Perspectives of researchers and clinicians on patient and public involvement (PPI) in preclinical spinal cord research: An interview study.

Introduction: Patient and public involvement (PPI) in research is an embedded practice in clinical research, however, its role in preclinical or laboratory-based research is less well established and presents specific challenges. This study aimed to explore the perspectives of two key stakeholder groups, preclinical researchers and clinicians on PPI in preclinical research, using spinal cord research as a case study.

Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted online with 11 clinicians and 11 preclinical researchers all working in the area of spinal cord injury (SCI).

The Development of Principles for Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) in Preclinical Spinal Cord Research: A Modified Delphi Study.

Introduction: There is currently limited guidance for researchers on Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) for preclinical spinal cord research, leading to uncertainty about design and implementation. This study aimed to develop evidence-informed principles to support preclinical spinal cord researchers to incorporate PPI into their research.

Methods: This study used a modified Delphi method with the aim of establishing consensus on a set of principles for PPI in spinal cord research.

Disturbance-mediated changes to boreal mammal spatial networks in industrializing landscapes.

Compound effects of anthropogenic disturbances on wildlife emerge through a complex network of direct responses and species interactions. Land-use changes driven by energy and forestry industries are known to disrupt predator-prey dynamics in boreal ecosystems, yet how these disturbance effects propagate across mammal communities remains uncertain. Using structural equation modeling, we tested disturbance-mediated pathways governing the spatial structure of multipredator multiprey boreal mammal networks across a landscape-scale disturbance gradient within Canada's Athabasca oil sands region.

Mapping climate adaptation corridors for biodiversity-A regional-scale case study in Central America.

Climate adaptation corridors are widely recognized as important for promoting biodiversity resilience under climate change. Central America is part of the Mesoamerican biodiversity hotspot, but there have been no regional-scale analyses of potential climate adaptation corridors in Central America. We identified 2375 potential corridors throughout Central America that link lowland protected areas (≤ 500 m) with intact, high-elevation forests (≥ 1500 m) that represent potential climate change refugia.

The role of Patient and public involvement (PPI) in pre-clinical spinal cord research: An interview study.

Background: Patient and public involvement in research (PPI) has many benefits including increasing relevance and impact. While using PPI in clinical research is now an established practice, the involvement of patients and the public in pre-clinical research, which takes place in a laboratory setting, has been less frequently described and presents specific challenges. This study aimed to explore the perspectives of seriously injured rugby players' who live with a spinal cord injury on PPI in pre-clinical research.

Mammal responses to global changes in human activity vary by trophic group and landscape.

Wildlife must adapt to human presence to survive in the Anthropocene, so it is critical to understand species responses to humans in different contexts. We used camera trapping as a lens to view mammal responses to changes in human activity during the COVID-19 pandemic. Across 163 species sampled in 102 projects around the world, changes in the amount and timing of animal activity varied widely.

Mammalian predator and prey responses to recreation and land use across multiple scales provide limited support for the human shield hypothesis.

Outdoor recreation is widespread, with uncertain effects on wildlife. The human shield hypothesis (HSH) suggests that recreation could have differential effects on predators and prey, with predator avoidance of humans creating a spatial refuge 'shielding' prey from people. The generality of the HSH remains to be tested across larger scales, wherein human shielding may prove generalizable, or diminish with variability in ecological contexts.

Applying Patient and Public Involvement in preclinical research: A co-created scoping review.

Background: Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) in research aims to improve the quality, relevance and appropriateness of research. PPI has an established role in clinical research where there is evidence of benefit, and where policymakers and funders place continued emphasis on its inclusion. However, for preclinical research, PPI has not yet achieved the same level of integration.

Genetic determinants of antimicrobial resistance in three multi-drug resistant strains of isolated from patients with acne: a predictive study.

Objectives: Using available whole genome data, the objective of this study was to identify genetic mechanisms that could explain the antimicrobial resistance profile of three multi-drug resistant (MDR) strains (CA17, CA51, CA39) of the skin bacterium previously recovered from patients with acne. In particular, we were interested in detecting novel genetic determinants associated with resistance to fluoroquinolone and macrolide antibiotics that could then be confirmed experimentally.

Methods: A range of open source bioinformatics tools were used to 'mine' genetic determinants of antimicrobial resistance and plasmid borne contigs, and to characterise the phylogenetic diversity of the MDR strains.

