Do Montana\u27s Sixmile Creek Cobbles Have Nevada Origins? Evidence for Headwaters of the Miocene Bell River Basin

The Miocene Sixmile Creek Formation in Montana contains distinctive river cobbles of coarse-grained sandstone and conglomerate that include small grains of black chert, but the source of these cobbles has not been confirmed. The Paleozoic Diamond Peak Formation of Nevada may be one possible source of these cobbles. It is widespread in central Nevada\u27s mountains but is unlike any bedrock formations found in Montana. If cobbles in the Sixmile Creek Formation were derived from central Nevada, the Miocene river that carried them would have had to have crossed the present positions of the Snake River Plain and the Idaho-Montana Continental Divide. The purpose of our study is to test the hypothesis by examining particularly distinctive cobbles along the proposed Miocene river path. We compared cobbles collected from the Sixmile Creek Formation at locations from Nevada to Great Falls, Montana, and compared these to each other and to samples collected from proposed source rocks at Pequot Summit, Nevada. We measured the percentage of black chert grains in each rock sample, as well as the shapes and size ranges of the chert grains. Our results support the hypothesis of a great Miocene river that flowed through Montana from headwaters as far south as central Nevada (Sears, 2014). This would have been possible in the Miocene because tectonics had not yet formed the Snake River Plain and modern Continental Divide. The river implied by this model would have been a tributary to the pre-ice age Bell River basin of Canada, which rivaled the modern Amazon River basin in scale. This research could lead to new understanding of the paleotopography and paleofluvial systems of the western interior of North America

Can cohort data be treated as genuine panel data?

If repeated observations on the same individuals are not available it is not possible to capture unobserved individual characteristics in a linear model by using the standard fixed effects estimator. If large numbers of observations are available in each period one can use cohorts of individuals with common characteristics to achieve the same goal, as shown by Deaton (1985). It is tempting to analyze the observations on cohort averages as if they are observations on individuals which are observed in consecutive time periods. In this paper we analyze under which conditions this is a valid approach. Moreover, we consider the impact of the construction of the cohorts on the bias in the standard fixed effects estimator. Our results show that the effects of ignoring the fact that only a synthetic panel is available will be small if the cohort sizes are sufficiently large (100, 200 individuals) and if the true means within each cohort exhibit sufficient time variation

Both Constitutive and Infection‐Responsive Secondary Metabolites Linked to Resistance against Austropuccinia psidii (Myrtle Rust) in Melaleuca quinquenervia

Austropuccinia psidii is a fungal plant pathogen that infects species within the Myrtaceae, causing the disease myrtle rust. Myrtle rust is causing declines in populations within natural and managed ecosystems and is expected to result in species extinctions. Despite this, variation in response to A. psidii exist within some species, from complete susceptibility to resistance that prevents or limits infection by the pathogen. Untargeted metabolomics using Ultra Performance Liquid Chromatography with Ion Mobility followed by analysis using MetaboAnalyst 3.0, was used to ex-plore the chemical defence profiles of resistant, hypersensitive and susceptible phenotypes within Melaleuca quinquenervia during the early stages of A. psidii infection. We were able to identify three separate pools of secondary metabolites: (i) metabolites classified structurally as flavonoids that were naturally higher in the leaves of resistant individuals prior to infection, (ii) organoheterocyclic and carbohydrate‐related metabolites that varied with the level of host resistance post‐infection, and (iii) metabolites from the terpenoid pathways that were responsive to disease progression re-gardless of resistance phenotype suggesting that these play a minimal role in disease resistance during the early stages of colonization of this species. Based on the classes of these secondary me-tabolites, our results provide an improved understanding of key pathways that could be linked more generally to rust resistance with particular application within Melaleuca. © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland

Identification of promoter elements in the Dolichospermum circinale AWQC131C saxitoxin gene cluster and the experimental analysis of their use for heterologous expression

