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Climate Change: new breeding challenges, approaches and goals for European livestock production
No full textHuman activities have unequivocally caused climate change. Climate change and associated effects are creating new challenges for European livestock systems, which necessitate new approaches and breeding goals to both mitigate and adapt to further impacts. This chapter outlines the different impacts of climate change on livestock systems and considers the breeding and genetic technologies that can help the sector respond to these new and evolving pressures. Finally, it evaluates some of the trade-offs and risks inherent in implementing technologies, including some societal constraints that may help or hinder the pathway to sustainability
A recent interruption in the six year oscillation in length-of-day
No full textIntradecadal variations in the length-of-day (ΔLOD) can reveal changes in angular velocity interpreted as due to Earth’s core. Previous studies have identified periodic oscillations of around 6 and 8 years. To complement widely used Fourier methods, we investigate the ΔLOD record from 1962-2025 in the time domain, seeking smooth variations using cubic B-splines. We analyse in several ways. A penalised least-squares spline fit allows isolation of coherent variations from analysing the first and second derivatives. Alternatively, a smooth curve fit with least-squares splines allows removal of the long-period behaviour of ΔLOD. From this, we fit the residual with a pure cosine-wave of varying period but examine the data fits carefully in case the signal is non-stationary (for example from impulsive forcing). All approaches show clear evidence of signals with periods around 5.9 — and in the case for the time derivatives — 8.5 years. We find that the pure 5.9-year oscillation breaks down in 2010, with a one-off peak to peak separation of around 4.7 years. After 2014, the variation is once again consistent with an approximate 6 year oscillation. Such a discontinuous, non-stationary effect is not well-characterised by frequency-domain based methods. Seeking to understand this brief interruption of the 6 year oscillation, we extend the study length using a ΔLOD series from lunar occultation data extending back to 1800, and find it suitable to repeat our spline-based analysis from 1830 onwards. From this, we find the 6 year oscillation stable throughout the entire 19th and 20th century, with the exception of 1916–1920, where we observe a similar interruption of the 6 year variation by a single 4 year oscillation. The 2010 disruption to the 6-year oscillation is contemporary with changes in geomagnetic secular variation, modelled core surface flow, and inner core seismic signature. All of these events suggest a step change in core-processes around 2010
Observed regimes of submesoscale dynamics in the Southern Ocean seasonal ice zone
No full textSubmesoscale flows, occurring at scales of about 1–10 km, are crucial to the vertical transport of heat and other tracers in the upper ocean. These flows are energized by instabilities that extract potential energy from lateral buoyancy gradients, which are ubiquitous in the seasonal sea ice zone. Process studies have shown that submesoscale flows influence sea ice mechanics and thermodynamics. However, it is necessary to quantify the spatiotemporal distribution of submesoscale fluxes in order to upscale their impact. Here, we utilize hydrographic data from seal-borne sensors to demonstrate that the Southern Ocean seasonal ice zone can be separated into three regimes of submesoscale flux variability, which are associated with distinct dominant drivers. Furthermore, the magnitude and sign of the mean heat fluxes in these regimes differs, which dictates their influence on the upper-ocean heat budget, mixed-layer depth, and sea ice properties
An experimental investigation of the effects of anticipating regret and relief on intentions and decisions to get the influenza vaccination
No full textObjective: Recent studies of decision-related emotions and health decision-making show that, in addition to anticipated regret, anticipated counterfactual relief (relief for choosing one option over an alternative) predicts vaccination intentions and behaviors, but this is not so for anticipated temporal relief (relief that an unpleasant experience is over). However, these studies did not explore the effects of prompting different decision-related emotions on intentions and behavior. In this experimental study, we explored the effects of prompting participants to anticipate counterfactual relief, temporal relief, or regret on influenza vaccination intentions and behavior. Methods: Unvaccinated participants (N = 736) were assigned to one of three anticipated emotion conditions or to one of two control conditions. Those in the anticipated emotion conditions completed measures of anticipated regret, counterfactual relief or temporal relief, and measures of the Theory of Planned Behavior constructs (attitudes, norms, perceived control, and intentions). Controls completed Theory of Planned Behavior measures or only reported intentions. Participants reported their vaccination status one month later. Results: All three anticipated emotions had indirect effects on vaccination status at Time 2 via intentions. These indirect effects were more pronounced for anticipated regret and anticipated counterfactual relief than anticipated temporal relief. Prompting counterfactual relief significantly increased vaccination intentions compared to controls, but did not affect vaccination status. Conclusions: The results provide the first evidence that prompting participants to anticipate counterfactual relief increases intentions to be vaccinated compared to controls. These findings reinforce claims that the anticipation of both negative and positive decision-related counterfactual emotions may improve health-related decision-making
Social inequality in career trajectories: How occupations shape unequal task allocation between social groups
