Species Survival Plans and European Endangered Species Programmes have been developed for several species of endangered felids in order to build up captive reserve populations and support their conservation in the wild. The Siberian tiger (Panthera tigris altaica), snow leopard (Uncia uncia), cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) and clouded leopard (Neofelis nebulosa) are managed in such ex situ conserva...

The leopard cat, Prionailurus bengalensis (Kerr, 1792), is one of the most widespread Asian cats, occurring in continental eastern and southeastern Asia. Since 1929, several studies have focused on the morphology, ecology, and taxonomy of leopard cats. Nevertheless, hitherto there has been no agreement on basic aspects of leopard cat biology, such as the presence or absence of sexual dimorphism...

BACKGROUND To validate the Persian version of the simple shoulder test in patients with shoulder joint problems. METHODS Following Beaton`s guideline, translation and back translation was conducted. We reached to a consensus on the Persian version of SST. To test the face validity in a pilot study, the Persian SST was administered to 20 individuals with shoulder joint conditions. We enrolled ...

Development of robust spoken language technology ideally relies on the availability of large amounts of data preferably in the target domain and language. However, more often than not, speech developers need to cope with very little or no data, typically obtained from a different target domain. This paper focuses on developing techniques towards addressing this challenge. Specifically we consid...

Studies on the life cycles and epizootiology of North American frog lung flukes indicate that most species utilize odonates as second intermediate hosts; adult frogs become infected by ingesting odonate intermediate hosts. Newly metamorphosed frogs are rarely infected with these parasites, predominantly because they are gape-limited predators that cannot feed on large intermediate hosts such as...

There is increasing evidence of the importance of multi-use landscapes for the conservation of large carnivores. However, when carnivore ranges overlap with high density of humans, there are often serious conservation challenges. This is especially true in countries like India where loss of peoples' lives and property to large wildlife are not uncommon. The leopard (Panthera pardus) is a large ...

INTRODUCTION In recent years, outcome assessment related to orthopedic surgeries has increasingly focused on patient-reported questionnaires. The Oxford Hip Score (OHS), self-administered questionnaire, is a reliable, valid, and responsive instrument for assessing hip in patients undergoing Arthroplasty. METHODS The study involved 105 adult Persian-speaking patients admitted for primary Total...

BACKGROUND The Oxford Knee Score (OKS) is a short patient-reported outcome instrument that measures pain and physical activity related to knee osteoarthritis. The purpose of this study is to evaluate, construct validity and consistent reliability of the Persian version of the OKS. METHODS The case series consisted of 80 patients who were clinically diagnosed with having knee osteoarthritis. A...

Habitat suitability mapping highlighted (1) the influence of deep-water overwintering wetlands on suitable habitat for four of five anuran species encountered; (2) the lack of overlap between areas of core habitat for both the northern leopard frog and wood frog compared to the core habitat for both toad species; and (3) the importance of conservation programs in providing grassland components ...