Decubitus ulcers are a worldwide health care concern affecting tens of thousands of patients and costing over a billion dollars a year. Susceptibility to pressure ulcers comes from a combination of external factors (pressure, friction, shear force, and moisture), and internal factors (e.g. fever, malnutrition, anaemia, and endothelial dysfunction). Often, enough damage is done to create the basis for a decubitus ulcer after as little as 2 h of immobility, a situation which may be difficult to avoid if the patient must undergo prolonged surgery or remain bedridden. Damage owing to pressure may also occur hours before the patient receives medical attention, especially if the patient falls or becomes immobilized owing to a vascular event. Several classification systems for decubitus ulcers have been described, based on where injury first occurs. The histologic progression of decubitus ulcers is a dynamic process involving several stages, each having characteristic histologic features. A team-focused approach integrating all aspects of care, including pressure relief, infection control, nutrition, and surgery, may improve healing rates. With accurate risk assessment and preventative care, we can hope to minimize complications and mortality owing to decubitus ulcers.

Management of Blue Catfish Ictalurus furcatus and Channel Catfish I. punctatus for trophy production has recently become more common. Typically, trophy management is attempted with length‐based regulations that allow for the moderate harvest of small fish but restrict the harvest of larger fish. However, the specific regulations used vary considerably across populations, and no modeling efforts have evaluated their effectiveness. We used simulation modeling to compare total yield, trophy biomass (Btrophy), and sustainability (spawning potential ratio [SPR] > 0.30) of Blue Catfish and Channel Catfish populations under three scenarios: (1) current regulation (typically a length‐based trophy regulation), (2) the best‐performing minimum length regulation (MLRbest), and (3) the best‐performing length‐based trophy catfish regulation (LTRbest; “best performing” was defined as the regulation that maximized yield, Btrophy, and sustainability). The Btrophy produced did not differ among the three scenarios. For each fishery, the MLRbest and LTRbest produced greater yield (>22% more) than the current regulation and maintained sustainability at higher finite exploitation rates (>0.30) than the current regulation. The MLRbest and LTRbest produced similar yields and SPRs for Channel Catfish and similar yields for Blue Catfish; however, the MLRbest for Blue Catfish produced more resilient fisheries (higher SPR) than the LTRbest. Overall, the variation in yield, Btrophy, and SPR among populations was greater than the variation among regulations applied to any given population, suggesting that population‐specific regulations may be preferable to regulations applied to geographic regions. We conclude that LTRs are useful for improving catfish yield and maintaining sustainability without overly restricting harvest but are not effective at increasing the Btrophy of catfish. Received February 1, 2016; accepted June 16, 2016

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Hoop nets are rapidly becoming the preferred gear type used to sample channel catfish Ictalurus punctatus, and many managers have reported that hoop nets effectively sample channel catfish in small impoundments (<200 ha). However, the utility and precision of this approach in larger impoundments have not been tested. We sought to determine how the number of tandem hoop net series affected the catch of channel catfish and the time involved in using 16 tandem hoop net series in larger impoundments (>200 ha). Hoop net series were fished once, set for 3 d; then we used Monte Carlo bootstrapping techniques that allowed us to estimate the number of net series required to achieve two levels of precision (relative standard errors [RSEs] of 15 and 25) at two levels of confidence (80% and 95%). Sixteen hoop net series were effective at obtaining an RSE of 25 with 80% and 95% confidence in all but one reservoir. Achieving an RSE of 15 was often less effective and required 18–96 hoop net series given the desired level of confidence. We estimated that an hour was needed, on average, to deploy and retrieve three hoop net series, which meant that 16 hoop net series per reservoir could be “set” and “retrieved” within a day, respectively. The estimated number of net series to achieve an RSE of 25 or 15 was positively associated with the coefficient of variation (CV) of the sample but not with reservoir surface area or relative abundance. Our results suggest that hoop nets are capable of providing reasonably precise estimates of channel catfish relative abundance and that the relationship with the CV of the sample reported herein can be used to determine the sampling effort for a desired level of precision. Received April 16, 2012; accepted August 8, 2012