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    58110 research outputs found

    Interactive effects of intrasexual competitiveness, same-sex competition, and physical attractiveness on temporal discounting

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    Studies have shown that men discount the future and prefer immediate-but-smaller over delayed-but-larger rewards when exposed to mating opportunities (e.g., attractive opposite-sex targets) or threats (e.g., same-sex competition) whereas women's discounting in response to similar cues appears mixed, suggesting that mating-motivated discounting is primarily a male phenomenon. Importantly, this line of research has not yet examined the role of individual difference variables as well as how the attractiveness of potential mates and perceptions of competition jointly influence discounting rates. We conducted a novel test of the effect of trait intrasexual competitiveness (ISC) using dating profiles varying on target attractiveness and same-sex competition to observe their interactive effects on participants' discounting. Results showed that when targets were attractive, higher ISC was associated with steeper discounting for both men and women, and this association was stronger when competition was high rather than low. ISC still predicted discounting when targets were low in attractiveness but competition was high; high ISC did not predict discounting only in the low attractiveness and low competition condition. These findings reveal ISC as a factor that leads women to discount as much as men, and that high-ISC individuals may be more responsive to competition than to target attractiveness

    Ecotypic Variation in Leaf Thermoregulation and Heat Tolerance but Not Thermal Safety Margins in Tropical Trees

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    To avoid reaching lethal temperatures during periods of heat stress, plants may acclimate either their biochemical thermal tolerance or leaf morphological and physiological characteristics to reduce leaf temperature (Tleaf). While plants from warmer environments may have a greater capacity to regulate Tleaf, the extent of intraspecific variation and contribution of provenance is relatively unexplored. We tested whether upland and lowland provenances of four tropical tree species grown in a common garden differed in their thermal safety margins by measuring leaf thermal traits, midday leaf-to-air temperature differences (∆Tleaf) and critical leaf temperatures defined by chlorophyll fluorescence (Tcrit). Provenance variation was species- and trait-specific. Higher ∆Tleaf and Tcrit were observed in the lowland provenance for Terminalia microcarpa, and in the upland provenance for Castanospermum australe, with no provenance effects in the other two species. Within-species covariation of Tcrit and ∆Tleaf led to a convergence of thermal safety margins across provenances. While future studies should expand the number of provenances and species investigated, our findings suggest that lowland and upland provenances may not differ substantially in their vulnerability to heat stress, as determined by thermal safety margins, despite differences in operating temperatures and Tcrit

    Colourblindness in/of place: Memory, colonial place, and education’s ignorance of the blue

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    This chapter takes up the nexus of place and anti-colonial thought to prompt a consideration of how educational theory and scholarship, in making efforts to critically engage place, often does so with a rather terrestrial focus, failing to account for the placial colonisation of blue spaces. This chapter looks to how public memory is written into both blue and green spaces, doing so in support of a demonstration of how colonial logics are written into both terrestrial and aqueous spaces. Through such an exploration, I call for more attention to be paid in critical educational work to the ‘cyan’ making of settler-colonial place, that is, the complex intersection of blue and green places in the white settler-colonial project

    Concordance in molecular methods for detection of antimicrobial resistance: A cross sectional study of the influent to a wastewater plant

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    Methods that are used to characterise microbiomes and antimicrobial resistance genes (ARGs) in wastewater are not standardised. We used shotgun metagenomic sequencing (SM-Seq), RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) and targeted qPCR to compare microbial and ARG diversity in the influent to a municipal wastewater treatment plant in Australia. ARGs were annotated with CARD-RGI and MEGARes databases, and bacterial diversity was characterised by 16S rRNA gene sequencing and SM-Seq, with species annotation in SILVA/GreenGenes databases or Kraken2 and the NCBI nucleotide database respectively. CARD and MEGARes identified evenly distributed ARG profiles but MEGARes detected a richer array of ARGs (richness = 475 vs 320). Qualitatively, ARGs encoding for aminoglycoside, macrolide-lincosamide-streptogramin and multidrug resistance were the most abundant in all examined databases. RNA-seq detected only 32 % of ARGs identified by SM-Seq, but there was concordance in the qualitative identification of aminoglycoside, macrolide-lincosamide, phenicol, sulfonamide and multidrug resistance by SM-Seq and RNA-seq. qPCR confirmed the detection of some ARGs, including OXA, VEB and EREB, that were identified by SM-Seq and RNA-seq in the influent. For bacteria, SM-Seq or 16S rRNA gene sequencing were equally effective in population profiling at phyla or class level. However, SM-Seq identified a significantly higher species richness (richness = 15,000 vs 3750). These results demonstrate that SM-Seq with gene annotation in CARD and MEGARes are equally sufficient for surveillance of antimicrobial resistance in wastewater. For more precise ARG identification and quantification however, MEGARes presented a better resolution. The functionality of detected ARGs was not confirmed, but general agreement on the putative phenotypic resistance profile by antimicrobial class was observed between RNA-Seq and SM-Seq

