Digital Surveillance: A Novel Approach to Monitoring the Illegal Wildlife Trade

A dearth of information obscures the true scale of the global illegal trade in wildlife. Herein, we introduce an automated web crawling surveillance system developed to monitor reports on illegally traded wildlife. A resource for enforcement officials as well as the general public, the freely available website, http://www.healthmap.org/wildlifetrade, provides a customizable visualization of worldwide reports on interceptions of illegally traded wildlife and wildlife products. From August 1, 2010 to July 31, 2011, publicly available English language illegal wildlife trade reports from official and unofficial sources were collected and categorized by location and species involved. During this interval, 858 illegal wildlife trade reports were collected from 89 countries. Countries with the highest number of reports included India (n = 146, 15.6%), the United States (n = 143, 15.3%), South Africa (n = 75, 8.0%), China (n = 41, 4.4%), and Vietnam (n = 37, 4.0%). Species reported as traded or poached included elephants (n = 107, 12.5%), rhinoceros (n = 103, 12.0%), tigers (n = 68, 7.9%), leopards (n = 54, 6.3%), and pangolins (n = 45, 5.2%). The use of unofficial data sources, such as online news sites and social networks, to collect information on international wildlife trade augments traditional approaches drawing on official reporting and presents a novel source of intelligence with which to monitor and collect news in support of enforcement against this threat to wildlife conservation worldwide.     

An examination of the phenol-croton oil peel: Part I. Dissecting the formula

This article investigates which ingredients are the active ones in the most popular peel formula. The benefits of the "phenol" peel have been attributed to the effects of phenol on the dermis. Baker published a simple peel formula in 1962 that became a classic that has been used since by almost all plastic surgeons and dermatologists. Brown et al., in 1960, passed along a set of dogmas: (1) phenol is the active ingredient; (2) phenol peels more deeply in lower concentrations; and (3) adding a surface tension-lowering agent increases the peel. This article seeks to dissect the Baker formula by removing the croton oil. A patient was peeled serially with 18% phenol, 35% phenol, and 50% phenol solutions containing Septisol (surface tension-lowering agent) but no croton oil. This showed that increasing concentrations of phenol caused more clinical tissue reaction as evidenced by edema and erythema, but no significant dermal injury was seen. USP 88% phenol without Septisol did cause injury to the dermis. To test the effect of croton oil in the formula, the patient's face was peeled with two variations: the perioral area was peeled with 50% phenol to which croton oil was added to a strength of 2.1% and the remainder with 50% phenol without croton oil. The perioral area showed vesiculation, slough, and dermal exposure characteristic of a deep peel requiring 11 days to heal. The remainder of the face treated with 50% phenol without croton oil showed only edema and erythema without significant dermal injury. This experiment shows that the main postulates of Brown et al.--that phenol in lesser concentrations peels more than in higher concentrations and that phenol is the sole agent--are not true. In a fourth peel, a 0.7% concentration of croton oil in 50% phenol was applied to the parts of the face not peeled with croton oil in the third peel. The areas peeled with 50% phenol with 0.7% croton oil healed in 7 days, whereas the treatment with 50% phenol with 2.1% croton oil required 11 days. Deconstructing the Baker formula reveals fallacies in the four-decade-long belief system regarding these peels. The serial peels performed in this study show that increasing concentrations of phenol without croton oil cause increasing skin reaction but insignificant peeling effect. The addition of croton oil to 50% phenol, however, causes a marked increase in the depth of peeling into the dermis. Lowering the concentration of croton oil caused a lesser burn, as evidenced by fewer days to heal. The depth of the peel, therefore, seems to be more dependent on the concentration of croton oil than phenol. This will be further explored in Parts II, III, and IV.     

An Analysis of Variance of Nominal Data

This paper considers a common problem in analysis of variance where the responses to a set of treatments are nominal (i.e. are recorded in frequencies) with no underlying metric. Reasoning by analogy from standard analysis of variance of a two-way classification we develop chi-square tests for significance of treatments and interactions. Two tests are proposed for interaction and their asymptotic properties are studied.     

An Approximate Analysis of Incomplete Ranked Data

An approximation for the probability of the rank order of k independent random variables is used to analyze incomplete ranked data, consisting of rankings of objects by judges. The approximation allows linear models to be fitted to the data so that differences amongst groups of judges can be investigated, and factorial models applied to investigate differences amongst the objects.     

