Sustaining biodiversity in ancient tropical countryside.

With intensifying demands for food and biofuels, a critical threat to biodiversity is agricultural expansion into native tropical ecosystems. Tropical agriculture, particularly intensive agriculture, often supports few native organisms, and consequently has been largely overlooked in conservation planning; yet, recent work in the Neotropics demonstrates that tropical agriculture with certain features can support significant biodiversity, decades after conversion to farmland. It remains unknown whether this conservation value can be sustained for centuries to millennia.

Ureteral extension in Wilms' tumor: a report from the National Wilms' Tumor Study Group (NWTSG).

Background: Extension of Wilms' tumor into the ureter is a rare event. We reviewed the National Wilms' Tumor Study Group (NWTSG) database to define the clinical presentation, associated pathologic features, and clinical outcome of these patients.

Methods: Records of children identified to have ureteral extension of Wilms' tumor enrolled in NWTS-3, 4, and 5 were reviewed.

Diversity in current ecological thinking: implications for environmental management.

Current ecological thinking emphasizes that systems are complex, dynamic, and unpredictable across space and time. What is the diversity in interpretation of these ideas among today's ecologists, and what does this mean for environmental management? This study used a Policy Delphi survey of ecologists to explore their perspectives on a number of current topics in ecology. The results showed general concurrence with nonequilibrium views.

Colloquium paper: where does biodiversity go from here? A grim business-as-usual forecast and a hopeful portfolio of partial solutions.

The threats to the future of biodiversity are many and well known. They include habitat conversion, environmental toxification, climate change, and direct exploitation of wildlife, among others. Moreover, the projected addition of 2.

The importance of a preclinical trial: a selected injury intervention program for pediatric trauma centers.

Background: Trauma centers are an ideal site to conduct screening and intervention programs that target risk taking behaviors. We hypothesized that a parent/child-centered intervention is a feasible method of injury prevention for a level one pediatric trauma center.

Methods: The study was conducted in children aged 7 years to 17 years at two level one pediatric trauma centers.

Cholecystokinin receptor positivity in children with chronic acalculous gallbladder dysfunction: a pilot study to investigate the etiology of chronic acalculous gallbladder dysfunction.

Background: The etiology of chronic acalculous gallbladder dysfunction (CAGD) is unknown. However, cholecystectomy is being performed as treatment, based on gallbladder (GB) ejection fraction studies. The aim of this study was to examine the pathology and immunohistology of GBs from children with CAGD.

[Diversity, natural history and conservation of mammals from San Vito de Coto Brus, Costa Rica].

Although Costa Rica has been biologically well studied, few areas have complete mammal inventories, which are essential for ecological studies and conservation. The San Vito region is considered among the most important for scientific research in the country because of the presence of the Wilson Botanical Garden and Las Cruces. However, the knowledge of its mammalian fauna is incomplete.

Natural selection and cultural rates of change.

It has been claimed that a meaningful theory of cultural evolution is not possible because human beliefs and behaviors do not follow predictable patterns. However, theoretical models of cultural transmission and observations of the development of societies suggest that patterns in cultural evolution do occur. Here, we analyze whether two sets of related cultural traits, one tested against the environment and the other not, evolve at different rates in the same populations.

Is current consumption excessive? A general framework and some indications for the United States.

Many prior studies have explored the implications of human population growth and environmentally problematic technologies for biodiversity loss and other forms of environmental degradation. Relatively few, however, have examined the impacts of the level and composition of consumption. We offer a framework that shows how the level and composition of a society's total consumption relate to the uses of various forms of capital and to the sustainability of natural resources and human well-being.

Wilms tumor: progress and considerations for the surgeon.

Wilms tumor (WT) or nephroblastoma is the most common tumor of renal origin found in children. It accounts for 6% of all pediatric tumors and is the second most frequent intrabdominal solid organ tumor found in children. Initial survival rates in the early part of the last century was only 30%, but now long-term survival in both North America and European trials is approaching 85% with many low-stage tumors significantly higher.

Excision of large cystic ovarian tumors: combining minimal invasive surgery techniques and cancer surgery--the best of both worlds.

Background/purpose: Cystic ovarian lesions can be massive, and preoperative evaluations can often not distinguish benign from malignant tumors. Up to 57% of malignant ovarian tumors have a cystic component. We present an approach to these neoplasms that adheres to oncologic principles using minimally invasive techniques.

