European wildcat populations are subdivided into five main biogeographic groups: consequences of Pleistocene climate changes or recent anthropogenic fragmentation?

Extant populations of the European wildcat are fragmented across the continent, the likely consequence of recent extirpations due to habitat loss and over-hunting. However, their underlying phylogeographic history has never been reconstructed. For testing the hypothesis that the European wildcat survived the Ice Age fragmented in Mediterranean refuges, we assayed the genetic variation at 31 microsatellites in 668 presumptive European wildcats sampled in 15 European countries. Moreover, to evaluate the extent of subspecies/population divergence and identify eventual wild × domestic cat hybrids, we genotyped 26 African wildcats from Sardinia and North Africa and 294 random-bred domestic cats. Results of multivariate analyses and Bayesian clustering confirmed that the European wild and the domestic cats (plus the African wildcats) belong to two well-differentiated clusters (average Ф ST = 0.159, r st = 0.392, P > 0.001; Analysis of molecular variance [AMOVA]). We identified from c. 5% to 10% cryptic hybrids in southern and central European populations. In contrast, wild-living cats in Hungary and Scotland showed deep signatures of genetic admixture and introgression with domestic cats. The European wildcats are subdivided into five main genetic clusters (average Ф ST = 0.103, r st = 0.143, P > 0.001; AMOVA) corresponding to five biogeographic groups, respectively, distributed in the Iberian Peninsula, central Europe, central Germany, Italian Peninsula and the island of Sicily, and in north-eastern Italy and northern Balkan regions (Dinaric Alps). Approximate Bayesian Computation simulations supported late Pleistocene-early Holocene population splittings (from c. 60 k to 10 k years ago), contemporary to the last Ice Age climatic changes. These results provide evidences for wildcat Mediterranean refuges in southwestern Europe, but the evolution history of eastern wildcat populations remains to be clarified. Historical genetic subdivisions suggest conservation strategies aimed at enhancing gene flow through the restoration of ecological corridors within each biogeographic units. Concomitantly, the risk of hybridization with free-ranging domestic cats along corridor edges should be carefully monitored

From Relational Data to Graphs: Inferring Significant Links using Generalized Hypergeometric Ensembles

The inference of network topologies from relational data is an important problem in data analysis. Exemplary applications include the reconstruction of social ties from data on human interactions, the inference of gene co-expression networks from DNA microarray data, or the learning of semantic relationships based on co-occurrences of words in documents. Solving these problems requires techniques to infer significant links in noisy relational data. In this short paper, we propose a new statistical modeling framework to address this challenge. It builds on generalized hypergeometric ensembles, a class of generative stochastic models that give rise to analytically tractable probability spaces of directed, multi-edge graphs. We show how this framework can be used to assess the significance of links in noisy relational data. We illustrate our method in two data sets capturing spatio-temporal proximity relations between actors in a social system. The results show that our analytical framework provides a new approach to infer significant links from relational data, with interesting perspectives for the mining of data on social systems.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures, accepted at SocInfo201

World citation and collaboration networks: uncovering the role of geography in science

Modern information and communication technologies, especially the Internet, have diminished the role of spatial distances and territorial boundaries on the access and transmissibility of information. This has enabled scientists for closer collaboration and internationalization. Nevertheless, geography remains an important factor affecting the dynamics of science. Here we present a systematic analysis of citation and collaboration networks between cities and countries, by assigning papers to the geographic locations of their authors' affiliations. The citation flows as well as the collaboration strengths between cities decrease with the distance between them and follow gravity laws. In addition, the total research impact of a country grows linearly with the amount of national funding for research & development. However, the average impact reveals a peculiar threshold effect: the scientific output of a country may reach an impact larger than the world average only if the country invests more than about 100,000 USD per researcher annually.Comment: Published version. 9 pages, 5 figures + Appendix, The world citation and collaboration networks at both city and country level are available at http://becs.aalto.fi/~rajkp/datasets.htm

Relationships between CYP2D6 phenotype, breast cancer and hot flushes in women at high risk of breast cancer receiving prophylactic tamoxifen: results from the IBIS-I trial

Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike Licens

Individualization as driving force of clustering phenomena in humans

One of the most intriguing dynamics in biological systems is the emergence of clustering, the self-organization into separated agglomerations of individuals. Several theories have been developed to explain clustering in, for instance, multi-cellular organisms, ant colonies, bee hives, flocks of birds, schools of fish, and animal herds. A persistent puzzle, however, is clustering of opinions in human populations. The puzzle is particularly pressing if opinions vary continuously, such as the degree to which citizens are in favor of or against a vaccination program. Existing opinion formation models suggest that "monoculture" is unavoidable in the long run, unless subsets of the population are perfectly separated from each other. Yet, social diversity is a robust empirical phenomenon, although perfect separation is hardly possible in an increasingly connected world. Considering randomness did not overcome the theoretical shortcomings so far. Small perturbations of individual opinions trigger social influence cascades that inevitably lead to monoculture, while larger noise disrupts opinion clusters and results in rampant individualism without any social structure. Our solution of the puzzle builds on recent empirical research, combining the integrative tendencies of social influence with the disintegrative effects of individualization. A key element of the new computational model is an adaptive kind of noise. We conduct simulation experiments to demonstrate that with this kind of noise, a third phase besides individualism and monoculture becomes possible, characterized by the formation of metastable clusters with diversity between and consensus within clusters. When clusters are small, individualization tendencies are too weak to prohibit a fusion of clusters. When clusters grow too large, however, individualization increases in strength, which promotes their splitting.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figure

