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AbstractRodent pests pose significant impacts to agricultural systems and public health globally. Effective strategies for sustainable management while minimizing environmental impacts are crucial. To address the multifaceted nature of rodent impacts, well-coordinated initiatives are necessary to support control strategies, raise awareness among authorities, and inform the public. There is increasing global evidence of Working Groups delivering successful management of a range of natural resource management issues. We outline three case study working groups to tackle rodent pests: (1) National Mouse Group in Australia to manage mouse plague impacts, (2) Working Group Common Vole Management in Germany to manage common vole impacts, and (3) FREDON network for vole management in France. Each working group evolved independently, but all have remarkably similar structures, including monitoring, modelling/forecasting, regular stakeholder meetings (including producers, researchers, government agency staff and others), developing advice for management and identifying research priorities. The success of these working groups was related to: (1) broad stakeholder engagement (particularly farmers/producers), (2) dedicated funding to conduct direct research to inform control strategies, (3) maintained momentum through all phases of rodent population cycles, and (4) benefit for all stakeholders. As rodenticides are increasingly restricted, such working groups will become more important in the future, because stakeholder engagement is necessary to develop rodent management “toolboxes”. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Baiting is widely used in wildlife management for various purposes, including lethal control, fertility control, disease and parasite control, and conditioned aversion programs for many invasive vertebrate species. The efficacy of baiting programs relies on the likelihood that target animals will encounter the bait, consume it and receive an appropriate dose of the active ingredient. However, there has been little focus on encounter rate of toxic baits combined with behavioural aversion, which are likely to be significant factors affecting efficacy. Following optimal foraging theory, the likelihood of an animal encountering and consuming a toxic grain bait should increase in proportion to its availability relative to background food quantity if it is neither more or less detectable or palatable. Furthermore, the probability of consuming toxic baits might also be influenced by bait aversion following ingestion of a non‐lethal dose of toxin. Using a model system of wild house mice (Mus musculus L.) in mouse‐proof enclosures in Australia, we manipulated background food, applied zinc phosphide (Zn3P2) baits and measured mouse mortality. When background food was scarce, mouse mortality was high, whereas an increasing abundance of background food led to reduced mortality. A scenario modelling random encounters and including bait aversion explained 78% of the variation in observed mortality outcomes and achieved a closer fit to the data than modelling random encounters alone. Mortality rates were predicted to be higher with a higher strength bait, which would overcome behavioural aversion. Ensuring that animals locate and consume a lethal dose of toxic bait is a critical factor for successful bait delivery and efficacy. This is particularly significant in toxic baiting programs, where sublethal doses can make animals feel sick, leading to a negative association with the bait, and the development of aversion. Synthesis and applications: Our findings explain why some toxic baiting programs might fail. To achieve successful control, efforts should be directed at reducing the availability of background food to increase the probability of encounter and uptake of toxic baits. It is important to measure and understand the role of background food on toxic baiting programs to explain variable outcomes and inform strategies for successful bait delivery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The debilitating symptoms of Parkinson's disease, including the hallmark slowness of movement, termed bradykinesia, were described more than 100 years ago. Despite significant advances in elucidating the genetic, molecular and neurobiological changes in Parkinson's disease, it remains conceptually unclear exactly why patients with Parkinson's disease move slowly. To address this, we summarize behavioural observations of movement slowness in Parkinson's disease and discuss these findings in a behavioural framework of optimal control. In this framework, agents optimize the time it takes to gather and harvest rewards by adapting their movement vigour according to the reward that is at stake and the effort that needs to be expended. Thus, slow movements can be favourable when the reward is deemed unappealing or the movement very costly. While reduced reward sensitivity, which makes patients less inclined to work for reward, has been reported in Parkinson's disease, this appears to be related mainly to motivational deficits (apathy) rather than bradykinesia. Increased effort sensitivity has been proposed to underlie movement slowness in Parkinson's disease. However, careful behavioural observations of bradykinesia are inconsistent with abnormal computations of effort costs due to accuracy constraints or movement energetic expenditure. These inconsistencies can be resolved when considering that a general disability to switch between stable and dynamic movement states can contribute to an abnormal composite effort cost related to movement in Parkinson's disease. This can account for paradoxical observations such as the abnormally slow relaxation of isometric contractions or difficulties in halting a movement in Parkinson's disease, both of which increase movement energy expenditure. A sound understanding of the abnormal behavioural computations mediating motor impairment in Parkinson's disease will be vital for linking them to their underlying neural dynamics in distributed brain networks and for grounding future experimental studies in well-defined behavioural frameworks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The complex motility of bacteria, ranging from single-swimmer behaviors such as chemotaxis to collective dynamics, including biofilm formation and active matter phenomena, is driven by their microscale propellers. Despite extensive study of swimming flagellated bacteria, the hydrodynamic properties of their helical-shaped propellers have never been directly measured. The primary challenges to directly studying microscale propellers are 1) their small size and fast, correlated motion, 2) the necessity of controlling fluid flow at the microscale, and 3) isolating the influence of a single propeller from a propeller bundle. To solve the outstanding problem of characterizing the hydrodynamic properties of these propellers, we adopt a dual statistical viewpoint that connects to the hydrodynamics through the fluctuation-dissipation theorem (FDT). We regard the propellers as colloidal particles and characterize their Brownian fluctuations, described by 21 diffusion coefficients for translation, rotation, and correlated translation-rotation in a static fluid. To perform this measurement, we applied recent advances in high-resolution oblique plane microscopy to generate high-speed volumetric movies of fluorophore-labeled, freely diffusing Escherichia coli flagella. Analyzing these movies with a bespoke helical single-particle tracking algorithm, we extracted