The Structure of the Littoral Invertebrate Communities of the Kosciuszko Region Lakes

The littoral macroinvertebrate assemblages of Lakes Albina, Blue, Club andCootapatamba in the Mt. Kosciuszko region were sampled by two methods: sweeps and cobble picks. Thirty-six species were collected with total abundance and species richness greatest in Lake Albina. Common species included themolluscs Pisidium kosciusko and Glacidorbis hedleyi, the crustaceans Metaphreatoicus australis and Neoniphragus n. sp., and an unidentified limnephidtrichoperan. Community structure was influenced by the nature of the substrate, with cobble sites having greater richness and abundance than boulder sites. The importance of the major taxonomic groups (crustaceans, insects and molluscs) varied with sampling method and among lakes. Crustaceans (isopods and amphipods) usually dominated in sweeps, with molluscs and insects varying in importance among lakes, while insects mostly dominated in cobble pick samples. Oligotrophic lakes are typically thought to be dominated by insects, however this study shows such lakes may appear to be dominated by insects or crustaceans depending on the sampling method used and the presence of fish

The effect of exercise on innate mucosal immunity

METHODS The authors conducted a prospective observational study comparing salivary lactoferrin and lysozyme concentration over 5 months (chronic changes) in elite rowers (n=17, mean age 24.3+/-4.0 years) with sedentary individuals (controls) (n=18, mean age=27.2+/-7.1 years) and a graded exercise test to exhaustion (acute changes) with a cohort of elite rowers (n=11, mean age 24.7+/-4.1). RESULTS Magnitudes of differences and changes were interpreted as a standardised (Cohen's) effect size (ES). Lactoferrin concentration in the observational study was approximately 60% lower in rowers than control subjects at baseline (7.9+/-1.2 microg/ml mean+/-SEM, 19.4+/-5.6 microg/ml, p=0.05, ES=0.68, 'moderate') and at the midpoint of the season (6.4+/-1.4 microg/ml mean +/- SEM, 21.5+/-4.2 microg/ml, p=0.001, ES=0.89, 'moderate'). The concentration of lactoferrin at the end of the study was not statistically significant (p=0.1) between the groups. There was no significant difference between rowers and control subjects in lysozyme concentration during the study. There was a 50% increase in the concentration of lactoferrin (p=0.05, ES=1.04, 'moderate') and a 55% increase in lysozyme (p=0.01, ES=3.0, 'very large') from pre-exercise to exhaustion in the graded exercise session. CONCLUSION Lower concentrations of these proteins may be indicative of an impairment of innate protection of the upper respiratory tract. Increased salivary lactoferrin and lysozyme concentration following exhaustive exercise may be due to a transient activation response that increases protection in the immediate postexercise period

Implementation of the global plan for insecticide resistance management in malaria vectors: progress, challenges and the way forward

In recent years, there has been an increase in resistance of malaria vectors to insecticides, particularly to pyrethroids which are widely used in insecticide-treated nets. The Global Plan for Insecticide Resistance Management in malaria vectors (GPIRM), released in May 2012, is a collective strategy for the malaria community to tackle this challenge. This review outlines progress made to date and the challenges experienced in the implementation of GPIRM, and outlines focus areas requiring urgent attention. Whilst there has been some advancement, uptake of GPIRM at the national level has generally been poor for various reasons, including limited availability of vector control tools with new mechanisms of action as well as critical financial, human and infrastructural resource deficiencies. There is an urgent need for a global response plan to address these deficits and ensure the correct and efficient use of available tools in order to maintain the effectiveness of current vector control efforts whilst novel vector control tools are under development. Emphasis must be placed on enhancing national capacities (such as human and infrastructural resources) to enable efficient monitoring and management of insecticide resistance, and to support availability and accessibility of appropriate new vector control products. Lack of action by the global community to address the threat of insecticide resistance is unacceptable and deprives affected communities of their basic right of universal access to effective malaria prevention. Aligning efforts and assigning the needed resources will ensure the optimal implementation of GPIRM with the ultimate goal of maintaining effective malaria vector control

Anisotropic generalization of Stinchcombe's solution for conductivity of random resistor network on a Bethe lattice

Our study is based on the work of Stinchcombe [1974 \emph{J. Phys. C} \textbf{7} 179] and is devoted to the calculations of average conductivity of random resistor networks placed on an anisotropic Bethe lattice. The structure of the Bethe lattice is assumed to represent the normal directions of the regular lattice. We calculate the anisotropic conductivity as an expansion in powers of inverse coordination number of the Bethe lattice. The expansion terms retained deliver an accurate approximation of the conductivity at resistor concentrations above the percolation threshold. We make a comparison of our analytical results with those of Bernasconi [1974 \emph{Phys. Rev. B} \textbf{9} 4575] for the regular lattice.Comment: 14 pages, 2 figure

Elastic moduli of sea ice and lake ice calculated from in-situ and laboratory experiments

