Review of \u3ci\u3eLoon Lessons: Uncommon Encounters with the Great Northern Diver\u3c/i\u3e, by James D. Paruk

Gavia immer Brunnich (Common Loon) is a bird that has captivated bird watchers, wildlife enthusiasts, campers, cottagers, and others interested in the natural world for centuries. The loon also features prominently in Native American mythology. For many, the loon symbolizes the wildness of the north, and it is often used as a sentinel of lake health. Indeed, the Common Loon has inspired a wealth of literature, both scientific and popular, describing this species’ ecology, behavior, and fitness in the face of environmental changes. To this literature, Loon Lessons: Uncommon Encounters with the Great Northern Diver adds a complete and accurate account of loon behavior, natural history, and conservation that will appeal to both long-time loon enthusiasts and to those looking for a first-rate introduction to this species

Investigating the effects of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon exposure on avian pre-migratory fuelling and migration

Long-distance avian migrants travel vast distances between their breeding and wintering grounds. Often this involves non-stop flights of thousands of kilometers without access to supplementary food or water. During these periods, birds rely almost exclusively on endogenously stored fuel to sustain several hours to days of migration flight. Accomplishing these extreme feats of endurance requires that birds rapidly accumulate fat stores prior to migration and at discrete sites (i.e., staging sites) along the migration route. Rapidly storing enough fat is crucial for long-distance migrants. Adequate fuel accumulation increases the probability of surviving migration. As well, fat deposition rates and departure fuel loads affect migration pace, and earlier arrival on the breeding grounds in the spring increases reproductive performance. As a result, impaired pre-migratory fuelling has been identified as an important factor in the ongoing declines of long-distance migratory bird populations. There is evidence to suggest that polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), the toxic constituents of oil pollution, can impair refuelling physiology and limit pre-migratory fat accumulation. Despite this evidence, however, a link between PAH exposure and impaired pre-migratory fuelling had yet to be established. Therefore, the objectives of this research were (1) to directly assess whether PAH ingestion impairs pre-migratory fuelling, (2) to investigate the physiological mechanisms of PAH-induced pre-migratory fuelling impairment, and (3) to characterize the impacts of impaired fuelling on avian migration timing. My first objective was addressed using a captive dosing experiment. Sanderling (Calidris alba), a long-distance migratory shorebird, were orally dosed with environmentally-relevant PAH concentrations and mixtures. I found that oral exposure to PAHs during staging lowered Sanderling pre-migratory body mass gains, with individuals in the high dose group (dosed with 1260 µg PAH/kg-bw/day) gaining 4.4 ± 3.7 g less than controls. More specific investigations into the mechanisms underlying this result showed that serum bile acid concentrations and the hepatic mRNA expression of liver basic fatty acid binding protein 1 (Lbfabp) and hepatic lipase (Lipc) were reduced by PAH exposure. This suggested that sublethal PAH ingestion impaired fuelling by disrupting cholesterol and lipid homeostasis. These results confirmed that PAH exposure can limit deposition of the fuel loads that influence staging durations, departure decisions, and migratory speed. Therefore, further research was warranted to characterize the effects of PAH exposure and fuelling impairment on avian migration timing. For this work, I first examined the relationship between PAH contamination and staging site quality for fuelling shorebirds. I trapped Sanderling and Red knots (C. canutus) from six staging sites along the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast, which were variably affected by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and which are susceptible to frequent and repeated oil pollution. Upon capture, I collected blood samples to measure Sanderling and Red knot plasma metabolite levels. I estimated PAH ingestion from foraging by measuring sediment total PAH concentrations at each site. Staging sites in Louisiana had the highest total sediment PAH concentrations (3.41 – 640 ng/g sediment). Metabolite data suggested that Sanderling in Louisiana exhibited the lowest refuelling rates, and both Sanderling and Red knots departed later than average from Louisiana. Next, I investigated the relationship between fuelling and migration timing in northward-migrating Sanderling using radio-telemetry techniques. I attached coded nanotags to Sanderling at the six Gulf of Mexico staging sites and at Chaplin Lake, Saskatchewan, a more northern staging site along Sanderlings’ migration route. Fuel loads were negatively correlated with stopover durations and departure dates at both sites. I also found that individuals that departed later from the Gulf of Mexico also arrived later and subsequently departed later from Saskatchewan. Model estimates suggested that a bird that was 5 g lighter at capture departed 2 days later from the Gulf of Mexico, arrived 1.5 days later in Saskatchewan, and then departed 16 hours later for its breeding grounds. There is thus evidence that fuel loads affect Sanderling migration timing and that slower birds do not catch up with earlier individuals. Fully understanding how PAHs affect pre-migratory fuelling, and ultimately avian populations, requires a mechanistic approach that links molecular-level events to adverse outcomes at the population-level. Therefore, the fourth objective of this research was to synthesize multiple datasets on how PAHs can affect avian pre-migratory fuelling into a biologically plausible mode of action that is useful to avian ecotoxicological risk assessment. This was accomplished by organizing the data of this thesis and existing knowledge into a putative adverse outcome pathway linking the molecular mechanisms underlying pre-migratory fuelling impairment to the effects of impaired fuelling on migratory bird populations. Organizing data into a progression of toxicity events increases our understanding of how PAHs and compounds with similar mechanisms of action can affect avian populations. Therefore, this thesis provides new information to guide avian ecotoxicological risk assessments and to increase our understanding of the toxicological threats to long-distance migratory bird populations

