bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Quality of mental health services: a self audit in the South Verona mental health service
Authors: Allevi Liliana , Salvi Giovanni , Ruggeri Mirella 
Published: January 2018

SUMMARYAims – To start a process of Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) in an Italian Community Mental Health Service by using a quality assurance questionnaire in a self audit exercise. Methods – The questionnaire was administered to 14 key workers and clinical managers with different roles and seniority. One senior manager's evaluation was used as a benchmark for all the others. Changes were introduced in the service practice according to what emerged from the evaluation. Meetings were scheduled to monitor those changes and renew the CQI process. Results – There was a wide difference in the key workers' answers. Overall, the senior manager's evaluation was on the 60th percentile of the distribution of the other evaluations. Those areas that required prompt intervention were risk management, personnel development, and CQI. The CQI process was followed up for one year: some interventions were carried out to change the practice of the service. Conclusions – A self audit exercise in Community Mental Health Services was both feasible and useful. The CQI process was easier to start than to carry on over the long term.
Conservation Introductions for Biodiversity Adaptation under Climate Change
Authors: McCormack Phillipa C. 
Published: January 2018

AbstractAnthropogenic climate change represents a wicked problem, both for the Earth’s natural systems and for biodiversity conservation law and policy. Legal frameworks for conservation have a critical role to play in helping species and ecosystems to adapt as the climate changes. However, they are currently poorly equipped to regulate adaptation strategies that demand high levels of human intervention. This article investigates law and policy for conservation introductions, which involve relocating species outside their historical habitat. It takes as a case study Australian law on conservation introductions, demonstrating theoretical and practical legal hurdles to these strategies at international, national and subnational levels. The article argues that existing legal mechanisms may be repurposed, in some cases, to better regulate conservation introduction projects. However, new legal mechanisms are also needed, and soon, to effectively conserve species and ecosystems in a period of unprecedented ecological change.
Floodplains and paleosols in the Wyoming Eocene sequence: implications for the taphonomy and paleoecology of faunas
Authors: Bown Thomas M. , Kraus Mary J. , Aslan Andres 
Published: January 2018

The Willwood Fm. of the southern Bighorn Basin of Wyoming, U.S.A., comprises 700 m of lower Eocene alluvial molasse, nearly all of which contains relict pedogenic features. These rocks are grouped into pedofacies–alluvial sediment prisms, thick with immature paleosols proximal to streams and thinner with mature paleosols distally. Pedofacies are bounded by either trunk-stream channel or crevasse-splay deposits, which represent time-stratigraphic markers. The floodplain widths of the Willwood rivers varied from 15 to 20+ km. Paleosols occur throughout the Willwood Formation and the most mature paleosols required about 60 Ka to form whereas the least mature, required 0.5 to 1.0 Ka. Paleosol thicknesses vary from about 0.3–8.0 m and are directly related to net sediment accumulation rate (NSAR) and profile maturity. Pedofacies also reflect NSAR controls; pedofacies are continuously superposed, 15–35-m-thick, and represent time intervals of 30–60 Ka.In the earliest Eocene, paleosol maturity rose sharply, and NSAR plummeted (Fort Union Fm./Willwood Fm. contact), after which maturity gradually declined (and NSAR rose) throughout the early Eocene. This decline was punctuated by two episodes of severe decline, each corresponding with major increases in NSAR, increased tectonism, and episodes of faunal turnover (“Biohorizons” A and B). Above the biohorizons, species earlier tied to particular paleosol maturities were replaced by closely related though more generalized species with no marked paleosol preferences. Time-stratigraphic reconstruction of the Willwood Fm. shows that “Biohorizons” B and C record the same faunal event; B the extinctions, and C the immigrations.The 1,300 Willwood fossil vertebrate localities, which are distributed throughout the entire formation, occur in the surface horizons of cumulative alluvial paleosols. All fossil accumulations in paleosols are attritional and formed during pedogenesis. The most complete remains occur in immature paleosols, whereas the most abundant remains are found in mature paleosols. Within the large-scale Willwood ecologic setting, studies of discrete (m's to tens of m's thick) stratigraphic intervals suggest that the paleontology and sedimentology of these intervals can be significantly influenced by lateral differences in paleosol hydromorphy (soil wetness) and maturity (lateral position of a fossil-bearing paleosol with respect to an ancient river channel). These smaller-scale controls on fossil occurrences are important for distinguishing between real and apparent changes in faunal compositions over time and emphasize the value of three-dimensional stratigraphic analysis for interpreting paleontologic events.Supported by National Geographic Society grant 3985-89.
Biotic and sedimentologic comparison of patch reefs on the north and south shelf of Belize, Central America
Authors: Burke C. D. , Mazzullo S. J. 
Published: January 2018

