1,720,979 research outputs found

    Antipredator behaviour, space use and habitat selection in female roe deer during the fawning season in a wolf area

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    This study investigated the anti-predator strategies adopted by 19 radio-collared female roe deer during the fawning season by monitoring their spatial behaviour and habitat selection by means of radio-tracking. The study was carried out in a forest area of the Apennine Mountains (central Italy), where wolves are natural predators of roe deer and in summer fawns are more frequently predated than adult roe deer. The presence of fawns was monitored by means of direct observations. Roe deer fawns are known to adopt the hiding strategy during the lactation period, when they lie concealed for long periods waiting for their mothers' milk. As a consequence of this, the home-range sizes of mothers were significantly smaller than those of non-mothers during the summer lactation only. In contrast, no significant difference was found in spring, when fawns were absent, or autumn, when they were already weaned. In order to increase the success of the hiding strategy adopted by their fawns against wolf predation, mothers selected denser habitats (deciduous coppice forests) that provided denser undergrowth vegetation and limited visibility. In doing so, mothers traded open areas for forests throughout the fawning season. Indeed, mothers made significant habitat selection throughout the monitored period, and this was marked after the birth of fawns. In contrast, non-mothers generally used habitat types according to their availability. During lactation, the correlation between habitat use by mothers and habitat visibility (assessed using the form of a standard-sized roe deer) was inversely significant. These results taken together highlight the importance of anti-predator strategies adopted by roe deer mothers during the critical phase for fawn survival

    Antipredator behaviour, space use and habitat selection in female roe deer during the fawning season in a wolf area

    No full text
    This study investigated the anti-predator strategies adopted by 19 radio-collared female roe deer during the fawning season by monitoring their spatial behaviour and habitat selection by means of radio-tracking. The study was carried out in a forest area of the Apennine Mountains (central Italy), where wolves are natural predators of roe deer and in summer fawns are more frequently predated than adult roe deer. The presence of fawns was monitored by means of direct observations. Roe deer fawns are known to adopt the hiding strategy during the lactation period, when they lie concealed for long periods waiting for their mothers' milk. As a consequence of this, the home-range sizes of mothers were significantly smaller than those of non-mothers during the summer lactation only. In contrast, no significant difference was found in spring, when fawns were absent, or autumn, when they were already weaned. In order to increase the success of the hiding strategy adopted by their fawns against wolf predation, mothers selected denser habitats (deciduous coppice forests) that provided denser undergrowth vegetation and limited visibility. In doing so, mothers traded open areas for forests throughout the fawning season. Indeed, mothers made significant habitat selection throughout the monitored period, and this was marked after the birth of fawns. In contrast, non-mothers generally used habitat types according to their availability. During lactation, the correlation between habitat use by mothers and habitat visibility (assessed using the form of a standard-sized roe deer) was inversely significant. These results taken together highlight the importance of anti-predator strategies adopted by roe deer mothers during the critical phase for fawn survival

    Switching to etanercept in patients with rheumatoid arthritis with no response to infliximab.

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    TNF-α is thought to play a pivotal role in the initiation and perpetuation of the chronic inflammatory process in rheumatoid arthritis. TNF-α blockers such as infliximab and etanercept are currently used in the treatment of active rheumatoid arthritis (RA) when traditional DMARDs have failed and are effective in a significant proportion of patients. However, about one third are non-responders to anti-TNF-α. The aim of this study was to verify whether rheumatoid patients, after failing infliximab, can benefit from etanercept. We analysed 18 patients with active RA with no response to at least 3 DMARDs and where infliximab therapy had failed. The patients had received infliximab associated with methotrexate: eleven of them did not show any significant response, while seven patients, after a good response, relapsed. Etanercept was then started. EULAR criteria of response were used with calculation of activity index DAS28 at baseline, after 2 weeks, 3 months and every third month until last follow-up. A moderate or good response was achieved with etanercept in 13 out of 18 patients. From our experience, etanercept can be considered as a good alternative choice when infliximab has failed

    Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis

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    The present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed

    A Predator on the Doorstep: Kill Site Selection by a Lone Wolf in a Peri-Urban Park in a Mediterranean Area

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    : The aim of the study was to assess which kill site characteristics were selected by a lone wolf living in a protected Mediterranean coastal area near the city of Pisa, Italy, where both wild and domestic ungulates were available as potential prey. Between 2017 and 2019, we monitored the wolf's predatory behaviour through a combination of camera trapping and active search for kill sites and prey carcasses. The main prey found was the fallow deer (n = 82); only two wild boars and no domestic ungulates were found preyed upon. The features and habitat of kill sites were modelled to test for selection by the wolf. The habitat type of kill site was composed of meadows and pastures (89.3%), woods (7.3%), degraded coastal areas (1.9%), roads and rivers (1.1%), and marshes (0.5%). We calculated their distance from landscape features and ran a binomial generalised linear model to test the influence of such landscape variables. The distance of kill sites from landscape elements was significantly different from random control sites, and a positive selection for fences was found. In fact, the wolf pushed fallow deer towards a fence to constrain them and prevent them from escaping. We also analysed the body condition of predated fallow deer as a percentage of fat content in the bone marrow of the hind legs. Our results revealed the selection of the lone wolf for deer in good body condition. This is a possible outcome of the habitat selection shown by fallow deer in the study area, where fenced open pastures are the richest in trophic resources; therefore, our findings suggest a high efficacy for the lone wolf hunting strategy, but also the adoption of a high risk feeding strategy by deer. This study suggests that a lone predator can take advantage of human infrastructures to maximise its predatory effectiveness

    Variations on the Author

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    “Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship

    Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis

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    We provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis

    Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts

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    We conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more sophisticated methods
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