Netivei Israel (Israel)

A minute coprophagous water-scavenger beetle Megasternum concinnum was found in the Hula Valley (the northmost part of the Great Rift Valley), Israel, in the dung of the semi-domesticated water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis). The water buffalo is not an original component of the Israeli fauna, but the exact time of its introduction dims out in antiquity. This is the first record of M. concinnum in Southern Levant, and the first report of the beetle fauna of water buffalo dung in Israel.

Abstract A recent survey of benthic biota at 80 m depth off Israel collected a specimen of Pisa armata (Latreille, 1803) bearing a single externa of Sacculina carcini Thompson, 1836, and a specimen of Pagurus cuanensis Bell, 1845 bearing four externae of Peltogasterella sulcata (Lilljeborg, 1859). The identification of the rhizocephalans was confirmed based on phylogenetic analyses using the mitochondrial genes cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) and the large ribosomal RNA subunit (16S). These are the first records of S. carcini and P. sulcata in the Levantine Sea and the first published sequences of S. carcini and P. sulcata from the Mediterranean Sea.

BackgroundThe impact of long-term Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) on the pediatric population is still not well understood. This study was designed to estimate the magnitude of COVID-19 long-term morbidity 3–6 months after the date of diagnosis.MethodsA retrospective study of all Clalit Health Services members in Israel aged 1–16 years who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 between April 1, 2020 and March 31, 2021. Controls, who had no previous diagnosis of COVID-19, were one-to-one matched to 65,548 COVID-19-positive children and teens, and were assigned the infection dates of their matches as their index date. Matching included age, sex, socio-economic score, and societal sector. Individuals were excluded from the study if they had severe medical conditions before the diagnosis such as cancer, diabetes, chronic respiratory diseases, and/or abnormal physiological development. Generalized Estimating Equations were used to estimate the associations between COVID-19 and the use of medical services. The analysis focused on the 3–6 months after the infection date. Adjustments were made for demographics and for the use of medical services 6–12 and 3–6 months before the infection date. The latter was necessary because of observed disparities in medical service utilization between the groups before the COVID-19 diagnosis, despite the matching process.ResultsStatistically significant differences were only found for referrals for mental health services [adjusted relative-risk (RR) 1·51, 95%CI 1·15 − 1·96; adjusted risk-difference (RD) 0·001, 95%CI 0·0006 − 0·002], and medication prescriptions of any kind (RR 1·03, 95%CI 1·01–1·06; RD 0·01 95%CI 0·004 − 0·02).ConclusionsThe significant increase in medication prescriptions and mental health service referrals support the hypothesis that COVID-19 is associated with long-lasting morbidities in children and adolescents aged 1–16 years. However, the risk difference in both instances was small, suggesting a minor impact on medical services.

BackgroundInjury response is key to successful regeneration. Yet, transcriptome analyses of injury response were performed only on a handful of regenerative organisms. Here, we studied the injury response of the solitary ascidian Polycarpa mytiligera, an emerging model system, capable of regenerating any body part. We used the siphon as a model for studying transcriptional changes following injury, and identified genes that were activated in the initial 24 hours post amputation (hpa).ResultsHighly conserved genes, such as bone morphogenetic protein‐1 (BMP1), growth hormone secretagogue receptor (GHSR) and IL‐17, were upregulated by 12 hpa, yet their expression was sustained only in non‐regenerating tissue fragments. We optimized fluorescent in situ hybridization, and found that the majority of BMP1+ cells were localized to the rigid tunic that covers the animal. This highlights the importance of this tissue, particularly during injury response. BMP1 was overexpressed following injuries to other body regions, suggesting that it was a part of a common injury‐induced program.ConclusionOur study suggests that, initially, specific injury‐induced genes were upregulated in P. mytiligera organs, yet, later, a unique transcriptional profile was observed only in regenerating tissues. These findings highlight the importance of studying diverse regenerating and non‐regenerating organisms for complete understanding of regeneration.

Obstacles encountered during the organ donation process may result in the loss of organs. A centralized medical advisory service (MAS), providing a 24/7/365 service, was established in 2007 to respond to queries from healthcare professionals regarding organ safety, brain death (BD) determination, and donor management. Data collected from 2007 to 2017 included the number and context of the queries and the mean number of organs transplanted/donor. Since 2012, the number of six donor management goals (DMGs) met at the time of consent has been monitored. The number of queries relative to the number of potential donors increased from 12.4% (n=78 queries) in 2007 to 48.2% (304 queries) in 2009 and has remained widely utilized, with most queries consistently related to organ safety. The context of the queries informed the formulation of protocols relating to donor infections and malignancy and identified difficulties regarding BD determination and subsequent implementation of solutions. A mean of 5.0±0.7 DMGs was achieved, while the number of organs transplanted/donor increased from 3.4 in 2007 to 4.0 in 2017. We suggest that this model may provide a valuable resource to improve the safety, standardization, and quality of the donation process.