Holocene patch-reefs occur throughout the shallow marine platform, to the lee of the barrier reef in northern and southern Belize, Central America. Patch reefs on the northern shelf that occur within an areally extensive patch reef complex (Mexico Rocks) indicate that differences exist between reefs here and well-studied patch reefs on the southern shelf that have been used by workers as a general model for patch reef development throughout Belize. This model proposes that patch reefs on the Belizean shelf are dominated by typical Atlantic-Caribbean, biotically-zoned coral assemblages of Acropora palmata and A. cervicornis that kept up or caught up with Holocene sea level rise during the last 8000 years to form large “keep up” or in some instances “catch up” reefs.In contrast to those in the south, the northern patch reefs are not biotically zoned, are dominated by Montastrea annularis rather than Acropora spp., and are much younger (400 years old) than those in the south. In addition, northern shelf patch reefs developed predominantly by lateral growth in a milieu of static sea level and are herein called “accretion” type reefs. These differences in biotic and sedimentologic parameters between reefs on the northern and southern shelves imply fundamentally different ecologic and sea level history controls on patch reef formation from north to south. A leading contributor to the variation among the reefs along the Belizean shelf may be species-specific growth rates of the coral species that initiate each patch reef, and response to sea level fluctuation versus stasis through time.
Isotopic evidence for climatic, ecologic, and faunal change in the Siwaliks of Pakistan
Authors: Cerling Thure E. , Quade Jay 
Published: January 2018

The biggest replacement of fauna in the Siwaliks of Pakistan takes place between 7.5 and 7.0 million years (Ma) ago. By 5 Ma, almost the entire fauna that existed at 8 Ma had been replaced by a different fauna. Although other important faunal changes occurred at about 13.5, 12, and 9.5 Ma those changes are small compared to that between 7.5 and 7.0 Ma. What event caused the wholesale local extinction of fauna which was replaced by another?The stable isotopic composition of paleosol carbonate shows two important “events” in the Siwalik sequence. First, at 8 Ma a big shift in the δ18O of soil carbonate indicates that a major shift in climate occurred. We have found a similar change in Europe and East Africa in soil carbonates on those continents, suggesting a major change in global circulation patterns. The second event is a change in the isotopic composition of carbon-bearing phases which shows that the pre-7.5 Ma vegetation was dominated by C3 plants which were completely replaced by C4 plants between 7 and 6 Ma. This is most likely a replacement of woody plants by tropical (C4) grasses.The carbon isotopic composition of tooth enamel from Siwalik mammals shows that prior to 7.5 Ma they consumed C3 plants, and by 5 Ma consumed only C4 plants. While it comes as no surprise that animals eat local vegetation, this study shows that isotopic reconstruction of paleo-diets can be traced back into the Tertiary.Global climatic change in the late Miocene resulted in the invasion of tropical grasslands into the Indian subcontinent. The resulting change in habitat and diet caused the migration of many species of mammals, which is manifested as an almost complete turnover in the fauna fo the Siwaliks.
A new stage in the Upper Cenozoic of Southern South America
Authors: Cione Alberto L. , Tonni Eduardo P. 
Published: January 2018

Former workers developed in South America a chronostratigraphic system not essentially different to that of European stage/age system. However, the authors of this paper believe that accurate biostratigraphic studies have to be done in southern South America for establishing the precise boundary stratotypes of most stage/ages. A new South American Upper Cenozoic continental stage/age is recognized. The stratotype is located in the fossiliferous southeastern Buenos Aires Province marine cliffs between Mar del Plata and Miramar. The outcrops in the area are the best continental representation of Plio-Pleistocene times in South America. It is younger than Chapadmalalan and older than Ensenadan and replaces the “Uquian”. We consider that the “Uquian” actually emcopasses Chapadmalalan and Ensenadan times. The Uquía outcrops are here considered inadequate as stratotype especially by the dearth of micromanmals, the relatively poor fossil record and the comparatively inadequate geographic location. The new stage would be correlated with the Gauss Chron and possibly with the lower Matuyama Chron. The lower boundary is tentatively stated. For so doing, a biostratigraphic scheme is proposed. This lower boundary approximately corresponds to the base of the Barranca de los Lobos “Formation” of Kraglievich (1952) and a new (unpublished) unconformity bounded unit (Zárate, 1989). Some taxa that apparently ranges from the base are candidates to define it after a detailed biostratigraphic study.Additionally, a different timing for the arrival of North American mammals to southern South America is given.
New occurrences of Silurian eurypterids (Carcinosomatidae) in Pennsylvania, Ohio and New York
Authors: Ciurca Samuel J. 
Published: January 2018

