Genetic and morphological divergence between Littorina fabalis ecotypes in Northern Europe

Low dispersal marine intertidal species facing strong divergent selective pressures associated with steep environmental gradients have a great potential to inform us about local adaptation and reproductive isolation. Among these, gastropods of the genus Littorina offer a unique system to study parallel phenotypic divergence resulting from adaptation to different habitats related with wave exposure. In this study, we focused on two Littorina fabalis ecotypes from Northern European shores and compared patterns of habitat-related phenotypic and genetic divergence across three different geographic levels (local, regional and global). Geometric morphometric analyses revealed that individuals from habitats moderately exposed to waves usually present a larger shell size with a wider aperture than those from sheltered habitats. The phenotypic clustering of L. fabalis by habitat across most locations (mainly in terms of shell size) support an important role of ecology in morphological divergence. A genome scan based on amplified fragment length polymorphisms (AFLPs) revealed a heterogeneous pattern of differentiation across the genome between populations from the two different habitats, suggesting ecotype divergence in the presence of gene flow. The contrasting patterns of genetic structure between nonoutlier and outlier loci, and the decreased sharing of outlier loci with geographic distance among locations are compatible with parallel evolution of phenotypic divergence, with an important contribution of gene flow and/or ancestral variation. In the future, model-based inference studies based on sequence data across the entire genome will help unravelling these evolutionary hypotheses, improving our knowledge about adaptation and its influence on diversification within the marine realm.Peer reviewe

Overcoming challenges to data quality in the ASPREE clinical trial

© 2019 The Author(s). Background: Large-scale studies risk generating inaccurate and missing data due to the complexity of data collection. Technology has the potential to improve data quality by providing operational support to data collectors. However, this potential is under-explored in community-based trials. The Aspirin in reducing events in the elderly (ASPREE) trial developed a data suite that was specifically designed to support data collectors: the ASPREE Web Accessible Relational Database (AWARD). This paper describes AWARD and the impact of system design on data quality. Methods: AWARD's operational requirements, conceptual design, key challenges and design solutions for data quality are presented. Impact of design features is assessed through comparison of baseline data collected prior to implementation of key functionality (n = 1000) with data collected post implementation (n = 18,114). Overall data quality is assessed according to data category. Results: At baseline, implementation of user-driven functionality reduced staff error (from 0.3% to 0.01%), out-of-range data entry (from 0.14% to 0.04%) and protocol deviations (from 0.4% to 0.08%). In the longitudinal data set, which contained more than 39 million data values collected within AWARD, 96.6% of data values were entered within specified query range or found to be accurate upon querying. The remaining data were missing (3.4%). Participant non-attendance at scheduled study activity was the most common cause of missing data. Costs associated with cleaning data in ASPREE were lower than expected compared with reports from other trials. Conclusions: Clinical trials undertake complex operational activity in order to collect data, but technology rarely provides sufficient support. We find the AWARD suite provides proof of principle that designing technology to support data collectors can mitigate known causes of poor data quality and produce higher-quality data. Health information technology (IT) products that support the conduct of scheduled activity in addition to traditional data entry will enhance community-based clinical trials. A standardised framework for reporting data quality would aid comparisons across clinical trials

Healthcare in the news media: The privileging of private over public

This article reports on a discourse analysis of the representation of healthcare in the print news media, and the way this representation shapes perspectives of healthcare. We analysed news items from six major Australian newspapers over a three-year time period. We show how various framing devices promote ideas about a crisis in the current public healthcare system, the existence of a precarious balance between the public and private health sectors, and the benefits of private healthcare. We employ Bourdieu’s concepts of field and capital to demonstrate the processes through which these devices are employed to conceal the power relations operating in the healthcare sector, to obscure the identity of those who gain the most from the expansion of private sector medicine, and to indirectly increase health inequalities

More and More Restrictive-But Not Always Populist: Explaining Variation in the British Conservative Party's Stance on Immigration and Asylum

This is the Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article published in the Journal of Contemporary European Studies Vol. 21, Iss. 1, copyright Taylor & Francis 2013, available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/14782804.2013.766474Centre-right parties are commonly inclined towards appeals and policies on immigration that are both restrictive in nature and populist in tone-in part because this is what they believe in, in part because it affords them an electoral advantage over their rivals on the centre-left. One would expect, however, that the extent to which they focus on immigration and asylum will vary according to public opinion, according to who leads them, and according to whether they are in government or in opposition. This would appear to be the case for the British Conservative Party, but the relationship is not an entirely consistent one. Moreover, while the Party has, for half a century, pursued ever more restrictive policies, the extent to which it has couched its approach in populist rhetoric varies considerably over time-and not always in line with the severity of its stance on immigration. The reason for this lies partly in the social and economic liberalism of some of its leaders (and in their related concern to act 'responsibly' on race and immigration) but also in their anxiety not to alienate key sections of the middle classes who must be persuaded to support the Party if it is to win elections. These considerations are likely to weigh heavily with other centre-right parties, too. © 2013 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC

Fertility, Living Arrangements, Care and Mobility

There are four main interconnecting themes around which the contributions in this book are based. This introductory chapter aims to establish the broad context for the chapters that follow by discussing each of the themes. It does so by setting these themes within the overarching demographic challenge of the twenty-first century – demographic ageing. Each chapter is introduced in the context of the specific theme to which it primarily relates and there is a summary of the data sets used by the contributors to illustrate the wide range of cross-sectional and longitudinal data analysed

