Demography, trade and state power: a tripartite model of medieval farming/language dispersals in the Ryukyu Islands

Hunter-gatherer occupations of small islands are rare in world prehistory and it is widely accepted that island settlement is facilitated by agriculture. The Ryukyu Islands contradict that understanding on two counts: not only did they have a long history of hunter-gatherer settlement, they also have a very late date for the onset of agriculture, which only reached the archipelago between the 8th and 13th centuries AD. Here, we combine archaeology and linguistics to propose a tripartite model for the spread of agriculture and Ryukyuan languages to the Ryukyu Islands. Employing demographic growth, trade/piracy and the political influence of neighbouring states, this model provides a synthetic yet flexible understanding of farming/language dispersals in the Ryukyus within the complex historical background of medieval East Asia.Introduction Methods Results - Archaeological Approach -- Demographic growth -- Trade/piracy -- State intervention - Linguistic Approach -- Linguistic inferences about the most probable tree structure -- Linguistic inferences about the most probable homeland of Proto-Ryukyuan -- Linguistic inferences about the most probable break-up time of Proto-Kyushu-Ryukyuan -- Inferences about the most probable linguistic outcome of the migration Discussion Conclusion

The microbiome of pest insects:It is not just bacteria

Insects are associated with multiple microbes that have been reported to influence various aspects of their biology. Most studies in insects, including pest species, focus on the bacterial communities of the microbiome even though the microbiome consists of members of many more kingdoms, which can also have large influence on the life history of insects. In this review, we present some key examples of how the different members of the microbiome, such as bacteria, fungi, viruses, archaea, and protozoa, affect the fitness and behavior of pest insects. Moreover, we argue that interactions within and among microbial groups are abundant and of great importance, necessitating the use of a community approach to study microbial-host interactions. We propose that the restricted focus on bacteria very likely hampers our understanding of the functioning and impact of the microbiome on the biology of pest insects. We close our review by highlighting a few open questions that can provide an in-depth understanding of how other components of the microbiome, in addition to bacteria, might influence host performance, thus contributing to pest insect ecology

Origem das paisagens.

Domínios geomorfológicos do Ceará. Planície costeira do Ceará. Tabuleiros costeiros. Chapada do Apodi. Chapada do Araripe. Chapada Ibiapaba. Depressão sertaneja. Depressões sedimentares em meio à superfície sertaneja. Maciços residuais cristalinos

Solos.

Intordução: Solo é a coletividade de indivíduos naturais, na superfície da Terra, eventualmente modificado ou mesmo construído pelo homem, contendo matéria orgânica viva e servindo ou sendo capaz de servir à sustentação de plantas ao ar livre. Em sua parte superior, limita-se com a atmosfera ou massas de água ou corpos rochosos. Lateralmente, limita-se gradualmente com rocha consolidada ou parcialmente alterada, massas de água ou de gelo. As informações pedológicas podem ser apresentadas,em grande parte, em mapa de solos. Este, primordialmente, é uma estratificação de ambientes (RESENDE et al., 2007) e possibilita separar áreas para diversos fins, além de fornecer subsídios para programas especiais de conservação de solos e preservação do meio ambiente. Grande parte dos problemas relacionados aos solos está ligada à complexidade e à dificuldade de sua caracterização e identificação. Quando estas são obtidas, podem-se determinar as limitações e potencialidades do solo, as quais refletem diretamente em seu manejo para um uso adequado. É importante considerar que, ao longo do tempo, a maioria das pesquisas sobre os solos foi desenvolvida com fins agronômicos. Porém, isso tem mudado com os novos estudos, principalmente geotécnicos, com a obtenção de dados mais precisos, principalmente no que se refere às características dos solos em maior profundidade, possibilitando um uso mais amplo das informações pedológicas. A nomenclatura utilizada neste capítulo está de acordo com o Sistema Brasileiro de Classificação de Solos (EMBRAPA, 2006) e com o Manual Técnico de Pedologia (IBGE, 2007). Com o intuito de facilitar o entendimento, buscou-se estabelecer uma linguagem simples e objetiva das informações, que, por sua natureza complexa e termos técnicos específicos, muitas vezes são de difícil compreensão.Além da nomenclatura, muitos critérios para distinção de classes de solos e de fases de unidades de mapeamento e os procedimentos normativos para mapeamentos de solos foram obtidos de publicações da Embrapa Solos, antigo SNLCS (Serviço Nacional de Levantamento e Conservação de Solos), tais como Embrapa (1979, 1988a, 1988b, 1995). Com esse enfoque, são tecidos comentários gerais sobre as limitações e potencialidades para uso agrícola e não agrícola, tendo como base as características dos principais tipos de solos do estado de Rondônia. Os interessados em abordagens mais detalhadas e aprofundadas devem recorrer à extensa bibliografia existente

Monocyte/macrophage response to β2-microglobulin modified with advanced glycation end products

Monocyte/macrophage response to β2-microglobulin modified with advanced glycation end products. We recently found that acidic β2-microglobulin (β2m), a major isoform of β2m in amyloid fibrils of patients with dialysis-related amyloidosis (DRA), contained early Amadori products and advanced glycation end products (AGEs) formed nonenzymatically between sugar and protein. Further analysis revealed that acidic β2m induces monocyte chemotaxis and macrophage secretion of bone-resorbing cytokines, suggesting the involvement of acidic β2m in the pathogenesis of DRA. Acidic β2m, however, is a mixture of heterogeneous molecular adducts due to various types of modification. In the present study, we investigated the modification responsible for the biological activity of acidic β2m toward monocytes/macrophages. The presence of a fair amount of β2m species with deamidation was detected in acidic β2m isolated from urine of non-diabetic long-term hemodialysis patients, but deamidated β2m had no biological activity. In contrast, normal β2m acquired the activity upon incubation with glucose in vitro. Among the glycated β2m, the pigmented and fluorescent β2m that formed after a long incubation period, that is, AGE-modified β2m, exhibited biological activity, whereas β2m modified with Amadori products, major Maillard products in acidic β2m, had no such activity. These findings suggest that AGEs, although only a minor constituent of acidic β2m, are responsible for monocyte chemotaxis and macrophage secretion of cytokines, implicating the contribution of AGEs to bone and joint destruction in DRA

Principais classes de solos.

Gênese, classificação e mapeamento dos solos. Características das principais classes de solos que ocorrem no Estado do Acre

Perceptron capacity revisited: classification ability for correlated patterns

In this paper, we address the problem of how many randomly labeled patterns can be correctly classified by a single-layer perceptron when the patterns are correlated with each other. In order to solve this problem, two analytical schemes are developed based on the replica method and Thouless-Anderson-Palmer (TAP) approach by utilizing an integral formula concerning random rectangular matrices. The validity and relevance of the developed methodologies are shown for one known result and two example problems. A message-passing algorithm to perform the TAP scheme is also presented

Evolutionary Responses of a Reef-building Coral to Climate Change at the End of the Last Glacial Maximum

Climate change threatens the survival of coral reefs on a global scale, primarily through mass bleaching and mortality as a result of marine heatwaves. While these short-term effects are clear, predicting the fate of coral reefs over the coming century is a major challenge. One way to understand the longer-term effect of rapid climate change is to examine the response of coral populations to past climate shifts. Coastal and shallow-water marine ecosystems such as coral reefs have been reshaped many times by sea-level changes during the Pleistocene, yet few studies have directly linked this with its consequences on population demographics, dispersal, and adaptation. Here we use powerful analytical techniques, afforded by haplotype-phased whole-genomes, to establish such links for the reef-building coral, Acropora digitifera. We show that three genetically distinct populations are present in northwestern Australia, and that their rapid divergence since the last glacial maximum (LGM) can be explained by a combination of founder-effects and restricted gene flow. Signatures of selective sweeps, too strong to be explained by demographic history, are present in all three populations and overlap with genes that show different patterns of functional enrichment between inshore and offshore habitats. In contrast to rapid divergence in the host, we find that photosymbiont communities are largely undifferentiated between corals from all three locations, spanning almost 1000 km, indicating that selection on host genes, and not acquisition of novel symbionts, has been the primary driver of adaptation for this species in northwestern Australia