Seasonal and daily movement patterns of an alpine passerine suggest high flexibility in relation to environmental conditions

Mountains naturally offer variable habitat conditions, but their biodiversity is currently facing the extra challenge of adapting to rapid environmental shifts that are much more pronounced than in the lowlands. Among adaptive responses, intra- and inter-seasonal movements represent potentially important coping strategies for wildlife that remain largely unexplored. We investigated the seasonal and daily movements of the ring ouzel Turdus torquatus, a European mountain bird species that is declining in many parts of its distribution. We tracked individuals breeding in the Swiss Alps using light-level geolocators and multi-sensor loggers. Of the birds traced to their nonbreeding grounds, two-thirds reached the Atlas Mountains while one-third stayed in Spain, a region potentially more significant for overwintering than previously thought. The birds remained mostly above 1000 m throughout the annual cycle, highlighting a strict association of ring ouzels with mountain habitats. We also evidenced flexible daily elevational movements, especially upon spring arrival on the breeding grounds in relation to date and snowfall occurrence, suggesting adaptive potential in response to environmental variation. This study shows how modern technology can deliver deeper and valuable insights into movements, behavioural patterns and life-history strategies for relatively little-studied animal species. By doing so, it paves the way for refined assessments of species’ vulnerability to ongoing global change while providing basic conservation guidance

The Signaling Value of Labor Market Programs

This paper investigates how employers interpret participation in active labor market programs for hiring decisions. Drawing on signaling theory, we assume that employers use program participation as a signal for a candidate’s qualities. On the basis of a factorial survey experiment, we simulated a hiring process for two job positions, a low and mid-skilled one, in the hotel sector. Recruiters were asked to evaluate fictional candidates that differ, among other characteristics, in their participation in active labor market programs. Our results show that employers do use participation in labor market programs as a signal. Its impact can be positive as well as negative, depending on the type of job that is applied for. For low-skill positions, the impact is more positive than for mid-skilled ones. We also show that the signal “participation in a labor market program” interacts with education and, to a lesser extent, nationality. By studying interactions among signals and with job type, this article contributes both, to a better understanding of how job market signaling works as well as to the literature on labor market programs

Identifying biological mechanisms for favorable cancer prognosis using non-hypothesis-driven iterative survival analysis.

Survival analyses based on the Kaplan-Meier estimate have been pervasively used to support or validate the relevance of biological mechanisms in cancer research. Recently, with the appearance of gene expression high-throughput technologies, this kind of analysis has been applied to tumor transcriptomics data. In a 'bottom-up' approach, gene-expression profiles that are associated with a deregulated pathway hypothetically involved in cancer progression are first identified and then subsequently correlated with a survival effect, which statistically supports or requires the rejection of such a hypothesis. In this work, we propose a 'top-down' approach, in which the clinical outcome (survival) is the starting point that guides the identification of deregulated biological mechanisms in cancer by a non-hypothesis-driven iterative survival analysis. We show that the application of our novel method to a population of ~2,000 breast cancer patients of the METABRIC consortium allows the identification of several well-known cancer mechanisms, such as ERBB4, HNF3A and TGFB pathways, and the investigation of their paradoxical dual effect. In addition, several novel biological mechanisms are proposed as potentially involved in cancer progression. The proposed exploratory methodology can be considered both alternative and complementary to classical 'bottom-up' approaches for validation of biological hypotheses. We propose that our method may be used to better characterize cancer, and may therefore impact the future design of therapies that are truly molecularly tailored to individual patients. The method, named SURCOMED, was implemented as a web-based tool, which is publicly available at http://surcomed.vital-it.ch. R scripts are also available at http://surcomed.sourceforge.net)

Multifaceted empathy of healthy volunteers after single doses of MDMA: A pooled sample of placebo-controlled studies

Previous placebo-controlled experimental studies have shown that a single dose of MDMA can increase emotional empathy in the multifaceted empathy test (MET) without affecting cognitive empathy. Although sufficiently powered to detect main effects of MDMA, these studies were generally underpowered to also validly assess contributions of additional parameters, such as sex, drug use history, trait empathy and MDMA or oxytocin plasma concentrations. The present study examined the robustness of the MDMA effect on empathy and investigated the moderating role of these additional parameters. Participants ( n = 118) from six placebo-controlled within-subject studies and two laboratories were included in the present pooled analysis. Empathy (MET), MDMA and oxytocin plasma concentrations were assessed after oral administration of MDMA (single dose, 75 or 125 mg). Trait empathy was assessed using the interpersonal reactivity index. We confirmed that MDMA increased emotional empathy at both doses without affecting cognitive empathy. This MDMA-related increase in empathy was most pronounced during presentation of positive emotions as compared with negative emotions. MDMA-induced empathy enhancement was positively related to MDMA blood concentrations measured before the test, but independent of sex, drug use history and trait empathy. Oxytocin concentrations increased after MDMA administration but were not associated with behavioral effects. The MDMA effects on emotional empathy were stable across laboratories and doses. Sex did not play a moderating role in this effect, and oxytocin levels, trait empathy and drug use history were also unrelated. Acute drug exposure was of significant relevance in the MDMA-induced emotional empathy elevation

