19871989年的三种蔬菜(花茎甘蓝、大白菜、韭葱)氮肥试验为材料,分别选取总产量、干物重和市场产量为因变量,以施N量为自变量,对具有代表性的三种肥料效应函数:二次型Y=b0+b1X+b2X2(M1)、线性加指数Y=a+brx+cX(M2)、倒线性Y=dbX/(8+bX)+cX(M3)进行了系统的比较研究。研究结果指出:用三种模型所配置的60个肥料效应方程均有55个达到了F0.1以上显著水准,其中M2具有最大的平均回归方差贡献率(93%)和最小的平均残差方差(15.9)。进一步t检验指出:用M1所预报的最高平均产量显著高于M2和M3的预报结果。但M2所计算的平均最高施肥量显著低于M1和M3的计算结果。从模型的极值点考虑,M2较适合于模拟花茎计蓝、大白菜的肥料效应曲线;M3较适合于模拟花茎甘蓝、韭葱的肥料效应的曲线;M1的通用性较强。     

Decomposition temperature sensitivity of isolated soil organic matter fractions

The general consensus is that a warming climate will result in the acceleration of soil organic matter (SOM) decomposition, thus acting as a potential positive feedback mechanism. However, the debate over the relative temperature sensitivity of labile versus recalcitrant SOM has not been fully resolved. We isolated acid hydrolysis residues to represent a recalcitrant pool of SOM and particulate organic matter (POM) to represent a labile pool of SOM, and incubated each at different temperatures to determine temperature sensitivity of decomposition. Short-term incubations of POM generated results consistent with published experiments (i.e., greater proportion of C respired and lower Q₁₀ than whole soil), while incubations of acid hydrolysis residues did not. The contrasting results illustrate the difficulty in assessing temperature sensitivity of labile versus stable SOM decomposition, partly because of the inability to quantitatively isolate labile versus stable SOM pools and to be sufficiently certain that respiration responses to temperature are not masked by processes such as enhanced stabilization or microbial inhibition/adaptation. Further study on the temperature sensitivity of decomposition of isolated SOM fractions is necessary to better explain and predict temperature responses of bulk SOM decomposition.     

Reproductive performance of common dentex, Dentex dentex, broodstock held under different photoperiod and constant temperature conditions

The effect of photoperiod and temperature on the timing and the quality of spawning, and on associated endocrine changes in circulating 17β-oestradiol, 11-ketotestoserone (11-KT) and vitellogenin (Vtg) were investigated in common dentex, Dentex dentex, undergoing their second reproductive cycle. The possibility was also explored of using the measurement of steroids in the culture water of broodstock tanks, rather than in individual blood plasma samples, as a potentially useful tool for assessing the physiological state of a fish without disturbing them. One group of fish was exposed to a simulated natural seasonal cycle and ambient temperature (CONTROL). The other two groups were exposed to simulated seasonal photoperiod cycles (12 month-long) but which were phase-shifted either three months before (ADVANCED) or after (DELAYED) the natural cycle. Temperature was kept at 19.4±0.9 °C all-year-round. In the CONTROL, spawning started in mid-April and lasted until mid-June, while in the ADVANCED group, spawning started 4 months earlier and in the DELAYED group 2 months later than the CONTROL. The total egg production, egg quality, hatching rate, relative fecundity, and spawning index of the experimental groups were similar to the controls. The differences in spawning time induced by photothermal manipulation were associated with a difference in the timing of peak concentrations of plasma E₂, 11-KT and Vtg. In all three groups, the amounts of conjugated 17,20β-dihydroxy-4-pregnen-3-one (17,20β-P) and free and sulfated 11-KT which could be extracted from the water during the spawning period were significantly higher than those found in the preovulatory period. However, the differences were mostly less than 2-fold suggesting that, at least under the conditions employed in this study, the method was of limited use for non-intrusive detection of gonadogenesis and spawning (as had been hoped). The observed differences in spawning time and in the seasonal changes of sex steroids and Vtg confirm and extend the findings on marine fish. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Oxygen isotope variation in stony-iron meteorites

Asteroidal material, delivered to Earth as meteorites, preserves a record of the earliest stages of planetary formation. High-precision oxygen isotope analyses for the two major groups of stony-iron meteorites (main-group pallasites and mesosiderites) demonstrate that each group is from a distinct asteroidal source. Mesosiderites are isotopically identical to the howardite-eucrite-diogenite clan and, like them, are probably derived from the asteroid 4 Vesta. Main-group pallasites represent intermixed core-mantle material from a single disrupted asteroid and have no known equivalents among the basaltic meteorites. The stony-iron meteorites demonstrate that intense asteroidal deformation accompanied planetary accretion in the early Solar System.     

Milk yield and nitrogen excretion of dairy cows grazing binary and multispecies pastures

Three grazing experiments were carried out in late spring (early lactation), summer (mid‐lactation) and autumn (late lactation) to compare the effects of perennial ryegrass cultivar or grass species, sown in binary or multispecies mixtures, on milk yield and nitrogen excretion of dairy cows. Replicated groups of multiparous Holstein Friesian × Jersey cows were offered either a control or high‐sugar perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne) or tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea) base grass in a binary mixture with white clover (Trifolium repens) or in a multispecies mixture with additional legumes, bromegrass (Bromus willdenowii) and forbs. During each 9‐day experiment, botanical composition, milk production and faecal and urine composition were measured. Milk solid (MS) yield for the control ryegrass, high‐sugar ryegrass and tall fescue grass types averaged, respectively, 1.53, 1.64 and 1.70 kg MS cow^?1 day^?1 for a binary mixture sward, compared with 1.65, 1.54 and 1.53 kg MS cow^?1 day^?1 for a multispecies sward. Legume content influenced milk production more than the number of species present in a mixture. There was lower urine N concentration from a multispecies sward compared with a binary mixture. Urine N concentration of cows grazing the control ryegrass, high‐sugar ryegrass and tall fescue grass types averaged, respectively, 4.6, 5.3 and 6.8 g N L^?1 for a binary mixture, compared with 4.1, 3.9 and 3.9 g N L^?1 for a multispecies mixture. Feeding dairy cows on multispecies swards containing forbs presents an opportunity to reduce N losses without compromising milk yield.