The SAGES-MIRA Robotic Surgery Consensus Group Arnold Advincula MD, University of Michigan Medical Center, Ann Arbor, MI, USA Sandeep Aggarwal MD, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY USA Tim Broderick MD, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, Cincinnati, OH USA Ivo Broeders MD, University Medical Centre Utrecht, Heidelberglaan, Netherlands Arnold Byer MD, Hackensack University Medical Center, Wyckoff, NJ, USA Myriam Curet MD, Standford Medical Center, Stanford, CA, USA David Earle MD, Baystate Medical Center, Springfield, MA, USA Piero Giulianotti MD, Misericordia Hospital, Grossero, Italy Warren Grundfest MD, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA Makoto Hashizume MD, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan William Kelley MD, Henrice Doctors Hospital, Richmond, VA, USA David Lee MD; Presbyterian Medical Center, Philadelphia, PA, USA Elspeth McDougall MD, University of California Irvine Medical Center, Orange, CA, USA John Meehan MD, University of Iowa Hospital, Iowa City, IA, USA Scott Melvin MD, Ohio State Unviversity Hospital, Columbus, OH, USA Mani Menon MD; Henry Ford Hospital, Detroit, MI, USA Dmitry Oleynikov MD, Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE, USA Michael Palese MD, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA Vapul Patel MD, Ohio State Unviversity Medical Center, Columbus, OH, USA Rick Satava MD, University of Washington Medical Center, Seattle, WA, USA Steven Schwaitzberg MD, Cambridge Health Alliance, Cambridge, MA, USA Gregory Weinstein MD, Presbyterian Medical Center, Philadelphia, PA, USA
We report methane isotopologue data from aircraft and ground measurements in Africa and South America. Aircraft campaigns sampled strong methane fluxes over tropical papyrus wetlands in the Nile, Congo and Zambezi basins, herbaceous wetlands in Bolivian southern Amazonia, and over fires in African woodland, cropland and savannah grassland. Measured methane δ13CCH4 isotopic signatures were in the range -55 to -49‰ for emissions from equatorial Nile wetlands and agricultural areas, but widely -60 ± 1‰ from Upper Congo and Zambezi wetlands. Very similar δ13CCH4 signatures were measured over the Amazonian wetlands of NE Bolivia (around -59‰) and the overall δ13CCH4 signature from outer tropical wetlands in the southern Upper Congo and Upper Amazon drainage plotted together was -59 ± 2‰. These results were more negative than expected. For African cattle, δ13CCH4 values were around -60 to -50‰. Isotopic ratios in methane emitted by tropical fires depended on the C3 : C4 ratio of the biomass fuel. In smoke from tropical C3 dry forest fires in Senegal, δ13CCH4 values were around -28‰. By contrast, African C4 tropical grass fire δ13CCH4 values were -16 to -12‰. Methane from urban landfills in Zambia and Zimbabwe, which have frequent waste fires, had δ13CCH4 around -37 to -36‰. These new isotopic values help improve isotopic constraints on global methane budget models because atmospheric δ13CCH4 values predicted by global atmospheric models are highly sensitive to the δ13CCH4 isotopic signatures applied to tropical wetland emissions. Field and aircraft campaigns also observed widespread regional smoke pollution over Africa, in both the wet and dry seasons, and large urban pollution plumes. The work highlights the need to understand tropical greenhouse gas emissions in order to meet the goals of the UNFCCC Paris Agreement, and to help reduce air pollution over wide regions of Africa. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue 'Rising methane: is warming feeding warming? (part 2)'.
Objective: It has been suggested that robotic-assisted remote telepresence surgery with a signal transmission latency of greater than 300 ms may not be possible. Methods: We evaluated the impact of four different latencies of up to 500 ms on task completion and error rate in five surgeons after completion of three different surgical tasks. Results: The surgeons were able to complete all tasks with a latency of 500 ms. However, higher latency was associated with higher error rates and task completion time (TCT). There were significant variations between surgeons and different tasks. Conclusion: Surgeons are able to complete tasks with a signal transmission latency of up to 500 ms. The clinical impact of slower TCT and increased error rates encountered at higher latency needs to be established.
Objective: It has been suggested that robotic-assisted remote telepresence surgery with a signal transmission latency of greater than 300 ms may not be possible. Methods: We evaluated the impact of four different latencies of up to 500 ms on task completion and error rate in five surgeons after completion of three different surgical tasks. Results: The surgeons were able to complete all tasks with a latency of 500 ms. However, higher latency was associated with higher error rates and task completion time (TCT). There were significant variations between surgeons and different tasks. Conclusion: Surgeons are able to complete tasks with a signal transmission latency of up to 500 ms. The clinical impact of slower TCT and increased error rates encountered at higher latency needs to be established.
Southern Africa provides critical information on Late Triassic–Early Jurassic terrestrial tetrapod faunas. Most of the localities in this region are in South Africa and Lesotho, but preliminary work in Zimbabwe has revealed significant potential. Early Jurassic Zimbabwean localities have yielded the basal sauropodomorph Massospondylus , the early sauropod Vulcanodon and theropod material. Late Triassic localities are also known, but have yielded only fragmentary specimens thus far. In early 2017, a joint South African-Zimbabwean-UK team conducted fieldwork in the upper Karoo-aged deposits along the shores of Lake Kariba, northern Zimbabwe (Mid-Zambesi Basin). We relocated the Vulcanodon type locality on Island 126/127 and found that, contrary to previous reports suggesting a Toarcian age, the quarry was in a horizon pre-dating the onset of Drakensburg volcanism (= Batoka Basalts). It is situated instead within the earlier Lower Jurassic Forest Sandstone. This indicates that Vulcanodon is 10–15 million years older than thought previously, recalibrating several nodes within Sauropoda and indicating extensive overlap between true sauropods and 'prosauropods'. Other new vertebrate localities show that sauropodomorphs are present in the Forest Sandstone and upper Tashinga (Late Triassic) formations, but a grey mudstone facies within the Pebbly Arkose Member of the latter unit yields a more aquatic fauna, including lungfish and phytosaurs, but lacking sauropodomorphs. The phytosaur occurrence is the first in Africa south of the Sahara. Faunal and sedimentological evidence indicates that the Late Triassic and Early Jurassic sites in this region were deposited under more mesic environments than their lateral equivalents in South Africa.