Exocentric Control Scheme for Robot Applications: An Immersive Virtual Reality Approach.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) exhibit great agility but usually require an experienced pilot to operate them in certain applications such as inspection for disaster scenarios or buildings. The reduction of cognitive overload when driving this kind of aerial robot becomes a challenge and several solutions can be found in the literature. A new virtual control scheme for reducing this cognitive overload when controlling an aerial robot is proposed in this paper.

High- and low-latitude forcings drive Atacama Desert rainfall variations over the past 16,000 years.

Late Quaternary precipitation dynamics in the central Andes have been linked to both high- and low-latitude atmospheric teleconnections. We use present-day relationships between fecal pellet diameters from ashy chinchilla rats () and mean annual rainfall to reconstruct the timing and magnitude of pluvials (wet episodes) spanning the past 16,000 years in the Atacama Desert based on 81 C-dated paleomiddens. A transient climate simulation shows that pluvials identified at 15.

Recovery and analysis of ancient beetle DNA from subfossil packrat middens using high-throughput sequencing.

The study of ancient DNA is revolutionizing our understanding of paleo-ecology and the evolutionary history of species. Insects are essential components in many ecosystems and constitute the most diverse group of animals. Yet they are largely neglected in ancient DNA studies.

Therapeutic Effectiveness of Interferon Alpha 2b Treatment for COVID-19 Patient Recovery.

A previous report on 814 patients who were coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) positive provided preliminary therapeutic efficacy evidence with interferon-α2b (IFN-α2b) in Cuba, from March 11 to April 14, 2020. This study re-evaluates the effectiveness of IFN-α2b during the period from March 11 to June 17, 2020. Patients received a combination of oral antivirals (lopinavir/ritonavir and chloroquine) with intramuscular or subcutaneous administration of IFN-α2b.

Treatment of COVID-19 patients with the anti-CD6 antibody itolizumab.

Objectives: COVID-19 can lead to a hyperinflammatory state. CD6 is a glycoprotein expressed on mature T lymphocytes which is a crucial regulator of the T-cell activation. Itolizumab is a humanised antibody targeting CD6.

An anti-CD6 monoclonal antibody (itolizumab) reduces circulating IL-6 in severe COVID-19 elderly patients.

Background: Since the COVID-19 outbreak an unprecedented challenge for healthcare systems around the world has been placed. In Cuba, the first case of COVID-19 was reported on March 11. Elderly with multiple comorbidities have been the most risky population.

Therapeutic Effectiveness of Interferon-α2b Against COVID-19: The Cuban Experience.

A prospective observational study was conducted for assessing the therapeutic efficacy of interferon (IFN)-α2b in patients infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) during the first month after the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak began in Cuba. From March 11th to April 14th, 814 patients were confirmed SARS-CoV-2 positive in Cuba. Seven hundred sixty-one (93.

Climate Dipoles as Continental Drivers of Plant and Animal Populations.

Ecological processes, such as migration and phenology, are strongly influenced by climate variability. Studying these processes often relies on associating observations of animals and plants with climate indices, such as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). A common characteristic of climate indices is the simultaneous emergence of opposite extremes of temperature and precipitation across continental scales, known as climate dipoles.

Paleo-metagenomics of North American fossil packrat middens: Past biodiversity revealed by ancient DNA.

Fossil rodent middens are powerful tools in paleoecology. In arid parts of western North America, packrat ( spp.) middens preserve plant and animal remains for tens of thousands of years.

Life history traits predict colonization and extinction lags of desert plant species since the Last Glacial Maximum.

Variation in life-history strategies can affect metapopulation dynamics and consequently the composition and diversity of communities. However, data sets that allow for the full range of species turnover from colonization to extinction over relevant time periods are limited. The late Quaternary record provides unique opportunities to explore the traits that may have influenced interspecific variation in responses to past climate warming, in particular the rate at which species colonized newly suitable habitat or went locally extinct from degrading habitat.

Past and future global transformation of terrestrial ecosystems under climate change.

Impacts of global climate change on terrestrial ecosystems are imperfectly constrained by ecosystem models and direct observations. Pervasive ecosystem transformations occurred in response to warming and associated climatic changes during the last glacial-to-interglacial transition, which was comparable in magnitude to warming projected for the next century under high-emission scenarios. We reviewed 594 published paleoecological records to examine compositional and structural changes in terrestrial vegetation since the last glacial period and to project the magnitudes of ecosystem transformations under alternative future emission scenarios.

Iterative near-term ecological forecasting: Needs, opportunities, and challenges.

Two foundational questions about sustainability are "How are ecosystems and the services they provide going to change in the future?" and "How do human decisions affect these trajectories?" Answering these questions requires an ability to forecast ecological processes. Unfortunately, most ecological forecasts focus on centennial-scale climate responses, therefore neither meeting the needs of near-term (daily to decadal) environmental decision-making nor allowing comparison of specific, quantitative predictions to new observational data, one of the strongest tests of scientific theory. Near-term forecasts provide the opportunity to iteratively cycle between performing analyses and updating predictions in light of new evidence.

