437 research outputs found
The Study of Ancient and Medieval Military History: Benefits for professional military education
There is broad agreement that the study of military history is an essential component of professional education for military officers. Although many successful modern commanders, including Napoleon and MacArthur, advocated extending their reading back to ancient times, Clausewitz wrote: âThe further back one goes, the less useful mil- itary history becomes.â This essay argues, to the contrary, that officers have much to gain by including pre-modern warfare in their studies. A larger and more diverse data-set of examples and case studies allows for more reliable generalization, gives more opportunities for inspiration, and helps guard against the tempting but unwise assumptions that the next war will be similar to the last one, and the equally tempting and equally unwise presumption that material strength alone will ensure vic- tory. Moreover, historians of ancient and medieval warfare, like officers exercising their core professional responsibility in combat, must grapple with scanty and conflicting evidence. Pre-modern history, like war, is a realm of uncertainty; many of the âfactsâ can only be known as proba- bilities. The best preparation for seeing through the fog of war, therefore, may be the exercise of peering through the mists of time
Stochastic oscillations of adaptive networks: application to epidemic modelling
Adaptive-network models are typically studied using deterministic
differential equations which approximately describe their dynamics. In
simulations, however, the discrete nature of the network gives rise to
intrinsic noise which can radically alter the system's behaviour. In this
article we develop a method to predict the effects of stochasticity in adaptive
networks by making use of a pair-based proxy model. The technique is developed
in the context of an epidemiological model of a disease spreading over an
adaptive network of infectious contact. Our analysis reveals that in this model
the structure of the network exhibits stochastic oscillations in response to
fluctuations in the disease dynamic.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figure
Characterization of wild and captive baboon gut microbiota and their antibiotic resistomes
Antibiotic exposure results in acute and persistent shifts in the composition and function of microbial communities associated with vertebrate hosts. However, little is known about the state of these communities in the era before the widespread introduction of antibiotics into clinical and agricultural practice. We characterized the fecal microbiota and antibiotic resistomes of wild and captive baboon populations to understand the effect of human exposure and to understand how the primate microbiota may have been altered during the antibiotic era. We used culture-independent and bioinformatics methods to identify functional resistance genes in the guts of wild and captive baboons and show that exposure to humans is associated with changes in microbiota composition and resistome expansion compared to wild baboon groups. Our results suggest that captivity and lifestyle changes associated with human contact can lead to marked changes in the ecology of primate gut communities.Environmental microbes have harbored the capacity for antibiotic production for millions of years, spanning the evolution of humans and other vertebrates. However, the industrial-scale use of antibiotics in clinical and agricultural practice over the past century has led to a substantial increase in exposure of these agents to human and environmental microbiota. This perturbation is predicted to alter the ecology of microbial communities and to promote the evolution and transfer of antibiotic resistance (AR) genes. We studied wild and captive baboon populations to understand the effects of exposure to humans and human activities (e.g., antibiotic therapy) on the composition of the primate fecal microbiota and the antibiotic-resistant genes that it collectively harbors (the âresistomeâ). Using a culture-independent metagenomic approach, we identified functional antibiotic resistance genes in the gut microbiota of wild and captive baboon groups and saw marked variation in microbiota architecture and resistomes across habitats and lifeways. Our results support the view that antibiotic resistance is an ancient feature of gut microbial communities and that sharing habitats with humans may have important effects on the structure and function of the primate microbiota
Seroprevalence of Zika virus in wild African green monkeys and baboons
ABSTRACT Zika virus (ZIKV) has recently spread through the Americas and has been associated with a range of health effects, including birth defects in children born to women infected during pregnancy. Although the natural reservoir of ZIKV remains poorly defined, the virus was first identified in a captive âsentinelâ macaque monkey in Africa in 1947. However, the virus has not been reported in humans or nonhuman primates (NHPs) in Africa outside Gabon in over a decade. Here, we examine ZIKV infection in 239 wild baboons and African green monkeys from South Africa, the Gambia, Tanzania, and Zambia using combinations of unbiased deep sequencing, quantitative reverse transcription-PCR (qRT-PCR), and an antibody capture assay that we optimized using serum collected from captive macaque monkeys exposed to ZIKV, dengue virus, and yellow fever virus. While we did not find evidence of active ZIKV infection in wild NHPs in Africa, we found variable ZIKV seropositivity of up to 16% in some of the NHP populations sampled. We anticipate that these results and the methodology described within will help in continued efforts to determine the prevalence, natural reservoir, and transmission dynamics of ZIKV in Africa and elsewhere. IMPORTANCE Zika virus (ZIKV) is a mosquito-borne virus originally discovered in a captive monkey living in the Zika Forest of Uganda, Africa, in 1947. Recently, an outbreak in South America has shown that ZIKV infection can cause myriad health effects, including birth defects in the children of women infected during pregnancy. Here, we sought to investigate ZIKV infection in wild African primates to better understand its emergence and spread, looking for evidence of active or prior infection. Our results suggest that up to 16% of some populations of nonhuman primate were, at some point, exposed to ZIKV. We anticipate that this study will be useful for future studies that examine the spread of infections from wild animals to humans in general and those studying ZIKV in primates in particular. Podcast: A podcast concerning this article is available
