Mineral Acquisition from Clay by Budongo Forest Chimpanzees

Chimpanzees of the Sonso community, Budongo Forest, Uganda were observed eating clay and drinking clay-water from waterholes. We show that clay, clay-rich water, and clay obtained with leaf sponges, provide a range of minerals in different concentrations. The presence of aluminium in the clay consumed indicates that it takes the form of kaolinite. We discuss the contribution of clay geophagy to the mineral intake of the Sonso chimpanzees and show that clay eaten using leaf sponges is particularly rich in minerals. We show that termite mound soil, also regularly consumed, is rich in minerals. We discuss the frequency of clay and termite soil geophagy in the context of the disappearance from Budongo Forest of a formerly rich source of minerals, the decaying pith of Raphia farinifera palms

Assessing teamwork competence

Abstract. Background: In recent years, organizations of all types have undergone major changes, and teamwork is one of them. This way of working generates greater profits for an organization. This article aims to assess the teamwork competence of the employees of various Spanish companies in order to determine how effective the team members are in their professional actions. Method: We contacted 55 teams from different organizations and obtained a non-probabilistic sample comprised of 55 participants (subjects tested) and 218 observers (evaluators: coordinators and co-workers). The instrument used for data collection was the Teamwork Rubric (Torrelles, 2011) and data analysis was based on 360º feedback. Results: 80% of the teams analyzed obtained median scores for teamwork competence that were greater than 3, whereas 20% obtained scores between 2 and 3. Conclusions: The results showed that the workers in the companies studied had not fully acquired teamwork competence. It is necessary to find training solutions to improve their level of acquisition, particularly the dimensions of performance and regulation. Resumen: Evaluación de la competencia de trabajo en equipo. Antecedentes: En los últimos años las organizaciones han experimentado múltiples cambios y el trabajo en equipo es uno de ellos. Esta manera de trabajar genera más beneficio en las organizaciones. El presente artículo tiene como objetivo evaluar la competencia de trabajo en equipo de los empleados de diferentes empresas españolas para conocer las debilidades y potencialidades de los equipos en su acción profesional. Método: Se ha contactado con 55 equipos procedentes de diferentes organizaciones configurando así una muestra de carácter no probabilístico formada por 55 participantes (sujetos evaluados) y 218 observadores (sujetos evaluadores: coordinadores y compañeros de trabajo). El instrumento de recogida de los datos es la Rúbrica de Trabajo en Equipo (Torrelles, 2011) y su aplicación se ejecuta a través del método de evaluación 360º. Resultados: El 80% de los trabajadores muestran que tienen una media de 3 o superior en el nivel de adquisición de la competencia de trabajo en equipo, el 20% restante se encuentran entre 2 y 3. Conclusiones: Los resultados muestran que los trabajadores de las empresas españolas no tienen adquirida la competencia de trabajo en equipo en toda su globalidad, pues dimensiones como la regulación y la ejecución necesitan ser mejoradas

Luminescent 1,8-Naphthalimide-Derived ReI Complexes: syntheses, spectroscopy, X-ray structure and preliminary bioimaging in fission yeast cells

A series of picolyl-functionalised, fluorescent 1,8-naphthalimide ligands (L) have been synthesised and coordi-nated to ReI to form luminescent cationic complexes of the general form fac-[Re(phen)(CO)3(L)]BF4. The complexes were characterised by using a range of spectroscopic and analytical techniques. One example of a complex was also characterised in the solid-state by using single-crystal X-ray diffraction, reveal-ing a distorted octahedral coordination sphere at ReI and Re– C/Re–N bond lengths within the expected ranges. All ligands were shown to be fluorescent, with the 4-amino derivatives showing intramolecular charge transfer in the visible region (511–534 nm). The complexes generally showed a mixture of ligand-centred and/or 3MLCT emission depending upon the na-ture of the coordinated 1,8-naphthalimide ligand. For selected complexes, confocal fluorescence microscopy was undertaken by using fission yeast cells (Schizosaccharomyces pombe) and showed that the structure of the 1,8-naphthalimide ligand influ-ences the uptake and localisation of the rhenium complex

An Automated Method for the Detection and Extraction of HI Self-Absorption in High-Resolution 21cm Line Surveys

We describe algorithms that detect 21cm line HI self-absorption (HISA) in large data sets and extract it for analysis. Our search method identifies HISA as spatially and spectrally confined dark HI features that appear as negative residuals after removing larger-scale emission components with a modified CLEAN algorithm. Adjacent HISA volume-pixels (voxels) are grouped into features in (l,b,v) space, and the HI brightness of voxels outside the 3-D feature boundaries is smoothly interpolated to estimate the absorption amplitude and the unabsorbed HI emission brightness. The reliability and completeness of our HISA detection scheme have been tested extensively with model data. We detect most features over a wide range of sizes, linewidths, amplitudes, and background levels, with poor detection only where the absorption brightness temperature amplitude is weak, the absorption scale approaches that of the correlated noise, or the background level is too faint for HISA to be distinguished reliably from emission gaps. False detection rates are very low in all parts of the parameter space except at sizes and amplitudes approaching those of noise fluctuations. Absorption measurement biases introduced by the method are generally small and appear to arise from cases of incomplete HISA detection. This paper is the third in a series examining HISA at high angular resolution. A companion paper (Paper II) uses our HISA search and extraction method to investigate the cold atomic gas distribution in the Canadian Galactic Plane Survey.Comment: 39 pages, including 14 figure pages; to appear in June 10 ApJ, volume 626; figure quality significantly reduced for astro-ph; for full resolution, please see http://www.ras.ucalgary.ca/~gibson/hisa/cgps1_survey

