Behavioral and vocal responses of the American goldfinch (\u3ci\u3eCarduelis tristis\u3c/i\u3e) to predatory bird calls

A particular reaction to a given predator is dependent on the level of danger perceived by an animal. American Goldfinches (Carduelis tristis) are preyed upon by highly threatening predators that commonly attack songbirds at feeders (feeder predator) and less threatening predators that rarely attack songbirds at feeders (non-feeder predators). This study measured the behavioral and vocal reactions of American goldfinches to these different levels of predatory threat and examined the effect of threat level on the trade-off between foraging and anti-predatory behaviors (vigilance). We hypothesized that if goldfinches respond to predatory cues based on the level of threat associated with a particular predator species, then goldfinches should respond more strongly (i.e. become vigilant, feed less, abandon feeder) to feeder predators than non-feeder predators. We observed goldfinches at two established feeders and used playbacks of two predator types (feeder predators = high risk and non-feeder predators c::: lower risk) and control species (non-predators) recordings to measure behavioral and vocal responses to auditory predator cues by counting the number of seeds consumed, the time a goldfinch spent vigilant, and whether or not a bird fled the feeder. We planned to measure fluctuations in number and type of calls (e.g., contact versus alarm calls), but no vocal responses were produced by the goldfinches during the trials. We found no difference in behavioral reactions to predator types, and our hypothesis that responses to predators would differ with threat level was not supported. However, vigilance increased significantly from control (unthreatening) species to predator species (F=0.27, p= 0.0008) which decreased seed consumption (F l .4, p 0.25), indicating that vigilance is greatly increased when birds forage for food under predatory pressure. This trade-off is a major consequence of predation and is a driving force in organizing avian communities such as flocks

Taking charge - dance, disability and leadership: exploring the shifting role of the disabled dance artist

Over the past two decades dancers with disabilities have made a significant contribution to the professional contemporary dance sector. Key shifts and initiatives across various contexts in dance have increased debate and practice concerned with dance and disability and the intersections between these two areas. Discourse focussed on dance and disability has been centred upon access and participation in dance, there is a considerable deficit in practice, research and scholarly activity that explores the progression of the disabled dancer into leadership roles in dance. A lack of disabled role-models holding autonomous, high profile, decision making positions in the sector is detrimental to the position of both disabled dance artists currently practicing and those aspiring to work and train in contemporary dance. Dance artists with disabilities possess knowledge of training and working in dance that is as yet under-researched and under-represented in both academic and practice based contexts. Understanding and utilising the knowledge and experience existing in disabled dance artists is central to ensuring progression in the sector. Underpinning this thesis is the claim that disabled dance artists are valued, assessed and critiqued within an existing epistemological framework in dance that is based on normative bodies, rather than through systems and a vocabulary that account for the individual dancer. The research, centred around the UK and undertaken by a disabled dance artist-researcher, addresses an existing lack of scholarly activity about dance and disability produced by a disabled researcher. Chapters 6.1, 6.2 and 6.3 offer 3 case studies of disabled dance artists these sections give insight into the lived experience of training and working in dance with a physical disability, in addition these chapters offer discussion specifically relating to the case study participants perception of themselves as leaders in dance. The penultimate chapter 7, Reflections on Practice presents autoethnographic research relating to the authors’ experience of using practice as both a vehicle and an artefact for research into dance, disability and leadership. Offering the practice and research of disabled artists within this thesis contributes a new perspective to the field of dance and disability, specifically by privileging the voices and practice of disabled artists and researchers. By challenging a hierarchy of normative leadership ideologies the potential of the disabled dance artist as leader is presented at the forefront of this study