Disappearance of an ecosystem engineer, the white-lipped peccary (Tayassu pecari), leads to density compensation and ecological release.

Given the rate of biodiversity loss, there is an urgent need to understand community-level responses to extirpation events, with two prevailing hypotheses. On one hand, the loss of an apex predator leads to an increase in primary prey species, triggering a trophic cascade of other changes within the community, while density compensation and ecological release can occur because of reduced competition for resources and absence of direct aggression. White-lipped peccary (Tayassu pecari-WLP), a species that typically co-occurs with collared peccary (Pecari tajacu), undergo major population crashes-often taking 20 to 30-years for populations to recover.

Behavioral "bycatch" from camera trap surveys yields insights on prey responses to human-mediated predation risk.

Human disturbance directly affects animal populations and communities, but indirect effects of disturbance on species behaviors are less well understood. For instance, disturbance may alter predator activity and cause knock-on effects to predator-sensitive foraging in prey. Camera traps provide an emerging opportunity to investigate such disturbance-mediated impacts to animal behaviors across multiple scales.

Modelling the Compaction Step of a Platform Direct Compression Process.

The ability to predict formulation behaviour at production scale during formulation design can reduce the time to market and decrease product development costs. However, it is challenging to extrapolate compaction settings for direct compression formulations between tablet press models during scale-up and transfer from R&D to commercial production. The aim of this study was to develop statistical process models to predict tablet tensile strength, porosity and disintegration time from compaction parameters (pre-compression and main compression force, and press speed), for three formulations, with differing deformation characteristics (plastic, brittle and elastic), on three tablet press models (one pilot-scale tablet press (KG RoTab) and two production-scale presses (Fette 1200i and GEA Modul P)).

Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) in preclinical research: A scoping review protocol.

Patient and public involvement (PPI) aims to improve the quality, relevance, and appropriateness of research and ensure that it meets the needs and expectations of those affected by particular conditions to the greatest possible degree. The evidence base for the positive impact of PPI on clinical research continues to grow, but the role of PPI in preclinical research (an umbrella term encompassing 'basic', 'fundamental', 'translational' or 'lab-based' research) remains limited. As funding bodies and policymakers continue to increase emphasis on the relevance of PPI to preclinical research, it is timely to map the PPI literature to support preclinical researchers involving the public, patients, or other service users in their research.

Human disturbance and shifts in vertebrate community composition in a biodiversity hotspot.

Understanding how human modification of the landscape shapes vertebrate community composition is vital to understanding the current status and future trajectory of wildlife. Using a participatory approach, we deployed the largest camera-trap network in Mesoamerica to date to investigate how anthropogenic disturbance shapes the occupancy and co-occurrence of terrestrial vertebrate species in a tropical biodiversity hotspot: the Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica. We estimated species richness in different categories of land protection with rarefaction analysis and estimated the expected occupancy with a joint species distribution model that included covariates for anthropogenic disturbance, land protection, habitat quality, and habitat availability.

African forest elephant movements depend on time scale and individual behavior.

The critically endangered African forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis) plays a vital role in maintaining the structure and composition of Afrotropical forests, but basic information is lacking regarding the drivers of elephant movement and behavior at landscape scales. We use GPS location data from 96 individuals throughout Gabon to determine how five movement behaviors vary at different scales, how they are influenced by anthropogenic and environmental covariates, and to assess evidence for behavioral syndromes-elephants which share suites of similar movement traits. Elephants show some evidence of behavioral syndromes along an 'idler' to 'explorer' axis-individuals that move more have larger home ranges and engage in more 'exploratory' movements.

Spider Monkeys Rule the Roost: Ateline Sleeping Sites Influence Rainforest Heterogeneity.

The sleeping site behavior of Ateline primates has been of interest since the 1980s, yet limited focus has been given to their influence upon other rainforest species. Here, we use a combination of arboreal and terrestrial camera traps, and dung beetle pitfall traps, to characterize spider monkey sleeping site use and quantify the impact of their associated latrines on terrestrial vertebrate and dung beetle activity. We also characterize the physical characteristics of the sleeping sites and the floristic and soil composition of latrines beneath them.

Landscape-level validation of allometric relationships for carbon stock estimation reveals bias driven by soil type.

