Macroevolution and climate changes: a global multi-family test supports the resource-use hypothesis in terrestrial mammals

Elisabeth S. Vrba’s resource-use hypothesis suggests that speciation in biomes subjected to successive expansion-contraction-fragmentation during periods of climatic change generates high frequency of species restricted to a single biome (stenobiomic species). We compiled biome occupation for all terrestrial mammals and, using Monte Carlo simulations, demonstrated that patterns of biome occupation are congruent with those predicted by the resource-use hypothesis. Biome specialists are much more speciose than expected by chance, while there are fewer moderate biome generalists than expected. Despite their scarcity, extreme eurybiomic lineages show significant overrepresentation, which suggests they are seldom affected by climate-related extinction processes. Additionally, stenobiomic species are concentrated in biomes placed at the extremes of the climatic gradient, such as equatorial rainforest, subtropical desert, steppe, and tundra. Although this pattern is fairly maintained across different mammalian families, highlighting its universality, our analysis also found great variability. Exceptions to the predictions of the resource-use hypothesis seem to be associated to biome climatic or geographical heterogeneity, which favours vicariance in some biomes not placed in extremes of the climatic gradient (tropical deciduous woodland, sclerophyllous woodland-shrubland), as well as life-history differences across taxa, which generates a stronger trend to specialisation in small body size lineages than in larger mammals

Implementation of push notification using SignalR and WCF

Komunikacijo med strežniki in odjemalci lahko realiziramo na več načinov. Osnoven način je, da odjemalec povprašuje in strežnik odgovarja. V primeru, ko odjemalec ne ve, kdaj mu bo določena informacija na voljo, mora v intervalih spraševati strežnik. To je neučinkovito in boljša alternativa temu je, da strežnik obvešča odjemalce. Takemu načinu komunikacije pravimo potisno obveščanje. Implementacijo potisnega obveščanja smo izvedli s knjižnico SignalR in z ogrodjem WCF. Obe tehnologiji smo raziskali in ju primerjali. Za primerjavo tehnologij smo implementirali obveščanje o dogajanju v nadzoru različic kode. V našem primeru smo imeli dva tipa odjemalcev. En odjemalec je vmesnik za upravljanje z nadzorom različic kode Git. Ta obvešča strežnik o akcijah, ki se dogajajo nad kodo. Drugi tip odjemalca pa je namizna aplikacija in aplikacija za Windows Phone 8. Obe aplikaciji sprejemata obvestila o dogajanju v nadzoru različic kode, ki jim jih pošilja strežnik.Communication between servers and clients can be realised in several ways. A basic method is, when the client requests and the server responds. In case the client does not know, when the specific information will be available, it needs to ask the server in intervals. This is ineffective, and a better alternative is when the server informs the clients. Such communication is called server push. Server push was implemented with the SignalR library and with the WCF framework. Both technologies have been explored and compared. For comparison of technologies we implemented the notification of activity in revision control. In our case, we had two types of clients. The first client is an interface for managing the control of the Git revision control. It informs the server about actions, which take place over the code. The second client is a desktop application and an application for Windows Phone 8. Both applications receive notifications of activities in revision control

New insights into the genetic etiology of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias

Characterization of the genetic landscape of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and related dementias (ADD) provides a unique opportunity for a better understanding of the associated pathophysiological processes. We performed a two-stage genome-wide association study totaling 111,326 clinically diagnosed/‘proxy’ AD cases and 677,663 controls. We found 75 risk loci, of which 42 were new at the time of analysis. Pathway enrichment analyses confirmed the involvement of amyloid/tau pathways and highlighted microglia implication. Gene prioritization in the new loci identified 31 genes that were suggestive of new genetically associated processes, including the tumor necrosis factor alpha pathway through the linear ubiquitin chain assembly complex. We also built a new genetic risk score associated with the risk of future AD/dementia or progression from mild cognitive impairment to AD/dementia. The improvement in prediction led to a 1.6- to 1.9-fold increase in AD risk from the lowest to the highest decile, in addition to effects of age and the APOE ε4 allele

New insights into the genetic etiology of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias

Characterization of the genetic landscape of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and related dementias (ADD) provides a unique opportunity for a better understanding of the associated pathophysiological processes. We performed a two-stage genome-wide association study totaling 111,326 clinically diagnosed/‘proxy’ AD cases and 677,663 controls. We found 75 risk loci, of which 42 were new at the time of analysis. Pathway enrichment analyses confirmed the involvement of amyloid/tau pathways and highlighted microglia implication. Gene prioritization in the new loci identified 31 genes that were suggestive of new genetically associated processes, including the tumor necrosis factor alpha pathway through the linear ubiquitin chain assembly complex. We also built a new genetic risk score associated with the risk of future AD/dementia or progression from mild cognitive impairment to AD/dementia. The improvement in prediction led to a 1.6- to 1.9-fold increase in AD risk from the lowest to the highest decile, in addition to effects of age and the APOE ε4 allele