Editorial: Quaternary revolutions

PublishedEditorialJournalEditorialThe QRA@50 meeting was organized by a team of people including the editors, John Catt, Catherine Souch, Tom Hill, Danni Pearce and a team of postgraduates and staff from the Royal Geographical Society-Institute of British Geographers (RGS-IBG). It was made possible by support from a number of sponsors, including RGS-IBG, van Walt, Beta Analytic Ltd, the Natural History Museum, Wiley-Blackwell and C3W (Climate Change Consortium of Wales). We would like to thank the reviewers of all the papers for their comments and suggested improvements to the papers

Deglacial to postglacial palaeoenvironments of the Celtic Sea: Lacustrine conditions versus a continuous marine sequence

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from the publisher via the DOI in this record.Recent work on the last glaciation of the British Isles has led to an improved understanding of the nature and timing of the retreat of the British-Irish Ice Sheet (BIIS) from its southern maximum (Isles of Scilly), northwards into the Celtic and Irish seas. However, the nature of the deglacial environments across the Celtic Sea shelf, the extent of subaerial exposure and the existence (or otherwise) of a contiguous terrestrial linkage between Britain and Ireland following ice retreat remains ambiguous. Multiproxy research, based on analysis of 12 BGS vibrocores from the Celtic Deep Basin (CDB), seeks to address these issues. CDB cores exhibit a shell-rich upward fining sequence of Holocene marine sand above an erosional contact cut in laminated muds with infrequent lonestones. Molluscs, in situ Foraminifera and marine diatoms are absent from the basal muds, but rare damaged freshwater diatoms and foraminiferal linings occur. Dinoflagellate cysts and other non-pollen palynomorphs evidence diverse, environmentally incompatible floras with temperate, boreal and Arctic glaciomarine taxa co-occurring. Such multiproxy records can be interpreted as representing a retreating ice margin, with reworking of marine sediments into a lacustrine basin. Equally, the same record may be interpreted as recording similar conditions within a semi-enclosed marine embayment dominated by meltwater export and deposition of reworked microfossils. As assemblages from these cores contrast markedly with proven glaciomarine sequences from outside the CDB, a glaciolacustrine interpretation is favoured for the laminated sequence, truncated by a Late Weichselian transgressive sequence fining upwards into fully marine conditions. Reworked rare intertidal molluscs from immediately above the regional unconformity provide a minimum date c.13.9cal. ka BP for commencement of widespread marine erosion. Although suggestive of glaciolacustrine conditions, the exact nature and timing of laminated sediment deposition within the CDB, and the implications this has on (pen)insularity of Ireland following deglaciation, remain elusive. © 2013 The Boreas Collegium.Funded by NERC PhD research studentship grant. Grant Number: GT04/97/289/ES; two NSERC-funded radiocarbon allocations. Grant Numbers: 746/0898, 814/0999; MacEwan Universit

Huntington disease: natural history, biomarkers and prospects for therapeutics

Huntington disease (HD) can be seen as a model neurodegenerative disorder, in that it is caused by a single genetic mutation and is amenable to predictive genetic testing, with estimation of years to predicted onset, enabling the entire range of disease natural history to be studied. Structural neuroimaging biomarkers show that progressive regional brain atrophy begins many years before the emergence of diagnosable signs and symptoms of HD, and continues steadily during the symptomatic or 'manifest' period. The continued development of functional, neurochemical and other biomarkers raises hopes that these biomarkers might be useful for future trials of disease-modifying therapeutics to delay the onset and slow the progression of HD. Such advances could herald a new era of personalized preventive therapeutics. We describe the natural history of HD, including the timing of emergence of motor, cognitive and emotional impairments, and the techniques that are used to assess these features. Building on this information, we review recent progress in the development of biomarkers for HD, and potential future roles of these biomarkers in clinical trials

Phylogeny of Prokaryotes and Chloroplasts Revealed by a Simple Composition Approach on All Protein Sequences from Complete Genomes Without Sequence Alignment

The complete genomes of living organisms have provided much information on their phylogenetic relationships. Similarly, the complete genomes of chloroplasts have helped to resolve the evolution of this organelle in photosynthetic eukaryotes. In this paper we propose an alternative method of phylogenetic analysis using compositional statistics for all protein sequences from complete genomes. This new method is conceptually simpler than and computationally as fast as the one proposed by Qi et al. (2004b) and Chu et al. (2004). The same data sets used in Qi et al. (2004b) and Chu et al. (2004) are analyzed using the new method. Our distance-based phylogenic tree of the 109 prokaryotes and eukaryotes agrees with the biologists tree of life based on 16S rRNA comparison in a predominant majority of basic branching and most lower taxa. Our phylogenetic analysis also shows that the chloroplast genomes are separated to two major clades corresponding to chlorophytes s.l. and rhodophytes s.l. The interrelationships among the chloroplasts are largely in agreement with the current understanding on chloroplast evolution

