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This research explores the ability of 60 mm thick reinforced concrete (RC) plates to resist impacts from ogive-nosed hard steel projectiles. The projectiles used in the present study have a diameter of 19 mm, a length of 200 mm, and a mass of 0.4 kg impacted on the RC plates with incident velocities ranging from 92 m/s to 161 m/s. Numerical simulations were conducted using ABAQUS/Explicit finite element software to validate the experimental results. The Holmquist–Johnson–Cook (HJC) material model was employed to simulate the constitutive behavior of concrete, while the Johnson–Cook (JC) material model was used to simulate the material response of reinforcing steel bars. The residual velocities obtained from the simulations closely matched the actual experimental results, showing a polynomial correlation with the incidence velocities of the projectiles. Moreover, the experimentally and numerically determined ballistic limit for the 60 mm thick RC plate was found to be 108 m/s and 109.5 m/s, respectively. In contrast, the ballistic limit calculated using empirical mathematical expressions was 107.4 m/s. This alignment between predicted, calculated, and actual ballistic limits underscores the reliability and accuracy of both numerical and empirical approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) can be difficult to distinguish from Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Parkinson's disease dementia (PDD) at different stages of its progression due to some overlaps in the clinical and neuropathological presentation of these conditions compared with DLB. Metallomic changes have already been observed in the AD and PDD brain--including widespread decreases in Cu levels and more localised alterations in Na, K, Mn, Fe, Zn, and Se. This study aimed to determine whether these metallomic changes appear in the DLB brain, and how the metallomic profile of the DLB brain appears in comparison to the AD and PDD brain. Methods: Brain tissues from ten regions of 20 DLB cases and 19 controls were obtained. The concentrations of Na, Mg, K, Ca, Zn, Fe, Mn, Cu, and Se were determined using inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICPMS). Case-control differences were evaluated using Mann-Whitney U tests. Results were compared with those previously obtained from AD and PDD brain tissue, and principal component analysis (PCA) plots were created to determine whether cerebral metallomic profiles could distinguish DLB from AD or PDD metallomic profiles. Results: Na was increased and Cu decreased in four and five DLB brain regions, respectively. More localised alterations in Mn, Ca, Fe, and Se were also identified. Despite similarities in Cu changes between all three diseases, PCA plots showed that DLB cases could be readily distinguished from AD cases using data from the middle temporal gyrus, primary visual cortex, and cingulate gyrus, whereas DLB and PDD cases could be clearly separated using data from the primary visual cortex alone. Conclusion: Despite shared alterations in Cu levels, the post-mortem DLB brain shows very few other similarities with the metallomic profile of the AD or PDD brain. These findings suggest that while Cu deficiencies appear common to all three conditions, metal alterations otherwise differ between DLB and PDD/AD. These findings can contribute to our understanding of the underlying pathogenesis of these three diseases; if these changes can be observed in the living human brain, they may also contribute to the differential diagnosis of DLB from AD and/or PDD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding how and why menopause has evolved is a long-standing challenge across disciplines. Females can typically maximize their reproductive success by reproducing for the whole of their adult life. In humans, however, women cease reproduction several decades before the end of their natural lifespan1,2. Although progress has been made in understanding the adaptive value of menopause in humans3,4, the generality of these findings remains unclear. Toothed whales are the only mammal taxon in which menopause has evolved several times5, providing a unique opportunity to test the theories of how and why menopause evolves in a comparative context. Here, we assemble and analyse a comparative database to test competing evolutionary hypotheses. We find that menopause evolved in toothed whales by females extending their lifespan without increasing their reproductive lifespan, as predicted by the ‘live-long’ hypotheses. We further show that menopause results in females increasing their opportunity for intergenerational help by increasing their lifespan overlap with their grandoffspring and offspring without increasing their reproductive overlap with their daughters. Our results provide an informative comparison for the evolution of human life history and demonstrate that the same pathway that led to menopause in humans can also explain the evolution of menopause in toothed whales.A comparative analysis tests competing evolutionary hypotheses in toothed whales in which menopause has evolved many times as females extended their overall lifespan but not their reproductive lifespan, increasing their opportunity for intergenerational help without increasing intergenerational reproductive competition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Backgrounds: The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) pandemic provided challenges to surgical care in Australia. This study aimed to measure the potential impact of COVID‐19 on colorectal cancer presentation through surgical volume and cancer staging at a major tertiary referral hospital in the city of Sydney Australia. Methods: A retrospective cohort study was performed using routinely collected data from consecutive colorectal cancer patients undergoing surgery during the COVID‐19 period (1 March 2020 to 1 October 2021) and compared with the pre‐COVID‐19 period (1 March 2018 to 1 October 2019). The main outcomes included patient demographics, surgical volume (including overall, elective and emergency) and cancer staging. Differences in outcomes between the two studied periods were compared using Pearson's chi‐squared test, Fisher test or t‐test. Results: A total of 381 patients composed the COVID‐19 group (Mean age = 62.4 years) and 364 patients composed the pre‐COVID‐19 group (Mean age = 65.6 years; P<0.001). No significant differences were observed for overall, elective or emergency surgical volumes. Patients in the COVID‐19 group had a reduction in Stage I and an increase in Stage II and III disease, with Stage IV and recurrent disease being similar with a variation of <1% when compared to the pre‐COVID‐19 group (P<0.001). Conclusions: Disruptions in patient screening, diagnosis and management from elective surgery restrictions and patient hesitancy may not have resulted in observed changes to surgical volume, however, it may have contributed