A Mini-survey of X-ray Point Sources in Starburst and Non-Starburst Galaxies

We present a comparison of X-ray point source luminosity functions of 3 starburst galaxies (the Antennae, M82, and NGC 253) and 4 non-starburst spiral galaxies (NGC 3184, NGC 1291, M83, and IC 5332). We find that the luminosity functions of the starbursts are flatter than those of the spiral galaxies; the starbursts have relatively more sources at high luminosities. This trend extends to early-type galaxies which have steeper luminosity functions than spirals. We show that the luminosity function slope is correlated with 60 micron luminosity, a measure of star formation. We suggest that the difference in luminosity functions is related to the age of the X-ray binary populations and present a simple model which highlights how the shape of the luminosity distribution is affected by the age of the underlying X-ray binary population.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures. accepted for publication in Ap

Evaluation of Height as an Early Selection Criterion for Volume and Predictor of Site Index Gain in the Western Gulf

Data from repeated periodic measures of height, diameter and volume from eleven loblolly pine progeny tests maintained as part of the Western Gulf Forest Tree Improvement Program (WGFTIP) were analyzed to 1) determine the potential of using early height, diameter, or volume as selection criteria for rotation-age volume, and 2) to develop a method of expressing height performance as predicted change in site index. Using family means, few differences in family mean correlations existed between 5-year traits with volume at 15 or 20 years, but they were slightly higher for volume than the other two traits. Gain efficiency estimates for all three traits at age 5 were similar, suggesting that the traits were equally efficient in predicting rotation volume. However, at age ten, per-acre volume was the better predictor of per-acre volume at later ages. Predicted gains in breeding value for height, expressed as percent change in site index (SIBV), were estimated following published WGFTIP methodology for volume. Age specific site index equations and coefficient of genetic prediction (CGP) estimates for height were developed using the 15-year data from the eleven progeny tests. Estimates of CGP for height at ages 5 and 10 with height at age 15 were 0.55 and 0.61, respectively. Correlation between parental breeding values for volume production and site index breeding values were high (r=0.80). Predicted genetic gain for site index provides additional information for decision-making. Uses and limitations of this gain information are demonstrated.Papers and abstracts from the 27th Southern Forest Tree Improvement Conference held at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Oklahoma on June 24-27, 2003

Performance of Nuttall Oak (Quercus texana Buckl.) Provenances in the Western Gulf Region

Three series of three tests each of Nuttall oak (Quercus texana Buckl. formally Q. nuttallii Palmer) were established by the Western Gulf Forest Tree Improvement Program at three locations: Desha and Lonoke Counties in Arkansas and Sharkey County in Mississippi. The three series included 28-42 different half-sib families from throughout the natural range of Nuttall oak. Families were arbitrarily divided into provenances based on the river basin in which they originated. Significant provenance differences were found for survival in all series. Provenance differences for growth were highly significant for series 2 and 3, but not for series 1. The Red River provenance had the best growth performance in series 3 tests, but it was not represented in the other two test series. The best provenance in series 2, the Ouachita River provenance, ranked second in series 3 tests. The Western provenance performed well in series 1 and 3 tests but had poorer performance in series 2 tests. The interactions between site and provenance were significant for all growth traits in all series. Family-mean heritability estimates, however, were high ranging from 0.72-0.96 for height and 0.22-0.95 for diameter. There were good families from all sources indicating that family selection will be effective in this species.Papers and abstracts from the 27th Southern Forest Tree Improvement Conference held at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Oklahoma on June 24-27, 2003

What Difference Does Quantity Make? On the Epistemology of Big Data Biology

publication-status: Acceptedtypes: ArticleIs Big Data science a whole new way of doing research? And what difference does data quantity make to knowledge production strategies and their outputs? I argue that the novelty of Big Data science does not lie in the sheer quantity of data involved, but rather in (1) the prominence and status acquired by data as commodity and recognised output, both within and outside of the scientific community and (2) the methods, infrastructures, technologies, skills and knowledge developed to handle data. These developments generate the impression that data-intensive research is a new mode of doing science, with its own epistemology and norms. To assess this claim, one needs to consider the ways in which data are actually disseminated and used to generate knowledge. Accordingly, this article reviews the development of sophisticated ways to disseminate, integrate and re-use data acquired on model organisms over the last three decades of work in experimental biology. I focus on online databases as prominent infrastructures set up to organise and interpret such data and examine the wealth and diversity of expertise, resources and conceptual scaffolding that such databases draw upon. This illuminates some of the conditions under which Big Data needs to be curated to support processes of discovery across biological subfields, which in turn highlights the difficulties caused by the lack of adequate curation for the vast majority of data in the life sciences. In closing, I reflect on the difference that data quantity is making to contemporary biology, the methodological and epistemic challenges of identifying and analysing data given these developments, and the opportunities and worries associated with Big Data discourse and methods.Economic and Social Research CouncilES/F028180/1Leverhulme TrustRPG-2013-153European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013ERC grant agreement number 335925

