The Earliest Foreign Visitors and Their Massive Depopulation of Rapa-iti from 1824 to 1830

The first foreign visitors to Rapa-iti introduced new technologies and new ideas, but they also introduced foreign diseases and alcohol. Within the six years from 1824 to 1830, over three quarters of the population died. The extinction of the remainder was only narrowly averted. Nevertheless sufficient of the Rapa-iti language survived to indicate that it was unlike the languages of the Austral Islands and Tahiti.Les premiers étrangers venus à Rapa-iti ont introduit des idées et des technologies nouvelles, mais aussi des maladies inconnues jusque-là et l’alcool. Dans les six années entre 1824 et 1830, plus des trois quarts de la population décèdent. L’extinction de ceux restant fut évitée de justesse. Quoi qu’il en soit, la langue de Rapa-iti survit suffisamment pour indiquer qu’elle n’était pas identique aux langues des Australes et de Tahiti

The Pirates At Tahiti in 1822: Two Unpublished Letters by Samuel Henry

In June 1822 at Tubuai, a tiny 40 ton brig captured a 300 ton brig of war armed with twenty cannons. The captured brig was formerly part of Lord Cochrane’s squadron of patriots fighting the Spanish for the independence of Chile and Peru (see illustration). The losing captain, Henry Good, was long experienced in war before he turned to piracy. The victorious captain, Samuel Henry, was only 22 years old, totally inexperienced in war, and the son of Rev. William Henry, an Irish lms missionary at..

Mā’ohi Travellers before 1825 and new insights from shipping lists

A recent list of all the ships that arrived at Tahiti and the Society Islands up to 1862 might well seem an unlikely place to look for drama and romance. Yet its preparation has shown that hundreds of Mā’ohi (Tahitian) people chose to travel far from home before 1825 (Richards and Langdon, 2008.). Unfortunately this list of foreign vessels reads rather like a telephone book: all names but no plot! Another limitation is that such a list tends to perpetuate non-indigenous, colonial, perspective..

The Pirates At Tahiti in 1822: Two Unpublished Letters by Samuel Henry

In June 1822 at Tubuai, a tiny 40 ton brig captured a 300 ton brig of war armed with twenty cannons. The captured brig was formerly part of Lord Cochrane’s squadron of patriots fighting the Spanish for the independence of Chile and Peru (see illustration). The losing captain, Henry Good, was long experienced in war before he turned to piracy. The victorious captain, Samuel Henry, was only 22 years old, totally inexperienced in war, and the son of Rev. William Henry, an Irish lms missionary at..

Variation in electrosurgical vessel seal quality along the length of a porcine carotid artery

Electrosurgical vessel sealing has been demonstrated to have benefits for both patients and practitioners, but significant variation in the strength of the seal continues to be a concern. This study aims to examine the variation in electrosurgical seal quality along the length of a porcine common carotid artery and explore the relationships between seal quality, vessel size and morphology. Additionally, the study aimed to investigate the minimum safety threshold for successful seals and the influence of vessel characteristics on meeting this requirement. A total of 35 porcine carotid arteries were sealed using the PlasmaKinetic Open Seal device (Gyrus). Each seal was burst pressure tested and a sample taken for staining with elastin van Gieson’s stain, with morphological quantification using image processing software ImageJ. With increasing distance from the bifurcation, there was an increase in seal strength and a reduction in both elastin content and vessel outer diameter. A significant correlation was found between burst pressure with both outer diameter (p 360mmHg) irrespective of vessel morphology

Electrochemical Quantification of D-Glucose during the Production of Bioethanol from Thermo-Mechanically Pre-treated Wheat Straw

Mechanical pre-treatment (disc refining) of wheat straw, at both atmospheric and elevated pressure, is shown to be an efficient process to access fermentable monosaccharides, with the potential to integrate within the infrastructure of existing first-generation bioethanol plants. The mild, enzymatic degradation of this sustainable lignocellulosic biomass affords ca. 0.10-0.13 g/g (dry weight) of D-glucose quantifiable voltammetrically in real time, over a two hundred-fold range in experimental laboratory scales (25 mL to 5.0 L), with pressure disc refining of the wheat straw enabling almost twice the amount of D-glucose to be generated during the hydrolysis stage than experiments using atmospheric refining (0.06 – 0.09 g/g dry weight). Fermentation of the resulting hydrolysate affords 0.08 – 0.10 g/g (dry weight) of ethanol over similar scales, with ethanol productivity at ca. 37 mg/(L h). These results demonstrate that minimal cellulose decomposition occurs during pressure refining of wheat straw, in contrast to hemicellulose, and suggest that the development of green, mechanochemical processes for the scalable and cost-effective manufacture of second-generation bioethanol requires improved cellulose decomposition