trajectories, calculated the full set of diffusion coefficients, and inferred the average propulsion matrix using a generalized Einstein relation. Our results provide a direct measurement of a microhelix's propulsion matrix and validate proposals that the flagella are highly inefficient propellers, with a maximum propulsion efficiency of less than 3%. Our approach opens broad avenues for studying the motility of particles in complex environments where direct hydrodynamic approaches are not feasible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory has proven to be an extraordinary supernova (SN) observatory. The clearest application of Swift's unique strengths is obtaining very early UV and X-ray data of young SNe, which enables robust constraints on their progenitor systems. As part of a year-long Swift Guest Investigator Key Project, we initiated a follow-up program to rapidly observe all of the nearest (distance < 35 Mpc or roughly z < 0.008) extragalactic transients without waiting for them to be spectroscopically classified as supernovae. Among the possible results were to measure any UV-bright radiative cooling following the shock breakout from core-collapse SNe and shock emission from the interaction of thermonuclear Type Ia SNe with a non-degenerate companion. Just as importantly, uniformly following up and analyzing a significant sample can constrain the fraction of events for which the shock emission is not seen. Here we present the UV and X-ray measurements performed during our campaign. Our sample of 24 observed triggers included three SNe Ia, six SNe II, three stripped-envelope, core-collapse SNe, five galactic transients, three extragalactic SN imposters, and four unconfirmed transients. For our sample, the median delay time from the discovery image to the first Swift image was 1.45 days. We tabulate the X-ray upper limits and find they are sufficiently deep to have detected objects as X-ray luminous as GRB060218/SN2006aj. Other X-ray-detected SNe such as SNe 2006bp, 2008D, and 2011dh would have been detectable in some of the observations. We highlight the spectroscopically classified Type II SN 2018hna with UV-optical light curves indicating a luminosity and flux evolution very similar to SN 1987A. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We discuss the numerical solution of the nonlinear integro-differential equation for the probability of a divergent neutron chain in a stationary system (i.e., the probability of initiation (POI)). We follow the development described in Bell's classic paper on the stochastic theory of neutron transport. As noted by Bell, the linearized form of this equation resembles the linear adjoint neutron transport equation. A matrix formalism for the discretized steady state (or forward) neutron equation in slab geometry is first developed, and is then used to derive the discrete adjoint equation. A main advantage of this discrete development is that the resulting discrete adjoint equation does not depend upon how the multigroup cross sections for the forward problem are obtained. That is, we derive the discrete adjoint directly from the discrete forward equations rather than discretizing directly the adjoint equation. This also guarantees that the discrete adjoint operator is consistent with the inner product used to define the adjoint operator. We discuss three approaches for the numerical solution of the POI equations, and present numerical results on several test problems. The three solution methods are a simple fixed point iteration, a second approach that is akin to a nonlinear Power iteration, and a third approach which uses a Newton-Krylov nonlinear solver. We also give sufficient conditions to guarantee the existence and uniqueness of nontrivial solutions to our discrete POI equations when the discrete system is supercritical, and that only the trivial solution exists when the discrete system is subcritical. Our approach is modeled after the analysis presented for the continuous POI equations by Mokhtar-Kharroubi and Jarmouni-Idrissi, and by Pazy and Rabinowitz. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1082, at the council of Charroux convened by the papal legate Amatus of Oloron, astonished witnesses observed the Holy Prepuce, a rare body relic of Christ himself, to be miraculously spotted with fresh blood. This spectacular miracle holds implications for our understanding of charismatic strategies of religious reform in France in the era of Pope Gregory VII. Gregory's use of standing legates with regional mandates, such as Amatus, was a novelty in papal administration, but the legates, though empowered as proxies of the pope, were often weak lieutenants. When they could not induce or coerce cooperation, they frequently confronted the impotence of their legal–canonical mandates. The miracle at Charroux, I will show, exemplifies an alternative charismatic strategy, harnessing liturgical art and spectacle to magnify the legate's stature as an authority in the context of the Eucharistic controversy and religious reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article, titled "Imagining Antiquity in Islamic Societies," explores the rediscovery and reimagining of remnants from past societies in the Islamic world. It challenges the popular stereotype that Islamic values are incompatible with cultural heritage preservation, highlighting how Islamic societies have overwhelmingly valued and cared for cultural heritage in various contexts across space and time. The article covers a wide range of topics, including the reuse of ancient stonework, the engagement with classical monuments during Islamic times, and the motivations behind the reuse of structural fragments. While the article does not cover every region and period, it provides nuanced histories and debates that will be of interest to those studying the Islamic past and the contemporary Muslim world. [Extracted from the article]

Invasive alien species (IAS) are a key driver of global biodiversity loss. Reducing their spread and impact is a target of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG target 15.8) and of the EU IAS Regulation 1143/2014. The use of citizen science offers various benefits to alien species' decision-making and to society, since public participation in research and management boosts awareness, engagement and scientific literacy and can reduce conflict in IAS management. We report the results of a survey on alien species citizen science initiatives within the framework of the European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) Action Alien-CSI. We gathered metadata on 103 initiatives across 41 countries, excluding general biodiversity reporting portals, spanning from 2005 to 2020, offering the most comprehensive account of alien species citizen science initiatives on the continent to date. We retrieved information on project scope, policy relevance, engagement methods, data capture, data quality and data management, methods and technologies applied and performance indicators such as the number of records coming from projects, the numbers of participants and publications. The 103 initiatives were unevenly distributed geographically, with countries with a tradition of citizen science showing more active projects. The majority of projects were contributory and were run at a national scale, targeting the general public, alien plants and insects, and terrestrial ecosystems. These factors of project scope were consistent between geographic regions. Most projects focused on collecting species presence or abundance data, aiming to map presence and spread. As 75% of