Quantifying year-round nocturnal bird migration with a fluid dynamics model.

To understand the influence of biomass flows on ecosystems, we need to characterize and quantify migrations at various spatial and temporal scales. Representing the movements of migrating birds as a fluid, we applied a flow model to bird density and velocity maps retrieved from the European weather radar network, covering almost a year. We quantified how many birds take-off, fly, and land across Western Europe to (1) track bird migration waves between nights, (2) cumulate the number of birds on the ground and (3) quantify the seasonal flow into and out of the study area through several regional transects. Our results identified several migration waves that crossed the study area in 4 days only and included up to 188 million (M) birds that took-off in a single night. In spring, we estimated that 494 M birds entered the study area, 251 M left it, and 243 M birds remained within the study area. In autumn, 314 M birds entered the study area while 858 M left it. In addition to identifying fundamental quantities, our study highlights the potential of combining interdisciplinary data and methods to elucidate the dynamics of avian migration from nightly to yearly time scales and from regional to continental spatial scales

Patient-specific finite element analysis of human corneal lenticules: An experimental and numerical study.

The number of elective refractive surgeries is constantly increasing due to the drastic increase in myopia prevalence. Since corneal biomechanics are critical to human vision, accurate modeling is essential to improve surgical planning and optimize the results of laser vision correction. In this study, we present a numerical model of the anterior cornea of young patients who are candidates for laser vision correction. Model parameters were determined from uniaxial tests performed on lenticules of patients undergoing refractive surgery by means of lenticule extraction, using patient-specific models of the lenticules. The models also took into account the known orientation of collagen fibers in the tissue, which have an isotropic distribution in the corneal plane, while they are aligned along the corneal curvature and have a low dispersion outside the corneal plane. The model was able to reproduce the experimental data well with only three parameters. These parameters, determined using a realistic fiber distribution, yielded lower values than those reported in the literature. Accurate characterization and modeling of the cornea of young patients is essential to study better refractive surgery for the population undergoing these treatments, to develop in silico models that take corneal biomechanics into account when planning refractive surgery, and to provide a basis for improving visual outcomes in the rapidly growing population undergoing these treatments

Evidence for a Massive Protocluster in S255N

S255N is a luminous far-infrared source that contains many indications of active star formation but lacks a prominent near-infrared stellar cluster. We present mid-infrared through radio observations aimed at exploring the evolutionary state of this region. Our observations include 1.3mm continuum and spectral line data from the Submillimeter Array, VLA 3.6cm continuum and 1.3cm water maser data, and multicolor IRAC images from the Spitzer Space Telescope. The cometary morphology of the previously-known UCHII region G192.584-0.041 is clearly revealed in our sensitive, multi-configuration 3.6cm images. The 1.3mm continuum emission has been resolved into three compact cores, all of which are dominated by dust emission and have radii < 7000AU. The mass estimates for these cores range from 6 to 35 Msun. The centroid of the brightest dust core (SMA1) is offset by 1.1'' (2800 AU) from the peak of the cometary UCHII region and exhibits the strongest HC3N, CN, and DCN line emission in the region. SMA1 also exhibits compact CH3OH, SiO, and H2CO emission and likely contains a young hot core. We find spatial and kinematic evidence that SMA1 may contain further multiplicity, with one of the components coincident with a newly-detected H2O maser. There are no mid-infrared point source counterparts to any of the dust cores, further suggesting an early evolutionary phase for these objects. The dominant mid-infrared emission is a diffuse, broadband component that traces the surface of the cometary UCHII region but is obscured by foreground material on its southern edge. An additional 4.5 micron linear feature emanating to the northeast of SMA1 is aligned with a cluster of methanol masers and likely traces a outflow from a protostar within SMA1. Our observations provide direct evidence that S255N is forming a cluster of intermediate to high-mass stars.Comment: 34 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in The Astronomical Journa