Oil palm is one of Southeast Asia’s most common crops, and its expansion has caused substantial modification of natural habitats and put increasing pressure on biodiversity. Rising global demand for vegetable oil, coupled with oil palm’s high yield per unit area and the versatility of the palm oil product, has driven the expansion of oil palm agriculture in the region. Therefore, it is critical to identify management practices that can support biodiversity in plantations without exacerbating negative impacts on the environment. This study focuses on day-flying Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths), which contribute to the ecosystem functioning as pollinators, prey, and herbivore species. We assessed whether density and behaviours of day-flying Lepidoptera varied between different habitats within oil palm plantations and across seasons. We surveyed the density and behaviours of Lepidoptera communities in mature industrial oil palm plantations within the Biodiversity and Ecosystem Function in Tropical Agriculture (BEFTA) Programme sites, in Riau, Indonesia. We surveyed two distinct habitats within the plantations in March and September 2013: Edge habitats, which were bordered by plantation roads on one side, and Core habitats in the centre of oil palm planting blocks. We conducted analyses on the effect of habitat type and season on both the overall density and behaviour of Lepidoptera communities and, independently, on the most common species. In our surveys, we observed 1464 individuals across 41 species, with a significantly higher density in Edge than in Core habitats. While there was no significant difference between overall density in March and September surveys, there was an interaction between season and habitat, with density increasing more markedly in Edge than Core areas in September. There was also a significant effect of habitat and season on behavioural time budget for the community as a whole, with more active behaviours, such as foraging and mating, being recorded more frequently in Edge than Core habitats, and more commonly in September than March. The effect of habitat type, season, and their interaction differed between the six most common species. Our findings indicate that Lepidoptera abundance is affected by habitat characteristics in a plantation and can therefore be influenced by plantation management practices. In particular, our study highlights the value of road edges and paths in plantations for day-flying Lepidoptera. We suggest that increased non-crop vegetation in these areas, achieved through reduced clearing practices or planting of flowering plants, could foster abundant and active butterfly communities in plantations. These practices could form part of sustainability management recommendations for oil palm, such as those of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil.

The 12 January 2010 earthquake that struck Port-au-Prince, Haiti caused >200,000 deaths, thousands of injuries requiring immediate surgical interventions, and 1.5 million internally displaced survivors. The earthquake destroyed or disabled most medical facilities in the city, seriously hampering the ability to deliver immediate life- and limb-saving surgical care. A Project Medishare/University of Miami Miller School of Medicine trauma team deployed to Haiti from Miami within 24 hours of the earthquake. The team began work at a pre-existing tent facility in the United Nations (UN) compound based at the airport, where they encountered 225 critically injured patients. However, non-sterile conditions, no means to administer oxygen, the lack of surgical equipment and supplies, and no anesthetics precluded the immediate delivery of general anesthesia. Despite these limitations, resuscitative care was administered, and during the first 72 hours following the event, some amputations were performed with local anesthesia. Because of these austere conditions, an anesthesiologist, experienced and equipped to administer regional block anesthesia, was dispatched three days later to perform anesthesia for limb amputations, debridements, and wound care using single shot block anesthesia until a better equipped tent facility was established. After four weeks, the relief effort evolved into a 250-bed, multi-specialty trauma/intensive care center staffed with >200 medical, nursing, and administrative staff. Within that timeframe, the facility and its staff completed 1,000 surgeries, including spine and pediatric neurological procedures, without major complications. This experience suggests that when local emergency medical resources are completely destroyed or seriously disabled, a surgical team staffed and equipped to provide regional nerve block anesthesia and acute pain management can be dispatched rapidly to serve as a bridge to more advanced field surgical and intensive care, which takes longer to deploy and set up.

In the field of visual double stars, a long term follow-up is required, since their orbital periods may reach several centuries. Created in 1981 within the Société Astronomique de France (SAF) with the support of the late Paul Muller (1910-2000), the Commission des Etoiles Doubles provides the framework for the necessary collaboration between professional and amateur astronomers, through generations. The late Dr. Paul Baize (1901-1995) was a model for its members. Several professional astronomers became scientific advisors of the Commission and have guided many works made by amateurs.

In a synthesis article (see ref. below), the double star expert Paul COUTEAU put the work of French pioneers of double stars observation in the perspective of the double star work carried in the world. After Antoine Yvon VILLARCEAU and Camille FLAMMARION, one prominent pioneer of double stars was Robert JONCKHEERE (1888–1974), an amateur before circumstances prompted him to become a professional astronomer, who devoted his life to double stars. Kenneth Glyn Jones wrote a biography and Charles Fehrenbach his obituary. Jean-Claude Thorel studied his life and career in double star observations (see Section 10 below). In the 1930s, another precursor of the Commission des Étoiles Doubles, Maurice DURUY (1894–1984) invented the micrometer with a comparison star, and applied the diffraction micrometer invented by Ejnar Hertzsprung to the measure of double stars, which he regularly observed at Nancy with a 275-mm telescope, at Lyon with a 162-mm telescope and in his observatory of Beaume-Mêle with a 40-cm and later a 60-cm telescope at Le Rouret (Alpes–Maritimes). He measured standard pairs of the list of Paul Muller and published his measures in the Journal des Observateurs; these measures requested by Paul Muller aimed at comparisons of between observers. He also collaborated with the Webb Society of Great Britain; Glyn Jones published his astronomical biography. Already in 1924, the pediatrician Paul BAIZE (1901–1995) had started the measurement of double stars as an amateur. He was granted permission to measure them with the 38-cm of the Paris Observatory and made an impressive number of measures during his long “career" (24044). He also made orbit calculations and established a formula for the calculation of dynamic parallaxes in 1946. He wrote articles explaining new observation techniques devoted to double stars in the magazine L'Astronomie and continued his astronomical activity until the beginning of the 1990s. Glyn Jones published an astronomical biography of Paul Baize. In the 1960s, Bernard CLOUET and the late Robert SAGOT (1910–2006) made double star observations for the book which was then in preparation under the title La revue des constellations. Their measures remained unpublished; but publication of the measures made by Robert SAGOT is in preparation. At about the same time, the neurology professor Jacques LE BEAU (1908–1998) made the acquaintance of renowned professional astronomer Paul COUTEAU and learned from him how to measure double stars. Each year, he stayed for two weeks at Nice and conducted his observations with the 50-cm refractor of the Nice Observatory. In 1978, Paul COUTEAU published the first book in French devoted to double stars: L'observation des étoiles doubles visuelles. That book triggered the interest of more amateur astronomers for double stars and indirectly influenced the creation of a group of double star observers which was transformed into the Commission des Étoiles Doubles