In this study, we reexamine the mental pain-suicidality link in adolescence, by focusing on mental pain tolerance as a critical factor in explaining youth suicidal behavior. In a series of three studies, participants completed measures of mental pain (tolerance and intensity), emotional regulation, depression, and suicidality. Study 1 included a nonclinical sample of 183 Israeli adolescents. Study 2 included a nonclinical sample of 139 Israeli adolescents, who completed additional measures of self-esteem, optimism, mindfulness, meaning in life, positive affectivity, and life satisfaction. Study 3 included suicidal psychiatric inpatients (N=24), nonsuicidal psychiatric inpatients (N=24), and nonclinical adolescents (N=24). In Study 1, mental pain tolerance was significantly associated with depression, suicidality, and emotion-regulation skills. In Study 2, mental pain tolerance was significantly associated with measures of psychological resources. In Study 3, we found that suicidal psychiatric inpatients reported significantly lower levels of mental pain tolerance than nonsuicidal psychiatric inpatients and nonclinical adolescents. No significant group difference was found in the reported intensity of mental pain. Findings imply that mental pain tolerance may be a better indicator for suicidal behavior during adolescence than reported pain intensity.

Abstract Suspended food particles in oligotrophic waters are scarce and the planktonic community is dominated by minute picoplanktonic (< 2 μm) cells. Consequently, suspension feeders inhabiting such environments are faced with the dual challenge of capturing extremely small particles and efficiently processing large volumes of water. We used direct in situ techniques to characterize the size‐dependent capture efficiency curve of four solitary ascidian species (Chordata, Tunicata) from the ultra‐oligotrophic East‐Mediterranean, and two species from the oligotrophic Gulf of Aqaba (Northern Red‐Sea). To control for confounding factors such as particle surface chemistry, we used a suspension of artificial polystyrene microspheres with a wide range of sizes (from 0.3 μm to 10 μm) but identical surface chemistry. This suspension was introduced into the inhalant siphon while the water inhaled and exhaled by the otherwise undisturbed ascidian was cleanly sampled. All the investigated ascidian species captured ≥ 1 μm microspheres at 95% ± 8% efficiency (mean ± 95% Confidence Interval) with no significant difference between species. Moreover, and in contrast to reports from eutrophic waters, both in situ and laboratory experiments revealed an efficient capture of submicron 0.3 μm microspheres at close to 50% efficiency. For most of the species tested, the capture efficiency of microspheres dropped below optimum between 1 μm and 0.5 μm providing an estimation of their mucus mesh pore size. We suggest that ascidians from oligotrophic waters are adapted for capturing submicron particles picoplankton and other. Such adaptation enables “oligotrophic” ascidians to access a much larger food source and facilitates the transfer of planktonic C, N, and P from the water column to the benthos.

Ongoing climate change affects various aspects of an animal's life, with important effects on distribution range and phenology. The relationship between global warming and body size changes in mammals and birds has been widely studied, with most findings indicating a decline in body size over time. Nevertheless, little data exist on similar size change patterns of invertebrates in general and insects in particular, and it is unclear whether insects should decrease in size or not with climate warming. We measured over 4000 beetle specimens, belonging to 29 beetle species in 8 families, collected in Israel during the last 100 years. The sampled species are all herbivorous. We examined whether beetle body size had changed over the years, while also investigating the relationships between body size and annual temperature, precipitation, net primary productivity (NPP) at the collection site and collection month. None of the environmental variables, including the collection year, was correlated with the size of most of the studied beetle species, while there were strong interactions of all variables with species. Our results, though mostly negative, suggest that the effect of climate change on insect body size is species-specific and by no means a general macro-ecological rule. They also suggest that the intrapopulation variance in body size of insects collected as adults in the field is large enough to conceal intersite environmental effects on body size, such as the effect of temperature and NPP.

Key-based operations provide an efficient mechanism for accessing data, and key-value stores often provide better performance than other data-access approaches. However, relying solely on keys to access complex data can be very limiting. Document databases provide a more flexible approach for querying data based on the content of the documents they store. Every document database provides different querying techniques. In Couchbase, there are two different ways to query document content: views and the N1QL query language, which is covered in Chapter 6 .