Mercenaries and Poverty: A Panel Data Study on Defense/Military and Education Spending and Their Effects on Poverty Related Metrics

This research paper explores the possible relationship between a nation’s defense/military and education spending and its effect on the nation’s income inequality. Several prior studies have found that there seems to be a direct relationship between defense/military spending and income inequality. However, there is lack of papers that have examined adding the additional variable of education or included multiple countries in its analysis. The purpose of this paper is to fill the hole in the research of the topic by including fourteen nations and the additional variable. Specifically, the paper includes data from 2004 to 2014, including the percentage of GDP spent on education, the percentage of GDP spent on defense/military, and the Gini Coefficient (a measure of income inequality). The study was unable to find a statistically significant relationship between the three variables for the countries analyzed. This suggests that while the association has been shown previously for single nations, it is not necessarily a wide spread connection

Day-length is central to maintaining consistent seasonal diversity in marine bacterioplankton

Marine bacterial diversity is vast, but seasonal variation in diversity is poorly understood. Here we present the longest bacterial diversity time series consisting of monthly (72) samples from the western English Channel over a 6 year period (2003-2008) using 747,494 16SrDNA-V6 amplicon-pyrosequences. Although there were characteristic cycles for each phylum, the overall community cycle was remarkably stable year after year. The majority of taxa were not abundant, although on occasion these rare bacteria could dominate the assemblage. Bacterial diversity peaked at the winter solstice and showed remarkable synchronicity with day-length, which had the best explanatory power compared to a combination of other variables (including temperature and nutrient concentrations). Day-length has not previously been recognised as a major force in structuring microbial communities

Order in the playground: Formation of plant gene clusters in dynamic chromosomal regions

In eukaryotes the arrangement of genes along the chromosome is not as random as it at first appeared, and distinctive clusters of functionally related but non-homologous genes can be found in the genomes of certain animals and fungi. These include the major histocompatibility complex in mammals and gene clusters for nutrient use and secondary metabolite production in fungi. A growing number of functional gene clusters for different types of secondary metabolite are now being discovered in plant genomes. However, the molecular mechanisms and evolutionary pressures behind their formation are poorly understood. Here we discuss the implications of our recent investigation into the origin of two functional gene clusters in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana

Bias in culture-independent assessments of microbial biodiversity in the global ocean

On the basis of 16S rRNA gene sequencing, the SAR11 clade of marine bacteria has almost universal distribution, being detected as abundant sequences in all marine provinces. Yet SAR11 sequences are rarely detected in fosmid libraries, suggesting that the widespread abundance may be an artefact of PCR cloning and that SAR 11 has a relatively low abundance. Here the relative abundance of SAR11 is explored in both a fosmid library and a metagenomic sequence data set from the same biological community taken from fjord surface water from Bergen, Norway. Pyrosequenced data and 16S clone data confirmed an 11-15% relative abundance of SAR11 within the community. In contrast not a single SAR11 fosmid was identified in a pooled shotgun sequenced data set of 100 fosmid clones. This under-representation was evidenced by comparative abundances of SAR11 sequences assessed by taxonomic annotation; functional metabolic profiling and fragment recruitment. Analysis revealed a similar under-representation of low-GC Flavobacteriaceae. We speculate that the fosmid bias may be due to DNA fragmentation during preparation due to the low GC content of SAR11 sequences and other underrepresented taxa. This study suggests that while fosmid libraries can be extremely useful, caution must be used when directly inferring community composition from metagenomic fosmid libraries

Thermal Charm Production in Quark-Gluon Plasma at LHC

Charm production from the quark-gluon plasma created in the midrapidity of central heavy ion collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is studied in the next-to-leading order in QCD. Using a schematic longitudinally boost-invariant and transversally expanding fire-cylinder model, we find that charm production could be appreciably enhanced at LHC as a result of the high temperature that is expected to be reached in the produced quark-gluon plasma. Sensitivities of our results to the number of charm quark pairs produced from initial hard scattering, the initial thermalization time and temperature of the quark-gluon plasma, and the charm quark mass are also studied.Comment: 8 pages, 9 figures; adding a figure and relevant discussion on the sensitivity of our results to the number of charm quark pairs produced from initial hard scattering. Version accepted for publication in PR

CuAAC click chemistry for the enhanced detection of novel alkyne-based natural product toxins

In the context of discovering and quantifying terminal alkyne-based natural products, here we report the combination of CuAAC click chemistry with LC-MS for the detection of polyether toxins (prymnesins) associated with harmful algal blooms. The added-value of the CuAAC-based approach is evident from our ability to detect novel prymnesin-like compounds in algal species with previously uncharacterised toxins

