Seroprevalence of West Nile Virus in Tampa Bay Florida Patients Admitted to Hospital during 2020-2021 for Respiratory Symptoms.

West Nile virus (WNV) is an arbovirus spread primarily by mosquitoes, with humans being a dead-end host. WNV was introduced to Florida in 2001, with 467 confirmed cases since. It is estimated that 80 percent of cases are asymptomatic, with mild cases presenting as a non-specific flu-like illness.

Changes in Mental Health among Japanese University Students during the COVID-19 Era: Differences by College Department, Graduate Level, Sex, and Academic Year.

This study compared the effects of academic year, college department, and undergraduate or graduate status on Japanese students' mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic. From 2021-2023, an online survey was conducted using the Counseling Center Assessment of Psychological Systems-Japanese (CCAPS-Japanese) to evaluate students' mental health; 9395 undergraduate students (4623 female, 4772 male) and 1169 graduate students (380 female, 789 male) responded. Undergraduate students in medicine had lower levels of depression, generalized anxiety, and social anxiety than those in other departments.

Annual biomass spatial data for southern California (2001-2021): Above- and belowground, standing dead, and litter.

Biomass estimates for shrub-dominated ecosystems in southern California have been generated at national and statewide extents. However, existing data tend to underestimate biomass in shrub vegetation types are limited to one point in time, or estimate aboveground live biomass only. In this study, we extended our previously developed estimates of aboveground live biomass (AGLBM) based on the empirical relationship of plot-based field biomass measurements to Landsat normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and multiple environmental factors to include other vegetative pools of biomass.

Development and Application of Treatment for Chikungunya Fever.

The development and application of treatment for Chikungunya fever (CHIKF) remains complicated as there is no current standard treatment and many barriers to research exist. Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) causes serious global health implications due to its socioeconomic impact and high morbidity rates. In research, treatment through natural and pharmaceutical techniques is being evaluated for their efficacy and effectiveness.

Sexual segregation occurs in bats within fragmented remnant woodlands in an agricultural landscape.

Species-specific responses to landscape configuration and landscape composition have been studied extensively. However, little work has been done to compare intraspecific differences in habitat preferences. Bats have potential as good bioindicator taxa in woodland habitats.

Chikungunya Immunopathology as It Presents in Different Organ Systems.

Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) is currently an urgent public health problem as high morbidity from the virus leaves populations with negative physical, social, and economic impacts. CHIKV has the potential to affect every organ of an individual, leaving patients with lifelong impairments which negatively affect their quality of life. In this review, we show the importance of CHIKV in research and public health by demonstrating the immunopathology of CHIKV as it presents in different organ systems.

Considerations in the management of trans patients.

It is essential to raise awareness of the health and social needs of trans individuals. This article presents the barriers that trans people may encounter when accessing healthcare services and offers practical recommendations on how holistic care may be achieved.

Effects of invasive plants on fire regimes and postfire vegetation diversity in an arid ecosystem.

We assessed the impacts of co-occurring invasive plant species on fire regimes and postfire native communities in the Mojave Desert, western USA. We analyzed the distribution and co-occurrence patterns of three invasive annual grasses (, , and spp.) known to alter fuel conditions and community structure, and an invasive forb () which dominates postfire sites.

Lymphedema Research Prioritization Partnership: A Collaborative Approach to Setting Research Priorities for Lymphedema Management.

More research is needed in lymphedema management to strengthen the evidence base and ensure patients receive clinically and cost-effective treatment. It is critical that patients and clinicians are involved in prioritizing research to ensure that it reflects their needs and is not biased by commercial interests. This study aimed to set the research priorities for lymphedema management in the United Kingdom, through collaboration with patients, carers, and clinicians.

Global screening for Critical Habitat in the terrestrial realm.

Critical Habitat has become an increasingly important concept used by the finance sector and businesses to identify areas of high biodiversity value. The International Finance Corporation (IFC) defines Critical Habitat in their highly influential Performance Standard 6 (PS6), requiring projects in Critical Habitat to achieve a net gain of biodiversity. Here we present a global screening layer of Critical Habitat in the terrestrial realm, derived from global spatial datasets covering the distributions of 12 biodiversity features aligned with guidance provided by the IFC.

The importance of conserving biodiversity outside of protected areas in mediterranean ecosystems.

