The Interface Between Invasive Species and the Increased Incidence of Tick-borne Diseases, and the Implications for Federal Land Managers

Includes information on the dynamics of tick-borne disease, factors affecting the occurrence and density of ticks, matrices of ties between habitat, human activities, invasive plants, and ticks, federal resources and programs related to ticks and vector-borne disease in the United States, with references and an annotated bibliography of literature on ticks, vector-borne diseases, and invasive species

Genetic strategies for improving crop yields.

The current trajectory for crop yields is insufficient to nourish the world's population by 20501. Greater and more consistent crop production must be achieved against a backdrop of climatic stress that limits yields, owing to shifts in pests and pathogens, precipitation, heat-waves and other weather extremes. Here we consider the potential of plant sciences to address post-Green Revolution challenges in agriculture and explore emerging strategies for enhancing sustainable crop production and resilience in a changing climate. Accelerated crop improvement must leverage naturally evolved traits and transformative engineering driven by mechanistic understanding, to yield the resilient production systems that are needed to ensure future harvests

Summary of Government Interventions in Financial Markets Spain

Summary of the Spanish government intervention in the Financial Markets of Spain including Overview, State Guarantee Scheme, Government Intervention Package, Notable developments with commercial banks (and other key financial players), and Other developments

Footfall Signatures and Volumes: Towards a Classification of UK Centres

The changing nature of retail coupled with rapid technological and social developments, are posing great challenges to the attractiveness of traditional retail areas in the UK. In this paper we argue that the definitions and classifications of town centres currently adopted by UK planners and policy makers are outdated, because of their focus on retail occupancy. Instead, we propose a more dynamic definition and classification of centres, based on their activity volumes and patterns, which we obtain from footfall data. Our expectation is that adopting this activity-based approach to defining and classifying centres will radically alter the way in which they are developed and managed

A randomised controlled trial of three very brief interventions for physical activity in primary care.

BACKGROUND: Very brief interventions (VBIs) for physical activity are promising, but there is uncertainty about their potential effectiveness and cost. We assessed potential efficacy, feasibility, acceptability, and cost of three VBIs in primary care, in order to select the most promising intervention for evaluation in a subsequent large-scale RCT. METHODS: Three hundred and ninety four adults aged 40-74 years were randomised to a Motivational (n = 83), Pedometer (n = 74), or Combined (n = 80) intervention, delivered immediately after a preventative health check in primary care, or control (Health Check only; n = 157). Potential efficacy was measured as the probability of a positive difference between an intervention arm and the control arm in mean physical activity, measured by accelerometry at 4 weeks. RESULTS: For the primary outcome the estimated effect sizes (95 % CI) relative to the Control arm for the Motivational, Pedometer and Combined arms were respectively: +20.3 (-45.0, +85.7), +23.5 (-51.3, +98.3), and -3.1 (-69.3, +63.1) counts per minute. There was a73% probability of a positive effect on physical activity for each of the Motivational and Pedometer VBIs relative to control, but only 46 % for the Combined VBI. Only the Pedometer VBI was deliverable within 5 min. All VBIs were acceptable and low cost. CONCLUSIONS: Based on the four criteria, the Pedometer VBI was selected for evaluation in a large-scale trial. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Current Controlled Trials ISRCTN02863077 . Retrospectively registered 05/10/2012.This paper presents independent research funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) under its Programme Grants for Applied Research Programme (Grant Reference Number RP-PG-0608-10079). ATP and JV were supported by the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust and King’s College London. The views expressed are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the NHS, the NIHR or the Department of Health. The funder had no role in study design, data collection, data analysis, data interpretation, the writing of the manuscript, and decision to submit the manuscript for publication.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from BioMed Central via https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-016-3684-

Effect of rate of pyrolysis on the textural properties of naturally-templated porous carbons from alginic acid

AbstractThe effect of pyrolysis rate on the properties of alginic acid-derived carbonaceous materials, termed Starbon®, was investigated. Thermal Gravimetry-IR was used to prepare porous carbons up to 800°C at several rates and highlighted increased CO2 production at higher pyrolysis rates. N2 porosimetry of the resultant carbons shows how pyrolysis rate affects both the mesopore structure and thus surface area and surface energy. Surface capacity of these carbons was analysed by methylene blue dye adsorption. In general, as the rate of pyrolysis increased, the mesopore content and adsorbent capacity decreased. It is considered here that the rapid production of volatiles at these higher rates causes structural collapse of the non-templated pore network. The work here demonstrates that pyrolysis rate is a key variable which needs to be controlled to maximise the textural properties of Starbon® required for adsorption applications

Postcopulatory sexual selection

The female reproductive tract is where competition between the sperm of different males takes place, aided and abetted by the female herself. Intense postcopulatory sexual selection fosters inter-sexual conflict and drives rapid evolutionary change to generate a startling diversity of morphological, behavioural and physiological adaptations. We identify three main issues that should be resolved to advance our understanding of postcopulatory sexual selection. We need to determine the genetic basis of different male fertility traits and female traits that mediate sperm selection; identify the genes or genomic regions that control these traits; and establish the coevolutionary trajectory of sexes

Critical change in the Fermi surface of iron arsenic superconductors at the onset of superconductivity

The phase diagram of a correlated material is the result of a complex interplay between several degrees of freedom, providing a map of the material's behavior. One can understand (and ultimately control) the material's ground state by associating features and regions of the phase diagram, with specific physical events or underlying quantum mechanical properties. The phase diagram of the newly discovered iron arsenic high temperature superconductors is particularly rich and interesting. In the AE(Fe1-xTx)2As2 class (AE being Ca, Sr, Ba, T being transition metals), the simultaneous structural/magnetic phase transition that occurs at elevated temperature in the undoped material, splits and is suppressed by carrier doping, the suppression being complete around optimal doping. A dome of superconductivity exists with apparent equal ease in the orthorhombic / antiferromagnetic (AFM) state as well as in the tetragonal state with no long range magnetic order. The question then is what determines the critical doping at which superconductivity emerges, if the AFM order is fully suppressed only at higher doping values. Here we report evidence from angle resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) that critical changes in the Fermi surface (FS) occur at the doping level that marks the onset of superconductivity. The presence of the AFM order leads to a reconstruction of the electronic structure, most significantly the appearance of the small hole pockets at the Fermi level. These hole pockets vanish, i. e. undergo a Lifshitz transition, at the onset of superconductivity. Superconductivity and magnetism are competing states in the iron arsenic superconductors. In the presence of the hole pockets superconductivity is fully suppressed, while in their absence the two states can coexist.Comment: Updated version accepted in Nature Physic

Temperature dependence of bulk viscosity in water using acoustic spectroscopy

Despite its fundamental role in the dynamics of compressible fluids, bulk viscosity has received little experimental attention and there remains a paucity of measured data. Acoustic spectroscopy provides a robust and accurate approach to measuring this parameter. Working from the Navier-Stokes model of a compressible fluid one can show that the bulk viscosity makes a significant and measurable contribution to the frequency-squared acoustic attenuation. Here we employ this methodology to determine the bulk viscosity of Millipore water over a temperature range of 7 to 50 degrees Celsius. The measured attenuation spectra are consistent with the theoretical predictions, while the bulk viscosity of water is found to be approximately three times larger than its shear counterpart, reinforcing its significance in acoustic propagation. Moreover, our results demonstrate that this technique can be readily and generally applied to fluids to accurately determine their temperature dependent bulk viscosities.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures. Proceedings of the Anglo-French Physical Acoustics Conference, January 201