A comparison of manual and automatic moth sampling methods (Lepidoptera : Arctiidae, Geometridae) in a rain forest in Costa Rica

Sampling with UV fluorescent light tubes is a commonly used technique both in applied and basic insect studies. Our study compares the performance of two such methods: manual sampling (light towers) and automatic sampling (funnel light traps). The abundance, diversity, and body size of moths representing two species-rich families (Lepidoptera: Arctiidae, Geometridae) were analyzed in a lowland rain forest in Costa Rica (La Selva Biological Station, 10.4 degrees N, 84.0 degrees W) during 2003 and 2004. Light towers were equipped with two 15-W UV fluorescent tubes and were operated for 3 h in 16 nights. Traps equipped with single 8-W fluorescent tubes were run throughout 20 nights in the understory of the forest. In addition, parallel trap sampling was carried out in the canopy. A total of 1,238 arctiid moths representing 162 species and 1,769 geometrid moths representing 196 species were collected. In Geometridae, tower samples were significantly larger than trap samples. Towers also attracted a higher overall number of species. Very small geometrids (particularly of the subfamily Sterrhinae) were under-represented in trap samples, suggesting that this method is biased toward larger species. In arctiid moths, there were no significant differences in either the sample sizes, the number of species or in the size of the individuals sampled. Diversity calculated as Fisher's a was similar for towers and understory traps in both families. A major component of diversity was added with canopy trap samples for arctiid moths, but not for geometrid moths. In conclusion, ground-based tower sampling proved to be the most suitable method for geometrid moths, and trap sampling including both understory and canopy for arctiid moths. For full moth species inventories, a combination of both approaches is recommended

Quasiparticle tunnelling and field-dependent critical current in 2212-BSCCO

Intrinsic c-axis tunnelling in the superconducting state has been measured in zero and finite fields in small mesa structures fabricated on the surface of 2212-BSCCO single crystals. The temperature dependence of the zero-field critical current and quasi-particle conductance is related to microscopic d-wave models in the presence of impurity scattering. The strong field dependence of the c-axis critical current provides information on the correlation of flux pancakes across adjacent superconducting bi-layers. An instability in the IV characteristics is observed below 20K, which accounts for the apparent drop in critical current at low temperatures previously reported

Intrinsic c-axis transport in 2212-BSCCO

We describe two experimental approaches to circumvent the problem of self-heating in IV measurements on small mesa samples of 2212-BSCCO. Simultaneous dc and temperature measurements have been performed, allowing corrections for heating to be made. Short pulse measurements have also been made, where the IV characteristics and the mesa temperature can be measured on a $\mu$s time-scale enabling intrinsic IV characteristics to be derived, even in the presence of appreciable self-heating. Self-heating leads to an appreciable depression of the apparent energy gap and also accounts, in major part, for the s-shaped characteristics often reported at high currents. By correcting for the temperature rise, we derive the intrinsic temperature dependence of the tunnelling characteristics for crystals with a range of doping. Results are compared with recent theoretical models for c-axis transport in d-wave superconductors

Interlayer tunnelling in Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+d single crystals

We present measurements of the intrinsic quasi-particle conductivity along the c-axis of 2212-BSCCO single-crystal mesa structures in the superconducting and normal states. Direct measurement of the mesa temperature enables corrections to be made for self-heating and permits the acquisition of reliable I-V characteristics over a wide range of temperatures and voltages. Unlike a conventional superconductor, there is no evidence for any change in the quasiparticle conductivity at Tc, consistent with precursor pairing of electrons in the normal state. At low temperatures the initial low-voltage linear conductivity exhibits a T2 dependence, approaching a limiting value at zero temperature

System for fast time-resolved measurements of c-axis quasiparticle conductivity in intrinsic Josephson junctions of 2212-BSCCO

A wide-band cryogenic ampli¯er measurement system for time-resolved 4-point VI-characteristic measurements on Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+± mesa structures is described. We present measurements which demonstrate the importance of self-heating on » 50 ns time scales. Such heating is likely to have been very signi¯cant in many previously published measurements, where the reported nonlinear VI characteristics have been used to derive superconducting energy gaps

