A marker suitable for sex-typing birds from degraded samples

A new primer set was developed for sex-typing birds, Z37B. This primer set was designed to amplify alleles of small size to render it suitable for sex-typing degraded samples, including shed feathers. This marker successfully sex-typed 50 % of the species tested, including passerines, shorebirds, rails, seabirds, eagles and the brown kiwi Apteryx australis (allele size range =81–103 bp), and is therefore expected to be suitable for sex-typing a wide range of species. Z37B sex-typed nondegraded samples (blood), degraded tissue (dead unhatched embryos, dead nestlings and museum specimens) and samples of low quantity DNA (plucked feathers and buccal swabs). The small amplicon sizes in birds suggest that this marker will be of utility for sex-typing feathers, swabs and degraded samples from a wide range of avian species

Interoperability: a conceptual framework to bridge the gap between multifunctional and multisystem urban flood management

Urban flood management is increasingly expected to be multifunctional to integrate with the existing functioning of cities. Locally, this led to the development of sustainable urban water drainage designs, while at larger scales, blue‐green or water‐sensitive cities are considered as examples for how cities should function. Upscaling local designs to city‐scale flood resilience is not straightforward, however, due to the complexity of physical infrastructure and socio‐economic interactions within urban systems and requires “system‐of‐systems” thinking. To this end, we introduce the concept “interoperability” to guide transition from local multifunctionality to city‐scale multisystem flood management, through actively managing connections between infrastructure systems to convey, divert, and store flood water. While flood management is already based on these connections, interoperability is about explicitly emphasising them to explore and create opportunities to facilitate the integration of systems for flood management. The main research need arising from this conceptualisation is to determine how spatial data on infrastructure, environment, and social characteristics in urban areas can serve as a basis to identify opportunities and barriers for interoperability. By introducing interoperability and the research needs arising from it, a framework is created to facilitate and encourage practical thinking and discussion about system integration in urban flood management

On Exceptional Times for generalized Fleming-Viot Processes with Mutations

If $\mathbf Y$ is a standard Fleming-Viot process with constant mutation rate (in the infinitely many sites model) then it is well known that for each $t>0$ the measure $\mathbf Y_t$ is purely atomic with infinitely many atoms. However, Schmuland proved that there is a critical value for the mutation rate under which almost surely there are exceptional times at which $\mathbf Y$ is a finite sum of weighted Dirac masses. In the present work we discuss the existence of such exceptional times for the generalized Fleming-Viot processes. In the case of Beta-Fleming-Viot processes with index $\alpha\in\,]1,2[$ we show that - irrespectively of the mutation rate and $\alpha$ - the number of atoms is almost surely always infinite. The proof combines a Pitman-Yor type representation with a disintegration formula, Lamperti's transformation for self-similar processes and covering results for Poisson point processes

Adaptation investments for transport resilience: trends and recommendations

Climate change, extreme weather and flooding threaten to increase damage and disruption to our transport networks and the services that they provide. There is increased need for adaptation to maintain current asset conditions and services, and a strategic requirement to prioritise such investments in adaptation to reduce future risks. Physical network risks will not be evenly distributed across nations (e.g. due to geographical and climate change patterns), and some regions will require more investment and adaptive interventions than others to maintain services due their vulnerability to natural hazards. Comparatively, the distribution of investment for transport infrastructure does not have a uniform spatial distribution, and can favour schemes that reduce congestion on networks with high demand without considering the actual risk of being impacted. These two issues, if unchallenged, will present an unfavourable future for areas with high network risks and low transport demand that will widen spatial inequality or resilience, mobility and potential for economic growth. This study advances a method- ological framework to analyse the spatial distribution of flood risk on UK road and rail networks in the light of potential bias of regional investment. Using GIS mapping, network data and risk analysis, regional futures are categorised and discussed. There is a clear North/South divide in transport networks at risk from potential coastal and fluvial flooding, with southern regions having 10–30% of their network situated in known flood risk areas. Investment in transport infrastructure is also disproportionately favoured towards regions with high transport demand, and peripheral regional such as wales and the South west are at risk from increase disparity from high flood risk networks and a low potential for investment. The study provides preliminary evidence for the need to consider assessment approaches for long-term investment in resilience, drawing recommendations for future research