No full textRecent studies suggest that day-to-day task allocation is an important driver of inequality between social groups in the workplace. In this conceptual paper, we explore how occupations influence task allocation in a way that fosters social inequality. We develop a framework that links task allocation to differences in career trajectories between practitioners of the same job. In particular, the framework explains how the tasks, stereotypes, and prestige associated with an occupation systematically influence task allocation in the workplace. We argue that occupational imprints lead to typical (atypical) practitioners of an occupation being allocated relatively more core (peripheral) tasks, and explain how this mechanism shapes practitioners' career progression (vs. stagnation or exit). This paper extends current theory on social inequality by theorizing the influence of occupations on an underexplored mechanism of inequality, namely task allocation in the workplace
Complementary roles of structure and variant effect predictors in RyR1 clinical interpretation
No full textRyR1-related disorders, arising from variants in the RYR1 gene encoding the skeletal muscle ryanodine receptor, encompass a wide range of dominant and recessive phenotypes. The extensive length of RyR1 and diverse mechanisms underlying disease variants pose significant challenges for clinical interpretation, exacerbated by the limited performance and biases of current variant effect predictors (VEPs). This study evaluates the efficacy of 70 VEPs for distinguishing pathogenic RyR1 missense variants from putatively benign variants derived from population databases. Existing VEPs show variable performance. Those trained on known clinical labels show greater classification performance, but this is likely inflated by data circularity. In contrast, VEPs using methodologies that avoid or minimise training bias show limited performance, likely reflecting difficulty in identifying gain-of-function variants. Leveraging protein structural information, we introduce Spatial Proximity to Disease Variants (SPDV), a novel metric based solely on three-dimensional clustering of pathogenic mutations. We determine ACMG/AMP PP3/BP4 classification thresholds for our method and top-performing VEPs, allowing us to assign PP3/BP4 evidence levels to all RyR1 missense variants of uncertain significance. Thus, we suggest that our protein-structure based approach represents an orthogonal strategy over existing computational tools for aiding in the diagnosis of RyR1-related diseases
Evolution of the Archean crust in the Indian Ocean coastal sector (Napier Complex, and nearby areas) of Antarctica – Review
No full textThe Antarctic continent preserves a long crustal history from Eoarchean through Proterozoic to Phanerozoic. This article summarizes the evolution of Archean crustal fragments in the Indian Ocean coastal sector of Antarctica (Dronning Maud Land, Enderby Land, Kemp Land and MacRobertson Land). The Napier Complex in Enderby Land and western Kemp Land is an Archean craton measureing 400 km by 200 km. It is characterized by old fragments >3850 Ma and high-T to ultrahigh-T regional metamorphism at about 2550–2480 Ma, thus recording a crustal history spanning nearly the entire Archean. The available data, which are sparse relative to the large area covered, suggest that several crustal components of different ages have come together to form the terrane. Numerous studies have focused on the UHT metamorphism of this terrane, with >1000–1100 °C peak metamorphic temperatures and subsequent isobaric cooling evident along with some local variations in the P–T evolutions. In addition to the Napier Complex, the surrounding Proterozoic metamorphic terranes, such as in the Lützow-Holm Complex, the Western Rayner Complex, the Rayner Complex, and the Rauer Islands, include several relatively small Archean crustal blocks. Some areas of the Rayner Complex are thought to be reworked parts of the Napier Complex (Oygarden Islands and the Edward VIII Gulf area). UHT metamorphism of Neoproterozoic to Cambrian age has also been demonstrated in these complex, polymetamorphic areas containing Archean protoliths (Rundvågshetta, Forefinger Point, Mather Supracrustals)
Shifting transaction isolation on graphs:From systems to data
Get PDFProcessing long-running read-write transactions on graphs is an open challenge, primarily due to the need for serializability to maintain basic structural consistency of graphs. We identify that a fundamental impediment to a solution arises from the homogeneous database-wide notion of transaction isolation developed for relations, which fails to capture the heterogeneous consistency semantics on graphs. We propose Ddi, a notion of fine-grained isolation for graph transactions that advocates per-operation isolation allocation. It extracts concurrency for graph transactions that traditional isolation cannot, by assigning one or multiple isolation levels to each traversal operation, while maintaining graph consistency as serializability does. We develop formal semantics for Ddi and prove the consistency guarantees of its transaction schedules. We also develop DD-OCC, an optimistic concurrency control protocol for Ddi isolation, and implement it on a state-of-the-art graph storage. Experiments over LDBC graphs confirm the effectiveness of Ddi
Do politically connected board members influence firms’ debt choices? Public debt versus bank debt
Get PDFUsing a unique hand-collected data set on the political connections of board members of S&P 1500 companies, we find that board members with stronger government ties are positively associated with firms' preference for public debt over bank debt. This relationship is more pronounced in firms connected to high-ranking officials and appointed politicians. Additionally, using quarterly data from 2015 to 2018 and difference-in-differences (DID) analyses, we find that political ties are differently related to firms' debt choices based on different party affiliations, types of political connections, and geopolitical factors.</p
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