The climate of eastern Tasmania indicated by its lichen flora

During a visit of five weeks to Tasmania, in February and March, 1891, while exploring for lichens in the 'neighbourhoods of Launceston, Mount Arthur, Ulverstone, Hobart, Mount Wellington, the Huon River, and St. Mary's Pass, I was struck with the general and unexpected poverty of the lichen flora, and, on looking about for the cause of this, I noted the evident frequency of bush fires, which are the most destructive enemies of lichen growth. This, however, did not wholly explain the matter, for, even where the plants might be expected to recover from the action of the fire, their vitality seemed to be checked by the dryness of the climate. This was a discovery surprising to a Victorian, who had been accustomed to consider the climate of Tasmania a humid one. An examination of meteorological authorities, however, showed that in the eastern portion of the island the rainfall is rot only less than it is in the western, but less than it is in Victoria. In the west and the highlands of Tasmania 75in. of rain have been registered in one year, and the average of the whole island is said to be 35in.; but the annual rainfall at Hobart is only 21-52in

What neuroscientific studies tell us about inhibition of return

An inhibitory aftermath of orienting, inhibition of return (IOR), has intrigued scholars since its discovery about 40 years ago. Since then, the phenomenon has been subjected to a wide range of neuroscientific methods and the results of these are reviewed in this paper. These include direct manipulations of brain structures (which occur naturally in brain damage and disease or experimentally as in TMS and lesion studies) and measurements of brain activity (in humans using EEG and fMRI and in animals using single unit recording). A variety of less direct methods (e.g., computational modeling, developmental studies, etc.) have also been used. The findings from this wide range of methods support the critical role of subcortical and cortical oculomotor pathways in the generation and nature of IOR

Every learner counts: Learning mathematics across the curriculum

In the 21st century, mathematical confidence and functionality are considered to be of crucial importance to individuals and to national economies, which is reflected in national policies, as well as in the status of international performance comparisons such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), 2009) and Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) (International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IAEEA), n.d.), which compare educational systems and outcomes for participating countries. However, as a subject specialist in another subject, you might well think you simply can’t afford the teaching time to deliberately embed mathematics in your lesson. In this chapter we try to show how, by being aware of how your subject harnesses mathematical thinking, even if only in low-key ways, you can support learners in making confident and informed use of that – but we also encourage you to keep talking to the teachers of mathematics in your school, so that they become more aware of what your learners are meeting and when. That way, learners can begin to make meaningful connections across the curriculum, and enhance their grasp of, and interest in, your own subject

Hybrid Angular- and Energy-Dispersive X-ray Diffraction Computed Tomography

X-ray diffraction is a material-specific technique, the results of which can be used as a material fingerprint to identify unknowns. In this paper we present an adaptation to a novel hybrid angular- and energy-dispersive X-ray diffraction technique, which, until now, has been limited in utility by sample thickness. Computed tomography techniques have been applied to spatially resolve the origin of the scattering signals and to reconstruct the diffraction pattern in each pixel. 2D cross-correlation has been used to compare the reconstructed data to a library of standards as a means of identifying the material present

Analysis of circulating insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) and IGF binding protein-3 (IGFBP-3) in tobacco smokers and non-smokers

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>IGF-1 and the major serum IGF-1 binding protein, IGFBP-3, are under extensive investigation as potential prognostic markers of specific malignancies and vascular diseases. However, there is conflicting evidence that tobacco smoking may influence systemic concentrations of IGF-1 and IGFBP-3.</p> <p>Subjects and methods</p> <p>Serum concentrations of IGF-1 and IGFBP-3 were measured in 20 smokers and 20 non-smokers, matched for age and gender. Serum concentrations of cotinine, the major metabolite of nicotine, and ICAM-1, known to exhibit a dose-dependent relationship with cotinine, were also assayed.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>There was no difference between the systemic concentrations of IGF-1 or IGFBP-3 found in smokers and non-smokers (IGF-1: mean [s.d]; 104 <abbrgrp><abbr bid="B29">29</abbr></abbrgrp> vs 101 <abbrgrp><abbr bid="B24">24</abbr></abbrgrp> ng ml^-1, respectively; and IGFBP-3: 2562 [522] vs 2447 [570] ng ml^-1, respectively). Similarly, there was no correlation between serum cotinine and IGF-1 or IGFBP-3 concentrations in smokers. Soluble ICAM-1 concentrations were significantly increased in smokers, compared to non-smokers (mean [s.d]; 258 [60] vs 194 [50] ng ml^-1, respectively; p = 0.002).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>There was no relationship noted between tobacco smoking and either IGF-1 or IGFBP-3. These data suggest that smoking would not appear to be a major confounder of the reported clinical associations between IGF-1, IGFBP-3, or IGF-1/IGFBP-3 ratios and specific disease entities.</p