Educating the smart city:Schooling smart citizens through computational urbanism

Coupled with the ‘smart city’, the idea of the ‘smart school’ is emerging in imaginings of the future of education. Various commercial, governmental and civil society organizations now envisage education as a highly coded, software-mediated and data-driven social institution. Such spaces are to be governed through computational processes written in computer code and tracked through big data. In an original analysis of developments from commercial, governmental and civil society sectors, the article examines two interrelated dimensions of an emerging smart schools imaginary: (1) the constant flows of digital data that smart schools depend on and the mobilization of analytics that enable student data to be used to anticipate and shape their behaviours; and (2) the ways that young people are educated to become ‘computational operatives’ who must ‘learn to code’ in order to become ‘smart citizens’ in the governance of the smart city. These developments constitute an emerging educational space fabricated from intersecting standards, technologies, discourses and social actors, all infused with the aspirations of technical experts to govern the city at a distance through both monitoring young people as ‘data objects’ and schooling them as active ‘computational citizens’ with the responsibility to compute the future of the city

Women\u27s Changing Attitudes Toward Divorce, 1974–2002: Evidence for an Educational Crossover

This article examines trends in divorce attitudes of young adult women in the United States by educational attainment from 1974 to 2002. Women with 4‐year college degrees, who previously had the most permissive attitudes toward divorce, have become more restrictive in their attitudes toward divorce than high school graduates and women with some college education, whereas women with no high school diplomas have increasingly permissive attitudes toward divorce. We examine this educational crossover in divorce attitudes in the context of variables correlated with women\u27s educational attainment, including family attitudes and religion, income and occupational prestige, and family structure. We conclude that the educational crossover in divorce attitudes is associated most strongly with work and family structure variables

Social theory and the politics of big data and method

This article is an intervention in the debate on big data. It seeks to show, firstly, that behind the wager to make sociology more relevant to the digital there lies a coherent if essentially unstated vision and a whole stance which are more a symptom of the current world than a resolute endeavour to think that world through; hence the conclusion that the perspective prevailing in the debate lacks both the theoretical grip and the practical impulse to initiate a much needed renewal of social theory and sociology. Secondly, and more importantly, the article expounds an alternative view and shows by thus doing that other possibilities of engaging the digital can be pursued. The article is thus an invitation to widen the debate on big data and the digital and a call for a more combative social theory

Digital education governance:Data visualization, predictive analytics, and ‘real-time’ policy instruments

Educational institutions and governing practices are increasingly augmented with digital database technologies that function as new kinds of policy instruments. This article surveys and maps the landscape of digital policy instrumentation in education and provides two detailed case studies of new digital data systems. The Learning Curve is a massive online data bank, produced by Pearson Education, which deploys highly sophisticated digital interactive data visualizations to construct knowledge about education systems. The second case considers ‘learning analytics’ platforms that enable the tracking and predicting of students’ performances through their digital data traces. These digital policy instruments are evidence of how digital database instruments and infrastructures are now at the centre of efforts to know, govern and manage education both nationally and globally. The governing of education, augmented by techniques of digital education governance, is being distributed and displaced to new digitized ‘centres of calculation’, such as Pearson and Knewton, with the technical expertise to calculate and visualize the data, plus the predictive analytics capacities to anticipate and pre-empt educational futures. As part of a data-driven style of governing, these emerging digital policy instruments prefigure the emergence of ‘real-time’ and ‘future-tense’ techniques of digital education governance

Emergence of the Ug99 lineage of the wheat stem rust pathogen through somatic hybridisation

Parasexuality contributes to diversity and adaptive evolution of haploid (monokaryotic) fungi. However, non-sexual genetic exchange mechanisms are not defined in dikaryotic fungi (containing two distinct haploid nuclei). Newly emerged strains of the wheat stem rust pathogen, Puccinia graminis f. sp. tritici (Pgt), such as Ug99, are a major threat to global food security. Here, we provide genomics-based evidence supporting that Ug99 arose by somatic hybridisation and nuclear exchange between dikaryons. Fully haplotype-resolved genome assembly and DNA proximity analysis reveal that Ug99 shares one haploid nucleus genotype with a much older African lineage of Pgt, with no recombination or chromosome reassortment. These findings indicate that nuclear exchange between dikaryotes can generate genetic diversity and facilitate the emergence of new lineages in asexual fungal populations