The effects of land use change on ant communities in New England

Urbanisation and agricultural expansion are two of the most prevalent and intense forms of land use change worldwide and can have dramatic consequences on biodiversity and biotic community structure. Ants are extremely widespread, ecologically diverse and small ectotherms that are sensitive to changes from a wide range of environmental factors. Therefore, ants make an ideal study organism to examine the effects of anthropogenic land use change on biotic communities. In this study, we examined differences in ant species richness and community composition between urban parks, farms and forest fragments, and related these differences to environmental factors that vary among each of these three habitat types. We sampled 46 sites across Worcester County and found farms have significantly lower ant species richness than parks, and all habitat types had different ant community compositions. We also identified higher plant species richness is associated with higher ant species richness, and both plant species richness and air temperature are associated with differences in community composition. Our findings support that habitats affected by human land use will host different assemblages of ant species compared to those found in nearby natural habitats, as seen in our New England forest fragments. © 2023 The Authors. Insect Conservation and Diversity published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Royal Entomological Society

Isotopic analysis of faunal material from South Uist, Western Isles, Scotland

This paper reports on the results from stable isotope analysis of faunal bone collagen from a number of Iron Age and later sites on the island of South Uist, in the Western Isles, Scotland. This preliminary investigation into the isotopic signatures of the fauna is part of a larger project to model the interaction between humans, animals, and the broader environment in the Western Isles. The results demonstrate that the island fauna data fall within the range of expected results for the UK, with the terrestrial herbivorous diets of cattle and sheep confi rmed. The isotopic composition for pigs suggests that some of these animals had an omnivorous diet, whilst a single red deer value might be suggestive of the consumption of marine foods, such as by grazing on seaweed. However, further analysis is needed in order to verify this anomalous isotopic ratio

Ontologies for Intelligent e-Theraoy: Application to Obesity

[EN] In this paper we propose a new approach for mental e-health treatments named intelligent e-therapy (e-it) with capabilities for ambient intelligence and ubiquitous computing. The proposed e-it system supposes an evolution of cybertherapy and telepsychology tools used up to now. The e-it system is based in a knowledge base that includes all the knowledge related to the disorder and its treatment. We introduce the use of ontologies as the best option for the design of this knowledge base. We also present a fist e-it system for obesity treatment called etiobeZaragozá Álvarez, I.; Guixeres Provinciale, J.; Alcañiz Raya, ML. (2009). Ontologies for Intelligent e-Theraoy: Application to Obesity. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. 5518:894-901. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-02481-8_136S8949015518Baños, R.M., Botella, C., Perpiñá, C., Alcañiz, M., Lozano, J.A., Osma, J., Gallardo, M.: Virtual reality treatment of flying phobia. IEEE Transactions on Information Technology in Biomedicine 6(3), 206–212 (2002)Botella, C., Baños, R.M., Perpiña, C., et al.: Virtual reality treatment of claustrophobia: a case report. Behaviour Research & Therapy 36, 239–246 (1998)Hu, B., Dasmahapatra, S., Dupplaw, D., Lewis, P., Shadbolt, N.: Reflections on a medical ontology. International Journal of Human- Computer Studies 65(2007), 569–582 (2007)Rubin, D.L., Shah, N.H., Noy, N.F.: Biomedical ontologies: a functional perspective. Briefings in bioinformatics 9(1), 75–90 (2007)Stevens, R., Egaña Aranguren, M., Wolstencroft, K., Sattler, U., Drummond, N., Horridge, M., Rector, A.: Using OWL to model biological knowledge. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies 65(2007), 583–594 (2007)Park, S., Lee, J.K.: Rule identification using ontology while acquiring rules from Web pages. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies 65(2007), 644–658 (2007)Clark, K.L., McCabe, F.G.: Ontology schema for an agent belief store. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies 65(2007), 625–643 (2007)Gruber, T.R.: A Translation Approach to Portable Ontology Specifications. Knowledge Acquisition 5(2), 199–220 (1993)Franco, C., Bengtsson, B., Johannsson, G.: The GH/IGF-1 Axis in Obesity: Physiological and Pathological aspects. Metabolic syndrome and Related Disorders 4, 51–56 (2006

Magnetic Anisotropy in the Molecular Complex V15

We apply degenerate perturbation theory to investigate the effects of magnetic anisotropy in the magnetic molecule V15. Magnetic anisotropy is introduced via Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya (DM) interaction in the full Hilbert space of the system. Our model provides an explanation for the rounding of transitions in the magnetization as a function of applied field at low temperature, from which an estimate for the DM interaction is found. We find that the calculated energy differences of the lowest energy states are consistent with the available data. Our model also offers a novel explanation for the hysteretic nature of the time-dependent magnetization data.Comment: Final versio

Why does fertilization reduce plant species diversity? Testing three competition-based hypotheses

1 Plant species diversity drops when fertilizer is added or productivity increases. To explain this, the total competition hypothesis predicts that competition above ground and below ground both become more important, leading to more competitive exclusion, whereas the light competition hypothesis predicts that a shift from below-ground to above-ground competition has a similar effect. The density hypothesis predicts that more above-ground competition leads to mortality of small individuals of all species, and thus a random loss of species from plots. 2 Fertilizer was added to old field plots to manipulate both below-ground and above-ground resources, while shadecloth was used to manipulate above-ground resources alone in tests of these hypotheses. 3 Fertilizer decreased both ramet density and species diversity, and the effect remained significant when density was added as a covariate. Density effects explained only a small part of the drop in diversity with fertilizer. 4 Shadecloth and fertilizer reduced light by the same amount, but only fertilizer reduced diversity. Light alone did not control diversity, as the light competition hypothesis would have predicted, but the combination of above-ground and below-ground competition caused competitive exclusion, consistent with the total competition hypothesis.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/75695/1/j.1365-2745.2001.00662.x.pd

Origins of the Ambient Solar Wind: Implications for Space Weather

The Sun's outer atmosphere is heated to temperatures of millions of degrees, and solar plasma flows out into interplanetary space at supersonic speeds. This paper reviews our current understanding of these interrelated problems: coronal heating and the acceleration of the ambient solar wind. We also discuss where the community stands in its ability to forecast how variations in the solar wind (i.e., fast and slow wind streams) impact the Earth. Although the last few decades have seen significant progress in observations and modeling, we still do not have a complete understanding of the relevant physical processes, nor do we have a quantitatively precise census of which coronal structures contribute to specific types of solar wind. Fast streams are known to be connected to the central regions of large coronal holes. Slow streams, however, appear to come from a wide range of sources, including streamers, pseudostreamers, coronal loops, active regions, and coronal hole boundaries. Complicating our understanding even more is the fact that processes such as turbulence, stream-stream interactions, and Coulomb collisions can make it difficult to unambiguously map a parcel measured at 1 AU back down to its coronal source. We also review recent progress -- in theoretical modeling, observational data analysis, and forecasting techniques that sit at the interface between data and theory -- that gives us hope that the above problems are indeed solvable.Comment: Accepted for publication in Space Science Reviews. Special issue connected with a 2016 ISSI workshop on "The Scientific Foundations of Space Weather." 44 pages, 9 figure

Measurement of Transverse Single-Spin Asymmetries for Di-Jet Production in Proton-Proton Collisions at s=200\sqrt{s} = 200 GeV

We report the first measurement of the opening angle distribution between pairs of jets produced in high-energy collisions of transversely polarized protons. The measurement probes (Sivers) correlations between the transverse spin orientation of a proton and the transverse momentum directions of its partons. With both beams polarized, the wide pseudorapidity ($-1 \leq \eta \leq +2$) coverage for jets permits separation of Sivers functions for the valence and sea regions. The resulting asymmetries are all consistent with zero and considerably smaller than Sivers effects observed in semi-inclusive deep inelastic scattering (SIDIS). We discuss theoretical attempts to reconcile the new results with the sizable transverse spin effects seen in SIDIS and forward hadron production in pp collisions.Comment: 6 pages total, 1 Latex file, 3 PS files with figure

SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccine design enabled by prototype pathogen preparedness

A vaccine for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is needed to control the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) global pandemic. Structural studies have led to the development of mutations that stabilize Betacoronavirus spike proteins in the prefusion state, improving their expression and increasing immunogenicity1. This principle has been applied to design mRNA-1273, an mRNA vaccine that encodes a SARS-CoV-2 spike protein that is stabilized in the prefusion conformation. Here we show that mRNA-1273 induces potent neutralizing antibody responses to both wild-type (D614) and D614G mutant2 SARS-CoV-2 as well as CD8+ T cell responses, and protects against SARS-CoV-2 infection in the lungs and noses of mice without evidence of immunopathology. mRNA-1273 is currently in a phase III trial to evaluate its efficacy

Learning difficulties : a portuguese perspective of a universal issue

In this article we present findings of a study that was conducted with the purpose of deepening the knowledge about the field of learning difficulties in Portugal. Therefore, within these findings we will discuss across several cultural boundaries, themes related with the existence of learning difficulties as a construct, the terminology, the political, social and scientific influences on the field, and the models of identification and of ongoing school support for students. While addressing the above-mentioned themes we will draw attention to the different, yet converging, international understandings of learning difficulties