New record of Carnidae (Diptera) from Taiwan and potential challenges in DNA barcode amplification due to pseudogene.

Background: The genus Nitzsch, 1818 comprises small ectoparasites that feed on the blood of juvenile avians. They are characterised by dealated adults with setose abdominal intersegmental membranes. Maa, 1968 was previously recorded in Malaysia and the Ryukyu Islands of Japan, parasitising two owl species: (Horsfield, 1821) and (Cassin, 1852).

Machine Learning on Ultrasound Texture Analysis Data for Characterizing of Salivary Glandular Tumors: A Feasibility Study.

Background: Objective quantitative texture characteristics may be helpful in salivary glandular tumor differential diagnosis. This study uses machine learning (ML) to explore and validate the performance of ultrasound (US) texture features in diagnosing salivary glandular tumors.

Material And Methods: 122 patients with salivary glandular tumors, including 71 benign and 51 malignant tumors, are enrolled.

Managing open loop water resource value chain through IoT focused decision and information integration (DII) modelling using fuzzy MCDM approach.

Water is a limited and invaluable resource that is essential for human survival. Negligence and unregulated water use have brought about a global water crisis. Proper management with a relevant decision and information integration approach can aid water to continue as a renewable resource.

The Epidemiological Analysis of COVID-19 Outbreaks in Nursing Homes during the Period of Omicron Variant Predominance.

Background: The main purpose of this study was to evaluate the epidemic trend and risk factors associated with COVID-19 outbreaks in nursing homes during the period of Omicron variant predominance.

Methods: The study analyzed the risk factors associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection and death among the 327 residents and 129 healthcare workers (HCWs) in three hospital-affiliated nursing homes through a multivariate Cox regression model.

Results: The rates of receiving a COVID-19 booster dose were 70.

The First Nationwide Surveillance of Severe Fever with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome in Ruminants and Wildlife in Taiwan.

Since the first discovery of severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome virus (SFTSV) in China in 2009, SFTSV has rapidly spread through other Asian countries, including Japan, Korea, Vietnam and Pakistan, in chronological order. Taiwan reported its first discovery of SFTSV in sheep and humans in 2020. However, the prevalence of SFTSV in domestic and wildlife animals and the geographic distribution of the virus within the island remain unknown.

Leveraging AI for advanced analytics to forecast altered tourism industry parameters: A COVID-19 motivated study.

COVID-19 pandemic has given a sudden shock to economy indices worldwide and especially to the tourism sector, which is already very sensitive to such crises as natural calamities, terrorist activities, virus outbreaks and unwanted conditions. The economic implications for a reduction in tourism demand, and the need to analyse post-COVID-19 tourism motivates our research. This study aims to forecast the future trends for foreign tourist arrivals and foreign exchange earnings for India and to formulate a model to predict the future trends based on the COVID-19 parameters, vaccinations and stringency index (Government travelling guidelines).

An extended multi-criteria group decision-making method with psychological factors and bidirectional influence relation for emergency medical supplier selection.

The COVID-19 pandemic outbreak spread rapidly worldwide, posing a severe threat to human life. Due to its unpredictability and destructiveness, the emergency has aroused great common in society. At the same time, the selection of emergency medical supplier is one of the critical links in emergency decision-making, so undertaking appropriate decision-making using scientific tools becomes the primary challenge when an emergency outbreak occurs.

Morphometric Relationships, Growth and Condition Factors of Critically Endangered Chinese Pangolin ().

Morphometric relationships and condition factors are crucial to quickly understanding the fitness and well-being of animals. Total length (cm) and bodyweight (g) of 282 (male = 167 and female = 115) pangolins were accounted for in this study which was received and rehabilitated in Pingtung Rescued Center, Pingtung and Endemic Species Research Institute, Nantou, Taiwan. The allometric equation; W = aLb was used to estimate the length-weight relationships where R2 = 0.

Not out of the woods yet: Signatures of the prolonged negative genetic consequences of a population bottleneck in a rapidly re-expanding wader, the black-faced spoonbill Platalea minor.

The long-term persistence of a population which has suffered a bottleneck partly depends on how historical demographic dynamics impacted its genetic diversity and the accumulation of deleterious mutations. Here we provide genomic evidence for the genetic effect of a recent population bottleneck in the endangered black-faced spoonbill (Platalea minor) after its rapid population recovery. Our data suggest that the bird's effective population size, N , had been relatively stable (7500-9000) since 22,000 years ago; however, a recent brief yet severe bottleneck (N  = 20) which we here estimated to occur around the 1940s wiped out >99% of its historical N in roughly three generations.

A novel model to manage air cargo disruptions caused by global catastrophes such as Covid-19.

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has drastically disrupted the air cargo industry. This disruption has taken many directions, one of which is the demand imbalance which occurs due to the sudden change in the cargo capacity, as well as demand. Therefore, the random change leads to excessive demand in some routes (hot-selling routes), while some other routes suffer from a big shortage of demand (underutilized routes).

Canine Parvovirus Infections in Taiwanese Pangolins ().

Canine parvovirus type 2 (CPV-2) is among the most important and highly contagious pathogens that cause enteric or systemic infections in domestic and nondomestic carnivores. However, the spillover of CPV-2 to noncarnivores is rarely mentioned. Taiwanese pangolins () are threatened due to habitat fragmentation and prevalent animal trafficking.

Trends in the detection of aquatic non-indigenous species across global marine, estuarine and freshwater ecosystems: A 50-year perspective.

Aim: The introduction of aquatic non-indigenous species (ANS) has become a major driver for global changes in species biogeography. We examined spatial patterns and temporal trends of ANS detections since 1965 to inform conservation policy and management.

Location: Global.

