Patch-Scale Movement Dynamics in the Iowa Grassland Butterflies \u3ci\u3eSpeyeria Cybele\u3c/i\u3e and \u3ci\u3eMegisto Cymela\u3c/i\u3e (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae)

An understanding of the movement dynamics of invertebrates can be critical to their conservation, especially when managing relatively small, isolated habitats. Most studies of butterfly movement have focused on metapopulation dynamics at relatively large spatial scales, and the results from these studies may not translate well for patchy populations within a single nature preserve. In this work we use individual mark and recapture (IMR) methods to follow the movements of two species of butterfly, Megisto cymela (Cramer) and Speyeria cybele F. (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae) within a 240 hectare forest and grassland preserve in central Iowa, USA. Significant redistribution was seen in both species, with 55.7% of S. cybele and 31.1% of M. cymela undergoing interpatch movement. Median movement rates during the study were 105 m/day for S. cybele and 38 m/day for M. cymela, with the top decile moving at a rate of over five times these values. This movement did not appear to be random. S. cybele exhibited directed movement towards patches with high nectaring potential, although not all such patches were selected. M. cymela aggregated in particular prairie patches, especially those with high edge to area ratios, although the reason for aggregation is not clear

Patch-Scale Movement Dynamics in the Iowa Grassland Butterflies \u3ci\u3eSpeyeria Cybele\u3c/i\u3e and \u3ci\u3eMegisto Cymela\u3c/i\u3e (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae)

An understanding of the movement dynamics of invertebrates can be critical to their conservation, especially when managing relatively small, isolated habitats. Most studies of butterfly movement have focused on metapopulation dynamics at relatively large spatial scales, and the results from these studies may not translate well for patchy populations within a single nature preserve. In this work we use individual mark and recapture (IMR) methods to follow the movements of two species of butterfly, Megisto cymela (Cramer) and Speyeria cybele F. (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae) within a 240 hectare forest and grassland preserve in central Iowa, USA. Significant redistribution was seen in both species, with 55.7% of S. cybele and 31.1% of M. cymela undergoing interpatch movement. Median movement rates during the study were 105 m/day for S. cybele and 38 m/day for M. cymela, with the top decile moving at a rate of over five times these values. This movement did not appear to be random. S. cybele exhibited directed movement towards patches with high nectaring potential, although not all such patches were selected. M. cymela aggregated in particular prairie patches, especially those with high edge to area ratios, although the reason for aggregation is not clear

Stepped approach to improving sexual function after gynaecological cancer: the SAFFRON feasibility RCT

BACKGROUND: Women affected by gynaecological cancer are often unaware of the sexual consequences of both the cancer and its treatment. Most do not receive appropriate advice or help to recover sexual function, and the effect on their sexuality may be profound, both physically and emotionally. However, several potential therapies can be effective in helping recover some sexual engagement and change self-perception around sex. A major initial challenge is informing and involving patients in an appropriate and sensitive manner, and a further issue is delivering therapies in busy gynaelogical oncology clinics. This study was conceived in response to a National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Health Technology Assessment (HTA) call asking for proposals to improve sexual functioning in women treated for gynaecological cancer while taking into account associated issues of mood. Existing evidence-based therapies for improving sexual function after cancer treatment were adapted and placed within a 'stepped care' model for delivering these in the NHS setting. An assessment and treatment stepping algorithm was developed in parallel, both to assign women to a treatment level at assessment and to follow their progress session by session to advise on changing intervention level. The assessment tool was applied to all participants on the principle that the problem was sexual difficulty, not the cancer of origin. PARTICIPANTS: Women aged > 18 years (with partners at their choice) treated for any gynaecological malignancy with surgery and/or chemotherapy and/or radiation at University College London Hospital or Bristol Gynaecological cancer centres, minimally 3 months post end of treatment, of any sexual orientation, with sexual function difficulties identified by three initial screening questions. DESIGN: A feasibility two-arm, parallel-group randomised controlled pilot trial. SETTING: Two NHS gynaecological cancer centres, one in London and one in Bristol. INTERVENTIONS: A three-level stepped care intervention. OBJECTIVE: To assess the feasibility of conducting a full-scale investigation of stepped therapy and indicate the potential benefits to patients and to the NHS generally. PRIMARY OUTCOME MEASURES: Recruitment to study, proportion of women stepping up, number of usable data points of all measures and time points over length of trial, and retention of participants to end of trial. RESULTS: Development of the intervention and accompanying algorithm was completed. The study was stopped before the recruitment stage and, hence, no randomisation, recruitment, numbers analysed, outcomes or harms were recorded. LIMITATIONS: As the study did not proceed, the intervention and its accompanying algorithm have not been evaluated in practice, and the capacity of the NHS system to deliver it has not been examined. CONCLUSIONS: None, as the study was halted. FUTURE WORK: The intervention could be studied within a clinical setting; however, the experience of the study group points to the need for psychosocial studies in medical settings to establish pragmatic and innovative mechanisms to ensure adequate resource when extending staff clinical skills and time to deliver any new intervention for the duration of the trial. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Current Controlled Trials ISRCTN12010952 and ClinicalTrials.gov NCT02458001. FUNDING: This project was funded by the NIHR HTA programme and will be published in full in Health Technology Assessment; Vol. 23, No. 5. See the NIHR Journals Library website for further project information

