A quantitative study of confidence among paramedics in assessment of the cardiovascular system.

Background: Patients presenting to the ambulance services with cardiovascular complaints are common, and as such, represent a notable proportion of paramedic clinical practice. Numerous texts refer to a system-based approach to cardiovascular assessment, however the application by paramedics is scarcely researched. As such, this article aims to quantify paramedic confidence levels regarding an examination of a patient with a cardiovascular complaint. Methods: An online cross-sectional survey was conducted, recruiting paramedics from one ambulance trust within the United Kingdom and analysing their confidence levels of assessing a patient with a cardiovascular complaint. Paramedics were recruited using purposive sampling and asked to complete an online questionnaire exploring their confidence levels among cardiovascular assessments, which were subsequently quantified to summarise confidence levels expressed by these respondents. Results: A total of 331 responses across one ambulance service were received in April 2021. Of these, 90.3% (299/331) reported a high level of confidence with the general cardiovascular assessment. Throughout all individual elements of assessment, over 50% of respondents indicated they feel confident with the examination, except when assessing heaves and thrills where 56.2% (185/329) and 55.1% (182/330) of respondents disagreed with feeling confident, respectively. A strong correlation was seen throughout the results between confidence levels and the reported occurrence of each type of assessment, which was demonstrated using Spearman's rank-order correlation. Conclusions: High confidence levels for a cardiovascular examination were reported among the respondents of this survey. Paramedics have shown good confidence among all areas of a cardiovascular assessment, except with palpating the chest for heaves and thrills. There is an evident link between reported confidence levels and how often these assessments are completed, however there is still room for additional training and research within this area.

All taxa biodiversity inventory of the Bois de Bouis estate (Var, France): a 10-year public-private partnership.

Background: This data paper describes the results of a 10-year scientific investigation of a biodiversity-rich private golf estate in south-eastern France in partnership with PatriNat (Office français de la biodiversité/Centre national de la recherche scientifique/Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, Institut de Recherche pour le Développement). In total, 3,160 species and subspecies, including 1,796 arthropods and 1,049 flora, were inventoried and 65 habitat types were surveyed and mapped. This project is the first All taxa biodiversity inventory (ATBI) in a private property in France with all information available in open data. New information: The 20 datasets of fauna, flora, lichens and habitat types from the Bois de Bouis estate are now publicly available. Between 2012 and 2022, more than 22,000 occurrences were recorded, checked and published in the INPN information system. All this information is available in open access in the French portal OpenObs, operated by PatriNat and in the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). This data paper provides an overview of the project, its main results and its contribution to the French National Inventory of Natural Heritage (INPN).This data paper presents a list eight species never previously recorded to France; three Hymenoptera: Charitopesleucobasis Townes, 1983 (Ichneumonidae), Dryinustussaci Olmi, 1989 (Dryinidae) and Sparasionmunitus Kozlov & Kononova, 1990 (Sparasionidae) and five Diptera: Clusiodesapicalis (Zetterstedt, 1848) (Clusiidae), Dicraeusvagans (Meigen, 1838) (Chloropidae), Stilponintermedius Raffone, 1994, Stilponsubnubilus Chvala, 1988 and Tachydromiaundulata (Strobl, 1906) (Hybotidae).It also includes a table comparing the project to 18 All-taxa biodiversity inventories in France and Belgium and published for the first time.

Checklist of the Pipunculidae (Diptera) of mainland France: further faunistic records and description of a new species.

Since the first faunistic study of the Pipunculidae (Diptera) of mainland France in 2006, new material from 37 natural sites and four private collections has been evaluated by the authors of this article. A total of 5739 specimens of Pipunculidae collected in France were examined, of which 5214 were identified to species by the authors, for a total of 114 species. DNA analyses were also carried out on some specimens to confirm their morphological identifications. The list of Pipunculidae recorded in mainland France is updated to include 140 species. Tomosvaryella estebani sp. nov. is described from material collected in France and Italy. Twenty-four species are also reported for the first time from France. The records of Cephalops (Semicephalops) carinatus (Verrall, 1901), Cephalosphaera (Cephalosphaera) furcata (Egger, 1860), Eudorylas terminalis (Thomson, 1870) and Jassidophaga villosa (Roser, 1840), without precise data in the literature, are now precisely located in France with this work. For the other species, we provide new post-2006 records.