On Alternative Supermatrix Reduction
We consider a nonstandard odd reduction of supermatrices (as compared with
the standard even one) which arises in connection with possible extension of
manifold structure group reductions. The study was initiated by consideration
of the generalized noninvertible superconformal-like transformations. The
features of even- and odd-reduced supermatrices are investigated on a par. They
can be unified into some kind of "sandwich" semigroups. Also we define a
special module over even- and odd-reduced supermatrix sets, and the generalized
Cayley-Hamilton theorem is proved for them. It is shown that the odd-reduced
supermatrices represent semigroup bands and Rees matrix semigroups over a unit
group.Comment: 22 pages, Standard LaTeX with AmS font
Effects of elevated root zone CO2 and air temperature on photosynthetic gas exchange, nitrate uptake, and total reduced nitrogen content in aeroponically grown lettuce plants
Effects of elevated root zone (RZ) CO2 and air temperature on photosynthesis, productivity, nitrate (NO3â), and total reduced nitrogen (N) content in aeroponically grown lettuce plants were studied. Three weeks after transplanting, four different RZ [CO2] concentrations [ambient (360âppm) and elevated concentrations of 2000, 10â000, and 50â000âppm] were imposed on plants grown at two air temperature regimes of 28â°C/22â°C (day/night) and 36â°C/30â°C. Photosynthetic CO2 assimilation (A) and stomatal conductance (gs) increased with increasing photosynthetically active radiation (PAR). When grown at 28â°C/22â°C, all plants accumulated more biomass than at 36â°C/30â°C. When measured under a PAR â„600âÎŒmol mâ2 sâ1, elevated RZ [CO2] resulted in significantly higher A, lower gs, and higher midday leaf relative water content in all plants. Under elevated RZ [CO2], the increase of biomass was greater in roots than in shoots, causing a lower shoot/root ratio. The percentage increase in growth under elevated RZ [CO2] was greater at 36â°C/30â°C although the total biomass was higher at 28â°C/22â°C. NO3â and total reduced N concentrations of shoot and root were significantly higher in all plants under elevated RZ [CO2] than under ambient RZ [CO2] of 360âppm at both temperature regimes. At each RZ [CO2], NO3â and total reduced N concentration of shoots were greater at 28â°C/22â°C than at 36â°C/30â°C. At all RZ [CO2], roots of plants at 36â°C/30â°C had significantly higher NO3â and total reduced N concentrations than at 28â°C/22â°C. Since increased RZ [CO2] caused partial stomatal closure, maximal A and maximal gs were negatively correlated, with a unique relationship for each air temperature. However, across all RZ [CO2] and temperature treatments, there was a close correlation between maximal A and total shoot reduced N concentration of plants under different RZ [CO2], indicating that increased A under elevated RZ [CO2] could partially be due to the higher shoot total reduced N
What makes you not a Buddhist? : a preliminary mapping of values
This study sets out to establish which Buddhist values contrasted with or were shared by adolescents from a non-Buddhist population. A survey of attitude toward a variety of Buddhist values was fielded in a sample of 352 non-Buddhist schoolchildren aged between 13 and 15 in London. Buddhist values where attitudes were least positive concerned the worth of being a monk/nun or meditating, offering candles & incense on the Buddhist shrine, friendship on Sangha Day, avoiding drinking alcohol, seeing the world as empty or impermanent and Nirvana as the ultimate peace. Buddhist values most closely shared by non-Buddhists concerned the Law of Karma, calming the mind, respecting those deserving of respect, subjectivity of happiness, welfare work, looking after parents in old age and compassion to cuddly animals. Further significant differences of attitude toward Buddhism were found in partial correlations with the independent variables of sex, age and religious affiliation. Correlation patterns paralleled those previously described in theistic religions. Findings are applied to spiritual, moral, social and cultural development and for the teaching of religious to pupils of no faith adherence. The study recommends that quantitative psychometrics employed to conceptualize Buddhist values by discriminant validity in this study could be extended usefully to other aspects of the study of Buddhism, particularly in quest of validity in the conceptualization of Buddhist identity within specifically Buddhist populations
SOME ABSTRACT PROPERTIES OF SEMIGROUPS APPEARING IN SUPERCONFORMAL THEORIES
A new type of semigroups which appears while dealing with
superconformal symmetry in superstring theories is considered. The ideal series
having unusual abstract properties is constructed. Various idealisers are
introduced and studied. The ideal quasicharacter is defined. Green's relations
are found and their connection with the ideal quasicharacter is established.Comment: 11 page
Generalized isothermic lattices
We study multidimensional quadrilateral lattices satisfying simultaneously
two integrable constraints: a quadratic constraint and the projective Moutard
constraint. When the lattice is two dimensional and the quadric under
consideration is the Moebius sphere one obtains, after the stereographic
projection, the discrete isothermic surfaces defined by Bobenko and Pinkall by
an algebraic constraint imposed on the (complex) cross-ratio of the circular
lattice. We derive the analogous condition for our generalized isthermic
lattices using Steiner's projective structure of conics and we present basic
geometric constructions which encode integrability of the lattice. In
particular, we introduce the Darboux transformation of the generalized
isothermic lattice and we derive the corresponding Bianchi permutability
principle. Finally, we study two dimensional generalized isothermic lattices,
in particular geometry of their initial boundary value problem.Comment: 19 pages, 11 figures; v2. some typos corrected; v3. new references
added, higlighted similarities and differences with recent papers on the
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