32151 research outputs found
Sort by
Reducing cetacean interactions with bottom set-nets and purse seining using acoustic deterrent devices in southern Iberia
Get PDFFunding: This work was supported by projects Mar2020- iNOVPESCA (DGRM/MM, MAR2020: MAR-01.03.01-FEAMP-0020), CetAMBICion (EU, DG-ENV/MSFD 2020) and LIFE Ilhas Barreira (LIFE18/NAT/PT/000927). Additionally, this study was supported by the Portuguese Science and Technology Foundation (FCT) through projects UIDB/04326/2020, UIDP/04326/2020 and LA/P/0101/2020 to CCMAR.In southern Iberia (NE Atlantic), cetacean bycatch is reported in several fisheries, whereas depredation by bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) is commonly observed in bottom set-net fisheries. This study tested the effectiveness of acoustic deterrent devices in discouraging small cetaceans from approaching bottom set-nets and purse seine to reduce interactions. The acoustic deterrent devices used in the study were dolphin deterrent devices and dolphin interactive devices for the bottom set-net fishery to reduce dolphin bycatch and depredation and dolphin deterrent devices in the purse seine fishery to reduce common dolphin (Delphinus delphis) bycatch. Data collection was carried out by at-sea observers and trained fishing vessel crew observers. Hauls with and without acoustic deterrent devices were compared and analysed to investigate differences in catch per unit effort, factors affecting the interaction, probability of interaction and habituation (in bottom set-nets only). In bottom set-nets, the depredation rate was significantly lower and reduced by about 50% in hauls using acoustic deterrent devices. Habituation of the bottlenose dolphins to the devices was observed but was gradual. In the purse seine fishery, common dolphin bycatch was reduced by 100% when using the acoustic deterrent devices. Overall, the results are promising, but the different interaction reduction efficiencies observed between gear types indicate that the potential application of acoustic deterrent devices should be considered on a métier-by-métier basis. Other mitigation measures should be developed, especially for static gears, in collaboration with the fishing sector in an inclusive management approach to reduce direct interactions between fisheries and cetaceans.Peer reviewe
Spinal inhibitory neurons degenerate before motor neurons and excitatory neurons in a mouse model of ALS
Get PDFFunding: This work was supported by the Lundbeck Foundation (R346-2020-2025 and R250-2017-586, I.A.), Louis-Hansen Foundation (21-2B-9477/L102, to I.A.), the Læge Sofus Carl Emil Friis og hustru Olga Doris Friis Foundation (1218471001, to I.A.), the Novo Nordisk Laureate Program (NNF15OC0014186, to O.K.), The Lundbeck Foundation (R345-2020-1769, O.K.), the Louis-Hansen foundation (18-2B-3570, to R.M.R.), the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences at University of Copenhagen (to O.K. and I.A.), and the School of Psychology and Neuroscience at University of St Andrews (to I.A.).Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is characterized by the progressive loss of somatic motor neurons. A major focus has been directed to motor neuron intrinsic properties as a cause for degeneration, while less attention has been given to the contribution of spinal interneurons. In the present work, we applied multiplexing detection of transcripts and machine learning–based image analysis to investigate the fate of multiple spinal interneuron populations during ALS progression in the SOD1G93A mouse model. The analysis showed that spinal inhibitory interneurons are affected early in the disease, before motor neuron death, and are characterized by a slow progressive degeneration, while excitatory interneurons are affected later with a steep progression. Moreover, we report differential vulnerability within inhibitory and excitatory subpopulations. Our study reveals a strong interneuron involvement in ALS development with interneuron specific degeneration. These observations point to differential involvement of diverse spinal neuronal circuits that eventually may be determining motor neuron degeneration.Peer reviewe
Mind the gap! Steric-driven reductive desymmetrisation of malononitriles
Get PDFFunding: The authors acknowledge financial support from Syngenta, EPSRC (EP/X013081/1) and The Royal Society (University Research Fellowship URF\R1\180017, URF\R\231016, and associated Enhancement Award RGF\EA\181022).Huang and coworkers recently demonstrated that a cobalt(I)-hydride complex, ligated with a finely tuned chiral bisoxazoline ligand, can selectively reduce disubstituted malononitriles by discriminating between enantiotopic nitrile groups. This reductive desymmetrisation strategy utilises the bulk industrial feedstock malononitrile to access nitrogen-rich enantioenriched products.Peer reviewe
Assessing adequacy of citizen science datasets for biodiversity monitoring
