The impact of climate-induced distributional changes on the validity of biological water quality metrics

We present data on the distributional changes within an order of macroinvertebrates used in biological water quality monitoring. The British Odonata (dragonflies and damselflies) have been shown to be expanding their range northwards and this could potentially affect the use of water quality metrics. The results show that the families of Odonata that are used in monitoring are shifting their ranges poleward and that species richness is increasing through time at most UK latitudes. These past distributional shifts have had negligible effects on water quality indicators. However, variation in Odonata species richness (particularly in species-poor regions) has a significant effect on water quality metrics. We conclude with a brief review of current and predicted responses of aquatic macroinvertebrates to environmental warming and maintain that caution is warranted in the use of such dynamic biological indicators

Wings of Coenagrion puella vary in shape at the northern range margin (Odonata: Coenagrionidae)

A previous study has shown that wing size in Coenagrion puella varied considerably along a latitudinal gradient in the UK. Using landmark data from wing images, patterns of shape variation were also determined along the same transect by geometric morphometric analysis of wing shape. Wing shape was uniform at all sites other than those closest to the range margin, which differed significantly. The potential mechanisms that might have generated such between-population variation are discussed

A first cut of the military QoI attribute space and hypothesis structure for abductive reasoning

The concept of quality of information (QoI) provides a focus for developing and evaluating information gathering and situational awareness (SA) assessment methods. Effective prima facie estimates of accuracy, latency and trustworthiness are essential elements in the assessment of an information product delivered to, for example, a decision maker charged with timely and accurate identification of targets. QoI must support reasoning under conditions of uncertainty and conflict, which is a motivation for the application of abductive reasoning. This type of reasoning evokes hypotheses for ground truth that include the characteristics of the subject matter, contexts, producers and channels of information products. For our purposes, hypotheses are to be tested using a model related in intent to the enterprise QoI space of Wang et al, but which must take into consideration a significantly richer set of uncertainties resulting from the complexity and range of military activities that may require concurrent evaluation. This paper and accompanying poster begin to define that space

Use of Remote Camera Traps to Evaluate Animal-Based Welfare Indicators in Individual Free-Roaming Wild Horses

We previously developed a Ten-Stage Protocol for scientifically assessing the welfare of individual free-roaming wild animals using the Five Domains Model. The protocol includes developing methods for measuring or observing welfare indices. In this study, we assessed the use of remote camera traps to evaluate an extensive range of welfare indicators in individual free-roaming wild horses. Still images and videos were collected and analysed to assess whether horses could be detected and identified individually, which welfare indicators could be reliably evaluated, and whether behaviour could be quantitatively assessed. Remote camera trapping was successful in detecting and identifying horses (75% on still images and 72% on video observation events), across a range of habitats including woodlands where horses could not be directly observed. Twelve indicators of welfare across the Five Domains were assessed with equal frequency on both still images and video, with those most frequently assessable being body condition score (73% and 79% of observation events, respectively), body posture (76% for both), coat condition (42% and 52%, respectively), and whether or not the horse was sweating excessively (42% and 45%, respectively). An additional five indicators could only be assessed on video; those most frequently observable being presence or absence of weakness (66%), qualitative behavioural assessment (60%), presence or absence of shivering (51%), and gait at walk (50%). Specific behaviours were identified in 93% of still images and 84% of video events, and proportions of time different behaviours were captured could be calculated. Most social behaviours were rarely observed, but close spatial proximity to other horses, as an indicator of social bonds, was recorded in 36% of still images, and 29% of video observation events. This is the first study that describes detailed methodology for these purposes. The results of this study can also form the basis of application to other species, which could contribute significantly to advancing the field of wild animal welfare

Pre-eruptive timescales from the historical Hapaimamo eruption at Mauna Loa, Hawai‘i

The 240 yr B.P. Hapaimamo eruption occurred on the southwest rift zone (SWRZ) of Mauna Loa. A large tephra deposit and an extensive lava flow field were produced that extend from 1880 m above sea level down to the southwest coast. Detailed petrological study of olivine crystals from both deposit types are used to determine the timescales of crystal disaggregation from a cumulate mush zone. Over 70% of studied olivines in both, lava flow and tephra samples, exhibit normal zoning. Tephra and flow olivine core compositions are between Fo89–84 and Fo89–81. Olivine rims in the tephra have compositions of Fo86–81, whereas rims in the flow samples extend to lower values within the range Fo83–71. The remaining tephra olivines are unzoned and fall within the same core compositional range. Using Fesingle bondMg interdiffusion chronometry, we calculate tephra olivine diffusion timescales from 13 to 1600 days (days to years), with over 70% of timescales 100 days. Zoning widths were defined as narrow (type I) or broad (type II) and together with the diversity of timescales indicate an ongoing process of crystal mush disaggregation into the erupted host melt. Comparison of tephra and flow diffusion timescales show consistently longer timescales across the lava flow population, as expected due to continued diffusive re-equilibration. Our results suggest that where textural evidence allows, and tephra timescales can be compared, olivines from lava flows can be used to provide temporal information for magmatic processes within the subsurface and the lava flow. Comparison of published elemental diffusion timescales between Mauna Loa and neighbouring Kīlauea suggest that magma mobilisation and transfer processes occur over similar timescales within the plumbing systems of both Mauna Loa and Kīlauea

