Differing effects of age and starvation on reproductive performance in Drosophila melanogaster

Successful reproduction requires the completion of many, often condition-dependent, stages, from mate searching and courtship through to sperm transfer, fertilisation and offspring production. Animals can plastically adjust their investment in each stage according to the physical and social environment, their own condition, their future reproductive potential, and the condition of their partner. Here we manipulate age and condition, through a nutritional challenge early or late in life, of both male and female Drosophila melanogaster and measure the effects on courtship, mating, and fitness when paired with a standardized (unmanipulated) partner. Older males were slower to start courting and mating, and courted at a slower rate, but males were indifferent to female age or condition despite older females laying and hatching fewer eggs. Female condition had a substantial effect on mating acceptance rate, which dropped dramatically after starvation, and particularly recent starvation experience. In contrast, male condition had little effect on any of the components of reproductive performance we measured. Intriguingly, we found no evidence for additive or multiplicative effects of ageing and starvation: the only significant interaction between these variables was on male latency to initiate courtship - older males were slower to start courting unless they had experienced starvation early in life. These results indicate that the immediate costs of mating differ between males and females, and that the sexes differ in their perception of the opportunity cost sustained by refusing a mating opportunity. Our results support the idea that ageing has more wide-ranging impact on reproductive behaviours than does nutritional challenge

Bright Metal-Poor Stars from the Hamburg/ESO Survey. I. Selection and Follow-up Observations from 329 Fields

We present a sample of 1777 bright (9<B<14) metal-poor candidates selected from the Hamburg/ESO Survey (HES). Despite saturation effects present in the red portion of the HES objective-prism spectra, the data were recoverable and quantitative selection criteria could be applied to select the sample. Analyses of medium-resolution (~2 A) follow-up spectroscopy of the entire sample, obtained with several 2 to 4 m class telescopes, yielded 145 new metal-poor stars with metallicity [Fe/H]<-2.0, of which 79 have [Fe/H]<-2.5, and 17 have [Fe/H]<-3.0. We also obtained C/Fe estimates for all these stars. From this, we find a frequency of C-enhanced ([C/Fe]>1.0) metal-poor ([Fe/H]<-2.0) giants of 9% +- 2%, which is lower than previously reported. However, the frequency raises to similar (>20%) and higher values with increasing distance from the Galactic plane. Although the numbers of stars at low metallicity are falling rapidly at the lowest metallicities, there is evidence that the fraction of carbon-enhanced metal-poor stars is increasing rapidly as a function of declining metallicity. For ~60 objects, high-resolution data have already been obtained; one of these, HE 1327-2326, is the new record holder for the most iron-deficient star known.Comment: 29 pages (emulateapj), accepted for publication in Ap

From the Shell-shocked Soldier to the Nervous Child: Psychoanalysis in the Aftermath of the First World War

This article investigates the development of child analysis in Britain between the wars, as the anxious child succeeded the shell-shocked soldier as a focus of psychoanalytic enquiry. Historians of psychoanalysis tend to regard the Second World War as a key moment in the discovery of the ‘war within’ the child, but it was in the aftermath of the First War that the warring psyche of the child was observed and elaborated. The personal experience of war and its aftermath, and the attention given to regression in the treatment of war neuroses, encouraged Melanie Klein, Anna Freud and others to turn their attention to children. At the same time, however, the impact of the First World War as a traumatic event, with inter-generational consequences, remained largely unaccounted for within psychoanalysis as Klein and others focused on the child's riven internal world

