University of Louisiana System

ABSTRACT We review geological evidence on the origin of the modern transcontinental Amazon River, and the paleogeographic history of riverine connections among the principal sedimentary basins of northern South America through the Neogene. Data are reviewed from new geochronological datasets using radiogenic and stable isotopes, and from traditional geochronological methods, including sedimentology, structural mapping, sonic and seismic logging, and biostratigraphy. The modern Amazon River and the continental-scale Amazon drainage basin were assembled during the late Miocene and Pliocene, via some of the largest purported river capture events in Earth history. Andean sediments are first recorded in the Amazon Fan at about 10.1-9.4 Ma, with a large increase in sedimentation at about 4.5 Ma. The transcontinental Amazon River therefore formed over a period of about 4.9-5.6 million years, by means of several river capture events. The origins of the modern Amazon River are hypothesized to be linked with that of mega-wetland landscapes of tropical South America (e.g. várzeas, pantanals, seasonally flooded savannahs). Mega-wetlands have persisted over about 10% northern South America under different configurations for >15 million years. Although the paleogeographic reconstructions presented are simplistic and coarse-grained, they are offered to inspire the collection and analysis of new sedimentological and geochronological datasets.

In this study we explore the possible role of phenotypic plasticity in the process of adaptation and evolutionary change in the African cichlid Pseudocrenilabrus multicolor victoriae.Parental fish were collected from a hypoxic swamp, a lake ecotone, and a river in Uganda.Broods (F1) were split and grown under hypoxia or normoxia.We measured morphological parameters of the gill apparatus, structural elements surrounding the gills, brain mass, and body shape.Most traits showed substantial plasticity in response to the rearing environment.Population effects were evident for the gill apparatus, surrounding elements, body shape, and brain size; however, brain size was the only trait to exhibit variation in plasticity among populations; fish of swamp origin showed no plasticity and fish of river and lake origin exhibited smaller brain size under hypoxia.We interpret these patterns as consistent with genetic assimilation via canalization (brain) or via a shift in the norm of reaction (other traits).

The adipocyte-derived hormone leptin is a critical regulator of many physiological functions, ranging from satiety to immunity. Surprisingly, very little is known about the transcriptional pathways that regulate adipocyte-specific expression of leptin. Here, we report studies in which we pursued a strategy integrating BAC transgenic reporter mice, reporter assays, and chromatin state mapping to locate an adipocyte-specific cis-element upstream of the leptin (LEP) gene in human fat cells. Quantitative proteomics with affinity enrichment of protein-DNA complexes identified the transcription factor FOS-like antigen 2 (FOSL2) as binding specifically to the identified region, a result that was confirmed by ChIP. Knockdown of FOSL2 in human adipocytes decreased LEP expression, and overexpression of Fosl2 increased Lep expression in mouse adipocytes. Moreover, the elevated LEP expression observed in obesity correlated well with increased FOSL2 levels in mice and humans, and adipocyte-specific genetic deletion of Fosl2 in mice reduced Lep expression. Taken together, these data identify FOSL2 as a critical regulator of leptin expression in adipocytes.

This chapter contains section titled: Knowledge in Applied Settings Expertise and its Limitations Structure of Knowledge Transfer of Knowledge Conclusions Note References

Both adult males and females of the Red-Backed Salamander (Plethodon cinereus) maintain feeding territories under cover objects (rocks and logs on the forest floor) during the summer noncourtship and autumn and spring courtship seasons. Previous research found that, during the summer, 28% of the adults occurred as male-female pairs under cover objects, whereas male-male and female-female pairs rarely occurred. Therefore, we tested the hypothesis that male-female pairs codefend territories against intruders during the courtship season and that such codefense extends into the noncourtship summer. During October 1996 and June 1997, we collected male-female pairs, single males, and single females at Mountain Lake Biological Station, Virginia. In laboratory experiments, we employed six randomized treatments during the courtship season (n = 27 pairs) but only the first two treatments during the noncourtship season (n = 29 pairs). The treatments were the male-female pair confronting (1) a single male intruder and (2) a single female intruder, the male resident alone confronting (3) a single male intruder and (4) a single female intruder, and the female resident alone confronting (5) a single male intruder and (6) a single female intruder. During the courtship season, intruding males did not spend significantly different amounts of time on territories defended by a male-female pair versus territories defended by a single salamander (male or female) from the pair. However, during the courtship season intruding females did spend significantly less time on territories defended by a male-female pair versus territories defended by a single salamander (male or female) from the pair. Male and female intruders spent significantly less time on territories defended by a pair during the courtship season compared to the noncourtship season. During both the courtship and noncourtship seasons, males in pairs spent significantly more time in aggression toward intruding males than did their female partners, and females in pairs spent significantly more time in aggression toward intruding females than did their partners. Thus, our experiment suggests that male-female pairs as residents can codefend territories but not in a cooperative manner. Because paired male residents were more aggressive to male intruders, whereas paired female residents were more aggressive to female intruders, we suggest that males in pairs may not be willing to pass up future polygynous relationships, and females in pairs may not be willing to pass up future polyandrous relationships.

