Game bird carcasses are less persistent than raptor carcasses, but can predict raptor persistence dynamics.

Researchers conduct post-construction fatality monitoring (PCFM) to determine a wind energy facility's direct impacts on wildlife. Results of PCFM can be used to evaluate compliance with permitted take, potentially triggering adaptive management measures or offsetting mitigation; reducing uncertainty in fatality rates benefits wind companies, wildlife agencies, and other stakeholders. As part of PCFM, investigators conduct carcass persistence trials to account for imperfect detection during carcass surveys.

Efficacy and cost of acoustic-informed and wind speed-only turbine curtailment to reduce bat fatalities at a wind energy facility in Wisconsin.

Current research estimates hundreds of thousands of turbine-related bat fatalities in North America annually. In an effort to reduce impacts of wind energy production on bat populations, many facilities implement operational curtailment strategies that limit turbine blade rotation during conditions when nighttime wind speeds are low. Incorporating real-time bat activity data into wind speed-only curtailment (WOC) strategies may increase operational flexibility by allowing turbines to operate normally when bats are not present near turbines.

Validation of methods for determining pediatric midazolam using wet whole blood and volumetric absorptive microsampling.

Collection and quantitative analysis in dry blood using volumetric absorptive microsampling (VAMS™) potentially offers significant advantages over conventional wet whole blood analysis. This manuscript explores their use for pediatric sampling and explores additional considerations for the validation of the bioanalytical method. HPLC-MS/MS methods for the determination of midazolam and its major metabolite 1-OH midazolam in both whole wet blood, and dry blood collected on VAMS were developed, validated, and used to support an observational clinical study to compare pharmacokinetic parameters in pediatric patients.

Increasing the discrimination power of rapid evaporative ionisation mass spectrometry (REIMS) in analytical control tissue quality screening and cell line sample identification.

Rationale: Rapid Evaporative Ionisation Mass Spectrometry (REIMS) has been evaluated as a tool to improve analytical efficiency and add capability in areas within Pharmaceutical Research and Development (Pharma R&D). This article reports the comparison of single MS, and tandem MS/MS REIMS (REIMS and REIMS/MS) methodologies to investigate which mode produces maximum discrimination power for screening applications.

Methods: Control tissue samples and cell line suspension samples were analysed using optimised REIMS and REIMS/MS to evaluate which technique produced optimal discrimination power for control tissue and cell line identification.

A smart curtailment approach for reducing bat fatalities and curtailment time at wind energy facilities.

The development and expansion of wind energy is considered a key global threat to bat populations. Bat carcasses are being found underneath wind turbines across North and South America, Eurasia, Africa, and the Austro-Pacific. However, relatively little is known about the comparative impacts of techniques designed to modify turbine operations in ways that reduce bat fatalities associated with wind energy facilities.

Developing an efficient protocol for monitoring eagle fatalities at wind energy facilities.

Researchers typically conduct fatality monitoring to determine a wind energy facility's direct impacts on wildlife. In the United States, wind energy impacts on eagles have received increased attention in recent years because eagle incidental take permits became available. Permit holders are required to conduct fatality monitoring to evaluate compliance with permitted eagle take.

Exotic Plant Infestation Is Associated with Decreased Modularity and Increased Numbers of Connectors in Mixed-Grass Prairie Pollination Networks.

The majority of pollinating insects are generalists whose lifetimes overlap flowering periods of many potentially suitable plant species. Such generality is instrumental in allowing exotic plant species to invade pollination networks. The particulars of how existing networks change in response to an invasive plant over the course of its phenology are not well characterized, but may shed light on the probability of long-term effects on plant-pollinator interactions and the stability of network structure.

Optimization of an automated IS addition system for use in high-throughput quantitative DBS analysis.

Background: Automated DBS direct elution systems are available that incorporate IS spray modules which, unlike conventional IS addition via the extraction solvent, apply IS prior to DBS samples prior to extraction, allowing analyte and IS to be coextracted.

Results: IS spray system parameters were optimized to identify the conditions that produced the best analytical performance in quantitative bioanalytical assays, without interfering with the integrity of the DBS sample prior to extraction.

Conclusion: LC-MS/MS method validations across four representative small molecule assays using the optimized IS spray conditions were demonstrated to produce analytical performance comparable to conventional methods of IS addition, demonstrating that the spray technique is a viable alternative.

DBS direct elution: optimizing performance in high-throughput quantitative LC-MS/MS analysis.

Background: Automated DBS direct elution techniques eliminate the manual extraction burden of DBS bioanalysis, offer good quantitative performance, the ability to eliminate hematocrit-based assay bias, and, previous reports have demonstrated that significant increases in assay sensitivity compared with manual DBS extraction are possible.

