Biol Rev Camb Philos Soc
January 2025
Camera traps are widely used in wildlife research and monitoring, so it is imperative to understand their strengths, limitations, and potential for increasing impact. We investigated a decade of use of wildlife cameras (2012-2022) with a case study on Australian terrestrial vertebrates using a multifaceted approach. We (i) synthesised information from a literature review; (ii) conducted an online questionnaire of 132 professionals; (iii) hosted an in-person workshop of 28 leading experts representing academia, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and government; and (iv) mapped camera trap usage based on all sources.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Widespread digital transformation necessitates developing digital competencies for public health practice. Given work in 2024 to update Canada's public health core competencies, there are opportunities to consider digital competencies. In our previous research, we identified digital competency and training recommendations within the literature.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Impaired oxidation of branched chain amino acids may give rise to volatile organic compounds (VOCs). We hypothesized that VOCs will be present in exhaled breath of participants with propionic acidemia (PA), and their relative abundance would correlate with clinical and biochemical characteristics of the disease.
Methods: We enrolled 5 affected participants from a natural history study of PA (ClinicalTrials.
Emission rates for volatile organic compounds (VOCs) have been quantified from frying, spice and herb cooking, and cooking a chicken curry, using real-time selected-ion flow-tube mass spectrometry (SIFT-MS) for controlled, laboratory-based experiments in a semi-realistic kitchen. Emissions from 7 different cooking oils were investigated during the frying of wheat flatbread (puri). These emissions were dominated by ethanol, octane, nonane and a variety of aldehydes, including acetaldehyde, heptenal and hexanal, and the average concentration of acetaldehyde (0.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMicrobiology reference laboratories perform a crucial role within public health systems. This role was especially evident during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this Viewpoint, we emphasise the importance of microbiology reference laboratories and highlight the types of digital data and expertise they provide, which benefit national and international public health.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDispersal is a fundamental ecological process that influences population dynamics and genetic diversity and is therefore an important component of the models used to simulate population responses to environmental change. We considered informed dispersal in relation to settlement location, where individuals could optimise selection of settlement location with regard to per capita resource availability and investigated the importance of this type of informed dispersal for simulated demography and genetic diversity under different biological and environmental scenarios. We used an individual-based simulation model scaled with reference to the ecology of small mammals in fire prone savanna ecosystems.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA catalyst-in-bag system facilitates the recovery and recycling of chiral dirhodium carboxylate catalysts used for enantioselective, intermolecular cyclopropanation. The catalyst-in-bag system incorporates a soluble enantioselective dirhodium complex catalyst within a reusable, commercial dialysis membrane. Dirhodium catalysts of different sizes are examined, and two catalysts with molecular weights above 2400 Da are well-retained by the membrane.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: A literature review provides a synthesis on a selection of papers about a specific topic. This is used by health practitioners in critical care as in other specialities when making clinical practice decisions. The task of knowledge transfer through the review process of scientific papers involves a variety of methodologies with differing expectations on the quality and rigour that is applied.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe mechanism of the dirhodium-catalyzed combined C-H functionalization/Cope rearrangement (CH/Cope) reaction discovered by the Davies group has been investigated with density functional theory (DFT) calculations and quasi-classical molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. Computations from the Davies group previously showed that there is a post-transition state bifurcation leading to a direct CH reaction and also to the CH/Cope product. While this work was in preparation, the Tantillo group and the Ess group independently reported quantum mechanical and molecular dynamics studies on the dirhodium-tetracarboxylate-catalyzed diazoester CH/Cope and CH insertion reactions with 1,3-cyclohexadiene and 1,4-cyclohexadiene, respectively.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF(-)-Cylindrocyclophane A is a 22-membered C-symmetric [7.7]paracyclophane that bears bis-resorcinol functionality and six stereocenters. We report a synthetic strategy for (-)-cylindrocyclophane A that uses 10 C-H functionalization reactions, resulting in a streamlined route with high enantioselectivity and efficiency (17 steps).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Pedal medial arterial calcification (pMAC) is a potential predictor of major adverse limb events (MALEs) among patients with critical limb-threatening ischemia (CLTI). This study aims to validate the prognostic value of the pMAC score in predicting major lower-limb amputation (MLLA) and need for redo revascularisation.
Methods: A single-center study involving 196 patients diagnosed with CLTI, reviewed between 2012 and 2022.
Cereblon (CRBN) has been successfully co-opted to affect the targeted degradation of "undruggable" proteins with immunomodulatory imide drugs (IMiDs). IMiDs act as molecule glues that facilitate ternary complex formation between CRBN and a target protein, leading to ubiquitination and proteasomal degradation. Subtle structural modifications often cause profound and sometimes unpredictable changes in the degradation selectivity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEnviron Sci Process Impacts
September 2024
Cooking and cleaning are common sources of indoor air pollutants, including volatile organic compounds (VOCs). The chemical fate of VOCs indoors is determined by both gas-phase and multi-phase chemistry, and can result in the formation of potentially hazardous secondary pollutants. Chemical interactions at the gas-surface boundary play an important role in indoor environments due to the characteristically high surface area to volume ratios (SAVs).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted gaps in the public health workforce's capacity to deploy digital technologies while upholding ethical, social justice, and health equity principles. Existing public health competency frameworks have not been updated to reflect the prominent role digital technologies play in contemporary public health, and public health training institutions are seeking to integrate digital technologies in their curricula.
Objective: As a first step in a multiphase study exploring recommendations for updates to public health competency frameworks within the Canadian public health context, we conducted a rapid review of literature aiming to identify recommendations for digital competencies, training approaches, and inter- or transdisciplinary partnerships that can enhance public health practitioners' capacity to support the digital transformation of public health.
In part two of this mini-series, we evaluate the range of machine-learning tools now available for application to veterinary clinical text-mining. These tools will be vital to automate extraction of information from large datasets of veterinary clinical narratives curated by projects such as the Small Animal Veterinary Surveillance Network (SAVSNET) and VetCompass, where volumes of millions of records preclude reading records and the complexities of clinical notes limit usefulness of more "traditional" text-mining approaches. We discuss the application of various machine learning techniques ranging from simple models for identifying words and phrases with similar meanings to expand lexicons for keyword searching, to the use of more complex language models.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWhole genome sequencing (WGS) provides comprehensive, individualised cancer genomic information. However, routine tumour biopsies are formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded (FFPE), damaging DNA, historically limiting their use in WGS. Here we analyse FFPE cancer WGS datasets from England's 100,000 Genomes Project, comparing 578 FFPE samples with 11,014 fresh frozen (FF) samples across multiple tumour types.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe protracted form of COVID-19 known as 'long covid' was first described in 2020. Its symptoms, course and prognosis vary widely; some patients have a multi-system, disabling and prolonged illness. In 2021, ring-fenced funding was provided to establish 90 long covid clinics in England; some clinics were also established in Scotland and Wales.
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