The West-Palearctic species of the genus Tonnoiriella Vaillant, 1971 (Diptera: Psychodidae, Psychodinae).

Tonnoiriella Vaillant, 1971 was one of the genera not treated by F. Vaillant for his revision in Die Fliegen der paläartktischen Region. Here we provide a genus diagnosis, re-describe known species based mainly on type material, and provide descriptions and figures of the West-Palearctic species. New species described are T. aurasica sp. nov., T. italiae sp. nov., T. ikariae sp. nov., T. andradei sp. nov., T. rhodesica sp. nov., and T. goncalvesi sp. nov.; T. androsica Vaillant, 1978, T. orientalis Vaillant, 1978, and T. pallidipenis Vaillant, 1978 are nomina nuda; finally 21 species are known to date from Europe and North Africa. The ejaculatory apodeme (basiphallus) is asymmetric and bilobed, lobes are stacked; one or both lobes are connected with asymmetric, cross positioned (distiphallus) sclerites. Operating of the open-close mechanism of the aedeagus is explained. Information on larval ecology is provided and the systematic position of the genus is discussed.

Completing Linnaeus's inventory of the Swedish insect fauna: Only 5,000 species left?

Despite more than 250 years of taxonomic research, we still have only a vague idea about the true size and composition of the faunas and floras of the planet. Many biodiversity inventories provide limited insight because they focus on a small taxonomic subsample or a tiny geographic area. Here, we report on the size and composition of the Swedish insect fauna, thought to represent roughly half of the diversity of multicellular life in one of the largest European countries. Our results are based on more than a decade of data from the Swedish Taxonomy Initiative and its massive inventory of the country's insect fauna, the Swedish Malaise Trap Project The fauna is considered one of the best known in the world, but the initiative has nevertheless revealed a surprising amount of hidden diversity: more than 3,000 new species (301 new to science) have been documented so far. Here, we use three independent methods to analyze the true size and composition of the fauna at the family or subfamily level: (1) assessments by experts who have been working on the most poorly known groups in the fauna; (2) estimates based on the proportion of new species discovered in the Malaise trap inventory; and (3) extrapolations based on species abundance and incidence data from the inventory. For the last method, we develop a new estimator, the combined non-parametric estimator, which we show is less sensitive to poor coverage of the species pool than other popular estimators. The three methods converge on similar estimates of the size and composition of the fauna, suggesting that it comprises around 33,000 species. Of those, 8,600 (26%) were unknown at the start of the inventory and 5,000 (15%) still await discovery. We analyze the taxonomic and ecological composition of the estimated fauna, and show that most of the new species belong to Hymenoptera and Diptera groups that are decomposers or parasitoids. Thus, current knowledge of the Swedish insect fauna is strongly biased taxonomically and ecologically, and we show that similar but even stronger biases have distorted our understanding of the fauna in the past. We analyze latitudinal gradients in the size and composition of known European insect faunas and show that several of the patterns contradict the Swedish data, presumably due to similar knowledge biases. Addressing these biases is critical in understanding insect biomes and the ecosystem services they provide. Our results emphasize the need to broaden the taxonomic scope of current insect monitoring efforts, a task that is all the more urgent as recent studies indicate a possible worldwide decline in insect faunas.

c-Cbl-deficient mice have reduced adiposity, higher energy expenditure, and improved peripheral insulin action.

Casitas b-lineage lymphoma (c-Cbl) is an E3 ubiquitin ligase that has an important role in regulating the degradation of cell surface receptors. In the present study we have examined the role of c-Cbl in whole-body energy homeostasis. c-Cbl-/- mice exhibited a profound increase in whole-body energy expenditure as determined by increased core temperature and whole-body oxygen consumption. As a consequence, these mice displayed a decrease in adiposity, primarily due to a reduction in cell size despite an increase in food intake. These changes were accompanied by a significant increase in activity (2- to 3-fold). In addition, c-Cbl-/- mice displayed a marked improvement in whole-body insulin action, primarily due to changes in muscle metabolism. We observed increased protein levels of the insulin receptor (4-fold) and uncoupling protein-3 (2-fold) in skeletal muscle and a significant increase in the phosphorylation of AMP-activated protein kinase and acetyl-CoA carboxylase. These findings suggest that c-Cbl plays an integral role in whole-body fuel homeostasis by regulating whole-body energy expenditure and insulin action.