On Holographic description of the Kerr-Newman-AdS-dS black holes

In this paper, we study the holographic description of the generic four-dimensional non-extremal Kerr-Newman-AdS-dS black holes. We find that if focusing on the near-horizon region, for the massless scalar scattering in the low-frequency limit, there exists hidden conformal symmetry on the solution space. Similar to the Kerr case, this suggests that the Kerr-Newman-AdS-dS black hole is dual to a two-dimensional CFT with central charges $c_L=c_R=\frac{6a(r_++r_\ast)}{k}$ and temperatures $T_L=\frac{k(r_+^2+r_\ast^2+2a^2)}{4\pi a\Xi(r_++r_\ast)}, T_R=\frac{k(r_+-r_\ast)}{4\pi a\Xi}$. The macroscopic Bekenstein-Hawking entropy could be recovered from the microscopic counting in dual CFT via the Cardy formula. Using the Minkowski prescription, we compute the real-time correlators of the scalar, photon and graviton in near horizon geometry of near extremal Kerr-AdS-dS black hole. In all these cases, the retarded Green's function and the corresponding absorption cross section are in perfect match with CFT prediction. We further discuss the low-frequency scattering of a charged scalar by a Kerr-Newman-AdS-dS black hole and find the dual CFT description.Comment: 22 pages; minor corrections, conlusion unchanged, references added;published versio

Feeding spectra and activity of the freshwater crab Trichodactylus kensleyi (Decapoda: Brachyura: Trichodactylidae) at La Plata basin

Background: In inland water systems, it is important to characterize the trophic links in order to identify the ‘trophic species’ and, from the studies of functional diversity, understand the dynamics of matter and energy in these environments. The aim of this study is to analyze the natural diet of Trichodactylus kensleyi of subtropical rainforest streams and corroborate the temporal variation in the trophic activity during day hours. Results: A total of 15 major taxonomic groups were recognized in gut contents. The index of relative importance identified the following main prey items in decreasing order of importance: vegetal remains, oligochaetes, chironomid larvae, and algae. A significant difference was found in the amount of full stomachs during day hours showing a less trophic activity at midday and afternoon. The index of relative importance values evidenced the consumption of different prey according to day moments. Results of the gut content indicate that T. kensleyi is an omnivorous crab like other trichodactylid species. Opportunistic behavior is revealed by the ingestion of organisms abundant in streams such as oligochaetes and chironomid larvae. The consumption of allochthonous plant debris shows the importance of this crab as shredder in subtropical streams. However, the effective assimilation of plant matter is yet unknown in trichodactylid crabs. Conclusions: This research provides knowledge that complements previous studies about trophic relationships of trichodactylid crabs and supported the importance of T. kensleyi in the transference of energy and matter from benthic community and riparian sources to superior trophic levels using both macro- and microfauna.Fil: Williner, Verónica. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe. Instituto Nacional de Limnología. Universidad Nacional del Litoral. Instituto Nacional de Limnología; Argentina. Universidad Nacional del Litoral. Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias; ArgentinaFil: de Azevedo Carvalho, Debora. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe. Instituto Nacional de Limnología. Universidad Nacional del Litoral. Instituto Nacional de Limnología; ArgentinaFil: Collins, Pablo Agustin. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe. Instituto Nacional de Limnología. Universidad Nacional del Litoral. Instituto Nacional de Limnología; Argentina. Universidad Nacional del Litoral. Facultad de Bioquímica y Ciencias Biológicas; Argentin

MicroRNAs in pulmonary arterial remodeling

Pulmonary arterial remodeling is a presently irreversible pathologic hallmark of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). This complex disease involves pathogenic dysregulation of all cell types within the small pulmonary arteries contributing to vascular remodeling leading to intimal lesions, resulting in elevated pulmonary vascular resistance and right heart dysfunction. Mutations within the bone morphogenetic protein receptor 2 gene, leading to dysregulated proliferation of pulmonary artery smooth muscle cells, have been identified as being responsible for heritable PAH. Indeed, the disease is characterized by excessive cellular proliferation and resistance to apoptosis of smooth muscle and endothelial cells. Significant gene dysregulation at the transcriptional and signaling level has been identified. MicroRNAs are small non-coding RNA molecules that negatively regulate gene expression and have the ability to target numerous genes, therefore potentially controlling a host of gene regulatory and signaling pathways. The major role of miRNAs in pulmonary arterial remodeling is still relatively unknown although research data is emerging apace. Modulation of miRNAs represents a possible therapeutic target for altering the remodeling phenotype in the pulmonary vasculature. This review will focus on the role of miRNAs in regulating smooth muscle and endothelial cell phenotypes and their influence on pulmonary remodeling in the setting of PAH

Compensation in Preclinical Huntington's Disease: Evidence From the Track-On HD Study

BACKGROUND: Cognitive and motor task performance in premanifest Huntington's disease (HD) gene-carriers is often within normal ranges prior to clinical diagnosis, despite loss of brain volume in regions involved in these tasks. This indicates ongoing compensation, with the brain maintaining function in the presence of neuronal loss. However, thus far, compensatory processes in HD have not been modeled explicitly. Using a new model, which incorporates individual variability related to structural change and behavior, we sought to identify functional correlates of compensation in premanifest-HD gene-carriers. METHODS: We investigated the modulatory effects of regional brain atrophy, indexed by structural measures of disease load, on the relationship between performance and brain activity (or connectivity) using task-based and resting-state functional MRI. FINDINGS: Consistent with compensation, as atrophy increased performance-related activity increased in the right parietal cortex during a working memory task. Similarly, increased functional coupling between the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and a left hemisphere network in the resting-state predicted better cognitive performance as atrophy increased. Such patterns were not detectable for the left hemisphere or for motor tasks. INTERPRETATION: Our findings provide evidence for active compensatory processes in premanifest-HD for cognitive demands and suggest a higher vulnerability of the left hemisphere to the effects of regional atrophy