First Documented Pathologies in Tenontosaurus tilletti with Comments on Infection in Non-Avian Dinosaurs

In 2001, a nearly complete sub-adult Tenontosaurus tilletti was collected from the Antlers Formation (Aptian-Albian) of southeastern Oklahoma. Beyond its exceptional preservation, computed tomography (CT) and physical examination revealed this specimen has five pathological elements with four of the pathologies a result of trauma. Left pedal phalanx I-1 and left dorsal rib 10 are both fractured with extensive callus formation in the later stages of healing. Left dorsal rib 7 (L7) and right dorsal rib 10 (R10) exhibit impacted fractures compressed 26 mm and 24 mm, respectively. The fracture morphologies in L7 and R10 indicate this animal suffered a strong compressive force coincident with the long axis of the ribs. All three rib pathologies and the pathological left phalanx I-1 are consistent with injuries sustained in a fall. However, it is clear from the healing exhibited by these fractures that this individual survived the fall. In addition to traumatic fractures, left dorsal rib 10 and possibly left phalanx I-1 have a morphology consistent with post-traumatic infection in the form of osteomyelitis. The CT scans of left metacarpal IV revealed the presence of an abscess within the medullary cavity consistent with a subacute form of hematogenous osteomyelitis termed a Brodie abscess. This is only the second reported Brodie abscess in non-avian dinosaurs and the first documented occurrence in herbivorous dinosaurs. The presence of a Brodie abscess, known only in mammalian pathological literature, suggest mammalian descriptors for bone infection may be applicable to non-avian dinosaurs.We thank R. Cifelli, S. Westrop, and N. Czaplewski for reviewing early drafts of this manuscript. This research was funded by grants awarded to R. L. Cifelli by the American Chemical Society, Petroleum Research Fund (ACS-PRF#38572-AC8) and the National Science Foundation (DEB 9870173). Open Access Fees paid for whole or in part by the University of Oklahoma Libraries Open Initiatives.Ye

Affective Man-Machine Interface: Unveiling human emotions through biosignals

As is known for centuries, humans exhibit an electrical profile. This profile is altered through various psychological and physiological processes, which can be measured through biosignals; e.g., electromyography (EMG) and electrodermal activity (EDA). These biosignals can reveal our emotions and, as such, can serve as an advanced man-machine interface (MMI) for empathic consumer products. However, such a MMI requires the correct classification of biosignals to emotion classes. This chapter starts with an introduction on biosignals for emotion detection. Next, a state-of-the-art review is presented on automatic emotion classification. Moreover, guidelines are presented for affective MMI. Subsequently, a research is presented that explores the use of EDA and three facial EMG signals to determine neutral, positive, negative, and mixed emotions, using recordings of 21 people. A range of techniques is tested, which resulted in a generic framework for automated emotion classification with up to 61.31% correct classification of the four emotion classes, without the need of personal profiles. Among various other directives for future research, the results emphasize the need for parallel processing of multiple biosignals

PHYTO-THREATS: addressing threats to UK forests and woodlands from Phytophthora; identifying risks of spread in trade and methods for mitigation

The multidisciplinary ‘Phyto-threats’ project was initiated in 2016 to address the increasing risks to UK forest and woodland ecosystems from trade-disseminated Phytophthora. A major component of this project was to examine the risk of Phytophthora spread through nursery and trade practices. Close to 4000 water and root samples were collected from plant nurseries located across the UK over a three-year period. Approximately half of the samples tested positive for Phytophthora DNA using a metabarcoding approach with 63 Phytophthora species identified across nurseries, including quarantine-regulated pathogens and species not previously reported in the UK. Phytophthora diversity within nurseries was linked to high-risk management practices such as use of open rather than closed water sources. Analyses of global Phytophthora risks identified biological traits and trade pathways that explained global spread and host range, and which may be of value for horizon-scanning. Phytophthoras having a higher oospore wall index and faster growth rates had wider host ranges, whereas cold-tolerant species had broader geographic and latitudinal ranges. Annual workshops revealed how stakeholder and sector ‘appetite’ for nursery accreditation increased over three years, although an exploratory cost-benefit analysis indicated that the predicted benefits of introducing best practice expected by nurseries outweigh their costs only when a wider range of pests and diseases (for example, Xylella) is considered. However, scenario analyses demonstrated the significant potential carbon costs to society from the introduction and spread of a new tree-infecting Phytophthora: Thus, the overall net benefit to society from nurseries adopting best practice could be substantial

Is American Public Administration Detached From Historical Context?: On the Nature of Time and the Need to Understand It in Government and Its Study

The study of public administration pays little attention to history. Most publications are focused on current problems (the present) and desired solutions (the future) and are concerned mainly with organizational structure (a substantive issue) and output targets (an aggregative issue that involves measures of both individual performance and organizational productivity/services). There is much less consideration of how public administration (i.e., organization, policy, the study, etc.) unfolds over time. History, and so administrative history, is regarded as a “past” that can be recorded for its own sake but has little relevance to contemporary challenges. This view of history is the product of a diminished and anemic sense of time, resulting from organizing the past as a series of events that inexorably lead up to the present in a linear fashion. To improve the understanding of government’s role and position in society, public administration scholarship needs to reacquaint itself with the nature of time.Yeshttps://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/manuscript-submission-guideline

Predictors of single word spelling in English-speaking children: a cross sectional study

Background: The study aimed to explore to what extent variables associated with lexical and sublexical spelling processes predicted single word spelling ability, and whether patterns of lexical and sublexical processes were different across ages. Methods: Beginning (mean age 7-years, N=144) and advanced (mean age 9-years, N=114) English-speaking spellers completed tasks associated with sublexical processing (phonological ability and phonological short-term memory), lexical processing (visual short-term memory, visual attention span), and factors known to predict spelling (e.g., rapid automatised naming). Results: Phonological ability, rapid automatised naming, visual short-term memory and visual attention span were significant predictors of spelling accuracy for beginning spellers, while for more advanced spellers, only visual attention span was a significant predictor. Conclusions: The findings suggested that for beginning spellers, both lexical and sublexical processes are important for single word spelling, but with increasing literacy experience, lexically related variables are more important

Approximation Algorithms with Bounded Performance Guarantees for the Clustered Traveling Salesman Problem

Let G = (V, E) be a complete undirected graph with vertex set V , edge set E, and edge weights l(e) satisfying triangle inequality. The vertex set V is partitioned into clusters V 1 , ..., V k . The clustered traveling salesman problem (CTSP) is to compute a shortest Hamiltonian cycle (tour) that visits all the vertices, and in which the vertices of each cluster are visited consecutively. Since this problem is a generalization of the traveling salesman problem, it is NP-hard. In this paper, we consider several variants of this basic problem and provide polynomial time approximation algorithms for them