Get PDFTracking the state of biodiversity over time is critical to successful conservation, but conventional monitoring schemes tend to be insufficient to adequately quantify how species' abundances and distributions are changing. One solution to this issue is to leverage data generated by citizen scientists, who collect vast quantities of data at temporal and spatial scales that cannot be matched by most traditional monitoring methods. However, the quality of citizen science data can vary greatly. In this paper, we develop three metrics (inventory completeness, range completeness, spatial bias) to assess the adequacy of spatial observation data. We explore the adequacy of citizen science data at the species level for Australia's terrestrial native birds and then model these metrics against a suite of seven species traits (threat status, taxonomic uniqueness, body mass, average count, range size, species density, and human population density) to identify predictors of data adequacy. We find that citizen science data adequacy for Australian birds is increasing across two of our metrics (inventory completeness and range completeness), but not spatial bias, which has worsened over time. Relationships between the three metrics and seven traits we modelled were variable, with only two traits having consistently significant relationships across the three metrics. Our results suggest that although citizen science data adequacy has generally increased over time, there are still gaps in the spatial adequacy of citizen science for monitoring many Australian birds. Despite these gaps, citizen science can play an important role in biodiversity monitoring by providing valuable baseline data that may be supplemented by information collected through other methods. We believe the metrics presented here constitute an easily applied approach to assessing the utility of citizen science datasets for biodiversity analyses, allowing researchers to identify and prioritise regions or species with lower data adequacy that will benefit most from targeted monitoring efforts.Peer reviewe
A workflow of open-source tools for drone-based photogrammetry of marine megafauna
No full textFunding: This work was supported by the Marine Mammal Biology Program in the Office of Naval Research (N00014-20-2760 and N00014-23-1-2422) and the Oregon Gray Whale License Plate Fund.Drones have revolutionized researchers’ ability to obtain morphological data on megafauna, particularly cetaceans. The last decade has seen a surge in studies using drones to distinguish morphological differences among populations, calculate energetic reserves and body condition, and identify decreasing body sizes over generations. However, standardized workflows are needed to guide data collection, post-processing,and incorporation of measurement uncertainty, thereby ensuring that measurements are comparable within and across studies. Workflows containing free, open-source tools and methods that are accommodating to various research budgets and types of drones (consumer vs. professional) are more inclusive and equitable, which will foster increased knowledge in ecology and wildlife science. Here we present a workflow for collecting, processing, and analyzing morphological measurements of megafauna using drone-based photogrammetry. Our workflow connects several published open-source hardware and software tools (including automated tools) to maximize processing efficiency, data quality, and measurement accuracy. We also introduce Xcertainty,a novel R package for quantifying and incorporating photogrammetric uncertainty associated with different drones based on Bayesian statistical models. Stepping through this workflow, we discuss pre-flight setup and in-flight data collection, imagery post-processing (image selection, measuring, linking metadata with measurements, and incorporating uncertainty), and methods for including measurement uncertainty into analyses. We coalesce examples from these previously published tools and provide three detailed vignettes with code to demonstrate the ease and flexibility of using Xcertainty to estimate growth curves and body lengths, widths, and several body condition metrics with uncertainty. We also include three examples using published datasets to demonstrate how to include measurement uncertainty into analyses and provide code for researchers to adapt to their own datasets. Our workflow focuses on measuring the morphology of cetaceans but is adaptable to other taxa. Our goal is for this open-source workflow to be accessible and accommodating to research projects across a range of budgets and to facilitate collaborations and longitudinal data comparisons. This workflow serves as a guide that is easily adoptable and adaptable by researchers to fit various data and analysis needs, and emergent technology and tools.Peer reviewe
Judicious use of chalcogens in multiresonant thermally activated delayed fluorescent emitters leads to OLEDs with efficiencies exceeding 36% and showing mild efficiency roll-off
Get PDFFunding: The study in China was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (22375072), the Jilin Provincial Science and Technology Department (20220201082GX), and Changchun Science and Technology Bureau (23JQ05). In the UK, this project has received funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council for support (EP/R035164/1, EP/W007517/1, and EP/Z535291/1).Strategies that produce OLEDs that simultaneously achieve outstanding electroluminescence efficiency, small efficiency roll-off, good stability, and high color purity remain in strong demand. Herein, we report how judicious decoration of a benzochalcogenophene onto the BCzBN core leads to an acceleration of reverse intersystem crossing (kRISC) without sacrificing either color fidelity and photoluminescence quantum yield (ΦPL). Compared with BCzBN , the kRISC of BN-S and BN-Se are accelerated to 2.5 × 105 and 7.2 × 105 s−1 from 1.4 × 104 s−1, each with near-unity ΦPLs. BN-S and BN-Se show narrowband emission at 483 nm (FWHM of 22 nm) and 485 nm (FWHM of 22 nm). The corresponding non-sensitized OLEDs using BN-S and BN-Se exhibited record-breaking maximum external quantum efficiency (EQEmax) of 43.1 and 36.9%, without any external light extraction techniques. Furthermore, the BN-Se -based OLED showed ultralow efficiency roll-off, with EQEs remaining at 36.7 and 31.8% at 100 and 1000 cd m−2, respectively. These emitters do not easily suffer from aggregation-caused quenching. Even at 12 wt% doping, the EQEmax of the OLEDs with BN-S and BN-Se were 36.7 and 36.4%, respectively, with mild efficiency roll-off (EQEs at 1000 cd m−2 of 19.1 and 30.8%, respectively), and nearly unchanged electroluminescence spectra.Peer reviewe
