203 research outputs found
Creating ethically reflective organisations
Much organisational theory has been inspired by ideas of complexity and chaos theory. However, does this really happen in practice? Greg
O’Shea argues that, to maintain these principles, we need to be able to dig deeper into what is happening so that organisations do not revert to
power structures. Periods of self and group reflection need to be built in
Leadership and managing complexity: harnessing the power of a self-organising community
Complexity and chaos to date have been largely academic concepts. From his long-ranging experience as consultant, Greg O’Shea demonstrates that these are not just analytic theories – when harnessed to a shared purpose, they can lead to a balance between creativity and stability
Selecting ultra-faint dwarf candidate progenitors in cosmological N-body simulations at high redshifts
The smallest satellites of the Milky Way ceased forming stars during the
epoch of reionization and thus provide archaeological access to galaxy
formation at . Numerical studies of these ultra-faint dwarf galaxies
(UFDs) require expensive cosmological simulations with high mass resolution
that are carried out down to . However, if we are able to statistically
identify UFD host progenitors at high redshifts \emph{with relatively high
probabilities}, we can avoid this high computational cost. To find such
candidates, we analyze the merger trees of Milky Way type halos from the
high-resolution suite of dark matter only simulations.
Satellite UFD hosts at are identified based on four different abundance
matching (AM) techniques. All the halos at high redshifts are traced forward in
time in order to compute the probability of surviving as satellite UFDs today.
Our results show that selecting potential UFD progenitors based solely on their
mass at z=12 (8) results in a 10\% (20\%) chance of obtaining a surviving UFD
at in three of the AM techniques we adopted. We find that the progenitors
of surviving satellite UFDs have lower virial ratios (), and are
preferentially located at large distances from the main MW progenitor, while
they show no correlation with concentration parameter. Halos with favorable
locations and virial ratios are times more likely to survive as
satellite UFD candidates at Comment: 12 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication at MNRAS after minor
revision
The Caterpillar Project: A Large Suite of Milky Way Sized Halos
We present the largest number of Milky Way sized dark matter halos simulated
at very high mass ( M/particle) and temporal resolution
(5 Myrs/snapshot) done to date, quadrupling what is currently available
in the literature. This initial suite consists of the first 24 halos of the
(www.caterpillarproject.org) whose project goal of 60 -
70 halos will be made public when complete. We resolve 20,000
gravitationally bound subhalos within the virial radius of each host halo. Over
the ranges set by our spatial resolution our convergence is excellent and
improvements were made upon current state-of-the-art halo finders to better
identify substructure at such high resolutions (e.g., on average we recover
4 subhalos in each host halo above 10 M which would have
otherwise not been found using conventional methods). For our relaxed halos,
the inner profiles are reasonably fit by Einasto profiles ( = 0.169
0.023) though this depends on the relaxed nature and assembly history of
a given halo. Averaging over all halos, the substructure mass fraction is
, and mass function slope is d/d though we find scatter in the normalizations for fixed halo
mass due to more concentrated hosts having less subhalos at fixed subhalo mass.
There are no biases stemming from Lagrangian volume selection as all Lagrangian
volume types are included in our sample. Our detailed contamination study of
264 low resolution halos has resulted in obtaining very large and
unprecedented, high-resolution regions around our host halos for our target
resolution (sphere of radius Mpc) allowing for accurate
studies of low mass dwarf galaxies at large galactocentric radii and the very
first stellar systems at high redshift ( 10).Comment: 19 pages; 14 figures; 6 tables; Received September 3, 2015; Accepted
November 15, 2015; Published February 2, 201
Ants show a leftward turning bias when exploring unknown nest sites
Behavioural lateralization in invertebrates is an important field of study because it may provide insights into the early origins of lateralization seen in a diversity of organisms. Here, we present evidence for a leftward turning bias in Temnothorax albipennis ants exploring nest cavities and in branching mazes, where the bias is initially obscured by thigmotaxis (wall-following) behaviour. Forward travel with a consistent turning bias in either direction is an effective nest exploration method, and a simple decision-making heuristic to employ when faced with multiple directional choices. Replication of the same bias at the colony level would also reduce individual predation risk through aggregation effects, and may lead to a faster attainment of a quorum threshold for nest migration. We suggest the turning bias may be the result of an evolutionary interplay between vision, exploration and migration factors, promoted by the ants' eusociality
Effects of combined administration of FK 506 and the purine biosynthesis inhibitors mizoribine or mycophenolic acid on lymphocyte DNA synthesis and T cell activation molecule expression in human mixed lymphocyte cultures
Our objective was to obtain new information on the in vitro antilymphocytic action of the cytokine synthesis inhibitor FK 506 and the purine biosynthesis inhibitors mycophenolic acid (MPA; the active moiety of RS61443) and mizoribine (MZB) when used alone or in combination. When added at the initiation of six-day human mixed lymphocyte cultures (MLC), FK 506, MPA or MZB exhibited dose-dependent inhibition of T-lymphocyte DNA synthesis. FK 506, however, was 100-fold more potent than MPA, and 10000-fold more potent than MZB. Combination of FK 506 with either MPA or MZB, each at suboptional concentrations, produced no more than additive inhibitory effects on 3H thymidine incorporation. Two-colour flow cytometric analysis of lymphocytes revealed that none of the drugs affected cell surface activation molecule expression (CD25 = IL-2R 55 kD α-chain, HLA-DR or CD71 = transferrin receptor [TR]) on allostimulated CD4+ or CD8+ cells harvested at three days of culture. By day six, however, all three agents, at levels which markedly inhibited proliferation, suppressed the expression of activation markers on both CD4+ and CD8+ cells. Also at day six, inhibition of activation molecule expression on CD4+ cells was achieved with the combination of FK 506 and either MPA or MZB at concentrations which, on their own, were ineffective. These data provide new, additional information on the in vitro antilymphocytic action of FK 506, MPA and MZB when used alone and in combination. © 1993
Antenatal steroid exposure and heart rate variability in adolescents born with very low birth weight
Reduced heart rate variability (HRV) suggests autonomic imbalance in the control of heart rate and is associated with unfavorable cardiometabolic outcomes. We examined whether antenatal corticosteroid (ANCS) exposure had long-term programming effects on heart rate variability (HRV) in adolescents born with very low birth weight (VLBW)
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