Mitigation of climate change depends on accurate estimation and mapping of terrestrial carbon stocks, particularly in carbon dense tropical forests. Allometric equations can be used to robustly estimate biomass of tropical trees, but often require tree height, which is frequently unknown. Researchers and practitioners must, therefore, decide whether to directly measure a subset of tree heights to develop diameter : height (D:H) equations or rely on previously published generic equations.

Concussion in adolescent rugby union players: comprehensive acute assessment protocol and development of the SSC concussion passport to monitor long-term health.

Introduction: Sports-related concussion (SRC) can be challenging to diagnose, assess and manage. Much of the SRC research is conducted on adults. The assessment of SRC should aim to identify deficits using a detailed multimodal assessment; however, most studies investigating the effects of SRC use diagnostic tools in isolation.

Forest elephant movement and habitat use in a tropical forest-grassland mosaic in Gabon.

Poaching of forest elephants (Loxodonta cyclotis) for ivory has decimated their populations in Central Africa. Studying elephant movement can provide insight into habitat and resource use to reveal where, when, and why they move and guide conservation efforts. We fitted 17 forest elephants with global positioning system (GPS) collars in 2015 and 2016 in the tropical forest-grassland mosaic of the Wonga Wongué Presidential Reserve (WW), Gabon.

Age-related declines in immune response in a wild mammal are unrelated to immune cell telomere length.

Senescence has been hypothesized to arise in part from age-related declines in immune performance, but the patterns and drivers of within-individual age-related changes in immunity remain virtually unexplored in natural populations. Here, using a long-term epidemiological study of wild European badgers (Meles meles), we (i) present evidence of a within-individual age-related decline in the response of a key immune-signalling cytokine, interferon-gamma (IFNγ), to ex vivo lymphocyte stimulation, and (ii) investigate three putative drivers of individual variation in the rate of this decline (sex, disease and immune cell telomere length; ICTL). That the within-individual rate of age-related decline markedly exceeded that at the population level suggests that individuals with weaker IFNγ responses are selectively lost from this population.

Sex differences in senescence: the role of intra-sexual competition in early adulthood.

Males and females frequently differ in their rates of ageing, but the origins of these differences are poorly understood. Sex differences in senescence have been hypothesized to arise, because investment in intra-sexual reproductive competition entails costs to somatic maintenance, leaving the sex that experiences stronger reproductive competition showing higher rates of senescence. However, evidence that sex differences in senescence are attributable to downstream effects of the intensity of intra-sexual reproductive competition experienced during the lifetime remains elusive.

Age-related declines and disease-associated variation in immune cell telomere length in a wild mammal.

Immunosenescence, the deterioration of immune system capability with age, may play a key role in mediating age-related declines in whole-organism performance, but the mechanisms that underpin immunosenescence are poorly understood. Biomedical research on humans and laboratory models has documented age and disease related declines in the telomere lengths of leukocytes ('immune cells'), stimulating interest their having a potentially general role in the emergence of immunosenescent phenotypes. However, it is unknown whether such observations generalise to the immune cell populations of wild vertebrates living under ecologically realistic conditions.

Six years' experience with prostaglandin I2 infusion in elective open repair of abdominal aortic aneurysm: a parallel group observational study in a tertiary referral vascular center.

The prostaglandin I(2) (PGI(2)) analogue iloprost, a potent vasodilator and inhibitor of platelet activation, has traditionally been utilized in pulmonary hypertension and off-label use for revascularization of chronic critical lower limb ischemia. This study was designed to assess the effect of 72 hr iloprost infusion on systemic ischemia post-open elective abdominal aortic aneurysm (EAAA) surgery. Between January 2000 and 2007, 104 patients undergoing open EAAA were identified: 36 had juxtarenal, 15 had suprarenal, and 53 had infrarenal aneurysms, with a mean maximal diameter of 6.

Five years' experience of transverse groin incision for femoral artery access in arterial reconstructive surgery: parallel observational longitudinal group comparison study.

Vertical groin incisions (VGIs) have been used to access femoral vessels, but reports allude to wound complications. Our aim was to compare VGI with transverse groin incision (TGI) for femoral artery exposure. Over a 5-year interval, 196 patients with 284 femoral artery exposures for supra- and infrainguinal procedures were studied.

Diagnosis and management of common maxillofacial injuries in the emergency department. Part 5: Dentoalveolar injuries.

Injuries to teeth can be very distressing for patients. Prompt treatment is essential. Injuries of the tooth bearing portion of the mandible are common and can even result after a relatively low impact trauma.