Elephant movement patterns in relation to human inhabitants in and around the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park.

The presence of humans and African elephants (Loxodonta africana) in the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park can create situations of potential human–elephant conflict. Such conflict will likely be exacerbated as elephant and human populations increase, unless mitigation measures are put in place. In this study we analysed the movement patterns of 13 collared adult African elephants from the northern Kruger National Park over a period of eight years (2006–2014). We compared the occurrence and displacement rates of elephant bulls and cows around villages in the Limpopo National Park and northern border of the Kruger National Park across seasons and at different times of the day. Elephants occurred close to villages more often in the dry season than in the wet season, with bulls occurring more frequently around villages than cows. Both the bulls and the cows preferred to use areas close to villages from early evening to midnight, with the bulls moving closer to villages than the cows. These results suggest that elephants, especially the bulls, are moving through the studied villages in Mozambique and Zimbabwe at night and that these movements are most common during the drier months when resources are known to be scarce. Conservation implications: Elephants from the Kruger National Park are moving in close proximity to villages within the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park. Resettlement of villages within and around the park should therefore be planned away from elephant seasonal routes to minimise conflict between humans and elephants

Emotion recognition is impaired across modalities in manifest Huntington’s disease

Aims There is increasing interest in the nature of the emotion recognition deficit in Huntington’s disease (HD) with conflicting reports of disproportionate impairments for some emotions in some modalities. This review aimed to clarify the pattern of emotion recognition deficits in HD. Methods A systematic review and narrative synthesis was conducted for studies investigating emotion recognition in Huntington’s disease. Embase, MEDLINE, PsychINFO and PubMed were searched from 1993 to 2010, and citation and reference list searches were also conducted. 1724 citations were identified. Results Sixteen studies met inclusion criteria. In manifest HD recognition of facial anger was found most consistently, although recognition of all negative emotions (facial and vocal) tended to be impaired. In premanifest HD impairments were inconsistent, but are seen in all facial expressions of negative emotion. Inconsistency may represent the variability inherent in HD although may also be due to between-study differences in methodology. Conclusions Current evidence supports the conclusion that recognition of all negative emotions tends to be impaired in HD, particularly in the facial domain. Future work should focus on using more ecologically-valid tests, and testing inter-modality differences

Conservation genetic assessment of savannah elephants (Loxodonta africana) in the Greater Kruger Biosphere, South Africa

Savannah elephant populations have been severely reduced and fragmented throughout its remaining range. In general, however, there is limited information regarding their genetic status, which is essential knowledge for conservation. We investigated patterns of genetic variation in savannah elephants from the Greater Kruger Biosphere, with a focus on those in previously unstudied nature reserves adjacent to Kruger National Park, using dung samples from 294 individuals and 18 microsatellites. The results of genetic structure analyses using several different methods of ordination and Bayesian clustering strongly suggest that elephants throughout the Greater Kruger National Park (GKNP) constitute a single population. No evidence of a recent genetic bottleneck was detected using three moment-based approaches and two coalescent likelihood methods. The apparent absence of a recent genetic bottleneck associated with the known early 1900s demographic bottleneck may result from a combination of rapid post-bottleneck population growth, immigration and long generation time. Point estimates of contemporary effective population size (Ne) for the GKNP were ~ 500–700, that is, at the low end of the range of Ne values that have been proposed for maintaining evolutionary potential and the current ratio of Ne to census population size (Nc) may be quite low (<0.1). This study illustrates the difficulties in assessing the impacts on Ne in populations that have suffered demographic crashes but have recovered rapidly and received gene flow, particularly in species with long generation times in which genetic time lags are longer. This work provides a starting point and baseline information for genetic monitoring of the GKNP elephants

Conservation genetic assessment of savannah elephants (Loxodonta africana) in the Greater Kruger Biosphere, South Africa