Lampe1: An ENU-Germline Mutation Causing Spontaneous Hepatosteatosis Identified through Targeted Exon-Enrichment and Next-Generation Sequencing

Using a small scale ENU mutagenesis approach we identified a recessive germline mutant, designated Lampe1 that exhibited growth retardation and spontaneous hepatosteatosis. Low resolution mapping based on 20 intercrossed Lampe1 mice revealed linkage to a ∼14 Mb interval on the distal site of chromosome 11 containing a total of 285 genes. Exons and 50 bp flanking sequences within the critical region were enriched with sequence capture microarrays and subsequently analyzed by next-generation sequencing. Using this approach 98.1 percent of the targeted DNA was covered with a depth of 10 or more reads per nucleotide and 3 homozygote mutations were identified. Two mutations represented intronic nucleotide changes whereas one mutation affected a splice donor site in intron 11–12 of Palmitoyl Acetyl-coenzyme A oxygenase-1 (Acox1), causing skipping of exon 12. Phenotyping of Acox1Lampe1 mutants revealed a progression from hepatosteatosis to steatohepatitis, and ultimately hepatocellular carcinoma. The current approach provides a highly efficient and affordable method to identify causative mutations induced by ENU mutagenesis and animal models relevant to human pathology

Differential cross section measurements for the production of a W boson in association with jets in proton–proton collisions at √s = 7 TeV

Measurements are reported of differential cross sections for the production of a W boson, which decays into a muon and a neutrino, in association with jets, as a function of several variables, including the transverse momenta (pT) and pseudorapidities of the four leading jets, the scalar sum of jet transverse momenta (HT), and the difference in azimuthal angle between the directions of each jet and the muon. The data sample of pp collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV was collected with the CMS detector at the LHC and corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 5.0 fb[superscript −1]. The measured cross sections are compared to predictions from Monte Carlo generators, MadGraph + pythia and sherpa, and to next-to-leading-order calculations from BlackHat + sherpa. The differential cross sections are found to be in agreement with the predictions, apart from the pT distributions of the leading jets at high pT values, the distributions of the HT at high-HT and low jet multiplicity, and the distribution of the difference in azimuthal angle between the leading jet and the muon at low values.United States. Dept. of EnergyNational Science Foundation (U.S.)Alfred P. Sloan Foundatio

Juxtaposing BTE and ATE – on the role of the European insurance industry in funding civil litigation

One of the ways in which legal services are financed, and indeed shaped, is through private insurance arrangement. Two contrasting types of legal expenses insurance contracts (LEI) seem to dominate in Europe: before the event (BTE) and after the event (ATE) legal expenses insurance. Notwithstanding institutional differences between different legal systems, BTE and ATE insurance arrangements may be instrumental if government policy is geared towards strengthening a market-oriented system of financing access to justice for individuals and business. At the same time, emphasizing the role of a private industry as a keeper of the gates to justice raises issues of accountability and transparency, not readily reconcilable with demands of competition. Moreover, multiple actors (clients, lawyers, courts, insurers) are involved, causing behavioural dynamics which are not easily predicted or influenced. Against this background, this paper looks into BTE and ATE arrangements by analysing the particularities of BTE and ATE arrangements currently available in some European jurisdictions and by painting a picture of their respective markets and legal contexts. This allows for some reflection on the performance of BTE and ATE providers as both financiers and keepers. Two issues emerge from the analysis that are worthy of some further reflection. Firstly, there is the problematic long-term sustainability of some ATE products. Secondly, the challenges faced by policymakers that would like to nudge consumers into voluntarily taking out BTE LEI

