Morphological Proxies for Fossoriality, Supplementary Appendices

Supplementary Appendices from Hopkins and Davis 2009, Journal of Mammalogy. Appendix I: Taxonomy, ecological data, and morphological characters from 123 species representing 15 of the 29 orders of extant mammals, used for discriminant analysis. Appendix II: Eigenvectors from discriminant analyses

The ecology of tadpoles in a temporary pond in the Western Cape with comparisons to other habitats

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD (Biodiversity and Conservation Biology)This work centered on the tadpoles in a temporaray pond in the middle of Kenilworth racecourse, Cape Town, South Africa. Trapping was carried out over two wet seasons and five species were found. The racecourse was selected to investigate the tadpole community occupying temporary winter pools. The main focus of this study was the community of tadpoles that occur in the ephemeral ponds in the centre of Kenilworth Racecourse. This study was a very broad insight into tadpole ecology in the Western Cape.South Afric

Live Fast, Die Young: GMC lifetimes in the FIRE cosmological simulations of Milky Way-mass galaxies

We present the first measurement of the lifetimes of giant molecular clouds (GMCs) in cosmological simulations at z = 0, using the Latte suite of FIRE-2 simulations of Milky Way (MW) mass galaxies. We track GMCs with total gas mass ≳10⁵ M⊙ at high spatial (∼1 pc), mass (7100 M⊙), and temporal (1 Myr) resolution. Our simulated GMCs are consistent with the distribution of masses for massive GMCs in the MW and nearby galaxies. We find GMC lifetimes of 5–7 Myr, or 1–2 freefall times, on average, with less than 2 per cent of clouds living longer than 20 Myr. We find decreasing GMC lifetimes with increasing virial parameter, and weakly increasing GMC lifetimes with galactocentric radius, implying that environment affects the evolutionary cycle of GMCs. However, our GMC lifetimes show no systematic dependence on GMC mass or amount of star formation. These results are broadly consistent with inferences from the literature and provide an initial investigation into ultimately understanding the physical processes that govern GMC lifetimes in a cosmological setting

The Diagnosis, Clinical Course, Treatment, and Prevention of the Rabies Virus

Rabies, despite available vaccines, causes approximately 55,000 deaths every year. Diagnosing relies on noting physical behaviors such as hydrophobia, vomiting, fever, behavior changes, paralysis, and consciousness, as well as, using several methodologies to molecularly detect the presence of the virus. RABV often enters through a bite wound given that it is transmissible through saliva. Infection spreads from muscle fibers into the peripheral nervous system traveling to the central nervous system. Infection of the central nervous system can lead to encephalitis (furious rabies) or acute flaccid paralysis (paralytic rabies). Treatment relies heavily on the time of exposure. If the patient is diagnosed prior to being symptomatic, post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) can be administered. However, once the patient has begun displaying symptoms, therapy success rates sharply decline. Prevention includes vaccinating during both pre- and post-exposures, as well as utilizing Stepwise Approach towards Rabies Elimination (SARE) to aid impoverished countries in declining their rabies mortality rates

Blue-enriched Lighting for Older People Living in Care Homes: Effect on Activity, Actigraphic Sleep, Mood and Alertness

