Age and sex influence marmot antipredator behavior during periods of heightened risk

Animals adjust their antipredator behavior according to environmental variation in risk, and to account for their ability to respond to threats. Intrinsic factors that influence an animal’s ability to respond to predators (e.g., age, body condition) should explain variation in antipredator behavior. For example, a juvenile might allocate more time to vigilance than an adult because mortality as a result of predation is often high for this age class; however, the relationship between age/vulnerability and antipredator behavior is not always clear or as predicted. We explored the influence of intrinsic factors on yellow-bellied marmot (Marmota flaviventris) antipredator behavior using data pooled from 4 years of experiments. We hypothesized that inherently vulnerable animals (e.g., young, males, and individuals in poor condition) would exhibit more antipredator behavior prior to and immediately following conspecific alarm calls. As expected, males and yearlings suppressed foraging more than females and adults following alarm call playbacks. In contrast to predictions, animals in better condition respond more than animals in below average condition. Interestingly, these intrinsic properties did not influence baseline time budgets; animals of all ages, sexes, and condition levels devoted comparable amounts of time to foraging prior to alarm calls. Our results support the hypothesis that inherent differences in vulnerability influence antipredator behavior; furthermore, it appears that a crucial, but poorly acknowledged, interaction exists between risk and state-dependence. Elevated risk may be required to reveal the workings of state-dependent behavior, and studies of antipredator behavior in a single context may draw incomplete conclusions about age- or sex-specific strategies

Effects of Prefrontal Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation on Lexical Access in Chronic Poststroke Aphasia

A successful interplay between prefrontal and domain-specific language areas is critical for language processing. Previous studies involving people with aphasia have shown that executive control processes might act on lexical-semantic representations during retrieval. Modulating the prefrontal control network by means of noninvasive brain stimulation might, therefore, improve lexical access in people with aphasia

Investigating the relationship between the use of English for academic purposes and academic attainment

The purpose of this study is to determine whether differences in academic attainment between university students could be correlated with their use of English for academic purposes. Using the diagnostic language assessment procedure known as Measuring the Academic Skills of University Students (MASUS2), as well as informal analysis of assignment feedback and interviews with students, students' performance in assignments in three subject areas was investigated. Results confirmed that there was a strong correlation between the overall scores students obtained in the MASUS language assessment and their attainment as represented by their assignment grade. However, analysis of the five separate categories of the MASUS scores showed that only the scores for the category, use of source material, correlated strongly with student attainment and that the scores on the more explicit language categories, structure and development of the text, academic writing style, and grammar, did not. The paper considers the implications of these findings for future studies of the role of English for academic purposes in students' attainment and for EAP pedagogy

Brookhaven National Laboratory Report BNL-7294

In the fall of 1961 an extensive program of investigation of high energy p-p interactions was begun at the Brookhaven AGS. The BNL 20" liquid hydrogen bubble chamber and an electrostatically separated beam were used to obtain a total (to date) of 300,000 exposure with about 15 antiprotons per pulse. The exposures were made at antiproton momenta of 3.25 Bev/c and 3.69 Bev/c in the laboratory. Approximately 80% of the exposures were made 3.69 Bev/c antiprotons. A wide variety of reactions occur in these collisions. Some of these such as elastic scattering, pion production, and associated production of hyperons and K-mesons have analogues in p-p collisions. The similarities and differences between the p-p and p-p results can usually be understood in a qualitative way and in some cases quantitative comparison with theory has been possible. The annihilation reactions leading to final states containing pions alone or pions with K-mesons are unique to the nucleon-antinucleon system as are the reactions in which a hyperon, anti-hyperon pair is produced. In the following, we report the principal characteristics of proton-antiproton reactions. Although the scope of this paper is comprehensive it is not a definitive report of the experiment as much of the work is still in progress