Competency-based education, introduced approximately 10 years ago, has become the preferred method and generally the accepted norm for delivering and assessing the outcomes of undergraduate (European) or predoctoral (North America) dental education in many parts of the world. As a philosophical approach, the competency statements drive national agencies in external programme review and at the institutional level in the definition of curriculum development, student assessment and programme evaluation. It would be presumptuous of this group to prescribe competences for various parts of the world; the application of this approach on a global basis may define what is the absolute minimum knowledge base and behavioural standard expected of a 'dentist' in the health care setting, while respecting local limitations and values. The review of documents and distillation of recommendations is presented as a reference and consideration for dental undergraduate programmes and their administration.

The central nervous system plays an important role in the control of renal sodium excretion. We present here a brief review of physiologic regulation of hydromineral balance and discuss recent results from our laboratory that focus on the participation of nitrergic, vasopressinergic, and oxytocinergic systems in the regulation of water and sodium excretion under different salt intake and hypertonic blood volume expansion (BVE) conditions. High sodium intake induced a significant increase in nitric oxide synthase (NOS) activity in the medial basal hypothalamus and neural lobe, while a low sodium diet decreased NOS activity in the neural lobe, suggesting that central NOS is involved in the control of sodium balance. An increase in plasma concentrations in vasopressin (AVP), oxytocin (OT), atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP), and nitrate after hypertonic BVE was also demonstrated. The central inhibition of NOS by L-NAME caused a decrease in plasma AVP and no change in plasma OT or ANP levels after BVE. These data indicate that the increase in AVP release after hypertonic BVE depends on nitric oxide production. In contrast, the pattern of OT secretion was similar to that of ANP secretion, supporting the view that OT is a neuromodulator of ANP secretion during hypertonic BVE. Thus, neurohypophyseal hormones and ANP are secreted under hypertonic BVE in order to correct the changes induced in blood volume and osmolality, and the secretion of AVP in this particular situation depends on NOS activity.

What is the likelihood that humans will ever determine if other animals engage in higher-order thinking? In examining what has happened in the twenty years since the publication of our book, Folk Physics for Apes, I conclude that comparative psychologists, the academic stalwarts charged with making progress on this front, are stuck in a series of intractable, and largely unacknowledged, conceptual problems. Because higher-order mental states depend on the existence of first-order, perceptually-based representations of objects and events, and because those first-order representations are necessary and sufficient to explain current experimental and observational results, the approaches deployed by comparative psychologists are doomed to failure. I examine this Asymmetric Dependency Problem in detail and show how the failure to confront its implications leads to viciously circular arguments that cannot be fixed within the current paradigm of research. Next, I offer a seven-step method for isolating the common structural flaw in any given experiment, and work through several examples. Finally, I examine the central claims that my colleagues and I made in Folk Physics through the lens of the Asymmetric Dependency Problem and current research trends. Although the optimism we expressed that experimental approaches could implicate the presence of higher-order thinking in animals requires considerable dampening, the challenges we isolated remain as vital today as they were twenty years ago.

OBJECTIVE: Food noise has received attention in the media, although no validated questionnaires exist to measure it. This study developed and tested the reliability and validity of the Food Noise Questionnaire (FNQ). METHODS: Participants (N = 400) successfully completed, the FNQ and a demographic questionnaire and self-reported weight and height. A subsample (n = 150) completed the FNQ 7 days later for test-retest reliability, and this subsample's first FNQ data were subjected to exploratory factor analysis. The remaining subsample (n = 250) completed two preoccupation with food questionnaires to test convergent validity, along with mood, anxiety, and stress questionnaires to test for discriminant validity. Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted using this subsample's FNQ data. RESULTS: [5] = 52.87, p < 0.001; root mean square error of approximation [RMSEA] = 0.20; comparative fit index [CFI] = 0.95; standardized root mean squared residual [SRMR] = 0.03). The FNQ showed good convergent (all r > 0.78; p < 0.001) and discriminant (all r < 0.39; p < 0.001) validity. CONCLUSIONS: The FNQ provides a psychometrically reliable and valid measure of food noise, although further research is needed to evaluate its clinical utility.

