Geographic variation and evolutionary history of Dipodomys nitratoides (Rodentia: Heteromyidae), a species in severe decline

We examined geographic patterns of diversification in the highly impacted San Joaquin kangaroo rat, Dipodomys nitratoides, throughout its range in the San Joaquin Valley and adjacent basins in central California. The currently recognized subspecies were distinct by the original set of mensural and color variables used in their formal diagnoses, although the Fresno kangaroo rat (D. n. exilis) is the most strongly differentiated with sharp steps in character clines relative to the adjacent Tipton (D. n. nitratoides) and short-nosed (D. n. brevinasus) races. The latter two grade more smoothly into one another but still exhibit independent, and different, character clines within themselves. At the molecular level, as delineated by mtDNA cytochrome b sequences, most population samples retain high levels of diversity despite significant retraction in the species range and severe fragmentation of local populations in recent decades due primarily to landscape conversion for agriculture and secondarily to increased urbanization. Haplotype apportionment bears no relationship to morphologically defined subspecies boundaries. Rather, a haplotype network is shallow, most haplotypes are single-step variants, and the time to coalescence is substantially more recent than the time of species split between D. nitratoides and its sister taxon, D. merriami. The biogeographic history of the species within the San Joaquin Valley appears tied to mid-late Pleistocene expansion following significant drying of the valley resulting from the rain shadow produced by uplift of the Central Coastal Ranges

4-Methyl-2,6-bis(phosphonomethyl)phenol dihydrate

The 4-methyl-2,6-bis(phosphomethyl)phenol molecule, which crystallizes with two water molecules per asymmetric unit, has approximate twofold symmetry and is involved in extensive three-dimensional hydrogen bonding in which every available OH group participates. The principal dimensions include P--O 1.4981 (13) and 1.5015 (14) ,~, four P--OH distances in the range 1.5395(14) to 1.5688(13) A, P--C 1.7857(17) and 1.7893 (17) ~k, and O...O intramolecular and intermolecular hydro.gen-bond distances in the range 2.458 (2) to 2.866 (2) A

Sleepwalking into the ‘post-racial’: social policy and research-led teaching

Research-led teaching is the sine qua non of the 21st century university. To understand its possibilities for teaching and learning about race in Social Policy requires, as a first step, interrogating the epistemological and theoretical core of the discipline, as well as its organisational dynamics. Using parts of Emirbayer and Desmond’s (2012) framework of disciplinary reflexivity, this article traces the discipline’s habits of thought but also its lacunae in the production of racial knowledge. This entails focusing on its different forms of institutionalised and epistemological whiteness, and what has shaped the omission or marginalisation of a full understanding of the racialisation of welfare subjects and regimes in the discipline. Throughout, the article offers alternative analyses and thinking that fully embrace the historical and contemporary role of race, racism, and nation in lived realities, institutional processes, and global racial orders. It concludes with pointers towards a re-envisioning of Social Policy, within a framework in which postcolonial and intersectional theory and praxis are championed. Only then might a decolonised curriculum be possible in which race is not peripheral to core teaching and learning

Insolation driven variations of Mercury’s lithospheric strength

Mercury's coupled 3:2 spin-orbit resonance in conjunction with its relatively high eccentricity of ~0.2 and near-zero obliquity results in both a latitudinal and longitudinal variation in annual average solar insolation and thus equatorial hot and cold regions. This results in an asymmetric temperature distribution in the lithosphere and a long wavelength lateral variation in lithosphere structure and strength that mirrors the insolation pattern. We employ a thermal evolution model for Mercury generating strength envelopes of the lithosphere to demonstrate and quantify the possible effects the insolation pattern has on Mercury's lithosphere. We find the heterogeneity in lithosphere strength is substantial and increases with time. We also find that a crust thicker than that of the Moon or Mars and dry rheologies for the crust and mantle are favorable when compared with estimates of brittle-ductile transition depths derived from lobate scarps. Regions of stronger and weaker compressive strength imply that the accommodation of radial contraction of Mercury as its interior cooled, manifest as lobate scarps, may not be isotropic, imparting a preferential orientation and distribution to the lobate scarps

Search for Rapid Changes in the Visible-Light Corona during the 21 June 2001 Total Solar Eclipse

