Dune Hares: Population Indices, Home Range Size, and Habitat Selection of the European Hare on a Danish Island.

Population indices, such as transect counts of animals, can provide important information concerning population changes over time. Moreover, data concerning the home range size and habitat selection of individuals can provide valuable insight into spatial requirements of animals and how they can adapt to variable environments. Here, we describe the population development of European hares () and investigated home range sizes and habitat selection of six radio-tagged individuals on the small (80 ha) Danish Wadden Sea island Langli.

Association of Gut Microbiome with Muscle Mass, Muscle Strength, and Muscle Performance in Older Adults: A Systematic Review.

Sarcopenia, characterized by reduced muscle mass, strength, or performance, is a common condition in older adults. The association between the gut microbiome and sarcopenia remains poorly understood. This systematic review aims to evaluate the relationship between muscle parameters and the intestinal microbiome.

GRADE concept paper 8: judging the certainty of discrimination performance estimates of prognostic models in a body of validation studies.

Background: Prognostic models incorporate multiple prognostic factors to estimate the likelihood of future events for individual patients based on their prognostic factor values. Evaluating these models crucially involves conducting studies to assess their predictive performance, like discrimination. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses of these validation studies play an essential role in selecting models for clinical practice.

Poison in the nursery: Mercury contamination in the tadpole-rearing sites of an Amazonian frog.

Artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) has become a major threat for Neotropical forests. This technique for obtaining gold is a substantial driver of small-scale deforestation and the largest contributor of Hg emissions to both the atmosphere and freshwater systems globally. Previous studies have demonstrated the impacts of Hg accumulation on various aquatic ecosystems and organisms.

Active Control of Energy Transfer in Plasmonic Nanorod-Polyaniline Hybrids.

The hybridization of plasmonic energy and charge donors with polymeric acceptors is a possible means to overcome fast internal relaxation that limits potential photocatalytic applications for plasmonic nanomaterials. Polyaniline (PANI) readily hybridizes onto gold nanorods (AuNRs) and has been used for the sensitive monitoring of local refractive index changes. Here, we use single-particle spectroscopy to quantify a previously unreported plasmon damping mechanism in AuNR-PANI hybrids while actively tuning the PANI chemical structure.

Electronic Patient-Reported Outcome Monitoring to Improve Quality of Life After Joint Replacement: Secondary Analysis of a Randomized Clinical Trial.

Importance: Although remote patient-reported outcome measure (PROM) monitoring has shown promising results in cancer care, there is a lack of research on PROM monitoring in orthopedics.

Objective: To determine whether PROM monitoring can improve health outcomes for patients with joint replacement compared with the standard of care.

Design, Setting, And Participants: A 2-group, patient-level randomized clinical trial (PROMoting Quality) across 9 German hospitals recruited patients aged 18 years or older with primary hip or knee replacement from October 1, 2019, to December 31, 2020, with follow-up until March 31, 2022.

Heading toward Miniature Sensors: Electrical Conductance of Linearly Assembled Gold Nanorods.

Metal nanoparticles are increasingly used as key elements in the fabrication and processing of advanced electronic systems and devices. For future device integration, their charge transport properties are essential. This has been exploited, e.

GRADE guidance 36: updates to GRADE's approach to addressing inconsistency.

Objectives: To update previous Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) guidance by addressing inconsistencies and interpreting subgroup analyses.

Study Design And Setting: Using an iterative process, we consulted with members of the GRADE working group through multiple rounds of written feedback and discussions at GRADE working group meetings.

Results: The guidance complements previous guidance with clarification in two areas: (1) assessing inconsistency and (2) assessing the credibility of possible effect modifiers that might explain inconsistency.

Tuning the pore structure of templated mesoporous poly(melamine-co-formaldehyde) particles toward diclofenac removal.

The increasing demand and implementation of pharmaceutics poses severe risk to different aquatic species as detectable contaminant in almost every surface water worldwide. Diclofenac (DCF) as one of the most common used analgesics was investigated as contaminant to be removed by adsorption onto nanoporous poly(melamine-co-formaldehyde) (PMF) particles featuring a very high amount of nitrogen functionalities. To achieve a high specific surface area (up to 416 m/g) and a tunable pore system by hard templating, four different SiO nanoparticles were used as template.

PNIPAAm microgels with defined network architecture as temperature sensors in optical stretchers.

Stretching individual living cells with light is a standard method to assess their mechanical properties. Yet, heat introduced by the laser light of optical stretchers may unwittingly change the mechanical properties of cells therein. To estimate the temperature induced by an optical trap, we introduce cell-sized, elastic poly(-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAAm) microgels that relate temperature changes to hydrogel swelling.

GRADE guidance 35: update on rating imprecision for assessing contextualized certainty of evidence and making decisions.

