The Work of Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch: Evidence from Colombia

We process the main written output of Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch on Colombia covering the period 1988-2004, recording all numerical conflict information and accounts of specific conflict events. We check for internal consistency and against a unique Colombian conflict database. We find that both organizations have substantive problems in their handling of quantitative information. Problems include failre to specify sources, unclear definitions, an erratic reporting template and a distorted portrayal of conflict dynamics. Accounts of individual events are fairly representative and much more useful and accurate than the statistical information. We disprove a common accusation that Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch rarely criticize the guerrillas, but do find some evidence of anti-government bias. The quantitative human rights and conflict information produced by these organizations for other countries must be viewed with scepticism along with cross-country and time series human rights data based on Amnesty International reports.

Stereocilia-staircase spacing is influenced by myosin III motors and their cargos espin-1 and espin-like

Hair cells tightly control the dimensions of their stereocilia, which are actin-rich protrusions with graded heights that mediate mechanotransduction in the inner ear. Two members of the myosin-III family, MYO3A and MYO3B, are thought to regulate stereocilia length by transporting cargos that control actin polymerization at stereocilia tips. We show that eliminating espin-1 (ESPN-1), an isoform of ESPN and a myosin-III cargo, dramatically alters the slope of the stereocilia staircase in a subset of hair cells. Furthermore, we show that espin-like (ESPNL), primarily present in developing stereocilia, is also a myosin-III cargo and is essential for normal hearing. ESPN-1 and ESPNL each bind MYO3A and MYO3B, but differentially influence how the two motors function. Consequently, functional properties of different motor-cargo combinations differentially affect molecular transport and the length of actin protrusions. This mechanism is used by hair cells to establish the required range of stereocilia lengths within a single cell

Stereocilia-staircase spacing is influenced by myosin III motors and their cargos espin-1 and espin-like

Hair cells tightly control the dimensions of their stereocilia, which are actin-rich protrusions with graded heights that mediate mechanotransduction in the inner ear. Two members of the myosin-III family, MYO3A and MYO3B, are thought to regulate stereocilia length by transporting cargos that control actin polymerization at stereocilia tips. We show that eliminating espin-1 (ESPN-1), an isoform of ESPN and a myosin-III cargo, dramatically alters the slope of the stereocilia staircase in a subset of hair cells. Furthermore, we show that espin-like (ESPNL), primarily present in developing stereocilia, is also a myosin-III cargo and is essential for normal hearing. ESPN-1 and ESPNL each bind MYO3A and MYO3B, but differentially influence how the two motors function. Consequently, functional properties of different motor-cargo combinations differentially affect molecular transport and the length of actin protrusions. This mechanism is used by hair cells to establish the required range of stereocilia lengths within a single cell

Stereocilia-staircase spacing is influenced by myosin III motors and their cargos espin-1 and espin-like

Hair cells tightly control the dimensions of their stereocilia, which are actin-rich protrusions with graded heights that mediate mechanotransduction in the inner ear. Two members of the myosin-III family, MYO3A and MYO3B, are thought to regulate stereocilia length by transporting cargos that control actin polymerization at stereocilia tips. We show that eliminating espin-1 (ESPN-1), an isoform of ESPN and a myosin-III cargo, dramatically alters the slope of the stereocilia staircase in a subset of hair cells. Furthermore, we show that espin-like (ESPNL), primarily present in developing stereocilia, is also a myosin-III cargo and is essential for normal hearing. ESPN-1 and ESPNL each bind MYO3A and MYO3B, but differentially influence how the two motors function. Consequently, functional properties of different motor-cargo combinations differentially affect molecular transport and the length of actin protrusions. This mechanism is used by hair cells to establish the required range of stereocilia lengths within a single cell

Biorefining of wheat straw:accounting for the distribution of mineral elements in pretreated biomass by an extended pretreatment–severity equation

BACKGROUND: Mineral elements present in lignocellulosic biomass feedstocks may accumulate in biorefinery process streams and cause technological problems, or alternatively can be reaped for value addition. A better understanding of the distribution of minerals in biomass in response to pretreatment factors is therefore important in relation to development of new biorefinery processes. The objective of the present study was to examine the levels of mineral elements in pretreated wheat straw in response to systematic variations in the hydrothermal pretreatment parameters (pH, temperature, and treatment time), and to assess whether it is possible to model mineral levels in the pretreated fiber fraction. RESULTS: Principal component analysis of the wheat straw biomass constituents, including mineral elements, showed that the recovered levels of wheat straw constituents after different hydrothermal pretreatments could be divided into two groups: 1) Phosphorus, magnesium, potassium, manganese, zinc, and calcium correlated with xylose and arabinose (that is, hemicellulose), and levels of these constituents present in the fiber fraction after pretreatment varied depending on the pretreatment-severity; and 2) Silicon, iron, copper, aluminum correlated with lignin and cellulose levels, but the levels of these constituents showed no severity-dependent trends. For the first group, an expanded pretreatment-severity equation, containing a specific factor for each constituent, accounting for variability due to pretreatment pH, was developed. Using this equation, the mineral levels could be predicted with R(2) > 0.75; for some with R(2) up to 0.96. CONCLUSION: Pretreatment conditions, especially pH, significantly influenced the levels of phosphorus, magnesium, potassium, manganese, zinc, and calcium in the resulting fiber fractions. A new expanded pretreatment-severity equation is proposed to model and predict mineral composition in pretreated wheat straw biomass

Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV: Mapping the Milky Way, Nearby Galaxies, and the Distant Universe

We describe the Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV (SDSS-IV), a project encompassing three major spectroscopic programs. The Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment 2 (APOGEE-2) is observing hundreds of thousands of Milky Way stars at high resolution and high signal-to-noise ratios in the near-infrared. The Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory (MaNGA) survey is obtaining spatially resolved spectroscopy for thousands of nearby galaxies (median z ~ 0.03). The extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS) is mapping the galaxy, quasar, and neutral gas distributions between z ~ 0.6 and 3.5 to constrain cosmology using baryon acoustic oscillations, redshift space distortions, and the shape of the power spectrum. Within eBOSS, we are conducting two major subprograms: the SPectroscopic IDentification of eROSITA Sources (SPIDERS), investigating X-ray AGNs and galaxies in X-ray clusters, and the Time Domain Spectroscopic Survey (TDSS), obtaining spectra of variable sources. All programs use the 2.5 m Sloan Foundation Telescope at the Apache Point Observatory; observations there began in Summer 2014. APOGEE-2 also operates a second near-infrared spectrograph at the 2.5 m du Pont Telescope at Las Campanas Observatory, with observations beginning in early 2017. Observations at both facilities are scheduled to continue through 2020. In keeping with previous SDSS policy, SDSS-IV provides regularly scheduled public data releases; the first one, Data Release 13, was made available in 2016 July

The Fourteenth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: First Spectroscopic Data from the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey and from the second phase of the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment

The fourth generation of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-IV) has been in operation since July 2014. This paper describes the second data release from this phase, and the fourteenth from SDSS overall (making this, Data Release Fourteen or DR14). This release makes public data taken by SDSS-IV in its first two years of operation (July 2014-2016). Like all previous SDSS releases, DR14 is cumulative, including the most recent reductions and calibrations of all data taken by SDSS since the first phase began operations in 2000. New in DR14 is the first public release of data from the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS); the first data from the second phase of the Apache Point Observatory (APO) Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE-2), including stellar parameter estimates from an innovative data driven machine learning algorithm known as "The Cannon"; and almost twice as many data cubes from the Mapping Nearby Galaxies at APO (MaNGA) survey as were in the previous release (N = 2812 in total). This paper describes the location and format of the publicly available data from SDSS-IV surveys. We provide references to the important technical papers describing how these data have been taken (both targeting and observation details) and processed for scientific use. The SDSS website (www.sdss.org) has been updated for this release, and provides links to data downloads, as well as tutorials and examples of data use. SDSS-IV is planning to continue to collect astronomical data until 2020, and will be followed by SDSS-V.Comment: SDSS-IV collaboration alphabetical author data release paper. DR14 happened on 31st July 2017. 19 pages, 5 figures. Accepted by ApJS on 28th Nov 2017 (this is the "post-print" and "post-proofs" version; minor corrections only from v1, and most of errors found in proofs corrected

New Insights on the Management of Wildlife Diseases Using Multi-State Recapture Models: The Case of Classical Swine Fever in Wild Boar

The understanding of host-parasite systems in wildlife is of increasing interest in relation to the risk of emerging diseases in livestock and humans. In this respect, many efforts have been dedicated to controlling classical swine fever (CSF) in the European Wild Boar. But CSF eradication has not always been achieved even though vaccination has been implemented at a large-scale. Piglets have been assumed to be the main cause of CSF persistence in the wild since they appeared to be more often infected and less often immune than older animals. However, this assumption emerged from laboratory trials or cross-sectional surveys based on the hunting bags.In the present paper we conducted a capture-mark-recapture study in free-ranging wild boar piglets that experienced both CSF infection and vaccination under natural conditions. We used multi-state capture recapture models to estimate the immunization and infection rates, and their variations according to the periods with or without vaccination. According to the model prediction, 80% of the infected piglets did not survive more than two weeks, while the other 20% quickly recovered. The probability of becoming immune did not increase significantly during the summer vaccination sessions, and the proportion of immune piglets was not higher after the autumn vaccination.Given the high lethality of CSF in piglets highlighted in our study, we consider unlikely that piglets could maintain the chain of CSF virus transmission. Our study also revealed the low efficacy of vaccination in piglets in summer and autumn, possibly due to the low palatability of baits to that age class, but also to the competition between baits and alternative food sources. Based on this new information, we discuss the prospects for the improvement of CSF control and the interest of the capture-recapture approach for improving the understanding of wildlife diseases