A review of elliptical and disc galaxy structure, and modern scaling laws

A century ago, in 1911 and 1913, Plummer and then Reynolds introduced their models to describe the radial distribution of stars in `nebulae'. This article reviews the progress since then, providing both an historical perspective and a contemporary review of the stellar structure of bulges, discs and elliptical galaxies. The quantification of galaxy nuclei, such as central mass deficits and excess nuclear light, plus the structure of dark matter halos and cD galaxy envelopes, are discussed. Issues pertaining to spiral galaxies including dust, bulge-to-disc ratios, bulgeless galaxies, bars and the identification of pseudobulges are also reviewed. An array of modern scaling relations involving sizes, luminosities, surface brightnesses and stellar concentrations are presented, many of which are shown to be curved. These 'redshift zero' relations not only quantify the behavior and nature of galaxies in the Universe today, but are the modern benchmark for evolutionary studies of galaxies, whether based on observations, N-body-simulations or semi-analytical modelling. For example, it is shown that some of the recently discovered compact elliptical galaxies at 1.5 < z < 2.5 may be the bulges of modern disc galaxies.Comment: Condensed version (due to Contract) of an invited review article to appear in "Planets, Stars and Stellar Systems"(www.springer.com/astronomy/book/978-90-481-8818-5). 500+ references incl. many somewhat forgotten, pioneer papers. Original submission to Springer: 07-June-201

Transitory and Resilient Salient Issues in Party Manifestos, Finland, 1880s to 2010s : Content Analysis by Means of Topic Modeling

Peer reviewe

Convergent evolution of IL-6 in two leporids (Oryctolagus and Pentalagus) originated an extended protein

Interleukin 6 (IL-6) is a class-I helical cytokinewith a broad spectrum of biological activities and a gene structure conserved throughout vertebrates, with five coding exons. IL-6 from European rabbits belonging to the subspecies Oryctolagus cuniculus cuniculus was previously shown to differ from other mammals by extending an additional 27 amino acids. However, in other leporids (Sylvilagus spp and Lepus spp) that diverged from the European rabbit ~12 million years ago this mutation was not present. In this study, we extended the study of IL-6 for the Oryctolagus cuniculus algirus subspecies and five additional lagomorphs’ genera(Brachylagus, Bunolagus, Pentalagus, Romerolagus, and Ochotona). We confirmed the presence of the mutated stop codon in both O. c. cuniculus and O. c. algirus.We found that the typical stop codon is present in Sylvilagus bachmani and Lepus europaeus, in agreement with previous reports, but also in Bunolagus, Brachylagus, and Ochotona. Remarkably, in Pentalagus we detected a deletion of the stop codon causing an extension of IL-6 for 17 extra residues. Our results indicate that the IL-6 extension in those species occurred by two independent events: one occurred between 2 and 8 million years ago in the ancestral of the Oryctolagus subspecies, and the other occurred in a Pentalagus ancestral at a maximum of 9 million years ago. The absence of this IL-6 extension in Bunolagus, sister genus of Oryctolagus, shows that this evolutionary event happened by convergence suggesting some functional relevance.This work was partially funded by FEDER (Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento Regional) funds through the Programa Operacional Factores de Competitividade (COMPETE program; FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-028286) and Portuguese national funds through FCT (Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia; research project PTDC/BIO-ANM/3963/2012)–Quadro de Referência Estratégico Nacional (QREN) funds from the European Social Fund and Portuguese Ministério da Educação e Ciência. FCT also supported the doctoral grants of FN and AP (refs.: SFRH/BD/81916/2011 and SFRH/BD/71252/2010) and the FCT Investigator grant of JA (ref.: IF/01396/2013). “Genomics Applied To Genetic Resources” cofinanced by North Portugal Regional Operational Programme 2007/2013 (ON.2–O Novo Norte), under the National Strategic Reference Framework (NSRF), through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), also supported this work