ABSTRACT This paper provides a taxonomic revision of the Neotropical electric fish genus Sternarchella, with redescriptions of seven valid species and descriptions of two new species. A maximum parsimony analysis of 76 morphological characters from seven ingroup and seven outgroup taxa recovered a non-monophyletic Sternarchella, in which a clade comprising two species with a ventral mouth (S. orinoco + S. sima) is the sister group to a clade comprising seven species that possess a terminal or superior mouth. Nested within this higher-diversity clade is the genus Magosternarchus (recognized herein as a junior synonym of Sternarchella) comprising M. duccis and M. raptor. The Magosternarchus clade forms a polytomy with S. orthos and S. schotti. Sternarchella calhamazon + a new species from the upper Río Madeira (sister species to S. calhamazon), and a new larger-bodied species from the central and upper Río Amazonas also form a clade. Sternarchella orthos is distributed in both the Amazon and Orinoco basins, where it exhibits considerable phenotypic diversity. Sternarchella orthos includes most specimens from the Amazon formerly assigned to the nominal species S. terminalis (recognized herein as a junior synonym of S. schotti).

When election reforms such as Ranked Choice Voting or the Alternative Vote are proposed to replace plurality voting, they offer lengthier instructions, more opportunities for political expression, and more opportunities for mistakes on the ballot. Observational studies of voting error rely on ecological inference from geographically aggregated data. Here we use an experimental approach instead, to examine the effect of two different ballot conditions at the individual level of analysis: the input rules that the voter must use and the number of ballot options presented for the voter’s choice. This experiment randomly assigned three different input rules (single-mark, ranking, and grading) and two different candidate lists (with six and eight candidates) to over 6,000 online respondents in the USA, during the American presidential primary elections in 2020, simulating a single-winner presidential election. With more expressive input rules (ranking and grading), the distinction between minor mistakes and totally invalid votes—a distinction inapplicable to single‐mark ballots (1MB) voting—assumes new importance. Regression analysis indicates that more complicated input rules and more candidates on the ballot did not raise the probability that a voter would cast a void (uncountable) vote, despite raising the probability of at least one violation of voting instructions.

This paper proposes a novel method for protein function recognition using deep learning. Recently, deep convolutional neural networks (DCNNs) demonstrated high performances in many areas of pattern recognition. Protein function is often associated with its tertiary structure denoting the active domain of a protein. This investigation develops a novel DCNN for protein functionality recognition based on its tertiary structure. Two rounds of experiments are performed. The initial experiment on tertiary protein structure alignment shows promising performances (94% accuracy rate) such that it shows the model robustness against rotations, local translations, and scales of the 3D structure. With these results, the main experiments contain five different datasets obtained by similarity measures between pairs of gene ontology terms. The experimental results for protein function recognition on selected datasets show 87.6% and 80.7% maximum and average accuracy rates respectively. The initial success of the DCNN in tertiary protein structure recognition supports further investigations with respect to tertiary protein retrieval and pattern mining on large scale problems.

Abstract A 2-Q antiferromagnetic order of the ferromagnetic dimers was found below T N = 2.9 K in the Shastry-Sutherland lattice BaNd 2 ZnS 5 by single crystal neutron diffraction. The magnetic order can be understood by the orthogonal arrangement of local Ising Nd spins, identified by polarized neutrons. A field was applied along [1 -1 0] to probe the observed metamagnetic transition in the magnetization measurement. The field decouples two magnetic sublattices corresponding to the propagation vectors q 1 = (½, ½, 0) and q 2 = (−½, ½, 0), respectively. Each sublattice shows a “stripe” order with a Néel-type arrangement in each single layer. The “stripe” order with q 1 remains nearly intact up to 6 T, while the other one with q 2 is suppressed at a critical field H c ~1.7 T, indicating a partial disorder. The H c varies with temperature and is manifested in the H - T phase diagram constructed by measuring the magnetization in BaNd 2 ZnS 5 .

