Are neonicotinoid insecticides driving declines of widespread butterflies?

There has been widespread concern that neonicotinoid pesticides may be adversely impacting wild and managed bees for some years, but recently attention has shifted to examining broader effects they may be having on biodiversity. For example in the Netherlands, declines in insectivorous birds are positively associated with levels of neonicotinoid pollution in surface water. In England, the total abundance of widespread butterfly species declined by 58% on farmed land between 2000 and 2009 despite both a doubling in conservation spending in the UK, and predictions that climate change should benefit most species. Here we build models of the UK population indices from 1985 to 2012 for 17 widespread butterfly species that commonly occur at farmland sites. Of the factors we tested, three correlated significantly with butterfly populations. Summer temperature and the index for a species the previous year are both positively associated with butterfly indices. By contrast, the number of hectares of farmland where neonicotinoid pesticides are used is negatively associated with butterfly indices. Indices for 15 of the 17 species show negative associations with neonicotinoid usage. The declines in butterflies have largely occurred in England, where neonicotinoid usage is at its highest. In Scotland, where neonicotinoid usage is comparatively low, butterfly numbers are stable. Further research is needed urgently to show whether there is a causal link between neonicotinoid usage and the decline of widespread butterflies or whether it simply represents a proxy for other environmental factors associated with intensive agriculture

Structure and Composition of Molecular Clouds with CN Zeeman Detections I: W3OH

We have carried out a multi-species study of a region which has had previous measurements of strong magnetic fields through the CN Zeeman effect in order to to explore the relationship between CN and N$_2$H$^+$, both of which have evidence that they remain in the gas phase at densities of 10$^5$ - 10$^6$ cm$^{-3}$. To achieve this we map the 1 arcmin$^2$ region around the UCHII region of W3(OH) using the Combined Array for Millimeter-wave Astronomy (CARMA). Approximately 105 hours of data were collected in multiple array configurations to produce maps with an effective resolution of $\sim$ 2.5\arcsec at high signal-to-noise in CN, C$^{18}$O, HCN, HCO$^+$, N$_2$H$^+$, and two continuum bands (91.2 GHz and 112 GHz). These data allow us to compare tracer molecules associated with both low and high density regions to infer gas properties. We determine that CARMA resolves out approximately 35% of the CN emission around W3(OH) when compared with spectra obtained from the IRAM-30 meter telescope. The presence of strong absorption lines towards the continuum source in three of the molecular transitions infers the presence of a cold, dark, optically thick region in front of the continuum source. In addition, the presence of high-velocity emission lines near the continuum source shows the presence of hot clumpy emission behind the continuum source. These data determine that future high-resolution interferometric CN Zeeman measurements which cannot currently be performed (due to technical limitations of current telescopes) are feasible. We confirm that CN is indeed a good tracer for high density regions; with certain objects such as W3(OH) it appears to be a more accurate tracer than N$_2$H$^+$.Comment: 33 pages, 16 figures. Accepted by Ap

Transcriptional landscape of epithelial and immune cell populations revealed through FACS-seq of healthy human skin.

Human skin consists of multiple cell types, including epithelial, immune, and stromal cells. Transcriptomic analyses have previously been performed from bulk skin samples or from epithelial and immune cells expanded in cell culture. However, transcriptomic analysis of bulk skin tends to drown out expression signals from relatively rare cells while cell culture methods may significantly alter cellular phenotypes and gene expression profiles. To identify distinct transcriptomic profiles of multiple cell populations without substantially altering cell phenotypes, we employed a fluorescence activated cell sorting method to isolate keratinocytes, dendritic cells, CD4+ T effector cells, and CD8+ T effector cells from healthy skin samples, followed by RNA-seq of each cell population. Principal components analysis revealed distinct clustering of cell types across samples, while differential expression and coexpression network analyses revealed transcriptional profiles of individual cell populations distinct from bulk skin, most strikingly in the least abundant CD8+ T effector population. Our work provides a high resolution view of cutaneous cellular gene expression and suggests that transcriptomic profiling of bulk skin may inadequately capture the contribution of less abundant cell types

Energies and wave functions for a soft-core Coulomb potential

For the family of model soft Coulomb potentials represented by V(r) = -\frac{Z}{(r^q+\beta^q)^{\frac{1}{q}}}, with the parameters Z>0, \beta>0, q \ge 1, it is shown analytically that the potentials and eigenvalues, E_{\nu\ell}, are monotonic in each parameter. The potential envelope method is applied to obtain approximate analytic estimates in terms of the known exact spectra for pure power potentials. For the case q =1, the Asymptotic Iteration Method is used to find exact analytic results for the eigenvalues E_{\nu\ell} and corresponding wave functions, expressed in terms of Z and \beta. A proof is presented establishing the general concavity of the scaled electron density near the nucleus resulting from the truncated potentials for all q. Based on an analysis of extensive numerical calculations, it is conjectured that the crossing between the pair of states [(\nu,\ell),(\nu',\ell')], is given by the condition \nu'\geq (\nu+1) and \ell' \geq (\ell+3). The significance of these results for the interaction of an intense laser field with an atom is pointed out. Differences in the observed level-crossing effects between the soft potentials and the hydrogen atom confined inside an impenetrable sphere are discussed.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures, title change, minor revision

Accountancy and academic/professional inter-dependency (or mutual exclusivity?)

This paper is a report on an Accounting Education Symposium held during the 2009 Annual Congress of the EAA in Tampere, Finland. This was the fourth occasion on which there has been an Accounting Education Symposium (or similar) within an EAA Annual Congress. Previous events were as follows: 2005 (Gotenburg, Sweden) EAA Accounting Educators\u27 Forum 2006 (Dublin, Ireland) \u27Universities and Professional Bodies: Complementary or Colliding Roles in Educating and Training Future Accounting Practitioners?\u27 (sponsored by the Irish Accountancy Educational Trust) 2008 (Rotterdam, the Netherlands) \u27Accounting Education: The Common Content Project\u27 (sponsored by Royal NIVRA). <br /

Parsec-scale radio structures in the nuclei of four Seyfert galaxies

We present 18-cm radio maps of four Seyfert nuclei, Mrk 1, Mrk 3, Mrk 231 and Mrk 463E, made with the European VLBI Network (EVN). Linear radio structures are present in three out of four sources on scales of ~100 pc to ~1 kpc, and the 20-mas beam of the EVN enables us to resolve details within the radio structures on scales of <10 pc. Mrk 3 was also imaged using MERLIN and the data combined with the EVN data to improve the sensitivity to extended emission. We find an unresolved flat-spectrum core in Mrk 3, which we identify with the hidden Seyfert 1 nucleus in this object, and we also see marked differences between the two highly-collimated radio jets emanating from the core. The western jet terminates in a bright hotspot and resembles an FRII radio structure, whilst the eastern jet has more in common with an FRI source. In Mrk 463E, we use the radio and optical structure of the source to argue that the true nucleus lies approximately 1 arcsec south of the position of the radio and optical brightness peaks, which probably represent a hotspot at the working surface of a radio jet. The EVN data also provide new evidence for a 100-pc radio jet powering the radio source in the Type 1 nucleus of Mrk 231. However, the Seyfert 2 galaxy Mrk 1 shows no evidence for radio jets down to the limits of resolution (~10 pc). We discuss the range of radio source size and morphology which can occur in the nuclei of Seyfert galaxies and the implications for Seyfert unification schemes and for radio surveys of large samples of objects.Comment: 23 pages, 7 postscript figures (supplied as separate files), uses AAS aaspp4 LaTeX style file, to appear in the 10 June 1999 issue of The Astrophysical Journa