Risk of invasive waterfowl interaction with poultry production: Understanding potential for avian pathogen transmission via species distribution models.

Recent outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza have devastated poultry production across the United States, with more than 77 million birds culled in 2022-2024 alone. Wild waterfowl, including various invasive species, host numerous pathogens, including highly pathogenic avian influenza virus (HPAIV), and have been implicated as catalysts of disease outbreaks among native fauna and domestic birds. In major poultry-producing states like Arkansas, USA, where the poultry sector is responsible for significant economic activity (>$4 billion USD in 2022), understanding the risk of invasive waterfowl interactions with domestic poultry is critical.

Next-generation technologies unlock new possibilities to track rangeland productivity and quantify multi-scale conservation outcomes.

Historically, relying on plot-level inventories impeded our ability to quantify large-scale change in plant biomass, a key indicator of conservation practice outcomes in rangeland systems. Recent technological advances enable assessment at scales appropriate to inform management by providing spatially comprehensive estimates of productivity that are partitioned by plant functional group across all contiguous US rangelands. We partnered with the Sage Grouse and Lesser Prairie-Chicken Initiatives and the Nebraska Natural Legacy Project to demonstrate the ability of these new datasets to quantify multi-scale changes and heterogeneity in plant biomass following mechanical tree removal, prescribed fire, and prescribed grazing.

Evaluation of Dynamic Contrast-Enhanced MRI Measures of Lung Congestion and Endothelial Permeability in Heart Failure: A Prospective Method Validation Study.

Background: Methods for accurate quantification of lung fluid in heart failure (HF) are needed. Dynamic contrast-enhanced (DCE)-MRI may be an appropriate modality.

Purpose: DCE-MRI evaluation of fraction of fluid volume in the interstitial lung space (v ) and vascular permeability (K ).

Nine-banded armadillo () activity patterns are influenced by human activity.

As the human footprint upon the landscape expands, wildlife seeking to avoid human contact are losing the option of altering their spatial distribution and instead are shifting their daily activity patterns to be active at different times than humans. In this study, we used game cameras to evaluate how human development and activity were related to the daily activity patterns of the nine-banded armadillo ( along an urban to rural gradient in Arkansas, USA during the winter of 2020-2021. We found that armadillos had substantial behavioral plasticity in regard to the timing of their activity patterns; >95% of armadillo activity was nocturnal at six of the study sites, whereas between 30% and 60% of activity occurred during the day at three other sites.

Tracking spatial regimes as an early warning for a species of conservation concern.

In this era of global environmental change and rapid regime shifts, managing core areas that species require to survive and persist is a grand challenge for conservation. Wildlife monitoring data are often limited or local in scale. The emerging ability to map and track spatial regimes (i.

Impact of Hurricane Katrina on the coastal systems of southern Louisiana.

Natural disasters, such as hurricanes and forest fires, could trigger collapse and reorganization of social-ecological systems. In the face of external perturbations, a resilient system would have capacity to absorb impacts, adapt to change, learn, and if needed, reorganize within the same regime. Within this context, we asked how human and natural systems in Louisiana responded to Hurricane Katrina, and how the natural disaster altered the status of these systems.

Fire legacies in eastern ponderosa pine forests.

Disturbance legacies structure communities and ecological memory, but due to increasing changes in disturbance regimes, it is becoming more difficult to characterize disturbance legacies or determine how long they persist. We sought to quantify the characteristics and persistence of material legacies (e.g.

Early Warnings for State Transitions.

New concepts have emerged in theoretical ecology with the intent to quantify complexities in ecological change that are unaccounted for in state-and-transition models and to provide applied ecologists with statistical early warning metrics able to predict and prevent state transitions. With its rich history of furthering ecological theory and its robust and broad-scale monitoring frameworks, the rangeland discipline is poised to empirically assess these newly proposed ideas while also serving as early adopters of novel statistical metrics that provide advanced warning of a pending shift to an alternative ecological regime. Were view multivariate early warning and regime shift detection metrics, identify situations where various metrics will be most useful for rangeland science, and then highlight known shortcomings.

Plasma Tie2 is a tumor vascular response biomarker for VEGF inhibitors in metastatic colorectal cancer.

Oncological use of anti-angiogenic VEGF inhibitors has been limited by the lack of informative biomarkers. Previously we reported circulating Tie2 as a vascular response biomarker for bevacizumab-treated ovarian cancer patients. Using advanced MRI and circulating biomarkers we have extended these findings in metastatic colorectal cancer (n = 70).

Doublethink and scale mismatch polarize policies for an invasive tree.

Mismatches between invasive species management policies and ecological knowledge can lead to profound societal consequences. For this reason, natural resource agencies have adopted the scientifically-based density-impact invasive species curve to guide invasive species management. We use the density-impact model to evaluate how well management policies for a native invader (Juniperus virginiana) match scientific guidelines.

The perpetual state of emergency that sacrifices protected areas in a changing climate.

A modern challenge for conservation biology is to assess the consequences of policies that adhere to assumptions of stationarity (e.g., historic norms) in an era of global environmental change.

Repeatability and response to therapy of dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging biomarkers in rheumatoid arthritis in a large multicentre trial setting.

Objectives: To determine the repeatability and response to therapy of dynamic contrast-enhanced (DCE) MRI biomarkers of synovitis in the hand and wrist of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients, and in particular the performance of the transfer constant K , in a multicentre trial setting.

Methods: DCE-MRI and RA MRI scoring (RAMRIS) were performed with meticulous standardisation at baseline and 6 and 24 weeks in a substudy of fostamatinib monotherapy in reducing synovitis compared with placebo or adalimumab. Analysis employed statistical shape modelling to avoid biased regions-of-interest, kinetic modelling and heuristic analyses.

