East-West Genetic Differentiation in Musk Ducks (Biziura lobata) of Australia Suggests Late Pleistocene Divergence at the Nullarbor Plain

Musk Ducks (Biziura lobata) are endemic to Australia and occur as two geographically isolated populations separated by the Nullarbor Plain, a vast arid region in southern Australia. We studied genetic variation in Musk Duck populations at coarse (eastern versus western Australia) and fine scales (four sites within eastern Australia). We found significant genetic structure between eastern and western Australia in the mtDNA control region (UST = 0.747), one nuclear intron (UST = 0.193) and eight microsatellite loci (FST = 0.035). In contrast, there was little genetic structure between Kangaroo Island and adjacent mainland regions within eastern Australia. One small population of Musk Ducks in Victoria (Lake Wendouree) differed from both Kangaroo Island and the remainder of mainland eastern Australia, possibly due to genetic drift exacerbated by inbreeding and small population size. The observed low pairwise distance between the eastern and western mtDNA lineages (0.36%) suggests that they diverged near the end of the Pleistocene, a period characterised by frequent shifts between wet and arid conditions in central Australia. Our genetic results corroborate the display call divergence and Mathews’ (Austral Avian Record 2:83–107, 1914) subspecies classification, and confirm that eastern and western populations of Musk Duck are currently isolated from each other

Identification tools as part of Feedsafety research: the case of ragwort

Ragwort (Senecio jacobaea) and related species of the genus Senecio are the main source of pyrrolizidine alkaloids. These plants grow in road verges, meadows and production fields and they show up in parties of roughage: grass and alfalfa. Monitoring can be carried out during the field production and harvesting stages. The final objective is to reject parties with a too high contamination level. Identification tools can support the decision to accept or refuse materials for the food production chain. A ragwort model has been developed for the mobile application Determinator. This identification model includes the relevant objects (species of the genus Senecio), and a range of so called confusing objects in order to minimise the chance of false positive identifications

Report on the 2012 Proficiency Test on pyrrolizidine alkaloids in honey and hay

The purpose of this proficiency test was to investigate the current measurement capacities of testing laboratories for pyrrolizidine alkaloids in honey and plant materials. The scheme consisted of two parts: Benchmarking performance of laboratories against known estimates of pyrrolizidine alkaloids in the samples and checking for methodological differences while measuring naturally contaminated materials. Twenty-eight laboratories expressed their will to participate and analysed multiple analytes in several test samples of honey and plant material. The analysis of spiked honey showed no statistical differences between determining a common sum parameter for alkaloids and individual determination. A significant difference has been found however for of naturally contaminated materials. Individual alkaloid determination showed significantly lower results, possibly because of the presence of substances contributing to the sum parameter that were not in the scopes of the methods applied as well as lack of standard materials available on the market. Satisfactory performance for all of analytes has been achieved by more than half of participants analysing for both: sum parameter, and alkaloids analysed individually.JRC.D.5-Standards for Food Bioscienc

Integrated Collaborative Tools

Previous reports in this series have featured examples of integrated products that combine into a single software package, techniques offered individually by other products. Increasing acceptance of online collaboration is generating interest in such tools on the part of product developers and users. The distance education (DE) market is now awash with integrated products involving methods ranging from the relatively standard text-based conferencing to synchronous and asynchronous audio and video conferencing techniques. Integrated products typically add a range of ancillary tools to these main features (e.g., whiteboards, polling methods, file sharing and email capability). When choosing an appropriate product for DE usage it is important to discern which of the multitude of features are essential in different situations. The current study examines five contrasting integrated products from the DE user’s perspective

Accelerating Point Cloud Cleaning

A laser scanning campaign to capture the geometry of a large heritage site can produce thousands of high resolution range scans. These must be cleaned to remove noise and artefacts. To accelerate the cleaning task, we can i) reduce the time required for batch-processing tasks, ii) reduce user interaction time, or iii) replace interactive tasks with more efficient automated algorithms. We present a point cloud cleaning framework that attempts to improve each of these aspects. First, we present a novel system architecture targeted point cloud segmentation. This architecture represents ‘layers’ of related points in a way that greatly reduces memory consumption and provides efficient set operations between layers. These set operations (union, difference, intersection) allow the creation of new layers which aid in the segmentation task. Next, we introduce roll-corrected 3D camera navigation that allows a user to look around freely while reducing disorientation. A user study showed that this camera mode significantly reduces a user´s navigation time between locations in a large point cloud thus accelerating point selection operations. Finally, we show how boosted random forests can be trained interactively, per scan, to assist users in a point cleaning task. To achieve interactivity, we sub-sample the training data on the fly and use efficient features adapted to the properties of range scans. Training and classification required 8-9s for point clouds up to 11 million points. Tests showed that a simple user-selected seed allowed walls to be recovered from tree and bush overgrowth with up to 92% accuracy (f-score). A preliminary user study showed that overall task time performance was improved. The study could however not confirm this result as statistically significant with 19 users. These results are, however, promising and suggest that even larger performance improvements are likely with more sophisticated features or the use of colour range images, which are now commonplace

Variation at the DRD4 locus is associated with wariness and local site selection in urban black swans