Quantum Channel Capacity of Very Noisy Channels

We present a family of additive quantum error-correcting codes whose capacities exceeds that of quantum random coding (hashing) for very noisy channels. These codes provide non-zero capacity in a depolarizing channel for fidelity parameters $f$ when $f> .80944$. Random coding has non-zero capacity only for $f>.81071$; by analogy to the classical Shannon coding limit, this value had previously been conjectured to be a lower bound. We use the method introduced by Shor and Smolin of concatenating a non-random (cat) code within a random code to obtain good codes. The cat code with block size five is shown to be optimal for single concatenation. The best known multiple-concatenated code we found has a block size of 25. We derive a general relation between the capacity attainable by these concatenation schemes and the coherent information of the inner code states.Comment: 31 pages including epsf postscript figures. Replaced to correct important typographical errors in equations 36, 37 and in tex

Elementary gates for quantum computation

We show that a set of gates that consists of all one-bit quantum gates (U(2)) and the two-bit exclusive-or gate (that maps Boolean values $(x,y)$ to $(x,x \oplus y)$) is universal in the sense that all unitary operations on arbitrarily many bits $n$ (U($2^n$)) can be expressed as compositions of these gates. We investigate the number of the above gates required to implement other gates, such as generalized Deutsch-Toffoli gates, that apply a specific U(2) transformation to one input bit if and only if the logical AND of all remaining input bits is satisfied. These gates play a central role in many proposed constructions of quantum computational networks. We derive upper and lower bounds on the exact number of elementary gates required to build up a variety of two-and three-bit quantum gates, the asymptotic number required for $n$-bit Deutsch-Toffoli gates, and make some observations about the number required for arbitrary $n$-bit unitary operations.Comment: 31 pages, plain latex, no separate figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. A. Related information on http://vesta.physics.ucla.edu:7777

A Rydberg Quantum Simulator

Following Feynman and as elaborated on by Lloyd, a universal quantum simulator (QS) is a controlled quantum device which reproduces the dynamics of any other many particle quantum system with short range interactions. This dynamics can refer to both coherent Hamiltonian and dissipative open system evolution. We investigate how laser excited Rydberg atoms in large spacing optical or magnetic lattices can provide an efficient implementation of a universal QS for spin models involving (high order) n-body interactions. This includes the simulation of Hamiltonians of exotic spin models involving n-particle constraints such as the Kitaev toric code, color code, and lattice gauge theories with spin liquid phases. In addition, it provides the ingredients for dissipative preparation of entangled states based on engineering n-particle reservoir couplings. The key basic building blocks of our architecture are efficient and high-fidelity n-qubit entangling gates via auxiliary Rydberg atoms, including a possible dissipative time step via optical pumping. This allows to mimic the time evolution of the system by a sequence of fast, parallel and high-fidelity n-particle coherent and dissipative Rydberg gates.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure

The XMM Cluster Survey: Evidence for energy injection at high redshift from evolution of the X-ray luminosity-temperature relation

We measure the evolution of the X-ray luminosity-temperature (L_X-T) relation since z~1.5 using a sample of 211 serendipitously detected galaxy clusters with spectroscopic redshifts drawn from the XMM Cluster Survey first data release (XCS-DR1). This is the first study spanning this redshift range using a single, large, homogeneous cluster sample. Using an orthogonal regression technique, we find no evidence for evolution in the slope or intrinsic scatter of the relation since z~1.5, finding both to be consistent with previous measurements at z~0.1. However, the normalisation is seen to evolve negatively with respect to the self-similar expectation: we find E(z)^{-1} L_X = 10^{44.67 +/- 0.09} (T/5)^{3.04 +/- 0.16} (1+z)^{-1.5 +/- 0.5}, which is within 2 sigma of the zero evolution case. We see milder, but still negative, evolution with respect to self-similar when using a bisector regression technique. We compare our results to numerical simulations, where we fit simulated cluster samples using the same methods used on the XCS data. Our data favour models in which the majority of the excess entropy required to explain the slope of the L_X-T relation is injected at high redshift. Simulations in which AGN feedback is implemented using prescriptions from current semi-analytic galaxy formation models predict positive evolution of the normalisation, and differ from our data at more than 5 sigma. This suggests that more efficient feedback at high redshift may be needed in these models.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS; 12 pages, 6 figures; added references to match published versio