Global warming causes the poleward shift of the trailing edges of marine ectotherm species distributions. In the semi-enclosed Mediterranean Sea, continental masses and oceanographic barriers do not ...allow natural connectivity with thermophilic species pools: as trailing edges retreat, a net diversity loss occurs. We quantify this loss on the Israeli shelf, among the warmest areas in the Mediterranean, by comparing current native molluscan richness with the historical one obtained from surficial death assemblages. We recorded only 12% and 5% of historically present native species on shallow subtidal soft and hard substrates, respectively. This is the largest climate-driven regional-scale diversity loss in the oceans documented to date. By contrast, assemblages in the intertidal, more tolerant to climatic extremes, and in the cooler mesophotic zone show approximately 50% of the historical native richness. Importantly, approximately 60% of the recorded shallow subtidal native species do not reach reproductive size, making the shallow shelf a demographic sink. We predict that, as climate warms, this native biodiversity collapse will intensify and expand geographically, counteracted only by Indo-Pacific species entering from the Suez Canal. These assemblages, shaped by climate warming and biological invasions, give rise to a 'novel ecosystem' whose restoration to historical baselines is not achievable.
Aim
A large body of ecological theory predicts that non‐indigenous species (NIS) are successful invaders if their niches overlap little with native taxa. Native–non‐indigenous trait dissimilarity, ...however, may also be observed if NIS have outcompeted ecologically similar native species. Discriminating these scenarios is essential for assessing invasion impacts but requires baseline assemblage data that are frequently unavailable. We overcome this impediment by analysing death assemblages – identifiable organism remains in the seafloor – which are natural community archives. Focusing on molluscs from the heavily invaded Eastern Mediterranean, we gain insights into the contentious role of competitive displacement by NIS as the primary driver of the massive regional declines of native populations, and their potential to alter ecosystem functioning.
Location
Israel/Eastern Mediterranean.
Time period
Pre‐Lessepsian invasion (pre‐1869) to contemporary.
Major taxa studied
Mollusca.
Methods
We sampled molluscan living and death assemblages from various substrates on the Israeli shelf and compiled trait information on all constituent species. We then compared the abundance‐weighted trait composition and functional diversity of native and non‐indigenous assemblage components. Death assemblage time‐coverage was quantified radiometrically.
Results
Native and non‐indigenous assemblage components consistently differed in trait composition, both in present‐day (i.e., living) and historical (i.e., death) assemblages, irrespective of habitat conditions. Furthermore, present‐day non‐indigenous assemblage components had a different trait composition than historical native assemblages. These findings suggest that the increasing NIS dominance has considerably altered the functional properties of shallow‐water molluscan assemblages.
Main conclusions
By utilizing death assemblages, we show that native and non‐indigenous assemblage components have differed in trait composition since the onset of the invasion, suggesting that competition was unlikely the primary driver of the regional‐scale native biodiversity loss. Our findings, however, also imply that NIS cannot functionally compensate for native species disappearance. Instead, the transition towards increasingly NIS‐dominated assemblages has profoundly altered ecosystem functioning, with unknown consequences.
This paper focuses on traces of drilling predation in the middle Miocene gastropod assemblage of the Zaprešić Brijeg locality, Croatia, which provides further insight into the palaeoecology of the ...south-western margin of the Pannonian Basin System during the Badenian. The analyzed gastropod shells were collected in the first half of the 20th century, and are housed in the Croatian Natural History Museum (CNHM) in Zagreb. The CNHM Zaprešić Brijeg collections contain 11063 gastropod shells, of which 1024 have been identified as drilled (9.3% of the sample), with 633 successfully drilled, 113 unsuccessfully drilled, and 278 multiply drilled shells. The most represented families are Potamididae, Nassariidae, Clavatulidae, Turritellidae, Cerithiidae, Muricidae and Naticidae. The gastropod families Naticidae and Muricidae are recognized as the probable predators based on the shape of the drill holes. Middle Miocene (Badenian) gastropods drilling frequency at Zaprešić Brijeg is 5.72%, which is lower than the recorded Badenian gastropods drilling frequency in the Central Paratethys, while the overall gastropod prey effectiveness from the studied locality (15.15%) is higher than the average of the neighbouring Badenian localities in the Central Paratethys. Among the most represented gastropods at this locality, the highest drilling frequency occurs in the infaunal suspension feeders Turritellidae (14.45%), which mostly show traces of the naticid drilling.
