Macroecology in the age of Big Data – Where to go from here?

Recent years have seen an exponential increase in the amount of data available in all sciences and application domains. Macroecology is part of this “Big Data” trend, with a strong rise in the volume of data that we are using for our research. Here, we summarize the most recent developments in macroecology in the age of Big Data that were presented at the 2018 annual meeting of the Specialist Group Macroecology of the Ecological Society of Germany, Austria and Switzerland (GfÖ). Supported by computational advances, macroecology has been a rapidly developing field over recent years. Our meeting highlighted important avenues for further progress in terms of standardized data collection, data integration, method development and process integration. In particular, we focus on (a) important data gaps and new initiatives to close them, for example through space- and airborne sensors, (b) how various data sources and types can be integrated, (c) how uncertainty can be assessed in data-driven analyses and (d) how Big Data and machine learning approaches have opened new ways of investigating processes rather than simply describing patterns. We discuss how Big Data opens up new opportunities, but also poses new challenges to macroecological research. In the future, it will be essential to carefully assess data quality, the reproducibility of data compilation and analytical methods, and the communication of uncertainties. Major progress in the field will depend on the definition of data standards and workflows for macroecology, such that scientific quality and integrity are guaranteed, and collaboration in research projects is made easier.     

Cost of surfactant replacement treatment for severe neonatal respiratory distress syndrome: a randomised controlled trial.

OBJECTIVE--To estimate the cost of treating babies with severe respiratory distress syndrome with natural porcine surfactant. DESIGN--Retrospective controlled survey. SETTING--Regional neonatal intensive care unit, Belfast. PATIENTS--33 Preterm babies with severe respiratory distress syndrome who were enrolled in a European multicentre trial during 1985-7. 19 Babies were treated with surfactant and 14 served as controls. INTERVENTIONS--Treatment with natural porcine surfactant. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE--Cost associated with surfactant replacement treatment per extra survivor in the treatment group and cost per quality adjusted life year for each extra survivor. RESULTS--Fifteen (79%) of the 19 treated babies and five (36%) of the 14 control babies survived. On average, the control babies required 20 days in hospital compared with 61 days for the treated babies (or 95 [corrected] days per extra survivor in the treatment group). The cost per extra survivor in the treatment group was pounds 13,720, with the cost per quality adjusted life year estimated at pounds 710. CONCLUSION--These costs compare favourably with those of established forms of treatment in adults. Thus surfactant replacement treatment for severe respiratory distress syndrome is fairly inexpensive and cost effective.     

Distribution and metabolism of corticotropin-releasing factor in the rat

To develop a mathematical model of the distribution and metabolism of rat corticotropin-releasing factor (rCRF), the time course of 125I-labelled rCRF in plasma was measured in male Sprague-Dawley rats (i) following a rapid injection of 24 ng rCRF/100 g body weight (BW), or (ii) following a rapid injection of 424 ng rCRF/100 g BW, or (iii) during an infusion at a rate ranging from 0.28 to 0.73 ng rCRF X min-1 X 100 g BW-1. The comparison of the one-, two-, and three-compartment models shows that the two-pool structure fits better to the dynamics of CRF in plasma as measured in each rat. Following a rapid injection the decay curve occurs in a biphasic manner; the early phase of disappearance is 25 times faster than the late one. There is no significant difference between the estimates of the metabolic clearance rate following both amplitudes of injection (0.40 +/- 0.06 and 0.48 +/- 0.05 mL X min-1 X 100 g BW-1). The volume of the first pool, 16.8 +/- 1.1 mL/100 g BW, is four times larger than the plasma volume. It would thus appear that CRF is rapidly distributed from plasma into several tissues which are represented in the first pool of the model. The mean residence time of every CRF molecule in the second compartment, from the moment of secretion to its elimination, is from three to four times longer than in the first one. It stays, on average, between 140 min and 3 h in the system before an irreversible exit.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)     

Brainstem Neurons Survive the Identical Ischemic Stress That Kills Higher Neurons: Insight to the Persistent Vegetative State

Global ischemia caused by heart attack, pulmonary failure, near-drowning or traumatic brain injury often damages the higher brain but not the brainstem, leading to a ‘persistent vegetative state’ where the patient is awake but not aware. Approximately 30,000 U.S. patients are held captive in this condition but not a single research study has addressed how the lower brain is preferentially protected in these people. In the higher brain, ischemia elicits a profound anoxic depolarization (AD) causing neuronal dysfunction and vasoconstriction within minutes. Might brainstem nuclei generate less damaging AD and so be more resilient? Here we compared resistance to acute injury induced from simulated ischemia by ‘higher’ hippocampal and striatal neurons versus brainstem neurons in live slices from rat and mouse. Light transmittance (LT) imaging in response to 10 minutes of oxygen/glucose deprivation (OGD) revealed immediate and acutely damaging AD propagating through gray matter of neocortex, hippocampus, striatum, thalamus and cerebellar cortex. In adjacent brainstem nuclei, OGD-evoked AD caused little tissue injury. Whole-cell patch recordings from hippocampal and striatal neurons under OGD revealed sudden membrane potential loss that did not recover. In contrast brainstem neurons from locus ceruleus and mesencephalic nucleus as well as from sensory and motor nuclei only slowly depolarized and then repolarized post-OGD. Two-photon microscopy confirmed non-recoverable swelling and dendritic beading of hippocampal neurons during OGD, while mesencephalic neurons in midbrain appeared uninjured. All of the above responses were mimicked by bath exposure to 100 µM ouabain which inhibits the Na⁺/K⁺ pump or to 1–10 nM palytoxin which converts the pump into an open cationic channel.Therefore during ischemia the Na⁺/K⁺ pump of higher neurons fails quickly and extensively compared to naturally resilient hypothalamic and brainstem neurons. The selective survival of lower brain regions that maintain vital functions will support the persistent vegetative state.