Solar and Topographical Breeding Habitat Preferences of Two Damselflies Calopteryx aequabilis and Calopteryx maculata

As the global climate changes many species are forced to adapt, but if the climate changes beyond their tolerance levels they can face extinction1. Scientists need to work fast in order to mitigate these extinctions. Using field observations of species’ habitats coupled with the use of geographic information systems (GIS), researchers can model the locations of ideal habitats. Using these models, scientists can work to improve conservation efforts by raising the populations of dwindling species or predicting locations to place new subpopulations. Data used in GIS are spatially explicit, so stored within individual data sets and information systems are locational references. GIS data are widely available and can be applied at large spatial scales. In a study on songbirds in southern Ohio, researchers were able to predict habitat areas, as well as the number of individual territories in the area using GIS. The information determined with the aid of GIS was analyzed to accurately measure population size for the habitats

Synthesis and Characterization o f Nucleoside Analogues and their Incorporation into PNA Monomers and Oligopeptides

The synthesis o f peptide nucleic acid (PNA) is o f interest for their binding to nucleic acids and their potential for gene-based diagnostics and therapy. This thesis describes the synthesis of Fmoc/Boc protected PNA monomers for thymine (T), 2,6-diaminopurine (DAP), and 2-aminopurine (2AP). The oligomerization and selectivity over mismatches in DNA were studied with 2AP showing a higher selectivity for T over DAP (11.5 °C vs 6 °C). Inclusion of 2AP allowed fluorometric monitoring o f the denaturation o f PNA:DNA hybrid duplexes.. The synthesis o f sin azide-containing PNA monomer was completed and successfully incorporated into PNA. A solid phase copper azide-alkyne cycloaddition was performed in , quantitative yield. The synthesis of alkynes to be incorporated into the PNA is described. The syntheses of the monomers described will make unusual PNAs more accessible, allowing the study o f their unique propertie

Mary Todd Lincoln: Influence and impact on the Civil War in the White House

Long before President Lincoln’s death in 1865, his wife, Mary Lincoln, was regarded as an insane woman with a terrible spending problem and little regard for the Civil War. Mrs. Lincoln, in fact, was essential to Lincoln’s successful presidency and ability to keep the Union together. This thesis seeks to understand Mary in a different light than history has. As a young girl, Mary strongly believed that she was destined for greatness and would have a powerful husband beside her. By further understanding her unbound ambitions, her love of the finer things in life, and the good works that she gets little credit for today, we can begin to recognize that Mary used her position as First Lady in every way she could. Without her, Lincoln may have governed the Union very differently. Their relationship, the good and the bad, was essential to a successful presidency and war

Acquiring the Mental Lexicon Through Sensorimotor Category Learning

We report the electrophysiological correlates of learning a new category through either direct sensorimotor experience (E) or verbal definition (V). (1) Ss who successfully learned to categorize and name via E all showed an increasing late positivity in their ERPs; Ss who failed to learn did not. (2) All successful E learners could also state the rule verbally; nonlearners could not. (3) The increasing late positivity began to appear and increase only beginning with those trials in which the learners had discovered and could state the rule verbally. (4) When the nonlearners were told the rule verbally in a second phase of training (V), thereby making them able to categorize and name, they too displayed the late ERP positivity. (5) The positivity was present once the rule was told to the Ss, even if the subsequent training was without feedback, whether their training trials were easy or difficult, and even when Ss failed to categorize correctly; surprisingly, the positivity was there even when categorization was impossible (i.e., the rule did not distinguish the textures). (6) Ss thought they were not doing too badly even in the impossible condition, and even when they were given feedback indicating they were performing at chance level (50%). (7) An early ERP negativity emerged in Ss who were given false positive feedback (80%) under the impossible condition. We conclude that learners, whether they learned from experience or from a verbal definition, apply the rule mentally, and mental rule application is what the late ERP positivity reflects

Annual variation in timing, orientation and effects of weather on Jefferson salamander (Ambystoma jeffersonianum) and spotted salamander (Ambystoma maculatum) movements in central Kentucky

Annual variation in temporal and spatial patterns of amphibian migration and dispersal are poorly understood. To address this issue, a circular drift fence was installed around an ephemeral pond at the Central Kentucky Wildlife Management Area, Madison County, Kentucky. The pond was checked daily for salamander movements from 17 January 2010 to 26 September 2010 and from 26 January 2011 to 3 August 2011, which corresponded to the activity season. Weather variables examined in relation to amphibian movements included barometric pressure, cumulative precipitation, temperature and relative humidity. Several species used the ephemeral pond during the study but few successfully reproduced. Jefferson salamanders (Ambystoma jeffersonianum) and spotted salamanders (A. maculatum) were abundant and successful breeders and were the focus of this study. Breeding times between the two years varied for both species. Weather associations with prebreeding and postbreeding movements varied within and between years. Declines in barometric pressure were generally the best predictor of salamander movements but mean daily temperature and relative humidity were also associated with movements. Juvenile exiting movements also showed significant associations with cumulative precipitation. Detection of suitable weather reduces mortality from freezing and desiccation and can cause annual differences in breeding periods. Orientation of all prebreeding movements across years, sexes, and species were not statistically different from random, while orientation of postbreeding movements of some years and life stages were statistically different from random. Adult movements were generally oriented north of the pond while juveniles oriented in all directions. By being able to understand and predict habitat use and timing of amphibian breeding movements, better management practices can be implemented to reduce human-induced mortality during movements

Diagnostic of the unstable envelopes of Wolf-Rayet stars

The envelopes of stars near the Eddington limit are prone to various instabilities. A high Eddington factor in connection with the Fe opacity peak leads to convective instability, and a corresponding envelope inflation may induce pulsational instability. Here, we investigate the occurrence and consequences of both instabilities in models of Wolf-Rayet stars. We determine the convective velocities in the sub-surface convective zones to estimate the amplitude of the turbulent velocity at the base of the wind that potentially leads to the formation of small-scale wind structures, as observed in several WR stars. We also investigate the effect of mass loss on the pulsations of our models. We approximated solar metallicity WR stars by models of mass-losing helium stars, and we characterized the properties of convection in the envelope adopting the standard MLT. Our results show the occurrence of sub-surface convective regions in all studied models. Small surface velocity amplitudes are predicted for models with masses below 10Msun. For models with M>10Msun, the surface velocity amplitudes are of the order of 10km/s. Moreover we find the occurrence of pulsations for stars in the mass range 9-14Msun, while mass loss appears to stabilize the more massive WR stars. We confront our results with observationally derived line variabilities of 17 WN stars. The data suggest variability to occur for stars above 10Msun, which is increasing linearly with mass above this value, in agreement with our results. We further find some of our models to be unstable to radial pulsations, and predict local magnetic fields of the order of hundreds of Gauss in WR stars more massive than 10Msun. Our study relates the surface velocity fluctuations induced by sub-surface convection to the formation of clumping in the inner part of the wind. From this mechanism, we expect a stronger variability in more massive WR stars.Comment: A&A, accepte

Acquiring the Mental Lexicon Through Sensorimotor Category Learning

We report the electrophysiological correlates of learning a new category through either direct sensorimotor experience (E) or verbal definition (V). (1) Ss who successfully learned to categorize and name via E all showed an increasing late positivity in their ERPs; Ss who failed to learn did not. (2) All successful E learners could also state the rule verbally; nonlearners could not. (3) The increasing late positivity began to appear and increase only beginning with those trials in which the learners had discovered and could state the rule verbally. (4) When the nonlearners were told the rule verbally in a second phase of training (V), thereby making them able to categorize and name, they too displayed the late ERP positivity. (5) The positivity was present once the rule was told to the Ss, even if the subsequent training was without feedback, whether their training trials were easy or difficult, and even when Ss failed to categorize correctly; surprisingly, the positivity was there even when categorization was impossible (i.e., the rule did not distinguish the textures). (6) Ss thought they were not doing too badly even in the impossible condition, and even when they were given feedback indicating they were performing at chance level (50%). (7) An early ERP negativity emerged in Ss who were given false positive feedback (80%) under the impossible condition. We conclude that learners, whether they learned from experience or from a verbal definition, apply the rule mentally, and mental rule application is what the late ERP positivity reflects

Taste, Olfactory and Trigeminal Neophobia in Rats with Forebrain Lesions

The present study was designed to examine whether lesions of the insular cortex (IC; Experiment 1), the basolateral amygdala (BLA) or medial amygdala (MeA; Experiment 2) influence the neophobic reactions to orally consumed liquid stimuli. Three different types of stimuli were used: taste (0.5% saccharin), olfactory (0.1% amyl acetate), and trigeminal (0.01 mM capsaicin). Rats with IC, BLA and MeA lesions showed normal responses to the olfactory and trigeminal stimuli. Each type of lesion, however, disrupted the initial occurrence of neophobia to the taste stimulus. The significance of these findings to conditioned taste aversion is discussed