Patterns of Information-Seeking for Cancer on the Internet: An Analysis of Real World Data

Although traditionally the primary information sources for cancer patients have been the treating medical team, patients and their relatives increasingly turn to the Internet, though this source may be misleading and confusing. We assess Internet searching patterns to understand the information needs of cancer patients and their acquaintances, as well as to discern their underlying psychological states. We screened 232,681 anonymous users who initiated cancer-specific queries on the Yahoo Web search engine over three months, and selected for study users with high levels of interest in this topic. Searches were partitioned by expected survival for the disease being searched. We compared the search patterns of anonymous users and their contacts. Users seeking information on aggressive malignancies exhibited shorter search periods, focusing on disease- and treatment-related information. Users seeking knowledge regarding more indolent tumors searched for longer periods, alternated between different subjects, and demonstrated a high interest in topics such as support groups. Acquaintances searched for longer periods than the proband user when seeking information on aggressive (compared to indolent) cancers. Information needs can be modeled as transitioning between five discrete states, each with a unique signature representing the type of information of interest to the user. Thus, early phases of information-seeking for cancer follow a specific dynamic pattern. Areas of interest are disease dependent and vary between probands and their contacts. These patterns can be used by physicians and medical Web site authors to tailor information to the needs of patients and family members.     

Using Ari Kara Osteological Data To Evaluate An Assumpti on oF Fur Trade Archaeology

Abstract

Osteological data from the Arikara-affiliated Mobridge site in South Dakota are used to test an hypothesis frequently expressed in archaeology that the relative quantity of recovered Euro-American goods can be used to infer a site? s relative age. Crania from the Mobridge site are examined for intra-site differences and thecompared with crania from four other sites. Our analysis suggests that the dating assumption may have validity for some archaeological sites, particularly those associated with the Arikara, and may even be valid on the intra-site level as demonstrated by our analysis of the Mobridge data     

An 'Importance' Map of Signs and Symptoms to Classify Diabetic Polyneuropathy: An Exploratory Data Analysis

Aims/Hypothesis

Early diagnosis of diabetic polyneuropathy (DPN) is critical for a good prognosis. We aimed to identify different groups of patients, based on the various common clinical signs and symptoms of DPN, that represent a progressive worsening of the disease before the onset of plantar ulceration or amputation. We also sought to identify the most important DPN-related variables that can discriminate between groups, thus representing the most informative variables for early detection.

Methods

In 193 diabetic patients, we assessed 16 DPN-related signs, symptoms, and foot characteristics, based on the literature and the International Consensus on the Diabetic Foot. We used multiple correspondence analysis and the Kohonen algorithm to group the variables into micro and macro-classes and to identify clusters of patients that represent different DPN conditions.

Results

Four distinct groups were observed. One group showed no indication of DPN. The remaining groups were characterized by a progressive loss of the vibration perception, without a worsening of symptoms or tactile perception. The 2 intermediate groups presented different aspects of DPN: one showed mostly DPN symptoms and the other showed the incipient vibration impairment, callus and crack formation, and foot arch alteration. The fourth group showed more severe foot and DPN conditions, including ulceration and amputation, absence of vibration and tactile perception (irrespective of how many compromised foot areas), and worse foot deformities and callus and crack formation.

Conclusion

Vibration perception was more informative than tactile sensitivity in discriminating early DPN onset because its impairment was evident in more groups. Symptoms and callus and cracks did not discriminate the severity status and should be interpreted in association with other clinical variables. Reconsideration of the current screening techniques is needed to clinically determine the early onset of neuropathy using tactile perception.     

GITAR: An Open Source Tool for Analysis and Visualization of Hi-C Data

Interactions between chromatin segments play a large role in functional genomic assays and developments in genomic interaction detection methods have shown interacting topological domains within the genome. Among these methods, Hi-C plays a key role. Here, we present the Genome Interaction Tools and Resources (GITAR), a software to perform a comprehensive Hi-C data analysis, including data preprocessing, normalization, and visualization, as well as analysis of topologically-associated domains (TADs). GITAR is composed of two main modules: (1) HiCtool, a Python library to process and visualize Hi-C data, including TAD analysis; and (2) processed data library, a large collection of human and mouse datasets processed using HiCtool. HiCtool leads the user step-by-step through a pipeline, which goes from the raw Hi-C data to the computation, visualization, and optimized storage of intra-chromosomal contact matrices and TAD coordinates. A large collection of standardized processed data allows the users to compare different datasets in a consistent way, while saving time to obtain data for visualization or additional analyses. More importantly, GITAR enables users without any programming or bioinformatic expertise to work with Hi-C data. GITAR is publicly available at http://genomegitar.org as an open-source software.     

An Application of Ordinal Matrix Analysis to Archaeological Data

Abstract

A recent trend in American archaeology has been an increasing concern with the formulation of testable hypotheses of culture change or process. A number of formal techniques have been adapted from statistics and the natural sciences to further this aim. This paper reports the results of an experimental application of an ordinal matrix analysis program, (ORDMAT) developed for cross cultural anthropological studies, to archaeological data. Four current hypotheses dealing with changing aboriginal settlement patterns in southern Montana were evaluated using the OROMAT program. The observed advantages and limitations of this technique for the study of prehistoric cultures are discussed.