A measles outbreak occurred in a school in a small town in the South East of Ireland in September–November 2013. Most (and all early) cases had one dose of the measles-mumps- rubella (MMR) vaccination. All suspected cases were followed up, in order to advise on sampling and provide public health advice to them and their contacts. MMR vaccination control measures were instituted in the town. These included early second MMR in primary schools and childcare facilities, bringing forward the planned school MMR catch-up programme, early first MMR dose for children aged 6–12 months and targeted advice to unvaccinated children. There were 20 cases (17 confirmed) of measles associated with the outbreak. Fifteen cases occurred in the index school, with four in pre-school-age children (<4 years) who had clear epidemiological links with children at the school. This was a well-circumscribed outbreak occurring, unusually, in a well-vaccinated population. The outbreak came late to the attention of Department of Public Health staff but prompt action, once notified, and institution of control measures resulted in quick termination of the outbreak and prevention of cases in a neighbouring city.

The large fish indicator (LFI), or ‘proportion of fish greater than 40 cm length in bottom trawl surveys,’ is a frequently debated indicator of Good Environmental Status in European regional seas. How does the LFI respond to changes in fishing pressure? This question is addressed here through analysis of fine-scale spatial trends in the LFI within the North Sea, compared between two periods of contrasting fisheries management: 1983–1999 and 2000–2012, respectively, before and after the onset of the European Union's fleet reduction scheme. Over the entire period, the LFI has decreased in large parts of the North Sea. However, most of the decline was from 1983–1999; since 2000 the LFI has improved in much of the North Sea, especially in UK waters. Comparison with international effort data shows that those western areas where the LFI has improved correspond with regions where otter trawl effort has decreased since 2000 (and previously was highest in the 1990s), and also with decreases in beam trawl effort. This study provides strong support that recent European effort reduction schemes are now beginning to result in an improved ecosystem state as indicated by the regional-scale improvement in the LFI.

A method for simply and controllably modifying the surface of polyaniline nanofibres is described. The technique can be used to attach substituents bearing both acid and amine functional groups, making the materials suitable for further modification. Acid/amine functionalisation is achieved by a simple reflux reaction and therefore is a quick and easily scalable process. The modified nanofibres maintain their ability to switch between different states displaying distinctly different properties, thus making them suitable for adaptive sensing applications. As an example, we demonstrate how biomolecules can be attached to these functionalised nanofibres, to produce conducting polymer-based biosensors.

The current diagnostic system suggests that personality disorder categories be applied to children and adolescents in rare circumstances because of expected changes in personality pathology across development. The present study examined the stability in personality pathology, specifically psychopathy, across childhood and adolescence. Using a short form of the CPS and mixed models incorporating fixed and random effects, we examined the reliability, individual stability, mean-level stability, and predictive utility of juvenile psychopathy as a function of age (i.e., from 7 to 17 years old) in over 1,500 boys from the three cohorts of the Pittsburgh Youth Study. If adolescent development contributes to instability in personality pathology, large age-related fluctuations in reliability, stability, and predictive utility should be observed, particularly in the latter part of adolescence when normative changes are hypothesized to influence levels of psychopathy. Such fluctuations were not observed. In general, juvenile psychopathy could be reliably assessed beginning in childhood, was fairly stable across short and long intervals, showed little mean-level fluctuation, and predicted delinquency across adolescence. These results suggest that concerns about large changes in personality pathology across childhood and adolescence may be overstated. Implications and future directions are discussed.