Noncommutative Vortices and Instantons from Generalized Bose Operators

Generalized Bose operators correspond to reducible representations of the harmonic oscillator algebra. We demonstrate their relevance in the construction of topologically non-trivial solutions in noncommutative gauge theories, focusing our attention to flux tubes, vortices, and instantons. Our method provides a simple new relation between the topological charge and the number of times the basic irreducible representation occurs in the reducible representation underlying the generalized Bose operator. When used in conjunction with the noncommutative ADHM construction, we find that these new instantons are in general not unitarily equivalent to the ones currently known in literature.Comment: 25 page

Adaptive Evolutionary Clustering

In many practical applications of clustering, the objects to be clustered evolve over time, and a clustering result is desired at each time step. In such applications, evolutionary clustering typically outperforms traditional static clustering by producing clustering results that reflect long-term trends while being robust to short-term variations. Several evolutionary clustering algorithms have recently been proposed, often by adding a temporal smoothness penalty to the cost function of a static clustering method. In this paper, we introduce a different approach to evolutionary clustering by accurately tracking the time-varying proximities between objects followed by static clustering. We present an evolutionary clustering framework that adaptively estimates the optimal smoothing parameter using shrinkage estimation, a statistical approach that improves a naive estimate using additional information. The proposed framework can be used to extend a variety of static clustering algorithms, including hierarchical, k-means, and spectral clustering, into evolutionary clustering algorithms. Experiments on synthetic and real data sets indicate that the proposed framework outperforms static clustering and existing evolutionary clustering algorithms in many scenarios.Comment: To appear in Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery, MATLAB toolbox available at http://tbayes.eecs.umich.edu/xukevin/affec

Sample Preparation for N-Glycosylation Analysis of Therapeutic Monoclonal Antibodies by Electrophoresis

There are a considerable number of biopharmaceuticals that have been approved for clinical use in the past decade. Over half of these new generation drugs are glycoproteins, such as monoclonal antibodies or other recombinant glycoproteins, which are mostly produced in mammalian cell lines. The linked carbohydrate moieties affect not only their physicochemical properties and thermal stability but also crucial features like receptor-binding activity, circulating half-life, as well as immunogenicity. The structural diversity of these attached glycans can be manifested in altered monosaccharide composition and linkages/positions among the monosaccharide building blocks. In addition, as more and more biosimilar products hit the market, understanding the effects of their glycosylation modifi cation has become a recent target in effi cacy and safety issues. To ensure consistent quality of these products, glycosylation profi les have to be monitored and controlled in all steps of the manufacturing process, i.e., from clone selection to lot release. In this paper, we describe some of the recently introduced and commonly used sample preparation techniques for capillary electrophoresis (CE)-based profi ling and structural elucidation of N-glycans. The presented pro- tocols include protein A affi nity partitioning of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), enzymatic release of the N-linked glycans, labeling of the liberated carbohydrates, reaction mixture purifi cation techniques to remove the excess labeling reagent, and high-resolution and rapid capillary electrophoresis-laser-induced fl uorescence (CE-LIF)-based profi ling of the labeled and purifi ed N-glycans

Anomaly Equations and Intersection Theory

Six-dimensional supergravity theories with N=(1,0) supersymmetry must satisfy anomaly equations. These equations come from demanding the cancellation of gravitational, gauge and mixed anomalies. The anomaly equations have implications for the geometrical data of Calabi-Yau threefolds, since F-theory compactified on an elliptically fibered Calabi-Yau threefold with a section generates a consistent six-dimensional N=(1,0) supergravity theory. In this paper, we show that the anomaly equations can be summarized by three intersection theory identities. In the process we also identify the geometric counterpart of the anomaly coefficients---in particular, those of the abelian gauge groups---that govern the low-energy dynamics of the theory. We discuss the results in the context of investigating string universality in six dimensions.Comment: 29 pages + appendices, 8 figures; v2: minor corrections, references added; v3: minor corrections, reference adde

Editors, Publishers, Impact Factors, and Reprint Income

Harvey Marcovitch discusses new research findings from Andreas Lundh and colleagues that examined the effect of publishing industry-funded clinical trials on journal citations and reprint income at six major medical journals