This study aimed to determine the level of satisfaction of surgical staff nurses and clients on the nursing management of postoperative complications rendered by the staff nurses in the different ...hospitals in Iriga City. This study specifically aimed to determine the personal and professional attributes of the surgical staff nurses in terms of age, gender, educational attainment, seminars or training, and years of experience in the surgical area; to determine the level of satisfaction with the nursing care for preventing postoperative complications along nursing care, early ambulation, adequate nutrition, skin breakdown, and pressure source, adequate pain management; to determine if there a significant difference on the level of satisfaction on the nursing care for preventing post-operative complications of the patients and the nurses; to determine if is there a significant relationship between personal and professional attributes and interventions rendered by the surgical staff nurses; and to identify measures that can be proposed based on the findings of the study. The study is descriptive-correlational research. Frequency count, percentage techniques, weighted means, and the Wilcoxon Rank-Sum Test of Two-Sample Test were employed as statistical tools. The result showed that a majority of the surgical staff nurses’ age ranges from 25 years old and below, mostly female, baccalaureate degree holders, 6 to 10 years in service, and attended training in the surgical area. Staff nurses and patients are much satisfied with the nursing management in preventing postoperative complications. Likewise, there is no significant difference in the level of satisfaction between the clients and the staff nurses in post-operative complications. Also, there is no significant relationship between the profile of the staff nurses and the level of satisfaction with the nursing care of preventing post-operative complications of the patients. A Postoperative Management Brochure was developed to serve as a guide for effective postoperative care.
Rotary drying is one of the most common unit operations in industries. It is a complex nonlinear process, and it is difficult to control with conventional methods. In this paper, a fuzzy ...multivariable controller is designed for an industrial rotary drying system. This fuzzy controller is applied to a fertilizer production unit to save energy and improve its performance. Based on the dryer operating conditions, the proposed control system aims to keep the exhaust gas temperature at the dryer outlet as close as possible to the optimum value. Thus, a reduction in energy consumption is achieved without losing the quality of the final product. Practical aspects of the industrial reality, such as the plant lacking an online moisture measurement instrument, are considered. The results prove that the proposed fuzzy control is able to reduce biomass consumption by 9%, which represents an annual reduction of 648 tons of carbon dioxide (CO
2
) emissions to the atmosphere.
Although rare in developed countries, most acquired human cases of hepatitis E virus (HEV) infection are associated with travel to developing countries where HEV is endemic. Increasingly, however, ...sporadic, non-travel-related HEV cases have been reported in developed countries. In Italy, only two studies to date have investigated the presence of HEV in wild boars. Here, we report a serological and virological survey of HEV in wild boar populations in northwestern Italy. During the hunting season, 594 serum and 320 liver samples were collected and screened for antibodies to HEV and HEV RNA. Overall, the seroprevalence was 4.9 %, and HEV RNA was detected in 12 liver samples (p = 3.7 %). No serum samples tested positive for HEV RNA. Phylogenetic analysis of the ORF2 region revealed that the isolates clustered within genotype 3, subtypes 3e and 3f, and were closely related to HEV strains previously detected in domestic pigs farmed in the same geographic area. Although the routes of viral transmission are still poorly understood, our data show that HEV genotypes 3e and 3f circulate in wild boars in northwestern Italy. Also, they provide evidence that autochthonous HEV infections in Italy could also be linked to wild boar populations, suggesting an increased risk for domestically acquired HEV infection in humans through wild animals. The HEV sequences determined in this study may be useful for comparing present and future human isolates to identify transmission events between wild boar, humans, and farmed pigs. Similarly to other more commonly known zoonotic agents, HEV should be included in national or regional disease surveillance programs for wild animals.