The thermal SZ tomography

The thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (tSZ) effect directly measures the thermal pressure of free electrons integrated along the line of sight and thus contains valuable information on the thermal history of the universe. However, the redshift information is entangled in the projection along the line of sight. This projection effect severely degrades the power of the tSZ effect to reconstruct the thermal history. We investigate the tSZ tomography technique to recover this otherwise lost redshift information by cross correlating the tSZ effect with galaxies of known redshifts, or alternatively with matter distribution reconstructed from weak lensing tomography. We investigate in detail the 3D distribution of the gas thermal pressure and its relation with the matter distribution, through our adiabatic hydrodynamic simulation and the one with additional gastrophysics including radiative cooling, star formation and supernova feedback. (1) We find a strong correlation between the gas pressure and matter distribution, with a typical cross correlation coefficient r ~ 0.7 at k . 3h/Mpc and z < 2. This tight correlation will enable robust cross correlation measurement between SZ surveys such as Planck, ACT and SPT and lensing surveys such as DES and LSST, at ~20-100{\sigma} level. (2) We propose a tomography technique to convert the measured cross correlation into the contribution from gas in each redshift bin to the tSZ power spectrum. Uncertainties in gastrophysics may affect the reconstruction at ~ 2% level, due to the ~ 1% impact of gastrophysics on r, found in our simulations. However, we find that the same gastrophysics affects the tSZ power spectrum at ~ 40% level, so it is robust to infer the gastrophysics from the reconstructed redshift resolved contribution.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures, 2 appendices, accepted by Ap

The utility of existing passerine microsatellite markers for genetic studies in endangered species: as demonstrated for a critically endangered forest bird endemic to Réunion Island, the Réunion cuckooshrike (Coracina newtoni)

Genetic data are increasingly recognized for their utility in conservation programs. However, many endangered species belong to families that have been understudied. Due to the urgency of their conservation status it is important to quickly identify polymorphic microsatellite loci from available resources. We show for the Re´union Cuckoo shrike Coracina newtoni, that this strategy can be very useful. Using 110 passerine microsatellite primer sets we identified eighteen polymorphic loci and tested them in 25 C. newtoni individuals. Following a Bonferroni correction one pair of loci displayed linkage disequilibriu

Cysteine (C)-X-C Receptor 4 Undergoes Transportin 1-Dependent Nuclear Localization and Remains Functional at the Nucleus of Metastatic Prostate Cancer Cells

published_or_final_versio

Glucagon-like peptide-1 analogues in monogenic syndromic obesity:Real-world data from a large cohort of Alström syndrome patients

AIM: To examine the real-world efficacy of glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1 RAs) in monogenic obesity in patients with Alström syndrome (ALMS).METHODS: We screened 72 UK adult patients with ALMS and offered treatment to 34 patients meeting one of the following criteria: body mass index of 25 kg/m2 or higher, insulin resistance, suboptimal glycaemic control on antihyperglycaemic medications or non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.RESULTS: In total, 30 patients, with a mean age of 31 ± 11 years and a male to-female ratio of 2:1, completed 6 months of treatment with GLP-1 RAs either in the form of semaglutide or exenatide. On average, treatment with GLP-1 RAs reduced body weight by 5.4 ± 1.7 (95% confidence interval [CI] 3.6-7) kg and HbA1c by 12 ± 3.3 (95% CI 8.7-15.3) mmol/mol, equating to 6% weight loss (P &lt; .01) and 1.1% absolute reduction in HbA1c (P &lt; .01). Significant improvements were also observed in serum total cholesterol, triglycerides, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol and alanine aminotransferase. The improvement of metabolic variables in our cohort of monogenic syndromic obesity was comparable with data for polygenic obesity, irrespective of weight loss.CONCLUSIONS: Data from our centre highlight the non-inferiority of GLP-1 RAs in monogenic syndromic obesity to the available GLP-1 RA-use data in polygenic obesity, therefore, these agents can be considered as a treatment option in patients with ALMS, as well as other forms of monogenic obesity.</p

The fully differential hadronic production of a Higgs boson via bottom quark fusion at NNLO

The fully differential computation of the hadronic production cross section of a Higgs boson via bottom quarks is presented at NNLO in QCD. Several differential distributions with their corresponding scale uncertainties are presented for the 8 TeV LHC. This is the first application of the method of non-linear mappings for NNLO differential calculations at hadron colliders.Comment: 27 pages, 13 figures, 1 lego plo