Multidisciplinary

Recognizing the imperiled status of biodiversity and its benefit to human well-being, the world's governments committed in 2010 to take effective and urgent action to halt biodiversity loss through the Convention on Biological Diversity's "Aichi Targets". These targets, and many conservation programs, require monitoring to assess progress toward specific goals. However, comprehensive and easily understood information on biodiversity trends at appropriate spatial scales is often not available to the policy makers, managers, and scientists who require it. We surveyed conservation stakeholders in three geographically diverse regions of critical biodiversity concern (the Tropical Andes, the African Great Lakes, and the Greater Mekong) and found high demand for biodiversity indicator information but uneven availability. To begin to address this need, we present a biodiversity "dashboard"--a visualization of biodiversity indicators designed to enable tracking o...

Studies of early Southeast Asia focus largely on its ‘classical states’, when rulers and their entourages from Sukhothai and Ayutthaya (Thailand), Angkor (Cambodia), Bagan (Myanmar), Champa and Dai Viet (Vietnam) clashed, conquered, and intermarried one another over an approximately six-century-long quest for legitimacy and political control. Scholarship on Southeast Asia has long held that such transformations were largely a response to outside intervention and external events, or at least that these occurred in interaction with a broader world system in which Southeast Asians played key roles. As research gathered pace on the prehistory of the region over the past five decades or so, it has become increasingly clear that indigenous Southeast Asian cultures grew in sophistication and complexity over the Iron Age in particular. This has led archaeologists to propose much greater agency in regard to the selective adaptation of incoming Indic beliefs and practices than was previously ...

The invariant development and transparent body of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans enables complete delineation of cell lineages throughout development. Despite extensive studies of cell division, cell migration and cell fate differentiation, cell morphology during development has not yet been systematically characterized in any metazoan, including C. elegans. This knowledge gap substantially hampers many studies in both developmental and cell biology. Here we report an automatic pipeline, CShaper, which combines automated segmentation of fluorescently labeled membranes with automated cell lineage tracing. We apply this pipeline to quantify morphological parameters of densely packed cells in 17 developing C. elegans embryos. Consequently, we generate a time-lapse 3D atlas of cell morphology for the C. elegans embryo from the 4- to 350-cell stages, including cell shape, volume, surface area, migration, nucleus position and cell-cell contact with resolved cell identities. We antici...

The role of IgE in allergic disease mechanisms is performed principally through its interactions with two receptors, FcεRI on mast cells and basophils, and CD23 (FcεRII) on B cells. The former mediates allergic hypersensitivity, the latter regulates IgE levels, and both receptors, also expressed on antigen-presenting cells, contribute to allergen uptake and presentation to the immune system. We have solved the crystal structure of the soluble lectin-like "head" domain of CD23 (derCD23) bound to a subfragment of IgE-Fc consisting of the dimer of Cε3 and Cε4 domains (Fcε3-4). One CD23 head binds to each heavy chain at the interface between the two domains, explaining the known 2:1 stoichiometry and suggesting mechanisms for cross-linking membrane-bound trimeric CD23 by IgE, or membrane IgE by soluble trimeric forms of CD23, both of which may contribute to the regulation of IgE synthesis by B cells. The two symmetrically located binding sites are distant from the single FcεRI binding site, which lies at the opposite ends of the Cε3 domains. Structural comparisons with both free IgE-Fc and its FcεRI complex reveal not only that the conformational changes in IgE-Fc required for CD23 binding are incompatible with FcεRI binding, but also that the converse is true. The two binding sites are allosterically linked. We demonstrate experimentally the reciprocal inhibition of CD23 and FcεRI binding in solution and suggest that the mutual exclusion of receptor binding allows IgE to function independently through its two receptors.

Wholesale petrol prices were deregulated in August 1998. This paper will quantify the effect associated with the deregulation of wholesale petrol prices on relative retail prices for unleaded petrol in Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney. This is done through Box–Jenkins autoregressive integrated moving average methodology coupled with Box and Tiao intervention analysis. Weekly price data will be used for Adelaide, Melbourne, and Sydney. It finds that from the beginning of 1999, deregulation coincided with relatively lower retail petrol prices for all three cities. In the absence of any other possible alternative explanation for the simultaneous fall in relative retail petrol prices across all three cities, it is concluded that this change was most likely associated with deregulation. These results suggest that regulation of wholesale petrol prices were ineffectual in terms of constraining capital city retail petrol prices at the very least and may have actually contributed towards relatively higher retail petrol prices. This also suggests that future policy interventions designed to constrain prices in the downstream petroleum industry should be very carefully considered.