to an increase in Stages II and III colorectal cancer during COVID‐19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Life-history theory suggests that individuals should reproduce until death, yet females of a small number of mammals live for a significant period after ceasing reproduction, a phenomenon known as post-reproductive lifespan. It is thought that the evolution of this trait is facilitated by increasing local relatedness throughout a female's lifetime. This allows older females to gain inclusive fitness through helping their offspring (known as a mother effect) and/or grandoffspring (known as a grandmother effect), rather than gaining direct fitness through reproducing. However, older females may only benefit from stopping reproducing when their direct offspring compete with those of their daughters. Here, we investigate whether a lack of post-reproductive lifespan in long-finned pilot whales (Globicephala melas) results from minimal benefits incurred from the presence of older females, or from a lack of costs resulting from mother–daughter co-reproduction. Using microsatellite data, we conducted parentage analysis on individuals from 25 pods and find that younger females were more likely to have offspring if their mother was present in their pod, indicating that mothers may assist inexperienced daughters to reproduce. However, we found no evidence of reproductive conflict between co-reproducing mothers and daughters, indicating that females may be able to reproduce into old age while simultaneously aiding their daughters in reproduction. This highlights the importance of reproductive conflict in the evolution of a post-reproductive lifespan and demonstrates that mother and grandmother effects alone do not result in the evolution of a post-reproductive lifespan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In some species, permanent curtailment of reproduction part‐way through the lifespan of adult females is a feature of their evolved life history. The existence of such a post‐reproductive life stage is apparently rare; reasonably robust evidence for this is confined to only six species (humans, Asian elephants and four whales). That it occurs at all appears to contradict our view of natural selection operating to maximize fitness and special circumstances must exist to explain its occurrence. We evaluate the main hypotheses posited to explain the evolution of this life stage, why it occurs in a restricted group of animals, and why only in females. We bring together literature from multiple biological disciplines and levels of enquiry, ranging through evolutionary ecology, developmental biology, physiology, neuroscience, molecular biology, and human medicine. We conclude that while time‐limited fertility is not in itself adaptive, the duration of subsequent survival is likely to be linked to inclusive fitness benefits. We present a new hypothesis which posits that the duration of female fertility in certain long‐lived, highly encephalised species, with no post‐natal oogenesis, is limited by the need for intense screening of oocyte mitochondria. This is required to support endothermy coupled with the very high energy requirement for the development and maintenance of the exceptionally large brain size required for complex social living. This limits the number and shelf‐life of oocytes, creating an antagonistically pleotropic effect that is beneficial to the production of high performing offspring but carries the later life cost of time‐limited female fertility. But the end of the fertile period is no time to die. Inclusive fitness benefits arising from protracted parental care of offspring, overlapping generations, and kin group structures means that continued survival of post‐reproductive females is favoured by selection. We suggest further lines of research to test these ideas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Disruptions in tokamaks remain, to this day, an unsolved issue on the path toward fusion power plants. Such events should be avoided or mitigated, requiring adequate detection of the disruption causes. However, due to the complex nature of disruption causes, this is, in general, challenging. Despite recent progress designing disruption prediction systems via data-driven methods, many questions remain open—such as disruption-type identification or the transfer of such methods between different tokamaks. We propose a shapelet-based neural network for binary and multi-class disruption identification that can be used for post-disruption analysis or real-time prediction. The performance is compared to two approaches from the literature, retrained on our data: support-vector machines similar to the advanced predictor of disruption, and a recurrent neural network. For the present study, we compiled a dataset of discharges from the Joint European Torus tokamak containing stable discharges and seven disruption types. Due to the availability of such classification, all shots predate the installation of the ITER-like wall. Using the binary and multi-class classification results, we report on the performance of the three models and discuss the advantages of our method. Our model ranks first and second on binary and multi-class tasks, respectively. The shapelets' contribution to the results is evaluated by conducting an ablation study. We show that shapelets with normalized Euclidean distance are enough for binary classification, but multi-class predictions require the absolute value of the signals. The good results obtained from locally normalized signals are promising for future cross-tokamak studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report the solvothermal synthesis of a dansyl anchored hafnium based fluorescent metal–organic framework (MOF) having the formula [Hf6O4(OH)4(L)6]·H2O·6DMF (H2L = 2-((5-(dimethylamino)naphthalene)-1-sulfonamido)terephthalic acid). The synthesized material showed high fluorescence emission properties as well as high thermal (stable up to 330 °C) and chemical stability. It also exhibited a wide range of pH tolerance as well as a high BET surface area of 703 m2 g−1. The activated MOF showed ultra-fast (detection time < 10 s) and ultra-sensitive sensing properties towards Cu(II) and the biologically important biomarker 3-nitrotyrosine (3-NTyr) in a HEPES medium at a physiological pH of 7.4. Along with high selectivity, very low detection limits of 229 nM and 539 nM were obtained for Cu(II) and 3-NTyr respectively. Furthermore, this probe was utilised for the detection and quantification of Cu(II) and 3-NTyr in biosamples (urine and serum) with very low RSD values (2.3–4.8%). Additionally, this probe was employed to detect the presence of Cu(II) as a pollutant in various environmental water samples. Furthermore, for rapid economic detection of Cu(II), a MOF coated fluorescent paper strip was demonstrated. Thorough mechanistic investigations displayed that a complexometric interaction between Cu(II) and the probe is the main reason for the quenching of fluorescence intensity. This proposed mechanism was well supported by experimental evidence. On the other hand, the FRET mechanism is proposed based on the experimental observations for dynamic quenching of the fluorescence intensity of the probe in the presence of 3-NTyr. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, great progress has been made in the field of ultrasensitive microwave detectors, reaching even the threshold for utilization in circuit quantum electrodynamics. However, cryogenic sensors lack the compatibility with broad-band metrologically traceable power absorption measurements at ultralow powers, which restricts their range of applications. Here, we demonstrate such measurements using an ultralow-noise nanobolometer, which we extend by an additional direct-current (dc) heater input. The tracing of the absorbed power relies on comparing the response of the bolometer between radio frequency and dc-heating powers traced to the Josephson voltage and quantum Hall resistance. To illustrate this technique, we demonstrate two different methods of dc-substitution to calibrate the power that is delivered to the base temperature stage of a dilution refrigerator using our in situ power sensor. As an example, we demonstrate the ability to accurately measure the attenuation of a coaxial input line between the frequencies of 50 MHz and 7 GHz with an uncertainty down to 0.1 dB at a typical input power of −114 dBm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For over 10 years, several bolometer sensors with different properties have been tested in the IBOVAC facility. The aim has been to develop a bolometer sensor that can be operated in ITER and can withstand harsh operating conditions. For this purpose, important physical properties of the sensors, i.e., cooling time constant τ, normalized heat capacity κ, and normalized sensitivity sn, have been characterized in a vacuum condition and at various temperatures up to 300 °C. The calibration is achieved by ohmic heating of the sensor absorbers by applying a DC voltage and recording exponential current fall during heating. Recently, a Python program was developed to analyze the data and extract the above mentioned parameters including the uncertainties from recorded currents. In the present series of experiments, the latest prototype sensors developed for ITER are tested and evaluated. These include three different sensor types: two with Au absorbers on ZrO2 membranes (self-supporting substrate sensors) and one with Au absorbers on Si3N4 membranes supported by a Si frame (supported membrane sensors). Tests revealed that the sensor with ZrO2 substrate can only be operated up to 150 °C, while the supported membrane sensors passed the tests up to 300 °C successfully. These results will be used, together with other upcoming tests, such as irradiation testing, to select the most suitable sensors to be employed in ITER. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A prototype infrared video bolometer (IRVB) was successfully deployed in the Mega Ampere Spherical Tokamak Upgrade (MAST Upgrade or MAST-U), the first deployment of such a diagnostic in a spherical tokamak. The IRVB was designed to study the radiation around the lower x-point, another first in tokamaks, and has the potential to estimate emissivity profiles with spatial resolution beyond what is achievable with resistive bolometry. The system was fully characterized prior to installation on MAST-U, and the results are summarized here. After installation, it was verified that the actual measurement geometry in the tokamak qualitatively matches the design; this is a particularly difficult process for bolometers and was done using specific features of the plasma itself. The installed IRVB measurements are consistent both with observations from other diagnostics, including magnetic reconstruction, visible light cameras, and resistive bolometry, as well as with the IRVB-designed view. Early results show that with conventional divertor geometry and only intrinsic impurities (for example, C and He), the progression of radiative detachment follows a similar path to that observed for large aspect ratio tokamaks: The peak of the radiation moves along the separatrix from the targets to the x-point and high-field side midplane with a toroidally symmetric structure that can eventually lead to strong effects on the core plasma inside the separatrix. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A suite of multi-channel resistive bolometers has been implemented to measure the total radiation from Mega Amp Spherical Tokamak Upgrade plasmas, with cameras covering the core plasma and lower divertor chamber. Data are digitized and processed using novel field-programmable gate array-based electronics, offering improved compactness and new operational capabilities. A synthetic diagnostic has been developed to explore the quality of 2D reconstructions available from the system and to quantify the uncertainty on quantities such as the total radiated power. Measurements in the first campaign have demonstrated correct functioning of the diagnostic while also highlighting issues with electrical noise and some failure mechanisms of the detectors, as well as significant neutral beam fast-particle losses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When sons and daughters have different fitness costs and benefits, selection may favor deviations from an even offspring sex ratio. Most theories on sex ratio manipulation focus on maternal strategies and sex-biased maternal expenditure. Recent studies report paternal influences on both offspring sex ratio and postpartum sex-biased maternal expenditure. We used long-term data on marked kangaroos to investigate whether and how paternal mass and skeletal size, both determinants of male reproductive success, influenced (a) offspring sex in interaction with maternal mass and (b) postpartum sex-biased maternal expenditure. When mothers were light, the probability of having a son increased with paternal mass. Heavy mothers showed the opposite trend. A similar result emerged when considering paternal size instead of mass. Postpartum maternal sex-specific expenditure was independent of paternal mass or size. Studies of offspring sex manipulation or maternal expenditure would benefit from an explicit consideration of paternal traits, as paternal and maternal effects can modulate each other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: 18F‐Fludeoxyglucose PET‐CT (FDG) is increasingly used to stage breast cancer. Most breast cancers express the Oestrogen Receptor (ER) and Progesterone Receptor (PR), and this subtype demonstrates lower activity on FDG imaging. Somatostatin receptors (SSTR) offer a potentially improved radiotracer target for ER+/PR+ breast cancer. We present the first in vivo clinical study comparing 68Ga‐DOTATATE PET‐CT (DOTA) to FDG and conventional imaging (bone scan and diagnostic CT), in metastatic ER+/PR+ human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) negative breast cancer. Methods: Patients with clinically progressive metastatic ER+/PR+ HER2‐ breast cancer underwent restaging with DOTA, FDG and conventional imaging. Scans were analysed visually, and semi‐quantitatively. Wilcoxon‐Rank Scoring was used to assess significance. Results: Ten women (mean age 57 years) underwent imaging. 