Life Partner Perceptions of the Emotional Impact of Stuttering

The aim of the present study is to investigate the extent to which life partners understand the emotional impact stuttering has on their loved one who stutters. This was accomplished by administering the Speech Situation Checklist - Emotional Reaction (SSC-ER), a subtest of the Behavior Assessment Battery (BAB; Vanryckeghem & Brutten, 2018) via Qualtrics, an online survey software, to the participants who stutter and a modified version of the SSC-ER to their life partner. No significant differences and a positive correlation were observed between groups (people who stutter (PWS) and their life partner (LP) as it relates to total score on the SSC-ER. Gender, age, and duration of relationship, overall, were not confounding variables that affected the total score. Internal reliability was high across both the SSC-ER and its modified version. All items on the test correlated significantly with the total score with the exception of items 8 and 13 for PWS and items 6, 13, and 36 for LPs. Between-group item analysis revealed that the majority of test items did not differ significantly with the exception of six items: 3, 4, 13, 19, 26, and 27. The aforementioned items follow the construct pertaining to fixed sounds and/or words. The findings in this investigation provide evidence that LPs have a general understanding of the anxiety levels their partner who stutters experiences as it relates to communication situations

Characterization of the Arabidopsis thaliana homologue of NBR1

It is now well established that p62 and NBR1 are selectively degraded by autophagy and can act as cargo receptors or adaptors for the autophagic degradation of ubiquitinated substrates. Research on autophagy in plants is also well under way, but the mechanism by which target substrates are sequestered for autophagic degradation has not been elucidated. The uncharacterized plant protein Q9SB64 shares several important functional properties with p62 and NBR1, which indicates that it could act as a cargo receptor for the autophagic degradation of ubiquitinated substrates in plants. Results from this study show that Q9SB64 polymerize via an N-terminal PB1 domain, binds ubiquitin through a C-terminal UBA domain and interacts with the Arabidopsis family of ATG8 proteins. Based on sequence similarity Q9SB64 can be viewed as the Arabidopsis orthologue of vertebrate NBR1 and named AtNBR1. Plants do not seem to have a p62 orthologue. However, with regard to the functional properties studied here AtNBR1 behaves more similar to mammalian p62 than to NBR1

Towards a multi-level selection framework for understanding trends in popular music

Master's Thesis popular music MUR502 - University of Agder 2019This thesis proposes a metaphysical Multi-Level Selection model for memetics which is intended to be utilized in research ontrends inpopular music markets. The goal is for thismodel to be theinter-weavedresult, and expansionofDawkins’(1989)work on memetics,Wilson & Wilson’s (2008)work on Multi-Level Selection, and Pandora’s Music Genome Project (see (Castelluccio, 2006)). However, much ofthis thesis is focused on the philosophical discourse associated in attempting to intermix these disciplines

Multiple Imputation in Predictive Modeling of Arthroplasty Database

This thesis presents a method of imputing missing values in data, creating a simple data mining tool and using data mining to see whether such imputed data can be used to predict failures of hip prosthetics in smaller databases. The data set used for this thesis is based on explanted prosthetics from total hip arthroplasty revision surgeries. It is in the early phases and is rather a small data set with many missing values. Multiple imputation was used to estimate missing values in an attempt to build a more complete dataset to perform predictive modelling. A simple linear regression and multiple linear regression were used with a prediction function for linear models. While the initial results of the imputation looked promising, comparisons with the original data and the imputed data did not show much improvement. The data was also used in a prototype application for data mining that allows the users to input their data and select the variables for analysis, and present a plot and summary of the model. The application, which is the artefact of this research is fully functional, but simple. Creating larger and more general applications in R can get complex, and other technologies might be more suitable. However, it is a very powerful statistical tool for special tasks and modelling. Data mining was used to explore the potential to make predictions with the data. Using linear regression on both the original and imputed data showed that the results were similar overall, but with some significant differences. The methods of validation indicated that, while the model was not great, there was something to gain from it. Predictions were run by a multiple linear regression model on both sets of data, displaying some difference but not enough to draw conclusions about the effect and contribution of data imputation. Currently, the methods in question will have to be further refined, preferably in collaboration with experts. The application can be expanded, but a different approach should be considered based on the scope of any future research. The data mining, even when applied on limited data sets, shows potential and encourages applications of data mining methods from an early stage of research when data collection begins.Masteroppgave i informasjonsvitenskapINFO390MASV-IKTMASV-INF

Light converts endosymbiotic fungus to pathogen, influencing seedling survival and host tree recruitment

Endophytic fungi that asymptomatically colonize plants^1^ are diverse and abundant in tropical ecosystems^2^. These organisms can be weakly pathogenic^3^ and/or mutualistic, frequently enabling plants to adapt to extreme environments, alter competitive abilities of host individuals and improve host fitness under abiotic or biotic stresses^4,5,6^. _Diplodia mutila_ is a symbiotic endophyte/plant pathogenic fungus infecting the palm _Iriartea deltoidea_^7^, which dominates many wet lowland Neotropical forests. The fungus is an asymptomatic endophyte in mature plants, and disease and mortality are expressed in some seedlings, while others remain disease free. Here we show that seedlings bearing the endophyte show enhanced resistance to insect herbivory. However, high light availability triggers pathogenicity of the fungus, while low light favors endosymbiotic development, constraining recruitment of endophyte-infested seedlings to the shaded understory by limiting survival of seedlings in direct light. These results provide evidence that patterns of plant abundance and the mechanisms maintaining tropical forest biodiversity are the result of a more complex interplay between abiotic and biotic environments than previously thought

Postglacial migration supplements climate in determining plant species ranges in Europe

