1,985 research outputs found
Consortium of Otolaryngology Journal Editors: Collegiality and Contributions
There is a new tradition in the otolaryngology publishing community that is unique to our specialty, so far as we know. Editors-in-Chief of otolaryngology journals in the United States, and intermittently some of our international colleagues such as the Editor of the Journal of Laryngology and Otology (England), sit down together twice a year to discuss topics of mutual interest, maintain lines of communication and friendships, and share perspectives on the evolution of otolaryngology—head and neck surgery and needs that our journals might help address. To establish these collegial, uninhibited, informative, and productive meetings, Dr Robert Ruben proposed the idea of a Consortium of Otolaryngology Journal Editors. During the consortium’s formative years, the organization was solidified and supported by Jonas Johnson who was Editor-in-Chief of Laryngoscope from 2003 to 2008 and whose journal funded our meetings. The editors have discussed many topics including standardization of terminology, duplicate publication and plagiarism, increasing physician interest and involvement in peer-review, peer-review education, new publication models and their implications for our colleagues, support for resident presentations at scientific meetings, innovations at individual journals that might prove useful for other journals, increasing international involvement in our journals, predatory journals, and other topics
Insects are not 'the new sushi': theories of practice and the acceptance of novel foods
Food geographies have long grappled with the interplay between
production and consumption. Theories of practice offer productive
new ways of conceptualising the mutual implication of supply and
demand in shaping food consumption, yet little work has approached
the subject of novel foods from this perspective. This paper applies
practice-theoretic analysis to two novel foods, aiming to demonstrate
the utility of the approach for a number of substantive areas and to
extend conceptual and theoretical debates within food geographies.
The paper compares sushi (a novel food successfully established in
the US in the 1960s) and insects (a novel ‘sustainable’ protein source
for Western markets, which to date has been relatively unsuccessful).
Many accounts portray sushi’s success as the result of marketing
efforts and the role of a ‘gateway dish’, arguing that insects – as ‘the
new sushi’ – can follow this model to achieve widespread acceptance.
It is argued that sushi’s initial Western establishment was instead
due to pre-existent practices ‘carried’ to a new location, where the
practices’ relevant constituent elements were also present. Conversely,
European food insects are not clearly assimilable within pre-existing
practices; instead, integration into existing food practices has been
attempted. Such efforts are demonstrably problematic
Roosting Habitat Use by Sandhill Cranes and Waterfowl on the North and South Platte Rivers in Nebraska
Migration ecology and habitat use of spring migrating birds using the Central Platte River is a well-explored topic, yet less is known about use of the North and South Platte rivers (NSPR) in western Nebraska. The efficiency and effectiveness of conservation efforts in the NSPR could be greatly improved with access to information about where and when birds roost and landscape prioritization tools. We used aerial surveys to determine population distribution and migration phenology of sandhill cranes Antigone canadensis, Canada geese Branta canadensis, and ducks using the NSPR for roosting during the mid-February to mid-April spring migration. We used these data and geospatial information to identify important river reaches for these species and habitat covariates that discriminate between those used at lower and higher densities. We found that sandhill cranes and waterfowl generally roosted in different segments of the NSPR and, subsequently, different factors were associated with high densities. Sandhill crane density was positively correlated with distance from obstructions greater than 1 m high and negatively correlated with area of unvegetated sandbar within 1 km. Density of Canada geese and ducks was high in segments positively associated with wetland and sand pit habitats. Human disturbance variables such as roads and bridges in this rural region had little effect on identification of roosting areas used by high densities of all groups. On the basis of our results, habitat conservation efforts that specifically target sandhill cranes will not have similar positive effects on waterfowl use and distribution in the NSPR. Our identification of the most important river segments should allow managers to better target land acquisition or management resources to areas that will have the greatest effect on either waterfowl or sandhill cranes during spring migration
First radial velocity results from the MINiature Exoplanet Radial Velocity Array (MINERVA)
The MINiature Exoplanet Radial Velocity Array (MINERVA) is a dedicated
observatory of four 0.7m robotic telescopes fiber-fed to a KiwiSpec
spectrograph. The MINERVA mission is to discover super-Earths in the habitable
zones of nearby stars. This can be accomplished with MINERVA's unique
combination of high precision and high cadence over long time periods. In this
work, we detail changes to the MINERVA facility that have occurred since our
previous paper. We then describe MINERVA's robotic control software, the
process by which we perform 1D spectral extraction, and our forward modeling
Doppler pipeline. In the process of improving our forward modeling procedure,
we found that our spectrograph's intrinsic instrumental profile is stable for
at least nine months. Because of that, we characterized our instrumental
profile with a time-independent, cubic spline function based on the profile in
the cross dispersion direction, with which we achieved a radial velocity
precision similar to using a conventional "sum-of-Gaussians" instrumental
profile: 1.8 m s over 1.5 months on the RV standard star HD 122064.