the initiatives specifically collected data on IAS of Union Concern, citizen science in Europe is of policy relevance. Despite this, only half of the projects indicated sustainable funding. Nearly all projects had validation in place to verify species identifications. Strikingly, only about one third of the projects shared their data with open data repositories such as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility or the European Alien Species Information Network. Moreover, many did not adhere to the principles of FAIR data management. Finally, certain factors of engagement, feedback and support, had significant impacts on project performance, with the provision of a map with sightings being especially beneficial. Based on this dataset, we offer suggestions to strengthen the network of IAS citizen science projects and to foster knowledge exchange among citizens, scientists, managers, policy-makers, local authorities, and other stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Keywords: biological control; coccinellidae; Harmonia axyridis; IGP; invasive species; ladybirds EN biological control coccinellidae Harmonia axyridis IGP invasive species ladybirds 249 252 4 05/10/22 20220601 NES 220601 INTRODUCTION The spatial range of many species is shifting dramatically over time in response to environmental change (MacLean & Beissinger, 2017). Indeed, the paper by Brown et al. (2011) makes very limited reference to biological control, whilst Soares et al. (2008) do not once claim that I H. axyridis i , or other non-native ladybird species, lower the biological control potential of the ladybird guild. 5 Brown, P.M.J. & Roy, H.E. (2018) Native ladybird decline caused by the invasive harlequin ladybird Harmonia axyridis: evidence from a long-term field study. (2016) The influence of exotic lady beetle (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae) establishment on the species composition of the native lady beetle community in Missouri. [Extracted from the article]

Objectives: The incidence of anal squamous cell carcinoma (ASCC) is increasing worldwide, with a significant proportion of patients treated with curative intent having recurrence. The ability to accurately predict progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) would allow for development of personalised treatment strategies. The aim of the study was to train and external test radiomic/clinical feature derived time-to-event prediction models. Methods: Consecutive patients with ASCC treated with curative intent at two large tertiary referral centres with baseline FDG PET-CT were included. Radiomic feature extraction was performed using LIFEx software on the pre-treatment PET-CT. Two distinct predictive models for PFS and OS were trained and tuned at each of the centres, with the best performing models externally tested on the other centres' patient cohort. Results: A total of 187 patients were included from centre 1 (mean age 61.6 ± 11.5 years, median follow up 30 months, PFS events = 57/187, OS events = 46/187) and 257 patients were included from centre 2 (mean age 62.6 ± 12.3 years, median follow up 35 months, PFS events = 70/257, OS events = 54/257). The best performing model for PFS and OS was achieved using a Cox regression model based on age and metabolic tumour volume (MTV) with a training c-index of 0.7 and an external testing c-index of 0.7 (standard error = 0.4). Conclusions: A combination of patient age and MTV has been demonstrated using external validation to have the potential to predict OS and PFS in ASCC patients. Clinical relevance statement: A Cox regression model using patients' age and metabolic tumour volume showed good predictive potential for progression-free survival in external testing. The benefits of a previous radiomics model published by our group could not be confirmed on external testing. Key Points: • A predictive model based on patient age and metabolic tumour volume showed potential to predict overall survival and progression-free survival and was validated on an external test cohort. • The methodology used to create a predictive model from age and metabolic tumour volume was repeatable using external cohort data. • The predictive ability of positron emission tomography-computed tomography–derived radiomic features diminished when the influence of metabolic tumour volume was accounted for. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The advent of 'conservation agriculture' (CA) farming using zero- or no-tillage practices and an accompanying change in crop rotations in the last 10–15 years has potentially led to less disturbance of mouse burrows and increased cover and food supply. Given the irregular outbreaks of mice in grain cropping regions in Australia and the damage they cause, it is important to understand when and where mouse populations increase so that management strategies can be improved. We utilised a 20-year long-term mouse population data set collected prior to the introduction of CA farming practices and a more recent 8-year data set after CA to compare changes in mouse population abundance in a typical dryland grain cropping system in north-western Victoria, Australia. Mouse trapping data were used to compare abundance in crop and margin habitats during crop growth and non-crop (fallow) periods before ('conventional') and after introduction of CA. Mice are now resident year-round within crops and stubble and appear to only spill over into margin habitats. Previously developed recommendations for mouse management that include their control while in margin habitats may no longer be valid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper opens with a consideration of the biography of a large basin discovered during excavations at the Abbasid capital of Samarra. The large, circular, basin from Samarra closely matches historical descriptions of a fountain located in the city's Congregational Mosque which became known as "kasat firun," or the "Cup of Pharaoh" and, since its discovery, this excavated basin and the historical account of the fountain have often been conflated as one and the same. The excavated basin is carved from a non-local -- and probably Egyptian -- stone which may have generated its mysterious association with the Pharaonic past. A consideration of the possible sources from which such a large stone basin might have been obtained during the Islamic period, however, opens up a wider discussion related to the reuse of pre-Islamic artefacts as water features. This paper explores possible scenarios through which the basin from Samarra might have been acquired by the Abbasid caliphs alongside the logistics associated with its transport to Samarra. In addition, the likely motivations for the installation of this enigmatic stone basin are evalu-ated -- including pragmatic reuse of an impressive piece of stonework, a symbolic statement of contemporary pre-eminence over the rulers of the past or perhaps even beliefs in the quasi-magical powers of ancient objects. Alongside this, the existence of several comparable, near-contemporary, basins, demonstrate that the reuse of objects from the past as contemporary water features in important locations, was a wider practice seen in both the Islamic world and beyond. As an object that seems to have led multiple lives, the complex biography of the basin from Samarra illuminates the ways in which material remains of the past were understood and repurposed during the Abbasid Caliphate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focusing on the theme of American exceptionalism, this essay explores the interplay