LEAN System Management in Hospitals Bošnjak, Ivan; Bošnjak, Marija
Athens Journal of Health and Medical Sciences,
09/2020, Letnik:
7, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Statement of problem: Healthcare industry is struggling under an increasing pressure of constantly rising costs as the science opens new horizons in the development of new drugs and technologies ...making thus the task of employing resources in an effective manner more challenging than ever before. LEAN system management in hospitals can contribute to effective costs management and better results. We analyzed industrial LEAN model management and its implementation in hospitals. LEAN management has its roots in Just-In- time management implemented by the company Toyota that has provided for this company to become a fierce competitor to the United States car industry. The aim of LEAN is to eliminate waste and reduce production time. The basic principle of LEAN philosophy is to determine where the value is added in the process and where it is not. LEAN consists of several tools: five S, Kaizen events, standardized work, kanbans, spaghetti diagrams. Spaghetti diagrams are used to track the movement of employees, materials and patients. Effective implementation can reduce the time used for different needs of patients and tasks of employees, so this is an example of lost effectiveness that can be eliminated. Kaizen events include a project team selected from hospital staff, whose goal is to solve efficacy problem by defining the problem and reasonable output and then implement new ideas. An example may be a disorganized inventory of hospital pharmacy that consequently prolongs the time of drug delivery. The project team can locate the problem and suggest inventory changes. Competitive market companies must constantly innovate and implement new ideas to win a market share. Such innovations can sometimes be used in healthcare industry, and effective implementation can increase the quality of health service provided by hospitals, and also reduce never ending rising costs, a challenge that hospital management encounters.
The main goal of this paper is a study of Jensen-type inequalities based on Lidstone interpolation formula. We establish Jensen-type inequalities for convex functions of even order and for completely ...convex functions. Besides the interpolation formula, the main results are derived by using convexity properties of the Lidstone polynomials and the corresponding Green functions. In some cases, we obtain improved variants of the basic Jensen inequality. As an application, we derive some new power mean inequalities, as well as the corresponding Hölder-type inequality. Finally, we discuss Lah–Ribarič-type inequalities for the above classes of functions. Our results are then compared with the previously known from the literature.
The focus of this paper is the application of the Fink identity in obtaining Jensen-type inequalities for higher order convex functions. In addition to the basic form, we establish superadditivity ...and monotonicity relations that correspond to the Jensen inequality in this setting. We also obtain the corresponding Lah-Ribarič inequality. The obtained results are valid for functions of even degree of convexity. With this method, we derive some new bounds for the differences of power means, as well as some new Hölder-type inequalities.
(1) The ancient Paratethys Sea was a spacious inland salt-water basin, extending from the Alps, over Central Europe, to Central Asia. The southwestern part of its central area, the Croatian part of ...the Pannonian Basin System (CPBS), is generally known for shallow-water deposition and biota. The main purpose of this paper is to emphasize the significance of its less widespread deeper-water deposits in environmental and applied geology. (2) The authors consulted the previously published data, combined with their own results, obtained from the paleontological and sedimentological research, seismic stratigraphy and well-log analyses. (3) During our research in the CPBS, we noticed the connection between the tectonic structures and deep marine canyons and depressions within the Paratethyan shallows. Such structures can be recognized on well-logs and seismic or surface outcrops. They are situated along the faults, and deposits are characterized by the domination of pelagic over the benthic biota, sometimes with visible selective dissolution of aragonite/calcite tests. (4) Studied sedimentary sequences from these structures proved to be a precious source of data on the transgressive-regressive cycles, ancient migrations, modes of deposition and hydrocarbon formation during the Miocene Epoch in the CPBS.
