The effect of behavior and testosterone levels on mating in garter snakes

In garter snakes, including Thamnophis sirtalis and Thamnophis elegans, successful mating is dependent, in part, on the ability of males to follow scent trails left by females. This project will investigate how scent trailing behavior influences the ability of male snakes to find a female mate of the same species. Behavior studies will be conducted by presenting male snakes with scents of females of the same species, and with scents from females of a different species. We will observe which scent the males follow. Male snakes’ preference will be measured by the number of tongue flicks and seconds spent at each scent. We hypothesize that cyclic changes in hormone levels of these snakes contribute to the laying of species-specific trails by females, and the following of conspecific female trails by males

The Role of Trailing Behavior in Conspecific Mating in \u3cem\u3eThamnophis elegans\u3c/em\u3e and \u3cem\u3eThamnophis sirtalis\u3c/em\u3e

In many gartersnake species, successful mating depends on the ability of males to follow pheromone trails left by females. The populations we investigated (Thamnophis sirtalis and Thamnophis elegans, closely related sympatric species) overwinter together and simultaneously emerge. Although, mating occurs concurrently, there is no evidence of hybridization. Therefore, we sought to investigate the mechanisms that allow male snakes to differentiate between heterospecific and conspecific females to ensure mating success. Behavior studies were conducted by presenting male snakes with extracted scents of conspecific females, heterospecific females, and conspecific males. We measured male preference by number of investigatory tongue flicks and time and percentage of time spent at each scent. Our results support the hypothesis that male snakes prefer the scent of conspecific females, as opposed to heterospecific females. Furthermore, these results suggest that the use of species-specific pheromones is important in distinguishing between closely related species

Factors that impinge upon the implementation of a formally structured pastoral care programme in a government school

There is substantial evidence to indicate that societal ills have entered the schools and become manifest in the school environment in the forms of student alienation from the mainstream of the school community and pressures upon schools to provide a range of care related services Although schools are not responsible for the ills of society there is a general community expectation that they will act to counteract any of the social or educational disadvantages that accrue to the young as a consequence. In order to address such issues, Pastoral Care programmes, appear to have been developed in an ad hoc manner in most schools, However, few evaluations of their worth have been undertaken either in Western Australia or elsewhere, This research study :is focused upon the evaluation of a Pastoral Care programme that operated in one Government primary school in Western Australia. The study specifically examines the factors which impinged upon the implementation of this programme

Age-related gait standards for healthy children and young people: the GOS-ICH paediatric gait centiles

Objective To develop paediatric gait standards in healthy children and young people. Methods This observational study builds on earlier work to address the lack of population standards for gait measurements in children. Analysing gait in children affected by neurological or musculoskeletal conditions is an important component of paediatric assessment but is often confounded by developmental changes. The standards presented here do not require clinician expertise to interpret and offer an alternative to developmental tables of normalised gait data. Healthy children aged 1-19 years were recruited from community settings in London and Hertfordshire, U.K. The GAITRite ® walkway was used to record measurements for each child for velocity, cadence, step length, base of support, and stance, single and double support (as percentage of gait cycle). We fitted generalized linear additive models for location, scale and shape (gamlss). Results We constructed percentile charts for seven gait variables measured on 624 (321 males) contemporary healthy children using gamlss package in R. A clinical application of gait standards was explored. Conclusion Age-related, gender-specific standards for seven gait variables were developed and are presented here. They have a familiar format and can be used clinically to aid diagnoses, and to monitor change over time for both medical therapy and natural history of the condition. The clinical example demonstrates the potential of the GOS-ICH Paediatric Gait Centiles (GOS-ICH PGC) to enable meaningful interpretation of change in an individual’s performance, and describes characteristic features of gait from a specific population throughout childhood.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

Alternative scenarios to the “banner” years: A test of alternative formats to Web banner ads

A test of alternative formats to Web banner ads

Understanding Virtuality in a Global Organization: Toward a Virtuality Index

“We are getting more virtual all the time!” was a phrase frequently uttered during recent planning sessions for remote collaboration support at Intel Corporation; some form of this statement is no doubt made in other global firms as well. But what virtual comprises is not well understood. The construct of virtuality cannot be directly measured, so how virtual and how fast the stated change is occurring is mostly an enigma. Certain high level metrics of corporate information infrastructure can give indications, but much of virtuality is not obvious. The lack of definition makes it hard to understand the impact of virtual work on performance, or to evaluate the infrastructure and collaborative toolset needed to support distributed knowledge workers. Building on the concept of discontinuities, or factors contributing to a decrease in cohesion, we propose a virtuality index to assess the degree to which virtual work occurs and the pace at which this phenomenon progresses. The index was derived from data gathered in a study with sound psychometrics of over 1,200 employees at Intel Corporation. Preliminary analyses suggest that work predictability and general sociability (on or off teams), along with a range of media for expressivity and visualization can mitigate the consequences of working in discontinuous environments, while discontinuity of practices (e.g., more cultural and work process diversity) and worker mobility negatively impact the perception of team performance. Being distributed in and of itself was found to have no impact on team performance. These findings, along with others yet to be analyzed, promise to give us a handle on how the discontinuities of working virtually can be most effectively supported with collaboration tools