Les paradoxes de la commémoration de l’Inde française

2014 was a year marked by memorialization ¢ the centenary of the outbreak of the FirstWorldWar, the seventieth anniversary of the Allied landings in Normandy, the sixtieth anniversary of the Battle of Dien Bien Phu - yet there was another significant anniversary in the history of la plus grande France which passed largely unnoticed. 1 November 2014 marked sixty years since France’s de facto withdrawal from its remaining possessions in India. The aim of this article is to explore memories of this presence and, in doing so, to elucidate the links between memory and the history and historiography of l’Inde française. France’s small colonial presence in India, five geographically disparate trading posts known collectively as l’Inde française, has provoked neither the same political controversy nor the same degree of academic interest as the legacies of French colonial rule in North Africa and the Caribbean. Representations and memories of this colonial project remain characterized by a certain form of nostalgia, invariably articulated with reference to l’Inde française as a mourning for lost imperial grandeur. Although the range of research into France’s overseas empires has rapidly expanded during the last decade, the history of l’Inde française has been somewhat overlooked by a historiography that has focussed upon recovering voices previously occluded from history. In the context of this historiographical renewal, this article will consider the history of l’Inde française and its place within the wider history of French colonialism and the history of French participation in the Atlantic slave trade. Examining how the history of French trade with India is narrated and visually represented in the Musée de la Compagnie des Indes (Port-Louis, Morbihan), it will interrogate the relationship between the museology of the one museum devoted to the French colonial presence in India and the new historiography of French overseas expansion. The article will conclude with an investigation of the absence of l’Inde française in the current vexed historiographical and memorial debates about French colonialism and its legacies.L’année 2014 fut riche en commémorations ¢ le centenaire du début de la Première Guerre mondiale, le 70e anniversaire du Débarquement et de la Bataille de Normandie, le 60e anniversaire de la bataille de Dien Bien Phu - mais un autre anniversaire, notable dans l’histoire de l’empire colonial français, est passé largement inaperçu : le 1er novembre 2014 marquait le 60e anniversaire du transfert de facto par la France des vestiges de ses Établissements (ou comptoirs) de l’Inde. L’objectif de cet article est d’étudier la mémoire de cette présence, ainsi que les liens entre cette mémoire et l’histoire et l’historiographie de la présence coloniale française en Inde. L’histoire de la minuscule présence coloniale française en Inde, limitée à cinq comptoirs dispersés, Pondichéry, Karikal, Mahé, Yanaon et Chandernagor, connus sous l’appellation d’Inde française, ne suscite ni les mêmes controverses politiques, ni le même niveau d’intérêt académique que les héritages du colonialisme en Afrique du Nord et aux Antilles. Les représentations mémorielles des projets coloniaux en Inde se caractérisent par une certaine nostalgie, nostalgie qui se traduit par l’expression d’une perte de grandeur impériale. Dans le contexte du renouveau historiographique dans le domaine des études coloniales, notre point de départ est l’histoire de l’Inde française, que nous tenons à remettre en perspective dans une histoire large de l’empire colonial français à l’intérieur de laquelle se trouvent aussi l’esclavage et la traite. Nous retraçons d’abord la muséographie mise en oeuvre par le Musée de la Compagnie des Indes (Port-Louis, Morbihan) avant d’examiner ses rapports avec l’historiographie nouvelle de l’empire colonial français. Enfin nous nous interrogeons sur l’absence de l’Inde française dans les débats historiographiques et mémoriels autour du fait colonial.Marsh Kate. Les paradoxes de la commémoration de l’Inde française. In: Outre-mers, tome 102, n°388-389,2015. L'Inde et les Français : pratiques et savoirs coloniaux. pp. 117-134

Delivering Public Services: Locality, Learning and Reciprocity in Place Based Practice

Policymakers across myriad jurisdictions are grappling with the challenge of complex policy problems. Multi-faceted, complex, and seemingly intractable, ‘wicked’ problems have exhausted the repertoire of the standard policy approaches. In response, governments are increasingly looking for new options, and one approach that has gained significant scholarly interest, along with increasing attention from practitioners, is ‘place-based’ solutions. This paper surveys conceptual aspects of this approach. It describes practices in comparable jurisdictions – the UK, the EU and the US. And it explores efforts over the past decade to ‘localise’ Indigenous services. It sketches the governance challenge in migrating from top-down or principal-agent arrangements towards place-based practice. The paper concludes that many of the building blocks for this shift already exist but that these need to be re-oriented around ‘learning’. Funding and other administrative protocols may also ultimately need to be redefined

Host-pathogen interactions in the innate immune response of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans

The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans has been a powerful experimental organism for almost half a century. Over the past ten years, researchers have begun to exploit the power of C. elegans to investigate the biology of a number of human pathogens. This work continues to uncover mechanisms of host immunity and pathogen virulence that are either analogous to those involved during pathogenesis in alternative animal hosts or mechanisms which are, thus far, unique to the worm. In this thesis, we present data that describes an immunological balance in C. elegans, whereby heightened tolerance to one pathogen, the enteric bacteria Salmonella Typhimurium, comes at the cost of increased susceptibility to another, the fatal fungal human pathogen Cryptococcus neoformans. We find that this susceptibility trade-off is mediated by the reciprocal activity of two immune genes: the lysozyme lys-7 and the tyrosine kinase abl-1. We suggest that ABL-1 controls two different DAF-16-dependent pathways to regulate this balance. Both pathways are necessary for wild type resistance to C. neoformans, whilst the activity of only one pathway is a requirement for the tolerance phenotype to S. Typhimurium. We infer from sequence data that LYS-7 has an atypical mode of action in C. elegans, which we hypothesise to be detrimental to the worm during S. Typhimurium pathogenesis and thus a contributing factor to the tolerance phenotype. Furthermore, we find that this tolerance has a Salmonella-dependency which we propose to be under the control of the alternative sigma factor, RpoS. Taken together, we describe an immunological balance in C. elegans for the first time, one that is mediated by both host and pathogen factors. We therefore suggest that the innate immune response of C. elegans has a higher level of immune complexity than previously believed, and that such trade-offs are evolutionarily ancient mechanisms.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Opposition to Renewable Energy Facilities in the United States

More than 100 ordinances have been adopted in 31 states blocking or restricting new wind, solar, and other renewable energy facilities, and more than 160 of these projects have been contested in 48 states. Columbia Law School’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law issued a report documenting these instances of local opposition to renewables

BASP1 interacts with estrogen receptor α and modifies the tamoxifen response

AbstractTamoxifen binds to oestrogen receptor α (ERα) to elicit distinct responses that vary by cell/tissue type and status, but the factors that determine these differential effects are unknown. Here we report that the transcriptional corepressor BASP1 interacts with ERα and in breast cancer cells, this interaction is enhanced by tamoxifen. We find that BASP1 acts as a major selectivity factor in the transcriptional response of breast cancer cells to tamoxifen. In all, 40% of the genes that are regulated by tamoxifen in breast cancer cells are BASP1 dependent, including several genes that are associated with tamoxifen resistance. BASP1 elicits tumour-suppressor activity in breast cancer cells and enhances the antitumourigenic effects of tamoxifen treatment. Moreover, BASP1 is expressed in breast cancer tissue and is associated with increased patient survival. Our data have identified BASP1 as an ERα cofactor that has a central role in the transcriptional and antitumourigenic effects of tamoxifen.</jats:p

Disability and the Dancing Body:A Symposium on Ownership, Identity and Difference in Dance

Acknowledgements We would like to thank Siobhan Davies Studios, which was aptly described by one of our participants as “a Cathedral for contemporary dance”, for hosting the symposium and assisting us on the day. We would also like to thank the staff at the Centre for Dance Research (C-Dare) at Coventry University for their support during the day. We would also, of course, like to thank the AHRC for its kind support of InVisible Difference.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

The Sense of Self Over Time:Assessing Diachronicity in Dissociative Identity Disorder, Psychosis and Healthy Comparison Groups

Dissociative experiences have been associated with diachronic disunity. Yet, this work is in its infancy. Dissociative identity disorder (DID) is characterized by different identity states reporting their own relatively continuous sense of self. The degree to which patients in dissociative identity states experience diachronic unity (i.e., sense of self over time) has not been empirically explored. This study examined the degree to which patients in dissociative identity states experienced diachronic unity. Participants were DID adults (n=14) assessed in adult and child identity states, adults with a psychotic illness (n=19), adults from the general population (n=55), children from the general population (n=26) and adults imagining themselves as children (n=23). They completed the Diachronic Disunity Scale (DDS), the Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES), and the Self-Concept Clarity Scale (SCCS). Diachronic disunity was not limited to psychiatric groups, but evident to some degree in all adult and child samples. The DID adult sample experienced more dissociation and self-confusion than the psychosis and adult comparison groups, but did not differ on the diachronic measure. DID patients in their child identity states and child comparisons showed disunity and were significantly different from child simulators, who showed relatively more unity. Results suggest that DID patients in either adult or child dissociative identity states, like those in other samples, do not universally experience themselves as having a consistent sense of self over time