Some 8000 images obtained with the SECIS fast-frame CCD camera instrument located at Lusaka, Zambia, during the total eclipse of 21 June 2001 have been analyzed to search for short-period oscillations in intensity that could be a signature of solar coronal heating mechanisms by MHD wave dissipation. Images were taken in white- light and Fe XIV green-line (5303 A) channels over 205 seconds (frame rate 39 s-1), approximately the length of eclipse totality at this location, with a pixel size of four arcseconds square. The data are of considerably better quality than were obtained during the 11 August 1999 total eclipse, observed by us (Rudawy et al.: Astron. Astrophys. 416, 1179, 2004), in that the images are much better exposed and enhancements in the drive system of the heliostat used gave a much improved image stability. Classical Fourier and wavelet techniques have been used to analyze the emission at 29518 locations, of which 10714 had emission at reasonably high levels, searching for periodic fluctuations with periods in the range 0.1-17 seconds (frequencies 0.06-10 Hz). While a number of possible periodicities were apparent in the wavelet analysis, none of the spatially and time-limited periodicities in the local brightness curves was found to be physically important. This implies that the pervasive Alfven wave-like phenomena (Tomczyk et al.: Science 317, 1192, 2007) using polarimetric observations with the CoMP instrument do not give rise to significant oscillatory intensity fluctuations.Comment: Accepted by Solar Physics; 16 figure

What’s Good in Theory May Be Flawed in Practice: Potential Legal Consequences of Poor Implementation of a Theoretical Sample

This article discusses the problems with the use of statistical sampling in litigation. Sample-based research is increasingly used in a diverse array of cases including products liability, antitrust, intellectual property, and criminal law. Sample-based research provides objective evidence upon which decisions, damages, and liability may rest. Despite its importance, however, statistical evidence is often misused and misunderstood by attorneys unfamiliar with the underlying form of analysis. This article explores common errors when using litigative samples, comments upon best practices for the use in law of sample-based research, and demonstrates the importance of sound statistical sampling and data collection in a recent case

Community acquired acute kidney injury: findings from a large population cohort

Background: The extent of patient contact with medical services prior to development of community acquired-acute kidney injury (CA-AKI)is unknown. Aim: We examined the relationship between incident CA-AKI alerts, previous contact with hospital or primary care and clinical outcomes. Design: A prospective national cohort study of all electronic AKIalerts representing adult CA-AKI. Methods: Data were collected for all cases of adult (≥18 years of age) CA-AKI in Wales between 1 November 2013 and 31 January 2017. Results: There were a total of 50 560 incident CA-AKI alerts. In 46.8% there was a measurement of renal function in the 30 days prior to the AKI alert. In this group, in 63.8% this was in a hospital setting, of which 37.6% were as an inpatient and 37.5% in Accident and Emergency. Progression of AKI to a higher AKI stage (13.1 vs. 9.8%, P  50% from the creatinine value generating the alert), the proportion of patients admitted to Intensive Care (5.5 vs. 4.9%, P = 0.001) and 90-day mortality (27.2 vs. 18.5%, P < 0.001) was significantly higher for patients with a recent test. 90-day mortality was highest for patients with a recent test taken in an inpatient setting prior to CA-AKI (30.9%). Conclusion: Almost half of all patients presenting with CA-AKI are already known to medical services, the majority of which have had recent measurement of renal function in a hospital setting, suggesting that AKI for at least some of these may potentially be predictable and/or avoidable

Near infrared spectroscopy of W51 IRS-2

Near-infrared spectra at 2.95-3.5 μm and 3.99-10 μm have been obtained towards W51 IRS-2 and its surroundings, in order to investigate the spatial variations in intensity of the 3.28 μm unidentified feature and the 4.05 μm Brackett-α line. The Br-α and 3.28 μm features occupy a broadly similar spatial zone, which is characterised by an unresolved core responsible for most of the emission, and an extended and considerably weaker halo. Grain properties required to excite the 4.28 microns line, the nature of the 3.28 μm emission, and its relation to the source structure are discussed

Detailed design specification for the Yield Estimation Subsystem Data Management System (YESDAMS)

There are no author-identified significant results in this report