Potential roles for differential body size and microhabitat complexity in mediating biotic interactions within invasive freshwater amphipod assemblages

Cannibalism and intraguild predation (IGP) are common amongst freshwater amphipod crustacean aswsemblages, particularly between individuals of different body size, with IGP of smaller by larger species. The decline of Gammarus tigrinus Populations in mainland Europe has been accompanied by the arrival of the Ponto-Caspian invader Dikerogammarus villosus and previous studies have implicated IGP of G. tigrinus by the larger D. villosus as the principal driving force in this replacement. We examined how factors such as microhabitat and body size may mediate both cannibalism within G. tigrinus populations and IGP by D. villosus and thus contribute to field patterns of coexistence and exclusion. A field Survey of an invaded Dutch fake indicated that G. tigrinus and D. villosus differed in distribution. with D. villosus being the numerically dominant amphipod (80-96 %) on the rocky boulder Substrate of the shoreline and G. tigrinus being the dominant amphipod (100 %) in the crushed shell/sand matrix immediately adjacent to this. Laboratory microcosm experiments indicated that G. tigrinus cannibalism, particularly of smaller by larger size classes, may be common. In addition, although D. villosus predation of all G. tigrinus size classes was extreme, the smallest size classes Suffered the highest predation. Indeed, when exposed to D. villosus, predation of larger G. tigrinus was lowest when smaller G. tigrinus were also present. Increasing microhabitat complexity from a simple bare substrate littered with Dreissena polymorpha zebra mussels to a Crushed shell/sand matrix significantly reduced both cannibalism and IGP. Our Study emphasizes the need to consider both life history stages and habitat template, when considering the impacts of biotic interactions and it also emphasizes that complex, interacting factors may be mediating the range expansion of D. villosus.

Phocine distemper virus in seals, East Coast, United States, 2006

In 2006 and 2007, elevated numbers of deaths among seals, constituting an unusual mortality event, occurred off the coasts of Maine and Massachusetts, United States. We isolated a virus from seal tissue and confirmed it as phocine distemper virus (PDV). We compared the viral hemagglutinin, phosphoprotein, and fusion (F) and matrix (M) protein gene sequences with those of viruses from the 1988 and 2002 PDV epizootics. The virus showed highest similarity with a PDV 1988 Netherlands virus, which raises the possibility that the 2006 isolate from the United States might have emerged independently from 2002 PDVs and that multiple lineages of PDV might be circulating among enzootically infected North American seals. Evidence from comparison of sequences derived from different tissues suggested that mutations in the F and M genes occur in brain tissue that are not present in lung, liver, or blood, which suggests virus persistence in the central nervous system.

Human seroprevalence to Coxiella bumetii (Q fever) in Northern Ireland

Despite the widespread prevalence of infection with Coxiella burnetii, there have been few large population-based studies examining the epidemiology of this infection. The aim of this study was to examine the distribution and determinants of C. burnetii past infection in Northern Ireland (NI). Coxiella burnetii phase II specific IgG antibodies were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay in stored serum from 2394 randomly selected subjects, aged 12-64, who had participated in population-based surveys of cardiovascular risk factors performed in 1986 and 1987. The overall prevalence of C. burnetii antibody positivity was 12.8%. The prevalence of sero-positivity was slightly higher in males than that in females (14.3% versus 11.2%, P = 0.02). Sero-positivity was low in children (

The 1863 Melbourne Shakespeare War: Barry Sullivan, Charles and Ellen Kean, and the Play of Cultural Usurpation on the Australian Stage

This essay investigates an intricate drama of cultural identity in performances of Shakespeare on the nineteenth-century Melbourne stage. It considers the rivalry between Charles and Ellen Kean and their competitor, Barry Sullivan, for the two-month period in 1863 during which their Australian tours overlapped. This Melbourne Shakespeare war was anticipated,augmented, and richly documented in Melbourne’s papers: The Age, The Argus and Melbourne Punch. This essay pursues two seams of inquiry. The first is an investigation of the discourses of cultural and aesthetic value laced through the language of reviews of their Shakespearean roles.The essay identifies how reviewers register affective engagement with the performers in these roles, and suggests how the roles themselves reflected, by accident or design, the terms of the dispute. The second is concerned with the national identity of the actors. Kean, although born in Waterford, Ireland, had held the post of Queen Victoria’s Master of the Revels and identified himself as English. Sullivan, although born in Birmingham, was of Cork parentage and was identified as Irish by both his supporters and his detractors. This essay tracks the development of the actors’ national and artistic identities established prior to Melbourne and ask how they played out on in the context of the particularities of Australian reception. It shows that, in this instance, these actors were implicated in complex debates over national authority and cultural ownership.

Does flexibility in secondary level mathematics curriculum affect degree performance?

The authors have much experience in developing mathematics skills of first-year engineering students and attempting to ensure a smooth transition from secondary school to university. Concerns exist due to there being flexibility in the choice of modules needed to obtain a secondary level (A-level) mathematics qualification. This qualification is based on some core (pure maths) modules and a selection from mechanics and statistics modules. A survey of aerospace and mechanical engineering students in Queen’s University Belfast revealed that a combination of both mechanics and statistics (the basic module in both) was by far the most popular choice and therefore only about one quarter of this cohort had studied mechanics beyond the basic module within school maths. Those students who studied the extra mechanics and who achieved top grades at school subsequently did better in two core, first-year engineering courses. However, students with a lower grade from school did not seem to gain any significant advantage in the first-year engineering courses despite having the extra mechanics background. This investigation ties in with ongoing and wider concerns with secondary level mathematics provision in the UK.