A dynamic leaf gas-exchange strategy is conserved in woody plants under changing ambient CO2 : evidence from carbon isotope discrimination in paleo and CO2 enrichment studies.

Rising atmospheric [CO2 ], ca , is expected to affect stomatal regulation of leaf gas-exchange of woody plants, thus influencing energy fluxes as well as carbon (C), water, and nutrient cycling of forests. Researchers have proposed various strategies for stomatal regulation of leaf gas-exchange that include maintaining a constant leaf internal [CO2 ], ci , a constant drawdown in CO2 (ca  - ci ), and a constant ci /ca . These strategies can result in drastically different consequences for leaf gas-exchange.

Climatic dipoles drive two principal modes of North American boreal bird irruption.

Pine Siskins exemplify normally boreal seed-eating birds that can be sparse or absent across entire regions of North America in one year and then appear in large numbers the next. These dramatic avian "irruptions" are thought to stem from intermittent but broadly synchronous seed production (masting) in one year and meager seed crops in the next. A prevalent hypothesis is that widespread masting in the boreal forest at high latitudes is driven primarily by favorable climate during the two to three consecutive years required to initiate and mature seed crops in most conifers.

Local extinction and unintentional rewilding of bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) on a desert island.

Bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) were not known to live on Tiburón Island, the largest island in the Gulf of California and Mexico, prior to the surprisingly successful introduction of 20 individuals as a conservation measure in 1975. Today, a stable island population of ∼500 sheep supports limited big game hunting and restocking of depleted areas on the Mexican mainland. We discovered fossil dung morphologically similar to that of bighorn sheep in a dung mat deposit from Mojet Cave, in the mountains of Tiburón Island.

Woodland dynamics at the northern range periphery: a challenge for protected area management in a changing world.

Managers of protected natural areas increasingly are confronted with novel ecological conditions and conflicting objectives to preserve the past while fostering resilience for an uncertain future. This dilemma may be pronounced at range peripheries where rates of change are accelerated and ongoing invasions often are perceived as threats to local ecosystems. We provide an example from City of Rocks National Reserve (CIRO) in southern Idaho, positioned at the northern range periphery of pinyon-juniper (P-J) woodland.

Accumulation of impact markers in desert wetlands and implications for the Younger Dryas impact hypothesis.

The Younger Dryas impact hypothesis contends that an extraterrestrial object exploded over North America at 12.9 ka, initiating the Younger Dryas cold event, the extinction of many North American megafauna, and the demise of the Clovis archeological culture. Although the exact nature and location of the proposed impact or explosion remain unclear, alleged evidence for the fallout comes from multiple sites across North America and a site in Belgium.

Life at the hyperarid margin: novel bacterial diversity in arid soils of the Atacama Desert, Chile.

Nearly half the earth's surface is occupied by dryland ecosystems, regions susceptible to reduced states of biological productivity caused by climate fluctuations. Of these regions, arid zones located at the interface between vegetated semiarid regions and biologically unproductive hyperarid zones are considered most vulnerable. The objective of this study was to conduct a deep diversity analysis of bacterial communities in unvegetated arid soils of the Atacama Desert, to characterize community structure and infer the functional potential of these communities based on observed phylogenetic associations.

The unusual nature of recent snowpack declines in the North American cordillera.

In western North America, snowpack has declined in recent decades, and further losses are projected through the 21st century. Here, we evaluate the uniqueness of recent declines using snowpack reconstructions from 66 tree-ring chronologies in key runoff-generating areas of the Colorado, Columbia, and Missouri River drainages. Over the past millennium, late 20th century snowpack reductions are almost unprecedented in magnitude across the northern Rocky Mountains and in their north-south synchrony across the cordillera.

Facilitation drives 65 years of vegetation change in the Sonoran Desert.

Ecological processes of low-productivity ecosystems have long been considered to be driven by abiotic controls with biotic interactions playing an insignificant role. However, existing studies present conflicting evidence concerning the roles of these factors, in part due to the short temporal extent of most data sets and inability to test indirect effects of environmental variables modulated by biotic interactions. Using structural equation modeling to analyze 65 years of perennial vegetation change in the Sonoran Desert, we found that precipitation had a stronger positive effect on recruitment beneath existing canopies than in open microsites due to reduced evaporation rates.

Ecology and the ratchet of events: climate variability, niche dimensions, and species distributions.

Climate change in the coming centuries will be characterized by interannual, decadal, and multidecadal fluctuations superimposed on anthropogenic trends. Predicting ecological and biogeographic responses to these changes constitutes an immense challenge for ecologists. Perspectives from climatic and ecological history indicate that responses will be laden with contingencies, resulting from episodic climatic events interacting with demographic and colonization events.

Bacterial community structure in the hyperarid core of the Atacama Desert, Chile.

Soils from the hyperarid Atacama Desert of northern Chile were sampled along an east-west elevational transect (23.75 to 24.70 degrees S) through the driest sector to compare the relative structure of bacterial communities.