Turning Figure Drawing On Its Head

Since the development of proportional drawing techniques, documented initially by Greek scholars, it has been common practice to use the human head as a unit of measurement to develop an understanding of the proportions of a figure. Many scholars propose the head length relates proportionally to the body as one eighth of height, evidenced by drawings from this era, and this is still prevalent in many published figure-drawing texts. Current guidance, offering exercises to draw the figure using head theories, often propose elongation of the height for aesthetic purposes in establishing the heights of key body location and their widths. Analysis of these methods indicate that many fashion figure images are taller, slimmer and often defined as a single ideal shape, not representative of the customer who would later wear the designs and with no consideration of variations in body size or shape. Recent technological developments using 3D body scanning technology have enabled the collection of large volumes of measurement data and techniques have been explored to establish how real bodies and their proportions compare to those developed using figure drawing techniques. This has been expanded to recognise the different figure proportions for different body shapes, which the current head theory is not equipped to implement. The available data from the 3D scanner exposes a flaw in the concept of using the head length as a unit from which to determine proportion, particularly when drawing figures of varied sizes. If the 'head' theory was implemented this would result in size ten figures having a smaller head than a size sixteen, opening the debate of which reference dimension on the figure would be a more successful unit. This research proposes other suitable benchmarks for developing drawing theories that would produce more criteria specific figures, which are more representative of real people and take into consideration ratios, that allow for the development of different body shapes

Preliminary estimate of contribution of Arctic nitrogen fixation to the global nitrogen budget

Dinitrogen (N-2) fixation is the source of all biologically available nitrogen on earth, and its presence or absence impacts net primary production and global biogeochemical cycles. Here, we report rates of 3.5-17.2 nmol N L-1 d(-1) in the ice-free coastal Alaskan Arctic to show that N-2 fixation in the Arctic Ocean may be an important source of nitrogen to a seasonally nitrogen-limited system. If widespread in surface waters over ice-free shelves throughout the Arctic, N-2 fixation could contribute up to 3.5 Tg N yr(-1) to the Arctic nitrogen budget. At these rates, N-2 fixation occurring in ice-free summer waters would offset up to 27.1% of the Arctic denitrification deficit and contribute an additional 2.7% to N-2 fixation globally, making it an important consideration in the current debate of whether nitrogen in the global ocean is in steady state. Additional investigations of high-latitude marine diazotrophic physiology are required to refine these N-2 fixation estimates

Stars made in outflows may populate the stellar halo of the Milky Way

We study stellar-halo formation using six Milky-Way-mass galaxies in FIRE-2 cosmological zoom simulations. We find that 5-40 per cent of the outer (50-300 kpc) stellar halo in each system consists of in-situ stars that were born in outflows from the main galaxy. Outflow stars originate from gas accelerated by superbubble winds, which can be compressed, cool, and form co-moving stars. The majority of these stars remain bound to the halo and fall back with orbital properties similar to the rest of the stellar halo at z = 0. In the outer halo, outflow stars are more spatially homogeneous, metal-rich, and alpha-element-enhanced than the accreted stellar halo. At the solar location, up to ∼10 per cent of our kinematically identified halo stars were born in outflows; the fraction rises to as high as ∼40 per cent for the most metal-rich local halo stars ([Fe/H] >-0.5). Such stars can be retrograde and create features similar to the recently discoveredMilkyWay 'Splash' in phase space.We conclude that theMilkyWay stellar halo could contain local counterparts to stars that are observed to form in molecular outflows in distant galaxies. Searches for such a population may provide a new, near-field approach to constraining feedback and outflow physics. A stellar halo contribution from outflows is a phase-reversal of the classic halo formation scenario of Eggen, Lynden-Bell & Sandange, who suggested that halo stars formed in rapidly infalling gas clouds. Stellar outflows may be observable in direct imaging of external galaxies and could provide a source for metal-rich, extreme-velocity stars in the Milky Way

Where are commodity crops certified, and what does it mean for conservation and poverty alleviation?