This study focuses on investigating impact of supervisor – PhD student relationship on PhD students’ satisfaction with their supervisors’ supervisory styles and their skill development. A survey was conducted among 430 respondents who both finished or were doing their doctoral study at universities in Northern, Central and Southern cities in Vietnam in social science, economics and business management majors. Findings revealed that the leadership, helping, understanding and responsibility relationship between supervisors and PhD students were positively associated with PhD students’ satisfaction with supervisors’ supervisory style while the uncertain, dissatisfied and admonishing types of relationships were negatively associated with PhD students’ satisfaction. The strict relationship did not negatively affect PhD students’ satisfaction with their supervisors’ supervisory styles. Furthermore, PhD students’ satisfaction with their supervisors’ supervisory styles positively influenced their satisfaction with academic skill development during their PhD candidature. Implications and future research directions were then discussed.

Gaze following is a fundamental component of triadic social interaction which includes events and an object shared with other individuals and is found in both human and nonhuman primates. Most previous work has focused only on the immediate reaction after following another’s gaze. In contrast, this study investigated whether gaze following is retained after the observation of the other’s gaze shift, whether this retainment differs between species and age groups, and whether the retainment depends on the nature of the preceding events. In the social condition, subjects (1- and 2-year-old human children and chimpanzees) witnessed an experimenter who looked and pointed in the direction of a target lamp. In the physical condition, the target lamp blinked but the experimenter did not provide any cues. After a brief delay, we presented the same stimulus again without any cues. All subjects looked again to the target location after experiencing the social condition and thus showed a carryover effect. However, only 2-year-olds showed a carryover effect in the physical condition; 1-year-olds and chimpanzees did not. Additionally, only human children showed spontaneous interactive actions such as pointing. Our results suggest that the difference between the two age groups and chimpanzees is conceptual and not only quantitative.

Caridean shrimps are often infested by ectoparasites from the isopod family Bopyridae. Urobopyrus processae is a widespread species of bopyrid parasitizing the branchial (gill) chambers of members of the caridean family Processidae, including Ambidexter symmetricus. We examined hypotheses on differential infestation based on gender, castration of the host by the parasite, correlation between host and parasite size, and the fecundity of female parasites. Infestation rates varied from 1.3 to 32.1% between 2010 and 2011. Infested shrimps ranged from 1.26 mm to 6.24 mm carapace length (CL) between 2010 and 2011. Female shrimps were infested at a higher rate than males (2010 P = 0.0376; 2011 P = 0.0023). We report for the first time the differential selection between left and right branchial chambers in a caridean shrimp by a bopyrid parasite (P = 0.0209). Female parasite total length (TL) increased with host size (CL) in both years of sampling (2010 R2 adj = 0.6863; 2011 R2 adj= 0.8206). The size of male parasite TL was explained by both host CL (2010 R2 adj = 0.4591; 2011 R2 adj = 0.5490) and parasite female TL (2010 R2 adj = 0.5606; 2011 R2 adj = 0.6195). The number of embryos in a brood of the female parasite (85-3096) was varied positively with female TL (R2 adj = 0.625). Our results show that the bopyrid-shrimp host relationship in processids is typical of those studied in other carideans, indicating similar selective pressures act on bopyrids infesting the branchial chambers of shrimps.

IEEE 802.11-based mesh networks can yield a throughput distribution among nodes that is spatially biased, with traffic originating from nodes that directly communicate with the gateway obtaining higher throughput than all other upstream traffic. In particular, if single-hop nodes fully utilize the gateway's resources, all other nodes communicating with the same gateway will attain very little (if any) throughput. In this paper, we show that it is sufficient to rate limit the single-hop nodes in order to give transmission opportunities to all other nodes. Based on this observation, we develop a new rate limiting scheme for 802.11 mesh networks, which counters the spatial bias effect and does not require, in principle, any control overhead. Our rate control mechanism is based on three key techniques. First, we exploit the system's inherent priority nature and control the throughput of the spatially disadvantaged nodes by only controlling the transmission rate of the spatially advantaged nodes. Namely, the single-hop nodes collectively behave as a proxy controller for multi-hop nodes in order to achieve the desired bandwidth distribution. Second, we devise a rate limiting scheme that enforces a utilization threshold for advantaged single-hop traffic and guarantees a small portion of the gateway resources for the disadvantaged multi-hop traffic. We infer demand for multi-hop flow bandwidth whenever gateway resource usage exceeds this threshold, and subsequently reduce the rates of the spatially advantaged single-hop nodes. Third, since the more bandwidth the spatially disadvantaged nodes attain, the easier they can \emph{signal} their demands, we allow the bandwidth unavailable for the advantaged nodes to be elastic, i.e., the more the disadvantaged flows use the gateway resources, the higher the utilization threshold is. We develop an analytical model to study a system characterized by such priority, dynamic utilization thresholds, and control by proxy. Moreover, we use simulations to evaluate the proposed elastic rate limiting technique.