The effective elastic modulus of ice is an important physical parameter for the calculation of ice stresses in different situations when ice deformations are small. In the present paper the review of methods used for the calculation of the elastic modulus of ice is performed, new tests for the calculation of the elastic modulus are described, and their results are discussed. Field experiments with floating vibrating ice beams with fixed ends were performed in March and November 2019 on sea ice of the Van Mijen Fjord and fresh-water ice of a lake near Longyearbyen. Laboratory experiments with vibrating cantilever beams were performed in the cold laboratory of UNIS in November 2019. The results are compared with the values of the effective elastic modulus obtained in quasi-static tests with floating cantilever beams, and with in-situ dynamic tests where the effective elastic modulus was measured by the speed of sound waves

Implementing the Five-A Model of technical refinement: Key roles of the sport psychologist

There is increasing evidence for the significant contribution provided by sport psychologists within applied coaching environments. However, this rarely considers their skills/knowledge being applied when refining athletes’ already learned and well-established motor skills. Therefore, this paper focuses on how a sport psychologist might assist a coach and athlete to implement long-term permanent and pressure proof refinements. It highlights key contributions at each stage of the Five-A Model—designed to deliver these important outcomes—providing both psychomotor and psychosocial input to the support delivery. By employing these recommendations, sport psychologists can make multiple positive contributions to completion of this challenging task

Solar neutrino detection in a large volume double-phase liquid argon experiment

Precision measurements of solar neutrinos emitted by specific nuclear reaction chains in the Sun are of great interest for developing an improved understanding of star formation and evolution. Given the expected neutrino fluxes and known detection reactions, such measurements require detectors capable of collecting neutrino-electron scattering data in exposures on the order of 1 ktonne yr, with good energy resolution and extremely low background. Two-phase liquid argon time projection chambers (LAr TPCs) are under development for direct Dark Matter WIMP searches, which possess very large sensitive mass, high scintillation light yield, good energy resolution, and good spatial resolution in all three cartesian directions. While enabling Dark Matter searches with sensitivity extending to the "neutrino floor" (given by the rate of nuclear recoil events from solar neutrino coherent scattering), such detectors could also enable precision measurements of solar neutrino fluxes using the neutrino-electron elastic scattering events. Modeling results are presented for the cosmogenic and radiogenic backgrounds affecting solar neutrino detection in a 300 tonne (100 tonne fiducial) LAr TPC operating at LNGS depth (3,800 meters of water equivalent). The results show that such a detector could measure the CNO neutrino rate with ~15% precision, and significantly improve the precision of the 7Be and pep neutrino rates compared to the currently available results from the Borexino organic liquid scintillator detector.Comment: 21 pages, 7 figures, 6 table

Amplified biochemical oscillations in cellular systems

We describe a mechanism for pronounced biochemical oscillations, relevant to microscopic systems, such as the intracellular environment. This mechanism operates for reaction schemes which, when modeled using deterministic rate equations, fail to exhibit oscillations for any values of rate constants. The mechanism relies on amplification of the underlying stochasticity of reaction kinetics within a narrow window of frequencies. This amplification allows fluctuations to beat the central limit theorem, having a dominant effect even though the number of molecules in the system is relatively large. The mechanism is quantitatively studied within simple models of self-regulatory gene expression, and glycolytic oscillations.Comment: 35 pages, 6 figure

Computational framework for longevity risk management

Longevity risk threatens the financial stability of private and government sponsored defined benefit pension systems as well as social security schemes, in an environment already characterized by persistent low interest rates and heightened financial uncertainty. The mortality experience of countries in the industrialized world would suggest a substantial age-time interaction, with the two dominant trends affecting different age groups at different times. From a statistical point of view, this indicates a dependence structure. It is observed that mortality improvements are similar for individuals of contiguous ages (Wills and Sherris, Integrating financial and demographic longevity risk models: an Australian model for financial applications, Discussion Paper PI-0817, 2008). Moreover, considering the dataset by single ages, the correlations between the residuals for adjacent age groups tend to be high (as noted in Denton et al., J Population Econ 18:203-227, 2005). This suggests that there is value in exploring the dependence structure, also across time, in other words the inter-period correlation. In this research, we focus on the projections of mortality rates, contravening the most commonly encountered dependence property which is the "lack of dependence" (Denuit et al., Actuarial theory for dependent risks: measures. Orders and models, Wiley, New York, 2005). By taking into account the presence of dependence across age and time which leads to systematic over-estimation or under-estimation of uncertainty in the estimates (Liu and Braun, J Probability Stat, 813583:15, 2010), the paper analyzes a tailor-made bootstrap methodology for capturing the spatial dependence in deriving confidence intervals for mortality projection rates. We propose a method which leads to a prudent measure of longevity risk, avoiding the structural incompleteness of the ordinary simulation bootstrap methodology which involves the assumption of independence

Malignancy risk for solitary and multiple nodules in Hürthle cell–predominant thyroid fine‐needle aspirations: A multi‐institutional study

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/153015/1/cncy22213.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/153015/2/cncy22213_am.pd