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Following the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil spill, the Natural Resource Damage Assessment conducted comprehensive health assessments on common bottlenose dolphins Tursiops truncatus in Barataria Bay (BB), Louisiana, in 2011, 2013 and 2014, as well as in Mississippi Sound (MS) in 2013, to assess potential health effects from exposure to oil compared to Sarasota Bay (SB), Florida dolphins not exposed to DWH oil. Immune functions demonstrated a consistent increase in T (BB 2011) and B (BB 2011 and 2013) lymphocyte proliferation compared to SB. Cytokine concentrations varied considerably in wild dolphin populations, and no significant differences were found; however, interesting trends were observed. The Th1 cytokines IL-2, IL-12, and IFNγ, and the Th2 cytokines IL-5, IL-10, and IL-13, were 2- to 50-fold lower, and IL-4 was 3-fold higher, in BB 2011 compared to SB. Overall, the changes observed were compatible with those documented in other species following exposure to oil or PAHs and were most pronounced in BB 2011, at the place and time most affected by oil. The changes in T cell functions, and the trend towards a cytokine balance tilted towards a Th2, rather than a Th1 response, are compatible with intra-cellular bacterial infections such as Brucella, which has been identified as one of the potential contributory factors to perinatal dolphin mortalities, and changes in B cell functions are compatible with an increase in extra-cellular bacterial infections and primary bacterial pneumonia.

Lacaziosis (also known as lobomycosis) is a chronic dermal disease caused by the fungal agent Lacazia loboi, which affects both humans and dolphins. Photographic data have been used to identify lacaziosis-like disease (LLD) among dolphins in the waters of North and South America, and here we report LLD in bottlenose dolphins Tursiops truncatus off the coast of Costa Rica, the first reporting in Central American waters. During the periods of 1991 to 1992 and 2010 to 2011, 3 research teams conducted separate dolphin surveys in the Pacific tropical fiord Golfo Dulce, and each documented skin lesions in the resident population of bottlenose dolphins. Photo-ID records were used to identify LLD-affected bottlenose dolphins and to assess their lesions. Findings showed between 13.2 and 16.1% of the identified dolphins exhibited lesions grossly resembling lacaziosis. By combining efforts and cross-referencing photographic data, the teams explored the presence of LLD in Golfo Dulce over a time gap of approximately 20 yr. Our findings expand the geographical range of the disease and offer insight into its longevity within a given population of dolphins.

The oil spill resulting from the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform initiated immediate concern for marine wildlife, including common bottlenose dolphins in sensitive coastal habitats. To evaluate potential sublethal effects on dolphins, health assessments were conducted in Barataria Bay, Louisiana, an area that received heavy and prolonged oiling, and in a reference site, Sarasota Bay, Florida, where oil was not observed. Dolphins were temporarily captured, received a veterinary examination, and were then released. Dolphins sampled in Barataria Bay showed evidence of hypoadrenocorticism, consistent with adrenal toxicity as previously reported for laboratory mammals exposed to oil. Barataria Bay dolphins were 5 times more likely to have moderate–severe lung disease, generally characterized by significant alveolar interstitial syndrome, lung masses, and pulmonary consolidation. Of 29 dolphins evaluated from Barataria Bay, 48% were given a guarded or worse prognosis, and 17% were considere...

Marine mammal body condition, as evaluated by a combination of mass, length, and/or girth measurements, is considered an indicator of nutritional status. We used measure- ments of total mass, total length, and maximum girth from long-term bottlenose dolphin Tursiops truncatus capture−release research conducted in Sarasota Bay, Florida, USA, (1987 to 2009) to develop 95th percentile reference ranges for 2 body condition models: (1) total mass versus total length and (2) maximum girth versus total length. Nonlinear and linear quantile regression meth- ods were used to estimate the parameters for the reference ranges and develop predictive models to examine body condition among individual dolphins. The flexibility of these models and reliance upon commonly acquired morphometrics allows for broad application among researchers lacking data on mass or age. Ultimately, these reference ranges can be used to evaluate and compare the body condition of individual animals and provide an additional metric for evaluating the general health of coastal populations.

