Genetics and Genomics of Golden Eagle Populations with Contrasting Demographic Histories

Most species are constrained by geographic barriers to dispersal and geneflow, and such limitations have demographic and genetic consequences. We tested whether a highly vagile bird of prey, the golden eagle (GOEA; Aquila chrysaetos), exhibits disparate genetic signatures among island (Channel Islands, California, USA), peninsular (Baja California Peninsular region, USA) and mainland (California, USA) regions given the contrasting demography and phylogeography among regions. We utilized a SNP assay to estimate heterozygosity, inbreeding coefficients, and the effective population sizes (Ne) of GOEAs. In addition, we sequenced six GOEA genomes to obtain comprehensive measures of homozygosity (i.e., runs of homozygosity, ROHs) burden as well as estimates of nucleotide diversity. Our samples from the Channel Islands were clearly differentiated from both the peninsular and mainland samples, but there was no genetic differentiation between the peninsular and mainland samples. We found that the island samples exhibited signatures of a founder effect, including lower heterozygosity, reduced Ne, and a higher ROH burden than the mainland or peninsular samples. Overall, the genetic markers and the whole-genome sequence data indicate that the Channel Islands samples are genetically distinct from the mainland and peninsular samples, likely as a result of a relatively recent demographic bottleneck followed by bouts of genetic drift and inbreeding. We also found that, unlike smaller and less mobile vertebrates (e.g., rodents, passerines, and lizards), the GOEA gene pool near Baja California is relatively homogenous across distinct phylogeographic domains separated by the San Andreas fault. The genetic isolation exhibited by the island GOEAs almost certainly results from their recent colonization (due to bald eagle extirpation associated with DDT exposure) and subsequent anthropogenic removal (due to predation on an endangered island fox)

Compliance With Advance Directives: Wrongful Living and Tort Law Incentives

Modern ethical and legal norms generally require that deference be accorded to patients\u27 decisions regarding treatment, including decisions to refuse life-sustaining care, even when patients no longer have the capacity to communicate those decisions to their physicians. Advance directives were developed as a means by which a patient\u27s autonomy regarding medical care might survive such incapacity. Unfortunately, preserving patient autonomy at the end of life has been no simple task. First, it has been difficult to persuade patients to prepare for incapacity by making their wishes known. Second, even when they have done so, there is a distinct possibility that those wishes will be disregarded or ignored and that a patient whose expressed choice was to refuse life-sustaining treatment will nonetheless be kept alive against his or her will. This problem is only exacerbated by the fact that patients finding themselves in this situation have routinely been denied adequate legal remedies on the grounds that continued life is not a compensable harm. This article rejects that reasoning, and in so doing, takes an important step toward more fully enforcing one\u27s legal and moral right to refuse care at the end of life. The authors argue for recognition of a wrongful living variant of battery in situations where physicians have recklessly or intentionally disregarded or misinterpreted advance directives, and offer guidance on some of the difficult questions relating to damages that have perplexed the courts and commentators in this area. While allowing recovery for wrongful living will not resolve many of the outstanding issues leading to low utilization of advance directives by patients or the need for interpretation of a patient\u27s stated wishes in many circumstances, it will offer significant protection to those who have made their wishes clear

Compliance With Advance Directives: Wrongful Living and Tort Law Incentives

Modern ethical and legal norms generally require that deference be accorded to patients\u27 decisions regarding treatment, including decisions to refuse life-sustaining care, even when patients no longer have the capacity to communicate those decisions to their physicians. Advance directives were developed as a means by which a patient\u27s autonomy regarding medical care might survive such incapacity. Unfortunately, preserving patient autonomy at the end of life has been no simple task. First, it has been difficult to persuade patients to prepare for incapacity by making their wishes known. Second, even when they have done so, there is a distinct possibility that those wishes will be disregarded or ignored and that a patient whose expressed choice was to refuse life-sustaining treatment will nonetheless be kept alive against his or her will. This problem is only exacerbated by the fact that patients finding themselves in this situation have routinely been denied adequate legal remedies on the grounds that continued life is not a compensable harm. This article rejects that reasoning, and in so doing, takes an important step toward more fully enforcing one\u27s legal and moral right to refuse care at the end of life. The authors argue for recognition of a wrongful living variant of battery in situations where physicians have recklessly or intentionally disregarded or misinterpreted advance directives, and offer guidance on some of the difficult questions relating to damages that have perplexed the courts and commentators in this area. While allowing recovery for wrongful living will not resolve many of the outstanding issues leading to low utilization of advance directives by patients or the need for interpretation of a patient\u27s stated wishes in many circumstances, it will offer significant protection to those who have made their wishes clear

La gran corrupción en el Perú durante los años 2001-2016: un problema difícil de resolver

A pesar del retorno a la democracia y el auge económico de los commodities, los problemas de corrupción se mantuvieron como una constante en la sociedad peruana. La publicación del Acuerdo PLEA del Departamento de Justicia de los Estados Unidos y el inicio de los procesos judiciales en Brasil, y posteriormente en Perú, conllevaron al desface de las teorías clásicas sobre corrupción. El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar las recientes teorías sobre corrupción para reducir sus alcances e impactos en la sociedad; por lo que, a partir de las referencias bibliográficas y de acuerdo a los distintos enfoques de sistematización, se determinó que la Teoría de la captura del Estado era que mejor se ajustaba al caso de estudio. En el Perú se implantó la captura corporativa del Estado por ciertos grupos económicos, que lo desarrollaban como su modelo de negocio, a fin de ganar grandes contratos públicos, en específico los contratos de gran infraestructura. En respuesta a tales hechos, se desplegaron diversos dispositivos legales que recogían los parámetros establecidos en las convenciones de lucha contra la corrupción de la OCDE y de Naciones Unidas; sin embargo, la debilidad de las instituciones públicas y la ausencia de una visión de la función pública, no permiten la corrección de tal situación, impidiendo que prevalezca el interés público

