Do academic laboratories correspond to scientific communities? Evidence from a large European university.

Although acknowledged as central in the economic literature, the issue of intra academic collaboration has been, insofar, relatively overlooked. This paper fills this gap by stressing the importance of communities in academic research. By analysing the publication behavior of researchers from a large European scientific university, we argue that in certain cases, the community level constitutes a relevant level for analysing the collaborative nature of scientific investigation. Indeed, the reality of research collaborations doesn’t always fit the institutional division of academic work provided by laboratories.Economics of Science, Knowledge Intensive Communities, Academic Collaborations, Social Network Analysis.

Isotopic ecology of coyotes from scat and road kill carcasses: A complementary approach to feeding experiments.

Scat is frequently used to study animal diets because it is easy to find and collect, but one concern is that gross fecal analysis (GFA) techniques exaggerate the importance of small-bodied prey to mammalian mesopredator diets. To capitalize on the benefits of scat, we suggest the analysis of scat carbon and nitrogen isotope values (δ13C and δ15N). This technique offers researchers a non-invasive method to gather short-term dietary information. We conducted three interrelated studies to validate the use of isotopic values from coyote scat: 1) we determined tissue-to-tissue apparent C and N isotope enrichment factors (ε13* and ε15*) for coyotes from road kill animals (n = 4); 2) we derived diet-to-scat isotope discrimination factors for coyotes; and 3) we used field collected coyote scats (n = 12) to compare estimates of coyote dietary proportions from stable isotope mixing models with estimates from two GFA techniques. Scat consistently had the lowest δ13C and δ15N values among the tissues sampled. We derived a diet-to-scat Δ13C value of -1.5‰ ± 1.6‰ and Δ15N value of 2.3‰ ± 1.3‰ for coyotes. Coyote scat δ13C and δ15N values adjusted for discrimination consistently plot within the isotopic mixing space created by known dietary items. In comparison with GFA results, we found that mixing model estimates of coyote dietary proportions de-emphasize the importance of small-bodied prey. Coyote scat δ13C and δ15N values therefore offer a relatively quick and non-invasive way to gain accurate dietary information

Growing up in rural Scotland

Sweep 1 of GUS provides some evidence that children in rural areas may be more likely to live in favourable socio-economic circumstances than their urban counterparts. This is associated with greater exposure to positive parental behaviours, such as breastfeeding, among rural babies. However, in many other respects the early experiences of children in urban and rural areas in terms of service use, health problems and contact with significant others are not very different. Moreover, other evidence suggests that families in rural areas may be relatively disadvantaged in respect of easy access to ante-natal classes and having grandparents living nearby, for example

Lifetime Adherence to Physical Activity Recommendations and Fall Occurrence in Community-dwelling Older Adults: a Retrospective Cohort Study

Falling is a major health concern for community-dwelling older adults. Regular physical activity has been proposed to prevent falls. The aim of this study was to assess whether the achievement of the 2004 UK Department of Health physical activity recommendations over a lifetime had a protective effect against falling in older people. 313 community-dwelling older adults completed a questionnaire about lifetime physical activity and fall occurrence. There were significantly fewer falls in those who had led an active lifestyle compared to those who had not (χ2Yates=4.568, p=0.033), with a lower relative risk of fall occurrence for the active respondents (RR=0.671) compared to the inactive (RR=1.210). Of those who were sufficiently active in their early adulthood, the decade where there was the biggest decrease in remaining active enough was in the 60s. It is concluded that an active lifestyle may have decreased the likelihood of having a fall in older ag

Multi-object spectroscopy of the field surrounding PKS 2126-158: Discovery of a z=0.66 galaxy group

The high-redshift radio-loud quasar PKS 2126-158 is found to have a large number of red galaxies in close apparent proximity. We use the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph (GMOS) on Gemini South to obtain optical spectra for a large fraction of these sources. We show that there is a group of galaxies at $z\sim0.66$, coincident with a metal-line absorption system seen in the quasar's optical spectrum. The multiplexing capabilities of GMOS also allow us to measure redshifts of many foreground galaxies in the field surrounding the quasar. The galaxy group has five confirmed members, and a further four fainter galaxies are possibly associated. All confirmed members exhibit early-type galaxy spectra, a rare situation for a Mg II absorbing system. We discuss the relationship of this group to the absorbing gas, and the possibility of gravitational lensing of the quasar due to the intervening galaxies.Comment: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, in press. 10 pages, 8 figure

Host Galaxy Contribution to the Colours of `Red' Quasars

We describe an algorithm that measures self-consistently the relative galaxy contribution in a sample of radio-quasars from their optical spectra alone. This is based on a spectral fitting method which uses the size of the characteristic 4000\AA~ feature of elliptical galaxy SEDs. We apply this method to the Parkes Half-Jansky Flat Spectrum sample of Drinkwater et al. (1997) to determine whether emission from the host galaxy can significantly contribute to the very red optical-to-near-infrared colours observed. We find that at around $2\sigma$ confidence, most of the reddening in unresolved (mostly quasar-like) sources is unlikely to be due to contamination by a red stellar component.Comment: 11 pages, 11 figures. Accepted for Publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Societ