Mediterranean-type ecosystems constitute one of the rarest terrestrial biomes and yet they are extraordinarily biodiverse. Home to over 250 million people, the five regions where these ecosystems are found have climate and coastal conditions that make them highly desirable human habitats. The current conservation landscape does not reflect the mediterranean biome's rarity and its importance for plant endemism.

Using topography to meet wildlife and fuels treatment objectives in fire-suppressed landscapes.

Past forest management practices, fire suppression, and climate change are increasing the need to actively manage California Sierra Nevada forests for multiple environmental amenities. Here we present a relatively low-cost, repeatable method for spatially parsing the landscape to help the U.S.

Consequences of prescribed fire and grazing on grassland ant communities.

Prescribed fire and livestock grazing are used for the management and restoration of native grasslands the world over; however, the effects of these management techniques on ant communities are unclear. We examined the response of ants to these disturbances in grasslands in northern California. Twenty-four 30 by 30 m plots were established across two sites that received one of four treatments: grazing, fire, grazing and fire, or no treatment.

Expanding the global network of protected areas to save the imperiled mediterranean biome.

: Global goals established by the Convention on Biological Diversity stipulate that 10% of the world's ecological regions must be effectively conserved by 2010. To meet that goal for the mediterranean biome, at least 5% more land must be formally protected over the next few years. Although global assessments identify the mediterranean biome as a priority, without biologically meaningful analysis units, finer-resolution data, and corresponding prioritization analysis, future conservation investments could lead to more area being protected without increasing the representation of unique mediterranean ecosystems.

Cost-effective global conservation spending is robust to taxonomic group.

Priorities for conservation investment at a global scale that are based on a single taxon have been criticized because geographic richness patterns vary taxonomically. However, these concerns focused only on biodiversity patterns and did not consider the importance of socioeconomic factors, which must also be included if conservation funding is to be allocated efficiently. In this article, we create efficient global funding schedules that use information about conservation costs, predicted habitat loss rates, and the endemicity of seven different taxonomic groups.

Protecting biodiversity when money matters: maximizing return on investment.

Background: Conventional wisdom identifies biodiversity hotspots as priorities for conservation investment because they capture dense concentrations of species. However, density of species does not necessarily imply conservation 'efficiency'. Here we explicitly consider conservation efficiency in terms of species protected per dollar invested.

Conserving biodiversity efficiently: what to do, where, and when.

Conservation priority-setting schemes have not yet combined geographic priorities with a framework that can guide the allocation of funds among alternate conservation actions that address specific threats. We develop such a framework, and apply it to 17 of the world's 39 Mediterranean ecoregions. This framework offers an improvement over approaches that only focus on land purchase or species richness and do not account for threats.

A sense of security for cancer patients at home: the role of community nurses.

The present paper reports on a qualitative research project designed to expose the presently unrecognised minutiae of community nurses' work with cancer patients at home, and to identify the ways in which these, combined to form comprehensive care episodes, contribute to physical and psychosocial well-being. The project was conducted in two locations in New South Wales, Australia, one metropolitan and one rural. The research model focused on particular nurse-patient encounters, and involved pre- and post-encounter interviews with nurses, post-encounter interviews with patients and carers, and observation of the encounters themselves.

A comparison of spatial and spectral image resolution for mapping invasive plants in coastal california.

We explored the potential of detecting three target invasive species: iceplant (Carpobrotus edulis), jubata grass (Cortaderia jubata), and blue gum (Eucalyptus globulus) at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. We compared the accuracy of mapping six communities (intact coastal scrub, iceplant invaded coastal scrub, iceplant invaded chaparral, jubata grass invaded chaparral, blue gum invaded chaparral, and intact chaparral) using four images with different combinations of spatial and spectral resolution: hyperspectral AVIRIS imagery (174 wavebands, 4 m spatial resolution), spatially degraded AVIRIS (174 bands, 30 m), spectrally degraded AVIRIS (6 bands, 4 m), and both spatially and spectrally degraded AVIRIS (6 bands, 30 m, i.e.

Conservation planning for ecosystem services.

Despite increasing attention to the human dimension of conservation projects, a rigorous, systematic methodology for planning for ecosystem services has not been developed. This is in part because flows of ecosystem services remain poorly characterized at local-to-regional scales, and their protection has not generally been made a priority. We used a spatially explicit conservation planning framework to explore the trade-offs and opportunities for aligning conservation goals for biodiversity with six ecosystem services (carbon storage, flood control, forage production, outdoor recreation, crop pollination, and water provision) in the Central Coast ecoregion of California, United States.