Magnetite-based magnetoreception in birds: the effect of a biasing field and a pulse on migratory behavior

To test the hypothesis that single domain magnetite is involved in magnetoreception, we treated Australian silvereyes Zosterops l. lateralis with a strong, brief pulse designed to alter the magnetization of single domain particles. This pulse was administered in the presence of a 1 mT biasing field, either parallel to the direction of the biasing field (PAR group) or antiparallel (ANTI group). In the case of magnetoreceptors based on freely moving single domain particles, the PAR treatment should have little effect, whereas the ANTI treatment should cause remagnetization of the magnetite particles involved in a receptor and could produce a maximum change in that receptor's output for some receptor configurations. Migratory orientation was used as a criterion to assess the effect on the receptor. Before treatment, both groups preferred their normal northerly migratory direction. Exposure to the biasing field alone did not affect their behavior. Treatment with the pulse in the presence of the biasing field caused both the PAR and the ANTI birds to show an axial preference for the east—west axis, with no difference between the two groups. Although these results are in accordance with magnetite-based magnetoreceptors playing a role in migratory orientation, they do not support the hypothesis that single domains in polarity-sensitive receptors are free to move through all solid angles. Possible interpretations, including other arrangements of single domains and superparamagnetic crystals, are discussed

Decreased Neuron Density and Increased Glia Density in the Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex (Brodmann Area 25) in Williams Syndrome.

Williams Syndrome (WS) is a neurodevelopmental disorder caused by a deletion of 25⁻28 genes on chromosome 7 and characterized by a specific behavioral phenotype, which includes hypersociability and anxiety. Here, we examined the density of neurons and glia in fourteen human brains in Brodmann area 25 (BA 25), in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), using a postmortem sample of five adult and two infant WS brains and seven age-, sex- and hemisphere-matched typically developing control (TD) brains. We found decreased neuron density, which reached statistical significance in the supragranular layers, and increased glia density and glia to neuron ratio, which reached statistical significance in both supra- and infragranular layers. Combined with our previous findings in the amygdala, caudate nucleus and frontal pole (BA 10), these results in the vmPFC suggest that abnormalities in frontostriatal and frontoamygdala circuitry may contribute to the anxiety and atypical social behavior observed in WS

Sequential Adoption of Package Technologies: The Dynamics of Stacked Trait Corn Adoption

GM corn seed companies have innovated continuously with the introduction of new traits and, more recently, with the creation of stacked varieties, which combine more than one trait. This work develops a Bayesian model of adoption dynamics that demonstrates how uncertainty with a package technology with known risk can lead to a sequential adoption pattern in which farmers adopt a single component first. We then develop a semiparametric panel data model of adoption dynamics to measure the effects of experience with single trait (non-stacked) varieties on the adoption of stacked varieties. The results underscore the importance of early experience with the non-stacked technology in the subsequent adoption of stacked varieties, i.e., a sequential adoption process. There is also evidence that farmers with more human capital tend to learn faster from own experience and that as the GM corn-technology diffusion process deepens, the importance of early experience decreases.Crop Production/Industries,

Hypergeometric decomposition of symmetric K3 quartic pencils

We study the hypergeometric functions associated to five one-parameter deformations of Delsarte K3 quartic hypersurfaces in projective space. We compute all of their Picard--Fuchs differential equations; we count points using Gauss sums and rewrite this in terms of finite field hypergeometric sums; then we match up each differential equation to a factor of the zeta function, and we write this in terms of global L-functions. This computation gives a complete, explicit description of the motives for these pencils in terms of hypergeometric motives.Comment: 70 pages, minor revision, to appear in Research in the Mathematical Science

Quality analysis of critical control points within the whole food chain and their impact on food quality, safety and health (QACCP)

The overall objective of the project was to optimise organic production and processing in order to improve food quality and increase health promoting aspects in consumer products. The approach was a chain analysis approach which addressed the link between farm and fork and backwards from fork to farm. The objectives were to test food authenticity on farm level and food quality and health in processing. The carrot was chosen as the model vegetable since it is common for the involved partners from industry and is processed for baby food; hence the results are relevant for other vegetables and organic food in general as well. - Identify and define critical and essential product quality parameters useful to optimise organic food quality - Compare products from different farming practices (conventional and within organic) - Performance of QACCP (Quality Analysis Critical Control Point, similar to HACCP methodology) - Test the impact of the food chain (focusing on processing techniques) on the product quality and safety - Test the impact of organic food on healt