Oceanographically based mechanisms are shown to explain the spatial variation in the climatic relationship between the abundance of medusae (Aurelia aurita and Cyanea spp. of the class Scyphozoa), in the North Sea between 1971 and 1986 during June–August, and the winter (December–March) North Atlantic Oscillation Index (NAOI). A scyphomedusa population to the west of Denmark shows a strong inverse relationship between medusa abundance and fluctuations in the NAOI; the NAOI correlates strongly (P < 0.001) with both annual sea surface temperature (SST) at 6.5°E 56.5°N (1950–2008) and with winter precipitation on the Danish coast at Nordby (1900–2008) suggesting a direct link between the influence of climate and medusae abundance. In contrast, scyphomedusa abundance and distribution in the northern North Sea appears to be influenced by oceanic and mixed water inflow, which may overwhelm or mask any direct climatic influence on jellyfish abundance. Similarly, advection can also explain much of the interannual variability (1959–2000) in the abundance of other gelatinous zooplankton taxa (Cnidaria, Ctenophora and Siphonophora) in the northern North Sea as identified by the capture of gelatinous tissue and nematocysts (stinging cells) in Continuous Plankton Recorder samples. Jellyfish (Scyphozoa) in the southern North Sea may benefit from low temperature anomalies and the long-term effects of global warming might suppress Aurelia aurita and Cyanea spp. populations there. However, the biological response to temperature is complex and future research is required in this area.

Wildlife managers require status and distribution information for informed decisions. Recognizing the tiger's globally threatened status and potential as an umbrella species for protection of forested landscapes, camera trap surveys for tigers and other large mammals have been conducted since 1997 in Peninsular Malaysia with the aim of assessing the population status of tigers in the Peninsula. Results from surveys at nine sites between December 1997 and December 1999 are reported here. Tigers were confirmed from six sites in the Main Range and Greater Taman Negara landscape, with multiple locations inside putative priority tiger areas. Although the data were collected 8 years ago, they are supplemented with more recent information, including tiger-human conflict investigations during 2000–2005 that indicate tiger persistence at these sites. Tiger density estimates were 0.51–1.95 tigers per 100 km2. With results from other surveys, this suggests a national population of up to several hundred tigers. A thorough survey, with sufficient resources, should be carried out in the future to derive a more reliable tiger population estimate for Malaysia. Key threats are habitat loss and fragmentation, hunting of prey, commercial trade in tiger parts, and harassment and displacement. Recommendations for the recovery of tigers in Peninsular Malaysia are provided.

Edge effects arising from road construction and other development in protected areas can negatively affect the behaviour of wildlife, particularly large carnivores. The Asiatic leopard Panthera pardus is a large carnivore that may be sensitive to edge effects. Camera trapping was used to assess the influence of human disturbance along forest edges on leopard behaviour and habitat use in a 104 km2 area of Kaeng Krachan National Park, Thailand. A minimum of four male and two female leopards was recorded in the study area. A Park access road bisecting the study area was not a barrier to leopard movement but movements and activity were affected by human traffic inside the Park. A regression model showed that leopard habitat use increased with distance from human settlements at the forest edge. As in other parts of its range, leopards at Kaeng Krachan National Park tended to show less diurnal activity in areas more heavily used by people compared to areas less used. As is the case with tigers, such responses may pose a threat to leopard population persistence but more research is needed to determine the demographic implications of edge effects for Asiatic leopards and other large tropical carnivores, and the appropriate mitigation strategies required.

Recent years have seen an increase in critical analyses of discourses of policy and practice. However, some argue that this form of scholarship is not central to understanding the concerns of day-to-day practice in the health care context. We propose the converse and contend that critical analyses have particularly important contributions to make because they challenge us to examine what are largely taken for granted aspects of practice. One context in which such examinations have been instructive is primary healthcare. This article is intended to further the dialogue on the ways the culture concept is taken up in health care. We use the case of culture and health to illustrate the ways discourses are taken up in local and official contexts and to demonstrate how different discourses and related institutional practices, shape individuals' relationships with others in the community context.