Voluntary sustainability standards have expanded dramatically over the last decade. In the agricultural sector, such standards aim to ensure environmentally and socially sustainable production of a variety of commodity crops. However, little is known about where agricultural certification operates and whether certified lands are best located for conserving the world's most important biodiversity and benefiting the most vulnerable producers. To examine these questions we developed the first global map of commodity crop certification, synthesizing data from over one million farms to reveal the distribution of certification in unprecedented detail. It highlights both geographical clusters of certification as well as spatial bias in the location of certification with respect to environmental, livelihood and physical variables. Excluding organic certification, for which spatial data were not available, most certification of commodity crops is in tropical regions. Certification appears to be concentrated in areas important for biodiversity conservation, but not in those areas most in need of poverty alleviation, although there were exceptions to each of these patterns. We argue that the impact of sustainability standards could be increased by identifying places where it would be most beneficial to strengthen, consolidate, and expand certification. To achieve this, standards organizations will need to undertake more rigorous collection of spatial data, and more detailed analysis of their existing reach and impacts, with attention to potential trade-offs between different objectives. Efforts to promote spatial prioritization will require new partnerships to align specific conservation aims with the interests and capabilities of farmers

Eosinophilic and neutrophilic leukemoid reaction in a woman with spindle cell sarcoma: a case report

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Introduction</p> <p>We report a case of a patient with marked eosinophilia and neutrophilia as a manifestation of a spindle cell sarcoma.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>A 41-year-old African American woman presented with an enlarging, painful mass in her right knee area. Four years previously, she had had a mass similar to this diagnosed as an osteosarcoma, and had undergone a radical resection and hinge-knee replacement. Before the surgery, she was treated with neoadjuvant docetaxel and gemcitabine. A biopsy was taken from the recurrent mass, and histological examination revealed high-grade soft-tissue sarcoma. The patient received no further treatment. Complete blood counts revealed a white blood cell (WBC) count of 13.6 to 17.9 × 10⁹/L, with neutrophils being 8.2 to 10.9 × 10⁹/L and eosinophils 1.8 to 1.9 × 10⁹/L. At readmission six months later, WBC was 126.7 × 10⁹/L, with neutrophils being 57.02 × 10⁹/L and eosinophils 60.82 × 10⁹/L. The eosinophils peaked at 77.79 × 10⁹/L two days later. Evaluations for allergies, infection, and autoimmune mechanisms were negative. Bone marrow revealed increased eosinophils without blasts. After resection, blood counts abruptly decreased to the normal range. Pathology confirmed high-grade spindle cell sarcoma. Approximately one year after resection, the patient was readmitted with metastatic disease to her lungs. During this presentation, her eosinophil and neutrophil count was again increased. WBC was 107.8 × 10⁹/L, with eosinophil count of 47.43 × 10⁹/L and neutrophil count of 44.10 × 10⁹/L. Interleukin-5 was normal, and granulocyte–macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) was elevated at 208.8 (normal < 4.8).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>In our case, the patient had eosinophilia and neutrophilia associated with a spindle cell sarcoma, possibly representing a paraneoplastic syndrome secondary to GM-CSF. There were no signs of infectious, allergic, or autoimmune causes for the eosinophilia or neutrophilia. Even though the occurrence of eosinophilia and neutrophilia with malignancy is rare, patients who have either condition without an apparent cause should be checked for malignancy.</p

Nomenclature for the KIR of non-human species

The increasing number of Killer Immunoglobulin-like Receptor (KIR) sequences available for non-human primate species and cattle has prompted development of a centralized database, guidelines for a standardized nomenclature, and minimum requirements for database submission. The guidelines and nomenclature are based on those used for human KIR and incorporate modifications made for inclusion of non-human species in the companion IPD-NHKIR database. Included in this first release are the rhesus macaque (Macaca mulatta), chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes), orangutan (Pongo abelii and Pongo pygmaeus), and cattle (Bos taurus)

Kernel bandwidth optimization in spike rate estimation

Kernel smoother and a time-histogram are classical tools for estimating an instantaneous rate of spike occurrences. We recently established a method for selecting the bin width of the time-histogram, based on the principle of minimizing the mean integrated square error (MISE) between the estimated rate and unknown underlying rate. Here we apply the same optimization principle to the kernel density estimation in selecting the width or “bandwidth” of the kernel, and further extend the algorithm to allow a variable bandwidth, in conformity with data. The variable kernel has the potential to accurately grasp non-stationary phenomena, such as abrupt changes in the firing rate, which we often encounter in neuroscience. In order to avoid possible overfitting that may take place due to excessive freedom, we introduced a stiffness constant for bandwidth variability. Our method automatically adjusts the stiffness constant, thereby adapting to the entire set of spike data. It is revealed that the classical kernel smoother may exhibit goodness-of-fit comparable to, or even better than, that of modern sophisticated rate estimation methods, provided that the bandwidth is selected properly for a given set of spike data, according to the optimization methods presented here