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The natural forest ecosystems of South Florida, USA, support a high biodiversity of plant and animal species and provide valuable ecosystem services. However, these ecosystems remain poorly represented in global studies, primarily due to a paucity of standardized data. Here, we present previously unpublished data from 332 censuses of 54 permanent 1‐ha tree inventory plots in the Racoon Point area of Big Cypress National Preserve, Florida, USA, including a total of nearly 100,000 measurements (diameter or height) of > 17,000 individual living trees and palms (with additional measurements of nearly 6000 dead pine snags) collected sporadically over a 19‐year period (1993–2012). These data, which were originally collected as part of a project to investigate tree responses to different experimental burning regimes, provide unique insight into the diversity, composition, structure, and dynamics of South Florida's unique and endangered pine forest ecosystems. Data files include the species identity, size (dbh = diameter at breast height), and location of all trees ≥ 5 cm dbh in 54 individual tree plots. Additional data are provided about heights of palm trees, and the location and burn history of each plot. These data are freely available for noncommercial scientific use under a Creative Commons license; users are encouraged to cite this paper when using the data. We present data from 332 censuses of 54 permanent 1‐ha tree inventory plots (Panel A) in the Racoon Point area of Big Cypress National Preserve, Florida, USA, including a total of nearly 100,000 diameter and height measurements of > 17,000 individual living trees (Panel B), with additional measurements of nearly 6000 dead pine snags,collected over a 19‐year period (1993–2012).

There is equivocal evidence regarding the benefits of aquatic aerobic exercise for non-specific chronic low back pain (NSCLBP) in addition to standard care in general practice consisting of education and advice. The purpose of this study was to compare the addition of deep water running (DWR) to standard general practice (GP) on NSCLBP versus GP care alone on pain, physical and mental health and disability. In this single-blind randomised controlled trial, 58 subjects with NSCLBP were recruited from primary care. The control group received GP care consisting of a physician’s consultation and educational booklet only. The experimental group received additional 30-min sessions of DWR three times a week for 15 weeks at the individualized aerobic threshold. Measurements were made pre- and post-intervention and at 1-year follow-up. Both groups showed improvement. The difference between treatment effects at longest follow-up of 1 year was −26.0 (−40.9 to −11.1) mm on the VAS ( p  < 0.05), −2.5 (−5.7 to −0.2) points in RMQ for disability ( p  < 0.05), 3.3 (10.0 to 24.7) points on physical health in the physical summary component of the Spanish Short Form 12 (SF-12; p  < 0.05) and 5.8 (8.6 to 34.7) points on the mental summary component of the SF-12 ( p  < 0.05), in favour of the DWR group. For patients with NSCLBP, the addition of DWR to GP was more effective in reducing pain and disability than standard GP alone, suggesting the effectiveness and acceptability of this approach with this group of patients.

This paper presents an optimization of the pharmaceutical Polar Organic Chemical Integrative Sampler (POCIS- 200) under controlled laboratory conditions for the sampling of acidic (2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D), acetochlor ethanesulfonic acid (ESA), acetochlor oxanilic acid, bentazon, dicamba, mesotrione, and metsulfuron) and polar (atrazine, diuron, and desisopropylatrazine) herbicides in water. Indeed, the conventional configuration of the POCIS-200 (46 cm2 exposure window, 200 mg of Oasis® hydrophilic lipophilic balance (HLB) receiving phase) is not appropriate for the sampling of very polar and acidic compounds because they rapidly reach a thermodynamic equilibrium with the Oasis HLB receiving phase.

Agarose gel-based passive samplers are nowadays one of the most effective sampling devices able to provide a quantitative evaluation of water contamination level for a broad range of organic contaminants. These devices show significant improvements in comparison to the previous passive samplers dedicated to hydrophilic compounds because they tend to reduce the effect of hydrodynamic flow conditions on the uptake rate of compounds and thus subsequently to improve their accuracy. However, albeit their effects minimized, hydrodynamic water flow and temperature are reported as variables likely to change the uptake rate of compounds that may lead to some inaccuracy if they are not adequately taken into account. This work aims to investigate the magnitude of effects of such uncorrected variables on the bias of the deduced water contamination level. The analysis of the error structure shows that the uncertainty on the diffusivity of contaminants in agarose gel and its dependency on temperature are the most inferring factors. At 8 °C, these factors are, respectively, responsible of 34 and 33% of the squared uncertainty on the final deduced contamination level. The overall uncertainty for a single exposed passive sampler is in the order of 39% and drops to 23% if threesamplers are co-exposed (at 8 °C). Despite this uncertainty, we present results for a set of pesticides and personal care products throughout a field monitoring conducted over a 4-month period, which show the potential of passive samplers to allow assessing the temporal trend of water contamination.

