Late Holocene sea level variability and Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation

Pre-twentieth century sea level (SL) variability remains poorly understood due to limits of tide gauge records, low temporal resolution of tidal marsh records, and regional anomalies caused by dynamic ocean processes, notably multidecadal changes in Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). We examined SL and AMOC variability along the eastern United States over the last 2000 years, using a SL curve constructed from proxy sea surface temperature (SST) records from Chesapeake Bay, and twentieth century SL-sea surface temperature (SST) relations derived from tide gauges and instrumental SST. The SL curve shows multidecadal-scale variability (20–30 years) during the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA) and Little Ice Age (LIA), as well as the twentieth century. During these SL oscillations, short-term rates ranged from 2 to 4 mm yr−1, roughly similar to those of the last few decades. These oscillations likely represent internal modes of climate variability related to AMOC variability and originating at high latitudes, although the exact mechanisms remain unclear. Results imply that dynamic ocean changes, in addition to thermosteric, glacio-eustatic, or glacio-isostatic processes are an inherent part of SL variability in coastal regions, even during millennial-scale climate oscillations such as the MCA and LIA and should be factored into efforts that use tide gauges and tidal marsh sediments to understand global sea level rise

The Eyes Have It: Regulatory and Structural Changes Both Underlie Cichlid Visual Pigment Diversity

Differential gene expression and coding sequence evolution play complementary roles in the adaptive diversification of cichlid sensory systems

Sexual selection, automata and ethics in George Eliot's The Mill on the Floss and Olive Schreiner's Undine and From Man to Man

This paper brings together two related areas of debate in the latter half of the nineteenth century. The first concerns how the courtship plot of the nineteenth-century novel responded to, and helped to shape, scientific ideas of sexual competition and selection. In The Mill on the Floss (1860), George Eliot strikingly prefigures Darwin's later work on sexual selection, drawing from her own extensive knowledge of the wider debates within which evolutionary theory developed. Maggie Tulliver's characterisation allows Eliot to explore the ethical complexities raised by an increasingly powerful scientific naturalism, where biology is seen to be embedded within morality in newly specific ways. The second strand of the paper examines the extension of scientific method to human mind and motivation which constituted the new psychology. It argues that there are crucial continuities of long-established ethical and religious ideas within this increasingly naturalistic view of human mind and motivation. The contention that such ideas persist and are transformed, rather than simply jettisoned, is illustrated through the example of Thomas Henry Huxley's 1874 essay on automata. Turning finally to focus on Olive Schreiner's Undine (1929) and From Man to Man (1926), the paper explores the importance of these persistent ethical and religious ideas in two novels which remained unpublished during her lifetime. It argues that they produce both difficulty and opportunity for imagining love plots within the context of increasingly assertive biological and naturalistic accounts of human beings

Visual ecology of the fiddler crab, Uca tangeri: Effects of sex,viewer and background on conspicuousness

We investigated the visual ecology of the coloration of the eastern Atlantic fiddler crab, Uca tangeri, with particular attention to predator (e.g. avian) and conspecific vision. Spectral reflectance measurements were made on different body parts used in possible intraspecific communication as well as background habitats including crab-made materials (e.g. mudballs). Avian-based and crab-based visual models were used to obtain different estimates of crab conspicuousness to potential predators and conspecifics. We found that male body parts (except for dorsal carapace) were significantly more conspicuous to conspecific viewers than female equivalent body parts, and showed greater within-body contrast estimates. Moreover, male major claw areas differed in reflectance properties, producing variation in conspicuousness that fit signalling predictions: areas visible during claw-waving events were most conspicuous against the background sky, whereas areas visible in nonwaving positions were more conspicuous against substrate backgrounds. For avian vision, sexually dimorphic coloration results in males being generally more conspicuous than females (in terms of brightness contrast) against all backgrounds, however, there was no sexual dimorphic conspicuousness of carapace coloration. Furthermore, one of the most conspicuous features of both male and female crabs is an area that is likely to be more visible to crabs (mouthparts) than to avian predators from above. While conspicuousness varies with background, the most conspicuous background for male signalling parts (major claw) is dark mudballs, suggesting that males may increase the conspicuousness of their signals by modifying their signalling environment

