Genetic relationships of Caribbean lowland spiny pocket mice (Heteromys desmarestianus: Rodentia; Heteromyidae): evidence of a distinct mitochondrial lineage

Genetic studies provide important insights into the evolutionary history and taxonomy of species, allowing us to identify lineages dif-ficult to distinguish morphologically. The relationships among species in the genus Heteromys have been in flux as new species have been described, and candidate species have been suggested in the H. desmarestianus group. One new potential species may be in Costa Rica’s Carib-bean lowlands. Herein, we test the phylogenetic relationships of individuals from Costa Rica’s Caribbean lowlands to individuals from through-out the species’ range using mitochondrial sequences from cytochrome-b (cytb). We captured 116 individuals from the lowlands, sequenced their cytb gene, and incorporated 74 GenBank sequences from throughout the species’ range to test if individuals from Costa Rica’s Caribbean lowlands potentially constitute an undescribed species. Our results document a distinct mitochondrial lineage in the Caribbean lowlands of Costa Rica. Our results from extensive sampling within the lowlands show a unique mitochondrial DNA lineage, which suggests the presence of an undescribed species. The Caribbean lowlands of Costa Rica may hold other cryptic diversity, and further phylogenetic studies should incorporate samples from this area, as it may have a unique evolutionary history. Los estudios genéticos proporcionan información importante sobre la historia evolutiva y la taxonomía de las especies, lo que nos permite identificar linajes difíciles de distinguir morfológicamente. Las relaciones filogenéticas entre las especies del género Heteromys han estado cambiando a medida que se han descrito nuevas especies y se han sugerido especies candidatas en el grupo H. desmarestianus. Una nueva especie potencial podría encontrarse en las tierras bajas del Caribe de Costa Rica. En este trabajo analizamos las relaciones filogenéticas entre individuos de las tierras bajas del Caribe de Costa Rica con individuos de todo el rango de la especie utilizando secuencias mitocondriales del citocromo-b (cytb). Capturamos 116 individuos de las tierras bajas, secuenciamos su gen cytb e incorporamos 74 secuencias GenBank de todo el área de distribución de la especie para probar si los individuos de las tierras bajas del Caribe de Costa Rica constituyen potencialmente una especie no descrita. Nuestros resultados indican la presencia de un linaje distinto basado en el ADN mitocondrial, que sugiere que los indivi-duos de las tierras bajas del Caribe de Costa Rica probablemente son una especie distinta. Las tierras bajas del Caribe de Costa Rica pueden tener una diversidad críptica significativa. Por ello sugerimos que estudios filogenéticos adicionales deberían incorporar muestras de esta área, ya que puede tener una historia evolutiva única

Variación morfológica y distribución geográfica de Schizopetalon arcuatum Al-Shehbaz (Brassicaceae), una especie endémica y críptica de la Región de Atacama, Chile

La presente nota ofrece una revisión de la distribución geográfica y variación morfológica de Schizopetalon arcuatum, dado que ambas variables han generado confusión en la identificación de esta especie críptica. Se espera que la información presentada ayude a resolver este problema en relación a sus especies vecinas o cercanamente relacionadas

Uncertainty in Greenhouse Emissions and Costs of Atmospheric Stabilization

Abstract and PDF report are also available on the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change website (http://globalchange.mit.edu/).We explore the uncertainty in projections of emissions, and costs of atmospheric stabilization applying the MIT Emissions Prediction and Policy Analysis model, a computable general equilibrium model of the global economy. Monte Carlo simulation with Latin Hypercube Sampling is applied to draw 400 samples from probability distributions for 100 parameters in the EPPA model, including labor productivity growth rates, energy efficiency trends, elasticities of substitution, costs of advanced technologies, fossil fuel resource availability, and trends in emissions factors for urban pollutants. The resulting uncertainty in emissions and global costs is explored under a scenario assuming no climate policy and four different targets for stabilization of atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations. We find that most of the IPCC emissions scenarios are outside the 90% probability range of emissions in the absence of climate policy, and are consistent with atmospheric stabilization scenarios. We find considerable uncertainty in the emissions prices under stabilization. For example, the CO2 price in 2060 under an emissions constraint targeted to achieve stabilization at 650 ppm has a 90% range of $14 to$88 per ton CO2, and a 450 ppm target in 2060 has a range of $241 to$758. We also explore the relative contribution of uncertainty in different parameters to the resulting uncertainty in emissions and costs and find that, despite the significant uncertainty in future energy supply technologies, the largest drivers of uncertainty in costs of atmospheric stabilization are energy demand parameters, including elasticities of substitution and energy efficiency trends.The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support for this work provided by the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change through a consortium of industrial sponsors and Federal grants