8/10 demonstrated disease on both DOTA and FDG. 2/10 positive on conventional imaging, but DOTA−/FDG−, and had no disease progression at 1‐year follow‐up. Heterogeneity of uptake was seen between DOTA and FDG with 5 bone lesions DOTA+/FDG− and 1 bone lesion FDG+/DOTA−. Twenty‐one visceral lesions were FDG+/DOTA− (2 patients), with 10/21 identified on conventional imaging. Maximum standard uptake values (SUV max) of DOTA were greater than FDG (10.9 vs. 6.6, P = ns). Four sites were biopsied (3 patients). 3/4 had high ER/PR expression (mean DOTA SUV max 9.4) and 1/4 low ER/PR expression (DOTA SUV max 3.1). Conclusion: Whilst we have not demonstrated DOTA to be superior to FDG in staging of ER+/PR+ breast cancers, DOTA may have a role in assessing HR status and treatment decisions; further evaluation of this is warranted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A novel double‐peaked emission profile has been observed by the visible light imaging system in EAST. In the upper divertor region, two emission peaks in the high‐field side (HFS) scrape‐off layer (SOL) and near the X‐point are identified by tomographic reconstruction. In our previous SOLPS‐ITER simulation work, the emission peaks in the HFS SOL and near the X‐point are attributed to the carbon deposition on the HFS baffle and the dome of the upper tungsten divertor, respectively. The appearance of the emission peak near the X‐point when the outer target is attached was understood by analysing the carbon transport in the private flux region (PFR). However, the simulated intensity of the emission peak in the HFS SOL is lower by one order of magnitude than that in the PFR, while they are at the similar level in the experiment. In this work, the influence of the drifts is further studied by SOLPS‐ITER simulations. Under the favourable toroidal field condition, the HFS SOL plasma transits to the detachment regime. The chemical sputtering of the carbon deposited on the inner baffle increases significantly, as well as the emission intensity of the peak in the HFS SOL. Meanwhile, the C2+ density peak in the PFR decreases due to the E × B drift towards inner target. The emission intensity in the PFR near the X‐point, therefore, decreases moderately. As a result, the intensities of the two emission peaks become comparable, which matches better with the experiment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The NanChang Spherical Tokamak (NCST) is a new compact tokamak (with an aspect ratio of R/a = 1.67) for exploring the merging compression by which the plasma start-up is highly efficient. In this paper, a magnetic diagnostic system is designed, calibrated, and constructed on the NCST to meet the requirements of measurements. Based on detailed testing and analysis, the reliability of the sensors is guaranteed by optimizing the support structure and installation process. In addition, high-precision positioning equipment is utilized to ensure the installation accuracy of the sensors. During the start-up phase of the NCST, plasma currents on the order of a few kiloamperes were measured despite that the commensurate signal of eddy current is also found in the conducting structure. The magnetic diagnostic system is now completely operational and meets the requirements of the physical analysis on the NCST. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The acoustic environment can serve as a niche axis, structuring animal behaviour by providing or obscuring salient information. Meadow katydid choruses occupy the ultrasonic, less studied, realm of this acoustic milieu, form dense populations in some habitats and present a potential sensory challenge to co-occurring ultrasonic-hearing animals. Aerial-hawking insectivorous bats foraging immediately over vegetation must listen for echoes of their prey and other cues amidst the chorus din. 2. We experimentally created the cacophony of a katydid chorus in a katydid-free rice paddy using an aggregation of 100 ultrasonic speakers in a 25 × 25 m grid to test the hypothesis that aerially hawking bats are averse to this noise source. We alternated between chorus-on and chorus-off hourly, and acoustically monitored bat activity and arthropod prey abundance. 3. We found that our phantom katydid chorus reduced bat activity nearest the sound source by 39.3% (95% CI: 7.8%-60.0%) for species whose call spectrum fully overlapped with the chorus, and elicited marginal reductions in activity in species with only partial spectral overlap. 4. Our study suggests that ultrasonic insect choruses degrade foraging habitat, potentially suppressing bats' ecosystem services as consumers of pests; and, given the global distribution of meadow katydids, may provide an underappreciated force modifying animal behaviour in other grassland habitats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inbreeding depression is often found in small, inbred populations, but whether it can be detected in and have evolutionary consequences for large, wide-ranging populations is poorly known. Here, we investigate the possibility of inbreeding in a large population to determine whether mild levels of inbreeding can still have genetic and phenotypic consequences and how genomically widespread these effects can be. We apply genome-wide methods to investigate whether individual and parental heterozygosity is related to morphological, growth, or life-history traits in a pelagic seabird, Leach's storm-petrel (Oceanodroma leucorhoa). Examining 560 individuals as part of a multiyear study, we found a substantial effect of maternal heterozygosity on chick traits: chicks from less heterozygous (relatively inbred) mothers were significantly smaller than chicks from more heterozygous (noninbred) mothers. We show that these heterozygosity-fitness correlations were due to general genome-wide effects and demonstrate a correlation between heterozygosity and inbreeding, suggesting inbreeding depression. We used population genetic models to further show that the variance in inbreeding was probably due to past demographic events rather than the current mating system and ongoing mate choice. Our findings demonstrate that inbreeding depression can be observed in large populations and illustrate how the integration of genomic techniques and fieldwork can elucidate its underlying causes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents techniques for evaluating the radiated power in JET disruptions. Disrupting plasmas are shown to have non-axisymmetric radiation profiles, motivating the re-evaluation of the standard techniques for calculating the total radiated power at JET using bolometry. Four single-channel bolometers at different toroidal locations are exploited to quantify the radiation asymmetry. Toroidal radiation peaking factors integrated over the entire disruption of up to 1.5 have been observed when varying the quantity of neon in pellets used in disruptions mitigated by shattered pellet injection. Using synthetic bolometer diagnostics developed with the Cherab spectroscopy modeling framework, we can estimate the systematic error on total power calculations for relevant radiation profiles and improve estimates of the total radiated power. We show that the component of the systematic error on the total power due to the poloidal radiation profile can be reduced from 70% to 10% with suitable assumptions about the structure of the poloidal profile. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some species show high rates of reproductive failure, which is puzzling because natural selection works against such failure in every generation. Hatching failure is common in both captive and wild zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata), yet little is known about its proximate causes. Here we analyze data on reproductive performance (the fate of >23,000 eggs) based on up to 14 years of breeding of four captive zebra finch populations. We find that virtually all aspects of reproductive performance are negatively affected by inbreeding (mean r = −0.117); by an early-starting, age-related decline (mean r = −0.132); and by poor early-life nutrition (mean r = −0.058). However, these effects together explain only about 3% of the variance in infertility, offspring mortality, fecundity, and fitness. In contrast, individual repeatability of different fitness components varied between 15% and 50%. As expected, we found relatively low heritability in fitness components (median: 7% of phenotypic variation and 29% of individually repeatable variation). Yet some of the heritable variation in fitness appears to be maintained by antagonistic pleiotropy (negative genetic correlations) between male fitness traits and female and offspring fitness traits. The large amount of unexplained variation suggests a potentially important role of local dominance and epistasis, including the possibility of segregating genetic incompatibilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Upgrades to electronic hardware and detector design have been made to the JET thin-foil Faraday cup fast ion loss detector [Darrow et al., Rev. Sci. Instrum. 75, 3566 (2004)] in anticipation of the upcoming deuterium–tritium (DT) campaign. An improved foil stack design has been implemented, which greatly reduces the number of foil-to-foil shorts, and triaxial cabling has mitigated ambient noise pickup. Initial tests of 200 kHz digitizers, as opposed to the original 5 kHz digitizers, have provided enhanced analysis techniques and direct coherence measurements of fast ion losses with magnetohydrodynamic activity. We present recent loss measurements in JET deuterium plasmas correlated with kink modes, fishbone modes, edge-localized modes, and sawteeth. Sources of systematic noise are discussed with emphasis on capacitive plasma pickup. Overall, the system upgrades have established a diagnostic capable of recording alpha particle losses due to a wide variety of resonant fast ion transport mechanisms to be used in future DT-experiments and modeling efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aligning wildlife management boundaries with accurate biological units promotes effective conservation and management practices that reflect ecological and evolutionary processes. Neutral genetic markers allow for quantitative delineation of population structure without a priori assumptions or biases. In the United States, bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) are a charismatic component of Wyoming's biodiversity and a species that provides important viewing and hunting opportunities. Bighorn sheep abundances are relatively stable throughout Wyoming, and the species is managed by administrative units identified using expert knowledge, distribution and movement data, and geographic and administrative boundaries. We used a panel of 38 variable microsatellite loci and 512 base pairs of mitochondrial DNA sequence to identify the genetic structure throughout the state and in translocation source herds, quantify the extent of genetic diversity within each genetic cluster, and estimate the degree of gene flow among herds using blood and tissue samples collected 1989–2017. We identified genetic structure of Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep in the major mountain ranges of Wyoming, with strong support for ≥5 genetic clusters using microsatellite loci. These genetic clusters generally aligned with current management units, whereas mitochondrial data showed a more complex mosaic that was not geographically patterned. Genetic variation estimated from both markers was high within each herd and comparable among herds. The assignment of individuals reflected a combination of geographic isolation and translocation, which has been extensive. Our results provide a state‐wide assessment of genetic diversity and structure that will enhance management by understanding the outcomes of translocation, identifying the source of unknown individuals, and parameterizing disease ecology models. © 2020 The Wildlife Society. Population genetic analyses of bighorn sheep in Wyoming, USA, 2012–2017 identified genetic clusters that reflect biogeographic and management history. Concern for maintaining genetic connectivity should be balanced against the potential for disease transmission. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a handful of mammals, females show an extended postreproductive lifespan (PRLS), leading to questions over why they spend a substantial portion of their lifespan nonreproductive. Theoretical and empirical studies suggest that PRLS may evolve when 1) demographic patterns lead to increasing local relatedness as females age, and 2) females come into reproductive competition with their daughters, as these conditions lead to high relative benefits of helping kin versus reproducing in later life. However, evolutionary pathways to PRLS are poorly understood and empirical studies are scarce. Here, we use a dataset of 1522 individuals comprising 22 pods to investigate patterns of reproduction and relatedness in long-finned pilot whales Globicephala melas ; a toothed whale without species-wide PRLS. We find a similar relatedness structure to whales with PRLS: pods appear composed of related matrilines, and relatedness of females to their pod increases with age, suggesting that this species could benefit from late-life help. Furthermore, females with a large number of philopatric adult daughters are less likely to reproduce, implying intergenerational reproductive competition between females. This suggests that individuals may display a plastic cessation of reproduction, switching to investing in existing offspring when they come into competition with their daughters. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time such a relationship has been described in relation to PRLS, and it raises questions about whether this represents a step towards evolving PRLS or is a stable alternative strategy to widespread postreproductive periods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development and testing of a Faraday cup fast-ion loss detector capable of measuring sub 100 keV particles is documented. Such measurement capabilities play an important role in the assessment of particle confinement of nuclear fusion experiments. The detector is manufactured using thin-film deposition techniques, building upon previous work using discrete foils. This new manufacturing method allows the form factor of the sensor to become that of essentially a microchip. Analysis of the diagnostic response is performed using Monte-Carlo particle simulations. These simulations show peaks in the detector response at 40 and 70 keV. The sensor is then tested in a tunable linear accelerator capable of accelerating protons from 20 to 120 keV. The detector response was found to be well matched to simulations. Improvements to the design to facilitate robustness are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The total emission of radiation is a crucial quantity to calculate the power balances and to understand the physics of any Tokamak. Bolometric systems are the main tool to measure this important physical quantity through quite sophisticated tomographic inversion methods. On the Joint European Torus, the coverage of the bolometric diagnostic, due to the availability of basically only two projection angles, is quite limited, rendering the inversion a very ill-posed mathematical problem. A new approach, based on the maximum likelihood, has therefore been developed and implemented to alleviate one of the major weaknesses of traditional tomographic techniques: the difficulty to determine routinely the confidence intervals in the results. The method has been validated by numerical simulations with phantoms to assess the quality of the results and to optimise the configuration of the parameters for the main types of emissivity encountered experimentally. The typical levels of statistical errors, which may significantly influence the quality of the reconstructions, have been identified. The systematic tests with phantoms indicate that the errors in the reconstructions are quite limited and their effect on the total radiated power remains well below 10%. A comparison with other approaches to the inversion and to the regularization has also been performed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using evolutionary theory to predict the dynamics of populations is one of the aims of evolutionary conservation. In endangered species, with geographic range extending over continuous areas, the predictive capacity of evolutionary-based conservation measures greatly depends on the accurate identification of reproductive units. The endangered European eel ( Anguilla anguilla) is a highly migratory fish species with declining population due to a steep recruitment collapse in the beginning of the 1980s. Despite punctual observations of genetic structure, the population is viewed as a single panmictic reproductive unit. To understand the possible origin of the detected structure in this species, we used a combination of mitochondrial and nuclear loci to indirectly evaluate the possible existence of cryptic demes. For that, 403 glass eels from three successive cohorts arriving at a single location were screened for phenotypic and genetic diversity, while controlling for possible geographic variation. Over the 3 years of sampling, we consistently identified three major matrilines which we hypothesized to represent demes. Interestingly, not only we found that population genetic models support the existence of those matriline-driven demes over a completely panmictic mode of reproduction, but also we found evidence for asymmetric gene flow amongst those demes. We uphold the suggestion that the detection of demes related to those matrilines reflect a fragmented spawning ground, a conceptually plausible consequence of the low abundance that the European eel has been experiencing for three decades. Furthermore, we suggest that this cryptic organization may contribute to the maintenance of the adaptive potential of the species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Sexual selection through female mate choice for genetic characteristics has been suggested to be an important evolutionary force maintaining genetic variation in animal populations. However, the genetic targets of female mate choice are not clearly identified and whether female mate choice is based on neutral genetic characteristics or on particular functional loci remains an open question. Here, we investigated the genetic targets of female mate choice in Alpine marmots (Marmota marmota), a socially monogamous mammal where extra‐pair paternity (EPP) occurs. We used 16 microsatellites to describe neutral genetic characteristics and two MHC loci belonging to MHC class I and II as functional genetic characteristics. Our results reveal that (1) neutral and MHC genetic characteristics convey different information in this species, (2) social pairs show a higher MHC class II dissimilarity than expected under random mate choice, and (3) the occurrence of EPP increases when social pairs present a high neutral genetic similarity or dissimilarity but also when they present low MHC class II dissimilarity. Thus, female mate choice is based on both neutral and MHC genetic characteristics, and the genetic characteristics targeted seem to be context dependent (i.e., the genes involved in social mate choice and genetic mate choice differ). We emphasize the need for empirical studies of mate choice in the wild using both neutral and MHC genetic characteristics because whether neutral and functional genetic characteristics convey similar information is not universal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The design, calibration, and installation of disruption halo current sensors for the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak are described in this article. All the sensors are Rogowski coils that surround conducting structures, and all the signals are analog integrated. Coils with two different cross-section sizes have been fabricated, and their mutual inductances are calibrated. Sensors have been installed to measure halo currents in several different parts of both the upper divertor (tungsten) and lower divertor (graphite) at several toroidal locations. Initial measurements from disruptions show that the halo current diagnostics are working well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Covering: 2000 