Amniota is a tetrapod group that was recognized originally in the 19th century on the basis of developmental features (extra-embryonic membranes), but since the widespread adoption of phylogenetic ...systematics in the late 20th century, it has been recast as a crown clade. The oldest amniotes are Late Carboniferous in age (ca. 318 million years ago), and they are preserved in coal beds and lycopod tree stumps that have yielded rich faunas of temnospondyls, anthracosaurs, and other early tetrapods. Numerous phylogenetic studies of the past three decades have focused on the relationships of amniotes to other early tetrapods, resulting in the prevailing picture that Amniota is the crown of a total group with many extinct Paleozoic clades comprising its stem group. The content and the sequence of branching among stem amniotes are vigorously debated topics in early tetrapod paleontology. The ‘traditional’ stem amniote group Diadectomorpha has been proposed as the sister group of synapsid amniotes in a series of papers by one research group. If correct, the placement of Diadectomorpha within Amniota implies that high-fiber herbivory, a key component of terrestrial vertebrate ecosystems of modern aspect, is an entirely amniote phenomenon. Another stem group, Recumbirostra, has been recovered by other researchers within Amniota as reptiles. Recumbirostrans exhibit cranial features that are correlated with a fossorial lifestyle, and most species for which we have postcrania reveal the phenomena of body elongation and many of these exhibit limb reduction. If correct, the identification of recumbirostrans as early reptiles not only greatly augments the content of Paleozoic Amniota but also marks the evolution of skeletal features indicative of a burrowing lifestyle that predates the appearance of unequivocal fossorial amniotes (cistecephalid dicynodonts) by 40 million years. However, it is premature to accept either diadectomorphs or recumbirostrans as amniotes, given issues with scorings for amniote taxa, character argumentation, and poor homologization of braincase features between amniote and anamniote taxa.
The initial stages of evolution of Diapsida (the large clade that includes not only snakes, lizards, crocodiles and birds, but also dinosaurs and numerous other extinct taxa) is clouded by an ...exceedingly poor Palaeozoic fossil record. Previous studies had indicated a 38 Myr gap between the first appearance of the oldest diapsid clade (Araeoscelidia), ca 304 million years ago (Ma), and that of its sister group in the Middle Permian (ca 266 Ma). Two new reptile skulls from the Richards Spur locality, Lower Permian of Oklahoma, represent a new diapsid reptile: Orovenator mayorum n. gen. et sp. A phylogenetic analysis identifies O. mayorum as the oldest and most basal member of the araeoscelidian sister group. As Richards Spur has recently been dated to 289 Ma, the new diapsid neatly spans the above gap by appearing 15 Myr after the origin of Diapsida. The presence of O. mayorum at Richards Spur, which records a diverse upland fauna, suggests that initial stages in the evolution of non-araeoscelidian diapsids may have been tied to upland environments. This hypothesis is consonant with the overall scant record for non-araeoscelidian diapsids during the Permian Period, when the well-known terrestrial vertebrate communities are preserved almost exclusively in lowland deltaic, flood plain and lacustrine sedimentary rocks.
The term “disaster species” was a term originally conceived to describe marine microfossils that exhibited profound abundances in the wake of a biological crisis. The term was expanded in the 1990s ...to describe (as “disaster taxa”) opportunistic taxa that dominated their biota numerically (“bloomed”) during the survival interval of a mass extinction event. The Permo-Triassic tetrapod genus
Lystrosaurus
has been cited regularly as a “disaster taxon” of the end-Permian mass extinction. A review of the definitions that have been developed for disaster taxa, and data from recent biostratigraphic and phylogenetic studies that include species of
Lystrosaurus
, leads to the conclusion that the genus is not a “disaster taxon”. Further, the known biostratigraphy and tree topologies of species of
Lystrosaurus
do not satisfy more recent definitions that attribute diversification to disaster species. At most, species of
Lystrosaurus
that form the informal “
Lystrosaurus
abundant zone” in the lower Katberg Formation, Lower Triassic of South Africa, could be described as opportunistic species.