The influence of dispersal limitation on species ranges remains controversial. Considering the dramatic impacts of the last glaciation in Europe, species might not have tracked climate changes through time and, as a consequence, their present-day ranges might be in disequilibrium with current climate. For 1016 European plant species, we assessed the relative importance of current climate and limited postglacial migration in determining species ranges using regression modelling and explanatory variables representing climate, and a novel species-specific hind-casting-based measure of accessibility to postglacial colonization. Climate was important for all species, while postglacial colonization also constrained the ranges of more than 50 per cent of the species. On average, climate explained five times more variation in species ranges than accessibility, but accessibility was the strongest determinant for one-sixth of the species. Accessibility was particularly important for species with limited long-distance dispersal ability, with southern glacial ranges, seed plants compared with ferns, and small-range species in southern Europe. In addition, accessibility explained one-third of the variation in species' disequilibrium with climate as measured by the realized/potential range size ratio computed with niche modelling. In conclusion, we show that although climate is the dominant broad-scale determinant of European plant species ranges, constrained dispersal plays an important supplementary role

Consistent role of Quaternary climate change in shaping current plant functional diversity patterns across European plant orders

Current and historical environmental conditions are known to determine jointly contemporary species distributions and richness patterns. However, whether historical dynamics in species distributions and richness translate to functional diversity patterns remains, for the most part, unknown. The geographic patterns of plant functional space size (richness) and packing (dispersion) for six widely distributed orders of European angiosperms were estimated using atlas distribution data and trait information. Then the relative importance of late-Quaternary glacial-interglacial climate change and contemporary environmental factors (climate, productivity, and topography) as determinants of functional diversity of evaluated orders was assesed. Functional diversity patterns of all evaluated orders exhibited prominent glacial-interglacial climate change imprints, complementing the influence of contemporary environmental conditions. The importance of Quaternary glacial-interglacial climate change factors was comparable to that of contemporary environmental factors across evaluated orders. Therefore, high long-term paleoclimate variability has imposed consistent supplementary constraints on functional diversity of multiple plant groups, a legacy that may permeate to ecosystem functioning and resilience. These findings suggest that strong near-future anthropogenic climate change may elicit long-term functional disequilibria in plant functional diversity

Specialization in Plant-Hummingbird Networks Is Associated with Species Richness, Contemporary Precipitation and Quaternary Climate-Change Velocity

Bo Dalsgaard et al...Large-scale geographical patterns of biotic specialization and the underlying drivers are poorly understood, but it is widely believed that climate plays an important role in determining specialization. As climate-driven range dynamics should diminish local adaptations and favor generalization, one hypothesis is that contemporary biotic specialization is determined by the degree of past climatic instability, primarily Quaternary climate-change velocity. Other prominent hypotheses predict that either contemporary climate or species richness affect biotic specialization. To gain insight into geographical patterns of contemporary biotic specialization and its drivers, we use network analysis to determine the degree of specialization in plant-hummingbird mutualistic networks sampled at 31 localities, spanning a wide range of climate regimes across the Americas. We found greater biotic specialization at lower latitudes, with latitude explaining 20–22% of the spatial variation in plant-hummingbird specialization. Potential drivers of specialization - contemporary climate, Quaternary climate-change velocity, and species richness - had superior explanatory power, together explaining 53–64% of the variation in specialization. Notably, our data provides empirical evidence for the hypothesized roles of species richness, contemporary precipitation and Quaternary climate-change velocity as key predictors of biotic specialization, whereas contemporary temperature and seasonality seem unimportant in determining specialization. These results suggest that both ecological and evolutionary processes at Quaternary time scales can be important in driving large-scale geographical patterns of contemporary biotic specialization, at least for co-evolved systems such as plant-hummingbird networks.Funding for BD was supported by Frimodt-Heineke Foundation, Augustinus Foundation, Knud Højgaard Foundation, a PhD fellowship by Aarhus University, Weis-Fogh Fund at Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, and The Danish Council for Independent Research | Natural Sciences. EM was supported by the Center for Massive Data Algorithmics, a Danish National Research Foundation Center of Excellence. JF and CR thank the Danish National Research Foundation for its support of the Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate. AMG was supported by Svend Fiedler & Wife Foundation, J.Olesen by the Danish Council for Independent Research - Natural Sciences and Novozymes/World Wildlife Foundation-Denmark, J.Ollerton and SW by the British Ecological Society, Idea Wild, The Biodiversity Trust, The Anglo Peruvian Society and The Leslie Church Bursary Fund, RA by The United States National Science Foundation's Predoctoral Fellowship Program and The California Alliance for Minority Participation, ACA by The Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado da Bahia (FAEP) and The National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), PC by the British Ornithologists' Union, CL by the Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología, CM by FAPESB and CNPq, IS and MS by FAPESP and CNPq, AT by Aarhus University, and J-CS by the Danish Council for Independent Research - Natural Sciences (grant 272-07-0242). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Peer reviewe

African Environmental Change from the Pleistocene to the Anthropocene

This review explores what past environmental change in Africa—and African people\u27s response to it—can teach us about how to cope with life in the Anthropocene. Organized around four drivers of change—climate; agriculture and pastoralism; megafauna; and imperialism, colonialism, and capitalism (ICC)—our review zooms in on key regions and debates, including desertification; rangeland degradation; megafauna loss; and land grabbing. Multiscale climate change is a recurring theme in the continent\u27s history, interacting with increasingly intense human activities from several million years onward, leading to oscillating, contingent environmental changes and societally adaptive responses. With high levels of poverty, fast population growth, and potentially dramatic impacts expected from future climate change, Africa is emblematic of the kinds of social and ecological precariousness many fear will characterize the future globally. African people\u27s innovation and adaptation to contingency may place them among the avant-garde with respect to thinking about Anthropocene conditions, strategies, and possibilities