between center and margin in punk rock produced in California in the late 1970s and early 1980s. After brief accounts of both punk and exceptionalism, the article surveys instances of exceptionalist rhetoric in lyrics by punk bands from Los Angeles and San Francisco and argues that, although some punks uncritically reproduced the pernicious ideology of exceptionalism, others drew on it as a means of criticizing the nation's failings. The study concludes by considering the different ways of understanding the relationships between margin and center in California punk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are two surviving copies of La Male Regle by Thomas Hoccleve, a lively account of his dissolute life as a clerk of the Privy Seal. One is part of an autograph manuscript of Hoccleve's works in the Huntington Library, the other an incomplete version in Canterbury Cathedral Archives. Reference to a third copy survives in the will of William Hoton, proved in 1447. As well as La Male Regle , Hoton bequeathed a letter of Pharaoh, a chronicle and statutes, together with a mazer and pious donations. This information, coupled with records of Hoton's family members, his burial place and associates, produces a profile of William Hoton linking him with the law and the book trade, and possibly with Neville's Inn, the London town house used by a noble family to whose members Hoccleve addressed some of his poems. Hoton's will also leads to a second individual who owned La Male Regle —the person who received it as a bequest, the common attorney and citizen, John Mordon. Neither Hoton nor Mordon has hitherto featured in discussions of the reception of the poem, which enjoyed a wider circulation than previously thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

18 mm-sized Orionid meteoroids were captured in 2019 and 2020 by the Canadian Automated Observatory's mirror tracking system. Meteor position measurements were made to an accuracy of ∼ 1 m and the meteors were tracked to a limiting magnitude of about + 7. 5 at the faintest point. The trajectory estimation shows the intrinsic physical dispersion of the Orionid radiant is 0. 400 ° ± 0. 062 °. An erosion-based entry model was fit to the observations to reproduce ablation and fragmentation for each meteor, simultaneously reproducing the light curve, the dynamics, and the wake. Wake observations were found to directly inform the grain mass distribution released in the modelled erosion. A new luminous efficiency model was derived from simultaneous radar and optical observations and applied in the modelling to improve its accuracy. The results show that the apparent strength of Orionids varies with radiant location and time of appearance during the period of shower activity. The average differential grain mass distribution index was 2.15, higher than found from in-situ estimates, possibly due to the evolution of the physical properties of meteoroids since ejection. All Orionids showed leading fragment morphology which was best explained by stopping the erosion at the peak of the light curve, leaving a non-fragmenting meteoroid with ∼ 10 % of the original mass. The inverted Orionid meteoroid average bulk density of ∼ 300 kg m −3 , corresponding to porosities of ∼ 90 % , is consistent with in-situ measurements of larger dust particles by Vega-2 at 1P/Halley and Rosetta at 67P. • Captured 18 Orionid meteoroids using the Canadian Automated Observatory's mirror-tracking system. • Determined Orionid radiant intrinsic physical dispersion: 0. 400 ° ± 0. 062 °. • Introduced a new luminous efficiency model derived from radar and optical observations. • Utilized an erosion-based entry model to simulate meteor ablation, fragmentation, and light curve. • Orionid meteoroid bulk density: ∼ 300 kg/m 3 , aligning with in-situ measurements from Vega-2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Outcome data of patients with relapsed/refractory (R/R) diffuse large B‐cell lymphoma (DLBCL) beyond the second line are scarce outside of clinical trials. Novel therapies in the R/R setting have been approved based on single‐arm trials, but results need to be contextualized by real‐world outcomes. Medical records from 3753 Danish adults diagnosed with DLBCL were reviewed. Patients previously treated with rituximab and anthracycline‐based chemotherapy who received the third or later line (3 L+) of treatment after 1 January 2015, were included. Only 189 patients with a median age of 71 years were eligible. The median time since the last line of therapy was 6 months. Patients were treated with either best supportive care (22%), platinum‐based salvage therapy (13%), low‐intensity chemotherapy (22%), in clinical trial (14%) or various combination treatments (32%). The 2‐year OS‐/PFS estimates were 25% and 12% for all patients and 49% and 17% for those treated with platinum‐based salvage therapy. Age ≥70, CNS involvement, elevated LDH and ECOG ≥2 predicted poor outcomes, and patients with 0–1 of these risk factors had a 2‐year OS estimate of 65%. Only a very small fraction of DLBCL patients received third‐line treatment and were eligible for inclusion. Outcomes were generally poor, but better in intensively treated, fit young patients with limited disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The size and distribution of home ranges reflect how individuals within a population use, defend, and share space and resources, and may thus be an important predictor of population‐level dynamics. Eruptive species, such as the house mouse in Australian grain‐growing regions, are an ideal species in which to investigate variations in space use and home range overlap between stable and outbreaking populations. In this study, we use spatially explicit capture–recapture models to explore if space use and home range overlap among female mice could serve as indicators of changes in population density leading into summer. Additionally, we assess the sensitivity of space use and home range estimates to reduced recapture rates. Our analysis did not reveal variations in the spring spatial organisation of female mice based on existing capture–mark–recapture data. However, our study highlights the need to balance monitoring efforts within regions, emphasising the importance of exploring studies that can improve spatial recaptures by optimising trapping efforts. This is particularly important in Australian agricultural systems, where varying farm management practices may drive differences in population dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Federal Reserve (Fed) regularly faces novel challenges to its broad statutory mandates. Often, these challenges--from financial crises to pandemics to climate change--raise a critical question. When should the Fed act beyond the boundaries of its core institutional identity and expertise? On the one hand, some voices demand the Fed "stay in its own lane," avoiding experimentation so that it may preserve its perceived legitimacy to carry out core historical functions. On the other, hewing too closely to precedent and existing expertise risks institutional failure of a different sort. To navigate that tension, this Feature sketches an ethos of technocratic pragmatism--one that permits the Fed to develop the expertise necessary to address emergent problems as long as it remains constrained by norms designed to preserve its long-run legitimacy. We illustrate the ethos by examining three cases where the Fed has confronted, or is confronting, challenges that test the boundaries of its expertise: engagement with cyber risk, emergency lending