Background and importanceIncreasing bacterial resistance to antibiotics requires new treatment strategies.Aim and objectivesTo assess the number and type of pharmacy interventions in therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) guided piperacillin or meropenem treatments. Treatments were administered by continuous perfusion (CI) in non-critically ill patients.Material and methodsWe conducted a prospective study (October 2019-February 2020) to measure plasma concentrations (PC) of piperacillin or meropenem administered by CI. The physician prescribed the antibiotic as a continuous infusion and requested monitoring of drug therapy. The pharmacist established the time to determine PC and interpreted the analytical result, modifying the treatment if necessary. TDM sought to achieve free drug PC with 100% fT, four times the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of the microorganism. If there were no isolates, the MIC of the most resistant microorganism was considered. We used high performance liquid chromatography to determine the PC.Samples to be analysed were obtained once steady state was reached. The MIC of the microorganisms was determined by microdilution in broth or by E-test. The glomerular filtration rate (GFR) of patients was calculated using CKD-EPI. The pharmacist directly modified the regimen for piperacillin and meropenem PC below 4×MIC or above 6×MIC. Microsoft Excel was used for the statistics calculation.Results37 patients treated with piperacillin (62.2% men; aged 67.3±15.4 years) and 11 treated with meropenem (45.5% men; aged 73.8±24.8 years) were included. For 28/37 (75.7%) patients treated with piperacillin and 8/11 (72.7%) treated with meropenem, symptoms related to chronic pulmonary disease were present. We analysed a total of 48 PC for piperacillin and 15 for meropenem. Mean GFR of those treated with piperacillin was 77.46±29 mL/min/1.73 m2 and for meropenem 89.27±17.43 mL/min/1.73 m2. Pharmacists intervened in 14/37 (37.8%) patients treated with piperacillin, 9/14 (64.3%) to increase the dosage. For meropenem, the pharmaceutical interventions were 4/11 (36.4%), two to reduce the dose. In 90% of the patients in whom the dosage was increased had a GFR >60 mL/min/1.73 m2, and 43% of the patients in whom it was decreased had a GFR <60 mL/min/1.73 m2.Conclusion and relevanceTDM of beta-lactams shows whether the concentration reached is adequate for the causative microorganism and the patient‘s condition. Pharmaceutical interventions optimised the dosage in cases where standard regimens were not appropriate.References and/or acknowledgementsConflict of interestNo conflict of interest

Alcohol-extractable, hydrophobic zein proteins contaminate starch granule surfaces and can be removed by enzymatic digestion with thermolysin. The goal of this research was to find practical alternatives to thermolysin that might be used during the corn wet-milling process. All of the commercial thermostable alkaline proteases studied (SP 709, Neutrase, and Spezyme FAN) removed the zein proteins from various types of cornstarch, as demonstrated by the lack of protein bands below 30 kDa under the reducing conditions of SDS-PAGE gel. Each enzyme removed the zein proteins as effectively as thermolysin removed them. However, the removal of the zein protein did not reduce the quantity of free fatty acids associated with the starch.

Objective: To analyse scientific literature on drug dependence (DD). Method: Spanish articles about DD published in 1976- 2000 as indexed by PsycINFO were analysed, and compared with the rest of European Union (EU) countries in 2000. Results and Discussion: PsycINFO is useful to compare countries because it includes the name of institution and country. The number of publications on DD from EU and Spain increased between 1976 and 2000. The Spanish scientific production on DD has increased more than that of the EU. 501 references of Spain and 4,324 of the other 14 EU countries were collected. From 1990, the Spanish production stands for about 10% of that of the EU. EU articles were published in 13 languages and those from Spain in three: Spanish, English and French. Apart from English, Spanish was the only language with an increase in use. EU works were published in 521 journals and those from Spain in 100; in both cases, they tended to concentrate in journals specialised in DD and psychiatry. Foreign journals that published more articles by Spanish authors have a high impact factor. In 1996-2000, the collaboration index of authors was 3.24 in the EU and 3.49 in Spain. The Autonomous Communities with more production were Catalonia, Madrid, Galicia, and Andalucia. The University was the most represented institution, followed by hospitals and alcohol and drug addiction treatment centres.