Modeling large scale species abundance with latent spatial processes

Modeling species abundance patterns using local environmental features is an important, current problem in ecology. The Cape Floristic Region (CFR) in South Africa is a global hot spot of diversity and endemism, and provides a rich class of species abundance data for such modeling. Here, we propose a multi-stage Bayesian hierarchical model for explaining species abundance over this region. Our model is specified at areal level, where the CFR is divided into roughly $37{,}000$ one minute grid cells; species abundance is observed at some locations within some cells. The abundance values are ordinally categorized. Environmental and soil-type factors, likely to influence the abundance pattern, are included in the model. We formulate the empirical abundance pattern as a degraded version of the potential pattern, with the degradation effect accomplished in two stages. First, we adjust for land use transformation and then we adjust for measurement error, hence misclassification error, to yield the observed abundance classifications. An important point in this analysis is that only $28$ of the grid cells have been sampled and that, for sampled grid cells, the number of sampled locations ranges from one to more than one hundred. Still, we are able to develop potential and transformed abundance surfaces over the entire region. In the hierarchical framework, categorical abundance classifications are induced by continuous latent surfaces. The degradation model above is built on the latent scale. On this scale, an areal level spatial regression model was used for modeling the dependence of species abundance on the environmental factors.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/10-AOAS335 the Annals of Applied Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aoas/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Outbursts, State Transitions, and Periodicities Observed with the RXTE All-Sky Monitor

Results from the All-Sky Monitor (ASM) on the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer are reviewed. A number of recurrent transient sources have been detected, while only a few previously unreported sources have been discovered. The ASM light curves show a wide variety of phenomena in general, and, in particular, those of transient sources show a wide range of properties. Examples are used to illustrate that the distinction between persistent and transient sources may be very unclear. The results of searches for periodicities in the ASM light curves are summarized, and other astrophysical investigations using ASM light curves are suggested. The latter include investigations of the possible causes of long-term quasiperiodic and chaotic variability, and comparative studies on the basis of the observed variability.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, in proceedings of the conference "The Active X-ray Sky: Results from BeppoSAX and Rossi-XTE, Rome, Italy, 21-24 October, 1997. Nuclear Physics B Proceedings Supplement

Exploring empathy levels among canadian paramedic students

Introduction: Empathy is an important factor in communication between healthcare provider and patient. Previous studies have shown that empathy benefits patient care in multiple ways. Empathy allows a space of decreased vulnerability as a result, builds trust in healthcare relationships, fosters open communication that leads to improved patient care, improves patient satisfaction and buffers healthcare provider burnout. This study aimed to determine the empathy levels demonstrated by paramedic students to patients with various medical conditions, and to compare these findings to previous studies. Methods: This study employed a cross sectional design of a convenience sample of first and second year paramedic students in a community college program in Ontario, Canada. The Medical Condition Regard Scale( MCRS) was used to measure empathy levels in these students across five medical conditions: physical disability, intellectual disability, suicide attempt, mental health emergency, and substance abuse. Results: A total of 43 students participated in the study; 27 males and 15 females (1 unknown). Males demonstrated a mean empathy score of 232.44 while females demonstrated a mean of 266.4. Across the five medical conditions, substance abuse had the lowest mean empathy score (42.88), followed by mental health emergency (49.58), suicide attempt (49.47), intellectual disability (50.42) and physical disability (53.0). Conclusion: Results from this study suggest that paramedic students demonstrated the lowest levels of empathy towards patients suffering from substance abuse issues, and the highest levels of empathy towards patients with a physical disability. Male paramedic students are less empathetic than their female peers, and second year paramedic students are less empathetic than their first year counterparts. These results provide an insight into paramedic students attitudes in Canada, and provide a foundation for further studies

Microlending: What Business Can Do To Facilitate Community-Based Growth

Billions of dollars have been expended in foreign assistance throughout the third world, with much of this aid being provided by the not-for-profit community. While frequently effective in facilitating short-term benefits, these projects often do not improve the continuing living conditions for the residents of the community.  Not-for-profits generally are in the business of short-term crisis relief; consequently, they do not have a focus on job provisions in the affected community that would increase their living standards in the long-term.  Entrepreneurs, on the other hand, are in the business of job creation, which not only provides long-term benefits for the entrepreneur, but also for the entire community.  Microlending, a term coined originally by Muhammad Yunus to describe very small loans made in third-world countries, has had an enormous impact on the lives of entrepreneurs, their families, and their communities.  Many not-for-profits may wish to employ the techniques illustrated by Yunus and other successful microlending institutions.  They may find the task overwhelming, however, without employing business professionals, whose services can be costly.  For not-for-profits who might be interested in starting such a program, this paper will describe the process of microlending, articulate methods of selecting a loan recipient, and show mechanisms for documenting a microloan

Matching times of leading and following suggest cooperation through direct reciprocity during V-formation flight in ibis

One conspicuous feature of several larger bird species is their annual migration in V-shaped or echelon formation. When birds are flying in these formations, energy savings can be achieved by using the aerodynamic up-wash produced by the preceding bird. As the leading bird in a formation cannot profit from this up-wash, a social dilemma arises around the question of who is going to fly in front? To investigate how this dilemma is solved, we studied the flight behavior of a flock of juvenile Northern bald ibis (Geronticus eremita) during a human-guided autumn migration. We could show that the amount of time a bird is leading a formation is strongly correlated with the time it can itself profit from flying in the wake of another bird. On the dyadic level, birds match the time they spend in the wake of each other by frequent pairwise switches of the leading position. Taken together, these results suggest that bald ibis cooperate by directly taking turns in leading a formation. On the proximate level, we propose that it is mainly the high number of iterations and the immediacy of reciprocation opportunities that favor direct reciprocation. Finally, we found evidence that the animals' propensity to reciprocate in leading has a substantial influence on the size and cohesion of the flight formations