Results: An investigation into elucidating parameters for optimized generic DBS direct elution for high sample throughput quantitative bioanalytical applications is presented for the first time. Generic direct elution conditions were identified that enabled LC-MS/MS assay sensitivity to be maximized while retaining acceptable chromatographic performance.

Investigation of different approaches to incorporating internal standard in DBS quantitative bioanalytical workflows and their effect on nullifying hematocrit-based assay bias.

Hematocrit (HCT)-based assay bias (composed of area and recovery bias) is an important contributing factor to the barriers that currently hinder the development and acceptance of dried blood spots (DBS) as a widely used quantitative bioanalytical sampling technique for regulatory studies. This article describes the evaluation of a practical internal standard spray addition technique, used prior to LC-MS/MS analysis, which is demonstrated to nullify the effect of recovery bias. To our knowledge, this is the first time a potential solution to HCT-based recovery bias has been investigated in detail and reported in the literature.

Multiplexed extraction and quantitative analysis of pharmaceuticals from DBS samples using digital microfluidics.

Background: Dried blood spot (DBS) sampling is emerging as a valuable technique in a variety of fields, including clinical and preclinical testing of pharmaceuticals. Despite this popularity, current DBS sampling and analysis processes remain laborious and time consuming. Digital microfluidics, a microscale liquid-handling technique, characterized by the manipulation of discrete droplets on open electrode arrays, offers a potential solution to these problems.

Dried matrix spot direct analysis: evaluating the robustness of a direct elution technique for use in quantitative bioanalysis.

Background: The surge in interest in switching from traditionally used wet plasma to dried matrix spot (DMS) sampling and analysis to support pharmaceutical drug development is due to the significant ethical, financial and data quality advantages on offer. Unfortunately these advantages do not extend to sample bioanalysis, as DMS extraction is more complex than the protein precipitation method typically used for wet plasma analysis. Direct elution techniques coupled to HPLC-MS/MS have been identified as a potential means to counter this additional complexity.

Method of applying internal standard to dried matrix spot samples for use in quantitative bioanalysis.

A novel technique is presented that addresses the issue of how to apply internal standard (IS) to dried matrix spot (DMS) samples that allows the IS to integrate with the sample prior to extraction. The TouchSpray, a piezo electric spray system, from The Technology Partnership (TTP), was used to apply methanol containing IS to dried blood spot (DBS) samples. It is demonstrated that this method of IS application has the potential to work in practice, for use in quantitative determination of circulating exposures of pharmaceuticals in toxicokinetic and pharmacokinetic studies.

Quantitative analysis of therapeutic drugs in dried blood spot samples by paper spray mass spectrometry: an avenue to therapeutic drug monitoring.

A method is presented for the direct quantitative analysis of therapeutic drugs from dried blood spot samples by mass spectrometry. The method, paper spray mass spectrometry, generates gas phase ions directly from the blood card paper used to store dried blood samples without the need for complex sample preparation and separation; the entire time for preparation and analysis of blood samples is around 30 s. Limits of detection were investigated for a chemically diverse set of some 15 therapeutic drugs; hydrophobic and weakly basic drugs, such as sunitinib, citalopram, and verapamil, were found to be routinely detectable at approximately 1 ng/mL.

Study to assess the effect of age of control human and animal blood on its suitability for use in quantitative bioanalytical DBS methods.

Background: A study was performed to evaluate the suitability of stored EDTA-treated control whole blood for use in the preparation of calibration standards and quality control samples for quantitative bioanalytical methods employing dried blood spot (DBS) samples to support pharmaceutical exposure studies.

Results: It has been demonstrated that a storage time of 14 days for control human and animal blood is suitable for producing quantitative analytical results within internationally recognised acceptance criteria for two analytes. Furthermore, blood hemolysis and chill-thaw cycles have been evaluated and shown not to affect bioanalytical results notably.

Direct quantitative bioanalysis of drugs in dried blood spot samples using a thin-layer chromatography mass spectrometer interface.

The CAMAG thin-layer chromatography mass spectrometer (TLC-MS) interface has been assessed as a tool for the direct quantitative bioanalysis of drugs from dried blood spot (DBS) samples, using an MS detector, with or without high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) separation. The approach gave acceptable sensitivity, linearity, accuracy, and precision data for bioanalytical validations with and without the inclusion of HPLC separation. In addition, the direct elution technique was shown to increase assay sensitivity for a range of analytes representing a wide "chemical space" for pharmaceutical-type molecules over that obtained by conventional manual extraction of samples (punching of DBS and elution with solvent prior to HPLC-MS analysis).