before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, and nascent efforts to understand the intersection of central banking and global climate change. We also engage with cases where the Fed has transgressed legitimacy-preserving limits by intervening in policy disputes beyond the range of its statutory concerns. Taken together, these cases illustrate how the Fed must walk a fine line between valuable experimentation and the usurpation of politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: There is little evidence of the ergogenic effect of flow-resistive masks worn during exercise. We compared a flow-resistive face mask (MASK) worn during high-intensity interval training (HIIT) against pressure threshold loading inspiratory muscle training (IMT). Methods: 23 participants (13 males) completed a 5 km time trial and six weeks of HIIT (3 sessions weekly). HIIT (n = 8) consisted of repeated work (2 min) at the speed equivalent to 95% V ˙ O2 peak with equal rest. Repetitions were incremental (six in weeks 1, 2 and 6, eight in weeks 3 and 4 and ten in week 5). Participants were allocated to one of three training groups. MASK (n = 8) wore a flow-resistive mask during all sessions. The IMT group (n = 8) completed 2 × 30 breaths daily at 50% maximum inspiratory pressure (PImax). A control group (CON, n = 7) completed HIIT only. Following HIIT, participants completed two 5 km time trials, the first matched identically to pre-intervention trial (ISO time), and a self-paced effort. Results: Time trial performance was improved in all groups (MASK 3.1 ± 1.7%, IMT, 5.7 ± 1.5% and CON 2.6 ± 1.0%, p < 0.05). IMT improved greater than MASK and CON (p = 0.004). Post intervention, PImax and diaphragm thickness were improved in IMT only (32% and 9.5%, respectively, p = 0.003 and 0.024). Conclusion: A flow-resistive mask worn during HIIT provides no benefit to 5 km performance when compared to HIIT only. Supplementing HIIT with IMT improves respiratory muscle strength, morphology and performance greater than HIIT alone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Zika virus (ZIKV) is transfusion-transmissible. In Australia the primary vector, Aedes aegypti, is established in the north-east, such that local transmission is possible following importation of an index case, which has the potential to impact on blood transfusion safety and public health. We estimated the basic reproduction number (R 0 ) to model the epidemic potential of ZIKV in Australian locations, compared this with the ecologically similar dengue viruses (DENV), and examined possible implications for blood transfusion safety.Study Design and Methods: Varying estimates of vector control efficiency and extrinsic incubation period, "best-case" and "worst-case" scenarios of monthly R 0 for ZIKV and DENV were modeled from 1996 to 2015 in 11 areas. We visualized the geographical distribution of blood donors in relation to areas with epidemic potential for ZIKV.Results: Epidemic potential (R 0 > 1) existed for ZIKV and DENV throughout the study period in a number of locations in northern Australia (Cairns, Darwin, Rockhampton, Thursday Island, Townsville, and Brisbane) during the warmer months of the year. R 0 for DENV was greater than ZIKV and was broadly consistent with annual estimates in Cairns. Increased vector control efficiency markedly reduced the epidemic potential and shortened the season of local transmission. Australian locations that provide the greatest number of blood donors did not have epidemic potential for ZIKV.Conclusion: We estimate that areas of north-eastern Australia could sustain local transmission of ZIKV. This early contribution to understanding the epidemic potential of ZIKV may assist in the assessment and management of threats to blood transfusion safety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I explore the synth-punk band the Screamers and the uncertain futures they represent. After describing punk rock briefly and situating the Screamers in the Los Angeles punk scene of the late 1970s, I analyze the futurity connoted by their use of synthesizers. I discuss the band's desire for a future in music and examine the American recording industry's hostility to punk, preferring the safer sounds of new wave. In the conclusion, I consider the purported nihilism of early punk by contextualizing punk's negativity within debates about queer futurities as well as within what Mark Fisher calls "lost futures." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the discussion on Sam Stern, a scholar holding the keys to the treasure house of medieval Islam representing among the collection of translated texts as being Byzantium and Iran.

A device-independent randomness expansion protocol aims to take an initial random seed and generate a longer one without relying on details of how the devices operate for security. A large amount of work to date has focussed on a particular protocol based on spot-checking devices using the CHSH inequality. Here we show how to derive randomness expansion rates for a wide range of protocols, with security against a quantum adversary. Our technique uses semidefinite programming and a recent improvement of the entropy accumulation theorem. To support the work and facilitate its use, we provide code that can generate lower bounds on the amount of randomness that can be output based on the measured quantities in the protocol. As an application, we give a protocol that robustly generates up to two bits of randomness per entangled qubit pair, which is twice that established in existing analyses of the spot-checking CHSH protocol in the low noise regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces the phenomenon of heuristic-based certainty within the digital native demographic and discusses implications for theory and practice including preparing leaders in the psychology field to build and manage digitally enabled cultures. The persistent, pervasive priming and commoditization of personal time and relevance within the attention economy have created the perception of a decision-making environment of perpetually high cognitive loading and decreased motivation. As a result, objective, independent assessment and deliberate reasoning have given way to ideological, collectively validated, ephemeral decisions. The present research describes a new framework for understanding the development of attitude certainty among digital natives. Data indicate that this demographic is substituting heuristic judgments for systematic appraisals of certainty with notable frequency, providing strong evidence of an aversion to systematic decisions. The heuristic-based framework for attitude certainty extends current theory and synthesizes multidisciplinary research to explicate these decision patterns and strategies. Appreciating its foundations will facilitate deliberate, potential, and practical strategies for structured responses in interpersonal and team settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is a successful treatment for patients with Parkinson's disease. In adaptive DBS, stimulation is titrated according to feedback about clinical state and underlying pathophysiology. This contrasts with conventional stimulation, which is fixed and continuous. In acute trials, adaptive stimulation matches the efficacy of conventional stimulation while delivering about half the electrical energy. The latter means potentially fewer side-effects. The next step is to determine the long-term efficacy, efficiency, and side-effect profile of adaptive stimulation, and chronic trials are currently being considered by the medical devices