Climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of transient extreme climate events that can be catastrophic for ecological communities. We studied the 2014-2022 period along the northern coasts of Sicily (Western Mediterranean Sea), evaluating the ecological impacts on three macroalgae (Ericaria amentacea, Jania rubens, and Padina pavonica) and one complex of species (Laurencia complex) inhabiting the vermetid bioconstructions. All climatological metrics indicate that desiccation conditions occurred in the intertidal zones for many consecutive days during 2022, compared to previous years.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUnlabelled: Cyanobacteria are photosynthetic organisms that play important roles in carbon cycling and are promising bioproduction chassis. Here, we isolate two novel cyanobacteria with 4.6Mbp genomes, UTEX 3221 and UTEX 3222, from a unique marine environment with naturally elevated CO₂.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Organ motion (OM) and volumetric changes pose challenges in radiotherapy (RT) for locally advanced cervical cancer (LACC). Magnetic Resonance-guided Radiotherapy (MRgRT) combines improved MRI contrast with adaptive RT plans for daily anatomical changes. Our goal was to analyze cervico-uterine structure (CUS) changes during RT to develop strategies for managing OM.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: In radiotherapy it is often necessary to transfer a patient's DICOM (Digital Imaging and COmmunications in Medicine) dataset from one system to another for re-treatment, plan-summation or registration purposes. The aim of the study is to evaluate effects of dataset transfer between treatment planning systems.
Materials And Methods: Twenty-five patients treated in a 0.
Tech Innov Patient Support Radiat Oncol
March 2024
Introduction: Advancements in MRI-guided radiotherapy (MRgRT) enable clinical parallel workflows (CPW) for online adaptive planning (oART), allowing medical physicists (MPs), physicians (MDs), and radiation therapists (RTTs) to perform their tasks simultaneously. This study evaluates the impact of this upgrade on the total treatment time by analyzing each step of the current 0.35T-MRgRT workflow.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Contouring of gas pockets is a time consuming step in the workflow of adaptive radiotherapy. We would like to better understand which gas pockets electronic densitiy should be used and the dosimetric impact on adaptive MRgRT treatment.
Materials And Methods: 21 CT scans of patients undergoing SBRT were retrospectively evaluated.
The shortfin mako (Isurus oxyrinchus) is the second most fishery-exploited pelagic shark in the Mediterranean Sea, thus its conservation status is a cause for concern. Despite the species has been listed in fishery and trade regulations to hinder its population decline, the lack of knowledge on its distribution patterns and habitats essential for its persistence still hampers the implementation of sound conservation actions. Combining data from local expert knowledge, opportunistic catch records, and Baited Remote Underwater Videos, we show evidence of the interannual presence of young-of-the-year (YOY) I.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGathering comprehensive marine biodiversity data can be difficult, costly and time consuming, preventing adequate knowledge of diversity patterns in many areas worldwide. We propose fishing ports as "natural" sinks of biodiversity information collected by fishing vessels probing disparate habitats, depths, and environments. By combining rapid environmental DNA metabarcoding (eDNA) surveys and data from public registers and Automatic Identification Systems, we show significant positive relationships between fishing fleet activities (i.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Mesorectal motion (MM) is a source of uncertainty during neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy (nCRT) delivery for locally advanced rectal cancer (LARC). Previously published experiences using cone-beam computed tomography imaging have already described significant movement. Aim of this analysis is to assess inter-fraction MM using the higher tissue contrast provided by hybrid magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in LARC patients (pts) treated with MRI guided radiation therapy (MRgRT).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAn in situ reciprocal transplant experiment was carried around a volcanic CO vent to evaluate the anti-predator responses of an anemone goby species exposed to ambient (∼380 μatm) and high (∼850 μatm) CO sites. Overall, the anemone gobies displayed largely unaffected behaviors under high-CO conditions suggesting an adaptive potential of Gobius incognitus to ocean acidification (OA) conditions. This is also supported by its 3-fold higher density recorded in the field under high CO.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMagnetic Resonance-guided Radiotherapy (MRgRT) allows direct monitoring of treated volumes. The aim of this study was to investigate the feasibility of a new gating strategy consisting in using an isodose as boundary. Forty-four patients treated for thoracic and abdominal lesions using MRgRT were enrolled.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRobust assessments of taxonomic and functional diversity are essential components of research programmes aimed at understanding current biodiversity patterns and forecasting trajectories of ecological changes. Yet, evaluating marine biodiversity along its dimensions is challenging and dependent on the power and accuracy of the available data collection methods. Here we combine three traditional survey methodologies (underwater visual census strip transects [UVCt], baited underwater videos [BUV] and small-scale fishery catches [SSFc]), and one novel molecular technique (environmental DNA metabarcoding [eDNA]-12S rRNA and cytochrome oxidase subunit 1 [COI]) to investigate their efficiency and complementarity in assessing fish diversity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOcean acidification will likely change the structure and function of coastal marine ecosystems over coming decades. Volcanic carbon dioxide seeps generate dissolved CO and pH gradients that provide realistic insights into the direction and magnitude of these changes. Here, we used fish and benthic community surveys to assess the spatio-temporal dynamics of fish community properties off CO seeps in Japan.
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