Evidence for Past Subduction Earthquakes at a Plate Boundary with Widespread Upper Plate Faulting: Southern Hikurangi Margin, New Zealand

At the southern Hikurangi margin, New Zealand, we use salt marsh stratigraphy, sedimentology, micropaleontology, and radiocarbon dating to document evidence of two earthquakes producing coseismic subsidence and (in one case) a tsunami over the past 1000 yrs. The earthquake at 520-470 yrs before present (B.P.) produced 0.25 +/- 0.1 m of subsidence at Big Lagoon. The earthquake at 880-800 yrs B.P. produced 0.45 +/- 0.1 m of subsidence at Big Lagoon and was accompanied by a tsunami that inundated >= 360 m inland with a probable height of >= 3.3 m. Distinguishing the effects of upper plate faulting from plate interface earthquakes is a significant challenge at this margin. We use correlation with regional upper plate paleoearthquake chronologies and elastic dislocation modeling to determine that the most likely cause of the subsidence and tsunami events is subduction interface rupture, although the older event may have been a synchronous subduction interface and upper plate fault rupture. The southern Hikurangi margin has had no significant (M > 6.5) documented subduction interface earthquakes in historic times, and previous assumptions that this margin segment is prone to rupture in large to great earthquakes were based on seismic and geodetic evidence of strong contemporary plate coupling. This is the first geologic evidence to confirm that the southern Hikurangi margin ruptures in large earthquakes. The relatively short-time interval between the two subduction earthquakes (similar to 350 yrs) is shorter than in current seismic-hazard models.GNSEQC Biennial ProjectNew Zealand Natural Hazards Research Platform and Foundation for Research Science and TechnologyInstitute for Geophysic

Robust signal extraction for on-line monitoring data

Data from the automatic monitoring of intensive care patients exhibits trends, outliers, and level changes as well as periods of relative constancy. All this is overlaid with a high level of noise and there are dependencies between the different items measured. Current monitoring systems tend to deliver too many false warnings which reduces their acceptability by medical staff. The challenge is to develop a method which allows a fast and reliable denoising of the data and which can separate artifacts from clinical relevant structural changes in the patients condition (Gather et al., 2002). A simple median filter works well as long as there is no substantial trend in the data but improvements may be possible by approximating the data by a local linear trend. As a first step in this programme the paper examines the relative merits of the L1 regression, the repeated median (Siegel, 1982) and the least median of squares (Hampel, 1975, Rousseeuw, 1984). The question of dependency between different items is a topic for future research

Novel phylogenetic algorithm to monitor human tropism in Egyptian H5N1-HPAIV reveals evolution toward efficient human-to-human transmission

Years of endemic infections with highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) A subtype H5N1 virus in poultry and high numbers of infections in humans provide ample opportunity in Egypt for H5N1-HPAIV to develop pandemic potential. In an effort to better understand the viral determinants that facilitate human infections of the Egyptian H5N1-HPAIVvirus, we developed a new phylogenetic algorithm based on a new distance measure derived from the informational spectrum method (ISM). This new approach, which describes functional aspects of the evolution of the hemagglutinin subunit 1 (HA1), revealed a growing group G2 of H5N1-HPAIV in Egypt after 2009 that acquired new informational spectrum (IS) properties suggestive of an increased human tropism and pandemic potential. While in 2006 all viruses in Egypt belonged to the G1 group, by 2011 these viruses were virtually replaced by G2 viruses. All of the G2 viruses displayed four characteristic mutations (D43N, S120(D,N), (S,L)129Δ and I151T), three of which were previously reported to increase binding to the human receptor. Already in 2006–2008 G2 viruses were significantly (p<0.02) more often found in humans than expected from their overall prevalence and this further increased in 2009–2011 (p<0.007). Our approach also identified viruses that acquired additional mutations that we predict to further enhance their human tropism. The extensive evolution of Egyptian H5N1-HPAIV towards a preferential human tropism underlines an urgent need to closely monitor these viruses with respect to molecular determinants of virulence