Increasing generality in machine learning through procedural content generation

Procedural Content Generation (PCG) refers to the practice, in videogames and other games, of generating content such as levels, quests, or characters algorithmically. Motivated by the need to make games replayable, as well as to reduce authoring burden, limit storage space requirements, and enable particular aesthetics, a large number of PCG methods have been devised by game developers. Additionally, researchers have explored adapting methods from machine learning, optimization, and constraint solving to PCG problems. Games have been widely used in AI research since the inception of the field, and in recent years have been used to develop and benchmark new machine learning algorithms. Through this practice, it has become more apparent that these algorithms are susceptible to overfitting. Often, an algorithm will not learn a general policy, but instead a policy that will only work for a particular version of a particular task with particular initial parameters. In response, researchers have begun exploring randomization of problem parameters to counteract such overfitting and to allow trained policies to more easily transfer from one environment to another, such as from a simulated robot to a robot in the real world. Here we review the large amount of existing work on PCG, which we believe has an important role to play in increasing the generality of machine learning methods. The main goal here is to present RL/AI with new tools from the PCG toolbox, and its secondary goal is to explain to game developers and researchers a way in which their work is relevant to AI research

The Influence of Social Comparison on Visual Representation of One's Face

Can the effects of social comparison extend beyond explicit evaluation to visual self-representation—a perceptual stimulus that is objectively verifiable, unambiguous, and frequently updated? We morphed images of participants' faces with attractive and unattractive references. With access to a mirror, participants selected the morphed image they perceived as depicting their face. Participants who engaged in upward comparison with relevant attractive targets selected a less attractive morph compared to participants exposed to control images (Study 1). After downward comparison with relevant unattractive targets compared to control images, participants selected a more attractive morph (Study 2). Biased representations were not the products of cognitive accessibility of beauty constructs; comparisons did not influence representations of strangers' faces (Study 3). We discuss implications for vision, social comparison, and body image

Reviewing the use of resilience concepts in forest sciences

Purpose of the review Resilience is a key concept to deal with an uncertain future in forestry. In recent years, it has received increasing attention from both research and practice. However, a common understanding of what resilience means in a forestry context, and how to operationalise it is lacking. Here, we conducted a systematic review of the recent forest science literature on resilience in the forestry context, synthesising how resilience is defined and assessed. Recent findings Based on a detailed review of 255 studies, we analysed how the concepts of engineering resilience, ecological resilience, and social-ecological resilience are used in forest sciences. A clear majority of the studies applied the concept of engineering resilience, quantifying resilience as the recovery time after a disturbance. The two most used indicators for engineering resilience were basal area increment and vegetation cover, whereas ecological resilience studies frequently focus on vegetation cover and tree density. In contrast, important social-ecological resilience indicators used in the literature are socio-economic diversity and stock of natural resources. In the context of global change, we expected an increase in studies adopting the more holistic social-ecological resilience concept, but this was not the observed trend. Summary Our analysis points to the nestedness of these three resilience concepts, suggesting that they are complementary rather than contradictory. It also means that the variety of resilience approaches does not need to be an obstacle for operationalisation of the concept. We provide guidance for choosing the most suitable resilience concept and indicators based on the management, disturbance and application context

Distribution patterns of riodinid butterflies (Lepidoptera: Riodinidae) from southern Brazil

Background: The aim of this study was to synthesize the knowledge of Riodinidae butterflies (Lepidoptera: Papilionoidea) in Rio Grande do Sul state (RS), southern Brazil, evaluating the role of climatic, topographic, and vegetational variables on the observed patterns of occurrence and distribution of these butterflies in the Pampa and Atlantic Forest biomes. The records of riodinid butterflies in RS were collected from published studies and the examination of museum collections in Brazil. Results: A total of 97 taxa of Riodinidae were recorded, distributed in 92 municipalities. The NMDS analysis and the Constrained Analysis of Principal Coordinates grouped the municipalities according to the phytogeographic regions and biomes - Pampa and Atlantic Forest domains - in which the species records were made. Distance from the ocean, precipitation and temperature were the environmental variables which most contributed to explain the distribution patterns of these butterflies. The multivariate Mantel correlogram suggests that over short distances, the composition of species shows significant levels of spatial autocorrelation, and as geographic distance increases, these levels tend to present negative values. Conclusions: The results suggest that the observed distribution pattern of Riodinidae in the different biomes and phytogeographic regions in the extreme southern Brazil could be explained by climatic, environmental variables and geographic distance

Repetitive regret, depression, and anxiety:findings from a nationally representative survey

Past research has established a connection between regret (negative emotions connected to cognitions about how past actions might have achieved better outcomes) and both depression and anxiety. In the present research, the relations between regret, repetitive thought, depression, and anxiety were examined in a nationally representative telephone survey. Although both regret and repetitive thought were associated with general distress, only regret was associated with anhedonic depression and anxious arousal. Further, the interaction between regret and repetitive thought (i.e., repetitive regret) was highly predictive of general distress but not of anhedonic depression nor anxious arousal. These relations were strikingly consistent across demographic variables such as sex, race/ethnicity, age, education, and income.</p