Fine-scale ecological and economic assessment of climate change on olive in the Mediterranean Basin reveals winners and losers

The Mediterranean Basin is a climate and biodiversity hot spot, and climate change threatens agro-ecosystems such as olive, an ancient drought-tolerant crop of considerable ecological and socioeconomic importance. Climate change will impact the interactions of olive and the obligate olive fruit fly (Bactrocera oleae), and alter the economics of olive culture across the Basin. We estimate the effects of climate change on the dynamics and interaction of olive and the fly using physiologically based demographic models in a geographic information system context as driven by daily climate change scenario weather. A regional climate model that includes fine-scale representation of the effects of topography and the influence of the Mediterranean Sea on regional climate was used to scale the global climate data. The system model for olive/olive fly was used as the production function in our economic analysis, replacing the commonly used production-damage control function. Climate warming will affect olive yield and fly infestation levels across the Basin, resulting in economic winners and losers at the local and regional scales. At the local scale, profitability of small olive farms in many marginal areas of Europe and elsewhere in the Basin will decrease, leading to increased abandonment. These marginal farms are critical to conserving soil, maintaining biodiversity, and reducing fire risk in these areas. Our fine-scale bioeconomic approach provides a realistic prototype for assessing climate change impacts in other Mediterranean agro-ecosystems facing extant and new invasive pests.The Mediterranean Basin is a climate change (1) and biodiversity (2) hot spot where substantial warming is predicted in the next few decades (3). A 2 °C increase in average temperature is a widely used metric for assessing risks associated with global warming and as a policy reference, and this level of warming will likely occur in the Basin between 2030 and 2060 (4) with unknown biological and economic impact on major crop systems. Small differences in average climate warming are predicted for the Basin by A1B and higher greenhouse-gases (GHG) forcing scenarios within the 2050 time horizon (5).A major agro-ecosystem in the Basin is olive (Olea europaea L.), an ancient ubiquitous crop of considerable socioeconomic importance (6). A detailed review of methods used to assess the impact of weather and of climate change on the olive system is given in SI Appendix. Most of the crop is used to produce olive oil, with Basin countries producing 97% of the world supply (International Olive Council, www.internationaloliveoil.org/). Olive is a long-lived drought-tolerant species limited by frost and high temperatures, and to a lesser extent by low soil fertility and soil water (7). Temperatures <−8.3 °C damage olive and limit its northward distribution, whereas annual rainfall <350 mm y⁻¹ limits its distribution in arid regions. Commercial olive production occurs in areas with >500 mm rainfall y⁻¹ (SI Appendix, Fig. S1). Climate models predict increased temperatures for the Mediterranean Basin in response to increasing [GHG], but only a weak negative trend in precipitation and no trend in evaporation are predicted (8). Growth rates in some plants will increase with [CO₂] within their thermal and moisture limits (7, 9), but the response for olive is unknown.Mainstream assessments of climate change impact on agricultural and other ecosystems have omitted trophic interactions (10). Here we include the effects of climate change on olive phenology, growth, and yield, and on the dynamics and impact of its obligate major pest, the olive fruit fly [Bactrocera oleae (Rossi)]. The thermal limits of olive and the fly differ and affect the trophic interactions (11) crucial to estimating the bioeconomic impact of climate change in olive across the Basin.Previous assessments of climate change on heterothermic species have used ecological niche modeling (ENM) approaches that characterize climatically a species’ geographic range based on observed aggregate weather data in areas of its recorded distribution (for olive, see, e.g., ref. 12). ENMs are often used to predict the distribution of the species in response to climate change (13) despite serious deficiencies including the inability to include trophic interactions (14). Moreover, the implicit mathematical and ecological assumptions of ENMs hinder biological interpretation of the results (15).As an alternative we use mechanistic physiologically based demographic models (PBDMs) that explicitly capture the weather-driven biology of interacting species (e.g., ref. 16) and predict the geographic distribution and relative abundance of species across time and space independent of species distribution records using extant and climate change weather scenarios as drivers for the system. The explicit assumptions in PBDMs have heuristic value, and bridge the gap between long run field experiments used to study global change biology and the narrow methodological and conceptual bases of ENM approaches commonly used in macroecology (17, 18). These attributes are essential for assessing the bioeconomic consequences of climate warming on trophic interactions across large landscapes.Linked PBDMs for olive and olive fly in a geographic information system (GIS) context (11) (Fig. 1 and SI Appendix, Fig. S2) are used to estimate the fine-scale ecological and economic impact of climate warming on olive yield and fly infestation across the Basin using baseline daily weather (scenario ) simulated under observed [GHG], and the increasing [GHG] A1B emissions scenario () of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (Materials and Methods and SI Appendix, SI Materials and Methods).Open in a separate windowFig. 1.Multitrophic biology of the olive/olive fly system. (A) Dry matter flow in olive and to olive fly, and (B) dynamics of olive fly number (see ref. 22).     