Lacaziosis (lobomycosis; Lacazia loboi) is a fungal skin disease that naturally occurs only in humans and dolphins. The first reported case of lacaziosis in a bottlenose dolphin Tursiops truncatus occurred in 1970 in Sarasota Bay, Florida, USA, and subsequent photo-ID monitoring of the Sarasota Bay dolphin population has revealed persistence of the disease. The objectives of this study were to estimate lacaziosis prevalence (P) in 2 bottlenose dolphin populations on the west coast of Florida (Sarasota Bay and Charlotte Harbor) and compare disease occurrence to other published estimates of lacaziosis in dolphin populations across the globe. Historic photographic records of dolphins captured and released for health assessment purposes (Sarasota Bay) and photo-ID studies (Charlotte Harbor) were screened for evidence of lesions consistent with lacaziosis. Health assessment data revealed a prevalence of lacaziosis in the Sarasota Bay bottlenose dolphin population between 2 and 3%, and analyses of photo-ID data provided a lacaziosis-like prevalence estimate of 2% for Charlotte Harbor dolphins. With the exception of lacaziosis prevalence estimates for dolphins inhabiting the Indian River Lagoon (P = 0.068; P = 0.12), no statistically significant differences were seen among Sarasota Bay, Charlotte Harbor, and other published estimates. Although lacaziosis is a rare disease among these dolphin populations, studies that assess disease burden among different populations can assist with the surveillance of this zoonotic pathogen.

Lacaziosis (lobomycosis) is a skin disease caused by Lacazia loboi, occurring naturally only in humans and dolphins. Attempts to culture the pathogen in vitro have been unsuccesstul, and inoculation studies of lacaziosis development in mice have provided only limited, short-term data on the progression and propagation of L. loboi. The present study used photographic data from long-term photo-identification and health assessment projects to model and quantify the progression of lacaziosis lesions in 3 common bottlenose dolphins Tursiops truncatus from Sarasota Bay, Florida, USA. Dorsal fin images throughout each animal's sighting history were examined for lesion growth, and the proportion of lesion coverage in each photograph was estimated using image analysis tools in Adobe Photoshop ® . The progression of lacaziosis lesions and lesion growth rates were modeled using a non-linear monomolecular growth model. As data on lacaziosis development and advancement are limited in humans and laboratory animals, dolphins with a long-term case history of the disease may serve as a good animal model to better understand lacaziosis progression. Furthermore, this study demonstrates the utility of long-term population monitoring data for tracking the progression of a poorly understood disease that is relevant to both dolphin and human health.

Inshore common bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) are exposed to a broad spectrum of natural and anthropogenic stressors. In response to these stressors, the mammalian adrenal gland releases hormones such as cortisol and aldosterone to maintain physiological and biochemical homeostasis. Consequently, adrenal gland dysfunction results in disruption of hormone secretion and an inappropriate stress response. Our objective herein was to develop diagnostic reference intervals (RIs) for adrenal hormones commonly associated with the stress response (i.e., cortisol, aldosterone) that account for the influence of intrinsic (e.g., age, sex) and extrinsic (e.g., time) factors. Ultimately, these reference intervals will be used to gauge an individual’s response to chase-capture stress and could indicate adrenal abnormalities. Linear mixed models (LMMs) were used to evaluate demographic and sampling factors contributing to differences in serum cortisol and aldosterone concentrations among bottlenose dolphins sampled in Sarasota Bay, Florida, USA (2000–2012). Serum cortisol concentrations were significantly associated with elapsed time from initial stimulation to sample collection (p