The Significance of African Lions for the Financial Viability of Trophy Hunting and the Maintenance of Wild Land

Recent studies indicate that trophy hunting is impacting negatively on some lion populations, notably in Tanzania. In 2004 there was a proposal to list lions on CITES Appendix I and in 2011 animal-welfare groups petitioned the United States government to list lions as endangered under their Endangered Species Act. Such listings would likely curtail the trophy hunting of lions by limiting the import of lion trophies. Concurrent efforts are underway to encourage the European Union to ban lion trophy imports. We assessed the significance of lions to the financial viability of trophy hunting across five countries to help determine the financial impact and advisability of the proposed trade restrictions. Lion hunts attract the highest mean prices (US$24,000–US$71,000) of all trophy species. Lions generate 5–17% of gross trophy hunting income on national levels, the proportional significance highest in Mozambique, Tanzania, and Zambia. If lion hunting was effectively precluded, trophy hunting could potentially become financially unviable across at least 59,538 km2 that could result in a concomitant loss of habitat. However, the loss of lion hunting could have other potentially broader negative impacts including reduction of competitiveness of wildlife-based land uses relative to ecologically unfavourable alternatives. Restrictions on lion hunting may also reduce tolerance for the species among communities where local people benefit from trophy hunting, and may reduce funds available for anti-poaching. If lion off-takes were reduced to recommended maximums (0.5/1000 km2), the loss of viability and reduction in profitability would be much lower than if lion hunting was stopped altogether (7,005 km2). We recommend that interventions focus on reducing off-takes to sustainable levels, implementing age-based regulations and improving governance of trophy hunting. Such measures could ensure sustainability, while retaining incentives for the conservation of lions and their habitat from hunting

The locus of legitimate interpretation in Big Data sciences : Lessons for computational social science from -omic biology and high-energy physics

This paper argues that analyses of the ways in which Big Data has been enacted in other academic disciplines can provide us with concepts that will help understand the application of Big Data to social questions. We use examples drawn from our Science and Technology Studies (STS) analyses of -omic biology and high energy physics to demonstrate the utility of three theoretical concepts: (i) primary and secondary inscriptions, (ii) crafted and found data, and (iii) the locus of legitimate interpretation. These help us to show how the histories, organisational forms, and power dynamics of a field lead to different enactments of big data. The paper suggests that these concepts can be used to help us to understand the ways in which Big Data is being enacted in the domain of the social sciences, and to outline in general terms the ways in which this enactment might be different to that which we have observed in the ‘hard’ sciences. We contend that the locus of legitimate interpretation of Big Data biology and physics is tightly delineated, found within the disciplinary institutions and cultures of these disciplines. We suggest that when using Big Data to make knowledge claims about ‘the social’ the locus of legitimate interpretation is more diffuse, with knowledge claims that are treated as being credible made from other disciplines, or even by those outside academia entirely

The Golden Meteorite Fall: Fireball Trajectory, Orbit and Meteorite Characterization

The Golden (British Columbia, Canada) meteorite fall occurred on Oct 4, 2021 at 0534 UT with the first recovered fragment (1.3 kg) landing on an occupied bed. The meteorite is an unbrecciated, low-shock (S2) ordinary chondrite of intermediate composition, typed as an L/LL5. From noble gas measurements the cosmic ray exposure age is 25 Ma while gas retention ages are all >2 Ga. Short-lived radionuclides and noble gas measurements of the pre-atmospheric size overlap with estimates from infrasound and lightcurve modelling producing a preferred pre-atmospheric mass of 70-200 kg. The orbit of Golden has a high inclination (23.5 degs) and is consistent with delivery from the inner main belt. The highest probability (60%) of an origin is from the Hungaria group. We propose that Golden may originate among the background S-type asteroids found interspersed in the Hungaria region. The current collection of 18 L and LL chondrite orbits shows a strong preference for origins in the inner main belt, suggesting multiple parent bodies may be required to explain the diversity in CRE ages and shock states.Comment: 92 Pages, 20 Tables, 21 Figures, plus 3 appendices, accepted in Meteoritics and Planetary Science Oct 26 202

Computational Cancer Biology: An Evolutionary Perspective

ISSN:1553-734XISSN:1553-735