A FAMILY OF CATION ATPASE-LIKE MOLECULES FROM PLASMODIUM-FALCIPARUM

Abstract. We report the nucleotide and derived amino acid sequence of the ATPase 1 gene from Plasmodium falciparum. The amino acid sequence shares homology with the family of "P-type cation transloeating ATPases in conserved regions important for nucleotide binding, conformational change, or phosphorylation. The gene, which is present on chromosome 5, has a product longer than any other reported for a P-type ATPase. Interstrain analysis from 12 parasite isolates by the polymerase chain reaction reveals that a 330-bp nucleotide sequence encoding three cytoplasmic regions conserved in cation ATPases (regions a-c) is of constant length. By contrast, another 360-bp sequence which is one of four regions we refer to as

Swift development of protective effector functions in naive CD8(+) T cells against malaria liver stages.

We generated T cell receptor transgenic mice specific for the liver stages of the rodent malaria parasite Plasmodium yoelii and studied the early events in the development of in vivo effector functions in antigen-specific CD8(+) T cells. Differently to activated/memory cells, naive CD8(+) T cells are not capable of exerting antiparasitic activity unless previously primed by parasite immunization. While naive cells need to differentiate before achieving effector status, the time required for this process is very short. Indeed, interferon (IFN)-gamma and perforin mRNA are detectable 24 h after immunization and IFN-gamma secretion and cytotoxic activity are detected ex vivo 24 and 48 h after immunization, respectively. In contrast, the proliferation of CD8(+) T cells begins after 24 h and an increase in the total number of antigen-specific cells is detected only after 48 h. Remarkably, a strong CD8(+) T cell-mediated inhibition of parasite development is observed in mice challenged with viable parasites only 24 h after immunization with attenuated parasites. These results indicate that differentiation of naive CD8(+) T cells does not begin only after extensive cell division, rather this process precedes or occurs simultaneously with proliferation

Clinical case seminar - Hypogonadotropic hypogonadism as a presenting feature of late-onset X-linked adrenal hypoplasia congenita

Mutations in the orphan nuclear receptor DAX-1 cause X-linked adrenal hypoplasia congenita. Affected boys usually present with primary adrenal failure in early infancy or childhood. Impaired sexual development because of hypogonadotropic hypogonadism becomes apparent at the time of puberty. We report adult-onset adrenal hypoplasia congenita in a patient who presented with hypogonadism at 28 yr of age. Although he had no clinical evidence of adrenal dysfunction, compensated primary adrenal failure was diagnosed by biochemical testing. Semen analysis showed azoospermia, and he did not achieve fertility after 8 months of treatment with gonadotropins. A novel Y380D DAX-1 missense mutation, which causes partial loss of function in transient gene expression assays, was found in this patient. This case demonstrates that partial loss-of-function mutations in DAX1 can present with hypogonadotropic hypogonadism and covert adrenal failure in adulthood. Further, an important role for DAX-1 in spermatogenesis in humans is confirmed, supporting findings in the Dax1 (Ahch) knockout mouse

Formalization of the fundamental group in untyped set theory using auto2

We present a new framework for formalizing mathematics in untyped set theory using auto2. Using this framework, we formalize in Isabelle/FOL the entire chain of development from the axioms of set theory to the definition of the fundamental group for an arbitrary topological space. The auto2 prover is used as the sole automation tool, and enables succinct proof scripts throughout the project.Comment: 17 pages, accepted for ITP 201

Maximum Entropy Linear Manifold for Learning Discriminative Low-dimensional Representation

Representation learning is currently a very hot topic in modern machine learning, mostly due to the great success of the deep learning methods. In particular low-dimensional representation which discriminates classes can not only enhance the classification procedure, but also make it faster, while contrary to the high-dimensional embeddings can be efficiently used for visual based exploratory data analysis. In this paper we propose Maximum Entropy Linear Manifold (MELM), a multidimensional generalization of Multithreshold Entropy Linear Classifier model which is able to find a low-dimensional linear data projection maximizing discriminativeness of projected classes. As a result we obtain a linear embedding which can be used for classification, class aware dimensionality reduction and data visualization. MELM provides highly discriminative 2D projections of the data which can be used as a method for constructing robust classifiers. We provide both empirical evaluation as well as some interesting theoretical properties of our objective function such us scale and affine transformation invariance, connections with PCA and bounding of the expected balanced accuracy error.Comment: submitted to ECMLPKDD 201