Horses Damp the Spring in Their Step

The muscular work of galloping in horses is halved by storing and returning elastic strain energy in spring-like muscle–tendon units1, 2.These make the legs act like a child\u27s pogo stick that is tuned to stretch and recoil at 2.5 strides per second. This mechanism is optimized by unique musculoskeletal adaptations: the digital flexor muscles have extremely short fibres and significant passive properties, whereas the tendons are very long and span several joints3, 4. Length change occurs by a stretching of the spring-like digital flexor tendons rather than through energetically expensive length changes in the muscle5. Despite being apparently redundant for such a mechanism5, the muscle fibres in the digital flexors are well developed. Here we show that the mechanical arrangement of the elastic leg permits it to vibrate at a higher frequency of 30–40 Hz that could cause fatigue damage to tendon and bone. Furthermore, we show that the digital flexor muscles have minimal ability to contribute to or regulate significantly the 2.5-Hz cycle of movement, but are ideally arranged to damp these high-frequency oscillations in the limb

A subset of methylated CpG sites differentiate psoriatic from normal skin.

Psoriasis is a chronic inflammatory immune-mediated disorder affecting the skin and other organs including joints. Over 1,300 transcripts are altered in psoriatic involved skin compared with normal skin. However, to our knowledge, global epigenetic profiling of psoriatic skin is previously unreported. Here, we describe a genome-wide study of altered CpG methylation in psoriatic skin. We determined the methylation levels at 27,578 CpG sites in skin samples from individuals with psoriasis (12 involved, 8 uninvolved) and 10 unaffected individuals. CpG methylation of involved skin differed from normal skin at 1,108 sites. Twelve mapped to the epidermal differentiation complex, upstream or within genes that are highly upregulated in psoriasis. Hierarchical clustering of 50 of the top differentially methylated (DM) sites separated psoriatic from normal skin samples with uninvolved skin exhibiting intermediate methylation. CpG sites where methylation was correlated with gene expression are reported. Sites with inverse correlations between methylation and nearby gene expression include those of KYNU, OAS2, S100A12, and SERPINB3, whose strong transcriptional upregulation is an important discriminator of psoriasis. Pyrosequencing of bisulfite-treated DNA from skin biopsies at three DM loci confirmed earlier findings and revealed reversion of methylation levels toward the non-psoriatic state after 1 month of anti-TNF-α therapy

Dating the Kawakawa/Oruanui eruption: Comment on "Optical luminescence dating of a loess section containing a critical tephra marker horizon, SW North Island of New Zealand" by R. Grapes et al.

An IRSL age of 17.0 ± 2.2 ka (and a “mean age” of ca. 19 ka) reported by Grapes et al. [Grapes, R., Rieser, U., Wang, N. Optical luminescence dating of a loess section containing a critical tephra marker horizon, SW North Island of New Zealand. Quaternary Geochronology 5(2-3), 164–169.] for the Kawakawa/Oruanui tephra, and other ages associated with a loess section in New Zealand are untenable: age data presented are inconsistent, no formal statistical treatments or error determinations were undertaken in age analysis, and the ages proposed are seriously at odds with multiple radiocarbon age determinations on tephra sequences bracketing the Kawakawa/Oruanui tephra and with palaeoenvironmental evidence elsewhere for the time period concerned. We suggest that the bulk polymineral IRSL ages on the tephra and encapsulating loess deposits were underestimated in part because of contamination of the loess by the integration of younger materials during slow deposition and continuous modification by upbuilding pedogenesis. Single-grain luminescence assays may reveal such contamination. A 14C-based age of ca. 27 ± 1 ka cal BP (2σ), reported in 2008, currently remains the best estimate for the age of eruption of the Kawakawa/Oruanui tephra

Radiometer offsets and count conversion coefficients for the Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) spacecraft for the years 1984, 1985, and 1986

A compendium is presented of the ground and inflight scanner and nonscanner offsets and count conversion (gain) coefficients used for the Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) production processing of data from the ERBS, NOAA-9, and NOAA-10 satellites for the 1 Nov. 1984 to 31 Dec. 1986

DSM-5 criteria for substance use disorders: recommendations and rationale.

Since DSM-IV was published in 1994, its approach to substance use disorders has come under scrutiny. Strengths were identified (notably, reliability and validity of dependence), but concerns have also arisen. The DSM-5 Substance-Related Disorders Work Group considered these issues and recommended revisions for DSM-5. General concerns included whether to retain the division into two main disorders (dependence and abuse), whether substance use disorder criteria should be added or removed, and whether an appropriate substance use disorder severity indicator could be identified. Specific issues included possible addition of withdrawal syndromes for several substances, alignment of nicotine criteria with those for other substances, addition of biomarkers, and inclusion of nonsubstance, behavioral addictions.This article presents the major issues and evidence considered by the work group, which included literature reviews and extensive new data analyses. The work group recommendations for DSM-5 revisions included combining abuse and dependence criteria into a single substance use disorder based on consistent findings from over 200,000 study participants, dropping legal problems and adding craving as criteria, adding cannabis and caffeine withdrawal syndromes, aligning tobacco use disorder criteria with other substance use disorders, and moving gambling disorders to the chapter formerly reserved for substance-related disorders. The proposed changes overcome many problems, while further studies will be needed to address issues for which less data were available