Objective: Environmental (little outdoor light; low indoor lighting) and age-related physiological factors (reduced light transmission through the ocular lens, reduced mobility) contribute to a light-deprived environment for older people living in care homes. Methods: This study investigates the effect of increasing indoor light levels with blue-enriched white lighting on objective (rest-activity rhythms, performance) and self-reported (mood, sleep, alertness) measures in older people. Eighty residents (69 female), aged 86 ± 8 yrs (mean ± SD), participated (MMSE 19 ± 6). Overhead fluorescent lighting was installed in communal rooms (n=20) of seven care homes. Four weeks of blue-enriched white lighting (17000 K ≅ 900 lux) were compared with four weeks of control white lighting (4000 K ≅ 200 lux), separated by three weeks wash-out. Participants completed validated mood and sleep questionnaires, psychomotor vigilance task (PVT) and wore activity and light monitors (AWL). Rest-activity rhythms were assessed by cosinor, non-parametric circadian rhythm (NPCRA) and actigraphic sleep analysis. Blue-enriched (17000 K) light increased wake time and activity during sleep decreasing actual sleep time, sleep percentage and sleep efficiency (p < 0.05) (actigraphic sleep). Compared to 4000 K lighting, blue-enriched 17000 K lighting significantly (p < 0.05) advanced the timing of participants’ rest-activity rhythm (cosinor), increased daytime and night-time activity (NPCRA), reduced subjective anxiety (HADA) and sleep quality (PSQI). There was no difference between the two light conditions in daytime alertness and performance (PVT). Conclusion: Blue-enriched lighting produced some positive (increased daytime activity, reduced anxiety) and negative (increased night-time activity, reduced sleep efficiency and quality) effects in older people

Reproducing the CO-to-H₂ conversion factor in cosmological simulations of Milky-Way-mass galaxies

We present models of CO(1–0) emission from Milky-Way-mass galaxies at redshift zero in the FIRE-2 cosmological zoom-in simulations. We calculate the molecular abundances by post-processing the simulations with an equilibrium chemistry solver while accounting for the effects of local sources, and determine the emergent CO(1–0) emission using a line radiative transfer code. We find that the results depend strongly on the shielding length assumed, which, in our models, sets the attenuation of the incident UV radiation field. At the resolution of these simulations, commonly used choices for the shielding length, such as the Jeans length, result in CO abundances that are too high at a given H₂ abundance. We find that a model with a distribution of shielding lengths, which has a median shielding length of ∼3 pc in cold gas (T < 300 K) for both CO and H₂, is able to reproduce both the observed CO(1–0) luminosity and inferred CO-to-H₂ conversion factor at a given star formation rate compared with observations. We suggest that this short shielding length can be thought of as a subgrid model, which controls the amount of radiation that penetrates giant molecular clouds

Routine care of peripheral intravenous catheters versus clinically indicated replacement: randomised controlled trial

Objective To compare routine replacement of intravenous peripheral catheters with replacement only when clinically indicated

A profile in FIRE: resolving the radial distributions of satellite galaxies in the Local Group with simulations

While many tensions between Local Group (LG) satellite galaxies and LCDM cosmology have been alleviated through recent cosmological simulations, the spatial distribution of satellites remains an important test of physical models and physical versus numerical disruption in simulations. Using the FIRE-2 cosmological zoom-in baryonic simulations, we examine the radial distributions of satellites with Mstar > 10^5 Msun around 8 isolated Milky Way- (MW) mass host galaxies and 4 hosts in LG-like pairs. We demonstrate that these simulations resolve the survival and physical destruction of satellites with Mstar >~ 10^5 Msun. The simulations broadly agree with LG observations, spanning the radial profiles around the MW and M31. This agreement does not depend strongly on satellite mass, even at distances <~ 100 kpc. Host-to-host variation dominates the scatter in satellite counts within 300 kpc of the hosts, while time variation dominates scatter within 50 kpc. More massive host galaxies within our sample have fewer satellites at small distances, likely because of enhanced tidal destruction of satellites via the baryonic disks of host galaxies. Furthermore, we quantify and provide fits to the tidal depletion of subhalos in baryonic relative to dark matter-only simulations as a function of distance. Our simulated profiles imply observational incompleteness in the LG even at Mstar >~ 10^5 Msun: we predict 2-10 such satellites to be discovered around the MW and possibly 6-9 around M31. To provide cosmological context, we compare our results with the radial profiles of satellites around MW analogs in the SAGA survey, finding that our simulations are broadly consistent with most SAGA systems.Comment: 18 pages, 10 figures, plus appendices. Main results in figures 2, 3, and 4. Accepted versio