Seventeen years of American cutaneous leishmaniasis in a Southern Brazilian municipality

We reviewed the records of 151 patients diagnosed with American cutaneous leishmaniasis (ACL) from 1993 to 2009 in the municipality of Japura, Paraná, Brazil. Gender, age, occupation, place of residence, location of lesions, type and number of lesions were analyzed. The prevalence rate of ACL was 11.5/10,000 hab, of which 84.7% were male, 58.3% lived in rural area and 49.0% were farmers. The most frequent age group was between 30 to 39 years (26.6%). Skin lesions occurred in 92.7% of the patients with predominance in the lower limbs (23.9%) and 49.1% of the records did not include the number of lesions location due to incomplete filling. A single ulceration was present in 44.4%. Japurá is an endemic area for ACL, requiring public actions and preventive education.     

Diagnosis, assessment and management of delusional jealousy in Parkinson’s disease with and without dementia

Patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) may present delusional jealousy (DJ). In a previous cross-sectional prevalence study we identified 15 cognitively preserved and five demented PD patients with DJ. The current study aimed at evaluating their clinical (motor and non-motor) characteristics and the pharmacological treatments associated with DJ, and its subsequent pharmacological management. Patients were assessed by neurologists and psychiatrists using the Hoehn and Yahr scale, the Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale, the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale, the Beck Depression Inventory, the Hamilton Anxiety Scale and the Neuropsychiatric Inventory. Efficacy of DJ management was evaluated in follow-up visits. All patients were in therapy with dopamine agonists. A subgroup of five cognitively preserved patients developed DJ after a short period of treatment of therapy with dopamine agonists, while other patients developed DJ after a longer period of dopaminergic treatment. Psychiatric comorbidities were common in cognitively preserved and in demented patients. The pharmacological management included the interruption of dopamine agonists in two patients and the reduction of dopamine agonist dose plus the use of antipsychotics in other patients. These clinical data suggest that the management of medicated PD patients should include investigation for the presence of DJ and the evaluation of clinical characteristics potentially relevant to the prevention or the early recognition of delusions.     

Elastofibroma dorsi: case series of a rare benign tumour of the back

We analyse this rare pseudotumour with few case reports in the orthopaedic literature. Elastofibroma dorsi is an uncommon benign soft tissue pseudotumour usually located at the lower pole of the scapula. This study is a clinical assessment of 5 patients. All the patients had their diagnosis based on clinical and MRI findings and had excision biopsy. The patients were followed for a mean period of 24 months. No patient had residual symptoms. We have only one recurrence. Surgical excision is recommended when it causes functional disability, compression symptoms, an asymmetric outline of the chest wall, or when it is more than 5 cm in diameter. Pre-operative tissue diagnosis is not necessary in most cases. Despite its rarity, the elastofibroma dorsi should always be suspected with the emergence of a swelling in the subscapularis, especially in females and in old age.     

Testing single‐ and dual‐route computational models of auditory repetition with new data from six aphasic patients

Background: Deficits in the production of complex structures have been widely documented in non-fluent forms of aphasia. Nevertheless, the data available on fluent deficits are scarcer. In both cases, reduced complexity is attributed to syntactic factors. In the related field of syntactic theory, there exist a number of studies on the production of non-brain damaged (NBD) subjects which try to account for the existence of two alternative constructions in embedded complement clauses in English (as in I think that the situation will improve/I think the situation will improve). The absence of that in the embedded clauses of verbs like say, know or think in colloquial English is very frequent and this suggests that verbs of this type may select a clause lacking a complementiser phrase (CP) layer, namely tense phrase (TP). The presence of that is taken to be the result of insertion, which is triggered by cues associated to contextual factors like register.

Aims: To compare the presence and absence of the complementiser that in the speech of English subjects diagnosed with aphasia with the same phenomenon in NBD subjects with the objective of clarifying the nature of the phenomenon of that-omission.

Methods &; Procedures: We carried out an analysis of spontaneous speech that included the performance of 200 individuals brought together by the AphasiaBank project. Two groups were included in the study, an experimental group comprising 100 individuals diagnosed as aphasic according to the standards of the Western Aphasia Battery (WAB), and a control group including 100 non-brain damaged control subjects ( NBDs).

Outcomes &; Results: This study shows that the asymmetries across populations (NBDs vs. subjects with aphasia) are restricted to the number of occurrences of subordinate clauses. NBD subjects produce more embeddings than subjects diagnosed with fluent aphasia (although they do produce embedded clauses and crucially prefer the “omission” option) and subjects with non-fluent aphasia.

Conclusions: Our results confirm the findings on fluent aphasias as for the presence of deficits with complex constructions. These results may be regarded as evidence for the claim that TP is the default selection for the verbs analysed.     

