Mediating variables in the relationship between 2D: 4D digit ratio and sports achievement rank

This study investigated the extent to which 2D: 4D digit ratio, mental rotation ability and the personality variables of social-potency, achievement, harm-avoidance and control are effective predictors of achievement rank in team sports and also whether the relationship between digit ratio and rank can be explained by the influence of these predictor variables. The extent to which these correlations are moderated by participant sex and sport contact intensity was also investigated. Basketball, football and rugby players (ranging in standard from 'social' to 'international' level) as well as non-sport participants were recruited from four universities in the north-east of England. Each participant completed an inventory of personal details (such as age, weight, height and ethnicity), a personality inventory and a mental rotation test. Right-hand photocopies were taken to allow calculations of the participants' digit ratios. Non-sports players' scores did not significantly differ from the sports participants, with the exception of digit ratio and weight. Digit ratio, social-potency, height and weight were found to be significant discriminators of the sports players' rank and sex. The influence of digit ratio upon athlete achievement rank was found to be highly independent of the other predictor variables. The 'years played' and 'hours spent training/playing per week' of the sports participants, were found to be the best predictors of athlete achievement rank as well as having the greatest mediating influence on digit ratios correlation with rank, of all the other variables (digit ratio was still significantly associated with rank after removing these effects)

Poet-Intellectual and Public Sociologist: An Interview with Zygmunt Bauman

Finally, this issue contains an interview, Poet-Intellectual and Public Sociologist, with Zygmunt Bauman by the Danish sociologist Michael Hviidand the British Keith Tester. Bauman has enriched our understanding of modernity, postmodernity and globalization. In this interview, asked about his audience, the Polish-born sociologist takes us through the different conceptions, especially those the Marxist tradition has developed about the place and role of intellectuals, their mission and importance to society. Bauman focuses specially on Adorno and uses him to emphasize that although we have definitely left behind the idea that intellectuals are historical agents of social transformation, we must not disregard the idea that intellectuals have something to say and that they can be important because we are confronted with suffering, threats and fear. The intellectual can have the privilege of being a detached observer.&nbsp

Impacts of Mid-Level Biofuel Content In Gasoline on SIDI Engine-Out and Tailpipe Particulate Matter Emissions

In this work, the influences of ethanol and iso-butanol blended with gasoline on engine-out and post three-way catalyst (TWC) particle size distribution and number concentration were studied using a General Motors (GM) 2.0L turbocharged spark ignition direct injection (SIDI) engine. The engine was operated using the production engine control unit (ECU) with a dynamometer controlling the engine speed and the accelerator pedal position controlling the engine load. A TSI Fast Mobility Particle Sizer (FMPS) spectrometer was used to measure the particle size distribution in the range from 5.6 to 560 nm with a sampling rate of 1 Hz. U.S. federal certification gasoline (E0), two ethanol-blended fuels (E10 and E20), and 11.7% iso-butanol blended fuel (BU12) were tested. Measurements were conducted at 10 selected steady-state engine operation conditions. Bi-modal particle size distributions were observed for all operating conditions with peak values at particle sizes of 10 nm and 70 nm. Idle and low-speed / low-load conditions emitted higher total particle numbers than other operating conditions. At idle, the engine-out particulate matter (PM) emissions were dominated by nucleation mode particles, and the production TWC reduced these nucleation mode particles by more than 50%, while leaving the accumulation mode particle distribution unchanged. At an engine load higher than 6 bar net mean effective pressure (NMEP), accumulation mode particles dominated the engine-out particle emissions, and the TWC had little effect. Compared to the baseline gasoline (E0), E10 does not significantly change PM emissions, while E20 and BU12 both reduce PM emissions under the conditions studied. Iso-butanol was observed to impact PM emissions more than ethanol, with up to 50% reductions at some conditions. In this paper, issues related to PM measurement using the FMPS are also discussed. While some uncertainties are due to engine variation, the FMPS must be carefully maintained in order to achieve repeatable measurement results

Introgression of Aegilops speltoides segments in Triticum aestivum and the effect of the gametocidal genes

• Background and Aims Bread wheat (Triticum aestivum) has been through a severe genetic bottleneck as a result of its evolution and domestication. It is therefore essential that new sources of genetic variation are generated and utilized. This study aimed to generate genome-wide introgressed segments from Aegilops speltoides. Introgressions generated from this research will be made available for phenotypic analysis. • Methods Aegilops speltoides was crossed as the male parent to T. aestivum ‘Paragon’. The interspecific hybrids were then backcrossed to Paragon. Introgressions were detected and characterized using the Affymetrix Axiom Array and genomic in situ hybridization (GISH). • Key Results Recombination in the gametes of the F₁ hybrids was at a level where it was possible to generate a genetic linkage map of Ae. speltoides. This was used to identify 294 wheat/Ae. speltoides introgressions. Introgressions from all seven linkage groups of Ae. speltoides were found, including both large and small segments. Comparative analysis showed that overall macro-synteny is conserved between Ae. speltoides and T. aestivum, but that Ae. speltoides does not contain the 4A/5A/7B translocations present in wheat. Aegilops speltoides has been reported to carry gametocidal genes, i.e. genes that ensure their transmission through the gametes to the next generation. Transmission rates of the seven Ae. speltoides linkage groups introgressed into wheat varied. A 100 % transmission rate of linkage group 2 demonstrates the presence of the gametocidal genes on this chromosome. • Conclusions A high level of recombination occurs between the chromosomes of wheat and Ae. speltoides, leading to the generation of large numbers of introgressions with the potential for exploitation in breeding programmes. Due to the gametocidal genes, all germplasm developed will always contain a segment from Ae. speltoides linkage group 2S, in addition to an introgression from any other linkage group

