2,240 research outputs found
California scrub-jays reduce visual cues available to potential pilferers by matching food colour to caching substrate
This is the final version. Available from the Royal Society via the DOI in this record. Some animals hide food to consume later; however, these caches are susceptible to theft by conspecifics and heterospecifics. Caching animals can use
protective strategies to minimize sensory cues available to potential pilferers,
such as caching in shaded areas and in quiet substrate. Background matching (where object patterning matches the visual background) is commonly
seen in prey animals to reduce conspicuousness, and caching animals
may also use this tactic to hide caches, for example, by hiding coloured
food in a similar coloured substrate. We tested whether California scrubjays (Aphelocoma californica) camouflage their food in this way by offering
them caching substrates that either matched or did not match the colour of
food available for caching. We also determined whether this caching behaviour was sensitive to social context by allowing the birds to cache when a
conspecific potential pilferer could be both heard and seen (acoustic and
visual cues present), or unseen (acoustic cues only). When caching events
could be both heard and seen by a potential pilferer, birds cached randomly
in matching and non-matching substrates. However, they preferentially hid
food in the substrate that matched the food colour when only acoustic
cues were present. This is a novel cache protection strategy that also appears
to be sensitive to social context. We conclude that studies of cache protection
strategies should consider the perceptual capabilities of the cacher and
potential pilferers.European Union’s Seventh Framework Programm
High-resolution spectroscopy of the R Coronae Borealis and Other Hydrogen Deficient Stars
High-resolution spectroscopy is a very important tool for studying stellar
physics, perhaps, particularly so for such enigmatic objects like the R Coronae
Borealis and related Hydrogen deficient stars that produce carbon dust in
addition to their peculiar abundances.
Examples of how high-resolution spectroscopy is used in the study of these
stars to address the two major puzzles are presented: (i) How are such rare
H-deficient stars created? and (ii) How and where are the obscuring soot clouds
produced around the R Coronae Borealis stars?Comment: 16 pages, 9 figures, Astrophysics and Space Science Proceedings,
Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 201
Pilot Safety Evaluation of Varenicline for the Treatment of Methamphetamine Dependence.
Despite the worldwide extent of methamphetamine dependence, no medication has been shown to effectively treat afflicted individuals. One relatively unexplored approach is modulation of cholinergic system function. Animal research suggests that enhancement of central cholinergic activity, possibly at nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs), can reduce methamphetamine-related behaviors. Further, preliminary findings indicate that rivastigmine, a cholinesterase inhibitor, may reduce craving for methamphetamine after administration of the drug in human subjects. We therefore performed a double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover pilot study of the safety and tolerability of varenicline in eight methamphetamine-dependent research subjects. Varenicline is used clinically to aid smoking cessation, and acts as a partial agonist at α4β2 nAChRs with full agonist properties at α7 nAChRs. Oral varenicline dose was titrated over 1 week to reach 1 mg bid, and then was co-administered with 30 mg methamphetamine, delivered in ten intravenous infusions of 3 mg each. Varenicline was found to be safe in combination with IV methamphetamine, producing no cardiac rhythm disturbances or alterations in vital sign parameters. No adverse neuropsychiatric sequelae were detected either during varenicline titration or following administration of methamphetamine. The results suggest that varenicline warrants further investigation as a potential treatment for methamphetamine dependence
Self-Optimising Reactive Extractions: Towards the Efficient Development of Multi-Step Continuous Flow Processes
Downstream purification of products and intermediates is essential for the development of continuous flow processes. Described herein, is a study on the use of a modular and reconfigurable continuous flow platform for the self-optimisation of reactive extractions and multi-step reaction-extraction processes. The selective extraction of one amine from a mixture of two similar amines was achieved with an optimum separation of 90%, and in this case, the black-box optimisation approach was superior to global polynomial modelling. Furthermore, this methodology was utilised to simultaneously optimise the continuous flow synthesis and work-up of N-benzyl-α-methylbenzylamine with respect to four variables, resulting in a significantly improved purity
Monolithic integrated high-T.sub.c superconductor-semiconductor structure
A method for the fabrication of active semiconductor and high-temperature superconducting device of the same substrate to form a monolithically integrated semiconductor-superconductor (MISS) structure is disclosed. A common insulating substrate, preferably sapphire or yttria-stabilized zirconia, is used for deposition of semiconductor and high-temperature superconductor substructures. Both substructures are capable of operation at a common temperature of at least 77 K. The separate semiconductor and superconductive regions may be electrically interconnected by normal metals, refractory metal silicides, or superconductors. Circuits and devices formed in the resulting MISS structures display operating characteristics which are equivalent to those of circuits and devices prepared on separate substrates
Method for making a monolithic integrated high-T.sub.c superconductor-semiconductor structure
A method for the fabrication of active semiconductor and high-temperature perconducting devices on the same substrate to form a monolithically integrated semiconductor-superconductor (MISS) structure is disclosed. A common insulating substrate, preferably sapphire or yttria-stabilized zirconia, is used for deposition of semiconductor and high-temperature superconductor substructures. Both substructures are capable of operation at a common temperature of at least 77 K. The separate semiconductor and superconductive regions may be electrically interconnected by normal metals, refractory metal silicides, or superconductors. Circuits and devices formed in the resulting MISS structures display operating characteristics which are equivalent to those of circuits and devices prepared on separate substrates
Madagascar's grasses and grasslands:anthropogenic or natural?
