Chlorinated organic contaminants in breast milk of New Zealand women.

Breast milk samples from 38 women in New Zealand were analyzed for organochlorine pesticides, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins (PCDDs), and polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDFs) as part of a World Health Organization collaborative study of breast-milk contaminants. The women were recruited from two urban areas (Auckland and Christchurch) and two rural areas (Northland and North Canterbury) in the North and South Islands of New Zealand. The best predictor of contaminant concentrations in breast milk was found to be the age of the mother. Regional differences were found for hexachlorobenzene, dieldrin, and pp-DDE, reflecting historical use patterns. Urban-rural differences were found for several PCBs, PCDDs, and PCDFs when contaminant concentrations were calculated on a whole-milk basis. However, these differences could be attributed to variation in breast-milk fat concentrations between urban and rural mothers. Urban mothers had about 50% more breast-milk fat than rural mothers. Evidence suggests that breast-milk consumption by babies is regulated by caloric intake. Almost all of the caloric content of milk is in the fat fraction. This suggests that breast-milk contaminant levels calculated on a whole-milk basis do not necessarily reflect the relative levels of exposure of infants to these contaminants. However, the factors that influence breast-milk fat concentration deserve further study

Human-dominated land uses favour species affiliated with more extreme climates, especially in the tropics

Rapid human population growth has driven conversion of land for uses such as agriculture, transportation and buildings. The removal of natural vegetation changes local climate, with human‐dominated land uses often warmer and drier than natural habitats. Yet, it remains an open question whether land‐use changes influence the composition of ecological assemblages in a direction consistent with the mechanism of local climatic change. Here, we used a global database of terrestrial vertebrates (mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians) to test whether human‐dominated land uses systematically favour species with distinctive realised climatic niches. We 1) explored the responses of community‐average temperature and precipitation niches to different types of land use, 2) quantified the abundances of species with distinctive climatic niches across land uses and 3) tested for differences in emergent patterns in communities from tropical versus temperate latitudes. We found that, in comparison to species from undisturbed natural habitats, the average animal found in human‐altered habitats lives in areas with higher maximum and lower minimum temperatures and higher maximum and lower minimum precipitation levels. We further found that tropical assemblages diverged more strongly than temperate assemblages between natural and human‐altered habitats, possibly because tropical species are more sensitive to climatic conditions. These results strongly implicate the role of land‐use change in favouring species affiliated with more extreme climatic conditions, thus systematically reshaping the composition of terrestrial biological assemblages. Our findings have the potential to inform species' vulnerability assessments and highlight the importance of preserving local climate refugia

Strong Shift Equivalence of C∗C^*-correspondences

We define a notion of strong shift equivalence for $C^*$-correspondences and show that strong shift equivalent $C^*$-correspondences have strongly Morita equivalent Cuntz-Pimsner algebras. Our analysis extends the fact that strong shift equivalent square matrices with non-negative integer entries give stably isomorphic Cuntz-Krieger algebras.Comment: 26 pages. Final version to appear in Israel Journal of Mathematic

Using airborne laser altimetry to improve river flood extents delineated from SAR data

Flood extent maps derived from SAR images are a useful source of data for validating hydraulic models of river flood flow. The accuracy of such maps is reduced by a number of factors, including changes in returns from the water surface caused by different meteorological conditions and the presence of emergent vegetation. The paper describes how improved accuracy can be achieved by modifying an existing flood extent delineation algorithm to use airborne laser altimetry (LiDAR) as well as SAR data. The LiDAR data provide an additional constraint that waterline (land-water boundary) heights should vary smoothly along the flooded reach. The method was tested on a SAR image of a flood for which contemporaneous aerial photography existed, together with LiDAR data of the un-flooded reach. Waterline heights of the SAR flood extent conditioned on both SAR and LiDAR data matched the corresponding heights from the aerial photo waterline significantly more closely than those from the SAR flood extent conditioned only on SAR data

Effects of Altitude on Step Test Performance

Please view abstract in the attached PDF file

Probing a non-biaxial behavior of infinitely thin hard platelets

We give a criterion to test a non-biaxial behavior of infinitely thin hard platelets of $D_{2h}$ symmetry based upon the components of three order parameter tensors. We investigated the nematic behavior of monodisperse infinitely thin rectangular hard platelet systems by using the criterion. Starting with a square platelet system, and we compared it with rectangular platelet systems of various aspect ratios. For each system, we performed equilibration runs by using isobaric Monte Carlo simulations. Each system did not show a biaxial nematic behavior but a uniaxial nematic one, despite of the shape anisotropy of those platelets. The relationship between effective diameters by simulations and theoretical effective diameters of the above systems was also determined.Comment: Submitted to JPS

Domains in Melts of Comb-Coil Diblock Copolymers: Superstrong Segregation Regime

Conditions for the crossover from the strong to the superstrong segregation regime are analyzed for the case of comb-coil diblock copolymers. It is shown that the critical interaction energy between the components required to induce the crossover to the superstrong segregation regime is inversely proportional to mb = 1 + n/m, where n is the degree of polymerization of the side chain and m is the distance between successive grafting points. As a result, the superstrong segregation regime, being rather rare in the case of ordinary block copolymers, has a much better chance to be realized in the case of diblock copolymers with combs grafted to one of the blocks.

Feeding ancient cities in South Asia: Dating the adoption of rice, millet and tropical pulses in the Indus civilisation

© Antiquity Publications Ltd, 2016.The first direct absolute dates for the exploitation of several summer crops by Indus populations are presented here. These include rice, millets and three tropical pulse species at two settlements in the hinterland of the urban site of Rakhigarhi. The dates confirm the role of native summer domesticates in the rise of Indus cities. They demonstrate that, from their earliest phases, a range of crops and variable strategies, including multi-cropping, were used to feed different urban centres. This has important implications for understanding the development of the earliest cities in South Asia, particularly the organisation of labour and provisioning throughout the year.UK India Education and Research Initiative (Standard Award), British Academy (Stein Arnold Fund and International Mobility Scheme), Isaac Newton Trust, McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Natural Environment Research Council (NERC Radiocarbon Facility (Project IDs: NF/2009/2/7, NF/2013/1/6)), Arts and Humanities Research Council (Studentship), Trinity College (University of Cambridge), Division of Archaeology, Department of Archaeology and Anthropology (University of Cambridge

Development of planar pixel modules for the ATLAS high luminosity LHC tracker upgrade

The high-luminosity LHC will present significant challenges for tracking systems. ATLAS is preparing to upgrade the entire tracking system, which will include a significantly larger pixel detector. This paper reports on the development of large area planar detectors for the outer pixel layers and the pixel endcaps. Large area sensors have been fabricated and mounted onto 4 FE-I4 readout ASICs, the so-called quad-modules, and their performance evaluated in the laboratory and testbeam. Results from characterisation of sensors prior to assembly, experience with module assembly, including bump-bonding and results from laboratory and testbeam studies are presented