Linking Canadian Harvested Juvenile American Black Ducks to Their Natal Areas Using Stable Isotope (δD, δ13C, and δ15N) Methods

Understanding source-sink dynamics of game birds is essential to harvest and habitat management but acquiring this information is often logistically and financially challenging using traditional methods of population surveys and banding studies. This is especially true for species such as the American Black Duck (Anas rubripes), which have low breeding densities and extensive breeding ranges that necessitate extensive surveys and banding programs across eastern North America. Despite this effort, the contribution of birds fledged from various landscapes and habitat types within specific breeding ranges to regional harvest is largely unknown but remains an important consideration in adaptive harvest management and targeted habitat conservation strategies. We investigated if stable isotope (δD, δ13C, δ15N) could augment our present understanding of connectivity between breeding and harvest areas and so provide information relevant to the two main management strategies for black ducks, harvest and habitat management. We obtained specimens from 200 hatch-year Black Duck wings submitted to the Canadian Wildlife Service Species Composition Survey. Samples were obtained from birds harvested in Western, Central, and Eastern breeding/harvest subregions to provide a sample representative of the range and harvest rate of birds harvested in Canada. We sampled only hatch-year birds to provide an unambiguous and direct link between production and harvest areas. Marine origins were assigned to 12%, 7%, and 5% of birds harvested in the Eastern, Central, and Western subregions, respectively. In contrast, 32%, 9%, and 5% of birds were assigned, respectively, to agricultural origins. All remaining birds were assigned to nonagricultural origins. We portrayed probability of origin using a combination of Bayesian statistical and GIS methods. Placement of most eastern birds was western Nova Scotia, eastern New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and southern Newfoundland. Agricultural birds from the Central region were consistent with the Saguenay region of Québec and the eastern claybelt with nonagricultural birds originating in the boreal. Western nonagricultural birds were associated with broad boreal origins from southern James Bay to Lake of the Woods and east to Cochrane, Ontario. Our work shows that the geographic origins, landscape, and habitat associations of hatch-year Black Ducks can be inferred using this technique and we recommend that a broad-scale isotopic study using a large sample of Canadian and US harvested birds be implemented to provide a continental perspective of source-sink population dynamics.

Simulation of the diurnal cycle in a climate model and its evaluation using data from Meteosat 7

The representation of the diurnal cycle in the Hadley Centre climate model is evaluated using simulations of the infrared radiances observed by Meteosat 7. In both the window and water vapour channels, the standard version of the model with 19 levels produces a good simulation of the geographical distributions of the mean radiances and of the amplitude of the diurnal cycle. Increasing the vertical resolution to 30 levels leads to further improvements in the mean fields. The timing of the maximum and minimum radiances reveals significant model errors, however, which are sensitive to the frequency with which the radiation scheme is called. In most regions, these errors are consistent with well documented errors in the timing of convective precipitation, which peaks before noon in the model, in contrast to the observed peak in the late afternoon or evening. When the radiation scheme is called every model time step (half an hour), as opposed to every three hours in the standard version, the timing of the minimum radiance is improved for convective regions over central Africa, due to the creation of upper-level layer-cloud by detrainment from the convection scheme, which persists well after the convection itself has dissipated. However, this produces a decoupling between the timing of the diurnal cycles of precipitation and window channel radiance. The possibility is raised that a similar decoupling may occur in reality and the implications of this for the retrieval of the diurnal cycle of precipitation from infrared radiances are discussed.

U.K. HiGEM: The New U.K. High-Resolution Global Environment Model—Model Description and Basic Evaluation

This article describes the development and evaluation of the U.K.’s new High-Resolution Global Environmental Model (HiGEM), which is based on the latest climate configuration of the Met Office Unified Model, known as the Hadley Centre Global Environmental Model, version 1 (HadGEM1). In HiGEM, the horizontal resolution has been increased to 0.83° latitude × 1.25° longitude for the atmosphere, and 1/3° × 1/3° globally for the ocean. Multidecadal integrations of HiGEM, and the lower-resolution HadGEM, are used to explore the impact of resolution on the fidelity of climate simulations. Generally, SST errors are reduced in HiGEM. Cold SST errors associated with the path of the North Atlantic drift improve, and warm SST errors are reduced in upwelling stratocumulus regions where the simulation of low-level cloud is better at higher resolution. The ocean model in HiGEM allows ocean eddies to be partially resolved, which dramatically improves the representation of sea surface height variability. In the Southern Ocean, most of the heat transports in HiGEM is achieved by resolved eddy motions, which replaces the parameterized eddy heat transport in the lower-resolution model. HiGEM is also able to more realistically simulate small-scale features in the wind stress curl around islands and oceanic SST fronts, which may have implications for oceanic upwelling and ocean biology. Higher resolution in both the atmosphere and the ocean allows coupling to occur on small spatial scales. In particular, the small-scale interaction recently seen in satellite imagery between the atmosphere and tropical instability waves in the tropical Pacific Ocean is realistically captured in HiGEM. Tropical instability waves play a role in improving the simulation of the mean state of the tropical Pacific, which has important implications for climate variability. In particular, all aspects of the simulation of ENSO (spatial patterns, the time scales at which ENSO occurs, and global teleconnections) are much improved in HiGEM.