to 2014 This review highlights the broad range of science that has arisen from the synthesis of coumarin-linked and fused heterocycle derivatives. Specific topics include their synthesis and biological activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reproductive success is often difficult to ascertain in reptiles because of inconspicuous reproductive behaviors such as courtship that occurs in aquatic habitats and cryptic breeding outcomes such as multiple paternity and sperm storage. We corroborated field observations of mating behavior with genetic parentage analysis to assess the mating system and reproductive success in the rare Blanding's Turtle (Emydoidea blandingii) within a fragmented landscape in Will County, Illinois. During four consecutive years of radio-telemetry monitoring, we observed promiscuous mating behavior among males and females. Parentage was strongly skewed (one male sired 38% of 272 offspring) and multiple paternity was rare (11% of 28 clutches). Both males and females produced offspring with multiple individuals over the course of the study, but parentage did not always correspond with observed mating attempts; only 41% of male mating attempts observed in the field corresponded with sired offspring. For males, number of female mates inferred from paternity analysis was positively correlated with total number of offspring sired. No correlation was found between relatedness of observed mating pairs and hatching success. Repeat paternities in clutches were detected among years, with one confirmed instance of across-season sperm storage. High variation in reproductive success and low levels of multiple paternity in Blanding's Turtle in Will County compared to other areas may be attributed to habitat modification, small population size, and disruption of the mating system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

HFCs (heterozygosity-fitness correlations) measure the direct relationship between an individual's genetic diversity and fitness. The effects of parental heterozygosity and the environment on HFCs are currently under-researched. We investigated these in a high-density U.K. population of European badgers ( Meles meles), using a multimodel capture-mark-recapture framework and 35 microsatellite loci. We detected interannual variation in first-year, but not adult, survival probability. Adult females had higher annual survival probabilities than adult males. Cubs with more heterozygous fathers had higher first-year survival, but only in wetter summers; there was no relationship with individual or maternal heterozygosity. Moist soil conditions enhance badger food supply (earthworms), improving survival. In dryer years, higher indiscriminate mortality rates appear to mask differential heterozygosity-related survival effects. This paternal interaction was significant in the most supported model; however, the model-averaged estimate had a relative importance of 0.50 and overlapped zero slightly. First-year survival probabilities were not correlated with the inbreeding coefficient ( f); however, small sample sizes limited the power to detect inbreeding depression. Correlations between individual heterozygosity and inbreeding were weak, in line with published meta-analyses showing that HFCs tend to be weak. We found support for general rather than local heterozygosity effects on first-year survival probability, and g2 indicated that our markers had power to detect inbreeding. We emphasize the importance of assessing how environmental stressors can influence the magnitude and direction of HFCs and of considering how parental genetic diversity can affect fitness-related traits, which could play an important role in the evolution of mate choice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new type of Faraday cup, capable of detecting high energy charged particles produced in a high intensity laser-matter interaction environment, has recently been developed and demonstrated as a real-time detector based on the time-of-flight technique. An array of these Faraday cups was designed and constructed to cover different observation angles with respect to the target normal direction. Thus, it allows reconstruction of the spatial distribution of ion current density in the subcritical plasma region and the ability to visualise its time evolution through time-of-flight measurements, which cannot be achieved with standard laser optical interferometry. This is a unique method for two-dimensional visualisation of ion currents from laser-generated plasmas. A technical description of the new type of Faraday cup is introduced along with an ad hoc data analysis procedure. Experimental results obtained during campaigns at the Petawatt High-Energy Laser for Heavy Ion Experiments (GSI, Darmstadt) and at the Prague Asterix Laser System (AS CR) are presented. Advantages and limitations of the used diagnostic system are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We introduce an upgraded version of a tomographical system which is built up from Absolute Extreme Ultraviolet-type (AXUV) detectors and has been installed on the Tokamak à Configuration Variable (TCV). The system is suitable for the investigation of fast radiative processes usually observed in magnetically confined high-temperature plasmas. The upgrade consists in the detector protection by movable shutters, some modifications to correct original design errors and the improvement in the data evaluation techniques. The short-term sensitivity degradation of the detectors, which is caused by the plasma radiation itself, has been monitored and found to be severe. The results provided by the system are consistent with the measurements obtained with the usual plasma radiation diagnostics installed on TCV. Additionally, the coupling between core plasma radiation and plasma-wall interaction is revealed. This was impossible with other available diagnostics on TCV. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The pursuits of white features and white fleeces free of pigmented fibre have been important selection objectives for many sheep breeds. The cause and inheritance of non-white colour patterns in sheep has been studied since the early 19th century. Discovery of genetic causes, especially those which predispose pigmentation in white sheep, may lead to more accurate selection tools for improved apparel wool. This article describes an extended QTL study for 13 skin and fibre pigmentation traits in sheep. A total of 19 highly significant, 10 significant and seven suggestive QTL were identified in a QTL mapping experiment using an Awassi × Merino × Merino backcross sheep population. All QTL on chromosome 2 exceeded a LOD score of greater than 4 (range 4.4-30.1), giving very strong support for a major gene for pigmentation on this chromosome. Evidence of epistatic interactions was found for QTL for four traits on chromosomes 2 and 19. The ovine TYRP1 gene on OAR 2 was sequenced as a strong positional