Do Beneficial Insect Habitats Also Provide Quality Brood Habitat for Northern Bobwhite?

Strips of fallow vegetation along cropland borders are an effective strategy for providing northern bobwhite (Colinus virginianus) habitat. However, a limitation of fallow borders is the lack of nectar-producing vegetation needed to sustain many beneficial insect populations. Planted borders that contain mixes of prairie flowers and grasses may harbor more diverse arthropod communities, but the relative value of these borders as bobwhite brood habitat compared to fallow borders is unknown. Vegetation composition likely has the largest influence on a field border’s structural characteristics, which consequently may impact bobwhite foraging efficiency. Thus, actively planting field borders may not yield the vegetative composition and structure needed to provide quality brood habitat. We used groups of 6 human-imprinted bobwhite chicks as a bioassay for comparing 4 different field border treatments (planted native warm season grasses (NWSG) and prairie flowers, planted prairie flowers only, fallow vegetation, or mowed vegetation) as brood habitat from June to August 2009 and 2010. All field border treatments (0.33 ha each) were established around 9 organic crop fields. Groups of chicks were led through borders for 30-min foraging trials and immediately euthanized at the end of each trial. Their crops and gizzards were dissected in the laboratory, and eaten arthropods were measured, counted, and identified to taxonomic family. We used allometric equations to estimate the live weight of all arthropods consumed, and to calculate a mean foraging rate (grams of arthropods consumed/ chick/30 min) for each field border treatment. We used a modified leaf blower-vacuum to sample arthropod prey availability and diversity in each field border treatment. Sampled arthropods were counted and identified to taxomomic family. We also calculated a Shannon-Weiner diversity index for each field border treatment. Foraging rate did not differ among border treatments in 2009 or 2010. Similarly, mean arthropod densities and diversity calculated from blower-vac samples did not differ among treatments in 2009 or 2010. Chick foraging rate was relatively high and arthropod prey was abundant even in mowed field borders. We suspect the amount of arthropod prey foods is likely not a limiting factor for bobwhite chicks in uncultivated habitats, rather, vegetative structure that facilitates movement, supports a suitable thermal micro-climate, and provides protection from predators is most important for bobwhite broods. Our results suggest that field borders planted for promoting beneficial insects provide bobwhite brood habitat equivalent to fallow borders. However, beneficial insect habitats are expensive, and require additional time and funding to insure successful establishment. The cost of establishing planted NWSG and prairie flowers and planted prairie flowers only borders in our study was ~ $1,928 and$1,773/ha, respectively. Fallow borders are likely the most cost-effective option for landowners/managers whose primary interest is providing bobwhite habitat

Prehospital randomised assessment of a mechanical compression device in cardiac arrest (PaRAMeDIC) trial protocol

Background Survival after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest is closely linked to the quality of CPR, but in real life, resuscitation during pre-hospital care and ambulance transport is often suboptimal. Mechanical chest compression devices deliver consistent chest compressions, are not prone to fatigue and could potentially overcome some of the limitations of manual chest compression. However, there is no high-quality evidence that they improve clinical outcomes, or that they are cost effective. The Pre-hospital Randomised Assessment of a Mechanical Compression Device In Cardiac Arrest (PARAMEDIC) trial is a pragmatic cluster randomised study of the LUCAS-2 device in adult patients with non-traumatic out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. Methods The primary objective of this trial is to evaluate the effect of chest compression using LUCAS-2 on mortality at 30 days post out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, compared with manual chest compression. Secondary objectives of the study are to evaluate the effects of LUCAS-2 on survival to 12 months, cognitive and quality of life outcomes and cost-effectiveness. Methods: Ambulance service vehicles will be randomised to either manual compression (control) or LUCAS arms. Adult patients in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, attended by a trial vehicle will be eligible for inclusion. Patients with traumatic cardiac arrest or who are pregnant will be excluded. The trial will recruit approximately 4000 patients from England, Wales and Scotland. A waiver of initial consent has been approved by the Research Ethics Committees. Consent will be sought from survivors for participation in the follow-up phase. Conclusion The trial will assess the clinical and cost effectiveness of the LUCAS-2 mechanical chest compression device. Trial Registration: The trial is registered on the International Standard Randomised Controlled Trial Number Registry (ISRCTN08233942)

Highly Variable Recurrence of Tsunamis In the 7,400 Years Before the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami

The devastating 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami caught millions of coastal residents and the scientific community off-guard. Subsequent research in the Indian Ocean basin has identified prehistoric tsunamis, but the timing and recurrence intervals of such events are uncertain. Here we present an extraordinary 7,400 year stratigraphic sequence of prehistoric tsunami deposits from a coastal cave in Aceh, Indonesia. This record demonstrates that at least 11 prehistoric tsunamis struck the Aceh coast between 7,400 and 2,900 years ago. The average time period between tsunamis is about 450 years with intervals ranging from a long, dormant period of over 2,000 years, to multiple tsunamis within the span of a century. Although there is evidence that the likelihood of another tsunamigenic earthquake in Aceh province is high, these variable recurrence intervals suggest that long dormant periods may follow Sunda megathrust ruptures as large as that of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami

Design and Development of a Human Building Interaction Laboratory

A future is envisioned where buildings are assembled on-site from factory manufactured modular elements that integrate the smart technology needed to enable scalable, cost-effective solutions with autonomous, occupant-responsive, healthy, and sustainable features. The use of modular elements would mean that buildings are assembled rather than constructed on-site with better quality control, less material waste, and more predictable schedules. The use of manufactured building elements can enable more cost-effective integration of new sensors, embedded intelligence, networking, adaptive interfaces, renewable energy, energy recovery, comfort delivery, and resiliency technologies, making high-performance buildings more affordable. To explore and evaluate these modular and intelligent comfort delivery concepts and advanced approaches for interaction with occupants, a new human-building interaction laboratory (HBIL) has been designed and is under development. The facility has a modular construction layout with thermally active panels. The interior surface temperature of each panel can be individually controlled using a hydronic system. Such configuration allows us to emulate different climate zones and building type conditions and perform studies such as the effect of different active building surfaces on thermal comfort, localized comfort delivery, and occupant comfort control, among others. Moreover, each panel is reconfigurable to allow investigating different interior surface treatments for different visual and acoustic comfort conditions. In this paper, the overall design approach of the facility is presented. Furthermore, a prototype panel has been constructed to validate the design and assess the dynamic and steady-state thermal performance. Test results for the prototype panel are also presented here with a discussion on their agreement with design phase modeling results

Antigenic and genetic characterization of a divergent African virus, Ikoma lyssavirus

In 2009, a novel lyssavirus (subsequently named Ikoma lyssavirus, IKOV) was detected in the brain of an African civet (Civettictis civetta) with clinical rabies in the Serengeti National Park of Tanzania. The degree of nucleotide divergence between the genome of IKOV and those of other lyssaviruses predicted antigenic distinction from, and lack of protection provided by, available rabies vaccines. In addition, the index case was considered likely to be an incidental spillover event, and therefore the true reservoir of IKOV remained to be identified. The advent of sensitive molecular techniques has led to a rapid increase in the discovery of novel viruses. Detecting viral sequence alone, however, only allows for prediction of phenotypic characteristics and not their measurement. In the present study we describe the in vitro and in vivo characterization of IKOV, demonstrating that it is (1) pathogenic by peripheral inoculation in an animal model, (2) antigenically distinct from current rabies vaccine strains and (3) poorly neutralized by sera from humans and animals immunized against rabies. In a laboratory mouse model, no protection was elicited by a licensed rabies vaccine. We also investigated the role of bats as reservoirs of IKOV. We found no evidence for infection among 483 individuals of at least 13 bat species sampled across sites in the Serengeti and Southern Kenya

Penultimate predecessors of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami in Aceh, Sumatra: stratigraphic, archeological, and historical evidence

We present stratigraphic, archeological and historical evidence for two closely timed predecessors of the giant 2004 tsunami on the northern coast of Aceh, northern Sumatra. This is the first direct evidence that a tsunami played a role in a fifteenth century cultural hiatus along the northern Sumatran portion of the maritime silk route. One seacliff exposure on the eastern side of the Lambaro headlands reveals two beds of tsunamigenic coral rubble within a small alluvial fan. Radiocarbon and Uranium-Thorium disequilibrium dates indicate emplacement of the coral rubble after 1344 ± 3 C.E. Another seacliff exposure, on the western side of the peninsula, contains evidence of nearly continuous settlement from ~1240 C.E. to soon after 1366 ± 3 C.E., terminated by tsunami destruction. At both sites, the tsunamis are likely coincident with sudden uplift of coral reefs above the Sunda megathrust 1394 ± 2 C.E., evidence for which has been published previously. The tsunami (or tsunami pair) appears to have destroyed a vibrant port community and led to the temporary recentering of marine trade dominance to more protected locations farther east. The reestablishment of vibrant communities along the devastated coast by about 1500 CE set the stage for the 2004 disaster

Changing impacts of Alaska-Aleutian subduction zone tsunamis in California under future sea-level rise

The amplification of coastal hazards such as distant-source tsunamis under future relative sea-level rise (RSLR) is poorly constrained. In southern California, the Alaska-Aleutian subduction zone has been identified as an earthquake source region of particular concern for a worst-case scenario distant-source tsunami. Here, we explore how RSLR over the next century will influence future maximum nearshore tsunami heights (MNTH) at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. Earthquake and tsunami modeling combined with local probabilistic RSLR projections show the increased potential for more frequent, relatively low magnitude earthquakes to produce distant-source tsunamis that exceed historically observed MNTH. By 2100, under RSLR projections for a high-emissions representative concentration pathway (RCP8.5), the earthquake magnitude required to produce \u3e1 m MNTH falls from ~Mw9.1 (required today) to Mw8.0, a magnitude that is ~6.7 times more frequent along the Alaska-Aleutian subduction zone

Amphipod family distributions around Iceland

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How do you say ‘hello’? Personality impressions from brief novel voices

On hearing a novel voice, listeners readily form personality impressions of that speaker. Accurate or not, these impressions are known to affect subsequent interactions; yet the underlying psychological and acoustical bases remain poorly understood. Furthermore, hitherto studies have focussed on extended speech as opposed to analysing the instantaneous impressions we obtain from first experience. In this paper, through a mass online rating experiment, 320 participants rated 64 sub-second vocal utterances of the word ‘hello’ on one of 10 personality traits. We show that: (1) personality judgements of brief utterances from unfamiliar speakers are consistent across listeners; (2) a two-dimensional ‘social voice space’ with axes mapping Valence (Trust, Likeability) and Dominance, each driven by differing combinations of vocal acoustics, adequately summarises ratings in both male and female voices; and (3) a positive combination of Valence and Dominance results in increased perceived male vocal Attractiveness, whereas perceived female vocal Attractiveness is largely controlled by increasing Valence. Results are discussed in relation to the rapid evaluation of personality and, in turn, the intent of others, as being driven by survival mechanisms via approach or avoidance behaviours. These findings provide empirical bases for predicting personality impressions from acoustical analyses of short utterances and for generating desired personality impressions in artificial voices