Background Dolichospermum circinale is a filamentous bloom-forming cyanobacterium responsible for biosynthesis of the paralytic shellfish toxins (PST), including saxitoxin. PSTs are neurotoxins and in their purified form are important analytical standards for monitoring the quality of water and seafood and biomedical research tools for studying neuronal sodium channels. More recently, PSTs have been recognised for their utility as local anaesthetics. Characterisation of the transcriptional elements within the saxitoxin (sxt) biosynthetic gene cluster (BGC) is a first step towards accessing these molecules for biotechnology. Results In D. circinale AWQC131C the sxt BGC is transcribed from two bidirectional promoter regions encoding five individual promoters. These promoters were identified experimentally using 5′ RACE and their activity assessed via coupling to a lux reporter system in E. coli and Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803. Transcription of the predicted drug/metabolite transporter (DMT) encoded by sxtPER was found to initiate from two promoters, PsxtPER1 and PsxtPER2. In E. coli, strong expression of lux from PsxtP, PsxtD and PsxtPER1 was observed while expression from Porf24 and PsxtPER2 was remarkably weaker. In contrast, heterologous expression in Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 showed that expression of lux from PsxtP, PsxtPER1, and Porf24 promoters was statistically higher compared to the non-promoter control, while PsxtD showed poor activity under the described conditions. Conclusions Both of the heterologous hosts investigated in this study exhibited high expression levels from three of the five sxt promoters. These results indicate that the majority of the native sxt promoters appear active in different heterologous hosts, simplifying initial cloning efforts. Therefore, heterologous expression of the sxt BGC in either E. coli or Synechocystis could be a viable first option for producing PSTs for industrial or biomedical purposes

Which executive functioning deficits are associated with AD/HD, ODD/CD and comorbid AD/HD+ODD/CD?

Item does not contain fulltextThis study investigated (1) whether attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD) is associated with executive functioning (EF) deficits while controlling for oppositional defiant disorder/conduct disorder (ODD/CD), (2) whether ODD/CD is associated with EF deficits while controlling for AD/HD, and (3)~whether a combination of AD/HD and ODD/CD is associated with EF deficits (and the possibility that there is no association between EF deficits and AD/HD or ODD/CD in isolation). Subjects were 99~children ages 6–12 years. Three putative domains of EF were investigated using well-validated tests: verbal fluency, working memory, and planning. Independent of ODD/CD, AD/HD was associated with deficits in planning and working memory, but not in verbal fluency. Only teacher rated AD/HD, but not parent rated AD/HD, significantly contributed to the prediction of EF task performance. No EF deficits were associated with ODD/CD. The presence of comorbid AD/HD accounts for the EF deficits in children with comorbid AD/HD+ODD/CD. These results suggest that EF deficits are unique to AD/HD and support the model proposed by R. A. Barkley (1997).17 p

Use of Expired Air Carbon Monoxide Testing in Clinical Tobacco Treatment Settings

Carbon monoxide (CO) testing is considered an easy, noninvasive, and objective contribution to the assessment of smoking behavior, as CO is rapidly absorbed into the bloodstream when lit cigarettes or cigars are inhaled. CO testing is a medically important billable outpatient service that can contribute to sustainability of face to face tobacco use treatment services by clinicians. This article reviews research on the clinical use of CO testing to provide biomedical feedback in assessing smoking behavior, educating smokers on tobacco health effects, assisting with treatment planning, and as a motivational tool to encourage people to become tobacco free. Further research can focus on how to best incorporate CO testing into clinical practice, including more research on outcomes and methods to ensure that insurers reimburse for testing and improved ways to use CO testing to initiate attempts to quit tobacco use, to maintain cessation, and to prevent relapse

On working memory and a productivity illusion in distracted driving.