Docking and molecular dynamics studies of human ezrin protein with a modelled SARS-CoV-2 endodomain and their interaction with potential invasion inhibitors

Human ezrin protein interacts with SARS-CoV S endodomain and restricts virus fusion, entry, and early events of infection. In general, their binding strength and their structural stability determines their suc-cessful entry into the host cells. However, the binding affinity of these two endodomains with the ezrin protein has been elusive due to a paucity of knowledge on the 3D structure. This study modelled the endodomains of both SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2 and then docked these models with human ezrin pro-tein. This study establishes that the modelled endodomains of both SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-Cov-2 con-sisted of three disulphide bridges for self-stabilization. Protein-protein docking listed four salt bridges with a higher buried surface area between ezrin-SARS-CoV-1 endodomain compared to that of ezrin-SARS-CoV-2 with six salt bridges with lower buried surface area. Molecular simulation of the ezrin-SARS-CoV-1 endodomain showed better structural stability with lower Root Mean Square Deviation score compared to that of ezrin-SARS-CoV-2 endodomain due to the substitution of alanine with cysteine resi-due. Protein-ligand docking studies confirmed better ezrin-drug interaction for quercetin, minocycline, calcifediol, calcitriol, selamectin, ivermectin and ergocalciferol. However, protein-ligand simulation con-firmed strong drug-protein interaction during simulation for all the above-listed drugs except for ergo-calciferol which could not establish its interaction with the protein during simulation. Strong drug binding within the active site pocket therefore restricts the interaction of viral endodomain and simulta-neously stabilizes the ezrin protein. Furthermore, the higher stability between the ezrin after their inter-action with the drug moiety could restrict the virus fusion and the infection. This study provides a basis for further development of these drug molecules to clinical trials aiming to identify potential drug mole-cules which can treat COVID-19 infection

Augmented Behavioral Annotation Tools, with Application to Multimodal Datasets and Models: A Systematic Review

Annotation tools are an essential component in the creation of datasets for machine learning purposes. Annotation tools have evolved greatly since the turn of the century, and now commonly include collaborative features to divide labor efficiently, as well as automation employed to amplify human efforts. Recent developments in machine learning models, such as Transformers, allow for training upon very large and sophisticated multimodal datasets and enable generalization across domains of knowledge. These models also herald an increasing emphasis on prompt engineering to provide qualitative fine-tuning upon the model itself, adding a novel emerging layer of direct machine learning annotation. These capabilities enable machine intelligence to recognize, predict, and emulate human behavior with much greater accuracy and nuance, a noted shortfall of which have contributed to algorithmic injustice in previous techniques. However, the scale and complexity of training data required for multimodal models presents engineering challenges. Best practices for conducting annotation for large multimodal models in the most safe and ethical, yet efficient, manner have not been established. This paper presents a systematic literature review of crowd and machine learning augmented behavioral annotation methods to distill practices that may have value in multimodal implementations, cross-correlated across disciplines. Research questions were defined to provide an overview of the evolution of augmented behavioral annotation tools in the past, in relation to the present state of the art. (Contains five figures and four tables)

Autism spectrum disorders in boys at a major UK hemophilia center: prevalence and risk factors

Background: Autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) are diagnosed by social communication difficulties strong, narrow interests, and repetitive stereotyped behavior. An apparently-elevated prevalence of ASD at a major UK hemophilia center warranted investigation. Objectives: To screen boys with hemophilia for difficulties in social communication and executive function and identify the prevalence and risk factors for ASD. Methods: Parents of boys with hemophilia aged 5 to 16 years completed the Social Communication Questionnaire, Children’s Communication Checklist, and the Behavior Rating Inventory of executive function. Prevalence and potential risk factors for ASD were evaluated. Boys with an existing diagnosis of ASD did not complete questionnaires, but were included in the prevalence analysis. Results: Negative scores on all 3 questionnaires were observed for 60 of 79 boys. Positive scores on 1, 2, and 3 questionnaires were seen in 12 of 79, 3 of 79, and 4 of 79 boys, respectively. In addition to the 11 of 214 boys with a prior ASD diagnosis, 3 further boys were diagnosed with ASD, yielding a prevalence of 14 (6.5%) of 214, greater than that of boys in the UK general population. Premature birth was linked to having ASD, but did not fully explain the increased prevalence with more boys born <37 weeks scoring positively on the Social Communications Questionnaire and Children’s Communication Checklist compared with those born at term. Conclusion: This study identified an increased prevalence of ASD at 1 UK hemophilia center. Prematurity was identified as a risk factor but did not fully explain the higher prevalence of ASD. Further investigation in the wider national/global hemophilia communities is warranted to determine whether this is an isolated finding