Purchase Authorization (10 July 1863)

Authorization to purchase 1 pair of shoes & 4 pairs of socks from any authorized Vicksburg sellerhttps://egrove.olemiss.edu/ciwar_milrec/1001/thumbnail.jp

Molecular Analysis Confirming the Introduction of Nile Crocodiles, Crocodylus niloticus Laurenti 1768 (Crocodylidae), in Southern Florida, with an Assessment of Potential for Establishment, Spread, and Impacts.

The state of Florida, USA, has more introduced herpetofauna than any other governmental region on Earth. Four species of nonnative crocodilians have been introduced to Florida (all since 1960), one of which is established. Between 2000–2014 we field-collected three nonnative crocodilians in Miami-Dade County, Florida, and one in Hendry County, Florida. We used DNA barcoding and molecular phylogenetics to determine species identification and native range origin. Also, we described diet, movement, and growth for one crocodile. Our molecular analyses illustrated that two of the crocodiles we collected are most closely related to Nile Crocodiles (Crocodylus niloticus) from South Africa, suggesting this region as a source population. We, thus, documented the first known introduction of C. niloticus in Florida. Two, and possibly three of the introduced crocodiles shared the same haplotype, suggesting they are likely from the same introduction pathway or source. One animal was captured, measured, marked, and released, then recaptured 2 y later allowing us to calculate growth rate (40.5 cm/y) and movement. The most likely route of travel by waterway (i.e., canal) illustrates that this animal traveled at least 29 km from its original capture site. One crocodile escaped from a facility in Hendry County, Florida, and survived in 1,012 ha of semi-wild habitat for three to four years, confirming that this species can survive in southern Florida

Evaluation of the selectivity and sensitivity of isoform- and mutation-specific RAS antibodies

Researchers rely largely on antibodies to measure the abundance, activity, and localization of a protein, information that provides critical insight into both normal and pathological cellular functions. However, antibodies are not always reliable or universally valid for the methods in which they are used; in particular, the reliability of commercial antibodies against RAS is highly variable. Waters et al . rigorously assessed 22 commercially available RAS antibodies for their utility to detect the distinct RAS isoforms in various cell types and for their use in specific analytical methods. Their findings show how reliably one can interpret the data acquired from each reagent

Risk Tolerance, Self-Interest, and Social Preferences

We use an experimental method to investigate whether systematic relationships exist across distinct aspects of individual preferences: risk aversion in monetary outcomes, altruism in a twoperson context, and social preferences in a larger group context. Individual preferences across these three contexts are measured, and there is no possibility for risk sharing, wealth effects, or updating expectations of the population choices. We find that social preferences are related to demographic variables, including years of education, gender, and age. Perhaps most importantly, self allocation in a two-person dictator game is related to social preferences in a group context. Participants who are more generous in a dictator game are more likely to vote against their selfinterest in a group decision-making task which we interpret to be expressions of social preferences

Scale-dependent perspectives on the geomorphology and evolution of beachdune systems

Despite widespread recognition that landforms are complex Earth systems with process-response linkages that span temporal scales from seconds to millennia and spatial scales from sand grains to landscapes, research that integrates knowledge across these scales is fairly uncommon. As a result, understanding of geomorphic systems is often scale-constrained due to a host of methodological, logistical, and theoretical factors that limit the scope of how Earth scientists study landforms and broader landscapes. This paper reviews recent advances in understanding of the geomorphology of beach-dune systems derived from over a decade of collaborative research from Prince Edward Island (PEI), Canada. A comprehensive summary of key findings is provided from short-term experiments embedded within a decade-long monitoring program and a multi-decadal reconstruction of coastal landscape change. Specific attention is paid to the challenges of scale integration and the contextual limitations research at specific spatial and/or temporal scales imposes. A conceptual framework is presented that integrates across key scales of investigation in geomorphology and is grounded in classic ideas in Earth surface sciences on the effectiveness of formative events at different scales. The paper uses this framework to organize the review of this body of research in a 'scale aware' way and, thereby, identifies many new advances in knowledge on the form and function of subaerial beach-dune systems. Finally, the paper offers a synopsis of how greater understanding of the complexities at different scales can be used to inform the development of predictive models, especially those at a temporal scale of decades to centuries, which are most relevant to coastal management issues. Models at this (landform) scale require an understanding of controls that exist at both ‘landscape’ and ‘plot’ scales. Landscape scale controls such as sea level change, regional climate, and the underlying geologic framework essentially provide bounding conditions for independent variables such as winds, waves, water levels, and littoral sediment supply. Similarly, an holistic understanding of the range of processes, feedbacks, and linkages at the finer plot scale is required to inform and verify the assumptions that underly the physical modelling of beach-dune interaction at the landform scale

The Current State of Cephalopod Science and Perspectives on the Most Critical Challenges Ahead From Three Early-Career Researchers

International audienceHere, three researchers who have recently embarked on careers in cephalopod biology discuss the current state of the field and offer their hopes for the future. Seven major topics are explored genetics, aquaculture, climate change, welfare, behavior, cognition, and neurobiology. Recent developments in each of these fields are reviewed and the potential of emerging technologies to address specific gaps in knowledge about cephalopods are discussed. Throughout, the authors highlight specific challenges that merit particular focus in the near-term. This review and prospectus is also intended to suggest some concrete near-term goals to cephalopod researchers and inspire those working outside the field to consider the revelatory potential of these remarkable creatures

The Qur'an and Identity in Contemporary Chinese Fiction

How is it possible to comprehend and assess the impact of the Qur’an on the literary expressions of Chinese Muslims (Hui) when the first full ‘translations’ of the Qur’an in Chinese made by non-Muslims from Japanese and English appeared only in 1927 and 1931, and by a Muslim from Arabic in 1932? But perhaps the fact that such a translation appeared so late in the history of the Muslim community in China, who have had a continuous presence since the ninth-century, is the best starting point. For it would be possible to address the relationship between the sacred text (as well as language) and identity among minority groups in a different way. This paper looks at the ways in which the Qur’an is imagined then embodied in literary texts authored by two prize-winning Chinese Muslim authors: Huo Da (b. 1945) and Zhang Chengzhi (b. 1948). While Huo Da, who does not have access to the Arabic language, alludes to the Chinese Qur’an in her novel, The Muslim’s Funeral (1982), transforming the its teachings into ritual performances of alterity through injecting Arabic and Persian words for religious rituals into her narrative of a Muslim family’s fortunes at the turn of the twentieth century, Zhang Chengzhi, who learned Arabic as an adult and travelled widely in the Muslim world, involves himself in reconstructing the history of the spread and persecution of the Jahriyya Sufi sect (an off-shoot of the Naqshabandiyya) in China between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries in his only historical novel, A History of the Soul (1991), and in education reform in Muslim communities, inventing an identity for Chinese Muslims based on direct knowledge of the sacred text and tradition and informed by the history of Islam not in China alone but in the global Islamic world, especially Arabic Islamic history