Molecular data for 19 specimens of Elmis syriaca syriaca and E. s. zoufali from eight countries have been analysed in order to investigate the taxonomic status and the geographical distribution of ...these two subspecies. The nominative subspecies was previously thought to be endemic to the Levant (Israel, Lebanon, Syria), while E. s. zoufali was regarded as being widespread from the Balkans to eastern Anatolia and Afghanistan. The results of our molecular studies using DNA barcoding and nuclear DNA data reveal that the two taxa are in fact distinct species, which separated around 2 Mya. A distinction based on the external morphological characters of 354 specimens was found to be impossible due to the pronounced variability, especially of the pronotal microsculpture, which had hitherto been used as the main distinguishing feature. The two species can only be distinguished by the aedeagal parameres and by the geographical distribution, which deviates considerably from the concept of previous authors. Elmis zoufali is distributed in Romania, the Balkan Peninsula, some Aegean Islands and in western Anatolia, while E. syriaca occurs from the Caucasus region southwards to eastern Turkey, Iran (probably also Afghanistan) and the Levant. Geographically, both species are widely separated by the so-called Anatolian Diagonal. Elmis zoufali resp. E. syriaca are recorded for the first time from Croatia, Romania, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran and Turkey. In addition, we examined 13 specimens tentatively identified as Elmis quadricollis (Reitter, 1887), a closely related species from Central Asia; we sequenced one specimen from China, which was revealed to be a sister to E. zoufali and E. syriaca.
New data on 52 non-indigenous mollusks in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea is reported.
sp. (aff. aptus sensu Blatterer 2019),
Albano, Bakker & Sabelli,
, Cerithiopsis sp. aff. pulvis,
Albano & Steger,
...,
sp.,
sp., Iravadia aff. elongata,
aff.
sp. 1 (sensu Blatterer 2019),
, Parvioris aff. dilecta, Odostomia cf. dalli,
,
,
,
,
,
,
, Musculus aff. viridulus,
, Scintilla cf. violescens,
and
are new records for the Mediterranean. An unidentified gastropod, Skeneidae indet.,
sp.,
sp.,
sp., Vitreolina cf. philippi,
(s.l.) sp. 1,
(?) sp., and Semelidae sp. are further potential new non-indigenous species although their status should be confirmed upon final taxonomic assessment. Additionally, the status of
,
and
is changed to non-indigenous, range extensions for nine species and the occurrence of living individuals for species previously recorded from empty shells only are reported.
Albano, Bakker & Sabelli,
is described from the Red Sea for comparison with the morphologically similar
Albano, Bakker & Sabelli,
The taxonomic part is followed by a discussion on how intensive fieldwork and cooperation among institutions and individuals enabled such a massive report, and how the poor taxonomic knowledge of the Indo-Pacific fauna hampers non-indigenous species detection and identification. Finally, the hypothesis that the simultaneous analysis of quantitative benthic death assemblages can support the assignment of non-indigenous status to taxonomically undetermined species is discussed.
Deep marine Miocene deposits exposed sporadically in the Medvednica Mt. (northern Croatia) comprise pelagic organisms such as coccolithophores, planktic foraminifera and pteropods. The pteropod fauna ...from yellow marls at the Vejalnica locality (central part of Medvednica Mt.) encompasses abundant specimens of
Kittl, 1886, accompanied with scarce
(Kittl, 1886). Calcareous nannoplankton points to the presence of NN5 nannozone at this locality. Highly fossiliferous grey marls at the Marija Bistrica locality (north-eastern area of Medvednica Mt.) comprise limacinid pteropods:
(Reuss, 1867),
(
) and
sp. Late Badenian (NN5 to NN6 nannozone) age of these marls is presumed on the basis of coccolithophores. Most of the determined pteropods on species level, except
have been found and described from this region for the first time. New pteropod records from Croatia point to two pteropod horizons coinciding with the Badenian marine transgressions in Central Paratethys. These pteropod assemblages confirm the existence of W–E marine connection (“Transtethyan Trench Corridor”) during the Badenian NN5 nannozone. Limacinids point to the possible immigration of the “North Sea fauna” through a northern European marine passage during the Late Badenian (end of NN5-beginning of NN6 zone), as previously presumed by some other authors.
PDF
