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Citizen science (CS) has been increasingly used in wildlife disease surveillance since it can facilitate the detection and recovery of carcasses of target species used as sentinels of infection. This report updates on the improvement of an app adapted from iMammalia (MammalNet project) for early reporting carcasses of wild boar with a warning system. This app has a great potential for improving wildlife disease surveillance (carcass reporting), such as for ASF. The app has been expanded in the context of ENETWILD project during the second part of 2021 to several countries in their respective languages: Italy, Greece, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Bosnia‐Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Albania, and the latest to incorporate, Portugal. The ENETWILD project has generated alliance with FAO to promote the use of iMammalia in the Balkans to collect data in gap areas about the distribution of wild boar, to document the presence of carcasses of dead animals. The technical improvements that have been made to meet the needs of iMammalia to report the presence of wild boar carcasses correspond to the possibility of recording different parameters, such as sex, age, whether the dead animal has been hunted or not, or the degree of decomposition observed. The possibility of generating warnings to notify these records in real time to wildlife and/or sanitary services will be implemented in 2022. To date, iMammalia collected 14,393 mammal observations all over Europe, 797 of which corresponds to wild boar. A total of 1,270 observations correspond to animals found dead (5.53%), 30 out of which are wild boar, which, in some cases, were later diagnosed as ASF positive (e.g. in Serbia). We finally summarize the next step of ENETWILD in relation to iMammalia promotion, including an online workshop to provide an overview of disease surveillance systems in Europe, and to propose changes, including the promotion of CS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Although many perinatal factors have been linked to adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes in very premature infants, much of the variation in outcome remains unexplained. The impact on brain development of 1 potential factor, exposure to stressors in the neonatal intensive care unit, has not yet been studied in a systematic, prospective manner.Methods: In this prospective cohort study of infants born at <30 weeks gestation, nurses were trained in recording procedures and cares. These recordings were used to derive Neonatal Infant Stressor Scale scores, which were employed to measure exposure to stressors. Magnetic resonance imaging (brain metrics, diffusion, and functional magnetic resonance imaging) and neurobehavioral examinations at term equivalent postmenstrual age were used to assess cerebral structure and function. Simple and partial correlations corrected for confounders, including immaturity and severity of illness, were used to explore these relations.Results: Exposure to stressors was highly variable, both between infants and throughout a single infant's hospital course. Exposure to a greater number of stressors was associated with decreased frontal and parietal brain width, altered diffusion measures and functional connectivity in the temporal lobes, and abnormalities in motor behavior on neurobehavioral examination.Interpretation: Exposure to stressors in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit is associated with regional alterations in brain structure and function. Further research into interventions that may decrease or mitigate exposure to stressors in the neonatal intensive care unit is warranted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An adaptation of the Family Stress Model (FSM) with hypothesized linkages between family contextual factors, custodial grandmothers' psychological distress, parenting practices, and grandchildren's adjustment was tested with structural equation modeling. Interview data from 733 custodial grandmothers of grandchildren between ages 4-17 revealed that the effect ofgrandmothers' distress on grandchildren's adjustment was mediated by dysfunctional parenting, especially regarding externalizing problems. The effects of contextual factors on grandchildren's adjustment were also indirect. The model's measurement and structural components were largely invariant across grandmothers' race and age, as well as grandchildren's gender and age. Group differences were more prevalent regarding the magnitude of latent means for model constructs. We conclude that parenting models like the FSM are useful for investigating custodial grandfamilies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sexual size dimorphism is thought to contribute to the greater mortality and morbidity of men compared with women. However, the timing of onset of sexual size dimorphism remains uncertain. The authors determined whether human fetuses exhibit sexual size dimorphism in the first trimester of pregnancy. Using a prospective cohort study, conducted in 1999-2002 in the United States, they identified 27,655 women who conceived spontaneously and 1,008 whose conception was assisted by in vitro fertilization or intrauterine insemination and for whom a first-trimester measurement of fetal crown-rump length was available. First-trimester size was expressed as the difference between the observed and expected size of the fetus, expressed as equivalence to days of gestational age. The authors evaluated the association between fetal sex, first-trimester size, and birth weight. Eight to 12 weeks after