Savannah elephant populations have been severely reduced and fragmented throughout its remaining range. In general, however, there is limited information regarding their genetic status, which is essential knowledge for conservation. We investigated patterns of genetic variation in savannah elephants from the Greater Kruger Biosphere, with a focus on those in previously unstudied nature reserves adjacent to Kruger National Park, using dung samples from 294 individuals and 18 microsatellites. The results of genetic structure analyses using several different methods of ordination and Bayesian clustering strongly suggest that elephants throughout the Greater Kruger National Park (GKNP) constitute a single population. No evidence of a recent genetic bottleneck was detected using three moment-based approaches and two coalescent likelihood methods. The apparent absence of a recent genetic bottleneck associated with the known early 1900s demographic bottleneck may result from a combination of rapid post-bottleneck population growth, immigration and long generation time. Point estimates of contemporary effective population size (Ne) for the GKNP were ~ 500–700, that is, at the low end of the range of Ne values that have been proposed for maintaining evolutionary potential and the current ratio of Ne to census population size (Nc) may be quite low (<0.1). This study illustrates the difficulties in assessing the impacts on Ne in populations that have suffered demographic crashes but have recovered rapidly and received gene flow, particularly in species with long generation times in which genetic time lags are longer. This work provides a starting point and baseline information for genetic monitoring of the GKNP elephants

Influence of frustration on a d=3 diluted antiferromagnet: FexZn1−xF2Fe_{x}Zn_{1-x}F_{2}

The influence of a frustrated bond on the magnetic properties of a d=3 uniaxial (Ising) b.c.c. diluted antiferromagnet, with emphasis in the compound $Fe_{x}Zn_{1-x}F_{2}$, is investigated by a local mean-field numerical simulation. In particular we find that the initial drop of the saturation staggered magnetization ($M_{S}$) with concentration follows a percolation-like phenomenon characterized by an exponent $\beta_{p}$. For the frustrated samples, however, this regime is followed by a second one identified by a ``long tail" effect such that $M_{S}$ is zero only at the percolation threshold. Our numerical data also confirms a spin-glass phase near this threshold.Comment: 11 pages (Latex) with 3 uuencoded postscript figure

Spin Glass Ordering in Diluted Magnetic Semiconductors: a Monte Carlo Study

We study the temperature-dilution phase diagram of a site-diluted Heisenberg antiferromagnet on a fcc lattice, with and without the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya anisotropic term, fixed to realistic microscopic parameters for $IIB_{1-x} Mn_x Te$ (IIB=Cd, Hg, Zn). We show that the dipolar Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya anisotropy induces a finite-temperature phase transition to a spin glass phase, at dilutions larger than 80%. The resulting probability distribution of the order parameter P(q) is similar to the one found in the cubic lattice Edwards-Anderson Ising model. The critical exponents undergo large finite size corrections, but tend to values similar to the ones of the Edwards-Anderson-Ising model.Comment: 4 pages plus 3 postscript figure

Flux Phase as a Dynamic Jahn-Teller Phase: Berryonic Matter in the Cuprates?

There is considerable evidence for some form of charge ordering on the hole-doped stripes in the cuprates, mainly associated with the low-temperature tetragonal phase, but with some evidence for either charge density waves or a flux phase, which is a form of dynamic charge-density wave. These three states form a pseudospin triplet, demonstrating a close connection with the E X e dynamic Jahn-Teller effect, suggesting that the cuprates constitute a form of Berryonic matter. This in turn suggests a new model for the dynamic Jahn-Teller effect as a form of flux phase. A simple model of the Cu-O bond stretching phonons allows an estimate of electron-phonon coupling for these modes, explaining why the half breathing mode softens so much more than the full oxygen breathing mode. The anomalous properties of $O^{2-}$ provide a coupling (correlated hopping) which acts to stabilize density wave phases.Comment: Major Revisions: includes comparisons with specific cuprate phonon modes, 16 eps figures, revte

Processing emotion from abstract art in frontotemporal lobar degeneration

Abstract art may signal emotions independently of a biological or social carrier: it might therefore constitute a test case for defining brain mechanisms of generic emotion decoding and the impact of disease states on those mechanisms. This is potentially of particular relevance to diseases in the frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) spectrum. These diseases are often led by emotional impairment despite retained or enhanced artistic interest in at least some patients. However, the processing of emotion from art has not been studied systematically in FTLD. Here we addressed this issue using a novel emotional valence matching task on abstract paintings in patients representing major syndromes of FTLD (behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia, n=11; sematic variant primary progressive aphasia (svPPA), n=7; nonfluent variant primary progressive aphasia (nfvPPA), n=6) relative to healthy older individuals (n=39). Performance on art emotion valence matching was compared between groups taking account of perceptual matching performance and assessed in relation to facial emotion matching using customised control tasks. Neuroanatomical correlates of art emotion processing were assessed using voxel-based morphometry of patients' brain MR images. All patient groups had a deficit of art emotion processing relative to healthy controls; there were no significant interactions between syndromic group and emotion modality. Poorer art emotion valence matching performance was associated with reduced grey matter volume in right lateral occopitotemporal cortex in proximity to regions previously implicated in the processing of dynamic visual signals. Our findings suggest that abstract art may be a useful model system for investigating mechanisms of generic emotion decoding and aesthetic processing in neurodegenerative diseases

Humour processing in frontotemporal lobar degeneration: A behavioural and neuroanatomical analysis.