[EN]Drivers claim to use cell phones for benefits such as getting work done and to increase productivity (Sanbonmatsu, Strayer, Behrends, Medeiros-Ward, & Watson, in press). However, individuals who use cell phones while driving may be more likely to rely on reconstructive processes in memory due to divided attention, making them more susceptible to errors, yielding an ironic effect of multitasking that, in fact, may diminish productivity rather than increase it. To test this possibility, the present study included three within-subject conditions: single-task driving in a high-fidelity simulator, single-task memory including encoding and retrieval using the Deese–Roediger–McDermott false memory paradigm (Deese, 1959; Roediger & McDermott, 1995), and a dual-task combination of both the driving and memory tasks. The effects of divided attention in working memory were bidirectional, impairing both driving and episodic memory performance, likely due to competition for limited resources needed to successfully maintain task goals related to driving or memory alone. More specifically, under dual-task conditions, participants became increasingly reliant on reconstructive, error-prone processes in memory, with high levels of false recall. Taken together, these results indicate there is a productivity illusion associated with distracted driving in that individuals wrongly believe that combining cell phones with driving will make them more productive. Results are discussed in relation to theories of working memory and the domain-free ability to maintain task goals and to avoid distractions, whether this interference occurs in more traditional lab tasks or in more applied settings, highlighting the value of such converging evidence in sharpening theories of attention. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved

Expressive and Instrumental Offending: Reconciling the Paradox of Specialisation and Versatility

Although previous research into specialisation has been dominated by the debate over the existence of specialisation versus versatility, it is suggested that research needs to move beyond the restrictions of this dispute. The current study explores the criminal careers of 200 offenders based on their criminal records, obtained from a police database in the North West of England, aiming to understand the patterns and nature of specialisation by determining the presence of differentiation within their general offending behaviours and examining whether the framework of Expressive and Instrumental offending styles can account for any specialised tendencies that emerge. Fifty-eight offences were subjected to Smallest Space Analysis. Results revealed that a model of criminal differentiation could be identified and that any specialisation is represented in terms of Expressive and Instrumental offending styles

Theory of mechanical unfolding of homopolymer globule: all-or-none transition in force-clamp mode vs phase coexistence in position-clamp mode

Equilibrium mechanical unfolding of a globule formed by long flexible homopolymer chain collapsed in a poor solvent and subjected to an extensional force f (force-clamp mode) or extensional deformation D (position-clamp mode) is studied theoretically. Our analysis, like all previous analysis of this problem, shows that the globule behaves essentially differently in two modes of extension. In the force-clamp mode, mechanical unfolding of the globule with increasing applied force occurs without intramolecular microphase segregation, and at certain threshold value of the pulling force the globule unfolds as a whole ("all-or-none" transition). The value of the threshold force and the corresponding jump in the distance between the chain ends increase with a deterioration of the solvent quality and/or with an increase in the degree of polymerization. In the position-clamp mode, the globule unfolding occurs via intramolecular microphase coexistence of globular and extended microphases followed by an abrupt unraveling transition. Reaction force in the microphase segregation regime demonstrates an "anomalous" decrease with increasing extension. Comparison of deformation curves in force and position-clamp modes demonstrates that at weak and strong extensions the curves for two modes coincide, differences are observed in the intermediate extension range. Another unfolding scenario is typical for short globules: in both modes of extension they unfold continuously, without jumps or intramolecular microphase coexistence, by passing a sequence of uniformly elongated configurations.Comment: 19 pages, 13 figures, 1 tabl

Moving beyond European and Latin American Typologies:The Peculiarities of AKP’s Populism in Turkey

Despite the growing literature on Turkish populism, there is yet no consensus on how best to categorise the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi or AKP). This article argues that this lack of consensus is due to a selective focus on the attributes of AKP’s populism. Indeed, when the party’s features are examined holistically, it does not neatly conform to the dominant typologies of populism, which were conceived mostly for European and Latin American examples. For historical reasons, AKP’s populist discourse defines “the people” versus “the elite” in civilisational terms and combines this with strategies of neo-liberalism, strong party organisation and grassroots mobilisation. This blend of populism distinguishes the AKP case from the exclusionary/inclusionary and classical/neo-liberal/radical typologies previously identified by the literature. However, the Bharatiya Janata Party in India and the Thai Rak Thai Party in Thailand have similar attributes to the AKP, drawing attention to the need to move beyond the existing ideological and strategic approaches to populism and towards a more comprehensive socio-cultural approach. The article contributes to the literature on populism by highlighting possible avenues for further research based on such a comprehensive understanding of populism based also on cases from Asia