    The Applied Music Studio: A Decade of Research and Inquiry

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    The applied music studio at its best provides intense inspiration and instruction for musicians, yet at its worst can alienate and demotivate students. Mostly widely known as one-to-one teaching, in the master-apprentice model, the challenges of teaching in the applied studio have been studied for over two decades. This chapter reviews the most recent body of work and provides an overview of practical findings from the research

    Sclerochronology and oxygen isotope variations in modern Conomurex luhuanus shells: An archive for reconstructing palaeotemperature and shellfish gathering on the Great Barrier Reef, Australia

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    The marine gastropod Conomurex luhuanus is a common component of Holocene archaeological shell deposits in the Western Indo-Pacific region. Oxygen isotope ratios recorded in shells of C. luhuanus from the Great Barrier Reef potentially provide high-resolution data on palaeoclimatic conditions and the exploitation of coastal marine resources. However, the application of this species as a palaeoclimate and seasonal foraging archive has yet to be investigated. We employ sclerochronology techniques to analyse oxygen isotope variations in modern, live-collected shells to evaluate the efficacy of this species in recording modern environmental factors, such as sea-surface temperature (SST). We collected live C. luhuanus during the cold season (August and September), in two separate years (2019 and 2023), from reef-flat intertidal zones. Shell growth increments were studied in section and high-resolution carbonate samples were collected from the lip portion and along the body whorl to test whether shell carbonate is deposited in oxygen isotopic equilibrium with seawater and to decipher the shell growth pattern of this species. Measured δ18Oshell ranges between −0.2 and −1.8 ‰ (VPDB) in modern samples. Despite showing variability in growth rates, including a remarkable growth stop/slowdown during the cool season that is punctuated by a red zone with closely spaced growth increments, our findings reveal that C. luhuanus deposits its aragonite shells at (or close to) equilibrium with its surrounding environment. When sampled at high resolution (sub-seasonally), oxygen isotopes can be used to reconstruct the full annual SST range. The estimated SSTs closely match the range of instrumental SSTs measured in the study area, whilst the last deposited (edge) shell-calculated SST can be used to determine the season of animal death. This study shows that well-preserved shells of C. luhuanus can serve as excellent high-resolution palaeotemperature archives for the tropical reef-flat zone. This research underpins the use of this species in future research to determine human-environment interactions and reconstruction of palaeoclimate from archaeological and fossil samples in the Western Pacific Ocean

    New archaeological discoveries in north-central Timor-Leste indicate sociocultural adaptations to landscape change during the Holocene

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    During the Holocene, Wallacea saw dramatic sociocultural changes during the Pre-ceramic, Neolithic, Metal-age, and Colonial periods, as well as climatic and associated environmental changes that affected the landscapes and ecologies of islands. These environmental and cultural processes appear to have influenced human socioeconomic adaptations throughout the archipelago. Here, we present new anthropological and archaeological data demonstrating the effects of these processes. Excavations at the cave site of Hatu Saur on the north coast of Timor-Leste have revealed a deep archaeological sequence that dates from ca. 10,500 years until the present. The site contains extensive assemblages of faunal remains, as well as stone artifacts, revealing settlement patterns that were influenced by sea level change and estuarine infilling after 7 ka. The sequence encompasses the beginning of the Neolithic in Timor-Leste, some 3500 years ago, and the period from ca. 700 years ago when outside influences, including Chinese and Makassar traders and Dutch and Portuguese colonization, greatly affected the indigenous culture and economy on the island of Timor, reflected in the material culture remains from Hatu Saur. The archaeological findings complement related anthropological research in the region that highlights unique local mythologies of settlement origins and their contested histories