Land use for England and Wales: evaluation of management options to support 'good ecological status' in surface freshwaters

This paper analyses historic records of agricultural land use and management for England and Wales from 1931 and 1991 and uses export coefficient modelling to hindcast the impact of these practices on the rates of diffuse nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) export to water bodies for each of the major geo-climatic regions of England and Wales. Key trends indicate the importance of animal agriculture as a contributor to the total diffuse agricultural nutrient loading on waters, and the need to bring these sources under control if conditions suitable for sustaining 'Good Ecological Status' under the Water Framework Directive are to be generated. The analysis highlights the importance of measuring changes in nutrient loading in relation to the catchment-specific baseline state for different water bodies. The approach is also used to forecast the likely impact of broad regional scale scenarios on nutrient export to waters and highlights the need to take sensitive land out of production, introduce ceilings on fertilizer use and stocking densities, and controls on agricultural practice in higher risk areas where intensive agriculture is combined with a low intrinsic nutrient retention capacity, although the uncertainties associated with the modelling applied at this scale should be taken into account in the interpretation of model output. The paper advocates the need for a two-tiered approach to nutrient management, combining broad regional policies with targeted management in high risk areas at the catchment and farm scale.

Right ventromedial and dorsolateral prefrontal cortices mediate adaptive decisions under ambiguity by integrating choice utility and outcome evaluation.

The Iowa gambling task (IGT) is one of the most influential behavioral paradigms in reward-related decision making and has been, most notably, associated with ventromedial prefrontal cortex function. However, performance in the IGT relies on a complex set of cognitive subprocesses, in particular integrating information about the outcome of choices into a continuously updated decision strategy under ambiguous conditions. The complexity of the task has made it difficult for neuroimaging studies to disentangle the underlying neurocognitive processes. In this study, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging in combination with a novel adaptation of the task, which allowed us to examine separately activation associated with the moment of decision or the evaluation of decision outcomes. Importantly, using whole-brain regression analyses with individual performance, in combination with the choice/outcome history of individual subjects, we aimed to identify the neural overlap between areas that are involved in the evaluation of outcomes and in the progressive discrimination of the relative value of available choice options, thus mapping the two fundamental cognitive processes that lead to adaptive decision making. We show that activation in right ventromedial and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex was predictive of adaptive performance, in both discriminating disadvantageous from advantageous decisions and confirming negative decision outcomes. We propose that these two prefrontal areas mediate shifting away from disadvantageous choices through their sensitivity to accumulating negative outcomes. These findings provide functional evidence of the underlying processes by which these prefrontal subregions drive adaptive choice in the task, namely through contingency-sensitive outcome evaluation.

Unification of the probe and singular sources methods for the inverse boundary value problem by the no-response test

In this article, we use the no-response test idea, introduced in Luke and Potthast (2003) and Potthast (Preprint) and the inverse obstacle problem, to identify the interface of the discontinuity of the coefficient gamma of the equation del (.) gamma(x)del + c(x) with piecewise regular gamma and bounded function c(x). We use infinitely many Cauchy data as measurement and give a reconstructive method to localize the interface. We will base this multiwave version of the no-response test on two different proofs. The first one contains a pointwise estimate as used by the singular sources method. The second one is built on an energy (or an integral) estimate which is the basis of the probe method. As a conclusion of this, the probe and the singular sources methods are equivalent regarding their convergence and the no-response test can be seen as a unified framework for these methods. As a further contribution, we provide a formula to reconstruct the values of the jump of gamma(x), x is an element of partial derivative D at the boundary. A second consequence of this formula is that the blow-up rate of the indicator functions of the probe and singular sources methods at the interface is given by the order of the singularity of the fundamental solution.

