Estimation of badger abundance using faecal DNA typing

1.Wildlife management and conservation programmes often require accurate information on population density, but this can be difficult to obtain, particularly when the species in question is nocturnal or cryptic. Badger populations in Britain are of intense management interest because they are a wildlife reservoir host of bovine tuberculosis (TB). Attempts to manage this infection in badgers, whether by population control or vaccination, require reliable methods of estimating population size. In addition, such estimates are also required to support research into badger ecology and TB epidemiology. Currently, the most accurate estimates of local badger population size are obtained from labour-intensive and time-consuming mark–recapture studies. 2. In recent years, DNA has been successfully extracted from the faeces of certain mammals, and used to generate a genetic profile of the defecating individual. Here we report on an application of this technology to estimate badger abundance.3.Faecal samples were collected on 10 consecutive days from every freshly deposited dropping at latrine sites close to occupied setts in three badger social groups. Badger DNA was extracted from 89% of samples, and 20 different individuals were reliably identified. The genotypes derived from the faecal samples were compared with those obtained from blood or samples from badgers live trapped at the same setts.4.The faecal genotypes from badgers with known trap histories revealed that latrines were used equally by males and females, and by badgers ranging in age from cubs(< 1 year old) to 9 years old. Individual badgers used the latrines on between one and six different nights. Rarefaction analysis produced abundance estimates that closely matched those obtained from live trapping. 5.Synthesis and applications. Systematic sampling and genetic typing of fresh faeces from badger latrines can provide data that can be used to estimate abundance accurately.This approach requires considerably less human resources than repeated live trapping and mark–recapture. The technique may be valuable for future badger research and management in relation to bovine TB, where accurate estimates of abundance at a local scale are required

Effect of cooperative merging on the synchronous flow phase of traffic

Cooperation in merging is introduced by adding interactions between pairs of vehicles in opposite lanes. Simulations with an improved version of the modified optimal velocity model are done for two lanes merging into a single lane. For ~30 seconds prior to reaching the merge region, vehicles in both lanes adjust their headways to create safe distances in front of and behind the merging vehicle. Cooperation prevents the transition from free flow to synchronous flow that occurs for normal merging, provided the merge region is sufficiently large and the total incoming flow does not exceed the maximum possible single-lane flow. No long-range vehicle-to-vehicle communication is required for the type of cooperation considered.Comment: 23 pages, 9 figures, accepted by Physica

Across the bridge of sighs: reading a Christian theology of melancholy

In this thesis, I will proceed by the examination of exemplary texts in the western Christian understanding of, and engagement with, the concept of chronically melancholic and destructively sorrowful states. I will begin with influential texts from the ancient west and near east, such as The Book of Job, and the Pseudo-Aristotle, that have provided the touchstones and archetypes of the subject throughout – and beyond – the historical period covered, as well as contemporary narratives whose concerns and themes instructively throw salient features of the former icons into high relief. Thereafter, I shall trace these themes and their development through the work of those Christians who have most powerfully and significantly dealt with the concept of melancholy theologically. In doing so, I will argue, certain significant patterns of interpretation and thematic weighting become apparent. In the narratives surrounding melancholy heroes, we find a personal interlocution with the divine that characteristically takes place in a public context. This is because they contain both a revolutionary critique, and radical reintegration, of a fractured society along compassionate lines. This compassion is interpersonal empathy in the face of the ultimately incomprehensible contradictions and limitations of human life - both in terms of theodicy, and the particularities of every individual’s melancholy, which is grounded in the metaphysically-ambiguous nature of humanity, whose limitations reflect our melancholic distance from divine consummation - the very atmospheric dynamic of contemplation itself. From Evagrius to Kierkegaard, sorrow is the kernel and fulcrum of both sin and moral development. To paraphrase Camus, sorrow is the theological question