Jellyfish medusae prey on zooplankton and may impact fish recruitment both directly (top-down control) and indirectly (through competition). Abundances of Aurelia aurita, Cyanea lamarckii and Cyanea capillata medusae (Scyphozoa) in the North Sea appear to be linked to large-scale inter-annual climatic change, as quantified by the North Atlantic Oscillation Index (NAOI), the Barents Sea-Ice Index (BSII) and changes in the latitude of the Gulf Stream North Wall (GSNW). Hydroclimatic forcing may thus be an important factor influencing the abundance of gelatinous zooplankton and may modulate the scale of any ecosystem impact of jellyfish. The population responses are probably also affected by local variability in the environment manifested in intra-annual changes in temperature, salinity, current strength/direction and prey abundance. Aurelia aurita and C. lamarckii in the north-west and south-east North Sea exhibited contrasting relationships to change in the NAOI and BSII: north of Scotland, where the North Sea borders the Atlantic, positive relationships were evident between the abundance of scyphomedusae (data from 1974 to 1986, except 1975) and the indices; whereas west of northern Denmark, a region much less affected by Atlantic inflow, negative relationships were found (data from 1973 to 1983, except 1974). Weaker negative relationships with the NAOI were also found in an intermediate region, east of Scotland, for the abundance of A. aurita and C. capillata medusae (1971 to 1982). East of Shetland, the abundance of jellyfish was not correlated directly with the NAOI but, in contrast to all other regions, the abundances of A. aurita and C. lamarckii (1971 to 1986, not 1984) were found to correlate negatively with changes in the GSNW, which itself was significantly positively correlated to the NAOI with a two year lag. On this evidence, we suggest that, for jellyfish, there exist three regions of the North Sea with distinct environmental processes governing species abundance: one north of Scotland, another east of Shetland, and a more southerly group (i.e. east of Scotland and west of northern Denmark). Impacts by jellyfish are likely to vary regionally, and ecosystem management may benefit from considering this spatial variability.

The present study takes a developmental approach to subgrouping and examines the trajectories of substance use from early adolescence through young adulthood among a community sample of 481 individuals. The patterns of use were examined, subgroups were identified separately for men and women and for alcohol and marijuana, and psychosocial predictors and psychopathology outcomes that differentiated the groups were identified. The results revealed three substantially overlapping subgroups for both alcohol and marijuana: early onset, late onset, and nonuser. Although the general patterns of which dependent variables were related to group were similar for alcohol and marijuana, a closer examination revealed important subgroup differences. For alcohol use, the early-onset group was more dysfunctional in terms of predictors and outcomes whereas the late-onset and nonuser groups were better adjusted. In contrast, for marijuana, the early- and late-onset groups were both more dysfunctional than the nonuser group. In a final analysis, we examined the predictive utility of our developmental approach to subgrouping compared to a traditional, static approach.This research was supported by NIH National Research Service Award DA07304 from NIDA, Grant DA05312-10 from NIDA, NIH General Clinical Research Center Grant M01 RR026202, and a University of Kentucky Research Challenge Trust Fund Fellowship awarded to Kate Flory.

Most species-specific conservation efforts require estimates of population size to establish priorities and to monitor management activities. Yet obtaining reliable estimates of animal populations is often difficult, especially given time and funding limitations experienced by many research programmes. Consequently, there is a great need for practical methods to provide indices of animal density. Ideally, accurate estimates of populations would be obtained through mark-recapture data collected from recognizable individuals over multiple censuses that cover the entire population range. Such data are rarely available, so conservation biologists have no alternative but to resort to analyses of less perfect data, ranging from permanent-point censuses from cameras through to transect data on sightings and spoor encounters. The importance of census and monitoring data makes the development, and validation, of new techniques a priority. Because we do not live in a perfect world, there is a need to develop methods that can give an estimate of population sizes. It would be naïve to assume that these will give hugely accurate estimates of population size, but these techniques can prove useful in identifying areas that are likely to benefit from conservation action.

The monitoring and management of species depends on reliable population estimates, and this can be both difficult and very costly for cryptic large vertebrates that live in forested habitats. Recently developed camera trapping techniques have already been shown to be an effective means of making mark-recapture estimates of individually identifiable animals (e.g. tigers). Camera traps also provide a new method for surveying animal abundance. Through computer simulations, and an analysis of the rates of camera trap capture from 19 studies of tigers across the species' range, we show that the number of camera days/tiger photograph correlates with independent estimates of tiger density. This statistic does not rely on individual identity and is particularly useful for estimating the population density of species that are not individually identifiable. Finally, we used the comparison between observed trapping rates and the computer simulations to estimate the minimum effort required to determine that tigers, or other species, do not exist in an area, a measure that is critical for conservation planning.