Applications of sensory biology in marine ecology and aquaculture

Journal homepage: http://www.int-res.com/journals/meps

The peer review process: perspectives and insights from a journal editor

Ever-increasing numbers of manuscripts, grant proposals, working group documents, position papers, etc. are being circulated – to an overburdened community of non-remunerated experts – for critical evaluation. Expert reviewers are fatigued. Their efforts, and particularly the amount of time required to prepare complete, well-considered and constructive critiques, are unrecognized by administrators. As a result, the peer review process is in danger of collapse. More and more colleagues are no longer able or willing to accept review assignments. I will discuss these, and related issues, from my perspective as Associate Editor-in-Chief of Marine Ecology Progress Series (MEPS). In 2007, MEPS, L&O, CJFAS and the ICES JMS will receive > 3000 manuscripts for evaluation. At least 2000 of these will be distributed for review, and some of them will be resubmitted and reviewed again. This will require approximately 10 000 reviews. With current rates of rejection, at least 1500 of these manuscripts will likely be resubmitted to other journals, which will solicit perhaps 3000–4000 more reviews. Some of those will be rejected, and resubmitted elsewhere. Thus, manuscripts initially submitted to only 4 marine science journals could easily require more than 15 000 reviews. And how many qualified experts are there out there anyways?! These numbers, and the level of non-remunerated time and effort that they represent, are meant to be sobering and will hopefully serve as the basis for an animated discussion. Keywords: peer review; quality control; inherent bias; reviewer fatigu

History of Anthropology at Washington University, St. Louis, 1905-2012

This is a history of the development of anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis as researched and recorded by Professor David L. Browman. His research includes the development of anthropology as a department, profiles of faculty and other noteworthy individuals involved in anthropology at the university and in St. Louis, a list of department chairs and faculty affiliated with the department, and personal recollections.https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/books/1000/thumbnail.jp

Cantonment Belle Fontaine 1805-1826 The First U.S. Fort West of the Mississippi River

A brief summary extrapolated from various unpublished archaeological and archival reports detailing the results of five seasons of test excavations from 1992 to 1997 at this National Register of Historic Places property. Some sections, as indicated, may include information from research report analysis data by former Washington University students Jennifer Bonarek, Rachel Boyarsky, Marco Brewer, Tiffany Bruckert, Ellen Chapman, Myla Coffie, Laura Downing, Jennifer Fee, Kelly Gelpi, Rui Guan, Ronald Hampton, Joe Harl, Emily Hollinger, Mary Holst, Lauren Hosek. Lauren Hunter, Alexandra Jensen, Bobby Kahlon, Stephanie Kain, Ian Kalish, Sarah Keast, Meghan Kenny, Joanna Kovalski, Catherine Koziol, Amy Kramer, Aimee Kryda, Duo Li, Christopher Lockwood, Jane Lucas, Robin Machiran, Nick May, Juan Carlos Melendez, Bryan Miller, Ryan Nelson, Ryan Newberger, Ray Nichols, Stephanie Pan, Jason Patel, Rachel S. Popelka, Michal Quennoz, Jim Railey, Alex Rechlin, Toi Saale, Kara San Joaquin, Suzanne Marielle Scott, T. J. Silverman, Christine Simurda, Kathleen Sipe, Kathleen Stahlman, Sam Steinberger, Tim Stinson, Jessica Straatmann, Meg Thornton, Brian Tyler, Susanna Vaihinpaa, Nicole Vanore, Joy Wang, Annie Way, or Adam Webb.https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/books/1046/thumbnail.jp

The copepod Calanus spp. (Calanidae) is repelled by polarized light

Both attraction and repulsion from linearly polarized light have been observed in zooplankton. A dichotomous choice experiment, consisting of plankton light traps deployed in natural waters at a depth of 30 m that projected either polarized or unpolarized light of the same intensity, was used to test the hypothesis that the North Atlantic copepod, Calanus spp., is linearly polarotactic. In addition, the transparency of these copepods, as they might be seen by polarization insensitive vs. sensitive visual systems, was measured. Calanus spp. exhibited negative polarotaxis with a preference ratio of 1.9:1. Their transparency decreased from 80% to 20% to 30% in the unpolarized, partially polarized, and electric (e-) vector orientation domains respectively - that is, these copepods would appear opaque and conspicuous to a polarization-sensitive viewer looking at them under conditions rich in polarized light. Since the only difference between the two plankton traps was the polarization cue, we conclude that Calanus spp. are polarization sensitive and exhibit negative polarotaxis at low light intensities (albeit well within the sensitivity range reported for copepods). We hypothesize that Calanus spp. can use polarization vision to reduce their risk of predation by polarization-sensitive predators and suggest that this be tested in future experiments

Denialism and muddying the water or organized skepticism and clarity? THAT is the question

The research being commented on here has been criticized and defended in journals. Sneddon et al. (2018) add nothing substantive. We have nothing further to add. Readers are referred to Diggles (2018) and to Browman et al. (2018) for a detailed assessment

Spectral Characteristics of Schwa in Czech Accented English

The English central mid lax vowel (i.e., schwa) often contributes considerably to the sound differences between native and non-native speech. Many foreign speakers of English fail to reduce certain underlying vowels to schwa, which, on the suprasegmental level of description, affects the perceived rhythm of their speech. However, the problem of capturing quantitatively the differences between native and non-native schwa poses difficulties that, to this day, have been tackled only partially. We offer a technique of measurement in the acoustic domain that has not been probed properly as yet: the distribution of acoustic energy in the vowel spectrum. Our results show that spectral slope features measured in weak vowels discriminate between Czech and British speakers of English quite reliably. Moreover, the measurements of formant bandwidths turned out to be useful for the same task, albeit less direc