The 2 STEP: an approach to repeating a serial transverse enteroplasty.

Purpose: The serial transverse enteroplasty procedure (STEP) procedure is a successful and safe approach to lengthen small bowel in patients with short bowel syndrome (SBS). However, postlengthening dilatation may occur, which can lead to bacterial overgrowth and malabsorption. We addressed this problem by reperforming the STEP in 2 patients.

Monitoring diagnostic accuracy and complications. A report from the Children's Oncology Group Hodgkin lymphoma study.

Background/purpose: Cancer studies mandate quality assurance programs for clinical trials. Surgeons consistently play 2 roles early in the management of Hodgkin lymphoma in children and adolescents: obtaining a specimen for pathologic diagnosis and placing a central venous catheter to assist with therapy delivery. A surgical quality assurance program was embedded as part of the of the Hodgkin lymphoma study (AHODOOO31) to assess diagnostic accuracy and complications.

Bee community shifts with landscape context in a tropical countryside.

The ongoing scientific controversy over a putative "global pollination crisis" underscores the lack of understanding of the response of bees (the most important taxon of pollinators) to ongoing global land-use changes. We studied the effects of distance to forest, tree management, and floral resources on bee communities in pastures (the dominant land-use type) in southern Costa Rica. Over two years, we sampled bees and floral resources in 21 pastures at three distance classes from a large (approximately 230-ha) forest patch and of three common types: open pasture; pasture with remnant trees; and pasture with live fences.

Persistence of forest birds in the Costa Rican agricultural countryside.

Understanding the persistence mechanisms of tropical forest species in human-dominated landscapes is a fundamental challenge of tropical ecology and conservation. Many species, including more than half of Costa Rica's native land birds, use mostly deforested agricultural countryside, but how they do so is poorly known. Do they commute regularly to forest or can some species survive in this human-dominated landscape year-round? Using radiotelemetry, we detailed the habitat use, movement, foraging, and nesting patterns of three bird species, Catharus aurantiirostris, Tangara icterocephala, and Turdus assimilis, by obtaining 8101 locations from 156 individuals.

When agendas collide: human welfare and biological conservation.

Conservation should benefit ecosystems, nonhuman organisms, and current and future human beings. Nevertheless, tension among these goals engenders potential ethical conflicts: conservationists' true motivations may differ from the justifications they offer for their activities, and conservation projects have the potential to disempower and oppress people. We reviewed the promise and deficiencies of integrating social, economic, and biological concerns into conservation, focusing on research in ecosystem services and efforts in community-based conservation.

Global mammal distributions, biodiversity hotspots, and conservation.

Hotspots, which have played a central role in the selection of sites for reserves, require careful rethinking. We carried out a global examination of distributions of all nonmarine mammals to determine patterns of species richness, endemism, and endangerment, and to evaluate the degree of congruence among hotspots of these three measures of diversity in mammals. We then compare congruence of hotspots in two animal groups (mammals and birds) to assess the generality of these patterns.

Factors influencing pediatric Injury Severity Score and Glasgow Coma Scale in pediatric automobile crashes: results from the Crash Injury Research Engineering Network.

Background/purpose: Motor vehicle crashes account for more than 50% of pediatric injuries. Triage of pediatric patients to appropriate centers can be based on the crash/injury characteristics. Pediatric motor vehicle crash/injury characteristics can be determined from an in vitro laboratory using child crash dummies.

Human impacts on the rates of recent, present, and future bird extinctions.

Unqualified, the statement that approximately 1.3% of the approximately 10,000 presently known bird species have become extinct since A.D.

4,5-Disubstituted cis-pyrrolidinones as inhibitors of type II 17beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase. Part 3. Identification of lead candidate.

A series of 4,5-disubstituted cis-pyrrolidinones was investigated as inhibitors of 17beta-HSD II for the treatment of osteoporosis. Biochemical data for several compounds are given. Compound 42 was selected as the lead candidate.

Deconstructing surgical education--teacher quality really matters: implications for attracting medical students to surgical careers.

Delineating those factors that enhance a student's surgical experience during medical school may be important to attracting "the best and the brightest" to surgery programs. Therefore, understanding the differences between an excellent and poor student evaluation from the student perspective is critical to surgical education, yet it remains ill defined. We concurrently assessed comprehensive student evaluations from a surgical clerkship over a 2-year period.