industry. However, there are several different approaches to adaptive DBS, and several possible limitations have been highlighted. Here we review the findings to date to ascertain how and who to stimulate in chronic trials designed to establish the long-term utility of adaptive DBS. © 2020 International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mouse plagues are a regular feature of grain‐growing regions, particularly in southern and eastern Australia, yet it is not clear what role various ecological processes play in the eruptive dynamics generating these outbreaks.This research was designed to assess the impact of adding food, water, and cover in all combinations on breeding performance, abundance, and survival of mouse populations on a typical cereal growing farm in northwestern Victoria.Supplementary food, water, and cover were applied in a 2 × 2 × 2 factorial design to 240 m sections of internal fence lines between wheat or barley crops and stubble/pasture fields over an 11‐month period to assess the impact on mouse populations.We confirmed that mice were eating the additional food and were accessing the water provided. We did not generate an outbreak of mice, but there were some significant effects from the experimental treatments. Additional food increased population size twofold and improved apparent survival. Both water and cover improved breeding performance. Food and cover increased apparent survival.Our findings confirm that access to food, water, and cover are necessary for outbreaks, but are not sufficient. There remain additional factors that are important in generating mouse plagues, particularly in a climatically variable agricultural environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is a successful treatment for patients with Parkinson's disease. In adaptive DBS, stimulation is titrated according to feedback about clinical state and underlying pathophysiology. This contrasts with conventional stimulation, which is fixed and continuous. In acute trials, adaptive stimulation matches the efficacy of conventional stimulation while delivering about half the electrical energy. The latter means potentially fewer side‐effects. The next step is to determine the long‐term efficacy, efficiency, and side‐effect profile of adaptive stimulation, and chronic trials are currently being considered by the medical devices industry. However, there are several different approaches to adaptive DBS, and several possible limitations have been highlighted. Here we review the findings to date to ascertain how and who to stimulate in chronic trials designed to establish the long‐term utility of adaptive DBS. © 2020 International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the first paper of this series, we examined existing methods of optical meteor trajectory estimation and developed a novel method which simultaneously uses both the geometry and the dynamics of meteors to constrain their trajectories. We also developed a simulator which uses an ablation model to generate realistic synthetic meteor trajectories which we use to test meteor trajectory solvers. In this second paper, we perform simulation validation to estimate radiant and velocity accuracy, which may be achieved by various meteor observation systems as applied to several meteor showers. For low-resolution all-sky systems, where the meteor deceleration is generally not measurable, the multi-parameter fit method assuming a constant velocity better reproduces the radiant and speed of synthetic meteors. For moderate field of view systems, our novel method performs the best at all convergence angles, while multi-parameter fit methods generally produce larger speed errors. For high-resolution, narrow field of view systems, we find our new method of trajectory estimation reproduces radiant and speed more accurately than all other methods tested. The ablation properties of meteoroids are commonly found to be the limiting factor in velocity accuracy. We show that the true radiant dispersion of meteor showers can be reliably measured with moderate field of view (or more precise) systems provided appropriate methods of meteor trajectory estimation are employed. Finally, we compare estimated and real angular radiant uncertainty and show that for the solvers tested the real radiant error is on average underestimated by a factor of two. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Multiple features of local field potentials in subthalamic nucleus were investigated to detect resting tremor in Parkinson's disease. • The use of relevant features, machine learning, and Kalman filter improves the tremor detection performance. • The Kalman filter in feature space significantly improves the specificity of detection by 17%. Accurate and reliable detection of tremor onset in Parkinson's disease (PD) is critical to the success of adaptive deep brain stimulation (aDBS) therapy. Here, we investigated the potential use of feature engineering and machine learning methods for more accurate detection of rest tremor in PD. We analyzed the local field potential (LFP) recordings from the subthalamic nucleus region in 12 patients with PD (16 recordings). To explore the optimal biomarkers and the best performing classifier, the performance of state-of-the-art machine learning (ML) algorithms and various features of the subthalamic LFPs were compared. We further used a Kalman filtering technique in feature domain to reduce the false positive rate. The Hjorth complexity showed a higher correlation with tremor, compared to other features in our study. In addition, by optimal selection of a maximum of five features with a sequential feature selection method and using the gradient boosted decision trees as the classifier, the system could achieve an average F1 score of up to 88.7% and a detection lead of 0.52 s. The use of Kalman filtering in feature space significantly improved the specificity by 17.0% (p = 0.002), thereby potentially reducing the unnecessary power dissipation of the conventional DBS system. The use of relevant features combined with Kalman filtering and machine learning improves the accuracy of tremor detection during rest. The proposed method offers a potential solution for efficient on-demand stimulation for PD tremor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the definitional issues on the terms 'organizations' and 'institutions' and their impacts on research on law and macroeconomics. Also cited are the views of new institutional economists on institutions as provider of rules and organizations as agents, and the flexible institutional synthesis that can be used in such fields as law, economics, and history.