Objectives: Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) guidance to rate the certainty domain of imprecision is presently not fully operationalized for rating down by two levels and when different baseline risk or uncertainty in these risks are considered. In addition, there are scenarios in which lowering the certainty of evidence by three levels for imprecision is more appropriate than lowering it by two levels. In this article, we conceptualize and operationalize rating down for imprecision by one, two and three levels for imprecision using the contextualized GRADE approaches and making decisions.

GRADE Guidance 34: update on rating imprecision using a minimally contextualized approach.

Objectives: The aim of this study is to provide updated guidance on when The Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) users should consider rating down more than one level for imprecision using a minimally contextualized approach.

Study Design And Setting: Based on the first GRADE guidance addressing imprecision rating in 2011, a project group within the GRADE Working Group conducted iterative discussions and presentations at GRADE Working Group meetings to produce this guidance.

Results: GRADE suggests aligning imprecision criterion for systematic reviews and guidelines using the approach that relies on thresholds and confidence intervals (CI) of absolute effects as a primary criterion for imprecision rating (i.

Retention and loss of PIT tags and surgically implanted devices in the Eurasian beaver.

Background: Passive integrated transponder devices (PIT tags) are a valuable tool for individual identification of animals. Similarly, the surgical implantation of transmitters and bio-loggers can provide useful data on animal location, physiology and behavior. However, to avoid unnecessary recapture and related stress of study animals, PIT tags and bio-loggers should function reliably for long periods of time.

Troubling Aspects of the Trabecular Bone Score Adjustment for the Fracture Risk Assessment Tool (FRAX®).

The Fracture Risk Assessment Tool (FRAX®) is widely used to estimate the 10-year risk of hip fracture and major osteoporotic fracture (MOF, defined as a hip, humerus, wrist, or clinical vertebral fracture). In 2015, McCloskey and colleagues published an adjustment to FRAX® based on the trabecular bone score (TBS). In 2017, the adjustment was updated to use a different calculation for MOF when TBS was measured by Hologic in people assigned male sex at birth.

Identification of a Two-Coordinate Iron(I)-Oxalate Complex.

Exotic oxidation states of the first-row transition metals have recently attracted much interest. In order to investigate the oxidation states of a series of iron-oxalate complexes, an aqueous solution of iron(III) nitrate and oxalic acid was studied by infrared free liquid matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization as well as ionspray mass spectrometry. Here, we show that iron is not only detected in its common oxidation states +II and +III, but also in its unusual oxidation state +I, detectable in both positive-ion and in negative-ion modes, respectively.

The impact of bio-logging on body weight change of the Eurasian beaver.

Bio-logging is a common method to collect ecological data on wild animals, but might also induce stress, reduce body condition, and alter behavior. Eurasian beavers (Castor fiber) are a semi-aquatic and nocturnal species that are challenging to observe in the wild. Bio-loggers are hence useful tools to study their behaviour and movements, but this raises concerns of potential negative impacts of tagging.

Fine-scale movement patterns and habitat selection of little owls (Athene noctua) from two declining populations.

Advances in bio-logging technology for wildlife monitoring have expanded our ability to study space use and behavior of many animal species at increasingly detailed scales. However, such data can be challenging to analyze due to autocorrelation of GPS positions. As a case study, we investigated spatiotemporal movements and habitat selection in the little owl (Athene noctua), a bird species that is declining in central Europe and verges on extinction in Denmark.

Understanding spatio-temporal patterns of deer-vehicle collisions to improve roadkill mitigation.

Vehicles collide with hundreds of thousands of deer on European roads each year. This leads to animal deaths and suffering, economic damage and risks for human safety, making the reduction of road mortality a major field in conservation biology. In order to successfully reduce roadkill, we need improved knowledge regarding spatio-temporal patterns of deer-vehicle collisions (DVCs) on a landscape scale.

Host defense or parasite cue: Skin secretions mediate interactions between amphibians and their parasites.

Amphibian skin secretions (substances produced by the amphibian plus microbiota) plausibly act as a first line of defense against parasite/pathogen attack, but may also provide chemical cues for pathogens. To clarify the role of skin secretions in host-parasite interactions, we conducted experiments using cane toads (Rhinella marina) and their lungworms (Rhabdias pseudosphaerocephala) from the range-core and invasion-front of the introduced anurans' range in Australia. Depending on the geographical area, toad skin secretions can reduce the longevity and infection success of parasite larvae, or attract lungworm larvae and enhance their infection success.

Relevance of π-Backbonding for the Reactivity of Electrophilic Anions [B X ] (X=F, Cl, Br, I, CN).

Electrophilic anions of type [B X ] posses a vacant positive boron binding site within the anion. In a comparatitve experimental and theoretical study, the reactivity of [B X ] with X=F, Cl, Br, I, CN is characterized towards different nucleophiles: (i) noble gases (NGs) as σ-donors and (ii) CO/N as σ-donor-π-acceptors. Temperature-dependent formation of [B X NG] indicates the enthalpy order (X=CN)>(X=Cl)≈(X=Br)>(X=I)≈(X=F) almost independent of the NG in good agreement with calculated trends.