Running across the globe for nearly 2 years, the Covid-19 pandemic keeps demonstrating its strength. Despite a lot of understanding, uncertainty regarding the efficiency of interventions still persists. We developed an age-structured epidemic model parameterized with epidemiological and sociological data for the first Covid-19 wave in the Czech Republic and found that (1) starting the spring 2020 lockdown 4 days earlier might prevent half of the confirmed cases by the end of lockdown period, (2) personal protective measures such as face masks appear more effective than just a realized reduction in social contacts, (3) the strategy of sheltering just the elderly is not at all effective, and (4) leaving schools open is a risky strategy. Despite vaccination programs, evidence-based choice and timing of non-pharmaceutical interventions remains an effective weapon against the Covid-19 pandemic.
- MeSH
- biologické modely MeSH
- COVID-19 * epidemiologie prevence a kontrola MeSH
- kontrola infekčních nemocí MeSH
- lidé MeSH
- masky * MeSH
- matematické pojmy MeSH
- pandemie prevence a kontrola MeSH
- SARS-CoV-2 MeSH
- senioři MeSH
- školy MeSH
- Check Tag
- lidé MeSH
- senioři MeSH
- Publikační typ
- časopisecké články MeSH
- Geografické názvy
- Česká republika MeSH
The purpose of the study was to evaluate the effect of a repeated 1-week intensive programme in patients with mid-stage Huntington's disease on stability and quality of life. 12 patients completed two 1-week programmes, separated by a one-year interval. Each programme consisted of a 120-minute intervention in the form of a fitness exercise, procedures targeting static and dynamic postural stability, procedures of respiratory physiotherapy and orofacial region therapy. The patient completed a total of 4 evaluations using the Sit to Stand Test, Timed up and Go Test and completed the quality of life SF-36 questionnaire. Statistically significant changes have been shown in the Sit-and-stand test in both years. Weaker but still significant changes were found in the TUG test only in the first year, while there was improvement in the second intervention year that was not statistically significant. Evaluation of the quality of life suggested a positive influence of physical activity in the dimensions: restriction caused by emotional problems, somatic pain and change of health. Our results suggest that a repeated, intensive one-week intervention can have a positive influence on postural stability and can contribute to the improvement of some quality of life dimensions in patients with mid-stage HD.
- MeSH
- chůze klasifikace MeSH
- dospělí MeSH
- ergoterapie MeSH
- Huntingtonova nemoc * rehabilitace MeSH
- kvalita života MeSH
- lidé středního věku MeSH
- muzikoterapie MeSH
- posturální rovnováha MeSH
- terapie cvičením metody MeSH
- výsledek terapie MeSH
- Check Tag
- dospělí MeSH
- lidé středního věku MeSH
- mužské pohlaví MeSH
- ženské pohlaví MeSH
Plant clonal spread is ubiquitous and of great interest, owing both to its key role in plant community assembly and its suitability for plant behaviour research. However, mechanisms that govern spreading distance are not well known. Here we link spacer costs and below-ground competition in a simple model of growth in a homogeneous below-ground environment, in which optimal distance between ramets is based on minimizing the sum of these costs. Using this model, we predict a high prevalence of clonal growth that does not employ spacers in resource-poor environments and a nonlinear increase in spreading distance in response to increasing below-ground resource availability. Analysis of database data on clonal growth in relationship to below-ground resource availability revealed that patterns of the spread based on stolons is compatible with the model's predictions. As expected, model prediction failed for rhizomatous species, where spacer sizes are likely to be selected mainly to play roles other than spread. The model's simplicity makes it useful as a null model in testing hypotheses about the effects of environmental heterogeneity on clonal spread.
Generalist pollinators are important in many habitats, but little research has been done on small-scale spatial variation in interactions between them and the plants that they visit. Here, using a spatially explicit approach, we examined whether multiple species of flowering plants occurring within a single meadow showed spatial structure in their generalist pollinator assemblages. We report the results for eight plant species for which at least 200 individual visits were recorded. We found that for all of these species, the proportions of their general pollinator assemblages accounted for by particular functional groups showed spatial heterogeneity at the scale of tens of metres. This heterogeneity was connected either with no or only subtle changes of vegetation and flowering species composition. In five of these species, differences in conspecific plant density influenced the pollinator communities (with greater dominance of main pollinators at low-conspecific plant densities). The density of heterospecific plant individuals influenced the pollinator spectrum in one case. Our results indicate that the picture of plant-pollinator interactions provided by averaging data within large plots may be misleading and that within-site spatial heterogeneity should be accounted for in terms of sampling effort allocation and analysis. Moreover, spatially structured plant-pollinator interactions may have important ecological and evolutionary consequences, especially for plant population biology.
- MeSH
- biologická evoluce MeSH
- brouci fyziologie MeSH
- Diptera klasifikace fyziologie MeSH
- distribuce rostlin MeSH
- ekosystém MeSH
- hustota populace MeSH
- květy fyziologie MeSH
- Magnoliopsida fyziologie MeSH
- motýli fyziologie MeSH
- opylení fyziologie MeSH
- pyl MeSH
- symbióza MeSH
- včely fyziologie MeSH
- zvířata MeSH
- Check Tag
- zvířata MeSH
- Publikační typ
- časopisecké články MeSH
- práce podpořená grantem MeSH