Chapter 10 - Pleistocene Antarctic climate variability: ice sheet – ocean – climate interactions

During the Pleistocene, Earth experienced high-amplitude fluctuations in global temperature, atmospheric composition, ice sheet extent, and sea level that were forced by orbital variations in the seasonal distribution of solar energy across the planet. Subtle cyclical variations in forcing were greatly amplified by internal feedbacks in the Earth system, with processes in the polar regions influential for pole-to-equator temperature gradients and atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. Exploring the behaviour of the polar ice sheets and the Southern Ocean during this interval is crucial for understanding how the climate system operates and for constraining its sensitivity to future changes. Southern Ocean processes, including wind-driven upwelling, sea-ice formation, deep water production, and biological productivity, were instrumental in regulating Earth’s atmospheric carbon dioxide levels through Pleistocene glacial-interglacial cycles. On millennial timescales, rapid changes in ocean and atmospheric circulation were influenced by meltwater input from unstable ice sheet margins in both hemispheres, leading to highly variable regional and interhemispheric climate responses. This chapter provides an overview of the tools used in marine sediment and ice core archives to reconstruct Pleistocene changes in the Earth system. We discuss the mechanisms that controlled Earth’s climate over different timescales, and review the latest evidence that is revealing how the Antarctic Ice Sheet has both influenced and responded to Pleistocene climate change, including during intervals when Earth’s climate was similar to near-future projections. Despite experiencing ice volume changes that were modest in comparison to the advance and retreat of large Northern Hemisphere ice sheets, Antarctica has been a very active player in the ice sheet-ocean-climate system of the past 2.6 million years, and evidence increasingly suggests that it could respond dramatically to anthropogenic warming

The Best I Can Be: How Self-Accountability Impacts Product Choice in Technology-Mediated Environments

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Wiley via the DOI in this recordTechnology-mediated environments are important not only as the location for an increasing proportion of purchases, but also as an even more pervasive part of the purchase journey. While most research into online consumer behavior focuses on attitudes as an antecedent of product choice, this article focuses on an important but hardly explored variable that may be impacted by technology-mediated environments: self-accountability. Laboratory experiments suggest that self-accountability may influence online purchases, but this has not been confirmed in field studies. Furthermore, although this prior work suggests that self-accountability may impact product choice through the elicitation of guilt, the role of positive emotions has not been explored. Using two surveys with online retailers, this paper (a) shows that in a technology-mediated environment, self-accountability influences product choice; (b) proposes and confirms a complementary route for this effect through pride that is stronger than that through guilt; and (c) evidences the relationship between self-accountability and perceived consumer effectiveness. These results show a clear opportunity for digital marketers to encourage self-accountability, to thereby elicit pride and not just guilt, and hence to impact consumer decision making in technology-mediated environments, particularly when choices have sustainability implications

Air Fraction Correction Optimisation in PET Imaging of Lung Disease

Accurate quantification of radiopharmaceutical uptake from lung PET/CT is challenging due to large variations in fractions of tissue, air, blood and water. Air fraction correction (AFC) uses voxel-wise air fractions, which can be determined from the CT acquired for attenuation correction (AC). However, resolution effects can cause artefacts in either of these corrections. In this work, we hypothesise that the resolution of the CT image used for AC should match that of the intrinsic resolution of the PET scanner but should approximate the reconstructed PET image resolution for AFC. Simulations and reconstructions were performed with the Synergistic Image Reconstruction Framework (SIRF) using phantoms with inhomogeneous attenuation (mu) maps, mimicking the densities observed in lung pathologies. Poisson noise was added to the projection data prior to OSEM reconstruction. AC was performed with a smoothed mu-map, the full-width-half-maximum (FWHM) of the 3D Gaussian kernel was varied (0 - 10 mm). Post-filters were applied to the reconstructed AC images (FWHM: 0 - 8 mm). The simulated mu-map was independently convolved with another set of 3D Gaussian kernels, of varying FWHM (0 - 12 mm), for AFC. The coefficient of variation (CV) in the lung region, designed to be homogeneous post-AFC with optimised kernels, and the mean AFC-standardized uptake value (AFC-SUV) in the regions of simulated pathologies were determined. The spatial resolution of each post-filtered image was determined via a point-source insertion-and-subtraction method on noiseless data. Results showed that the CV was minimised when the kernel applied to the mu-map for AC matched that for the simulated PET scanner and the kernel applied to the mu-map for AFC matched the spatial resolution of the reconstructed PET image. This was observed for all post-reconstruction filters and supports the hypothesis. Initial results from Monte Carlo simulations validate these findings