Anselm on THAT, THIS, and panpsychism
Get PDFThis articles reimagines Anselm’s claim that God is ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’ [Hereafter: ‘THAT’]. The article first explores a variety of Anselm-inspired of what THAT is like, and how THAT relates to whatever (if anything) is not-THAT (hereafter: ‘THIS’). THAT could be Anselm’s creator God, a polytheist pantheon, or a single undifferentiated One/Absolute/Brahman. THIS could be a single possible world or a pluriverse containing many different real possible worlds. The article defends a principle of cosmic humility. It argues that, to counter our natural tendency to over-estimate our own importance, we should pay particular attention to non-human-centred, non-anthropomorphic interpretations of THAT. Humility favours plenitude about worlds and plenitude about creatures. God (or THAT) will create many worlds that (together) contain all valuable creatures. Humility also suggests that, within this optimal pluriverse, we should not expect to find ourselves inhabiting either a world that is cosmically special or a world where we are special. The final part of the article argues that, within contemporary philosophy of mind, this commitment to cosmic humility supports panpsychism over its rivals – especially dualism and materialism. If THAT did create THIS, then we are (probably) insignificant creatures living in a panpsychist world. The article concludes with some speculations on how thinking about THAT and THIS might also influence the content of panpsychism as well as the case for panpsychism.Peer reviewe
Anchoring as a structural bias of deliberation
Get PDFWe study the anchoring effect in a computational model of group deliberation on preference rankings. Anchoring is a form of path-dependence through which the opinions of those who speak early have a stronger influence on the outcome of deliberation than the opinions of those who speak later. We show that anchoring can occur even among fully rational agents. We then compare the respective effects of anchoring and three other determinants of the deliberative outcome: the relative weight or social influence of the speakers, the popularity of a given speaker’s opinion, and the homogeneity of the group. We find that, on average, anchoring has the strongest effect among these. We finally show that anchoring is often correlated with increases in proximity to single-plateauedness. We conclude that anchoring can constitute a structural bias that might hinder some of the otherwise positive effects of group deliberation.Peer reviewe
Properties of congruence lattices of graph inverse semigroups
Get PDFFrom any directed graph E one can construct the graph inverse semigroup G(E), whose elements, roughly speaking, correspond to paths in E. Wang and Luo showed that the congruence lattice L(G(E)) of G(E) is upper-semimodular for every graph E, but can fail to be lower-semimodular for some E. We provide a simple characterization of the graphs E for which L(G(E)) is lower-semimodular. We also describe those E such that L(G(E)) is atomistic, and characterize the minimal generating sets for L(G(E)) when E is finite and simple.Peer reviewe
Using spatial point process models, clustering and space partitioning to reconfigure fire stations layout
Get PDFFunding: This work is funded by national funds through the FCT—Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., under the scope of the project DSAIPA/DS/0088/2019 and research and development units UNIDEMI (project UIDB/00667/2020) and NOVAMATH (projects UIDB/00297/2020 and UIDP/00297/2020).Fire stations (FS) are typically non-uniformly distributed across space, and their service area is, in general, defined based on administrative boundaries. Since the location of FS may considerably influence the readiness and the effectiveness of the provided services, national and regional governments need research-based information to adequately plan where to establish firefighting facilities. In this study, we propose a method to reconfigure the fire stations layout using spatial point process models, clustering and space partitioning. First, modelling fire intensity variation across space through a point process model enables to replicate the process independently by simulation. Subsequently, for each simulation, the k-means algorithm is used to define a siting location, minimizing the total within distance between the fire occurrences and the new position. This method allows to obtain a set of locations from which the respective distribution is inferred. Assuming a bivariate normal spatial distribution, we further define confidence siting regions. Ultimately, new FS service areas are defined by Voronoi tessellation. To exemplify the application of the method, we apply it to reconfigure the fire station layout at Aveiro, Portugal.Peer reviewe
Access Repository Dashboard
Do you manage St Andrews Research Repository? Access insider analytics, issue reports and manage access to outputs from your repository in the CORE Repository Dashboard!