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Host plant recognition by the root feeding clover weevil, Sitona lepidus (Coleoptera: Curculionidae)
This study investigated the ability of neonatal larvae of the root-feeding weevil, Sitona lepidus Gyllenhal, to locate white clover Trifolium repens L. (Fabaceae) roots growing in soil and to distinguish them from the roots of other species of clover and a co-occurring grass species. Choice experiments used a combination of invasive techniques and the novel technique of high resolution X-ray microtomography to non-invasively track larval movement in the soil towards plant roots. Burrowing distances towards roots of different plant species were also examined. Newly hatched S. lepidus recognized T. repens roots and moved preferentially towards them when given a choice of roots of subterranean clover, Trifolium subterraneum L. (Fabaceae), strawberry clover Trifolium fragiferum L. (Fabaceae), or perennial ryegrass Lolium perenneL. (Poaceae). Larvae recognized T. repens roots, whether released in groups of five or singly, when released 25 mm (meso-scale recognition) or 60 mm (macro-scale recognition) away from plant roots. There was no statistically significant difference in movement rates of larvae
Explaining Sad People's Memory Advantage for Faces.
Sad people recognize faces more accurately than happy people (Hills et al., 2011). We devised four hypotheses for this finding that are tested between in the current study. The four hypotheses are: (1) sad people engage in more expert processing associated with face processing; (2) sad people are motivated to be more accurate than happy people in an attempt to repair their mood; (3) sad people have a defocused attentional strategy that allows more information about a face to be encoded; and (4) sad people scan more of the face than happy people leading to more facial features to be encoded. In Experiment 1, we found that dysphoria (sad mood often associated with depression) was not correlated with the face-inversion effect (a measure of expert processing) nor with response times but was correlated with defocused attention and recognition accuracy. Experiment 2 established that dysphoric participants detected changes made to more facial features than happy participants. In Experiment 3, using eye-tracking we found that sad-induced participants sampled more of the face whilst avoiding the eyes. Experiment 4 showed that sad-induced people demonstrated a smaller own-ethnicity bias. These results indicate that sad people show different attentional allocation to faces than happy and neutral people
The notion of constitutional property in South Africa: an analysis of the Constitutional Court\u27s approach in the Shoprite Checkers (Pty) Ltd v MEC for Economic Development Eastern Cape 2015 6 SA 125 (CC)
Strange quarks and lattice QCD
The last few years have seen a dramatic improvement in our knowledge of the
strange form factors of the nucleon. With regard to the vector from factors the
level of agreement between theory and experiment gives us considerable
confidence in our ability to calculate with non-perturbative QCD. The
calculation of the strange scalar form factor has moved significantly in the
last two years, with the application of new techniques which yield values
considerably smaller than believed for the past 20 years. These new values turn
out to have important consequences for the detection of neutralinos, a
favourite dark matter candidate. Finally, very recent lattice studies have
resurrected interest in the famed H-dibaryon, with modern chiral extrapolation
of lattice data suggesting that it may be only slightly unbound. We review some
of the major sources of uncertainty in that chiral extrapolation.Comment: Invited talk at the Asia-Pacific few Body Conference, Seoul Kore
Chern-Simons Reduction and non-Abelian Fluid Mechanics
We propose a non-Abelian generalization of the Clebsch parameterization for a
vector in three dimensions. The construction is based on a group-theoretical
reduction of the Chern-Simons form on a symmetric space. The formalism is then
used to give a canonical (symplectic) discussion of non-Abelian fluid
mechanics, analogous to the way the Abelian Clebsch parameterization allows a
canonical description of conventional fluid mechanics.Comment: 12 pages, REVTeX; revised for publication in Phys Rev D; email to
[email protected]
Large-Scale Structure at z~2.5
We have made a statistically complete, unbiased survey of C IV systems toward
a region of high QSO density near the South Galactic Pole using 25 lines of
sight spanning . Such a survey makes an excellent probe of
large-scale structure at early epochs. We find evidence for structure on the
proper Mpc scale ( km Mpc) as
determined by the two point C IV - C IV absorber correlation function, and
reject the null hypothesis that C IV systems are distributed randomly on such
scales at the level. The structure likely reflects the
distance between two groups of absorbers subtending and Mpc at and respectively. There is also a marginal trend for the association of
high rest equivalent width C IV absorbers and QSOs at similar redshifts but
along different lines of sight. The total number of C IV systems detected is
consistent with that which would be expected based on a survey using many
widely separated lines of sight. Using the same data, we also find 11 Mg II
absorbers in a complete survey toward 24 lines of sight; there is no evidence
for Mg II - Mg II or Mg II - QSO clustering, though the sample size is likely
still small to detect such structure if it exists.Comment: 56 pages including 32 of figures, in gzip-ed uuencoded postscript
format, 1 long table not included, aastex4 package. Accepted for publication
in ApJ Supplement
Why are rhizobial symbiosis genes mobile?
Rhizobia are one of the most important and best studied groups of bacterial symbionts. They are defined by their ability to establish nitrogen-fixing intracellular infections within plant hosts. One surprising feature of this symbiosis is that the bacterial genes required for this complex trait are not fixed within the chromosome, but are encoded on mobile genetic elements (MGEs), namely plasmids or integrative and conjugative elements. Evidence suggests that many of these elements are actively mobilizing within rhizobial populations, suggesting that regular symbiosis gene transfer is part of the ecology of rhizobial symbionts. At first glance, this is counterintuitive. The symbiosis trait is highly complex, multipartite and tightly coevolved with the legume hosts, while transfer of genes can be costly and disrupt coadaptation between the chromosome and the symbiosis genes. However, horizontal gene transfer is a process driven not only by the interests of the host bacterium, but also, and perhaps predominantly, by the interests of the MGEs that facilitate it. Thus understanding the role of horizontal gene transfer in the rhizobium–legume symbiosis requires a ‘mobile genetic element's-eye view' on the ecology and evolution of this important symbiosis
Absolute values of the London penetration depth in YBa2Cu3O6+y measured by zero field ESR spectroscopy on Gd doped single crystals
Zero-field electron spin resonance (ESR) of dilute Gd ions substituted for Y
in the cuprate superconductor YBaCuO is used as a novel
technique for measuring the absolute value of the low temperature magnetic
penetration depth . The Gd ESR spectrum of samples with
substitution was obtained with a broadband microwave technique
that measures power absorption bolometrically from 0.5 GHz to 21 GHz. This ESR
spectrum is determined by the crystal field that lifts the level degeneracy of
the spin 7/2 Gd ion and details of this spectrum provide information
concerning oxygen ordering in the samples. The magnetic penetration depth is
obtained by relating the number of Gd ions exposed to the microwave magnetic
field to the frequency-integrated intensity of the observed ESR transitions.
This technique has allowed us to determine precise values of for
screening currents flowing in the three crystallographic orientations (, and ) in samples of GdYBaCuO of three different oxygen contents ( K), ( K) and
( K). The in-plane values are found to depart substantially from the
widely reported relation .Comment: 14 pages, 12 figures; version to appear in PR
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