Root-suckering and Clonality in a Blue Mountains Banksia Taxon (Proteaceae)

We report novel observations of widespread root-suckering from shallow lateral roots, and clonal morphology in 29 populations of plants ascribed to Banksia paludosa subsp. paludosa in the upper Blue Mountains, NSW, and differing from southern populations (Southern Highlands and Woronora Plateau) which are lignotuberous resprouters. Following fire, Blue Mountains populations can resprout to form multi-stemmed shrubs appearing to be lignotuberous resprouters, but form root connected populations of sometimes closely spaced ramets in discrete areas. New single- or multiple-shoot root suckers frequently arise following fire from lateral roots at varying distances from the nearest established ramets. No lignotubers (developed on seed-grown plants) were observed, but multi-stemmed ramets which survive multiple fires may develop small, swollen, woody underground structures where they originate from lateral roots, but these are also frequently killed by fire and thus not reliably persistent regenerative organs. Cone development is rare, compared with southern populations, and no seedling recruitment was observed in any population. Such geographically widespread and ubiquitous root-suckering has not previously been reported in Banksia species in eastern Australia, though it has been reported in southwestern Australian species and in an ecotype of Banksia marginata from western Victoria and South Australia. We suggest that Blue Mountains populations of this species may represent a distinct taxon with a different post-glacial history and recommend genetic and taxonomic studies to better understand the relationships with related species, including the identity and placement of the Blue Mountains root-suckering taxon reported here

Population Ecology of Two Endemic, Fire-sensitive, Blue Mountains Banksia Taxa (Proteaceae) in Response to Fire

Banksia penicillata (northern Blue Mountains) and Banksia paludosa subsp. astrolux (Southern Highlands) occur in small, isolated populations and occasionally as isolated individuals. We undertook a field study of both species to better understand their population ecology in relation to fire. Both are large, serotinous, fire-sensitive shrubs with plant-stored seedbank and a relatively short lifespan (15 years old across the landscape, including some sites with fire intervals >30 years, to provide increased opportunities for distance-dispersal and establishment of new fruiting populations. Applying IUCN threatened species criteria, there is a strong case for listing Banksia paludosa subsp. astrolux as Endangered and Banksia penicillata as Vulnerable

Hypothesis: can the abscopal effect explain the impact of adjuvant radiotherapy on breast cancer mortality?

Radiotherapy is an integral component of loco-regional therapy for breast cancer. Randomized controlled trials indicate that increasing the extent of extirpative surgery primarily reduces the risk of local recurrences, while the addition of radiotherapy to surgery can also reduce the risk of distant recurrences, thereby lowering breast cancer-specific mortality. This may suggest an “abscopal” effect beyond the immediate zone of loco-regional irradiation that favorably perturbs the natural history of distant micrometastases. Immunological phenomena such as “immunogenic cell death” provide a plausible mechanistic link between the local and systemic effects of radiation. Radiotherapy treatment can stimulate both pro-immunogenic and immunosuppressive pathways with a potential net beneficial effect on anti-tumor immune activity. Upregulation of programmed cell death ligand (PD-L1) by radiotherapy is an immunosuppressive pathway that could be approached with anti-PD-L1 therapy with potential further improvement in survival. The world overview of randomized trials indicates that the breast cancer mortality reduction from adjuvant radiotherapy is delayed relative to that of adjuvant systemic treatments, and similar delays in the separation of survival curves are evident in the majority of randomized immunotherapy trials demonstrating treatment efficacy. In this article, we hypothesize that an abscopal effect may explain the benefit of radiotherapy in reducing breast cancer mortality, and that It might be possible to harness and augment this effect with systemic agents to reduce the risk of late recurrences

Interventions to improve equational reasoning: replication and extension of the Cuisenaire-Gattegno curriculum effect

IntroductionThe ability to reason about equations in a robust and fluent way requires both instrumental knowledge of symbolic forms, syntax, and operations, as well as relational knowledge of how such formalisms map to meaningful relationships captured within mental models. A recent systematic review of studies contrasting the Cuisenaire-Gattegno (Cui) curriculum approach vs. traditional rote schooling on equational reasoning has demonstrated the positive efficacy of pedagogies that focus on integrating these two forms of knowledge.MethodsHere we seek to replicate and extend the most efficacious of these studies (Brownell) by implementing the curriculum to a high degree of fidelity, as well as capturing longitudinal changes within learners via a novel tablet-based assessment of accuracy and fluency with equational reasoning. We examined arithmetic fluency as a function of relational reasoning to equate initial performance across diverse groups and to track changes over four growth assessment points.ResultsResults showed that the intervention condition that stressed relational reasoning leads to advances in fluency for addition and subtraction with small numbers. We also showed that this intervention leads to changes in problem solving dispositions toward complex challenges, wherein students in the CUI intervention were more inclined to solve challenging problems relative to those in the control who gave up significantly earlier on multi-step problems. This shift in disposition was associated with higher accuracy on complex equational reasoning problems. A treatment by aptitude interaction emerged for both arithmetic equation reasoning and complex multi-step equational reasoning problems, both of which showed that the intervention had greatest impact for children with lower initial mathematical aptitude. Two years of intervention contrast revealed a large effect (d = 1) for improvements in equational reasoning for the experimental (CUI) group relative to control.DiscussionThe strong replication and extension findings substantiate the importance of embedding these teaching aides within the theory grounded curricula that gave rise to them