Compelled to import: Cuban consumption at the dawn of the nineteenth century

GECEM Project (ERC-Starting Grant), ref. 679371, under the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme, www.gecem.eu.One of the sources that allow us to analyse certain consumption patterns are trade balances. These documents are especially relevant in the case of island colonies, such as Cuba, that depended on the outside world for many kinds of supplies, not just the basic ones. Despite their limitations, data on imported goods from Havana's balance of trade at the dawn of the nineteenth century allow us to examine the consumer goods that were most in demand in Cuba at that time. This essay uses that information to emphasise the relationship between colony and metropole in terms of material culture, with a particular focus on the core items of food, clothing and household goods. Overall, patterns of consumption reflect patterns of production and imports.GECEM Project (ERC-Starting Grant), ref. 679371, Horizon 2020, project hosted at UP

Memoirs of the Fruits of Globalization: The Markets for Chinese Textiles in New Spain by Jean de Monségur

GECEM Project (ERC-Starting Grant), ref. 679371, under the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme, www.gecem.eu.www.gecem.euhttps://www.gecem.eu/publications/index.htmlA revealing report produced by the French intelligence services of the beginning of eighteenth-century explores the production of luxury and fashion commodities and their distribution on a global scale. According to Jean de Monségur the main competitors in New Spain arrived through China commercial routes. On one hand, we intend to explore if the trade market in Mexico was reflecting or not European fashions, in particular French fashion so in vogue among European elites. On the other hand, some cultural aspects must be taking into account to discern how entangled Europe, Asia and the Americas were in 1700s underlying economic prestige and social status as in Europe. How cultural and symbolic message matters? Was New Spain contributing to develop an emerging hybrid consumer society?GECEM Project (ERC-Starting Grant), ref. 679371, Horizon 2020, project hosted at UP

Global Commodities in Early Modern Spain

In this particular case study, a fiscal source had provide the information to study the effects of income distribution on consumption and demand in mid-eighteenth-century Madrid. As a result of centuries of relations between East and West, Madrid exhibits the dynamics of consumption of an imperial capital served by products from every corner of the world. Many of these overseas products played a central role as social markers, especially in urban populations. However, what we can infer from the data is the evidence of a well-defined stratified purchase where each social class underscores a particular pattern of consumption and a moderate spread of certain commodities among the middle classes.GECEM Project (ERC-Starting Grant), ref. 679371, Horizon 2020, project hosted at UP

A Physically-Consistent Bayesian Non-Parametric Mixture Model for Dynamical System Learning

We propose a physically-consistent Bayesian non-parametric approach for fitting Gaussian Mixture Models (GMM) on trajectory data. Physical-consistency of the GMM is ensured by imposing a prior on the component assignments biased by a novel similarity metric that leverages locality and directionality. The resulting GMM is then used to learn globally asymptotically stable Dynamical Systems (DS) via a Linear Parameter Varying (LPV) re-formulation. The proposed DS learning scheme accurately encodes challenging nonlinear motions automatically. Finally, a data-efficient incremental learning approach is introduced that encodes a DS from batches of trajectories, while preserving global stability. Our contributions are validated on 2D datasets and a variety of tasks that involve single-target complex motions with a KUKA LWR 4+ robot arm

Modeling Compositions of Impedance-based Primitives via Dynamical Systems.

In this work, we introduce a novel Dynamical System (DS)-based approach for modeling complex and compliant manipulation tasks, that are composed of a sequence of action phases with different compliance requirements; i.e. impedance primitives. We adopt a closed-loop (DS)-based control architecture and present the Locally Active Globally Stable (LAGS)-DS formulation. In LAGS-DS we seek to model the whole task as a globally asymptotically stable DS that has locally task-varying dynamics and smoothly transit between them. These locally task-varying dynamics represent the set of impedance primitives, hence, rather than modeling the task as a discretization of impedance primitives, we model it as a composition of impedance primitives in a single DS-based controller. In this paper, we present the theoretical background for this novel DS, briefly describe the learning approach and provide 2D simulations of LAGS-DS learned from toy data

Current and emerging anti-angiogenic therapies in gastrointestinal and hepatobiliary cancers

Colorectal cancer; Hepatobiliary tumour; NeoangiogenesisCáncer colorrectal; Tumores hepatobiliares; NeoangiogénesisCàncer colorectal; Tumors hepatobiliars; NeoangiogènesiGastrointestinal tumours are a heterogeneous group of neoplasms that arise in the gastrointestinal tract and hepatobiliary system. Their incidence is rising globally and they currently represent the leading cause of cancer-related mortality worldwide. Anti-angiogenic agents have been incorporated into the treatment armamentarium of most of these malignancies and have improved survival outcomes, most notably in colorectal cancer and hepatocellular carcinoma. New treatment combinations with immunotherapies and other agents have led to unprecedented benefits and are revolutionising patient care. In this review, we detail the mechanisms of action of anti-angiogenic agents and the preclinical rationale underlying their combinations with immunotherapies. We review the clinical evidence supporting their use across all gastrointestinal tumours, with a particular emphasis on colorectal cancer and hepatocellular carcinoma. We discuss available biomarkers of response to these therapies and their utility in routine clinical practice. Finally, we summarise ongoing clinical trials in distinct settings and highlight the preclinical rationale supporting novel combinations