2,652 research outputs found

    Introduction to Psychology

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    Introduction to Psychology is a modified version of Psychology 2e - OpenStax

    What Makes a Habitat a Home: Understanding Settlement and Recruitment Variation in European Sea Bass, Dicentrarchus labrax

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    Sea bass stocks in the UK are in decline as a result of increased fishing pressure and variable inter-annual recruitment. Recruitment variation is driven by survival in the early life stages; therefore, nursery habitats are thought to be able to stabilize recruitment through providing optimal growth conditions for juvenile fish. A thorough understanding of the factors that drive juvenile sea bass survival is needed, however, our understanding of what constitutes quality nursery habitat for juvenile sea bass is weak, with current knowledge based almost solely on saltmarshes. Juvenile sea bass were sampled using conventional seine and fyke nets across estuarine habitats, alongside dietary DNA metabarcoding to assess their distribution diet and condition, using measures of abundance, condition, stomach fullness, and diet. To determine whether the mechanism of larvae entering estuarine nurseries is an active or passive process the vertical distribution patterns of larval sea bass were compared across tidal cycles. Finally, over-winter survival was predicted based on energy budget modelling and temperature-dependent growth experiments, based on in-situ measurements of winter temperatures. Juvenile sea bass did not differentially select high tide habitats, but saltmarshes and sand provided increased foraging success. At low tide, however, sea bass were more abundant in complex habitat with lower foraging success. Diets mainly consisted of decapods and polychaete worms across habitats, but there was evidence of increased planktivory over mud. Larval sea bass did not show evidence of flood tide transport and likely rely on passive tidal forcing to migrate into estuaries, or they are trying to retain to deeper water. According to our models, winter thermal minima resulted in complete cohort loss in all scenarios on the East coast. The results of this study suggest that multiple habitats along the estuarine mosaic are important for juvenile sea bass at some point, and that a seascape approach to management is necessary, however, winter temperatures likely present a more extreme bottleneck to recruitment

    Modern meat: the next generation of meat from cells

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    Modern Meat is the first textbook on cultivated meat, with contributions from over 100 experts within the cultivated meat community. The Sections of Modern Meat comprise 5 broad categories of cultivated meat: Context, Impact, Science, Society, and World. The 19 chapters of Modern Meat, spread across these 5 sections, provide detailed entries on cultivated meat. They extensively tour a range of topics including the impact of cultivated meat on humans and animals, the bioprocess of cultivated meat production, how cultivated meat may become a food option in Space and on Mars, and how cultivated meat may impact the economy, culture, and tradition of Asia

    Marine Toxins from Harmful Algae and Seafood Safety

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    The rapid expansion of aquaculture around the world is increasingly being impacted by toxins produced by harmful marine microalgae, which threaten the safety of seafood. In addition, ocean climate change is leading to changing patterns in the distribution of toxic dinoflagellates and diatoms which produce these toxins. New approaches are being developed to monitor for harmful species and the toxins they produce. This Special Issue covers pioneering research on harmful marine microalgae and their toxins, including the identification of species and toxins; the development of new chemical and biological techniques to identify and monitor species and toxins; the uptake of marine biotoxins in seafood and marine ecosystems; and the distribution and abundance of toxins, particularly in relation to climate change

    (b2023 to 2014) The UNBELIEVABLE similarities between the ideas of some people (2006-2016) and my ideas (2002-2008) in physics (quantum mechanics, cosmology), cognitive neuroscience, philosophy of mind, and philosophy (this manuscript would require a REVOLUTION in international academy environment!)

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    (b2023 to 2014) The UNBELIEVABLE similarities between the ideas of some people (2006-2016) and my ideas (2002-2008) in physics (quantum mechanics, cosmology), cognitive neuroscience, philosophy of mind, and philosophy (this manuscript would require a REVOLUTION in international academy environment!

    Developmental Bootstrapping of AIs

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    Although some current AIs surpass human abilities in closed artificial worlds such as board games, their abilities in the real world are limited. They make strange mistakes and do not notice them. They cannot be instructed easily, fail to use common sense, and lack curiosity. They do not make good collaborators. Mainstream approaches for creating AIs are the traditional manually-constructed symbolic AI approach and generative and deep learning AI approaches including large language models (LLMs). These systems are not well suited for creating robust and trustworthy AIs. Although it is outside of the mainstream, the developmental bootstrapping approach has more potential. In developmental bootstrapping, AIs develop competences like human children do. They start with innate competences. They interact with the environment and learn from their interactions. They incrementally extend their innate competences with self-developed competences. They interact and learn from people and establish perceptual, cognitive, and common grounding. They acquire the competences they need through bootstrapping. However, developmental robotics has not yet produced AIs with robust adult-level competences. Projects have typically stopped at the Toddler Barrier corresponding to human infant development at about two years of age, before their speech is fluent. They also do not bridge the Reading Barrier, to skillfully and skeptically draw on the socially developed information resources that power current LLMs. The next competences in human cognitive development involve intrinsic motivation, imitation learning, imagination, coordination, and communication. This position paper lays out the logic, prospects, gaps, and challenges for extending the practice of developmental bootstrapping to acquire further competences and create robust, resilient, and human-compatible AIs.Comment: 102 pages, 29 figure

    Fabrication of Novel In-Situ Remediation Tools for Unconventional Oil Contamination

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    The aftermath of unconventional oil (UO) accidents highlights the lack of preparedness of governments to deal with UO emergencies. Because bioremediation is considered slow process, physicochemical treatment processes are necessary in removing contaminants to constrain the spread of oil. In preliminary phase of study, bed systems for adsorption of oil compounds packed with modified dolomite were applied as pre-treatment for bioremediation systems. The high affinity of oil molecules to the active sites due to hydrophobic nature of dolomite surface, as well as low solubility of oil in water, resulted in rapid process of oil adsorption on external surface of modified dolomite. UO contaminated site contain high concentration of polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Thus, the final phase of study focused on finding enzyme mixture for biodegradation of PAHs contaminated sites for water and soil treatment. In this regard, screening of indigenous bacteria, identification of involved enzymes, and biodegradation tests were carried out. Several combinations of the pre-selected strains were used to create most prompting consortium for enzyme production. To mimic in situ application of enzyme mixture, bioremediation of pyrene contaminated soil was carried out in soil column tests. The average values of pyrene removal after 6 weeks indicated that the enzyme cocktail can be an appropriate concentration for soil enzymatic bioremediation in the soil column system. A bioinspired device was fabricated as a sustainable remedial method. Our results showed that after 200 seconds of circulating the enzyme solution 100% of anthracene in 1.5 L of 4.6 mg/L was removed from the beaker side. In addition to the circulation of PAH degrading enzymes in hollow fiber lumens, aliphatic degrading enzymes confined in multilayer nanofibrous membrane systems play an important role in the removal of oily compounds. Based on our studies, modified polyimide aerogels were suitable to support enzyme immobilization. The degradation tests clearly showed that immobilized enzymes had biodegradation ability for model substrate in contaminated water. Our results confirmed that immobilization of cocktail enzyme mixture enhanced their storage stability, more than 45% of its residual activity at 15 ± 1 ºC for 16 days. This study could set the guideline for the enzymatic bioremediation of aromatic pollutants especially polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in highly contaminated soil and water body
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