Equational reasoning: A systematic review of the Cuisenaire–Gattegno approach

The Cuisenaire–Gattegno (Cui) approach to early mathematics uses color coded rods of unit increment lengths embedded in a systematic curriculum designed to guide learners as young as age five from exploration of integers and ratio through to formal algebraic writing. The effectiveness of this approach has been the subject of hundreds of investigations supporting positive results, yet with substantial variability in the nature of results across studies. Based on an historical analysis of one of the highest-fidelity studies (Brownell), which estimated a treatment effect on equation reasoning with an effect size of 1.66, we propose that such variability may be related to different emphases on the use of the manipulatives or on the curriculum from which they came. We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of Cui that sought to trace back to the earliest investigations of its efficacy. Results revealed the physical manipulatives component of the original approach (Cuisenaire Rods) have had greater adoption than efforts to retain or adopt curriculum elements from the Cuisenaire–Gattegno approach. To examine the impact of this, we extended the meta-analysis to index the degree to which each study of Cuisenaire Rods included efforts to align or incorporate curricular elements, practices, or goals with the original curriculum. Curriculum design fidelity captured a significant portion of the variability of efficacy results in the meta-analysis

The Effect of Control Strategy on Tidal Stream Turbine Performance in Laboratory and Field Experiments

The first aim of the research presented here is to examine the effect of turbine control by comparing a passive open-loop control strategy with a constant rotational speed proportional–integral–derivative (PID) feedback loop control applied to the same experimental turbine. The second aim is to evaluate the effect of unsteady inflow on turbine performance by comparing results from a towing-tank, in the absence of turbulence, with results from the identical machine in a tidal test site. The results will also inform the reader of: (i) the challenges of testing tidal turbines in unsteady tidal flow conditions in comparison to the controlled laboratory environment; (ii) calibration of acoustic Doppler flow measurement instruments; (iii) characterising the inflow to a turbine and identifying the uncertainties from unsteady inflow conditions by adaptation of the International Electrotechnical Commission technical specification (IEC TS): 62600-200. The research shows that maintaining a constant rotational speed with a control strategy yields a 13.7% higher peak power performance curve in the unsteady flow environment, in comparison to an open-loop control strategy. The research also shows an 8.0% higher peak power performance in the lab compared to the field, demonstrating the effect of unsteady flow conditions on power performance. The research highlights the importance of a tidal turbines control strategy when designing experiments

Chern classes and extraspecial groups

The mod-p cohomology ring of the extraspecial p-group of exponent p is studied for odd p. We investigate the subquotient ch(G) generated by Chern classes modulo the nilradical. The subring of ch(G) generated by Chern classes of one-dimensional representations was studied by Tezuka and Yagita. The subring generated by the Chern classes of the faithful irreducible representations is a polynomial algebra. We study the interplay between these two families of generators, and obtain some relations between them

Vegetation, fauna and groundwater interrelations in low nutrient temperate montane peat swamps in the upper Blue Mountains, New South Wales

Newnes Plateau Shrub Swamps are a series of low nutrient temperate montane peat swamps around 1100 m elevation in the upper Blue Mountains, west of Sydney (lat 33° 23’ S; long 150° 13’E). Transect-based vegetation studies show a closely related group of swamps with expanses of permanently moist, gently sloping peatlands. Vegetation patterns are related to surface hydrology and subsurface topography, which determine local peat depth. While there is evidence that a group of the highest elevation swamps on the western side of the Plateau are more dependent on rainwater, the majority of swamps, particularly those in the Carne Creek catchment, and east and south of it, may beconsidered primarily groundwater dependent with a permanently high watertable maintained by groundwater aquifers. An integral part of the swamps are a number of threatened groundwater dependent biota (plants–Boronia deanei subsp. deanei, Dillwynia stipulifera, dragonfly– Petalura gigantea, lizard– Eulamprus leuraensis), which are obligate swamp dwellers. This association of dependence leaves the entire swamp ecosystem highly susceptible to threats from any loss of groundwater, the current major one being the impact of damage to the confining aquicludes, aquitards, aquifers and peat substrates as a result of subsidence associated with longwall mining. Impacts on the swamps may also result from changes to hydrology through damming of creeks, mine waste water discharge, increased moisture competition from pine plantations, recreational motorbike and off-road vehicle tracks and climate change. If these groundwater dependent ecosystems do not receive protection from activities such as longwall mining subsidence, significant ecological damage is unlikely to be avoided or able to be mitigated even where provisions of the Commonwealth Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation and NSW Threatened Species Conservation Acts apply to groundwater dependent swamps and biota. The importance of the highest elevation part of the Plateau for a number of restricted (some endemic) plant species is also discussed

Assessment of Suited Reach Envelope in an Underwater Environment

Predicting the performance of a crewmember in an extravehicular activity (EVA) space suit presents unique challenges. The kinematic patterns of suited motions are difficult to reproduce in gravity. Additionally, 3-D suited kinematics have been practically and technically difficult to quantify in an underwater environment, in which crewmembers are commonly trained and assessed for performance. The goal of this study is to develop a hardware and software system to predictively evaluate the kinematic mobility of suited crewmembers, by measuring the 3-D reach envelope of the suit in an underwater environment. This work is ultimately aimed at developing quantitative metrics to compare the mobility of the existing Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) to newly developed space suit, such as the Z-2. The EMU has been extensively used at NASA since 1981 for EVA outside the Space Shuttle and International Space Station. The Z-2 suit is NASA's newest prototype space suit. The suit is comprised of new upper torso and lower torso architectures, which were designed to improve test subject mobility