Carcinosomatids are rare among the Silurian eurypterid faunas of northeastern United States. New discoveries, discussed below, extend the geographic and stratigraphic ranges of two important types:Paracarcinosoma, known primarily from the Bertie Group of western New York, andRhinocarcinosoma, known only from the Illion Shale of eastern New York. PENNSYLVANIA: The very distinctive Rhinocarcinosoma was obtained from rocks of the McKenzie Fm., below Bloomsburg redbeds, just east of Lock Haven. Remains consist of a well preserved carapace with characteristic 'shovel’ developed as an extension of the anterior portion of the carapace. This occurrence is analogous to the occurrence in the New York stratigraphic sequence 185 miles (285 km) to the northeast in the type area of the Illion Shale. At the New York localities, the eurypterid-bearing beds are overlain by the redbeds of the Vernon Fm. (Salina Group).OHIO: The Maumee Quarry east of Toledo has been studied extensively by many geologists. The stratigraphic sequence exposed consists of “Niagaran reefs” overlain by the Greenfield Fm. (Bass Islands Group) but with an impressive array of stromatolitic beds transitionally developed between the two units.In the transitional beds occur the scattered remains of Paracarcinosoma. Specimens are fragmentary, but a small well preserved carapace was obtained showing the intramarginal position of the compound eyes characteristic of this carcinosomatid. The specimens were obtained from fine-grained dolostone with no evidence of other fossils.NEW YORK: The original discovery of Rhinocarcinosoma, as described in 1912 by Clarke and Ruedemann, is here supplemented by new finds in the Illion Shale east of the type area and particularly by the discovery of this eurypterid in rocks of the Lockport Group near Sodus Center, N.Y. Exposures of the Sconondoa Fm. in the Sodus Quarry and in the streambed just to the north yielded numerous specimens. Particularly noteworthy is an operculum of the size and structure illustrated by Clarke and Ruedemann. The new occurrences in the Sodus Center area extend the geographic range of Rhinocarcinosoma westward about 100 miles (160 km).The carcinosomatid occurrences just described are intimately associated with stromatolitic or thrombolitic biostromes or “reefs.” It would appear that both types of eurypterids, Paracarcinosoma and Rhinocarcinosoma, preferred a niche in backreef areas in peculiar algal-lagoonal settings little understood today. Eurypterus, the common form in the Bertie Group, is generally found in rocks having much evidence of hypersalinity (salt hopper structures, etc.), presumably a more supratidal setting.
Putting our science to work in the 21st Century: new directions in applied paleobiology?
Authors: Cohen Andrew S. 
Published: January 2018

The scientific community is in great need of input from paleontologists today in two key areas of societal concern: the historical basis of global change and losses of biodiversity. Paleontologists, with their unique perspective on rates of change in biotic communities and their training in filtering signal from noise in the fossil record, are the best placed scientists in biology to approach these problems from an historical viewpoint. In the classroom we give lip service to the central role of paleontology in understanding these problems. Yet with the exclusion of Quaternary (and particularly Recent) paleoecology from the mainstream of our field, we have abrogated this responsibility to other disciplines. Paleontologists are in danger of losing the opportunity to provide guidance on the very issues in paleontology where political interest and funding will lie in the not too distant future. As opportunities for employment of paleontologists in the petroleum industry fade, it is critical that academic paleontologists define new directions for graduate education in our field.The paleontological community needs to reincorporate Quaternary paleoecology into its mainstream, emphasizing the importance of a paleobiological perspective in environmental problem solving. As the developers of theory and methodology in the interpretation of the fossil record it is our responsibility to set the agenda as to how paleobiology should be utilized. Our professional societies should provide leadership as advocates for funding research and training in the new areas of applied paleobiology, lest paleobiology (as we define it) be marginalized and traditional paleontology programs be viewed by their home institutions as increasingly irrelevant. Employment opportunities in biostratigraphy are a thing of the past; applied paleontology must redefine itself for career opportunities at the top of the column, in such areas as recent climate change or the fossil record of human-induced ecological disturbances. The PIRLA Project (Paleoecological Investigation of Recent Lake Acidification) provides an excellent example of applying paleobiology to such problems, using the Recent diatoms, crustaceans, insects and pollen fossils to understand the chronology of the acid rain problem in eastern North America.Academic departments bear a responsibility to bring the important new applications of paleobiology into the classroom, demonstrating its societal relevance and training students to avail themselves of potential opportunities for paleobiologists in global change and biodiversity research. Recent developments in taphonomy or stratigraphic ordering of fossils could be extremely powerful tools if applied to environmental change problem solving. We need to make our students marketable by spending more time in the classroom teaching them about Recent diatom paleoecology and less on brachiopod biostratigraphy. Otherwise paleobiology may go the way of Egyptology.
Ediacaran survivors
Authors: Conway Morris Simon 
Published: January 2018

