Long-term bird colonization and turnover in restored woodlands

The long-term effectiveness of restored areas for biodiversity is poorly known for the majority of restored ecosystems worldwide. We quantified temporal changes in bird occurrence in restoration plantings of different ages and geometries, and compared observed patterns with a reference dataset from woodland remnants on the same farms as our plantings. Over time, bird species richness remained unchanged in spring but exhibited modest increases in winter. We found that wider plantings supported significantly greater bird species richness in spring and winter than narrow plantings. There was no evidence of a significant interaction between planting width and time. We recorded major temporal changes in the occurrence of a range of individual species that indicated a clear turnover of species as plantings matured. Our results further revealed marked differences in individual species occurrence between plantings and woodland remnants. Life-history attributes associated with temporal changes in the bird assemblage were most apparent in winter survey data, and included diet, foraging and nesting patterns, movement behaviour (e.g. migratory vs. dispersive), and body size. Differences in bird assemblages between plantings of different ages suggest that it is important that farms support a range of age classes of planted woodland, if the aim is to maximize the number of native bird species in restored areas. Our data also suggest that changes in the bird species occupying plantings of different ages can be anticipated in a broadly predictable way based on planting geometry (especially width) and key life-history attributes, particularly movement patterns and habitat and diet specialisation. © 2016, Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht. **Please note that there are multiple authors for this article therefore only the name of the first 5 including Federation University Australia affiliate “Philip Barton” is provided in this record*

The Role of NF-κB in PPARα-Mediated Hepatocarcinogenesis

In this review, the role of NF-κB in the induction of hepatocarcinogenesis by peroxisome proliferators is examined. The administration of peroxisome proliferators for more than a three-day period leads to the activation of NF-κB in the livers of rats and mice. On the other hand, peroxisome proliferator activated receptor-α (PPARα) activation in non-hepatic tissues can lead to the inhibition of NF-κB activation. Several lines of evidence support the hypothesis that the activation of NF-κB by peroxisome proliferators in the liver is mediated by oxidative stress. The role of NF-κB in peroxisome proliferator-induced hepatocarcinogenesis has been examined using NF-κB knockout models. Specifically, the induction of cell proliferation and the promotion of liver carcinogenesis are inhibited in mice lacking the p50 subunit of NF-κB. Overall, the activation of NF-κB appears to be important in the carcinogenic activity of peroxisome proliferators

The Influence of Network Topology on Sound Propagation in Granular Materials

Granular materials, whose features range from the particle scale to the force-chain scale to the bulk scale, are usually modeled as either particulate or continuum materials. In contrast with either of these approaches, network representations are natural for the simultaneous examination of microscopic, mesoscopic, and macroscopic features. In this paper, we treat granular materials as spatially-embedded networks in which the nodes (particles) are connected by weighted edges obtained from contact forces. We test a variety of network measures for their utility in helping to describe sound propagation in granular networks and find that network diagnostics can be used to probe particle-, curve-, domain-, and system-scale structures in granular media. In particular, diagnostics of meso-scale network structure are reproducible across experiments, are correlated with sound propagation in this medium, and can be used to identify potentially interesting size scales. We also demonstrate that the sensitivity of network diagnostics depends on the phase of sound propagation. In the injection phase, the signal propagates systemically, as indicated by correlations with the network diagnostic of global efficiency. In the scattering phase, however, the signal is better predicted by meso-scale community structure, suggesting that the acoustic signal scatters over local geographic neighborhoods. Collectively, our results demonstrate how the force network of a granular system is imprinted on transmitted waves.Comment: 19 pages, 9 figures, and 3 table

Geographic Distribution: \u3ci\u3eAnolis sagrei\u3c/i\u3e (Brown Anole). USA: Arizona.

We discovered the first distributional records for the exotic, Caribbean lizard, Anolis sagrei (Brown Anole), in Arizona

Mitotic stress is an integral part of the oncogene-induced senescence program that promotes multinucleation and cell cycle arrest

Oncogene-induced senescence (OIS) is a tumor suppression mechanism that blocks cell proliferation in response to oncogenic signaling. OIS is frequently accompanied by multinucleation; however, the origin of this is unknown. Here, we show that multinucleate OIS cells originate mostly from failed mitosis. Prior to senescence, mutant H-RasV12 activation in primary human fibroblasts compromised mitosis, concordant with abnormal expression of mitotic genes functionally linked to the observed mitotic spindle and chromatin defects. Simultaneously, H-RasV12 activation enhanced survival of cells with damaged mitoses, culminating in extended mitotic arrest and aberrant exit from mitosis via mitotic slippage. ERK-dependent transcriptional upregulation of Mcl1 was, at least in part, responsible for enhanced survival and slippage of cells with mitotic defects. Importantly, mitotic slippage and oncogene signaling cooperatively induced senescence and key senescence effectors p21 and p16. In summary, activated Ras coordinately triggers mitotic disruption and enhanced cell survival to promote formation of multinucleate senescent cells

The negotiation and co-construction of meaning and understanding within a postgraduate online learning community

There is an increasing development of courses and course components taught through teaching and learning dialogues online yet there is little secure knowledge regarding the educational quality and outcomes of these dialogues. Drawing on contemporary socio-cultural research, this paper adapts a well-established analytical framework (see Mercer, 1995) that has been developed to understand face to face educational dialogues to the new context of asynchronous electronic conferencing. The work reported is derived from an in-depth case study of a tutorial group of 11 students enrolled on a course within the Open University's MA in Open and Distance Learning. The course was taught on-line to an international cohort of students from wide-ranging academic backgrounds. The analyses of electronic conference archives presented here focus on understanding the students’ on-line collaborative work and the ways in which they constructed meaning, negotiated shared understanding and supported each other in the process of learning at a distance. The implications of the findings for educational practice are considered

Flexible trial design in practice – dropping and adding arms in STAMPEDE: a multi-arm multi-stage randomised controlled trial

The trial recruits men with locally advanced or metastatic prostate cancer starting standard long-term hormone therapy. There are 5 research arms and 1 control arm. The trial has a pilot stage assessing safety and feasibility, 3 intermediate “activity” stages (I-III) where the outcome measure is failure-free survival (FFS) and one final “efficacy” stage (IV) with overall survival as primary outcome measure. At the end of each stage, each research arm is formally compared pairwise to the control arm. Accrual of further patients is discontinued early for any research arm either not showing sufficient evidence of activity or with adverse safety considerations; accrual continues to arms showing activity with acceptable safety. The stopping guideline compares the treatment effect against a pre-defined cut-off value using the hazard ratio when the hazards are proportional and restricted-mean survival time otherwise. This interim hurdle becomes increasingly stringent stage-by-stage. The addition of new research arm(s) can be actively considered when sufficiently interesting agents emerge. New research arms are compared only to contemporaneously-recruited control arm patients using the same intermediate guidelines in a time-delayed manner. The addition of new research arms is independent of any of the original research arms stopping accrual early subject to adequate recruitment to support the overall trial aims