Adjustment and Social Support of Sexual Assault Survivors

The role of positive (i.e. growth) and negative (i.e. posttraumatic stress symptoms) adjustment following a sexual assault experience were examined using a standardized definition of abuse. These reactions were explored in association with positive and negative support from formal and informal providers. Finally, the collective impact of positive and negative, formal and informal, support was investigated in predicting positive and negative adjustment with standardized measures. Both forms of informal support were found to be associated with positive outcomes. Only negative informal support was associated with posttraumatic stress symptoms.Department of Psycholog

Evolution of axial regionalization in Aves during the Mesozoic and its impact on the survival of modern lineages to K/Pgmass extinction

Archivo que contiene el resumen y la presentación del estudio presentado en este congreso.The axial column of Neornithes (modern birds) is characterized by regional fusions in caudal vertebrae (pygostyle), lumbosacrals (synsacrum), and thoracics (notarium in several taxa) that provide a rigid and stable axis during flight. Such a configuration integrates into a body plan highly suited for wing-assisted locomotion (with feathered forelimbs, modified girdles, and crouched limbs) that evolved from running dinosaurs and stem birds over the last ~150 million years. Shifts in count numbers and fusion of vertebrae have had paramount implications on the avian diversification and flight refinement. However, how the organization of precaudal vertebrae evolved across the dinosaur–bird lineage, and how and when the highly tuned axial column of neornithines was acquired are unexplored. Here, we quantify vertebral numbers in pennaraptoran dinosaurs –including Aves—, and show how the axial configuration of birds was driven from different shifts between two primary developmental mechanisms of body-axis organization: segmentation and homeotic regionalization. We demonstrate that the configuration highly tuned for flight of modern birds was not fully acquired until the appearance of Neornithes. The acquisition of a trunk-sacrum configuration more efficient to deal with stresses derived from the flapping flight could be a key factor in the survivorship of neornithines and the extinction of non-neornithine birds during the end-Cretaceous mass extinction event.Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (proyectos CGL2015-68300-P y PID2019-111185GB-I00) Junta de Andalucía (proyectos P18-FR3193 y PAIDI-DOC-00095) Natural History Museum of Los ángeles County (project ‘Aerodynamics of early birds’) Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Libya beyond the Revolution: Challenges and Opportunities

Libya’s popular revolution of 2011 has unleashed the potential for more diverse and inclusive growth. In the short term, the country faces the complex and costly tasks of rebuilding its economy, infrastructure, and institutions, and responding to the demands of its population, especially for improved governance. The conflict that accompanied the revolution had a severe impact on the economy, which is heavily dependent on hydrocarbons, but the contraction is expected to be temporary. The restoration of hydrocarbon production is already well advanced, and reconstruction efforts will boost non-hydrocarbon output growth in the coming years. Libya’s wealth opens a choice of paths for the future: it can fall into the trap of many resource-rich countries that have become overly reliant on revenues from finite natural resources and failed to diversify their economies, or it can pursue a course of sustainable, inclusive development led by increased private-sector activity

Mapping evolutionary process: a multi-taxa approach to conservation prioritization

Human-induced land use changes are causing extensive habitat fragmentation. As a result, many species are not able to shift their ranges in response to climate change and will likely need to adapt in situ to changing climate conditions. Consequently, a prudent strategy to maintain the ability of populations to adapt is to focus conservation efforts on areas where levels of intraspecific variation are high. By doing so, the potential for an evolutionary response to environmental change is maximized. Here, we use modeling approaches in conjunction with environmental variables to model species distributions and patterns of genetic and morphological variation in seven Ecuadorian amphibian, bird, and mammal species. We then used reserve selection software to prioritize areas for conservation based on intraspecific variation or species-level diversity. Reserves selected using species richness and complementarity showed little overlap with those based on genetic and morphological variation. Priority areas for intraspecific variation were mainly located along the slopes of the Andes and were largely concordant among species, but were not well represented in existing reserves. Our results imply that in order to maximize representation of intraspecific variation in reserves, genetic and morphological variation should be included in conservation prioritization

Genomewide association studies of suicide attempts in US soldiers

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/139960/1/ajmgb32594.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/139960/2/ajmgb32594_am.pd

Linking consented cohort and routinely collected health data to enhance investigations into childhood obesity, asthma, infections, immunisations, and injuries

Background In longitudinal health research, combining the richness of cohort data to the extensiveness of routine data opens up new possibilities, providing information not available from one data source alone. In this study, we set out to extend information from a longitudinal birth cohort study by linking to the cohort child’s routine primary and secondary health care data. The resulting linked datasets will be used to examine health outcomes and patterns of health service utilisation for a set of common childhood health problems. We describe the experiences and challenges of acquiring and linking electronic health records for participants in a national longitudinal study, the UK Millennium Cohort Study (MCS). Method Written parental consent to link routine health data to survey responses of the MCS cohort member, mother and her partner was obtained for 90.7% of respondents when interviews took place at age seven years in the MCS. Probabilistic and deterministic linkage was used to link MCS cohort members to multiple routinely-collected health data sources in Wales and Scotland. Results Overall linkage rates for the consented population using country-specific health service data sources were 97.6% for Scotland and 99.9% for Wales. Linkage rates between different health data sources ranged from 65.3% to 99.6%. Issues relating to acquisition and linkage of data sources are discussed. Conclusions Linking longitudinal cohort participants with routine data sources is becoming increasingly popular in population data research. Our results suggest that this is a valid method to enhance information held in both sources of data

Global patterns and drivers of alpine plant species richness

Aim Alpine ecosystems differ in area, macroenvironment and biogeographical history across the Earth, but the relationship between these factors and plant species richness is still unexplored. Here, we assess the global patterns of plant species richness in alpine ecosystems and their association with environmental, geographical and historical factors at regional and community scales. Location Global. Time period Data collected between 1923 and 2019. Major taxa studied Vascular plants. Methods We used a dataset representative of global alpine vegetation, consisting of 8,928 plots sampled within 26 ecoregions and six biogeographical realms, to estimate regional richness using sample‐based rarefaction and extrapolation. Then, we evaluated latitudinal patterns of regional and community richness with generalized additive models. Using environmental, geographical and historical predictors from global raster layers, we modelled regional and community richness in a mixed‐effect modelling framework. Results The latitudinal pattern of regional richness peaked around the equator and at mid‐latitudes, in response to current and past alpine area, isolation and the variation in soil pH among regions. At the community level, species richness peaked at mid‐latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, despite a considerable within‐region variation. Community richness was related to macroclimate and historical predictors, with strong effects of other spatially structured factors. Main conclusions In contrast to the well‐known latitudinal diversity gradient, the alpine plant species richness of some temperate regions in Eurasia was comparable to that of hyperdiverse tropical ecosystems, such as the páramo. The species richness of these putative hotspot regions is explained mainly by the extent of alpine area and their glacial history, whereas community richness depends on local environmental factors. Our results highlight hotspots of species richness at mid‐latitudes, indicating that the diversity of alpine plants is linked to regional idiosyncrasies and to the historical prevalence of alpine ecosystems, rather than current macroclimatic gradients