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Installation of offshore wind farms (OWFs) is becoming increasingly important to ensure a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions; however, OWFs also pose a threat to migrating birds and other wildlife. Informed marine spatial planning is therefore crucial, but individual‐based high‐resolution data on bird migration across the sea are currently lacking. We equipped 51 individuals of the near threatened Eurasian curlew Numenius arquata with GPS tags (118 flight tracks) across multiple years and countries to assess their four‐dimensional migration routes across the Baltic Sea (i.e. flight tracks, altitudes, phenology and diurnal patterns), to inform collision‐risk models and assess potential conflicts with current and future OWFs. Despite a broad‐front migration, we identified core migration areas in the south‐western Baltic Sea (and adjacent mainland), largely overlapping with already operating OWFs. Generalized linear models based on a resampling procedure to overcome autocorrelation of tracking data showed that flight altitudes across the sea and during autumn (median: 60 m) were significantly lower than those across land (median: 335 m) and during spring (median across sea: 150; median across land: 576 m). Across the sea, curlews spent 74.8% and 62.2% of their migration times below 300 m during autumn and spring, respectively, indicating a potentially high collision risk with OWFs. The mean flight speed was 56.3 km/h (±20.3 km/h). Migration intensity was highest at night over a 10‐day period during April, suggesting that restricted turbine operation for several days might be a possible management measure. Our study showed that, even for broad‐front migrants, it is possible to identify particularly sensitive sea areas deserving special protection enabling a sound marine spatial planning. This is a crucial finding also for various other shorebirds on the East Atlantic Flyway. Further studies are needed to assess the behavioural reactions of migrating birds with respect to OWFs using high‐resolution tracking data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jennifer Welle1, John Fort2, Joseph Crawley3, Byron Cryer4, Rene Dickerhoof1, Michelle P Turner1, Kimberly L Miller11ICON Clinical Research, The Embarcadero, San Francisco, CA, USA; 2POZEN Inc, Raleigh Road, Chapel Hill, NC, USA; 3AstraZeneca LP, Concord Pike, Wilmington, DE, USA; 4UT Southwestern Medical Center, Harry Hines Boulevard, Dallas, TX, USABackground: This study evaluated the electronically administered modified Severity of Dyspepsia Assessment (mSODA) pain scale, a six-item measure of upper abdominal pain intensity, for daily use in osteoarthritis patients taking nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.Methods: Once the mSODA pain scale was isolated, cognitive debriefing interviews (n = 30) were used to examine its appropriateness in the target population. Following administration of the instrument in two Phase III pivotal trials, the data were analyzed to examine reliability, validity, responsiveness, and the minimal important difference.Results: Using a subset of trial data (n = 90 patients), the mSODA pain scale proved to be a unidimensional, highly internally consistent instrument (α = 0.93) with good test-retest reliability (intraclass correlation coefficient 0.77). Construct validity was established via moderate correlations with other similar patient-reported outcomes. Additionally, known-groups validity demonstrated that the mSODA pain scale could distinguish between subjects who did and did not report gastrointestinal symptoms and antacid use (both P values ≤ 0.05). The mSODA pain scale was also responsive to change in heartburn at weeks 6 and 12 (Guyatt's statistic = 1.7 and 2.6, respectively), and the minimal important difference obtained via ½ SD was 5.7 (range 2–47).Conclusion: This research suggests that the mSODA pain scale is both feasible and valid for assessing dyspepsia in patients taking nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs for relief of symptoms of osteoarthritis.Keywords: mSODA pain scale, questionnaire, antacid, patients, heartburn

Describes a toy shaped like a bird that has an intuitively astonishing property: no matter how far away from equilibrium it is moved, it oscillates back to equilibrium. The behavior of this physical system is explained and is used to illustrate the concept of mechanical stability and the usefulness of making simple, idealized models for describing complex systems. (Author/PVD)