conception, males were larger than females (mean difference: assisted conception = 0.4 days, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.1, 0.7, p = 0.008; spontaneous conception = 0.3 days, 95% CI: 0.2, 0.4, p < 0.00001). The size discrepancy remained significant at birth (mean birth weight difference: assisted conception = 90 g, 95% CI: 22, 159, p = 0.009; spontaneous conception = 120 g, 95% CI: 107, 132, p < 0.00001). These data demonstrate that human fetuses exhibit sexual size dimorphism in the first trimester of pregnancy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the increasing use of ultrasound in obstetrics, the task of accurately identifying fetuses at risk of stillbirth from chronic placental diseases continues to elude us (Kingdom et al. I Am J Obstet Gynecol i 2018;218:S803-17). They demonstrate elegantly that over a 33-year period the lower birthweight centiles for term deliveries have increased, in association with progressively higher rates of iatrogenic birth. It is only prior to 30 weeks of gestation that the relationship between stillbirth and an EFW of <5th centile is robust. [Extracted from the article]

ENETWILD consortium with the collaboration of the MammalNet project2 has promoted some informatic tools to improve the data collection of wildlife distribution and abundance: iMammalia; MammalWeb and Agouti. Here we update the activities in relation to (i) the new languages implemented; (ii) new functionalities, (iii) and the improvement and testing of the artificial intelligence module to identify species in Agouti. The iMammalia app is now available in 17 languages with at least two more to be added soon. MammalWeb is available in six languages with more to be added soon. Agouti is available in seven languages. iMammalia automates data transfer to the global database GBIF, and MammalWeb will consider a similar approach in the near future. Technical improvements were made to meet the needs of iMammalia as a carcass reporting app for wild boar, which will favour early awareness in case of ASF outbreak. As for density estimation through camera trapping, processing of big number of images by hand is tedious, and to facilitate the annotation process Agouti offers and has continuously improved automatic species recognition using Artificial Intelligence (AI). We summarize several topics for the further development of Agouti. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The International Symposium on Wild Boar and Other Suids (IWBS 2022), which took place in Montseny Biosphere Reserve (Catalonia, Spain) in September 2022, provided to ENETWILD with the opportunity to meet in‐person for the first time after 2.5 years, and meet the international scientific community with expertise on wild suids and other ungulates. Twelve members of ENETWILD consortium representing 6 partners were present. Bringing together international experts, stakeholders and ENETWILD collaborators was a perfect occasion to present the European Observatory of Wildlife (EOW). Two hundred and twenty‐five wildlife experts from 25 countries were present at symposium, and at presentation of the EOW. Overall, 3 'Plenary Talks' and 118 presentations (62 oral and 56 posters) were made. The meeting has gone through all the possible topics regarding wild suids, from genetics to monitoring and management. This was the optimal context to introduce the EOW to an ideal target audience, both in terms of interest and in terms of potential new member of the Network. From our presentation, it emerged the importance of comparable data on geographical distribution and abundance of wildlife hosts in Europe, fundamental to develop the best management policies and to perform effective risk assessments for shared emergent diseases. The adoption of a common and effective protocol adopted throughout the continent would ensure such comparability. Moreover, the discussion highlighted the need of extending the network to as many European countries as possible and, when feasible, of having multiple sites within each country. A number of participants manifested their interest to join the EOW during the 2023 campaign. Such a capillary distribution of observation points would provide solid and comparable density estimates as well as effective feedback about the field protocol implemented by the EOW. A number of questions were raised by the audience during the presentation of the EOW. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2nd ENETWILD Annual General Meeting took place on 5‐6th October 2021, bringing together experts, stakeholders and ENETWILD collaborators in online workshop discussions. First, workshop discussions contributed to the analysis and proposal of approaches for a harmonized European‐wide wildlife monitoring framework able of sustaining coordinated decision‐making. Secondly, participants identified the key challenges that managers face in making decisions for wildlife in Europe and data needs for policies. Finally, we illustrated these challenges with the case of wild boar as a model species widely distributed across Europe. Inputs from the participants were collated into a plan of proposed steps and objectives for the mid‐term (5‐year time frame) to achieve progress on harmonised, coordinated, and integrated wildlife monitoring at the European level, which requires the contribution of experts from the early stages.. Specific proposed actions include the creation of a trans‐disciplinary authority at the European level, effective points of reference for data collection and sharing at different administrative levels and countries, a standing committee to coordinate and exchange experience and capacities