Decadal stability in coral cover could mask hidden changes on reefs in the East Asian Seas

Coral reefs in the Central Indo-Pacific region comprise some of the most diverse and yet threatened marine habitats. While reef monitoring has grown throughout the region in recent years, studies of coral reef benthic cover remain limited in spatial and temporal scales. Here, we analysed 24,365 reef surveys performed over 37 years at 1972 sites throughout East Asia by the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network using Bayesian approaches. Our results show that overall coral cover at surveyed reefs has not declined as suggested in previous studies and compared to reef regions like the Caribbean. Concurrently, macroalgal cover has not increased, with no indications of phase shifts from coral to macroalgal dominance on reefs. Yet, models incorporating socio-economic and environmental variables reveal negative associations of coral cover with coastal urbanisation and sea surface temperature. The diversity of reef assemblages may have mitigated cover declines thus far, but climate change could threaten reef resilience. We recommend prioritisation of regionally coordinated, locally collaborative long-term studies for better contextualisation of monitoring data and analyses, which are essential for achieving reef conservation goals.

Pre-hospital pelvic girdle injury: Improving diagnostic accuracy in a physician-led trauma service

BACKGROUND

Examination of missed injuries in our physician-led pre-hospital trauma service indicated that the significant injuries missed were often pelvic fractures. We therefore conducted a study whose aim was to evaluate the pre-hospital diagnostic accuracy of pelvic girdle injuries, and how this would be affected by implementing the pelvic injury treatment guidelines recently published by the Faculty of Pre-Hospital Care.

STUDY DESIGN

All blunt trauma patients attended in a 5-month period were included in the study. The presence or absence of pelvic girdle injury on computed tomography (CT) or, if unavailable, pelvic X-ray was used as a primary outcome measure. A retrospective database and case note review was conducted to identify patients who had pelvic binder applied in the study period. For the purposes of the study, pelvic ring and acetabular fractures were grouped together as patients with suspected pelvic girdle injury that should be fitted with a pelvic binder in the pre-hospital setting. The sensitivity and specificity, relating to the presence of pelvic girdle injury in patients with pelvic binders, was calculated in order to determine pre-hospital diagnostic accuracy.

RESULTS

785 patients were attended during the study period. 170 met the study inclusion criteria. 26 (15.3%) sustained a pelvic girdle injury. 45 (26.5%) had a pelvic binder applied. There were eight missed fractures (31%), of which the majority (six) sustained less severe injuries that were managed non-operatively. Two patients required operative fixation. Radiological images and/or reports were available on 169 (99.4%) patients. As a test of the presence of pelvic fracture, pelvic binder application had a sensitivity of 0.69 (95% CI 0.50-0.85) and a specificity of 0.81 (95% CI 0.74-0.87).

CONCLUSIONS

Even with a careful clinical assessment and a low threshold for binder application, this study highlights the problems of distracting injury when trying to diagnose and manage pelvic fractures. By implementing the pelvic treatment guidelines published by the Faculty of Pre-hospital Care, the missed injury rate could be reduced from 31% to 8%.

Revisiting the perception of upside-down faces

In two experiments, the effect of orientation on face perception was assessed. Using a scale from 1 (normal) to 7 (bizarre), participants rated normal, unaltered faces and faces in which changes had been made to spatial-relational properties (eyes and mouth inverted or relative position of the eyes and mouth altered) or to component properties (eyes whitened and teeth blackened). For unaltered and component-distortion faces, bizarreness ratings increased linearly as orientation increased from 0 degree to 180 degrees. For spatial-distortion faces, a discontinuity in the function relating orientation and bizarreness was in evidence between 90 degrees and 120 degrees. The results provide support for the view that there is a qualitative difference in the processing of upright and inverted faces due to the disproportionate effect of inversion on the encoding of spatial-relational information.