Our ability to form visual images within our mind is known as visual mental imagery and enables us to draw on internal representations in the absence of external stimuli. Aphantasia, a recent condition to gain attention within the field of visual neuroscience, describes the experience of individuals who lack voluntary visual mental imagery. The majority of research in this area has stemmed from subjective reports of visual imagery, through questionnaires such as the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire (VVIQ). More recently, a few studies have investigated impairments in cognitive function; however, these studies are limited in terms of the low sample size of aphantasic individuals used within the studies. As yet, no study has explored mental rotation (MR) performance in congenital aphantasics. Using the classic Shepard and Metzler MR paradigm, here we examine MR performance in 20 individuals with congenital aphantasia, as well as measuring self-reported visual object and spatial imagery through questionnaires (VVIQ, Spontaneous Use of Imagery Scale and Object-Spatial Imagery Questionnaire). We find that aphantasic participants self-report higher scores for visual spatial imagery compared to object imagery scores, which were below average of the object imagery scores reported by controls. Furthermore, in the MR test, aphantasic individuals took longer to rotate the stimuli compared to controls, and this time increased in line with the increased level of difficulty of rotation. Despite aphantasics taking longer to mentally rotate stimuli compared to controls, aphantasic participants were more accurate then control participants across all levels of difficulty. Our results indicate that aphantasics use a different strategy when performing the MR task, leading to slower reaction times but higher accuracy. Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2018

When chimpanzees (and other animals) use tools to pound, crack open, retrieve, soak up, pry apart, probe into, and/or dig up other objects (just to name a few of the operations of which they are capable), are these actions modulated by higher-order, structural, role-based representations of , , , and so forth?We report a study that was designed to shed light on what chimpanzees understand about and between objects.We presented expert tool-using chimpanzees with very familiar objects (ropes) in a very familiar testing context (hooking and retrieving an object containing food).We investigated whether they could transfer the known operation (hooking and pulling) to two distinct setups involving ropes (a looped rope that could effectuate the transfer of force, and a draped length of rope that could not⎯unless both ends were grasped at the same time).We show that first-order, perceptually-based relational reasoning is both necessary and sufficient to explain not only the impressive pattern of results we did obtain, but any possible pattern of results we could have obtained.If correct, any claim that higher-order reasoning is necessary to explain the results of such a test would, by definition, be false.More importantly, we show that this is not an idiosyncratic limitation of this experiment.Instead, we show that all experimental protocols claiming to assay higher-order reasoning in animals rest upon an extremely suspect, and ultimately unprincipled, titration.Specifically, researchers implicitly assume that the tasks are perceptually similar enough to what their subjects have previously encountered to allow them make sense of the problem, but perceptually different enough that the subjects must (somehow) rely upon higher-order reasoning to navigate their way through it.We show why such assumptions are false. Keywords -Causal cognition, Chimpanzees, Tool use, Physical cognitionFor roughly two thousand years, humans have known (or at least strongly suspected) that other species make and use tools (Newmyer, 2005), a fact imperfectly mirrored in animal folk tales from around the world (Povinelli & Barker, 2019).One of the earliest systematic efforts to collate data on animal tool use in both natural and captive settings was conducted by Darwin (1871), whose efforts were quickly followed by several experimental investigations of animal tool use and manufacture (e.g., Hobhouse, 1915; Klüver, 1933;Köhler, 1925). Köhler's (1925) studies documenting the ability of chimpanzees to use boxes, sticks, strings, and other objects as tools, in particular, became widely known.In the century that has followed, the interest in animal tool use burgeoned, catapulted forward by Jane Goodall's detailed reports of wild chimpanzees using (and making) several distinct kinds of tools (e.g., twigs as termite fishing wands, chewed up leaves as sponges, rocks as missiles; van Lawick-Goodall,

This article reports on the experience of conducting the program committee (PC) meeting for the IEEE VR 2009 conference in Second Life. More than 50 PC members from around the globe met virtually over a two-day period to decide which papers to accept for presentation at the conference. Survey responses from 42 of the PC members indicate generally positive feelings toward this meeting format, although several alterations will help improve interaction between attendees in future meetings.