Lower Mississippian Lithostratigraphy, Northern Arkansas

Lower Mississippian lithostratigraphic units in northern Arkansas are (ascending order) the Bachelor, St. Joe, and Boone Formations. These formations disconformably overlie Middle Ordovician to Upper Devonian strata and are overlain disconformably by Meramecan or Chesterian strata. The Bachelor Formation is generally a thin (less than 0.3 m), persistent, orthoquartzitic sandstone with common to abundant phosphatic pebbles overlain by a green silty shale. In northwestern Arkansas, the Bachelor Formation commonly lacks sandstone. The Bachelor Formation has been confused previously with the Sylamore (Upper Devonian) and older sandstone units. Although commonly regarded as a member of the Boone Formation, the St. Joe Limestone should be raised to formation rank in accordance with the earlier proposal of Cline (1934). The St. Joe Limestone in northwestern Arkansas can be subdivided into (ascending order) the Compton, Northview, and Pierson Members which are recognized as formations in Missouri. In the type region, northcentral Arkansas, subdivision of the St. Joe is precluded by lack of the shaly Northview Member. A marked color change from gray to red from northwestern to northcentral Arkansas is accompanied by a general increase in the allochemical constituents. The St. Joe Boone boundary is taken to be at the first persistent chert. This contact generally coincides with a thin calcareous shale unit and a marked decrease in carbonate grain size

Models of probabilistic category learning in Parkinson's disease: Strategy use and the effects of L-dopa

Probabilistic category learning (PCL) has become an increasingly popular paradigm to study the brain bases of learning and memory. It has been argued that PCL relies on procedural habit learning, which is impaired in Parkinson's disease (PD). However, as PD patients were typically tested under medication, it is possible that levodopa (L-dopa) caused impaired performance in PCL. We present formal models of rule-based strategy switching in PCL, to re-analyse the data from [Jahanshahi, M., Wilkinson, L, Gahir, H., Dharminda, A., & Lagnado, D.A., (2009). Medication impairs probabilistic classification learning in Parkinson's disease. Manuscript submitted for publication] comparing PD patients on and off medication (within subjects) to matched controls. Our analysis shows that PD patients followed a similar strategy switch process as controls when off medication, but not when on medication. On medication, PD patients mainly followed a random guessing strategy, with only few switching to the better Single Cue strategies. PD patients on medication and controls made more use of the optimal Multi-Cue strategy. In addition, while controls and PD patients off medication only switched to strategies which did not decrease performance, strategy switches of PD patients on medication were not always directed as such. Finally, results indicated that PD patients on medication responded according to a probability matching strategy indicative of associative learning, while the behaviour of PD patients off medication and controls was consistent with a rule-based hypothesis testing procedure. (C) 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

Tetragonula carbonaria and disease : behavioural and antimicrobial defences used by colonies to limit brood pathogens

The honey bee, Apis mellifera, is suffering heavily from the impacts from intensive management. Pests and diseases contribute to the population losses experienced globally. Brood disease is of concern for the apiculture industry because of the direct effects it has on population numbers and despite control measures; resistance to antibiotics and pesticides are common. Alternative pollinators such as stingless bees, including Tetragonula carbonaria, appear to be less impacted by brood diseases. However, there is very little information regarding why this is so. Prior to this study, there are only a few indications about a possible bacterial brood disease in Brazilian stingless bees (Kerr 1948, Nogueira-Neto 1997), with no follow up investigations, and no cases of brood disease losses in Australian stingless bees. As a result, this study presents information on the behavioural and antimicrobial defences of T. carbonaria colonies as mechanisms to limit the development of brood pathogens. In addition to these aims and objectives, this study also introduces and documents the first disease causing brood pathogen in Australian stingless bees. Therefore, the interaction of the defence mechanisms and the identified brood pathogen was also explored. Suitable nest conditions need to exist to sustain pathogen growth and development. Apis mellifera pathogens such as Paenibacillus larvae and Ascosphaera apis utilise nest conditions, especially in the brood area for growth. The limited number of stingless bee pathogens may be related to brood temperature. Thermoregulation behaviour has been investigated in a number of stingless bee species; however, Australian studies are limited to Austroplebeia australis (Halcroft et al. 2013b) and greenhouse maintained T. carbonaria colonies (Amano et al. 2000, Amano 2004, A. Tse, pers. comm., 2011), with outcomes applied to their pollination servicing. This study (Chapter 2) investigated T. carbonaria thermoregulation behaviours during fluctuating ambient temperatures and the influence these have on brood production. Over the 13-month study, T. carbonaria was able to maintain brood temperatures between 15–31ºC, despite ambient temperatures ranging from 0–37°C. The recorded brood temperatures resulted in colonies maintaining yearlong brood development, which would suggest that this could provide a suitable resource for pathogen development year-round. However, pathogen occurrences are rare, it is speculated that the greater brood temperature range which is tolerated by colonies, is ultimately unsuitable for brood pathogen development, especially the lower winter temperatures