Marine harmful algal blooms, human health and wellbeing : challenges and opportunities in the 21st century

Author Posting. © Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom, 2015. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 96 (2016): 61-91, doi:10.1017/S0025315415001733.Microalgal blooms are a natural part of the seasonal cycle of photosynthetic organisms in marine ecosystems. They are key components of the structure and dynamics of the oceans and thus sustain the benefits that humans obtain from these aquatic environments. However, some microalgal blooms can cause harm to humans and other organisms. These harmful algal blooms (HABs) have direct impacts on human health and negative influences on human wellbeing, mainly through their consequences to coastal ecosystem services (valued fisheries, tourism and recreation) and other marine organisms and environments. HABs are natural phenomena, but these events can be favoured by anthropogenic pressures in coastal areas. Global warming and associated changes in the oceans could affect HAB occurrences and toxicity as well, although forecasting the possible trends is still speculative and requires intensive multidisciplinary research. At the beginning of the 21st century, with expanding human populations, particularly in coastal and developing countries, there is an urgent need to prevent and mitigate HABs’ impacts on human health and wellbeing. The available tools to address this global challenge include maintaining intensive, multidisciplinary and collaborative scientific research, and strengthening the coordination with stakeholders, policymakers and the general public. Here we provide an overview of different aspects to understand the relevance of the HABs phenomena, an important element of the intrinsic links between oceans and human health and wellbeing.The research was funded in part by the UK Medical Research Council (MRC) and UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) for the MEDMI Project; the National Institute for Health Research Health Protection Research Unit (NIHR HPRU) in Environmental Change and Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in partnership with Public Health England (PHE), and in collaboration with the University of Exeter, University College London and the Met Office; and the European Regional Development Fund Programme and European Social Fund Convergence Programme for Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly (University of Exeter Medical School). EB was supported by the CTM2014-53818-R project, from the Spanish Government (MINECO). KDA was in receipt of funding from the BBSRC-NERC research programme for multidisciplinary studies in sustainable aquaculture: health, disease and the environment. P. Hess was supported by Ifremer (RISALTOX) and the Regional Council of the Pays de la Loire (COSELMAR). Porter Hoagland was supported by the US National Science Foundation under NSF/CNH grant no. 1009106.2016-05-2

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

The English Riots of August 2011 : A Sympton of Interregnum?

Conferència complementària del Seminari de Zygmunt Bauman, a càrrec del professor Keith Tester de la University of Hull (UK), que reflexiona sobre els aldarulls l'agost de 2011 a Anglaterra com un símptoma d'interregn

Humanitarianism: The group charisma of postcolonial Britain

This article argues that humanitarianism is a theme in the popular culture and politics of contemporary Britain which repays close analysis. Humanitarianism is identified as a strand of the 'social imaginary' through which conceptions of Britishness seek to understand the world and the place of Britain within it. Commitment to the social imaginary is secured through 'group charisma' which ties social subjects to it by means of assertions about the unique importance of the nation in the moral improvement of the world. This article identifies humanitarianism as a theme through which Britain deals with postcolonial melancholia and the problems of being an 'old country' marginalized in the present. The focus of the discussion is on two films: the cinema release Amazing Grace (2007) which focused on the 19th-century abolition of the slave trade and the broadcast film The Girl in the Café (2005) which was, in its turn, a romance about the eradication of world poverty. It is proposed that if these two films are subjected to cultural and social as opposed to textual analysis it is possible to explore why humanitarianism is so important to contemporary imaginations about - and commitments to - Britain. © The Author(s), 2010

Immor(t)alitas Media: Menelisik moralitas dalam jejaring industri media

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Culture: Two Theses and Deathworks

 Kultura: dwie tezy i dzieła śmierciTen krótki esej ma na celu nieco rozluźnić nadmiernie jednolitą koncepcję kultury, by otworzyć się na myślenie o kulturze jako złożonej refleksji nad niejednoznaczną sytuacją człowieka. Podążając za Pascalem, tę ambiwalencję określić można przez nasze usytuowanie pomiędzy aniołami i zwierzętami. Kultura zwraca się w kierunku aniołów i jest dążeniem do czegoś innego niż materialność naszej zwierzęcej egzystencji. Przede wszystkim kultura jest metafizyczna, gdy oferuje znaczenie. Po drugie, kultura jest nadmiarem, ponieważ jest praktyką czegoś innego. Dziś jednak te aspekty kultury są kwestionowane przez brak wyboru okoliczności społecznych, w których odbywa się produkcja kulturalna oraz jej odbiór. Gdzie zatem jesteśmy, jeśli nie możemy już dłużej zakładać istnienia tego, co metafizyczne i nadmierne? Kultura: dwie tezy i dzieła śmierciTen krótki esej ma na celu nieco rozluźnić nadmiernie jednolitą koncepcję kultury, by otworzyć się na myślenie o kulturze jako złożonej refleksji nad niejednoznaczną sytuacją człowieka. Podążając za Pascalem, tę ambiwalencję określić można przez nasze usytuowanie pomiędzy aniołami i zwierzętami. Kultura zwraca się w kierunku aniołów i jest dążeniem do czegoś innego niż materialność naszej zwierzęcej egzystencji. Przede wszystkim kultura jest metafizyczna, gdy oferuje znaczenie. Po drugie, kultura jest nadmiarem, ponieważ jest praktyką czegoś innego. Dziś jednak te aspekty kultury są kwestionowane przez brak wyboru okoliczności społecznych, w których odbywa się produkcja kulturalna oraz jej odbiór. Gdzie zatem jesteśmy, jeśli nie możemy już dłużej zakładać istnienia tego, co metafizyczne i nadmierne