Connectionist diagnosis of lexical disorders in aphasia

Background: In the cognitive neurolinguistic approach to lexical deficits in aphasia, impaired levels of processing are localised in a cognitive model. Model-oriented treatment may target these impaired components. Thus a precise assessment of the disorder is crucial. Connectionist models add to this by using computer simulation to specify the details of the functioning of these components. The connectionist semantic-phonological model of lexical access (Dell, Martin, & Schwartz, 2007 Dell, G. S., Martin, N. and Schwartz, M. F. 2007. A case-series test of the interactive two-step model of lexical access: Predicting word repetition from picture naming. Journal of Memory and Language, 56: 490–520. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Schwartz, Dell, Martin, Gahl, & Sobel, 2006 Schwartz, M. F., Dell, G. S., Martin, N., Gahl, S. and Sobel, P. 2006. A case-series test of the interactive two-step model of lexical access: Evidence from picture naming. Journal of Memory and Language, 54: 223–264.  [Google Scholar]) explores the impairment by simulating error patterns in naming and repetition.

Aims: The purpose of the present study was to investigate the model's range of application as a diagnostic tool, and to derive recommendations for the model's use in clinical settings.

Methods & Procedures: We demonstrate how we adapted the error analysis to 15 German-speaking patients with aphasia, analysed the model's accuracy in assessing naming and repetition disorders, and explained deviations between the error pattern produced by each patient and the one produced by the model's simulation by appealing to an extended version of the model.

Outcomes & Results: Overall, the model yielded good fits of the patients' error patterns. Larger model–patient deviations could be explained by the model's limited set of lesionable components.

Conclusions: The “connectionist diagnosis” of naming and repetition disorders in the semantic-phonological model is a reasonable tool in model-oriented assessment. However, the diagnosis needs to be complemented by further language tests.     

Determination of 1-phenyl-2-propanone (P2P) by HS-GC/MS in a material sold as “wet amphetamine”

In this paper, we describe the approach to the characterization of an unusual material seized by the judicial authority, near Brescia City in Northern Italy. Usual analyses such as thin-layer chromatography, gas chromatography (GC)–flame ionization detection, and GC/mass spectrometry (MS) did not show the presence of drugs of abuse, in particular amphetamine-like compounds. The major solid component was identified as cornstarch; then taking into account the strong aromatic scent of the seized material; a preliminary experiment for volatile organic compounds was carried out by headspace (HS)-GC/MS. This analysis tentatively evidenced the presence of 1-phenyl-2-propanone (P2P), an amphetamine precursor. Therefore, we developed and optimized a new analytical method for determination of P2P in seized materials by HS-GC/MS. We also synthesized P2P, with the permission of the Ministry of Health, to have it as reference standard, because of its being illegal and the difficulty in obtaining it. This case had some analogies with the cases referred to as “wet amphetamine” by the judicial authority, in which amphetamines are sold mixed with P2P. The possible use of the material could be the production of tablets made of cornstarch with an aromatic scent similar to that of amphetamines to deceive consumers and to sell them as a drug of abuse.     

Lymphadenopathies in patients with renal cell carcinoma: clinical and pathological predictors of pathologically confirmed lymph node invasion

Introduction

In renal cell carcinoma (RCC), lymph node status at preoperative imaging is affected by a non-negligible false-positive rate. We aimed to investigate which factors are related to a concordance between clinical suspicion and pathological confirmation of lymph node invasion (LNI).

Methods

At a single tertiary care institution, 2954 RCC patients underwent either partial or radical nephrectomy. For the aim of the study, only clinically positive lymph node cases were included (cN1). Statistical analyses assessed the concordance between preoperative and pathological nodal status.

Results

Preoperative axial CT scans revealed 424 (14.4 %) patients showing at least one enlarged lymph node suspected for LNI (cN1). All lymphadenopathies were removed at surgery, and LNI was pathologically confirmed (pN1) in 122 patients (28.8 %). When focusing the analyses on clinical characteristics (variables known before surgery), metastases at diagnosis [OR 3.0 (95 %1.9–4.8), p < 0.001] and tumor size [OR 1.1 (95 % 1.1–1.2), p < 0.001] were the two most informative predictors of concordance between clinical and pathological nodal status. Concordance was also more likely in patients with papillary type II tumors (55.6 %) relative to papillary type I (38.1 %), clear cell (27.7 %) and chromophobe (8.3 %) tumors. At multivariable analyses, none of the considered blood markers resulted to be independently associated with LNI.

Conclusions

Roughly 70 % of patients showing a suspected lymph node preoperatively do not show LNI at the final pathological report. Among patients with clinically positive nodes, clinical tumor size and metastases at diagnosis represent the most informative and independent predictors of confirmed LNI at final pathology.