Grasses, by their high productivity even under very low pCO2, their ability to survive repeated burning and to tolerate long dry seasons, have transformed the terrestrial biomes in the Neogene and Quaternary. The expansion of grasslands at the cost of biodiverse forest biomes in Madagascar is often postulated as a consequence of the Holocene settlement of the island by humans. However, we show that the Malagasy grass flora has many indications of being ancient with a long local evolutionary history, much predating the Holocene arrival of humans. First, the level of endemism in the Madagascar grass flora is well above the global average for large islands. Second, a survey of many of the more diverse areas indicates that there is a very high spatial and ecological turnover in the grass flora, indicating a high degree of niche specialization. We also find some evidence that there are both recently disturbed and natural stable grasslands: phylogenetic community assembly indicates that recently severely disturbed grasslands are phylogenetically clustered, whereas more undisturbed grasslands tend to be phylogenetically more evenly distributed. From this evidence, it is likely that grass communities existed in Madagascar long before human arrival and so were determined by climate, natural grazing and other natural factors. Humans introduced zebu cattle farming and increased fire frequency, and may have triggered an expansion of the grasslands. Grasses probably played the same role in the modification of the Malagasy environments as elsewhere in the tropics
In vivo grading of lipids in fatty liver by near-infrared autofluorescence and reflectance
The prevalence of nonalcoholic fatty liver
(NAFLD) is rapidly increasing worldwide.
When untreated, it may lead to complications such as liver cirrhosis or hepatocarcinoma. The diagnosis of NAFLD is usually
obtained by ultrasonography, a technique
that can underestimate its prevalence.
For this reason, physicians aspire for an
accurate, cost-effective, and noninvasive
method to determine both the presence
and the specific stage of the NAFLD. In this paper, we report an integrated
approach for the quantitative estimation of the density of triglycerides in the
liver based on the use of autofluorescence and reflectance signals generated by
the abdomen of obese C57BL6/J mice. Singular value decomposition is applied
to the generated spectra and its corresponding regression model provided a
determination coefficient of 0.99 and a root mean square error of 240 mg/dl.
This, in turn, enabled the quantitative imaging of triglycerides density in the
livers of mice under in vivo conditionsMinisterio de Ciencia e Innovacion,
Grant/Award Number: IJC2020-045229-I;
Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion,
Grant/Award Number:
NANONERVPID2019-106211RB-I0
Women in contact with the Sydney gay and lesbian community: Report of the Sydney Women and Sexual Health (SWASH) Survey 2006, 2008 and 2010
The Sydney Women and Sexual Health (SWASH) survey was first carried out in 1996. It was initiated by workers from two ACON projects, Women Partners of Gay and Bisexual Men and the Gay and Lesbian Injecting Drug Use Project, who were faced with a lack of empirical evidence on which to base their intervention work. While research on same-sex-attracted women’s health and wellbeing has increased since then, epidemiological data on sexual health, mental health, experiences of abuse and violence and behaviours such as screening, illicit drug use, alcohol and smoking that can leave women vulnerable to adverse health outcomes, is still scarce. Moreover, as long as the inclusion of sexuality questions in large epidemiological surveys remains patchy or data is reported only by sexuality and not by sexuality and gender, SWASH provides a unique and important source of health-related information in Australian lesbian, bisexual and queer (LBQ) women. SWASH has been run biennially since 1996 by a collaboration of ACON and researchers at the University of New South Wales (until 2009), and now the University of Sydney (since 2010). The survey is regularly revised to reflect the needs of the community and research needs identified through research literature. Over its lifetime, SWASH has become a comprehensive survey of sexual health and wellbeing, violence, mental health and levels of psychological distress, and a number of other important health issues relevant to LBQ women, such as illicit drug use, alcohol consumption, and cancer screening behaviours. Where possible, questions have been used from established national surveys such as the National Drug Strategy Household Survey (NDSHS), the Australian Study of Health and Relationships (ASHR), and the Australian Longitudinal Survey of Women’s Health (ALSWH). This report presents results from surveys collected at the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Fair Day and other community events and venues during the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras seasons in 2006, 2008 and 2010
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