REFERQUAL: A pilot study of a new service quality assessment instrument in the GP Exercise Referral scheme setting

Background The development of an instrument accurately assessing service quality in the GP Exercise Referral Scheme (ERS) industry could potentially inform scheme organisers of the factors that affect adherence rates leading to the implementation of strategic interventions aimed at reducing client drop-out. Methods A modified version of the SERVQUAL instrument was designed for use in the ERS setting and subsequently piloted amongst 27 ERS clients. Results Test re-test correlations were calculated via Pearson's 'r' or Spearman's 'rho', depending on whether the variables were Normally Distributed, to show a significant (mean r = 0.957, SD = 0.02, p < 0.05; mean rho = 0.934, SD = 0.03, p < 0.05) relationship between all items within the questionnaire. In addition, satisfactory internal consistency was demonstrated via Cronbach's 'α'. Furthermore, clients responded favourably towards the usability, wording and applicability of the instrument's items. Conclusion REFERQUAL is considered to represent promise as a suitable tool for future evaluation of service quality within the ERS community. Future research should further assess the validity and reliability of this instrument through the use of a confirmatory factor analysis to scrutinise the proposed dimensional structure

The SEURAT-1 Approach towards Animal Free Human Safety Assessment

SEURAT-1 is a European public-private research consortium that is working towards animal-free testing of chemical compounds and the highest level of consumer protection. A research strategy was formulated based on the guiding principle to adopt a toxicological mode-of-action framework to describe how any substance may adversely affect human health. The proof of the initiative will be in demonstrating the applicability of the concepts on which SEURAT-1 is built on three levels: (i) Theoretical prototypes for adverse outcome pathways are formulated based on knowledge already available in the scientific literature on investigating the toxicological modes-of-action leading to adverse outcomes (addressing mainly liver toxicity); (ii) adverse outcome pathway descriptions are used as a guide for the formulation of case studies to further elucidate the theoretical model and to develop integrated testing strategies for the prediction of certain toxicological effects (i.e., those related to the adverse outcome pathway descriptions); (iii) further case studies target the application of knowledge gained within SEURAT-1 in the context of safety assessment. The ultimate goal would be to perform ab initio predictions based on a complete understanding of toxicological mechanisms. In the near-term, it is more realistic that data from innovative testing methods will support read-across arguments. Both scenarios are addressed with case studies for improved safety assessment. A conceptual framework for a rational integrated assessment strategy emerged from designing the case studies and is discussed in the context of international developments focusing on alternative approaches for evaluating chemicals using the new 21st century tools for toxicity testing

Complications of right lobe living donor liver transplantation

Background/Aims: Right lobar living donor liver transplantation (LDLT) has been controversial because of donor deaths and widely variable reports of recipient and donor morbidity. Our aims were to ensure full disclosure to donors and recipients of the risks and benefits of this procedure in a large University center and to help explain reporting inconsistencies. Methods: The Clavien 5-tier grading system was applied retrospectively in 121 consecutive adult right lobe recipients and their donors. The incidence was determined of potentially (Grade III), actually (Grade IV), or ultimately fatal (Grade V) complications during the first post-transplant year. When patients had more than one complication, only the seminal one was counted, or the most serious one if complications occurred contemporaneously. Results: One year recipient/graft survival was 91%/84%. Within the year, 80 (66%) of the 121 recipients had Grade III (n = 54) Grade IV (n = 16), or Grade V (n = 10) complications. The complications involved the graft's biliary tract (42% incidence), graft vasculature (15%), or non-graft locations (9%). Complications during the first year did not decline with increased team experience, and adversely affected survival out to 5 years. All 121 donors survive. However, 13 donors (10.7%) had Grade III (n = 9) or IV (n = 4) complications of which five were graft-related. Conclusions: Despite the satisfactory recipient and graft survival at our and selected other institutions, and although we have not had a donor mortality to date, the role of right lobar LDLT is not clear because of the recipient morbidity and risk to the donors. © 2009 European Association for the Study of the Liver

Financing Direct Democracy: Revisiting the Research on Campaign Spending and Citizen Initiatives