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the evidence commonly claimed to show the presence of slaves in the audience of Plautus' comedies (above all the evidence of his prologue to Poenulus) and to argue that it more probably shows the opposite, that slaves were not present, or at least were expected not to be. The question is given some urgency by the appearance of Amy Richlin's new book, which takes the presence of slaves in the audience for granted and builds on it to develop a view of Plautine comedy as addressing the experiences, hopes and fears of those slaves. Richlin cites the Poenulus prologue at pages 89–90, accepting it without detailed discussion as indicating the presence of slaves in the audience; and it has been cited similarly in standard handbooks from which I quote a representative sample of remarks below. Some scholars have said things in passing which suggest a different conclusion, but they too have not discussed the question in detail or examined the other evidence that has been thought relevant to the issue. I think that the time is ripe for closer scrutiny of all this evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the maturity of virtualization technology, cloud computing has brought us new computing and service models. Adopting a resource pool solution based on cloud computing architecture, the virtualized resources can be uniformly managed and deployed to achieve the purpose of automated and intelligent management of information systems. However, because cloud servers have some features that are different from ordinary hosts, existing intrusion detection technologies cannot be directly applied to cloud computing. This paper focuses on the real-time dispatching of people. The main innovation of this paper is to apply BP neural network technology to the real-time dispatching of intelligent people, establish the time prediction model of intelligent dispatching of people based on BP neural network, and design the intelligent dispatching algorithm of people based on BP neural network, and use examples to analyze the opposition to verify the feasibility of the algorithm. The results show that the algorithm improves the classification accuracy of neural networks and shortens the training time of samples. It improves the efficiency of intelligent dispatch detection, the accuracy of results and the efficiency of explicit algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers the referendum on self-determination held in New Caledonia on 4 November 2018. It sets this vote in context by reviewing previous referenda in this French overseas collectivity, beginning in 1958. The vote in the recent referendum was closer than many, Kanak included, expected (43.33 per cent in favour, 56.67 per cent against). The article analyses this result and takes into account aspects of social change in New Caledonia. It examines different approaches, by Kanak and Europeans resident in New Caledonia, to the question of events and processes, leading to a discussion of underlying attitudes to decolonization and historicity. It concludes by presenting some of the factors and forces in play in the Provincial elections in New Caledonia in May 2019. These elections will determine the composition of the local parliament (Congrès), and through it the New Caledonian government, for the period 2019–24. It is this new government that will be in place for the remainder of the Noumea Accord that includes potentially two further referenda on independence, and in the case of a NO vote prevailing, for the post-2022 process of further negotiations with France over arrangements for the future of New Caledonia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: We aimed to quantify the risk of death following a positive test for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‐CoV‐2) among individuals with haematological malignancies, stratified by virus variants and type of malignancy. Methods: Using the Danish nationwide registries, we conducted a population‐based cohort study among individuals who received a discharge diagnosis of haematological malignancies during the 5 years prior to testing positive for SARS‐CoV‐2 (February 2020–April 2023). All individuals were followed for 30 days after a positive test, and overall and time‐stratified case fatality risks (CFR) were estimated. Results: We identified 7154 individuals with a history of haematological malignancies who tested positive for SARS‐CoV‐2. Among these, we observed 223 deaths, yielding a CFR of 3.1%. The CFR was highest at the beginning of the pandemic (10%) and gradually declined to 1.9% during the period of Omicron BA1/BA2 predominance. The highest CFR was observed among individuals with acute leukaemia (CFR 6.2%, adjusted relative risk 1.95, 95% confidence interval 1.33–2.88) compared to individuals with lymphoma (CFR 3%). Conclusions: We observed a reduction in the CFR over time, which may be attributed to new treatments, COVID‐19 vaccination and the emergence of less aggressive variants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fossil woods are common in the Late Cretaceous through early Eocene rocks of the Denver Basin, Colorado. The overwhelming majority of these woods are dicotyledonous angiosperms. A new locality for fossil woods, Cherokee Ranch, in the upper D1 stratigraphic sequence (Denver Formation) is described, and evidence for it being late Paleocene is reviewed. Most Cherokee Ranch woods resemble previously described Denver Basin angiosperm woods, but there is one new type of wood attributed to the family Lauraceae. A new genus, Ubiquitoxylon, is proposed for woods with the combination of features commonly seen in the Cherokee Ranch woods. Denver Basin Paleocene woods differ from Paleocene wood assemblages to the north (Wyoming and Montana), where conifer woods are common and angiosperms are rare. The width and spacing of the water-conducting vessels and the lack of distinct growth rings in almost all of the Cherokee Ranch woods suggest that these trees did not experience water stress, and there was no pronounced seasonality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Strong interactions in many-body quantum systems complicate the interpretation of charge transport in such materials. To shed light on this problem, we study transport in a clean quantum system: ultracold lithium-6 in a two-dimensional optical lattice, a testing ground for strong interaction physics in the Fermi-Hubbard model. We determine the diffusion constant by measuring the relaxation of an imposed density modulation and modeling its decay hydrodynamically. The diffusion constant is converted to a resistivity by using the Nernst-Einstein relation. That resistivity exhibits a linear temperature dependence and shows no evidence of saturation, two characteristic signatures of a bad metal. The techniques we developed in this study may be applied to measurements of other transport quantities, including the optical conductivity and thermopower. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many existing optical meteor trajectory estimation methods use the approximation that the velocity of the meteor at the beginning of its luminous phase is equivalent to its velocity before atmospheric entry. Meteoroid kinetic energy loss prior to the luminous phase cannot be measured, but for some masses and entry geometries neglecting this loss may lead to non-negligible deceleration prior to thermal ablation. Using a numerical meteoroid ablation model, we simulate the kinematics of meteoroids beginning at 180 km with initial velocities ranging from 11 km s−1 to 71 km s−1, and compare model velocities at the moment of detection to measurements. We validate the simulations by comparing the simulated luminous beginning heights with observed beginning heights of different populations of meteors detected with different optical systems. We find that most low-velocity meteoroids have a significant velocity difference of 100 m s−1 to 750 m s−1 (depending on meteoroid type, mass, and observation system). This systematic underestimate of meteoroid speeds also results in systematically lower semimajor axes for meteoroid orbits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past decade there has been a large increase in the number of automated camera networks that monitor the sky for fireballs. One of the goals of these networks is to provide the necessary information for linking meteorites to their pre-impact, heliocentric orbits and ultimately to their source regions in the solar system. We re-compute