The Experiences of African American Women Participating in Church-based Weight Loss Programs

While obesity is a nationwide phenomenon, African Americans - especially women - continue to be more severely affected than any other ethnic group. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, over 20% of African American women are obese compared to 15.6% of Caucasian women. The church is an important community center for many African Americans, and is often a site for health promotion programs, though little is known of the effectiveness of these programs. The purpose of this qualitative study was to study the experiences and attitudes of African American women who have gone through a church-based weight-loss program. Questions were asked about the cultural, environmental and social barriers to weight loss, and the components of effective church-based weight loss programs. Using a phenomenological approach, this study was designed to capture new data for the development of sustainable church-based weight-loss programs. The theory of social support was used as a theoretical framework. The major themes arising from the data concerned the importance of: (a) social support on all levels; (b) the involvement of the pastor, his spouse, or other church leadership; (c) the inclusion of weight-loss participants in program design; (d) a holistic program design to meet the needs of the entire family; and (e) a culturally sensitive program. The inclusion of all these elements is recommended for future programs. The social change implication is that these recommendations could be helpful in the design, development, and implementation of sustainable church-based weight-loss programs for African American women

Bringing the schoolhouse to life: Methodologies of living history education demonstrated in a living history program for San Timoteo Schoolhouse, Riverside County, California

This project begins by examining living history, defining its scope, uses, and relationship to other fields. It further defines and articulates a second-person methodology for construction of living history educational projects, grounding it in historical, educational, and dramatic theory

ERISA Preemption of Community Property Law—Francis v. United Technologies Corp., 458 F. Supp. 84 (N.D. Cal. 1978)

The theory of modem domestic relations law—marriage as partnership—requires recognition of the non-employee spouse\u27s ownership interest in the pension. This note challenges the Francis court\u27s finding that recognition of the non-employee spouse\u27s ownership interest was preempted by ERISA, concluding that Congress did not intend to bring about the regression in domestic relations law that Francis threatens

2dF QSO Redshift Survey

With approximately 6000 QSO redshifts,the 2dF QSO redshift survey is already the biggest complete QSO survey. The aim for the survey is to have 25000 QSO redshifts, providing an order of magnitude increase in QSO clustering statistics. We first describe the observational parameters of the 2dF QSO survey. We then describe several highlights of the survey so far, including new estimates of the QSO luminosity function and its evolution. We also review the current status of QSO clustering analyses from the 2dF data. Finally, we discuss how the complete QSO survey will be able to constrain the value of Omega_o by measuring the evolution of QSO clustering, place limits on the cosmological constant via a direct geometrical test and determine the form of the fluctuation power-spectrum out to the approximately 1000 Mpc scales only previously probed by COBE.Comment: 6 pages; to be published in Clustering at High Redshift, Marseille, June 1999, eds. A. Mazure, O. LeFevre, V. Lebru