Symptomatic radiation pneumonitis (SRP), which decreases quality of life (QoL), is the most common pulmonary complication in patients receiving breast irradiation. If it occurs, acute SRP usually develops 4-12 weeks after completion of radiotherapy and presents as a dry cough, dyspnea and low-grade fever. If the incidence of SRP is reduced, not only the QoL but also the compliance of breast cancer patients may be improved. Therefore, we investigated the incidence SRP in breast cancer patients after hybrid intensity modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) to find the risk factors, which may have important effects on the risk of radiation-induced complications. In total, 93 patients with breast cancer were evaluated. The final endpoint for acute SRP was defined as those who had density changes together with symptoms, as measured using computed tomography. The risk factors for a multivariate normal tissue complication probability model of SRP were determined using the least absolute shrinkage an...

Background: Interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT) is a psychological intervention with established efficacy in the prevention and treatment of depressive disorders. Previous systematic reviews have not evaluated the effectiveness of IPT on symptoms of stress, anxiety, depression, quality of life, relationship satisfaction/quality, social supports, and an improved psychological sense of wellbeing. There is limited information regarding moderating and mediating factors that impact the effectiveness of IPT such as the timing of the intervention or the mode of delivery of IPT intervention. The overall objective of this systematic review was to evaluate the effectiveness of IPT interventions to treat perinatal (from pregnancy up to 12 months postpartum) psychological distress. Methods: MEDLINE(R) and Epub Ahead of Print, In-Process & Other Non-Indexed Citations and Daily (Ovid), EMBASE (Ovid), PsycINFO (Ovid), Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (OVID), CINAHL with Full Text (Ebsc...

We aimed to validate four established questionnaires related to time perception in German (Consideration of Future Consequences-14 scale (CFC-14), Boredom Proneness Scale (BPS), Metacognitive Questionnaire on Time (MQT), and Self-Awareness Questionnaire (SAQ)) using a back-translation method. Exploratory factor analyses were conducted on the data of 273 German-speaking participants to evaluate the factorial structures. Internal consistencies indicated good reliability values of the questionnaires and the respective subscales, except for the MQT. Intercorrelations between the questionnaires were examined to test their external validities and gain additional insight into the associations among the constructs. The consideration of future consequences was negatively linked to boredom proneness, whereas interoceptive awareness of one’s bodily sensations was positively associated with boredom proneness. Additionally, interoceptive awareness was linked to metacognitive beliefs about which ...

The use of sonar by military vessels during military exercises may produce acoustic pollution of the marine environment. States have an obligation under international law to reduce and control this form of pollution. Regulation of the use of sonar is rendered more complex by the specific regime applicable to warships, i.e. sovereign immunity. Immunity however does not prevent in all cases action by States other than the flag State, notwithstanding the limitations imposed by Art. 236 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. More importantly, immunity does not prevent the flag State from taking measures to reduce pollution caused by its own warships. Under some environmental treaties, flag States not only may, but have the obligation to adopt measures.

The transition to parenthood has been identified as a significant relationship stressor. Many couples report declines in relationship satisfaction and difficulty with individual stress and co-parenting—problems that have been associated with both child temperament as well as emotional and behavioral problems. Several parenting and relationship interventions have been developed to buffer against these difficulties. In the current study, we report secondary analyses of a randomized controlled trial of brief (6-h) interventions that focused on improving either relationship satisfaction or co-parenting, delivered during pregnancy and the early postpartum period. In this trial, 90 opposite-sex couples (180 participants), who were pregnant with their first child, and were assessed as being at high risk for declines in relationship satisfaction, were randomized to receive either (1) a relationship intervention, (2) a co-parenting intervention, or (3) an information control. At 12 months po...

Several modeling techniques have been used to classify the low-back disorders (LBDs) risk associated with the industrial jobs. Many researchers have demonstrated the use of artificial neural networks (ANNs) to predict musculoskeletal disorders risk associated with occupational exposures. In order to improve the accuracy of LBDs risk classification, this paper proposes to use the support vector machines (SVMs), a machine learning algorithm used extensively in the last decade. The results of SVMs based ensemble ...