Transgressing Contemporary Boundaries:The Narrator as True Custodian of Cultural Knowledge in Ulster Society

Historically in Gaelic culture, the bard was greatly valued and admired as an important and integral part of society. Travelled, schooled and specifically trained in their art, the bard helped ensure identity and reassurance for Gaelic families by grounding them both temporarily and spatially into their landscape. Entrusted with the duty and responsibility of recording place and event, the bards worked without writing and by transgressing man-made boundaries, travelled throughout the land weaving their histories into the very fabric of society.

Now no longer with us, we find ourselves without the distinguished chronicler to undertake this duty. Yet the responsibility of the Gaelic bard is one still shared by all artists today; to facilitate memory and identity, whether good or bad. Many Ulster writers, by happenstance and geography have found themselves located in a place of painful histories. An immediate difficulty for those local writers becomes manifest by being intrinsically implicated into those histories – whilst having first-hand knowledge and comprehension beyond that of the outsider, the local writer is automatically damned by association and relationship, thereby tarnishing their voice in comparison to the perceived impartiality of others.
Some writers however have successfully sought ways to escape this limitation and have worked in ways that can transgress the restrictions of prejudgement. John Hewitt, by purposely becoming a self-imposed tourist was able to distance himself to write impartially about the past, recognising that ’the place without its ghosts is a barren place.’1 In ‘The Colony’,2 tradition, peoples and mapping of the land are all narrated by Hewitt in a similar way to the Gaelic bardic topographic poems of Sean O'Dubhagain and Giolla Na Naomh O'Huidhrin3 in compiling a rich cultural atlas.

Similarly the Belfast poet and novelist Ciaran Carson also writes and records the city from an intermediary position; that of translator. Mediating between reader and aisling,4 Carson himself takes the reader on a journey into name, meaning, time and place, focusing primarily on the city of Belfast, familiar in name but impenetrable in depth to most.

Furthermore, this once-forgotten tradition to chronicle is now being continued by the new breed of Irish crime writers where the likes of Brian McGilloway, Stuart Neville and Adrian McKinty can, by way of the crime novel, accurately record contemporary society. Thus, ghost estates, listed buildings, archaeological digs, street and city have all provided setting and subject matter for recent novels. Moreover by choosing the ‘outsider from within’ as their chief protagonist, whether detective or criminal, each author is able to transgress the boundaries of prejudice and preconception that hinder genuine understanding and knowledge.

Looking in turn at the Gaelic bard, the twentieth century Ulster poet and the new breed of Irish crime writer, the authors will outline the real value of the narrator, by being able to act as cultural transgressor beyond the seeming and alleged as the true chronicler in society, and then with specific reference to city and countryside in Ireland, as a valuable custodian of knowledge in architecture and place.

Keywords
Architecture, Crime Fiction, Cultural Atlas, Place, Poetry.

1 From ‘The Bloody Brae’, a one act play written by John Hewitt in the 1930’s.
2 Hewitt, J. (1968) published in Collected Poems 1932-67. London:McGibbon & Kee.
3 Lengthy and detailed medieval Gaelic poems composed in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries first edited by John O'Donovan in 1862 for the Irish Archaeological and Celtic Society in Dublin.
4 The aisling is the Irish song or poem genre when the poet is visited by their muse in a daydream or dream-vision state.

On the Limits of Exceptionalism: Principles and Practice in the Pursuit of Alternatives to Full EU Membership

Few states have been less uncomfortable with the relationship they have with the EU than the United Kingdom as a member and Turkey as an associate and would-be member. Both states currently find themselves questioning the substance and future of these relationships with domestic actors and, notably in the Turkish case, external EU voices actively advocating alternatives. While much discussion, particularly in the UK case, has focused on the advantages and disadvantages of particular existing arrangements (e.g. European Economic Area, Swiss bilateralism), this paper considers the broader principles and practices that the EU has to date either explicitly developed or implicitly established to govern the nature and substance of alternatives to [full] EU membership. It assesses the principled, practical and political limitations that exist in establishing alternatives to full membership for states seeking – or having sought for them – the accommodation of their exceptionalism. In doing so the paper considers the potential limits to a renegotiated EU membership for the UK and to an alternative short of full membership for Turkey. It also reflects on the precedent-setting consequences of any new arrangements that the EU might reach with either state for what forms membership and a relationship short of membership might take in the future.

The effects of sevoflurane and ketamine on intraocular pressure in children during examination under anesthesia

PURPOSE: We studied the effects on intraocular pressure (IOP) of anesthesia administered during examination under anesthesia (EUA) in children. DESIGN: Randomized clinical trial. METHODS: This randomized trial compared IOP after inhaled sevoflurane gas to that after intramuscular ketamine hydrochloride in children undergoing EUA. IOP was measured in 30 eyes with TonoPen XL (Mentor, Inc, Norwell, Massachusetts, USA) as soon as possible after anesthesia induction (T1) and two, four, six, and eight minutes thereafter. At the same times, we recorded systolic and diastolic blood pressure (SBP, DBP) and heart rate (HR). RESULTS: Compared with the mean IOP at T1, IOP in the sevoflurane group was significantly lower for all measurements from two to eight minutes thereafter (mean decrease in IOP: two minutes = 12%, four minutes = 19%; six minutes = 19%; eight minutes = 17%, all P < or = .01). In the ketamine group, mean IOP was not significantly changed from T1 through six minutes, whereas at eight minutes, it was 7% lower (P = .03). SBP and DBP were significantly lower for sevoflurane than for ketamine at all measurements from two minutes onward, and HR was lower for sevoflurane than for ketamine at two, four, and six minutes. CONCLUSIONS: IOP measured after ketamine sedation is more likely to represent the awake IOP than that after sevoflurane anesthesia. Changes in SBP, DBP, and HR caused by sevoflurane suggest that hemodynamic alterations may underlie its effects on IOP.