The physics of Z0/γ∗Z^0/\gamma^*-tagged jets at the LHC

Electroweak bosons produced in conjunction with jets in high-energy collider experiments is one of the principle final-state channels that can be used to test the accuracy of perturbative Quantum Chromodynamics calculations and to assess the potential to uncover new physics through comparison between data and theory. In this paper we present results for the $Z^0/\gamma^*$+jet production cross sections at the LHC at leading and next-to-leading orders. In proton-proton reactions we elucidate up to ${\cal O}(G_F\alpha_s^2)$ the constraints that jet tagging via the $Z^0/\gamma^*$ decay dileptons provides on the momentum distribution of jets. In nucleus-nucleus reactions we demonstrate that tagged jets can probe important aspects of the dynamics of quark and gluon propagation in hot and dense nuclear matter and characterize the properties of the medium-induced parton showers in ways not possible with more inclusive measurements. Finally, we present specific predictions for the anticipated suppression of the $Z^0/\gamma^*$+jet production cross section in the quark-gluon plasma that is expected to be created in central lead-lead collisions at the LHC relative to the naive superposition of independent nucleon-nucleon scatterings.Comment: 16 pages, 13 figures, As published in Physical Review, minor tipos fixed, a couple of references adde

Isolation and characterization of a double stranded DNA mgavirus infecting the toxin-producing haptophyte Prymnesium parvum

Prymnesium parvum is a toxin-producing haptophyte that causes harmful algal blooms globally, leading to large-scale fish kills that have severe ecological and economic implications. For the model haptophyte, Emiliania huxleyi, it has been shown that large dsDNA viruses play an important role in regulating blooms and therefore biogeochemical cycling, but much less work has been done looking at viruses that infect P. parvum, or the role that these viruses may play in regulating harmful algal blooms. In this study, we report the isolation and characterization of a lytic nucleo-cytoplasmic large DNA virus (NCLDV) collected from the site of a harmful P. parvum bloom. In subsequent experiments, this virus was shown to infect cultures of Prymnesium sp. and showed phylogenetic similarity to the extended Megaviridae family of algal viruse

A new parenting-based group intervention for young anxious children: results of a randomized controlled trial

Objective Despite recent advances, there are still no interventions that have been developed for the specific treatment of young children who have anxiety disorders. This study examined the impact of a new, cognitive–behaviorally based parenting intervention on anxiety symptoms. Method Families of 74 anxious children (aged 9 years or less) took part in a randomized controlled trial, which compared the new 10-session, group-format intervention with a wait-list control condition. Outcome measures included blinded diagnostic interview and self-reports from parents and children. Results Intention-to-treat analyses indicated that children whose parent(s) received the intervention were significantly less anxious at the end of the study than those in the control condition. Specifically, 57% of those receiving the new intervention were free of their primary disorder, compared with 15% in the control condition. Moreover, 32% of treated children were free of any anxiety diagnosis at the end of the treatment period, compared with 6% of those in the control group. Treatment gains were maintained at 12-month follow-up. Conclusions This new parenting-based intervention may represent an advance in the treatment of this previously neglected group. Clinical trial registration information: Anxiety in Young Children: A Randomized Controlled Trial of a New Cognitive-Behaviourally Based Parenting Intervention; http://www.isrctn.org/; ISRCTN12166762

Concepts of mental disorders in the United Kingdom : Similarities and differences between the lay public and psychiatrists

BACKGROUND: The lay public often conceptualise mental disorders in a different way to mental health professionals, and this can negatively impact on outcomes when in treatment. AIMS: This study explored which disorders the lay public are familiar with, which theoretical models they understand, which they endorse and how they compared to a sample of psychiatrists. METHODS: The Maudsley Attitude Questionnaire (MAQ), typically used to assess mental health professional's concepts of mental disorders, was adapted for use by a lay community sample (N = 160). The results were compared with a sample of psychiatrists (N = 76). RESULTS: The MAQ appeared to be accessible to the lay public, providing some interesting preliminary findings: in order, the lay sample reported having the best understanding of depression followed by generalised anxiety, schizophrenia and finally antisocial personality disorder. They best understood spiritualist, nihilist and social realist theoretical models of these disorders, but were most likely to endorse biological, behavioural and cognitive models. The lay public were significantly more likely to endorse some models for certain disorders suggesting a nuanced understanding of the cause and likely cure, of various disorders. Ratings often differed significantly from the sample of psychiatrists who were relatively steadfast in their endorsement of the biological model. CONCLUSION: The adapted MAQ appeared accessible to the lay sample. Results suggest that the lay public are generally aligned with evidence-driven concepts of common disorders, but may not always understand or agree with how mental health professionals conceptualise them. The possible causes of these differences, future avenues for research and the implications for more collaborative, patient-clinician conceptualisations are discussed.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio