Special Report, No. 6

In cooperation with the Matanuska Valley Dairy Breeder's AssociationThe Matanuska Valley dairy industry continues to be plagued with the problem of having more milk than can be distributed in early summer, while fall production does not supply the demand. Fluctuations between heavy summer production and low production during September, October and November are difficult to control. Cows calving normally in the spring drop off so fast beginning in late August that they are ruined for fall and winter production. For this reason, the Experiment Station has advocated breeding heifers so they will calve in late July, August and September. This means they must conceive from early October through December. Breeding should begin about October 1. It is almost impossible to change the calving dates of a herd except by starting replacements at the right time

Getting a start in dairying in Alaska

Dairying in Alaska probably will always be confined to areas where milk can reach city markets readily. The demand £or fresh milk, even at present prices, exceeds the supply. Probably the dairy farmer always will be able to produce milk in competition with fluid mlik shipped in from the States if he is a good manager and has high producing cows. A farmer with low producing cows can show a profit at present prices, but if the price of milk dropped two dollars or more per hundred, he would have a tough time making both ends meet. It is doubtful if other dairy products can be produced in Alaska to compete with stateside prices

Distribution and Feeding Ecology of Bathylagus euryops (Teleostei: Microstomatidae) along the Northern Mid-Atlantic Ridge from Iceland to the Azores

The northern Mid-Atlantic Ridge, from Iceland to the Azores (MAR), ranges in depth from 800 – 4500 m and extends over an area of 3.7 million km2. Recent evidence from MAR-ECO, a Census of Marine Life field project, reported increased abundance and biomass of deep-pelagic fishes below 1000 m on the MAR. Among the fishes sampled, Bathylagus euryops was found to be the biomass-dominant species and ranked third in total abundance. In this thesis, we characterize the distribution and feeding ecology of B. euryops as a function of physical, biological, and life history parameters along a mid-ocean ridge system. Multiple biologically plausible general linear models were fitted to B. euryops catch-per-unit-effort (CPUE) data to investigate the role of various combinations of explanatory variables on the distribution of this species. Results indicated that a model containing categorical depth and geographic location variables provided the most parsimonious description of B. euryops CPUE data. Vertical migration analyses were also conducted to investigate the vertical distribution of B. euryops along the MAR and results indicated that time of day had little influence, whereas ontogeny likely influenced the vertical distribution of B. euryops. To describe the feeding ecology of B. euryops, a general diet composition was determined. Multivariate analyses, including a cluster analysis and a canonical correspondence analysis, were utilized to investigate factors that cause variability within the diet of B. euryops. Results revealed that fish size and geographic location significantly influenced the diet of B. euryops. Furthermore, daily rations were estimated to better understand the role of B. euryops in the food webs of the North Atlantic and results were consistently estimated to be less than 1% of the average wet weight along the MAR. The general trend observed was a southward increase in daily ration estimates along the MAR

Biologie de reproduction chez Thaumatococcus Daniellii (benn.) Benth. et hook. (marantaceae) en Côte D’ivoire

Le processus de reproduction de Thaumatococcus daniellii a été étudié en vue d'une domestication à but économique. Ainsi, l'identification des animaux contribuant à la pollinisation a été réalisée à partir d'observations effectuées dans un dispositif expérimental réglementant l'accès différentiel des animaux aux parcelles. Une pollinisation manuelle suivie de l'analyse des fruits, par rapport à la teneur engraines, ont été effectuées. Les résultats ont révélé l'intervention d'agents extérieurs dans le processus de pollinisation, impliquant un phénomène d'allogamie chez cette plante. Ces agents extérieurs qui agissent en synergie sont Nectarinia olivacea (oiseau) et Aphis sp. (puceron). La prépondérance des fruits contenant une graine,l'échec élevé de l'autopollinisation et la prédominance d'une l'allopollinisation traduisent une incompatibilité génétique dans la régulation de la pollinisation des fleurs chez cette plante

Mechano-chemical manipulation of Sn chains on Si(1 0 0) by NC-AFM

We investigate the atomic structure of Sn dimer chains grown on the Si(1 0 0) surface using non-contact atomic force microscopy (NC-AFM) at cryogenic temperatures. We find that similar to the native Si(1 0 0) dimer structure, the ground state of the Sn dimer structure is buckled at low temperature. At 5 K we show that the buckling state of the Sn dimers may be controllably, and reversibly, manipulated with atomic precision by close approach of the tip, without modification of the underlying substrate buckling structure. At intermediate cryogenic temperatures we observe changes in the configuration of the dimer chains in the region where the tip-sample interaction is very weak, suggesting that the energy barrier to transit between configurations is sufficiently small to be surmounted at 78 K

Climate justice: high-status ingroup social models increase pro-environmental action through making actions seem more moral.

This is the peer reviewed version of the article which has been published in final form at DOI: 10.1111/tops.12178. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving."Copyright © 2015 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.Recent work has suggested that our cognitive biases and moral psychology may pose significant barriers to tackling climate change. Here, we report evidence that through status and group-based social influence processes, and our moral sense of justice, it may be possible to employ such characteristics of the human mind in efforts to engender pro-environmental action. We draw on applied work demonstrating the efficacy of social modeling techniques in order to examine the indirect effects of social model status and group membership (through perceptions of efficacy, pro-environmental social identity and moral judgments of how fair it is for individuals to perform particular pro-environmental actions) on pro-environmental action tendencies. We find evidence that high- (vs. low-) status models increase pro-environmental action, in part, through making such actions seem morally fairer to undertake. This effect of high-status models only occurs when they share a meaningful ingroup membership with the target of influence. Further, we find evidence that this conditional effect of high-status models may also have a direct impact on action tendencies. While the exact behaviors that are influenced may vary across student and non-student samples, we argue that a focus on the "justice pathway" to action and the social-cognitive features of models may offer a good opportunity for cognitive and behavioral scientists to integrate insights from basic research with those stemming from more applied research efforts

Attentional efficiency does not explain the mental state × domain effect

This is the final version. Available from Public Library of Science via the DOI in this record. Data Availability: The data underlying the results presented in the study are available at https://osf.io/8k2hj/The reduced importance of intent when judging purity (vs. harm) violations is some of the strongest evidence for distinct moral modules or systems: moral pluralism. However, research has indicated that some supposed differences between purity and harm moral domains are due to the relative weirdness of purity vignettes. This weirdness might lead to a failure to attend to or correctly process relevant mental state information. Such attentional failures could offer an alternative explanation (to separate moral systems) for the reduced exculpatory value of innocent intentions for purity violations. We tested if the different role of intent in each domain was moderated by individual differences in attentional efficiency, as measured by the Attention Network Task. If attentional efficiency explains the reduced exculpatory value of innocent intentions in purity (vs. harm) violations, then we would expect those high (vs. low) in attentional efficiency not to show the reduced exculpatory effect of innocent intentions in the purity (vs. harm) domain. Consistent with moral pluralism, results revealed no such moderation. Findings are discussed in relation to various ways of testing domain-general and domain-specific accounts of the mental state × domain effect, so that we might better understand the architecture of our moral minds

"We have no quarrel with you": Effects of group status on characterizations of "conflict" with an outgroup

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Wiley via the DOI in this record In three studies, we examined the effect of intergroup status on group members' tendencies to characterize the ingroup's relationship with an outgroup as conflictual following outgroup action. Findings from all three studies supported the prediction that the intergroup relationship would be characterized as less conflictual when the ingroup had relatively high rather than low status. Consistent with the hypothesis that the effect of status reflects strategic concerns, it was moderated by the perceived relevance of the outgroup's action to intergroup status relations (study 1), it was sensitive to audience (study 2), and it was partially mediated by status management concerns (study 3). The role of strategic, status-related factors in intergroup relations is discussed.Leverhulme TrustEconomic and Social Research Council (ESRC