On integral equation and least squares methods for scattering by diffraction gratings

In this paper we consider the scattering of a plane acoustic or electromagnetic wave by a one-dimensional, periodic rough surface. We restrict the discussion to the case when the boundary is sound soft in the acoustic case, perfectly reflecting with TE polarization in the EM case, so that the total field vanishes on the boundary. We propose a uniquely solvable first kind integral equation formulation of the problem, which amounts to a requirement that the normal derivative of the Green's representation formula for the total field vanish on a horizontal line below the scattering surface. We then discuss the numerical solution by Galerkin's method of this (ill-posed) integral equation. We point out that, with two particular choices of the trial and test spaces, we recover the so-called SC (spectral-coordinate) and SS (spectral-spectral) numerical schemes of DeSanto et al., Waves Random Media, 8, 315-414 1998. We next propose a new Galerkin scheme, a modification of the SS method that we term the SS* method, which is an instance of the well-known dual least squares Galerkin method. We show that the SS* method is always well-defined and is optimally convergent as the size of the approximation space increases. Moreover, we make a connection with the classical least squares method, in which the coefficients in the Rayleigh expansion of the solution are determined by enforcing the boundary condition in a least squares sense, pointing out that the linear system to be solved in the SS* method is identical to that in the least squares method. Using this connection we show that (reflecting the ill-posed nature of the integral equation solved) the condition number of the linear system in the SS* and least squares methods approaches infinity as the approximation space increases in size. We also provide theoretical error bounds on the condition number and on the errors induced in the numerical solution computed as a result of ill-conditioning. Numerical results confirm the convergence of the SS* method and illustrate the ill-conditioning that arises.

Whole crop cereals 1. Effect of method of harvest and preservation on chemical composition, apparent digestibility and energy value

A total of 133 samples (53 fermented unprocessed, 19 fermented processed. 62 urea-treated processed) of whole crop wheat (WCW) and 16 samples (five fermented unprocessed, six fermented processed, five urea-treated processed) of whole crop barley (WCB) were collected from commercial farms over two consecutive years (2003/2004 and 2004/2005). Disruption of the maize grains to increase starch availability was achieved at the point of harvest by processors fitted to the forage harvesters. All samples were subjected to laboratory analysis whilst 50 of the samples (24 front Year 1, 26 front Year 2 all WCW except four WCB in Year 2) were subjected to in vivo digestibility and energy value measurements using mature wether sheep. Urea-treated WCW had higher (P<0.05) pH, and dry matter (DM) and crude protein contents and lower concentrations of fermentation products than fermented WCW. Starch was generally lower in fermented, unprocessed WCW and no effect of crop maturity at harvest (as indicated by DM content) on starch concentrations was seen. Urea-treated WCW had higher (P<0.05) in vivo digestible organic matter contents in the DM (DOMD) in Year 1 although this was not recorded in Year 2. There was a close relationship between the digestibility values of organic matter and gross energy thus aiding the use of DOMD to predict metabolisable energy (ME) content. A wide range of ME values was observed (WCW. 8.7-11.8 MJ/kg DM; WCB 7.9-11.2 MJ/kg DM) with the overall ME/DOMD ratio (ME = 0.0156 DOMD) in line With Studies in other forages. There was no evidence that a separate ME/DOMD relationship was needed for WCB which is helpful for practical application. This ratio and other parameters were affected by year of harvest (P<0.05) highlighting the influence of environmental and Other undefined factors. The variability in the composition and nutritive value of WCW and WCB highlights the need for reliable and accurate evaluation methods to be available to assess the Value of these forages before they are included in diets for dairy cows. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Design and formative evaluation of an information kiosk on cattle health for landless cattle owners

This paper describes and analyses the experience of designing, installing and evaluating a farmer-usable touch screen information kiosk on cattle health in a veterinary institution in Pondicherry. The contents of the kiosk were prepared based on identified demands for information on cattle health, arrived at through various stakeholders meetings. Information on these cattle diseases and conditions affecting the livelihoods of the poor was provided through graphics, text and audio back-up, keeping in mind the needs of landless and illiterate poor cattle owners. A methodology for kiosk evaluation based on the feedback obtained from kiosk facilitator, critical group reflection and individual users was formulated. The formative evaluation reveals the potential strength this ICT has in transferring information to the cattle owners in a service delivery centre. Such information is vital in preventing diseases and helps cattle owners to present and treat their animals at an early stage of disease condition. This in turn helps prevent direct and indirect losses to the cattle owners. The study reveals how an information kiosk installed at a government institution as a freely accessible source of information to all farmers irrespective of their class and caste can help in transfer of information among poor cattle owners, provided periodic updating, interactivity and communication variability are taken care of. Being in the veterinary centre, the kiosk helps stimulate dialogue, and facilitates demand of services based on the information provided by the kiosk screens.