Commentary on the use of the reproduction number R during the COVID-19 pandemic

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the reproduction number R has become a popular epidemiological metric used to communicate the state of the epidemic. At its most basic, R is defined as the average number of secondary infections caused by one primary infected individual. R seems convenient, because the epidemic is expanding if R>1 and contracting if R<1. The magnitude of R indicates by how much transmission needs to be reduced to control the epidemic. Using R in a naïve way can cause new problems. The reasons for this are threefold: (1) There is not just one definition of R but many, and the precise definition of R affects both its estimated value and how it should be interpreted. (2) Even with a particular clearly defined R, there may be different statistical methods used to estimate its value, and the choice of method will affect the estimate. (3) The availability and type of data used to estimate R vary, and it is not always clear what data should be included in the estimation. In this review, we discuss when R is useful, when it may be of use but needs to be interpreted with care, and when it may be an inappropriate indicator of the progress of the epidemic. We also argue that careful definition of R, and the data and methods used to estimate it, can make R a more useful metric for future management of the epidemic

Ectoparasite activity during incubation increases microbial growth on avian eggs

We thank Estefanía López for lab work, and Tomás Pérez-Contreras and Emilio Pagani-Núñez for facilitating collection of some of the flies used in manipulations. We also thank Ángela Martínez-García for help with management of ARISA data and Natalia Juárez and Deseada Parejo for the pictures of owls and roller clutches, respectively. We appreciate the comments provided by Dr. Adèle Mennerat and five anonymous referees on earlier versions of the manuscript.All applicable international, national, and/or institutional guidelines for the care and use of animals were followed.While direct detrimental effects of parasites on hosts are relatively well documented, other more subtle but potentially important effects of parasitism are yet unexplored. Biological activity of ectoparasites, apart from skin injuries and blood-feeding, often results in blood remains, or parasite faeces that accumulate and modify the host environment. In this way, ectoparasite activities and remains may increase nutrient availability that may favour colonization and growth of microorganisms including potential pathogens. Here, by the experimental addition of hematophagous flies (Carnus hemapterus, a common ectoparasite of birds) to nests of spotless starlings Sturnus unicolor during incubation, we explore this possible side effect of parasitism which has rarely, if ever, been investigated. Results show that faeces and blood remains from parasitic flies on spotless starling eggshells at the end of incubation were more abundant in experimental than in control nests. Moreover, eggshell bacterial loads of different groups of cultivable bacteria including potential pathogens, as well as species richness of bacteria in terms of Operational Taxonomic Units (OTUs), were also higher in experimental nests. Finally, we also found evidence of a link between eggshell bacterial loads and increased embryo mortality, which provides indirect support for a bacterial-mediated negative effect of ectoparasitism on host offspring. Trans-shell bacterial infection might be one of the main causes of embryo death and, consequently, this hitherto unnoticed indirect effect of ectoparasitism might be widespread in nature and could affect our understanding of ecology and evolution of host-parasite interactionsFinancial support was provided by Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad and FEDER (CGL2013-48193-C3-1-P, CGL2013-48193-C3-2-P), by JAE programme to DMG and MRR, and by Juan de la Cierva and Ramón y Cajal programmes to GT. All procedures were conducted under licence from the Environmental Department of the Regional Government of Andalucía, Spain (reference SGYB/FOA/AFR)

‘Albania: €1’ or the story of ‘big policies, small outcomes’: how Albania constructs and engages its diaspora

Since the fall of the communist regime in the early 1990s, Albania has experienced one of the most significant emigrations in the world as a share of its population. By 2010 almost half of its resident population was estimated to be living abroad – primarily in neighbouring Greece and Italy, but also in the UK and North America. This chapter discusses the emergence and establishment of the Albanian diaspora, its temporal and geographical diversity, and not least its involvement with Albania itself. Albania’s policymaking and key institutions are considered, with a focus on matters of citizenship; voting rights; the debate on migration and development; and not least the complex ways in which kin-state minority policies – related to ethnic Albanians living in Kosovo, Montenegro, southern Serbia, Macedonia and Greece – are interwoven with Albania’s emigration policies

Persistent homology to analyse 3D faces and assess body weight gain

In this paper, we analyse patterns in face shape variation due to weight gain. We propose the use of persistent homology descriptors to get geometric and topological information about the configuration of anthropometric 3D face landmarks. In this way, evaluating face changes boils down to comparing the descriptors computed on 3D face scans taken at different times. By applying dimensionality reduction techniques to the dissimilarity matrix of descriptors, we get a space in which each face is a point and face shape variations are encoded as trajectories in that space. Our results show that persistent homology is able to identify features which are well related to overweight and may help assessing individual weight trends. The research was carried out in the context of the European project SEMEOTICONS, which developed a multisensory platform which detects and monitors over time facial signs of cardio-metabolic risk

A discursive review of the textual use of ‘trapped’ in environmental migration studies: The conceptual birth and troubled teenage years of trapped populations

First mooted in 2011, the concept of Trapped Populations referring to people unable to move from environmentally high-risk areas broadened the study of human responses to environmental change. While a seemingly straightforward concept, the underlying discourses around the reasons for being ‘trapped’, and the language describing the concept have profound influences on the way in which policy and practice approaches the needs of populations at risk from environmental stresses and shocks. In this article, we apply a Critical Discourse Analysis to the academic literature on the subject to reveal some of the assumptions implicit within discussing ‘trapped’ populations. The analysis reveals a dominant school of thought that assisted migration, relocation, and resettlement in the face of climate change are potentially effective adaptation strategies along a gradient of migrant agency and governance