Immunizations challenge healthcare personnel and affects immunization rates.

Purpose: This study measured 1. medical office immunization rates and 2. health care personnel competency in managing vaccine practices before and after evidence-based immunization education was provided.

Expert modeling, expert/self-modeling versus lecture: a comparison of learning, retention, and transfer of rescue skills in health professions students.

Background: It is unclear whether traditional lecture followed by simulation leads to the best learning and knowledge and skill retention over time.

Method: A 3×4 mixed design study used three modes of education-traditional lecture with self-guided learning, expert modeling/dual viewing with brief questioning, and expert plus self-modeling-at four time points to compare knowledge, time to treat, and correct steps over time.

Results: No significant differences were found in knowledge or time to treat between training methods.

Feasibility assessment of using oxygen-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging for evaluating the effect of pharmacological treatment in COPD.

Objectives: Oxygen-enhanced MRI (OE-MRI) biomarkers have potential value in assessment of COPD, but need further evaluation before treatment-induced changes can be interpreted. The objective was to evaluate how OE-MRI parameters of regional ventilation and oxygen uptake respond to standard pharmacological interventions in COPD, and how the response compares to that of gold standard pulmonary function tests.

Materials And Methods: COPD patients (n=40), mean FEV1 58% predicted normal, received single-dose inhaled formoterol 9μg, or placebo, followed by 8 weeks treatment bid with a combination of budesonide and formoterol Turbuhaler(®) 320/9μg or formoterol Turbuhaler(®).

A phase 1 trial of intravenous 4-(N-(S-glutathionylacetyl)amino) phenylarsenoxide (GSAO) in patients with advanced solid tumours.

Background: 4-(N-(S-glutathionylacetyl)amino) phenylarsenoxide (GSAO) is a water-soluble mitochondrial toxin that binds to adenine nucleotide translocase in the inner mitochondrial membrane, thereby targeting cell proliferation. This phase 1 study investigated safety, dose-limiting toxicities (DLTs), maximum tolerated dose (MTD) and pharmacokinetics (PK) of GSAO as a daily 1-h infusion for 5 days a week for 2 weeks in every three. Pharmacodynamics of GSAO was evaluated by dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE-MRI) and circulating markers of angiogenesis.

Dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI in clinical trials of antivascular therapies.

About 100 early-phase clinical trials and investigator-led studies of targeted antivascular therapies--both anti-angiogenic and vascular-targeting agents--have reported data derived from T1-weighted dynamic contrast-enhanced (DCE)-MRI. However, the role of DCE-MRI for decision making during the drug-development process remains controversial. Despite well-documented guidelines on image acquisition and analysis, several key questions concerning the role of this technique in early-phase trial design remain unanswered.

The effect of blood inflow and B(1)-field inhomogeneity on measurement of the arterial input function in axial 3D spoiled gradient echo dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI.

A major potential confound in axial 3D dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging studies is the blood inflow effect; therefore, the choice of slice location for arterial input function measurement within the imaging volume must be considered carefully. The objective of this study was to use computer simulations, flow phantom, and in vivo studies to describe and understand the effect of blood inflow on the measurement of the arterial input function. All experiments were done at 1.

Quantifying antivascular effects of monoclonal antibodies to vascular endothelial growth factor: insights from imaging.

Purpose: Little is known concerning the onset, duration, and magnitude of direct therapeutic effects of anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) therapies. Such knowledge would help guide the rational development of targeted therapeutics from bench to bedside and optimize use of imaging technologies that quantify tumor function in early-phase clinical trials.

Experimental Design: Preclinical studies were done using ex vivo microcomputed tomography and in vivo ultrasound imaging to characterize tumor vasculature in a human HM-7 colorectal xenograft model treated with the anti-VEGF antibody G6-31.

Quantifying spatial heterogeneity in dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI parameter maps.

Dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI is becoming a standard tool for imaging-based trials of anti-vascular/angiogenic agents in cancer. So far, however, biomarkers derived from DCE-MRI parameter maps have largely neglected the fact that the maps have spatial structure and instead focussed on distributional summary statistics. Such statistics-e.

Preliminary study of oxygen-enhanced longitudinal relaxation in MRI: a potential novel biomarker of oxygenation changes in solid tumors.

Purpose: There is considerable interest in developing non-invasive methods of mapping tumor hypoxia. Changes in tissue oxygen concentration produce proportional changes in the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) longitudinal relaxation rate (R(1)). This technique has been used previously to evaluate oxygen delivery to healthy tissues and is distinct from blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) imaging.

Comparison of normal tissue R1 and R*2 modulation by oxygen and carbogen.

Magnetic resonance imaging has shown promise for evaluating tissue oxygenation. In this study differences in the tissue longitudinal relaxation rate (R(1)) and effective transverse relaxation rate (R(*)(2)), induced by inhalation of pure oxygen and carbogen, were evaluated in 10 healthy subjects. Significant reductions in R(1) were demonstrated following both oxygen and carbogen inhalation in the spleen (both P < 0.

Glandular function in Sjögren syndrome: assessment with dynamic contrast-enhanced MR imaging and tracer kinetic modeling--initial experience.

Purpose: To prospectively use dynamic contrast material-enhanced magnetic resonance (MR) imaging and a tracer kinetic model to compare parotid gland microvascular characteristics in patients who have Sjögren syndrome (SS) with those in healthy volunteers.

Materials And Methods: The local research ethics committee approved the study, and written informed consent was obtained from all participants. Twenty-one patients (19 women, two men; age range, 31-73 years) with a diagnosis of SS and 11 healthy volunteers (10 women, one man; age range, 41-68 years) underwent three-dimensional T1-weighted dynamic contrast-enhanced MR imaging of the parotid gland at 1.