Penilaian Kinerja Keuangan Koperasi di Kabupaten Pelalawan

This paper describe development and financial performance of cooperative in District Pelalawan among 2007 - 2008. Studies on primary and secondary cooperative in 12 sub-districts. Method in this stady use performance measuring of productivity, efficiency, growth, liquidity, and solvability of cooperative. Productivity of cooperative in Pelalawan was highly but efficiency still low. Profit and income were highly, even liquidity of cooperative very high, and solvability was good

Search for stop and higgsino production using diphoton Higgs boson decays

Results are presented of a search for a "natural" supersymmetry scenario with gauge mediated symmetry breaking. It is assumed that only the supersymmetric partners of the top-quark (stop) and the Higgs boson (higgsino) are accessible. Events are examined in which there are two photons forming a Higgs boson candidate, and at least two b-quark jets. In 19.7 inverse femtobarns of proton-proton collision data at sqrt(s) = 8 TeV, recorded in the CMS experiment, no evidence of a signal is found and lower limits at the 95% confidence level are set, excluding the stop mass below 360 to 410 GeV, depending on the higgsino mass

Impacts of the Tropical Pacific/Indian Oceans on the Seasonal Cycle of the West African Monsoon

The current consensus is that drought has developed in the Sahel during the second half of the twentieth century as a result of remote effects of oceanic anomalies amplified by local land–atmosphere interactions. This paper focuses on the impacts of oceanic anomalies upon West African climate and specifically aims to identify those from SST anomalies in the Pacific/Indian Oceans during spring and summer seasons, when they were significant. Idealized sensitivity experiments are performed with four atmospheric general circulation models (AGCMs). The prescribed SST patterns used in the AGCMs are based on the leading mode of covariability between SST anomalies over the Pacific/Indian Oceans and summer rainfall over West Africa. The results show that such oceanic anomalies in the Pacific/Indian Ocean lead to a northward shift of an anomalous dry belt from the Gulf of Guinea to the Sahel as the season advances. In the Sahel, the magnitude of rainfall anomalies is comparable to that obtained by other authors using SST anomalies confined to the proximity of the Atlantic Ocean. The mechanism connecting the Pacific/Indian SST anomalies with West African rainfall has a strong seasonal cycle. In spring (May and June), anomalous subsidence develops over both the Maritime Continent and the equatorial Atlantic in response to the enhanced equatorial heating. Precipitation increases over continental West Africa in association with stronger zonal convergence of moisture. In addition, precipitation decreases over the Gulf of Guinea. During the monsoon peak (July and August), the SST anomalies move westward over the equatorial Pacific and the two regions where subsidence occurred earlier in the seasons merge over West Africa. The monsoon weakens and rainfall decreases over the Sahel, especially in August.Peer reviewe

Severe early onset preeclampsia: short and long term clinical, psychosocial and biochemical aspects

Preeclampsia is a pregnancy specific disorder commonly defined as de novo hypertension and proteinuria after 20 weeks gestational age. It occurs in approximately 3-5% of pregnancies and it is still a major cause of both foetal and maternal morbidity and mortality worldwide1. As extensive research has not yet elucidated the aetiology of preeclampsia, there are no rational preventive or therapeutic interventions available. The only rational treatment is delivery, which benefits the mother but is not in the interest of the foetus, if remote from term. Early onset preeclampsia (<32 weeks’ gestational age) occurs in less than 1% of pregnancies. It is, however often associated with maternal morbidity as the risk of progression to severe maternal disease is inversely related with gestational age at onset2. Resulting prematurity is therefore the main cause of neonatal mortality and morbidity in patients with severe preeclampsia3. Although the discussion is ongoing, perinatal survival is suggested to be increased in patients with preterm preeclampsia by expectant, non-interventional management. This temporising treatment option to lengthen pregnancy includes the use of antihypertensive medication to control hypertension, magnesium sulphate to prevent eclampsia and corticosteroids to enhance foetal lung maturity4. With optimal maternal haemodynamic status and reassuring foetal condition this results on average in an extension of 2 weeks. Prolongation of these pregnancies is a great challenge for clinicians to balance between potential maternal risks on one the eve hand and possible foetal benefits on the other. Clinical controversies regarding prolongation of preterm preeclamptic pregnancies still exist – also taking into account that preeclampsia is the leading cause of maternal mortality in the Netherlands5 - a debate which is even more pronounced in very preterm pregnancies with questionable foetal viability6-9. Do maternal risks of prolongation of these very early pregnancies outweigh the chances of neonatal survival? Counselling of women with very early onset preeclampsia not only comprises of knowledge of the outcome of those particular pregnancies, but also knowledge of outcomes of future pregnancies of these women is of major clinical importance. This thesis opens with a review of the literature on identifiable risk factors of preeclampsia