Aboveground Net Primary Productivity in Grazed and Ungrazed pastures: Grazing Optimisation Hypothesis or Local Extinction of Vegetation Species

The controversy that has surrounded herbivory studies in the last few decades prompted our investigation to establish the extent to which herbivore optimisation hypothesis or compensatory growth evidence is real. We used the traditional movable cage method to collect primary productivity data on herbage, functional groups and key individual grass species in various controlled large herbivore treatments in an east African savanna. The herbivore treatments in triplicate blocks included cattle, wild herbivores with and without mega herbivores and combinations of cattle and wild herbivores also with and without mega herbivores. The findings revealed that at herbage level, most grazed treatments (four out of five) had higher productivity than the ungrazed control and three showed grazing optimisation curve at sixth polynomial degree between monthly productivity and grazing intensity (1-g/ng). At functional group level forbs productivity was higher in the ungrazed control than in any of the grazed treatments while at individual grass species level _Themeda triandra_ productivity was higher in all grazed treatments than in ungrazed control. We conclude against presence of herbivore optimisation hypothesis at herbage, functional group and species level because of lack of attributable grazing effect in grazed treatments that matches complex ecological effects in the ungrazed treatment

The Predictive Validity of Traditional Admission Criteria for African-American Student-Athletes: An Analysis From One Predominantly White University

A linear regression analysis of data collected at one predominantly white institution found little correlation between admission test scores and college grade point averages for African-American student-athletes

What children know about the source of their knowledge without reporting it as the source

We argue that, amongst 3- to 5- year-olds, failure to report the source of knowledge recently acquired in answer to “How do you know…?” is due to a specific failure to make a causal inference, in line with source monitoring theory but not fuzzy trace theory. In three Experiments, children (N = 37; 30; 59) identified a hidden toy by seeing, feeling, or by being told, having had two modes of access on each trial, one informative (e.g. seeing a toy identified by colour) and the other uninformative (e.g. being told the toy’s colour by the Experimenter who had only felt it). Children who answered the know question wrongly nevertheless reported accurately who saw and who felt the toy, and what the well-informed player had said. They also realised when the Experimenter’s uninformative access implied their own knowledge was unreliable, suggesting precocious working understanding of knowledge sources

Mass spectrometry captures off-target drug binding and provides mechanistic insights into the human metalloprotease ZMPSTE24.

Off-target binding of hydrophobic drugs can lead to unwanted side effects, either through specific or non-specific binding to unintended membrane protein targets. However, distinguishing the binding of drugs to membrane proteins from that of detergents, lipids and cofactors is challenging. Here, we use high-resolution mass spectrometry to study the effects of HIV protease inhibitors on the human zinc metalloprotease ZMPSTE24. This intramembrane protease plays a major role in converting prelamin A to mature lamin A. We monitored the proteolysis of farnesylated prelamin A peptide by ZMPSTE24 and unexpectedly found retention of the C-terminal peptide product with the enzyme. We also resolved binding of zinc, lipids and HIV protease inhibitors and showed that drug binding blocked prelamin A peptide cleavage and conferred stability to ZMPSTE24. Our results not only have relevance for the progeria-like side effects of certain HIV protease inhibitor drugs, but also highlight new approaches for documenting off-target drug binding

The noise radiated by marine piling for the construction of offshore wind farms

The most commonly used method for the installation of offshore wind turbine foundations in the shallow coastal waters in the UK is pile driving. The construction technique consists of large steel piles being driven up to around 30 m into the seabed using powerful hydraulic hammers, in water depths up to around 25 to 30 m. It is a source of high-amplitude impulsive sound and has the potential for impact on marine life. Methodologies developed for the measurement of underwater sound radiated from marine piling, for the estimation of source level are described in this paper. Data are presented for piles of 5.2 m in diameter driven by hammers with typical strike energies of up to 1350 kJ. Data were recorded as a function of range from the source using vessel-deployed hydrophones, with the data then used to estimate the energy source level. In addition, fixed acoustic buoys were used to record the entire piling sequence, including soft-start period. The dependencies of the radiated noise on the physical parameters of the piling operation are discussed, along with limitations and knowledge gaps

Effectiveness of exclusion zones and soft-starts as mitigation strategies for minimizing acoustic impact from underwater noise sources

Several recent studies have suggested that cumulative Sound Exposure Level (SEL) is an important metric for assessment of the impact of exposure to anthropogenic sound sources by various marine receptors including marine mammals and fish. This metric allows the cumulative exposure of an animal to a sound field for an extended period to be assessed against a predefined impact criteria. Two widely used mitigation strategies used by both industrial and military users to reduce potential impact on marine receptors are exclusions zones (zones from source where received levels exceed a certain threshold), a source is either not started or stopped if receptors are detected within this zone and ‘soft-starts’ or ‘ramp-ups’ (lower energy levels at the commencement of a noise source allowing a receptor to move out of the area). This paper discusses the relative effectiveness of these methodologies in terms of a cumulative exposure impact criteria. Cumulative exposure examples are given including typical marine piling operations for wind-farm construction and sub-surface piling operations for various receptor models, including, static, fleeing and transiting animals

What factors underlie children's susceptibility to semantic and phonological false memories? Investigating the roles of language skills and auditory short-term memory

Two experiments investigated the cognitive skills that underlie children's susceptibility to semantic and phonological false memories in the Deese/Roediger-McDermott procedure (Deese, 1959; Roediger & McDermott, 1995). In Experiment 1, performance on the Verbal Similarities subtest of the British Ability Scales (BAS) II (Elliott, Smith, & McCulloch, 1997) predicted correct and false recall of semantic lures. In Experiment 2, performance on the Yopp-Singer Test of Phonemic Segmentation (Yopp, 1988) did not predict correct recall, but inversely predicted the false recall of phonological lures. Auditory short-term memory was a negative predictor of false recall in Experiment 1, but not in Experiment 2. The findings are discussed in terms of the formation of gist and verbatim traces as proposed by fuzzy trace theory (Reyna & Brainerd, 1998) and the increasing automaticity of associations as proposed by associative activation theory (Howe, Wimmer, Gagnon, & Plumpton, 2009). © 2014 Elsevier B.V

The measurement of the underwater radiated noise from a marine piling operation

Assessment of the underwater acoustic radiated noise during a marine piling operation was carried out in UK coastal waters in April 2006. A 2 m diameter, 65 m long test pile was driven into a "hard chalk‟ sediment. The pile was placed in an area of average water depth of 10-15 m approximately 3 km offshore