Schadevergoeding bij overlijden: een stoel die een soort tafeltje is

In het aansprakelijkheidsrecht heeft een benadeelde in beginsel recht op volledige vergoeding van zijn schade. De gevolgen van de schadetoebrengende gebeurtenis dienen zoveel als mogelijk te worden weggenomen of te worden gecompenseerd. Daarbij wordt gekeken naar de situatie waarin de benadeelde zou hebben verkeerd indien de schadetoebrengende gebeurtenis niet zou hebben plaatsgevonden. Dat is bij overlijden per definitie problematisch. Er is iemand weggevallen, wat vele gevolgen heeft. De schade als gevolg van het overlijden komt maar beperkt voor vergoeding in aanmerking. In artikel 6:108 BW is een drietal beperkingen te vinden. Het gaat hier om beperkingen ten aanzien van de aard van de schade, de kring van gerechtigden en de omvang van de schade. Daarbij hinkt het recht op schadevergoeding bij overlijden op twee gedachten. Aan de ene kant is er het aansprakelijkheidsrecht, maar de geleden schade komt niet volledig voor vergoeding in aanmerking. Aan de andere kant is er het recht op alimentatie uit het familierecht, maar dat wordt bij overlijden niet consequent toegepast. De motieven voor de beperkingen van het recht op schadevergoeding zijn achterhaald en niet (langer) overtuigend. Het recht is niet bij de tijd, het sluit niet aan bij de maatschappelijke ontwikkelingen. De beperkingen die het recht op schadevergoeding bij overlijden in de huidige samenleving met zich meebrengt zorgen voor complexe methoden om de nabestaanden tegemoet te komen en oogsten daardoor veel kritiek. In deze bijdrage wordt die kritiek besproken. De bijdrage wordt afgesloten met enkele denkrichtingen voor nader onderzoek

Measurement of the underlying event activity in pp collisions at √s = 0.9 and 7 TeV with the novel jet-area/median approach

Open Access: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.-- Chatrchyan, S. et al.The first measurement of the charged component of the underlying event using the novel >jet-area/median> approach is presented for proton-proton collisions at centre-of-mass energies of 0.9 and 7 TeV. The data were recorded in 2010 with the CMS experiment at the LHC. A new observable, sensitive to soft particle production, is introduced and investigated inclusively and as a function of the event scale defined by the transverse momentum of the leading jet. Various phenomenological models are compared to data, with and without corrections for detector effects. None of the examined models describe the data satisfactorily. © 2012 SISSA.Acknowledge support from BMWF and FWF (Austria); FNRS and FWO (Belgium); CNPq, CAPES, FAPERJ, and FAPESP (Brazil); MES (Bulgaria); CERN; CAS, MoST, and NSFC (China); COLCIENCIAS (Colombia); MSES (Croatia); RPF (Cyprus); MoER, SF0690030s09 and ERDF (Estonia); Academy of Finland, MEC, and HIP (Finland); CEA and CNRS/IN2P3 (France);BMBF, DFG, and HGF (Germany); GSRT (Greece); OTKA and NKTH (Hungary); DAE and DST (India); IPM (Iran); SFI (Ireland); INFN (Italy); NRF and WCU (Korea); LAS (Lithuania); CINVESTAV, CONACYT, SEP, and UASLP-FAI (Mexico); MSI (New Zealand); PAEC (Pakistan); MSHE and NSC (Poland); FCT (Portugal); JINR (Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan); MON, RosAtom, RAS and RFBR (Russia); MSTD (Serbia); SEIDI and CPAN (Spain); Swiss Funding Agencies (Switzerland); NSC (Taipei); ThEP, IPST and NECTEC (Thailand); TUBITAK and TAEK (Turkey); NASU (Ukraine); STFC (United Kingdom); DOE and NSF (USA). Individuals have received support from the Marie-Curie program and the European Research Council (European Union); the Leventis Foundation; the A. P. Sloan Foundation; the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation; the Austrian Science Fund (FWF); the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office; the Fonds pour la Formation à la Recherche dans l’Industrie et dans l’Agriculture (FRIA-Belgium); the Agentschap voor Innovatie door Wetenschap en Technologie (IWTBelgium); the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports (MEYS) of Czech Republic; the Council of Science and Industrial Research, India; the Compagnia di San Paolo (Torino); and the HOMING PLUS program of Foundation for Polish Science, cofinanced from European Union, Regional Development Fund.Peer Reviewe