Therefore, we conclude that the instrumental profile need not be perfectly
accurate as long as it is stable. In addition, we observed 51 Peg and our
results are consistent with the literature, confirming our spectrograph and
Doppler pipeline are producing accurate and precise radial velocities.Comment: 22 pages, 9 figures, submitted to PASP, Peer-Reviewed and Accepte
High field metabolic rates of wild harbour porpoises
This study was partly funded by the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN) under the project ‘Under Water Experiments’ (project number FKZ 3515822000) and the BfN Cluster 7 ‘Effects of underwater noise on marine vertebrates’ (Z1.2-53302/2010/14) with additional support to P.T.M. and L.R.-D. from the Danish National Research Foundation (FNU) and the Carlsberg Foundation. B.I.M. was supported by a National Science Foundation International Research Postdoctoral Fellowship (OISE – 1150123). M.J. was supported by the Marine Alliance for Science and Technology Scotland (MASTS) and by a Marie Skłodowska-Curie award.Reliable estimates of field metabolic rates (FMRs) in wild animals are essential for quantifying their ecological roles, as well as for evaluating fitness consequences of anthropogenic disturbances. Yet, standard methods for measuring FMR are difficult to use on free-ranging cetaceans whose FMR may deviate substantially from scaling predictions using terrestrial mammals. Harbour porpoises (Phocoena phocoena) are among the smallest marine mammals, and yet they live in cold, high-latitude waters where their high surface-to-volume ratio suggests high FMRs to stay warm. However, published FMR estimates of harbour porpoises are contradictory, with some studies claiming high FMRs and others concluding that the energetic requirements of porpoises resemble those of similar-sized terrestrial mammals. Here, we address this controversy using data from a combination of captive and wild porpoises to estimate the FMR of wild porpoises. We show that FMRs of harbour porpoises are up to two times greater than for similar-sized terrestrial mammals, supporting the hypothesis that small, carnivorous marine mammals in cold water have elevated FMRs. Despite the potential cost of thermoregulation in colder water, harbour porpoise FMRs are stable over seasonally changing water temperatures. Varying heat loss seems to be managed via cyclical fluctuations in energy intake, which serve to build up a blubber layer that largely offsets the extra costs of thermoregulation during winter. Such high FMRs are consistent with the recently reported high feeding rates of wild porpoises and highlight concerns about the potential impact of human activities on individual fitness and population dynamics.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe
Five Year Incidence of Visual Field Loss in Adult Chinese. The Beijing Eye Study.
PURPOSE: To describe the cumulative 5 year incidence of visual field loss in adult Chinese in Greater Beijing. METHODS: The Beijing Eye Study 2006 included 3251 subjects (mean age 60.4±10.1 years) who had participated in the Beijing Eye Study 2001 and returned for re-examination. All participants underwent a comprehensive eye examination, including visual field test by frequency doubling threshold perimetry. An abnormal visual field was defined as reduced sensitivity in at least one test location. Incident visual field loss was defined as a change in visual field from normal at baseline to abnormal at follow-up. RESULTS: An incident visual field loss was detected in 273 eyes (4.3±0.5%)/235 subjects (7.3±0.5%). It was significantly associated with higher age (P = 0.001), higher intraocular pressure (P<0.001), and higher fasting blood glucose concentration (P = 0.019). Considering only eyes (n = 140) with a detected cause for visual field loss, the most frequent causes were cataract (68 (48.6%) eyes) followed by glaucoma (23 (16.4%) eyes), diabetic retinopathy (13 (9.3%) eyes), age-related macular degeneration (10 (7.1%) eyes), and myopic degenerative retinopathy (9 (6.4%) eyes). For 133 (48.7%) eyes with a visual field loss, the cause for the VFL remained unclear. CONCLUSIONS: The 5-year incidence of visual field loss was 4.3±0.5% per eye or 7.3±0.5% per subject. It increased significantly with age, intraocular pressure, and fasting blood glucose level. Major causes for the incidence of visual field loss were cataract, glaucoma and diabetic retinopathy
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