candidate gene. A highly significant association ( P < 0.01) of grandparental haplotypes across nine segregating SNP/microsatellite markers including one non-synonymous SNP with pigmentation traits could be shown. Up to 47% of the observed variation in pigmentation was accounted for by models using TYRP1 haplotypes and 83% for models with interactions between two QTL probabilities, offering scope for marker-assisted selection for these traits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Oesophageal carcinoma remains one of the most common forms of cancer. Resection in the form of oesophagectomy and gastric interposition remains the standard surgical treatment and is associated with a high rate of post-operative morbidity. We report a case of a 71-year old male who underwent successful Ivor-Lewis oesophageal resection and developed life-threatening haemorrhage 2 weeks post-op, attributed to an arterial-oesophageal fistula. The patient was transferred to a specialist ENT centre with ligation of branches of the carotid artery, but intermittent bleeding continued. Following transfer to a specialist oesophago-gastric unit, repeated angiography was required to image the point of bleeding, which was embolised via percutaneous technique. The etiology, presentation, diagnosis and management of arterial-oesophageal fistulae are discussed, along with review of existing reports of similar complications and treatment options. A multidisciplinary approach, along with timely and often repeated imaging, is required in the management of arterial-oesophageal fistulae. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Androdioecy (the coexistence of males and hermaphrodites) is considered a transitional state derived from pure hermaphroditism or dioecy, but the processes selecting for this rare breeding system are unclear, particularly in animals. In androdioecious species, the proportion of males in relation to hermaphrodites is usually so reduced that it is not known whether there is scope for mate choice, particularly when simultaneous hermaphrodites can self-fertilize. We investigated the potential role of male mate choice in the persistence of androdioecy in animals using a self-fertilizing androdioecious fish (Kryptolebias marmoratus) as a model. Hermaphrodites preferred to associate with males but showed no preference based on genetic similarity. In contrast, males displayed a strong preference for genetically dissimilar hermaphrodites, based, apparently, on olfactory cues. We suggest that disassortative male mate choice could be a critical factor in stabilizing androdioecy in cases where high selfing rates are associated with inbreeding depression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A unique in situ calibration technique has been used to spatially calibrate and characterize the extensive new magnetic diagnostic set and close-fitting conducting wall of the High Beta Tokamak-Extended Pulse (HBT-EP) experiment. A new set of 216 Mirnov coils has recently been installed inside the vacuum chamber of the device for high-resolution measurements of magnetohydrodynamic phenomena including the effects of eddy currents in the nearby conducting wall. The spatial positions of these sensors are calibrated by energizing several large in situ calibration coils in turn, and using measurements of the magnetic fields produced by the various coils to solve for each sensor's position. Since the calibration coils are built near the nominal location of the plasma current centroid, the technique is referred to as an 'artificial plasma' calibration. The fitting procedure for the sensor positions is described, and results of the spatial calibration are compared with those based on metrology. The time response of the sensors is compared with the evolution of the artificial plasma current to deduce the eddy current contribution to each signal. This is compared with simulations using the VALEN electromagnetic code, and the modeled copper thickness profiles of the HBT-EP conducting wall are adjusted to better match experimental measurements of the eddy current decay. Finally, the multiple coils of the artificial plasma system are also used to directly calibrate a non-uniformly wound Fourier Rogowski coil on HBT-EP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A scan involving 1134 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) from 709 expressed genes was used to assess the potential impact of artificial selection for height growth on the genetic diversity of white spruce. Two case populations of different sizes simulating different family selection intensities (K = 13% and 5%, respectively) were delineated from the Quebec breeding program. Their genetic diversity and allele frequencies were compared with those of control populations of the same size and geographic origin to assess the effect of increasing the selection intensity. The two control populations were also compared to assess the effect of reducing the sampling size. On one hand, in all pairwise comparisons, genetic diversity parameters were comparable and no alleles were lost in the case populations compared with the control ones, except for few rare alleles in the large case population. Also, the distribution of allele frequencies did not change significantly (P ≤ 0.05) between the populations compared, but ten and nine SNPs (0.8%) exhibited significant differences in frequency (P ≤ 0.01) between case and control populations of large and small sizes, respectively. Results of association tests between breeding values for height at 15 years of age and these SNPs supported the hypothesis of a potential effect of selection on the genes harboring these SNPs. On the other hand, contrary to expectations, there was no evidence that selection induced an increase in linkage disequilibrium in genes potentially affected by selection. These results indicate that neither the reduction in the sampling size nor the increase in selection intensity was sufficient to induce a significant change in the genetic diversity of the selected populations. Apparently, no loci were under strong selection pressure, confirming that the genetic control of height growth in white spruce involves many genes with small effects. Hence, selection for height growth at the present intensities did not appear to compromise background genetic diversity but, as predicted by theory, effects were detected at a few gene SNPs harboring intermediate allele frequencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The article presents a study that investigated the genetic mating system of Upland Sandpiper at Konza Prairie Biological Station in northeastern Kansas and the effect of spatial patterns of philopatry and nest placement on opportunities for extra-pair mating. It states that researchers found high levels of heterozygosity through six microsatellite markers. It notes that these markers were also used to estimate the rates of extra-pair paternity in 58 family groups.