Males resemble females. re-evaluating sexual dimorphism in protoceratops andrewsi (neoceratopsia, protoceratopsidae)

BACKGROUND: Protoceratops andrewsi (Neoceratopsia, Protoceratopsidae) is a well-known dinosaur from the Upper Cretaceous of Mongolia. Some previous workers hypothesized sexual dimorphism in the cranial shape of this taxon, using qualitative and quantitative observations. In particular, width and height of the frill as well as the development of a nasal horn have been hypothesized as potentially sexually dimorphic. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Here, we reassess potential sexual dimorphism in skulls of Protoceratops andrewsi by applying two-dimensional geometric morphometrics to 29 skulls in lateral and dorsal views. Principal Component Analyses and nonparametric MANOVAs recover no clear separation between hypothetical "males" and "females" within the overall morphospace. Males and females thus possess similar overall cranial morphologies. No differences in size between "males" and "females" are recovered using nonparametric ANOVAs. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Sexual dimorphism within Protoceratops andrewsi is not strongly supported by our results, as previously proposed by several authors. Anatomical traits such as height and width of the frill, and skull size thus may not be sexually dimorphic. Based on PCA for a data set focusing on the rostrum and associated ANOVA results, nasal horn height is the only feature with potential dimorphism. As a whole, most purported dimorphic variation is probably primarily the result of ontogenetic cranial shape changes as well as intraspecific cranial variation independent of sex

Reassessing the financial and social costs of public transport

This paper uses a previously developed spreadsheet cost model which simulates public transport modes operated on a 12km route to analyse the total costs of different passenger demand levels. The previous cost model was a very powerful tool to estimate the social and operator cost for different public transport technologies. However, as the model is strategic based, some assumptions are very basic and idealized and the demand was assumed to be exogenous (externally fixed). When the level of demand is high for the lower capacity public transport technologies, passengers may find the incoming vehicle full and therefore they have to wait more than one service interval. This paper applies queueing theory to investigate the probability of having to wait longer than the expected service headways which will affect the average passenger waiting time. The extra waiting time for each passenger is calculated and applied in the spreadsheet cost model. The speed-flow equation in the original spreadsheet model assumes the speed decreases according to the ratio of the current frequency and the lane capacity which is based on the safety headway without any passenger boarding. However, this may vary in different operating environments. Therefore, the speed equation is improved by moving from a linear equation to a piecewise equation that considers the features of different operating environments. To evaluate the differences after applying these equations, endogenous demand rather than exogenous demand will be investigated by using the elasticities for passenger waiting time and journey time

The Determinants of Unemployment across OECD Countries

This paper explores the impact of policies and institutions on unemployment in OECD countries over the past decades. Reduced-form unemployment equations, consistent with standard wage setting/price-setting models, are estimated using cross-country/time-series data from 21 OECD countries over the period 1982-2003. In the “average” OECD country, high and long-lasting unemployment benefits, high tax wedges and stringent anti-competitive product market regulation are found to increase aggregate unemployment. By contrast, highly centralised and/or coordinated wage bargaining systems are estimated to reduce unemployment. These findings are robust across specifications, datasets and econometric methods. The paper also finds evidence of interactions across policies and institutions, as well as between institutions and shocks. Some specific interactions across policies and institutions are found to be particularly robust, notably between unemployment benefits and public spending on active labour market programmes as well as between statutory minimum wages and the tax wedge. Finally, it is shown that macroeconomic conditions also matter for unemployment patterns, with their impact being shaped by policies.unemployment; institutions; shocks

Efficient Continuous-Time SLAM for 3D Lidar-Based Online Mapping

Modern 3D laser-range scanners have a high data rate, making online simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) computationally challenging. Recursive state estimation techniques are efficient but commit to a state estimate immediately after a new scan is made, which may lead to misalignments of measurements. We present a 3D SLAM approach that allows for refining alignments during online mapping. Our method is based on efficient local mapping and a hierarchical optimization back-end. Measurements of a 3D laser scanner are aggregated in local multiresolution maps by means of surfel-based registration. The local maps are used in a multi-level graph for allocentric mapping and localization. In order to incorporate corrections when refining the alignment, the individual 3D scans in the local map are modeled as a sub-graph and graph optimization is performed to account for drift and misalignments in the local maps. Furthermore, in each sub-graph, a continuous-time representation of the sensor trajectory allows to correct measurements between scan poses. We evaluate our approach in multiple experiments by showing qualitative results. Furthermore, we quantify the map quality by an entropy-based measure.Comment: In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) 201

Spinoza y el Spinozismo en la Ilustración Occidental: los últimos giros de la controversia