Incorporating data received after a sequential trial has stopped into the final analysis: implementation and comparison of methods

In a sequential clinical trial, accrual of data on patients often continues after the stopping criterion for the study has been met. This is termed “overrunning.” Overrunning occurs mainly when the primary response from each patient is measured after some extended observation period. The objective of this article is to compare two methods of allowing for overrunning. In particular, simulation studies are reported that assess the two procedures in terms of how well they maintain the intended type I error rate. The effect on power resulting from the incorporation of “overrunning data” using the two procedures is evaluated.

Did pterosaurs feed by skimming? Physical modelling and anatomical evaluation of an unusual feeding method

Similarities between the anatomies of living organisms are often used to draw conclusions regarding the ecology and behaviour of extinct animals. Several pterosaur taxa are postulated to have been skim-feeders based largely on supposed convergences of their jaw anatomy with that of the modern skimming bird, Rynchops spp. Using physical and mathematical models of Rynchops bills and pterosaur jaws, we show that skimming is considerably more energetically costly than previously thought for Rynchops and that pterosaurs weighing more than one kilogram would not have been able to skim at all. Furthermore, anatomical comparisons between the highly specialised skull of Rynchops and those of postulated skimming pterosaurs suggest that even smaller forms were poorly adapted for skim-feeding. Our results refute the hypothesis that some pterosaurs commonly used skimming as a foraging method and illustrate the pitfalls involved in extrapolating from limited morphological convergence.

AT(1) receptor ligands: virtual-screening-based design with TOPP descriptors, synthesis, and biological evaluation of pyrrolidine derivatives

As a continuing effort to establish the structure-activity relationships (SARs) within the series of the angiotensin II antagonists (sartans), a pharmacophoric model was built by using novel TOPP 3D descriptors. Statistical values were satisfactory (PC4: r(2)=0.96, q(2) ((5) (random) (groups))=0.84; SDEP=0.26) and encouraged the synthesis and consequent biological evaluation of a series of new pyrrolidine derivatives. SAR together with a combined 3D quantitative SAR and high-throughput virtual screening showed that the newly synthesized 1-acyl-N-(biphenyl-4-ylmethyl)pyrrolidine-2-carboxamides may represent an interesting starting point for the design of new antihypertensive agents. In particular, biological tests performed on CHO-hAT(1) cells stably expressing the human AT(1) receptor showed that the length of the acyl chain is crucial for the receptor interaction and that the valeric chain is the optimal one.

Synthesis and Biological Evaluation of New Ozonides with Improved Plant Growth Regulatory Activity

The iron oxyallyl carbocation generated from 2,7-dibromocycloheptanone was induced to undergo [4 + 3] cycloaddition reactions with various furans, affording a series of 12-oxatricyclo-[4.4.1.1(2,5)]-dodec-3-en-11-one adducts. Similar methodology was used to prepare two additional cycloadducts using menthofuran and two homologous aliphatic dibromoketones. Dipolar cycloaddition of ozone to the adducts afforded the corresponding secondary ozonides (i.e., 1,2,4-trioxolanes) in variable yields. Ozonides were investigated by quantum mechanics at the B3LYP/6-31+G* level to study structural features including close contacts which may be responsible for enhancing ozonide stability. The effect of these ozonides and their corresponding precursor cycloadducts upon radicle growth of both Sorghum bicolor and Cucumis sativus was evaluated at 5.0 x 10(-4) mol L-1. The most active cycloadducts and ozonides were also evaluated against the weed species Ipomoea grandifolia and Brachiaria decumbens, and the results are discussed. Compared to ozonides previously synthesized in our laboratory, the new ozonides described herein present improved plant growth regulatory activity.

Did pterosaurs feed by skimming? Physical modelling and anatomical evaluation of an unusual feeding method

Similarities between the anatomies of living organisms are often used to draw conclusions regarding the ecology and behaviour of extinct animals. Several pterosaur taxa are postulated to have been skim-feeders based largely on supposed convergences of their jaw anatomy with that of the modern skimming bird, Rynchops spp. Using physical and mathematical models of Rynchops bills and pterosaur jaws, we show that skimming is considerably more energetically costly than previously thought for Rynchops and that pterosaurs weighing more than one kilogram would not have been able to skim at all. Furthermore, anatomical comparisons between the highly specialised skull of Rynchops and those of postulated skimming pterosaurs suggest that even smaller forms were poorly adapted for skim-feeding. Our results refute the hypothesis that some pterosaurs commonly used skimming as a foraging method and illustrate the pitfalls involved in extrapolating from limited morphological convergence.