Reflecting on loss in Papua New Guinea

This article takes up the conundrum of conducting anthropological fieldwork with people who claim that they have 'lost their culture,' as is the case with Suau people in the Massim region of Papua New Guinea. But rather than claiming culture loss as a process of dispossession, Suau claim it as a consequence of their own attempts to engage with colonial interests. Suau appear to have responded to missionization and their close proximity to the colonial-era capital by jettisoning many of the practices characteristic of Massim societies, now identified as 'kastom.' The rejection of kastom in order to facilitate their relations with Europeans during colonialism, followed by the mourning for kastom after independence, both invite consideration of a kind of reflexivity that requires action based on the presumed perspective of another

Dry and hot: The hydraulic consequences of a climate change–type drought for Amazonian trees

How plants respond physiologically to leaf warming and low water availability may determine how they will perform under future climate change. In 2015 – 2016, an unprecedented drought occurred across Amazonia with record-breaking high temperatures and low soil moisture, offering a unique opportunity to evaluate the performances of Amazonian trees to a severe climatic event. We quantified the responses of leaf water potential, sap velocity, whole-tree hydraulic conductance (Kwt), turgor loss and xylem embolism, during and after the 2015 – 2016 El Niño for five canopy-tree species. Leaf/xylem safety margins (SMs), sap velocity and Kwt showed a sharp drop during warm periods. SMs were negatively correlated with vapour pressure deficit, but had no significant relationship with soil water storage. Based on our calculations of canopy stomatal and xylem resistances, the decrease in sap velocity and Kwt was due to a combination of xylem cavitation and stomatal closure. Our results suggest that warm droughts greatly amplify the degree of trees’ physiological stress and can lead to mortality. Given the extreme nature of the 2015 – 2016 El Niño and that temperatures are predicted to increase, this work can serve as a case study of the possible impact climate warming can have on tropical trees. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘The impact of the 2015/2016 El Niño on the terrestrial tropical carbon cycle: patterns, mechanisms and implications’. © 2018 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved

AI is a viable alternative to high throughput screening: a 318-target study

: High throughput screening (HTS) is routinely used to identify bioactive small molecules. This requires physical compounds, which limits coverage of accessible chemical space. Computational approaches combined with vast on-demand chemical libraries can access far greater chemical space, provided that the predictive accuracy is sufficient to identify useful molecules. Through the largest and most diverse virtual HTS campaign reported to date, comprising 318 individual projects, we demonstrate that our AtomNet® convolutional neural network successfully finds novel hits across every major therapeutic area and protein class. We address historical limitations of computational screening by demonstrating success for target proteins without known binders, high-quality X-ray crystal structures, or manual cherry-picking of compounds. We show that the molecules selected by the AtomNet® model are novel drug-like scaffolds rather than minor modifications to known bioactive compounds. Our empirical results suggest that computational methods can substantially replace HTS as the first step of small-molecule drug discovery

Calibration of the CMS hadron calorimeters using proton-proton collision data at root s=13 TeV

Methods are presented for calibrating the hadron calorimeter system of theCMSetector at the LHC. The hadron calorimeters of the CMS experiment are sampling calorimeters of brass and scintillator, and are in the form of one central detector and two endcaps. These calorimeters cover pseudorapidities vertical bar eta vertical bar ee data. The energy scale of the outer calorimeters has been determined with test beam data and is confirmed through data with high transverse momentum jets. In this paper, we present the details of the calibration methods and accuracy.Peer reviewe

Effects of Anacetrapib in Patients with Atherosclerotic Vascular Disease

BACKGROUND: Patients with atherosclerotic vascular disease remain at high risk for cardiovascular events despite effective statin-based treatment of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol levels. The inhibition of cholesteryl ester transfer protein (CETP) by anacetrapib reduces LDL cholesterol levels and increases high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol levels. However, trials of other CETP inhibitors have shown neutral or adverse effects on cardiovascular outcomes. METHODS: We conducted a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial involving 30,449 adults with atherosclerotic vascular disease who were receiving intensive atorvastatin therapy and who had a mean LDL cholesterol level of 61 mg per deciliter (1.58 mmol per liter), a mean non-HDL cholesterol level of 92 mg per deciliter (2.38 mmol per liter), and a mean HDL cholesterol level of 40 mg per deciliter (1.03 mmol per liter). The patients were assigned to receive either 100 mg of anacetrapib once daily (15,225 patients) or matching placebo (15,224 patients). The primary outcome was the first major coronary event, a composite of coronary death, myocardial infarction, or coronary revascularization. RESULTS: During the median follow-up period of 4.1 years, the primary outcome occurred in significantly fewer patients in the anacetrapib group than in the placebo group (1640 of 15,225 patients [10.8%] vs. 1803 of 15,224 patients [11.8%]; rate ratio, 0.91; 95% confidence interval, 0.85 to 0.97; P=0.004). The relative difference in risk was similar across multiple prespecified subgroups. At the trial midpoint, the mean level of HDL cholesterol was higher by 43 mg per deciliter (1.12 mmol per liter) in the anacetrapib group than in the placebo group (a relative difference of 104%), and the mean level of non-HDL cholesterol was lower by 17 mg per deciliter (0.44 mmol per liter), a relative difference of -18%. There were no significant between-group differences in the risk of death, cancer, or other serious adverse events. CONCLUSIONS: Among patients with atherosclerotic vascular disease who were receiving intensive statin therapy, the use of anacetrapib resulted in a lower incidence of major coronary events than the use of placebo. (Funded by Merck and others; Current Controlled Trials number, ISRCTN48678192 ; ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT01252953 ; and EudraCT number, 2010-023467-18 .)

Prolonged warming and drought modify belowground interactions for water among coexisting plants

Understanding how climate alters plant-soil water dynamics, and its impact on physiological functions, is critical to improved predictions of vegetation responses to climate change.Here we analyzed how belowground interactions for water shift under warming and drought, and associated impacts on plant functions. In a semi-arid woodland, adult trees (piñon and juniper) and perennial grasses (blue grama) were exposed to warming and precipitation reduction.After 6 years of continuous treatment exposure, soil and plant water isotopic composition was measured to assess plant water uptake depths and community-level water source partitioning. Warming and drought modified plant water uptake depths.Under warming, contrasting changes in water sources between grasses and trees reduced belowground water source partitioning, resulting in higher interspecific competition for water. Under drought, shifts in trees and grass water sources to deeper soil layers resulted in the maintenance of the naturally occurring water source partitioning among species. Trees showed higher water stress, and reduced water use and photosynthesis in response to warming and drought.This case study demonstrates that neighboring plants shift their competitive interactions for water under prolonged warming and drought, but regardless of whether changes in moisture sources will result in increased competition among species or maintained partitioning of water resources, these competitive adaptations may easily be overridden by climate extremes