Summary
An increase in autochthonous hepatitis E virus (HEV) infections has been recorded in Italy suspected to be zoonotically transmitted from pigs; this study was carried out to determinate the ...seroprevalence and risk factors associated with hepatitis HEV exposition, both in swine and humans working in pig farms, located within a high‐density pig farming area in Piedmont region, north‐western Italy. The presence of viral RNA in human and swine samples was also evaluated, and phylogenetic analysis was performed on HEV‐positive samples. Forty‐two swine farms were sampled; 142 workers were enrolled in the study and classified into two groups: (i) 69 workers with occupational contact with swine (including veterinarians and farmers) recruited in the 42 sampled farms; (ii) 73 without occupational contact with swine. Forty‐one of 42 (97%) swine farms resulted positive to enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay test for HEV antibodies (Abs). Overall seroprevalence in swine was 50% (441/879), with seropositivity rate higher in sows (333/469, 71%). HEV RNA in stool samples was detected in animals from 13 of 42 tested farms (31%), and a higher positivity resulted in weaners (40/246, 16.3%). Phylogenetic analysis classified all HEV isolates within genotype 3 (subtypes 3f, 3e, 3c). All humans were negative for HEV viral genome in blood. Five of 142 sera were positive for IgG anti‐HEV with an overall prevalence of 3.52% with no statistically significant differences in prevalence rates between workers at zoonotic risk and the control group (5.7% versus 1.3%). In contrast, a significant difference (OR 10.1) was observed within the subgroup including subjects exposed for short periods (veterinarians) compared with those who worked for long periods (farmers) suggesting a correlation between the time of exposure and the likelihood of HEV infection. Reporting HEV infection is not mandatory in Italy, but a constant epidemiological surveillance should be ensured to clarify the epidemiology of this disease.
Living species of mammals, crocodiles and most species of birds exhibit parental care, but evidence of this behaviour is extremely rare in the fossil record. Here, we present a new specimen of ...varanopid 'pelycosaur' from the Middle Permian of South Africa. The specimen is an aggregation, consisting of five articulated individuals preserved in undisturbed, close, lifelike, dorsal-up, subparallel positions, indicating burial in 'life position'. Two size classes are represented. One is 50% larger than the others, is well ossified, has fused neurocentral sutures and is distinguished by a coat of dermal ossifications that covers the neck and shoulder regions. We regard this individual to be an adult. The remaining four skeletons are considered to be juveniles as they are approximately the same size, are poorly ossified, have open neurocentral sutures and lack dermal ossifications. Aggregates of juvenile amniotes are usually siblings. Extant analogues of adult and juvenile groupings suggest that the adult is one of the parents, leading us to regard the aggregation as a family group. The Late Middle Permian age of the varanopid family predates the previously known oldest fossil evidence of parental care in terrestrial vertebrates by 140 Myr.
Italy counts several sheep breeds, arisen over centuries as a consequence of ancient and recent genetic and demographic events. To finely reconstruct genetic structure and relationships between ...Italian sheep, 496 subjects from 19 breeds were typed at 50K single nucleotide polymorphism loci. A subset of foreign breeds from the Sheep HapMap dataset was also included in the analyses. Genetic distances (as visualized either in a network or in a multidimensional scaling analysis of identical by state distances) closely reflected geographic proximity between breeds, with a clear north–south gradient, likely because of high levels of past gene flow and admixture all along the peninsula. Sardinian breeds diverged more from other breeds, a probable consequence of the combined effect of ancient sporadic introgression of feral mouflon and long‐lasting genetic isolation from continental sheep populations. The study allowed the detection of previously undocumented episodes of recent introgression (Delle Langhe into the endangered Altamurana breed) as well as signatures of known, or claimed, historical introgression (Merino into Sopravissana and Gentile di Puglia; Bergamasca into Fabrianese, Appenninica and, to a lesser extent, Leccese). Arguments that would question, from a genomic point of view, the current breed classification of Bergamasca and Biellese into two separate breeds are presented. Finally, a role for traditional transhumance practices in shaping the genetic makeup of Alpine sheep breeds is proposed. The study represents the first exhaustive analysis of Italian sheep diversity in an European context, and it bridges the gap in the previous HapMap panel between Western Mediterranean and Swiss breeds.
The Phylogenetic Definition of Reptilia Modesto, Sean P.; Anderson, Jason S.; Lutzoni, François
Systematic biology,
10/2004, Volume:
53, Issue:
5
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Recent morphological and molecular studies have challenged conventional hypotheses concerning the affinities of turtles, and this has led to unexpected and undocumented changes in the composition of ...the well-known taxon Reptilia, with additional ramifications for the nomenclature of some of its included taxa. Modesto and Anderson examine the consequences of the application of priority to the nomen Reptilia as their understanding of early amniote interrelationships has progressed over the past two decades, and offer a new definition that brings the phylogenetic concept of this taxon name into line with both currently accepted conventions of Phylogenetic Nomenclature and historical usage.
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