The conventional view in the direct democracy literature is that spending against a measure is more effective than spending in favor of a measure, but the empirical results underlying this conclusion have been questioned by recent research. We argue that the conventional finding is driven by the endogenous nature of campaign spending: initiative proponents spend more when their ballot measure is likely to fail. We address this endogeneity by using an instrumental variables approach to analyze a comprehensive dataset of ballot propositions in California from 1976 to 2004. We find that both support and opposition spending on citizen initiatives have strong, statistically significant, and countervailing effects. We confirm this finding by looking at time series data from early polling on a subset of these measures. Both analyses show that spending in favor of citizen initiatives substantially increases their chances of passage, just as opposition spending decreases this likelihood

Clustering in Highest Energy Cosmic Rays: Physics or Statistics?

Directional clustering can be expected in cosmic ray observations due to purely statistical fluctuations for sources distributed randomly in the sky. We develop an analytic approach to estimate the probability of random cluster configurations, and use these results to study the strong potential of the HiRes, Auger, Telescope Array and EUSO/OWL/AirWatch facilities for deciding whether any observed clustering is most likely due to non-random sources.Comment: 19 pages, LaTeX, 3 figure

Outcome after steroid withdrawal in pediatric renal transplant patients receiving tacrolimus-based immunosuppression

Background. Corticosteroids have always been an integral part of immunosuppressive regimens in renal transplantation. The primary goal of this analysis was to assess the safety of steroid withdrawal in our pediatric renal transplant recipients receiving tacrolimus-based immunosuppression. Methods. Between December 1989 and December 1996, 82 renal transplantations were performed in pediatric patients receiving tacrolimus-based immunosuppression. Two of these patients lost their grafts within 3 weeks of transplantation (and were still on steroids at the time of graft loss), and were excluded from further analysis. Seventy-four patients (92.5%) were taken off prednisone a median of 5.7 months after transplantation. Of these 74, 56 (70%) remained off prednisone (OFF), and 18 (22.5%) were restarted on prednisone a median of 14.8 months after discontinuing steroids (OFF → ON). 6(7.5%) were never taken off prednisone (ON). The mean follow-up was 59±23 months. Results. The 1-, 3-, and 5-year actuarial patient survival rates in the OFF group were 100%, 98%, and 96%, respectively; in the OFF → ON group, they were 100%, 100%, and 100%, and in the ON group, they were 100%, 83%, and 83%. The 1-, 3-, and 5- year actuarial graft survival rates in the OFF group were 100%, 95%, and 82%, respectively; in the OFF → ON group, they were 100%, 89%, and 83%; and in the ON group, they were 100%, 50%, and 33%. Two of the six graft losses in the OFF group, three out of four in the OFF → ON Group, and two out of five in the ON group, were to chronic rejection. A time-dependent Cox regression analysis showed that the hazard for graft failure for those who came and stayed off prednisone was 0.178 relative to those who were never withdrawn from prednisone (P=0.005). Patients who were 10 years of age or younger were withdrawn from prednisone earlier (median: 5 months) than those older than 10 years (median: 7.3 months, P=0.02). In addition, patients who never had acute rejection were withdrawn from steroids earlier (median: 5 months) than those who had one or more episodes of acute rejection (median: 7.6 months, P=0.001). There was no effect of donor age, race, sex, recipient race, sex, cadaveric versus living donor, 48-hr graft function, panel reactive antibody, and total HLA mismatches or matches on the likelihood of being weaned off steroids. Serum creatinine at most recent follow-up in the OFF group was 1.2±0.5 mg/dl; in the OFF → ON group, it was 1.8±0.9 mg/dl, and in the ON group it was 2.0 mg/dl (P<0.003). The incidence of rejection in the OFF, OFF → ON, and ON groups was 39%, 77%, and 100%, respectively (P<0.05). Conclusion. These data suggest that steroid withdrawal in pediatric renal transplant patients receiving tacrolimus-based immunosuppression is associated with reasonable short- and medium-term patient and graft survival, and acceptable renal function. Patients who discontinue and then resume steroids had patient and graft survival rates comparable with those in patients who discontinue and stay off steroids, but had a higher serum creatinine and a higher incidence of rejection