Profiles of autism characteristics in thirteen genetic syndromes : a machine learning approach

Background: Phenotypic studies have identified distinct patterns of autistic characteristics in genetic syndromes associated with intellectual disability (ID), leading to diagnostic uncertainty and compromised access to autism-related support. Previous research has tended to include small samples and diverse measures, which limits the generalisability of findings. In this study, we generated detailed profiles of autistic characteristics in a large sample of > 1500 individuals with rare genetic syndromes. Methods: Profiles of autistic characteristics based on the Social Communication Questionnaire (SCQ) scores were generated for thirteen genetic syndrome groups (Angelman n = 154, Cri du Chat n = 75, Cornelia de Lange n = 199, fragile X n = 297, Prader–Willi n = 278, Lowe n = 89, Smith–Magenis n = 54, Down n = 135, Sotos n = 40, Rubinstein–Taybi n = 102, 1p36 deletion n = 41, tuberous sclerosis complex n = 83 and Phelan–McDermid n = 35 syndromes). It was hypothesised that each syndrome group would evidence a degree of specificity in autistic characteristics. To test this hypothesis, a classification algorithm via support vector machine (SVM) learning was applied to scores from over 1500 individuals diagnosed with one of the thirteen genetic syndromes and autistic individuals who did not have a known genetic syndrome (ASD; n = 254). Self-help skills were included as an additional predictor. Results: Genetic syndromes were associated with different but overlapping autism-related profiles, indicated by the substantial accuracy of the entire, multiclass SVM model (55% correctly classified individuals). Syndrome groups such as Angelman, fragile X, Prader–Willi, Rubinstein–Taybi and Cornelia de Lange showed greater phenotypic specificity than groups such as Cri du Chat, Lowe, Smith–Magenis, tuberous sclerosis complex, Sotos and Phelan-McDermid. The inclusion of the ASD reference group and self-help skills did not change the model accuracy. Limitations: The key limitations of our study include a cross-sectional design, reliance on a screening tool which focuses primarily on social communication skills and imbalanced sample size across syndrome groups. Conclusions: These findings replicate and extend previous work, demonstrating syndrome-specific profiles of autistic characteristics in people with genetic syndromes compared to autistic individuals without a genetic syndrome. This work calls for greater precision of assessment of autistic characteristics in individuals with genetic syndromes associated with ID

The penetrance of copy number variations for schizophrenia and developmental delay

Background: Several recurrent copy number variants (CNVs) have been shown to increase the risk of developing schizophrenia (SCZ), developmental delay (DD), autism spectrum disorders (ASD), and various congenital malformations (CM). Their penetrance for SCZ has been estimated to be modest. However, comparisons between their penetrance for SCZ or DD/ASD/CM, or estimates of the total penetrance for any of these disorders have not yet been made. Methods: We use data from the largest available studies on SCZ and DD/ASD/CM, including a new sample of 6882 cases and 6316 controls, to estimate the frequencies of 70 implicated CNVs in carriers with these disorders, healthy control subjects, and the general population. On the basis of these frequencies, we estimate their penetrance. We also estimate the strength of the selection pressure against CNVs and correlate this against their overall penetrance. Results: The rates of nearly all CNVs are higher in DD/ASD/CM compared with SCZ. The penetrance of CNVs is at least several times higher for the development of a disorder from the group of DD/ASD/CM. The overall penetrance of SCZ-associated CNVs for developing any disorder is high, ranging between 10.6% and 100%. Conclusions: CNVs associated with SCZ have high pathogenicity. The majority of the increased risk conferred by CNVs is toward the development of an earlier-onset disorder, such as DD/ASD/CM, rather than SCZ. The penetrance of CNVs correlates strongly with their selection coefficients. The improved estimates of penetrance will provide crucial information for genetic counselling