BACKGROUND: Interactions between wildlife and humans are increasing. Urban animals are often less wary of humans than their non-urban counterparts, which could be explained by habituation, adaptation or local site selection. Under local site selection, individuals that are less tolerant of humans are less likely to settle in urban areas. However, there is little evidence for such temperament-based site selection, and even less is known about its underlying genetic basis. We tested whether site selection in urban and non-urban habitats by black swans (Cygnus atratus) was associated with polymorphisms in two genes linked to fear in animals, the dopamine receptor D4 (DRD4) and serotonin transporter (SERT) genes. RESULTS: Wariness in swans was highly repeatable between disturbance events (repeatability = 0.61) and non-urban swans initiated escape from humans earlier than urban swans. We found no inter-individual variation in the SERT gene, but identified five DRD4 genotypes and an association between DRD4 genotype and wariness. Individuals possessing the most common DRD4 genotype were less wary than individuals possessing rarer genotypes. As predicted by the local site selection hypothesis, genotypes associated with wary behaviour were over three times more frequent at the non-urban site. This resulted in moderate population differentiation at DRD4 (FST = 0.080), despite the sites being separated by only 30 km, a short distance for this highly-mobile species. Low population differentiation at neutrally-selected microsatellite loci and the likely occasional migration of swans between the populations reduces the likelihood of local site adaptations. CONCLUSION: Our results suggest that wariness in swans is partly genetically-determined and that wary swans settle in less-disturbed areas. More generally, our findings suggest that site-specific management strategies may be necessary that consider the temperament of local animals

The Effects of Technological Developments on Work and Their Implications for Continuous Vocational Education and Training: A Systematic Review

Technology is changing the way organizations and their employees need to accomplish their work. Empirical evidence on this topic is scarce. The aim of this study is to provide an overview of the effects of technological developments on work characteristics and to derive the implications for work demands and continuous vocational education and training (CVET). The following research questions are answered: What are the effects of new technologies on work characteristics? What are the implications thereof for continuous vocational education and training? Technologies, defined as digital, electrical or mechanical tools that affect the accomplishment of work tasks, are considered in various disciplines, such as sociology or psychology. A theoretical framework based on theories from these disciplines (e.g., upskilling, task-based approach) was developed and statements on the relationships between technology and work characteristics, such as complexity, autonomy, or meaningfulness, were derived. A systematic literature review was conducted by searching databases from the fields of psychology, sociology, economics and educational science. Twenty-one studies met the inclusion criteria. Empirical evidence was extracted and its implications for work demands and CVET were derived by using a model that illustrates the components of learning environments. Evidence indicates an increase in complexity and mental work, especially while working with automated systems and robots. Manual work is reported to decrease on many occasions. Workload and workflow interruptions increase simultaneously with autonomy, especially with regard to digital communication devices. Role expectations and opportunities for development depend on how the profession and the technology relate to each other, especially when working with automated systems. The implications for the work demands necessary to deal with changes in work characteristics include knowledge about technology, openness toward change and technology, skills for self- and time management and for further professional and career development. Implications for the design of formal learning environments (i.e., the content, method, assessment, and guidance) include that the work demands mentioned must be part of the content of the trainings, the teachers/trainers must be equipped to promote those work demands, and that instruction models used for the learning environments must be flexible in their application

Solution Space-Based Complexity Analysis of ATC Aircraft Merging Tasks

Air traffic controller workload is considered to be a limiting factor in the growth of air traffic. In this paper a new method of assessing controller task demand load will be developed and tested. Based on the hypothesis that workload is primarily caused by the complexity of the task to be conducted, the concept of the “solution space” is described. For any particular air traffic control problem, the solution space describes the constraints in the environment that limit (and therefore, guide) air traffic controller decisions and actions. The complexity of that particular control problem can then be analyzed by considering the properties of the solution space. The task of merging an aircraft into a stream of other aircraft that fly along a fixed route is considered. An experiment has been conducted in which subjects were instructed to solve merging problem scenarios of varying complexity. After completing each scenario, subjects were asked to rate the task complexity. High correlations are found between several solution space properties and reported complexity

Variation at the DRD4 locus is associated with wariness and local site selection in urban black swans

 BACKGROUND: Interactions between wildlife and humans are increasing. Urban animals are often less wary of humans than their non-urban counterparts, which could be explained by habituation, adaptation or local site selection. Under local site selection, individuals that are less tolerant of humans are less likely to settle in urban areas. However, there is little evidence for such temperament-based site selection, and even less is known about its underlying genetic basis. We tested whether site selection in urban and non-urban habitats by black swans (Cygnus atratus) was associated with polymorphisms in two genes linked to fear in animals, the dopamine receptor D4 (DRD4) and serotonin transporter (SERT) genes. RESULTS: Wariness in swans was highly repeatable between disturbance events (repeatability = 0.61) and non-urban swans initiated escape from humans earlier than urban swans. We found no inter-individual variation in the SERT gene, but identified five DRD4 genotypes and an association between DRD4 genotype and wariness. Individuals possessing the most common DRD4 genotype were less wary than individuals possessing rarer genotypes. As predicted by the local site selection hypothesis, genotypes associated with wary behaviour were over three times more frequent at the non-urban site. This resulted in moderate population differentiation at DRD4 (FST = 0.080), despite the sites being separated by only 30 km, a short distance for this highly-mobile species. Low population differentiation at neutrally-selected microsatellite loci and the likely occasional migration of swans between the populations reduces the likelihood of local site adaptations. CONCLUSION: Our results suggest that wariness in swans is partly genetically-determined and that wary swans settle in less-disturbed areas. More generally, our findings suggest that site-specific management strategies may be necessary that consider the temperament of local animals