Future scenarios of marine resources and ecosystem conditions in the Eastern Mediterranean under the impacts of fishing, alien species and sea warming.

Using a temporal-dynamic calibrated Ecosim food web model, we assess the effects of future changes on marine resources and ecosystem conditions of the Israeli Mediterranean continental shelf. This region has been intensely invaded by Indo-Pacific species. The region is exposed to extreme environmental conditions, is subjected to high rates of climate change and has experienced intense fishing pressure. We test the impacts of a new set of fishing regulations currently being implemented, a continued increase in sea temperatures following IPCC projections, and a continued increase in alien species biomass. We first investigate the impacts of the stressors separately, and then we combine them to evaluate their cumulative effects. Our results show overall potential future benefits of fishing effort reductions, and detrimental impacts of increasing sea temperature and increasing biomass of alien species. Cumulative scenarios suggest that the beneficial effects of fisheries reduction may be dampened by the impact of increasing sea temperature and alien species when acting together. These results illustrate the importance of including stressors other than fisheries, such as climate change and biological invasions, in an ecosystem-based management approach. These results support the need for reducing local and regional stressors, such as fishing and biological invasions, in order to promote resilience to sea warming.

A MSFD complementary approach for the assessment of pressures, knowledge and data gaps in Southern European Seas: The PERSEUS experience.

PERSEUS project aims to identify the most relevant pressures exerted on the ecosystems of the Southern European Seas (SES), highlighting knowledge and data gaps that endanger the achievement of SES Good Environmental Status (GES) as mandated by the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD). A complementary approach has been adopted, by a meta-analysis of existing literature on pressure/impact/knowledge gaps summarized in tables related to the MSFD descriptors, discriminating open waters from coastal areas. A comparative assessment of the Initial Assessments (IAs) for five SES countries has been also independently performed. The comparison between meta-analysis results and IAs shows similarities for coastal areas only. Major knowledge gaps have been detected for the biodiversity, marine food web, marine litter and underwater noise descriptors. The meta-analysis also allowed the identification of additional research themes targeting research topics that are requested to the achievement of GES.

Psychosocial diagnosis in psychiatrically hospitalized adolescents.

This study examines the relevance of a psychosocial diagnostic system developed by the World Health Organization (WHO; International Classification of Diseases [ICD] 10 axis V) for psychiatrically hospitalized inpatient adolescents and assesses the reliability of semistructured interviews for making these psychosocial diagnoses. Seventy-one consecutive patients admitted to an adolescent unit and their parents were interviewed. The semistructured interviews were derived from the criteria for each psychosocial (axis V) diagnosis. Inter-rater and test-retest reliability were measured for both child and parent interviews on a subsample of 57 and 25 subjects, respectively. Results showed high inter-rater reliability (kappa = 0.8 to 1.0). Some test-retest reliabilities were high and others were low (kappa = 0.4 to 1.0). Parent-child agreement was erratic (kappa = 0.2 to 0.7). All of the psychosocial diagnostic entities were common and relevant to our patient population. We conclude that it is possible to make reliable and relevant psychosocial diagnoses in severely ill adolescents.

An evaluation of the effectiveness of a videotape programme on interobserver reliability in outcome assessment for osteoarthritis.

AIMS: A study was designed to assess the effects of a standardized instructional videotape on training senior medical students to acceptable levels of reliability in performing several commonly used observer dependent outcome measures in patients with osteoarthritis (OA). METHODS: During a single day, six third-year medical students independently examined six patients with OA in predetermined order using a Latin Square design, before and after viewing a standardized videotape demonstrating 13 examination techniques. Reliability coefficients were calculated based on variance components of the analysis of variance (ANOVA) table. RESULTS: Preslandardization reliability coefficients were <0.80 for seven measures. Coefficients for the performance of knee goniometry were uniformly low. Following the intervention, all but four reliability coefficients were >/= 0.93. CONCLUSIONS: For many measures, high levels of interobserver agreement were noted prior to viewing the instructional videotape. This may represent the success of undergraduate clinical skills training programmes, or it may be the result of having reviewed an illustrated instructional text just prior to the initial patient examinations. The notable exception was knee goniometry. Despite apparent familiarity with the technique, prestandardization reliability coefficients were very low. However, following the intervention, all coefficients improved dramatically, two-thirds achieving very high levels. These data suggest that skills development in senior medical students is not uniform and that, while reliability is high for many, the assessment of knee range of movement can be improved by viewing an instructional videotape.