Truth Table Invariant Cylindrical Algebraic Decomposition by Regular Chains

A new algorithm to compute cylindrical algebraic decompositions (CADs) is presented, building on two recent advances. Firstly, the output is truth table invariant (a TTICAD) meaning given formulae have constant truth value on each cell of the decomposition. Secondly, the computation uses regular chains theory to first build a cylindrical decomposition of complex space (CCD) incrementally by polynomial. Significant modification of the regular chains technology was used to achieve the more sophisticated invariance criteria. Experimental results on an implementation in the RegularChains Library for Maple verify that combining these advances gives an algorithm superior to its individual components and competitive with the state of the art

An Analytic Variational Study of the Mass Spectrum in 2+1 Dimensional SU(3) Hamiltonian Lattice Gauge Theory

We calculate the masses of the lowest lying eigenstates of improved SU(2) and SU(3) lattice gauge theory in 2+1 dimensions using an analytic variational approach. The ground state is approximated by a one plaquette trial state and mass gaps are calculated in the symmetric and antisymmetric sectors by minimising over a suitable basis of rectangular states

Wilson function transforms related to Racah coefficients

The irreducible $*$-representations of the Lie algebra $su(1,1)$ consist of discrete series representations, principal unitary series and complementary series. We calculate Racah coefficients for tensor product representations that consist of at least two discrete series representations. We use the explicit expressions for the Clebsch-Gordan coefficients as hypergeometric functions to find explicit expressions for the Racah coefficients. The Racah coefficients are Wilson polynomials and Wilson functions. This leads to natural interpretations of the Wilson function transforms. As an application several sum and integral identities are obtained involving Wilson polynomials and Wilson functions. We also compute Racah coefficients for U_q(\su(1,1)), which turn out to be Askey-Wilson functions and Askey-Wilson polynomials.Comment: 48 page

Random planar graphs and the London street network

In this paper we analyse the street network of London both in its primary and dual representation. To understand its properties, we consider three idealised models based on a grid, a static random planar graph and a growing random planar graph. Comparing the models and the street network, we find that the streets of London form a self-organising system whose growth is characterised by a strict interaction between the metrical and informational space. In particular, a principle of least effort appears to create a balance between the physical and the mental effort required to navigate the city

Treatment with FoxP3+ Antigen-Experienced T Regulatory Cells Arrests Progressive Retinal Damage in a Spontaneous Model of Uveitis

FUNDING: This work was funded by Fight for Sight, The Eye Charity (CSO project grant award: 3031-3032), and The Development Trust of the University of Aberdeen (Saving Sight in Grampian) (Grant codes: RG-12663 and RG-14251). ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: We thank the Iain Fraser Flow Cytometry core facility, and the Microscopy and Histology core facility of the University of Aberdeen.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Surface critical exponents at a uniaxial Lifshitz point

Using Monte Carlo techniques, the surface critical behaviour of three-dimensional semi-infinite ANNNI models with different surface orientations with respect to the axis of competing interactions is investigated. Special attention is thereby paid to the surface criticality at the bulk uniaxial Lifshitz point encountered in this model. The presented Monte Carlo results show that the mean-field description of semi-infinite ANNNI models is qualitatively correct. Lifshitz point surface critical exponents at the ordinary transition are found to depend on the surface orientation. At the special transition point, however, no clear dependency of the critical exponents on the surface orientation is revealed. The values of the surface critical exponents presented in this study are the first estimates available beyond mean-field theory.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures include

Improving Risk Predictions by Preprocessing Imbalanced Credit Data

Imbalanced credit data sets refer to databases in which the class of defaulters is heavily under-represented in comparison to the class of non-defaulters. This is a very common situation in real-life credit scoring applications, but it has still received little attention. This paper investigates whether data resampling can be used to improve the performance of learners built from imbalanced credit data sets, and whether the effectiveness of resampling is related to the type of classifier. Experimental results demonstrate that learning with the resampled sets consistently outperforms the use of the original imbalanced credit data, independently of the classifier used