Ediacaran taxa are a characteristic element of latest Precambrian biotas, with an effectively global distribution. Their time range is not well understood, but with one possible exception from western Canada Ediacaran faunas appear always to post-date the late Precambrian glaciations. There is also growing evidence that many Ediacaran taxa disappeared before the Precambrian-Cambrian boundary. These disappearances traditionally have been ascribed to changes in taphonomic circumstances, but a series of extinctions is a plausible alternative. Ediacaran fossils pose two major problems: Notwithstanding the reasons for their disappearance shortly before the Precambrian-Cambrian boundary, was their demise total or did some forms persist into the Cambrian? Second, is the traditional view that Ediacaran taxa are metazoans, many of a cnidarian grade, correct? Recently Seilacher, Bergström and others have argued that the Ediacaran organisms have a distinctive bauplan, difficult to reconcile with known phyla and possibly different from any metazoan.In the Cambrian, Burgess Shale-type faunas are the principal source of information on soft-bodied metazoans. The differences between them and Ediacaran assemblages are largely self-evident, but there is now unequivocal evidence for at least one Ediacaran survivor from the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale of British Columbia. This is a sea-pen-like animal, known from three specimens (one adult about 20 cm in length, and two juveniles). The fossils consist of a broad frond, with branches arising from a central axis on one side, while the opposite side is smooth apart from longitudinal ridges. The frond extends into a blunt holdfast that presumably was embedded in the muddy silt of the sea floor. This fossil is strikingly similar to the Ediacaran taxon Charniodiscus, best known from South Australia. The Burgess Shale example shows two important features. The first are pustule-like structures, possibly zooids, both on the branches and adjacent to the axis. The second feature is evidence for connections between the branches and axis, possibly representing canals. These features both support a comparison with extant pennatulaceans, and suggest that at least some Ediacaran taxa are correctly assigned to the metazoans.Also occurring in the Burgess Shale is an enigmatic bag-like organism Mackenzia costalis. Clear evidence exists for it being benthic, but its mode of feeding is uncertain. The interior appears to have consisted largely of a spacious cavity, probably sub-divided by longitudinal partitions. In addition, an elongate strand may represent a discrete organ, perhaps connected with digestion or reproduction. No exact equivalent to Mackenzia appears to occur in Ediacaran assemblages, but bag-like taxa are a common component. These include erniettids, best known from Namibia, and Platypholina, from the White Sea region of Russia.
Evolution of high-latitude biotas
Authors: Crame J. Alistair 
Published: January 2018

With the recent rapid improvement in the quality of the fossil record in both polar regions it has become possible to examine critically the development of high-latitude faunas and floras through time. Within arctic regions, distinctive biotas have been present, at least intermittently, since the early Permian, and in antarctic regions they can be traced back to the early Middle Devonian. It would appear that, whenever continents (and continental shelves) moved into the high latitudes they were the sites of significant biotic differentiation.To investigate the ways in which taxa may have accumulated in the high latitudes through time, three simple global models have been proposed. In the first of these it is envisaged that major groups of plants and animals arose in the low latitudes and disseminated subsequently into the polar regions. Here they would become relicts and the latter would be regarded as refugia. The second model is almost exactly the reverse of the first in that it proposes that certain taxa arose in the polar regions and then spread, through time, into the low latitudes. Such a process may at first sight seem less likely, but the Antarctic fossil record in particular is providing important evidence to suggest that certain major groups of both plants and animals had a high-latitude origin. The third model differs substantially from the previous two in that it makes no a priori assumptions about either centres of origin or the process of dispersal. It merely states that, at certain times in the past, widespread distribution patterns have been disrupted in the low latitudes to form disjunct populations in the northern and southern hemispheres. It results in the classic bipolar pattern, which can now be traced back to at least the Early Jurassic period.A major phase of Jurassic - Cretaceous bipolarity can be attributed to tectonic vicariance as the Pangean supercontinent disintegrated, and a major late Paleogene - early Neogene one can be related to climatic vicariance. Such hypotheses are attractive as they are testable by cladistic analysis. Although data available so far are limited, both fossil and living benthic molluscs offer considerable scope for future work.