Humour is a complex cognitive and emotional construct that is vulnerable in neurodegenerative diseases, notably the frontotemporal lobar degenerations. However, humour processing in these diseases has been little studied. Here we assessed humour processing in patients with behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia (n = 22, mean age 67 years, four female) and semantic dementia (n = 11, mean age 67 years, five female) relative to healthy individuals (n = 21, mean age 66 years, 11 female), using a joint cognitive and neuroanatomical approach. We created a novel neuropsychological test requiring a decision about the humorous intent of nonverbal cartoons, in which we manipulated orthogonally humour content and familiarity of depicted scenarios. Structural neuroanatomical correlates of humour detection were assessed using voxel-based morphometry. Assessing performance in a signal detection framework and after adjusting for standard measures of cognitive function, both patient groups showed impaired accuracy of humour detection in familiar and novel scenarios relative to healthy older controls (p < .001). Patient groups showed similar overall performance profiles; however the behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia group alone showed a significant advantage for detection of humour in familiar relative to novel scenarios (p = .045), suggesting that the behavioural variant syndrome may lead to particular difficulty decoding novel situations for humour, while semantic dementia produces a more general deficit of humour detection that extends to stock comedic situations. Humour detection accuracy was associated with grey matter volume in a distributed network including temporo-parietal junctional and anterior superior temporal cortices, with predominantly left-sided correlates of processing humour in familiar scenarios and right-sided correlates of processing novel humour. The findings quantify deficits of core cognitive operations underpinning humour processing in frontotemporal lobar degenerations and suggest a candidate brain substrate in cortical hub regions processing incongruity and semantic associations. Humour is a promising candidate tool with which to assess complex social signal processing in neurodegenerative disease

Risk profiles and one-year outcomes of patients with newly diagnosed atrial fibrillation in India: Insights from the GARFIELD-AF Registry.

BACKGROUND: The Global Anticoagulant Registry in the FIELD-Atrial Fibrillation (GARFIELD-AF) is an ongoing prospective noninterventional registry, which is providing important information on the baseline characteristics, treatment patterns, and 1-year outcomes in patients with newly diagnosed non-valvular atrial fibrillation (NVAF). This report describes data from Indian patients recruited in this registry. METHODS AND RESULTS: A total of 52,014 patients with newly diagnosed AF were enrolled globally; of these, 1388 patients were recruited from 26 sites within India (2012-2016). In India, the mean age was 65.8 years at diagnosis of NVAF. Hypertension was the most prevalent risk factor for AF, present in 68.5% of patients from India and in 76.3% of patients globally (P < 0.001). Diabetes and coronary artery disease (CAD) were prevalent in 36.2% and 28.1% of patients as compared with global prevalence of 22.2% and 21.6%, respectively (P < 0.001 for both). Antiplatelet therapy was the most common antithrombotic treatment in India. With increasing stroke risk, however, patients were more likely to receive oral anticoagulant therapy [mainly vitamin K antagonist (VKA)], but average international normalized ratio (INR) was lower among Indian patients [median INR value 1.6 (interquartile range {IQR}: 1.3-2.3) versus 2.3 (IQR 1.8-2.8) (P < 0.001)]. Compared with other countries, patients from India had markedly higher rates of all-cause mortality [7.68 per 100 person-years (95% confidence interval 6.32-9.35) vs 4.34 (4.16-4.53), P < 0.0001], while rates of stroke/systemic embolism and major bleeding were lower after 1 year of follow-up. CONCLUSION: Compared to previously published registries from India, the GARFIELD-AF registry describes clinical profiles and outcomes in Indian patients with AF of a different etiology. The registry data show that compared to the rest of the world, Indian AF patients are younger in age and have more diabetes and CAD. Patients with a higher stroke risk are more likely to receive anticoagulation therapy with VKA but are underdosed compared with the global average in the GARFIELD-AF. CLINICAL TRIAL REGISTRATION-URL: http://www.clinicaltrials.gov. Unique identifier: NCT01090362