Soft-tissue specimens from pre-European extinct birds of New Zealand

We provide the first complete review of soft tissue remains from New Zealand birds that became extinct prior to European settlement (c. AD 1800). These rare specimens allow insights into the anatomy and appearance of the birds that are not attainable from bones. Our review includes previously unpublished records of ‘lost’ specimens, and descriptions of recently discovered specimens such as the first evidence of soft tissues from the South Island goose (Cnemiornis calcitrans). Overall, the soft tissue remains are dominated by moa (with specimens from each of the six genera), but also include specimens from Finsch's duck (Chenonetta finschi) and the New Zealand owlet-nightjar (Aegotheles novaezealandiae). All desiccated soft tissue specimens that have radiocarbon or stratigraphic dates are late Holocene in age, and most have been found in the semi-arid region of Central Otago

Calculation of Gallium-metal-Arsenic phase diagrams

Electrical contacts and metallization to GaAs solar cells must survive at high temperatures for several minutes under specific mission scenarios. The determination of which metallizations or alloy systems that are able to withstand extreme thermal excursions with minimum degradation to solar cell performance can be predicted by properly calculated temperature constitution phase diagrams. A method for calculating a ternary diagram and its three constituent binary phase diagrams is briefly outlined and ternary phase diagrams for three Ga-As-X alloy systems are presented. Free energy functions of the liquid and solid phase are approximated by the regular solution theory. Phase diagrams calculated using this method are presented for the Ga-As-Ge and Ga-As-Ag systems

Preparing Students For An Online Accounting Course

Accounting education has been under intense examination for at least the past 20 years (American Accounting Association, 1986; Big Eight Accounting Firms, 1989; AECC, 1990).  Similarly, the value of an MBA education has been scrutinized (Leonhardt, 2000 and Mintzberg and Lampel, 2001). Over the past 10 years, online education has grown exponentially with the Internet (Bryant, Kahle and Schafer, 2005).  This paper examines the responses of students who have just completed an online MBA financial accounting course to the question “What advice would you give someone who is about to take the course?”  Over 60 students were polled, and their answers categorized into 36 repeated recommendations and seven themes:  Input Factors, Communication, External Activities, Technical Skills, Study Tips, Personal Factors, and Course Characteristics.  By far the predominate factor mentioned was time, but the breadth of additional advice provides a snapshot for educators of the student point of view.  The results of this study are useful to any professor who has taught or will be teaching an online financial accounting course

Origin and timing of New Zealand’s earliest domestic chickens: Polynesian commensals or European introductions?

Human settlers transported chickens (Gallus gallus domesticus) to most East Polynesian archipelagos between AD 1000 and 1300; however, it has long been assumed that New Zealand was an exception. Despite the fact that chicken bones have been recovered from localities of early archaeological middens in New Zealand, their age and genetic relationships have never been critically assessed. Here, we test the assumption that chickens were not introduced to New Zealand during prehistory through ancient DNA and radiocarbon analyses of chicken bones from sites of Māori middens containing prehistoric material. The chickens belong to the widespread mitochondrial control region haplogroup E. Radiocarbon dating reveals that the bones are not prehistoric, but are still the earliest chicken remains known from New Zealand. Two of the bones pre-date permanent European settlement (ca 1803s onwards) but overlap with the arrival of James Cook's second voyage (1773-1774), and, therefore, they are likely to be chickens, or progeny thereof, liberated during that voyage. Our results support the idea that chickens were first introduced to New Zealand by Europeans, and provide new insights into Māori uptake and integration of resources introduced during the early post-European period.Jamie R. Wood, Michael J.B. Herrera, R. Paul Scofield and Janet M. Wilmshurs

When do children learn from unreliable speakers?

Children do not necessarily disbelieve a speaker with a history of inaccuracy; they take into account reasons for errors. Three- to 5 year-olds (N = 97) aimed to identify a hidden target in collaboration with a puppet. The puppet’s history of inaccuracy arose either from false beliefs, or occurred despite his being fully informed. On a subsequent test trial, children’s realistic expectation about the target was contradicted by the puppet who was fully informed. Children were more likely to revise their belief in line with the puppet’s assertion when his previous errors were due to false beliefs. Children who explained this puppet’s prior inaccuracy in terms of false belief were more likely to believe the puppet than those who did not. As children’s understanding of the mind advances, they increasingly balance the risk of learning falsehoods from unreliable speakers against that of rejecting truths from speakers who made excusable errors

Charge Exchange Spectra of Hydrogenic and He-like Iron

We present H-like Fe XXVI and He-like Fe XXV charge-exchange spectra resulting from collisions of highly charged iron with N2 gas at an energy of 10 eV/amu in an electron beam ion trap. Although individual high-n emission lines are not resolved in our measurements, we observe that the most likely level for Fe25+ --> Fe24+ electron capture is n~9, in line with expectations, while the most likely value for Fe26+ --> Fe25+ charge exchange is significantly higher. In the Fe XXV spectrum, the K-alpha emission feature dominates, whether produced via charge exchange or collisional excitation. The K-alpha centroid is lower in energy for the former case than the latter (6666 versus 6685 eV, respectively), as expected because of the strong enhancement of emission from the forbidden and intercombination lines, relative to the resonance line, in charge-exchange spectra. In contrast, the Fe XXVI high-n Lyman lines have a summed intensity greater than that of Ly-alpha, and are substantially stronger than predicted from theoretical calculations of charge exchange with atomic H. We conclude that the angular momentum distribution resulting from electron capture using a multi-electron target gas is significantly different from that obtained with H, resulting in the observed high-n enhancement. A discussion is presented of the relevance of our results to studies of diffuse Fe emission in the Galactic Center and Galactic Ridge, particularly with ASTRO-E2/Suzaku.Comment: 16 pages, 4 figures (3 color), accepted by Ap

The Uniform Soybean Tests: Northern Region 2015

United States Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service, West Lafayette, Indiana, Cooperating with State Agricultural Experiment Stations, Northern States

Brood patch and sex-ratio observations indicate breeding provenance and timing in New Zealand storm petrel (Fregetta maoriana)

We used measurements of brood patch and moult status to estimate the breeding phenology of New Zealand Storm-Petrel, using birds caught at sea within the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park near Auckland, New Zealand. Birds caught October–January had completely downy brood patches, whereas birds caught February–April had bare brood patches with an observed male bias in the February sex-ratio, consistent with a female pre-laying exodus typical of petrels and with the existence of an unknown colony in the region. No birds captured exhibited primary moult, which is known to occur in storm-petrels during their non-breeding season. Our data support the conclusion that the New Zealand storm-petrel breeds during January–June in northern New Zealand and that field surveys for the species on offshore islands in this region during this period are warrante

Anisotropy of Resonant Inelastic X-Ray Scattering at the K Edge of Si:Theoretical Analysis

We investigate theoretically the resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS) at the $K$ edge of Si on the basis of an ab initio calculation. We calculate the RIXS spectra with systematically varying transfered-momenta, incident-photon energy and incident-photon polarization. We confirm the anisotropy of the experimental spectra by Y. Ma {\it et al}. (Phys. Rev. Lett. 74, 478 (1995)), providing a quantitative explanation of the spectra.Comment: 18 pages, 11 figure