on data collection between countries, and expert groups for problem solving, with proper EU financial support, establishing regular policy meetings.. To provide useful results, wildlife monitoring must ensure proper design and data analysis for subsequent science‐based management and best allocation of management resources. The 'Observatory' approach (a representative network of intensively monitored sites) can provide long‐term systematic and representative insights, normally more feasible for comparative studies, providing less biases and support for decision‐making. For international decision‐making by wildlife managers and politicians based on scientific knowledge and interdisciplinary research, experts should define the foundations of a common European wildlife decision‐making framework (inter‐institutional and inter‐sectorial). The development of a European legislation on wildlife management may represent an opportunity for addressing the abovementioned steps, identifying data priorities matching the needs of the various European Directorates, Agencies, and monitoring frameworks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ENETWILD consortium (www.enetwild.com) aims at progressively defining the spatial interface between wild ungulates and livestock in Europe, which is essential to evaluate the risk for shared diseases. This is to provide preliminary risk maps of possible wild‐domestic interfaces at European scale using relatively similar sized regions by compiling, for the first time, comprehensive data for both groups, wild and domestic ungulates in the continent. We spatially represented (i) the richness of species (livestock and wild ungulates), (ii) their specific occupancy and abundance (the latter for livestock), and finally, (iii) their spatial overlapping over Europe. Species richness in animal communities, including wildlife and domestic hosts, may moderate pathogen transmission and disease outcome.. As a first step, we should characterize the diverse assemblages of animal communities at large scale to better understand possible scenarios for further assessment of shared infection dynamics. About 90% of Europe land area hosts from one to five species of wild native ungulates. Therefore, the interface between livestock and wildlife is wide spread over the European continent. Native wild boar, roe deer and reed deer are widely distributed species, present in most possible assemblages of wild/domestic communities over Europe. The richness of ungulate species is high in Central Europe, from West to East, from the Alps (where the presence of mountain ungulates adds richness), extending to countries with important big game tradition and presence of introduced species, and finally, to Eastern Europe (where also typically northern species such as bisons appear)... To sum, we described by pair of species a wide diversity of potential interfaces, which had variable distribution areas.. While the analysis presented herein is purely spatial and at administrative level, the interface between wild and domestic ungulates is influenced by livestock husbandry (e.g., enclosed, herded or free‐ranging, level of biosecurity), landscape and land uses, and wildlife management practices, among other factors, operating locally. Therefore, there is need for a more detailed picture of the interface at European scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study proposes an empirically based model with a strong theoretical foundation in higher education and social psychology to better understand how the college experience influences the development of attitudes of acceptance towards lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) persons. Our results demonstrated that students develop more accepting attitudes toward LGB persons when they enroll in diversity courses, interact across race, or interact with LGB peers. In addition, we found that students' thoughts about their identity in college as well as their comfort around LGB persons are important influences on LGB attitude development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

OBJECTIVE: To compare the effect of the dual endothelin A/B receptor antagonist enrasentan with enalapril on left ventricular (LV) remodelling. METHODS: Multicentre, randomised, double blind, parallel group study of 72 asymptomatic patients with LV dysfunction. Patients received enrasentan (60-90 mg/day) or enalapril (10-20 mg/day). The primary end point was the change in LV end diastolic volume index (EDVI) after six months' treatment. RESULTS: LV EDVI increased with enrasentan but decreased with enalapril (3.9 (1.8) v -3.4 (1.4) ml/m2, p = 0.001). Enrasentan increased resting cardiac index compared with enalapril (0.11 (0.07) v -0.10 (0.07) l/m2, p = 0.04), as well as LV mass index (0.67 (1.6) v -3.6 (1.6) g/m2, p = 0.04). Other variables were comparable between groups. Enalapril lowered brain natriuretic peptide more than enrasentan (-19.3 (9.4) v -5.8 (6.9) pg/ml, p = 0.005). Noradrenaline (norepinephrine) (p = 0.02) increased more with enrasentan than with enalapril. Enrasentan was associated with more serious adverse events compared with enalapril (six (16.7%) patients v one (2.8%), p = 0.02); the rate of progression of heart failure did not differ. CONCLUSION: In asymptomatic patients with LV dysfunction, LV EDVI increased over six months with enrasentan compared with enalapril treatment, with adverse neurohormonal effects. This suggests that enrasentan at a dose of 60-90 mg/day over six months causes adverse ventricular remodelling despite an increase in the resting cardiac index. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]