A Community of Practice Approach to Integrating Professional Skills Training with Graduate Thesis Research

Background. It is well recognized that current graduate education is too narrowly focused on thesis research. Graduate students have a strong desire to gain skills for their future career success beyond thesis research. This obvious gap in professional skill training in current graduate study also leads to the common student perception that professional skills beyond academic knowledge should only be gained after completion of thesis research. Purpose. A new program is being developed to rigorously integrate professional skills training with thesis research. The approach is to establish learning communities of Graduates for Advancing Professional Skills (GAPS) to incorporate project management skill training from industry into academic research. The GAPS program seeks to address two fundamental education research questions: How can project management skill training be integrated with thesis research in graduate education? What is the role/value of learning communities in enhancing the training and retention of professional skills and the effectiveness of thesis research? Our proposed solution is that graduate student learning communities engaging in a blended online and classroom approach will promote learning of professional skills such as project and time management in thesis research activities. The purpose of this session is to establish the connection between project management and thesis research, and demonstrate the beginning progress of the GAPS program towards. Methodology/approach. The following progress is being made to establish GAPS learning communities through which to teach and practice professional skills. A website has been developed to introduce the program, recruit participants, provide information on the online modules, and survey results of participants’ current levels of knowledge and skills related to project management. A new course, “Introduction of Project Management for Thesis Research”, has been added to the course catalog and open to enrollment for students from different majors. In addition, learning modules including project charter, scheduling, communication, teamwork, critical path method, and lean concept are developed. Case studies and examples have been developed to help students learn how to utilize project management skills in their thesis research. Conclusions. The concept of integrating professional skills training with thesis research through learning communities has been demonstrated. There are multiple advantages of this approach, including efficient utilization of the current resources, and faculty buy-in. Preliminary data from the first cohort are being collected and analyzed to identify students’ needs, benefits of the program, and areas of improvement for future cohort iterations. Implications. The GAPS program will improve professional skill training for graduate students through communities of practice. This new learning model has the potential to fundamentally change the culture of graduate education. We believe the method demonstrated here can be broadly applied to different engineering majors, and even broadly to all thesis research

Autonomous nuclear waste management

Redundant and non-operational buildings at nuclear sites are decommissioned over a period of time. The process involves demolition of physical infrastructure resulting in large quantities of residual waste material. The resulting waste materials are packed into import containers to be delivered for post-processing, containing either sealed canisters or assortments of miscellaneous objects. At present post-processing does not happen within the United Kingdom. Sellafield Ltd. and National Nuclear Laboratory are developing a process for future operation so that upon an initial inspection, imported waste materials undergo two stages of post-processing before being packed into export containers, namely sort and segregate or sort and disrupt. The post-processing facility will remotely treat and export a wide range of wastes before downstream encapsulation. Certain wastes require additional treatment, such as disruption, before export to ensure suitability for long-term disposal. This article focuses on the design, development, and demonstration of a reconfigurable rational agent-based robotic system that aims to highly automate these processes removing the need for close human supervision. The proposed system is being demonstrated through a downsized, lab-based setup incorporating a small-scale robotic arm, a time-of-flight camera, and high-level rational agent-based decision making and control framework

Suited for Success? : Suits, Status, and Hybrid Masculinity

This document is the Accepted Manuscript version. The final, definitive version of this paper has been published in Men and Masculinities, March 2017, doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/1097184X17696193, published by SAGE Publishing, All rights reserved.This article analyzes the sartorial biographies of four Canadian men to explore how the suit is understood and embodied in everyday life. Each of these men varied in their subject positions—body shape, ethnicity, age, and gender identity—which allowed us to look at the influence of men’s intersectional identities on their relationship with their suits. The men in our research all understood the suit according to its most common representation in popular culture: a symbol of hegemonic masculinity. While they wore the suit to embody hegemonic masculine configurations of practice—power, status, and rationality—most of these men were simultaneously marginalized by the gender hierarchy. We explain this disjuncture by using the concept of hybrid masculinity and illustrate that changes in the style of hegemonic masculinity leave its substance intact. Our findings expand thinking about hybrid masculinity by revealing the ways subordinated masculinities appropriate and reinforce hegemonic masculinity.Peer reviewe

Rates of niche and phenotype evolution lag behind diversification in a temperate radiation