This paper describes a high-level library (The Nearest Neighbor Tool, NNT) that has been used to parallelize operational weather prediction models. NNT is part of the Scalable Modeling System (SMS), developed at the Forecast Systems Laboratory (FSL). Programs written in NNT rely on SMS's run-time system and port between a wide range of computing platforms, performing well in multiprocessor systems. We show, using examples from operational weather models, how large Fortran 77 codes can be parallelized using NNT. We compare the ease of programmability of NNT and High Performance Fortran (HPF). We also discuss optimizations like data movement overlap (in interprocessor communication and I/O operations), and the minimization of data exchanges through the use of redundant computations. We show that although HPF provides a simpler programming interface, NNT allows for program optimizations that increase performance considerably and still keeps a simple user interface. These optimizations have proven essential to run weather prediction models in real time, and HPF compilers should incorporate them in order to meet operational demands. Throughout the paper, we present performance results of weather models running on a network of workstations, the Intel Paragon, and the SGI Challenge. Finally, we study the cost of programming global address space architectures with NNT's local address space paradigm.

We have parallelized a grid-based weather forecast model called SEQN using two programming models: shared memory and message passing. By shared memory we mean programming in standard Fortran 77 with directives for parallelism, such as is found on the Kendall Square Research KSR1 parallel supercomputer. For message passing we used the distributed memory Intel Paragon. We have benchmarked both versions of the code on the respective machines, and have run the message passing version on the KSR1 in order to directly compare performance and evaluate the cost of portability. In addition we present first results from the KSR2. >

In this paper we study the of issues of programmability and performance in the parallelization of weather prediction models. We compare parallelization using a high level library (the Nearest Neighbor Tool: NNT) and a high level language/directive approach (High Performance Fortran: HPF). We report on the performance of a complete weather prediction model (the Rapid Update Cycle, which is currently run operationally at the National Meteorological Center at Washington) coded using NNT. We quantify the performance effects of optimizations possible with NNT that must be performed by an HPF compiler.

We have developed a high level library, the Nearest Neighbor Tool (NNT), to facilitate the coding of finite difference approximation weather prediction models on parallel computers. NNT provides portability and ease of programming and at the same time optimizes performance by allowing the overlap of computation and communication to tolerate the latency of remote data moves. In this paper we describe NNT and the implementation of the Well Posed Topographic model (WPT), a finite difference approximation weather prediction model. We present a qualitative study of the performance of the code on various multiprocessors and evaluate the effectiveness of NNT.

Skin disease occurs frequently in many cetacean species across the globe; methods to categorize lesions have relied on photo-identification (photo-id), stranding, and by-catch data. The current study used photo-id data from four sampling months during 2009 to estimate skin lesion prevalence and type occurring on bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) from three sites along the southeast United States coast [Sarasota Bay, FL (SSB); near Brunswick and Sapelo Island, GA (BSG); and near Charleston, SC (CHS)]. The prevalence of lesions was highest among BSG dolphins (P = 0.587) and lowest in SSB (P = 0.380), and the overall prevalence was significantly different among all sites (p

Proceeding first by experiment and then by analysis, the problem of implementing FFT algorithms on a shared memory multiprocessor is investigated. Several algorithms for performing a single FFT and multiple FFTs are implemented and compared on the Denelcor HEP computer. These algorithms are then analyzed using performance models which reproduce the experimental timing curves. For both the single and multiple FFT a clear choice of superior algorithms can be made. These algorithms are expected to be useful and to preserve their performance characteristics on other shared memory multiprocessors.

FAC is a fast systematic process for the numerical solution of partial differential equations on adapted grids. This paper reports on numerical studies with FAC in advancing computing environments including simulations with multiprocessor array architectures and actual tests on the HEP. We also analyze the parallel complexity of FAC for general local grid applications.

Several mesh refinement methods exists for solving partial differential equations that make efficient use of local grids on scalar computers. On distributed memory multiprocessors, such methods benefit from their tendency to create multiple refinement regions, yet they suffer from the sequential way that the levels of refinement are treated. The asynchronous fast adaptive composite grid method (AFAC) is developed here as a method that can process refinement levels in parallel while maintaining full multilevel convergence speeds. In the present paper, we develop a simple two-level AFAC theory and provide estimates of its asymptotic convergence factors as it applies to very large scale examples. In a companion paper, we report on extensive timing results for AFAC, implemented on an Intel iPSC hypercube.