Data Analytics for Predicting COVID-19 Cases in Top Affected Countries: Observations and Recommendations.

The outbreak of the 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has adversely affected many countries in the world. The unexpected large number of COVID-19 cases has disrupted the healthcare system in many countries and resulted in a shortage of bed spaces in the hospitals. Consequently, predicting the number of COVID-19 cases is imperative for governments to take appropriate actions.

Frequent detection of anticoagulant rodenticides in raptors sampled in Taiwan reflects government rodent control policy.

Anticoagulant rodenticides (ARs) are known to cause extensive secondary exposure in top predators in Europe and North America, but there remains a paucity of data in Asia. In this study, we collected 221 liver samples from 21 raptor species in Taiwan between 2010 and 2018. Most birds were recovered from rescue organizations, but some free-ranging individuals were obtained from bird-strike prevention measures at airports.

Optimal Energy-Delay in Energy Harvesting Wireless Sensor Networks with Interference Channels.

In this work, we investigate the capacity allocation problem in the energy harvesting wireless sensor networks (WSNs) with interference channels. For the fixed topologies of data and energy, we formulate the optimization problem when the data flow remains constant on all data links and each sensor node harvests energy only once in a time slot. We focus on the optimal data rates, power allocations and energy transfers between sensor nodes in a time slot.

Climate change opens new frontiers for marine species in the Arctic: Current trends and future invasion risks.

Climate change and increased anthropogenic activities are expected to elevate the potential of introducing nonindigenous species (NIS) into the Arctic. Yet, the knowledge base needed to identify gaps and priorities for NIS research and management is limited. Here, we reviewed primary introduction events to each ecoregion of the marine Arctic realm to identify temporal and spatial patterns, likely source regions of NIS, and the putative introduction pathways.

Upstream-Downstream Joint Carbon Reduction Strategies Based on Low-Carbon Promotion.

A differential game model is established to analyze the impact of emissions reduction efforts and low-carbon product promotion on the reduction strategies of low-carbon product manufacturers (subsequently referred to as manufacturers) and the retailers of such products in a dynamic environment. Based on this model, changes in emissions reduction efforts and promotional efforts are comparatively analyzed under three scenarios (retailers bearing the promotional cost, manufacturers bearing the promotional cost, and centralized decision-making). The results are as follows: (1) the trajectory of carbon emissions reduction per product unit is the highest when the supply chain is under centralized decision-making, followed by when manufacturers bear the promotional cost, and lastly when retailers bear the cost; (2) when manufacturers bear the promotional cost, the market demand, emissions reduction effort, and promotional effort are higher, although the unit retail price is higher than when retailers bear the promotional cost; and (3) under centralized decision-making, the unit retail price is the lowest; however, sales volume, the emissions reduction effort, and the promotional effort are all higher than those in the other scenarios.

An Extension to Deng's Entropy in the Open World Assumption with an Application in Sensor Data Fusion.

Quantification of uncertain degree in the Dempster-Shafer evidence theory (DST) framework with belief entropy is still an open issue, even a blank field for the open world assumption. Currently, the existed uncertainty measures in the DST framework are limited to the closed world where the frame of discernment (FOD) is assumed to be complete. To address this issue, this paper focuses on extending a belief entropy to the open world by considering the uncertain information represented as the FOD and the nonzero mass function of the empty set simultaneously.

Is salinity an obstacle for biological invasions?

Invasions of freshwater habitats by marine and brackish species have become more frequent in recent years with many of those species originating from the Ponto-Caspian region. Populations of Ponto-Caspian species have successfully established in the North and Baltic Seas and their adjoining rivers, as well as in the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River region.

Drug treatment effects on outcomes in heart failure with preserved ejection fraction: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Background: Clinical drug trials in patients with heart failure and preserved ejection fraction have failed to demonstrate improvements in mortality.

Methods: We systematically searched Medline, Embase and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials for randomised controlled trials (RCT) assessing pharmacological treatments in patients with heart failure with left ventricular (LV) ejection fraction≥40% from January 1996 to May 2016. The primary efficacy outcome was all-cause mortality.

Discontinuation and non-publication of clinical trials in cardiovascular medicine.

Background: Appropriate dissemination of clinical data is crucial for minimising bias. Despite this, high rates of study discontinuation and non-publication have been reported among clinical trials. Cardiovascular medicine receives a substantial proportion of academic funding; however, predictors of non-publication among cardiovascular trials are not well-established.

An overview of recent research in marine biological invasions.

The Topical Collection on Invasive Species includes 50 articles addressing many tenets of marine invasion ecology. The collection covers important topics relating to propagule pressure associated with transport vectors, species characteristics, attributes of recipient ecosystems, invasion genetics, biotic interactions, testing of invasion hypotheses, invasion dynamics and spread, and impacts of nonindigenous species. This article summarizes some of the collection's highlights.

Metronomic oral cyclosphosphamide as third-line systemic treatment or beyond in patients with inoperable locoregionally advanced recurrent or metastatic nasopharyngeal carcinoma.

There is no standard third-line or further systemic treatment for patients with inoperable locoregionally advanced recurrent or metastatic nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). Metronomic oral cyclophosphamide provides an acceptable and cheap option for these heavily pretreated patients who had limited choices. We conducted a prospective phase II single-arm open-label study of metronomic oral cyclophosphamide.

Survival of ship biofouling assemblages during and after voyages to the Canadian Arctic.

Human-mediated vectors often inadvertently translocate species assemblages to new environments. Examining the dynamics of entrained species assemblages during transport can provide insights into the introduction risk associated with these vectors. Ship biofouling is a major transport vector of nonindigenous species in coastal ecosystems globally, yet its magnitude in the Arctic is poorly understood.