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.Environmental change can create opportunities for increased rates of lineage diversification, but continued species accumulation has been hypothesized to lead to slowdowns via competitive exclusion and niche partitioning. Such density-dependent models imply tight linkages between diversification and trait evolution, but there are plausible alternative models. Little is known about the association between diversification and key ecological and phenotypic traits at broad phylogenetic and spatial scales. Do trait evolutionary rates coincide with rates of diversification, are there lags among these rates, or is diversification niche-neutral? To address these questions, we combine a deeply sampled phylogeny for a major flowering plant clade—Saxifragales—with phenotype and niche data to examine temporal patterns of evolutionary rates. The considerable phenotypic and habitat diversity of Saxifragales is greatest in temperate biomes. Global expansion of these habitats since the mid-Miocene provided ecological opportunities that, with density-dependent adaptive radiation, should result in simultaneous rate increases for diversification, niche, and phenotype, followed by decreases with habitat saturation. Instead, we find that these rates have significantly different timings, with increases in diversification occurring at the mid-Miocene Climatic Optimum (∼15 Mya), followed by increases in niche and phenotypic evolutionary rates by ∼5 Mya; all rates increase exponentially to the present. We attribute this surprising lack of temporal coincidence to initial niche-neutral diversification followed by ecological and phenotypic divergence coincident with more extreme cold and dry habitats that proliferated into the Pleistocene. A lack of density-dependence contrasts with investigations of other cosmopolitan lineages, suggesting alternative patterns may be common in the diversification of temperate lineages

Prime beef cuts : culinary images for thinking 'men'

The paper contributes to scholarship theorising the sociality of the brand in terms of subject positions it makes possible through drawing upon the generative context of circulating discourses, in this case of masculinity, cuisine and celebrity. Specifically, it discusses masculinity as a socially constructed gender practice (Bristor and Fischer, 1993), examining materialisations of such practice in the form of visualisations of social relations as resources for 'thinking gender' or 'doing gender'. The transformative potential of the visualisations is illuminated by exploring the narrative content choreographed within a series of photographic images positioning the market appeal of a celebrity chef through the medium of a contemporary lifestyle cookery book. We consider how images of men 'doing masculinity'are not only channelled into reproducing existing gender hierarchy and compulsory heterosexuality in the service of commercial ends, but also into disrupting such enduring stereotyping through subtle reframing. We acknowledge that masculinity is already inscribed within conventionalised representations of culinary culture. In this case we consider how traces of masculinity are exploited and reinscribed through contemporary images that generate resources for rethinking masculine roles and identities, especially when viewed through the lens of stereotypically feminised pursuits such as shopping, food preparation, cooking, and the communal intimacy of food sharing. We identify unsettling tensions within the compositions, arguing that they relate to discursive spaces between the gendered positions written into the images and the popular imagination they feed off. Set against landscapes of culinary culture, we argue that the images invoke a brand of naively roughish "laddishness" or "blokishness", rendering it in domesticated form not only as benign and containable, but fashionable, pliable and, importantly, desirable. We conclude that although the images draw on stereotypical premeditated notions of a feral, boisterous and untamed heterosexual masculinity, they also set in motion gender-blending narratives

Beyond 'Global Production Networks': Australian Fashion Week's Trans-Sectoral Synergies

When studies of industrial organisation are informed by commodity chain, actor network, or global production network theories and focus on tracing commodity flows, social networks, or a combination of the two, they can easily overlook the less routine trans-sectoral associations that are crucial to the creation and realisation of value. This paper shifts attention to identifying the sites at which diverse specialisations meet to concentrate and amplify mutually reinforcing circuits of value. These valorisation processes are demonstrated in the case of Australian Fashion Week, an event in which multiple interests converge to synchronize different expressions of fashion ideas, actively construct fashion markets and enhance the value of a diverse range of fashionable commodities. Conceptualising these interconnected industries as components of a trans-sectoral fashion complex has implications for understanding regional development, world cities, production location, and the manner in which production systems “touch down” in different places

Introduction : screen Londons

Our aim, in editing the ‘London Issue’ of this journal, is to contribute to a conversation between scholars of British cinema and television, London historians and scholars of the cinematic city. In 2007, introducing the themed issue on ‘Space and Place in British Cinema and Television’, Steve Chibnall and Julian Petley observed that it would have been possible to fill the whole journal with essays about the representation of London. This issue does just that, responding to the increased interest in cinematic and, to a lesser extent, televisual, Londons, while also demonstrating the continuing fertility of the paradigms of ‘space and place’ for scholars of the moving image1. It includes a wide range of approaches to the topic of London on screen, with varying attention to British institutions of the moving image – such as Channel Four or the British Board of Film Classification – as well as to concepts such as genre, narration and memory. As a whole, the issue, through its juxtapositions of method and approach, shows something of the complexity of encounters between the terms ‘London’, ‘cinema’ and ‘television’ within British film and television studies