This article seeks to outline the main elements in the historiographical controversy over the significance of ‘Spinozism’ as an eighteenth-century Enlightenment category and the validity or otherwise of the concept of ‘Radical Enlightenment’ as well as the relationship between these two categories. Defining ‘Radical Enlightenment’ as the philosophical rejection of religious authority combined with a democratic tending system of social and political thought, and as a partly clandestine tradition that evolved in opposition to the moderate mainstream Enlightenment, it seeks to sketch in the main features both of the ‘negative critique’ broadly opposing this way of understanding the Western Enlightenment and the ‘positive critique’ that accepts this classification in broad outline.En el presente artículo se aspira a resumir los principales elementos de la controversia historiográfica acerca del significado de “Spinozismo” como categoría de la Ilustración del siglo XVIII y de la validez o no del concepto de “Ilustración Radical”, así como la relación entre ambas categorías. Al definir la “Ilustración Radical” como el rechazo filosófico de la autoridad religiosa, en combinación con un sistema de pensamiento social y político que propende a la democracia, y como una tradición en parte clandestina desarrollada en oposición a la corriente principal de la Ilustración, más moderada, el texto pretende bosquejar en sus rasgos distintivos tanto la “crítica negativa”, fuertemente opuesta a ese modo de entender la Ilustración Occidental, como la “crítica positiva”, que la acepta ampliamente

Fear appeal construction in the Daily Mail Online:a critical discourse analysis of ‘Prime Minister Corbyn and the 1000 days that destroyed Britain’

The rhetorical fear appeal is a technique of political communication that seeks to elicit an emotional response in receivers with the intention of provoking them to political action desired by the rhetor. This paper examines a single example of fear appeal construction in the British press, the Mail Online’s ‘Prime Minister Corbyn and the 1000 days that Destroyed Britain’ (2015), through analysis of its use of two defining political myths, a conservative myth of declinism, and the utopia/anti-utopia binary myth. I firstly examine the origins and contemporary uses of fear appeals as techniques of political persuasion, before going on to examine how these are constructed. I then go on to analyse the Mail Online article’s use of these two powerful political myths, one, declinism, which I argue is utilised descriptively for the purposes of discourse construction, and the other, utopia/anti-utopia, which is utilised instructively. Finally, I propose a method of analysis combining recent approaches to the critical discourse analysis of myth with the cognitive-motivational-relational theory of emotion drawn from social psychology, in order to show how the Mail Online article is constructed as a discursive fear appeal

Productivity growth in the Industrial Revolution: a new growth accounting perspective

The issue of why productivity growth during the British industrial revolution was slow despite the arrival of famous inventions is revisited using a growth accounting methodology based on an endogenous innovation model and the perspective of recent literature on general purpose technologies. The results show that steam had a relatively small and long-delayed impact on productivity growth when benchmarked against later technologies such as electricity or ICT. Even so, technological change including embodiment effects accounted entirely for the acceleration in labor productivity growth that allowed the economy to withstand rapid population growth without a decline in living standards.

Models in Search of Targets: Exploratory Modelling and the Case of Turing Patterns

Traditional frameworks for evaluating scientific models have tended to downplay their exploratory function; instead they emphasize how models are inherently intended for specific phenomena and are to be judged by their ability to predict, reproduce, or explain empirical observations. By contrast, this paper argues that exploration should stand alongside explanation, prediction, and representation as a core function of scientific models. Thus, models often serve as starting points for future inquiry, as proofs of principle, as sources of potential explanations, and as a tool for reassessing the suitability of the target system (and sometimes of whole research agendas). This is illustrated by a case study of the varied career of reaction-diffusion models in the study of biological pattern formation, which was initiated by Alan Turing in a classic 1952 paper. Initially regarded as mathematically elegant, but biologically irrelevant, demonstrations of how, in principle, spontaneous pattern formation could occur in an organism, such Turing models have only recently rebounded, thanks to advances in experimental techniques and computational methods. The long-delayed vindication of Turing’s initial model, it is argued, is best explained by recognizing it as an exploratory tool (rather than as a purported representation of an actual target system)

Rethinking multiculturalism, reassessing multicultural education report 1

This report provides insights into the current practices of multicultural education and the opinions and understandings of New South Wales (NSW) public school teachers around increasing cultural and linguistic diversity in schools and the broader Australian community. The report is the outcome of the first stage of the Rethinking Multiculturalism/ Reassessing Multicultural Education (RMRME) Project, a three-year Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage Project between the University of Western Sydney, the NSW Department of Education and Communities (DEC) and the NSW Institute of Teachers. Surveying teachers about these and related matters seemed a useful first step in considering the state of multicultural education some forty years after its inception (Inglis, 2009). The project as a whole involved a state-wide survey – the focus of this report – as well as focus groups with teachers, parents and students in 14 schools in urban and regional NSW, and a professional learning program informing the implementation of action research projects in each school. Read also: Rethinking multiculturalism, reassessing multicultural education report 2: http://apo.org.au/node/42670 Rethinking multiculturalism, reassessing multicultural education report 3: http://apo.org.au/node/42671 &nbsp