Estimating the consequences of land-use changes on butterfly diversity in a marginal agricultural landscape in Sweden

Abandonment of farming with the resultant increase in forest cover is one of the major threats to semi-natural grasslands in marginal agricultural areas. In Sweden, the loss of semi-natural grassland is a serious nature conservation problem since it is one of the most species-rich habitats. In this study, the consequences of grassland abandonment and afforestation on butterfly diversity and butterfly dispersal costs are estimated and used to compare three different future land-use scenarios for a marginal agricultural landscape in Sweden. Based on previous butterfly surveys on grasslands in the area, a relationship between land-use type and butterfly diversity was established. By comparing land-use maps of different scenarios, the number of suitable habitat patches and total suitable habitat patch area with low, medium and high butterfly diversity could be estimated. To obtain an indication of possible fragmentation effects, a least-cost analysis was used to compare travel costs of the butterflies between suitable habitat patches for the different scenarios. The results show that different land-use scenarios affect butterfly diversity and travel costs differently. In the extreme case scenario of cessation of full-time farming and a reduction in part-time farming, nearly all valuable butterfly habitats will vanish, since the most species-rich habitats lie in the periphery of the settlement and are expected to be abandoned and afforested first. If, on the other hand, grassland management is less reduced the effect of abandonment on butterflies depends very much on which areas continue to be managed. To preserve the most important grasslands for butterflies an active management strategy for the whole study area would be needed. While it seems relatively easy to identify the areas most important to conserve from a butterfly diversity perspective, it will be more difficult to find an optimal spatial solution that also minimises dispersal costs for butterflies.     

Some personal reflections on the present and future of Australia’s fauna in an increasingly fire‐prone continent

Australia already has the highest rate of species loss of any region in the world, yet the risks suddenly worsened in the spring–summer of 2019–20, with an unprecedented chain of wildfires covering 10 M ha of the nation’s forest and woodland estate. Fires of this scale were unprecedented and not factored into recovery plans for Threatened Species or ecosystem management in general. EMR asks one of Australia’s most pre‐eminent ecologists what can be done to ameliorate the losses and better avoid and respond to such impacts occurring in the future?     

An integrated haptic-enabled virtual reality system for orthognathic surgery planning

Conventional Orthognathic surgery (OGS) planning involves cephalometric analyses and dental casts to be mounted on an articulator. Dental segments are subsequently identified, cut and repositioned to allow the fabrication of intraoral wafers that guide the positioning of the osteotomy bone segments. This conventional planning introduces many inaccuracies that affect the post-surgery outcomes. Although computer technologies have advanced computational tools for OGS planning, they have failed in providing a practical solution. Many focuses only on some specific stages of the planning process, and their ability to transfer preoperative planning data to the operating room is limited. This paper proposes a new integrated haptic-enabled virtual reality (VR) system for OGS planning. The system incorporates CAD tools and haptics to facilitate a complete planning process and is able to automatically generate preoperative plans. A clinical pre-diagnosis is also provided automatically by the system based on the patient’s digital data. A functional evaluation based on a real patient case study demonstrates that the proposed virtual OGS planning method is feasible and more effective than the traditional approach at increasing the intuitiveness and reducing errors and planning times.     

Confusing means with ends: A manager's reflections on experience in agricultural landscapes of Western Australia

Summary Since 'landcare' in its modern form began in Australia during the early 1980s, considerable resources have been focused on applying tools and processes, such as community empowerment, regionalization, integrated catchment management, and facilitation and coordination. While these are valuable tools to achieve goals, they are not themselves goals. Unfortunately, they have frequently become ends in themselves. This confusion of means and ends has hindered landcare achievements in Australia. Examples of this are provided, and then contrasted with management based on goals that emphasize realistic targets, highlight barriers to goal achievement, and facilitate the development of well-targeted actions. The complexity of most natural resource management issues, the lack of technical solutions and the long timescales over which management must be applied have all contributed to the confusion of means and ends.     

RECLAIMING THE PATIENT'S VOICE AND SPIRIT IN DYING: AN INSIGHT FROM ISRAEL

In the latter half of the 20th century, Western medicine moved death from the home to the hospital. As a result, the process of dying seems to have lost its spiritual dimension, and become a matter of prolonging material life by means of medical technology. The novel quandaries that arose led in turn to medico‐legal regulation. This paper describes the recent regulation of dying in Israel under its Dying Patient Law, 2005. The Law recognizes advance directives in principle, but limits their effect and form through complex medico‐legal artifices. It reflects a culture that places high value on both scientific medicine and the sanctity of life as such, and illustrates a medical culture that pitches battle against death. At the same time, the Law constructs the will of the individual in a medico‐legal language that is alien to the lay person. The paper suggests an alternative approach to advance care planning that is patient‐centred and addresses the psycho‐social needs of the individual in terms of her relational autonomy. From this perspective, advance care planning becomes an opportunity to extract the patient from the medical context and allow her to speak about her approaching death with close ones in her own terms of reference. To this end, there is a need for facilitation of an intimate encounter where patients can speak about their concerns with their loved ones. The paper also presents a methodological approach of attentive listening, which can be applied across diverse cultures and circumstances.     

Performance assessment of a new optimization system for robotic SBRT MLC-based plans

PurposeTo assess the performance of a new optimization system, VOLO, for CyberKnife MLC-based SBRT plans in comparison with the existing Sequential optimizer.MethodsMLC-plans were created for 25 SBRT cases (liver, prostate, pancreas and spine) using both VOLO and Sequential. Monitor units (MU), delivery time (DT), PTV coverage, conformity (nCI), dose gradient (R50%) and OAR doses were used for comparison and combined to obtain a mathematical score (MS) of plan quality for each solution. MS strength was validated by changing parameter weights and by a blinded clinical plan evaluation. The optimization times (OT) and the average segment areas (SA) were also compared.ResultsVOLO solutions offered significantly lower mean DT (−19%) and MU (−13%). OT were below 15 min for VOLO, whereas for Sequential, values spanned from 8 to 160 min. SAs were significantly larger for VOLO: on average 10 cm² versus 7 cm². VOLO optimized plans achieved a higher MS than Sequential for all tested parameter combinations. PTV coverage and OAR sparing were comparable for both groups of solutions. Although slight differences in R50% and nCI were found, the parameters most affecting MS were MU and DT. VOLO solutions were selected in 80% of cases by both physicians with 88% inter-observer agreement.ConclusionsThe good performance of the VOLO optimization system, together with the large reduction in OT, make it a useful tool to improve the efficiency of CK SBRT planning and delivery. The proposed methodology for comparing different planning solutions can be applied in other contexts.     

An Application of Renewal Theory to Contraceptive Follow-up Studies,Exemplified by an Intrauterine Device Study

Contraceptive practice consists of a series of recurrent events of use and nonuse. Application of the life table technique for analysis of multiple-segment contraceptive usage is not entirely satisfactory. In this paper the renewal process approach is applied to the results of contraceptive follow-up studies involving all segments of use. By means of this model, it is possible to estimate the proportion of current users, the average duration of actual use, and the average number of segments used by the acceptors. The practical importance of these parameters for the evaluation of family planning programs is considered.