heliocentric orbits for the 25 meteorite falls published to date from original data sources. Using these orbits, we constrain their most likely escape routes from the main asteroid belt and the cometary region by utilizing a state-of-the-art orbit model of the near-Earth-object population, which includes a size-dependence in delivery efficiency. While we find that our general results for escape routes are comparable to previous work, the role of trajectory measurement uncertainty in escape-route identification is explored for the first time. Moreover, our improved size-dependent delivery model substantially changes likely escape routes for several meteorite falls, most notably Tagish Lake which seems unlikely to have originated in the outer main belt as previously suggested. We find that reducing the uncertainty of fireball velocity measurements below  ∼ 0.1 km/s does not lead to reduced uncertainties in the identification of their escape routes from the asteroid belt and, further, their ultimate source regions. This analysis suggests that camera networks should be optimized for the largest possible number of meteorite recoveries with measured speed precisions of order 0.1 km/s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deep brain stimulation enables the delivery of therapeutic interventions to otherwise inaccessible areas of the brain while, at the same time, offering the unique opportunity to record from these same regions in awake patients. The posterior ventrolateral thalamus has become a reliable deep brain stimulation target for medically-refractory patients suffering from essential tremor. However, the contribution of the thalamus in essential tremor, and even whether posterior ventrolateral thalamus is the optimal target, remains a matter of ongoing debate. There are several lines of evidence supporting clusters of activity within the posterior ventrolateral thalamus that are important for tremor emergence. In this study we sought to map the functional properties of these clusters through microelectrode recordings during deep brain stimulation surgery. Data were obtained from 10 severely affected patients with essential tremor (12 hemispheres) undergoing deep brain stimulation surgery. Our results demonstrate power and coherence maxima located in the inferior posterior ventrolateral thalamus and immediate ventral region. Moreover, we identified distinct yet overlapping clusters of predominantly efferent (driving) and afferent (feedback) activity, with a preference for more efferent contributors, consistent with a net role in the driving of tremor output. Finally, we demonstrate that resolvable thalamic spiking activity directly relates to background activity and that the strength of tremor may be dictated by phase relationships between efferent and afferent pockets in the posterior ventrolateral thalamus. Taken together, these results provide important evidence for the role of the inferior posterior ventrolateral thalamus and its border region in essential tremor pathophysiology. Such results progress our mechanistic understanding and promote the adoption of next-generation therapies such as high resolution segregated deep brain stimulation electrodes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Results from a meteor head echo shower survey using the quasi continuous meteor observations of the high power large aperture radar MAARSY, located in northern Norway (69.30° N , 16.04° E ) are presented. The data set comprises 760 000 head echoes detected during two and half years sensitive to an effective limiting masses below 10 − 8 kg. Using a wavelet shower search algorithm, we identified 33 meteor showers in the data set all of which are found in the IAU meteor shower catalog. We find  ∼ 1% of all measured head echoes at these masses are associated with meteor showers. Comparison of shower radiants from this survey with the observation of the Canadian Meteor Orbit radar (CMOR) transverse scattering radar system shows generally good agreement, although there are large differences in the measured durations of some meteor showers. Differential mass indices ( s ) of  ∼ 1.5–1.6 are measured for the Perseids (PER), Geminids (GEM) and Quadrantids (QUA) showers. The Orionids (ORI) show a much steeper mass index of 2.0, in agreement with other observations at small particle sizes, suggesting the Halleyid showers, in particular, are rich in very small meteoroids. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: We have empirically estimated how often fireball shocks produce overpressure (∆P) at the ground sufficient to damage windows. Our study used a numerical entry model to estimate the energy deposition and shock production for a suite of 23 energetic fireballs reported by U.S. Government sensors over the last quarter century. For each of these events, we estimated the peak ∆P on the ground and the ground area above ∆P thresholds of 200 and 500 Pa where light and heavy window damage, respectively, are expected. Our results suggest that at the highest ∆P, it is the rare, large fireballs (such as the Chelyabinsk fireball) which dominate the long‐term areal ground footprints for heavy window damage. The height at the fireball peak brightness and the fireball entry angle contribute to the variance in ground ∆P, with lower heights and shallower angles producing larger ground footprints and more potential damage. The effective threshold energy for fireballs to produce heavy window damage is ~5–10 kT; such fireballs occur globally once every 1–2 years. These largest annual bolide events, should they occur over a major urban center with large numbers of windows, can be expected to produce economically significant window damage. However, the mean frequency of heavy window damage (∆P above 500 Pa) from fireball shock waves occurring over urban areas is estimated to be approximately once every 5000 yr. Light window damage (∆P above 200 Pa) is expected every ~600 yr. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Harmonia axyridis (Pallas) (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae) is regarded as an invasive non‐native species in Europe, where it has been spreading rapidly since the early years of the 21st century. This study examines changes in ladybird communities at four sites (two lime tree sites, one pine tree site and one nettle site) in East Anglia, England, over an 11‐year period (2006–2016) following invasion by H. axyridis. Overall, H. axyridis represented 41.5% of all ladybirds sampled [varying from a low of 0.2% (1 of 520 ladybirds at three sites) in 2006 to a high of 70.7% (724 of 1024 at four sites) in 2015] and was over three times more abundant than the second commonest species, Coccinella septempunctata L. The proportion of native ladybirds declined from 99.8% (520 of 521 ladybirds at three sites) in 2006 to 30.7% (383 of 1248 at four sites) in 2016, but H. axyridis dominated only at the lime tree sites and not at the pine or nettle sites. There was a significant negative relationship between H. axyridis and Adalia bipunctata (L.) (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae) adults at the lime tree sites, but not between H. axyridis and adults of any of the other main ladybird species sampled. Adalia bipunctata adults and Adalia spp. larvae were the only native ladybirds that significantly declined. Our study shows a clear change in the ladybird community on lime trees over an 11‐year period in which H. axyridis invaded England. Intraguild predation is hypothesised to be an important driver of the changes observed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]