    Delineation of geochemical anomalies through empirical cumulative distribution function for mineral exploration

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    In this paper, a statistical outlier detection technique based on empirical cumulative distribution functions (ECOD) is applied to a multivariate geochemical dataset from southeastern Iran, which is known for its porphyry and vein-type copper mineral occurrences. The ECOD method assumes that outlier samples are situated in both the left and right tails of the cumulative distribution functions, and it determines whether the outliers are located in the right or left tails using the concept of skewness. Anomaly maps produced by the ECOD method are compared with those generated by the local outlier factor (LOF) method. Both ECOD and LOF are applied to two subsets, including 4 and 12 trace elements. The anomaly maps are evaluated by comparing the number of delineated known mineral deposits and using ROC curves. The result revealed that LOF was outperformed by ECOD in the delineation of known Cu mineralization and in the identification of zones containing mineralized samples collected during the anomaly checking stage. The ECOD anomaly map is also compared with results from the k-means clustering method, and the superiority of ECOD over k-means clustering is demonstrated. The implementation of ECOD on clr-transformed multivariate geochemical data shows promise but assumes statistical independence among features, often unmet in geochemical exploration. To address this, we transformed clr data into new principal and independent feature spaces using principal component analysis (PCA) and independent component analysis (ICA), enhancing anomaly detection efficiency. ECOD_ICA outperformed ECOD_PCA, successfully classifying all mineralized samples and 15 of 18 Cu mineral occurrences in the highest score class (Q4), as confirmed by ROC analysis. However, the reliance of the ECOD method on univariate tail probabilities limits its ability to detect multivariate anomalies arising from complex inter-element relationships. Strong correlations in geochemical datasets can lead to false positives, necessitating dimension reduction techniques. While PCA and ICA help manage these correlations, they may obscure meaningful signals. The ECOD outlier detection method is also sensitive to the skewness of the dimensions, so a careful feature selection stage is recommended before applying it. The method is less sensitive to the number of dimensions, which enhances its robustness. Additionally, the absence of hyperparameter tuning makes ECOD a reliable and efficient outlier detection method

    How does dimensionality influence outlier detection effectiveness in multivariate geochemical data? insights from LOF and IF methods

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    This paper examines the impact of the curse of dimensionality on the performance of isolation forest (IF) and local outlier factor (LOF) in detecting mineralization-related geochemical anomalies from a high-dimensional geochemical dataset. Using subsets selected through random and supervised methods with varying dimensions, IF and LOF were tested against known mineral deposit locations to assess their effectiveness. This study evaluates the percentage of mineral occurrences classified as anomalies and the area under the ROC curve across different dimensionalities. Furthermore, the influence of dimension reduction techniques such as PCA and ISOMAP on IF and LOF performance is explored. IF demonstrates consistent performance, proving robust across various dimensions and particularly suited to high-dimensional datasets. In contrast, LOF displays sensitivity to dimensionality, with optimal performance in lower dimensions (5 to 10 variables) but diminishing effectiveness beyond this range. This sensitivity highlights the importance of judicious input variable selection for LOF to achieve effective anomaly detection in geochemical datasets. Additionally, this study reveals that the performance of IF remains stable with both PCA and ISOMAP, whereas LOF benefits more from PCA, where its variance-maximizing feature may retain sufficient structural integrity for effective anomaly detection. Conversely, the performance of LOF declines with ISOMAP due to its more significant impact on local density changes. This variation underscores the need for a careful selection of dimension reduction methods and the number of components used as input for outlier detection methods

    Bridging the gap: Comparative Analysis of Academic Support and Teacher-student Relationships in Faith-based Schools Across Regional and Urban Contexts

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    This article investigates the association between teachers providing academic support to their students and student's perceptions of their relationships with their teachers, with a focus on the role of geographical location. Utilising the Revised School Climate Measure, this pilot study surveyed 522 students across four Australian faith-based schools—two urban, and two regional schools. The data were analysed using a combination of correlations, one-way MANOVA and binomial regression. The results indicate that academic support is a contributing factor to students in regional schools reporting stronger relationships with their teachers compared to their urban peers. This study provides a foundation for future research and could be replicated on a larger scale. The implications offer school leaders and policymakers additional information to help address areas of disadvantage within regional Australian schools, while also highlighting the need for further investigation in this area

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