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The genus Thunnus (family Scombridae) comprises eight species of tunas of which all but one are targeted by industrialized fisheries. Although intact individuals of these species can be distinguished by morphological characteristics, researchers and managers often rely on dressed, frozen, juvenile or larval fish samples, which often necessitates the identification of molecular species. Here the authors investigate short amplicon (SA) and unlabelled probe high‐resolution melting analysis (UP‐HRMA) as a low‐cost, high‐throughput molecular genotyping assay capable of distinguishing between albacore tuna (Thunnus alalunga), blackfin tuna (Thunnus atlanticus), bigeye tuna (Thunnus obesus), Atlantic bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus) and yellowfin tuna (Thunnus albacares) in the Gulf of Mexico. Although SA‐HRMA of variable regions in the NADH dehydrogenase subunit 4 (ND4) and subunit 5 (ND5), and subunit 6 (ND6) of the mtDNA genome did yield some species‐specific diagnostic melting curves (e.g., ND4 assay can reliably distinguish Atlantic bluefin tuna), genotype masking produced excessive variation in melting curves for reliable multi‐species identification. To minimize the genotyping masking of SA‐HRMA a 26 base pair long UP containing four SNPs was developed within a 133 bp segment of ND4. The UP‐HRMA is able to reliably distinguish Gulf of Mexico species T. thynnus, T. obesus, T. albacares and T. atlanticus by UP melting temperature at 67, 62, 59 and 57°C, respectively. The developed UP‐HRMA assay is a lower‐cost, higher‐throughput, alternative to previously published molecular assays for tuna identification that can be easily automated for large data sets, including ichthyological larval surveys, fisheries specimens lacking distinguishing morphological characteristics or detection of fraudulent trading of tuna species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Evidence suggests that eating disorders (EDs) may be under‐detected in males. Commonly used measures of EDs such as the Eating Disorder Examination‐Questionnaire (EDE‐Q) were initially developed within female samples, raising concern regarding the extent to which these instruments may be appropriate for detecting EDs in males. The current study used receiver operating characteristic curve analysis to (a) examine the accuracy of the EDE‐Q global score in correctly classifying males with and without clinically significant ED pathology, and (b) establish the optimal EDE‐Q global clinical cutoff for males. Method: Participants were a clinical sample of 245 male ED patients and a control sample of 205 male undergraduates. Results: Eating Disorder Examination‐Questionnaire global scores demonstrated moderate‐high accuracy in predicting ED status (area under the curve = 0.85, 95% CI: 0.82–0.89). The optimal cutoff of 1.68 yielded a sensitivity of 0.77 and specificity of 0.77. Discussion Overall, results provide preliminary support for the discriminant validity of EDE‐Q scores among males. However, concerns remain regarding the measure's ability to comprehensively assess domains of disordered eating most relevant to males. Therefore, careful attention to the possibility for measurement bias and continued evaluation of the scale in males is encouraged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective Evidence indicates that males account for a significant minority of patients with eating disorders (EDs). However, prior research has been limited by inclusion of small and predominantly non-clinical samples of males. This study aimed to (1) provide male clinical norms for widely used ED measures (Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire [EDE-Q] and Eating Disorder Inventory-3 [EDI-3]) and (2) examine sex differences in overall ED psychopathology. Method Participants were 386 male and 1,487 female patients with an ED diagnosis aged 16 years and older who completed the EDE-Q and EDI-3 upon admission to a residential or partial hospital ED treatment program. Results Normative data were calculated for the EDE-Q (global and subscales) and the EDI-3 (drive for thinness, body dissatisfaction, and bulimia). Analyses of variance (ANOVAs) used to examine sex, ED diagnosis, and their interaction in relation to overall ED psychopathology revealed a consistent pattern of greater severity among females for ED psychopathology. Discussion This study provides clinical norms on the EDE-Q and the EDI-3 for males with clinically diagnosed EDs. It is unclear whether the greater severity observed in females reflects qualitative differences in ED presentation or true quantitative differences in ED severity. Additional research examining the underlying nature of these differences and utilizing male-specific ED measures with clinical samples is warranted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing availability and use of high-frequency water quality sensors has enabled unprecedented observations of temporal variability in water chemistry in aquatic ecosystems. However, we remain limited by the prohibitive costs of these probes to explore spatial variability in natural systems. To overcome this challenge, we have developed a novel auto-sampler system that sequentially pumps water from up to 12 different sites located within a 12 m radius to a single water quality probe. This system is able to generate high temporal frequency in situ water chemistry data from multiple replicated units during experiments as well as multiple sites and depths within natural aquatic ecosystems. Thus, with one water quality probe, we are able to observe rapid changes in water chemistry concentrations over time and space. Here, we describe the coupled multiplexer-probe system and its performance in two case studies: a mesocosm experiment examining the effects of water current velocity on nitrogen dynamics in constructed wetland sediment cores and a whole-ecosystem manipulation of redox conditions in a reservoir. In both lotic and lentic case studies, we observed minute-scale changes in nutrient concentrations, which provide new insight on the variability of biogeochemical processes. Moreover, in the reservoir, we were able to measure rapid changes in metal concentrations, in addition to those of nutrients, in response to changes in redox. Consequently, we believe that this coupled system holds great promise for measuring biogeochemical fluxes in a diverse suite of aquatic ecosystems and experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The introduction of portable in situ ultraviolet-visual spectrometers has made possible the collection of water quality parameters at a high frequency in dynamic systems such as tidal marshes. he usefulness of this technology is inhibited by fouling of the instrument's optics. In this study, a spectrometer fitted with manufacturer-recommended compressed air optical cleaning was installed in a brackish marsh to determine if fouling interfered with measurements between bi- weekly servicing. During a 2-wk period, the absorbance measured in air at 220 nm increased from 9 to 549 m-1, indicating major fouling. An antifouling system was developed that reduced the time of exposure of the optics to stream water and used a pressurized fresh water cleaning. After implementation of the system, the absorbance in air increased to at most 63 m-1 after 2 wk of data collection. he dramatic reduction in fouling will allow quality long-term data to be collected using this technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this article is to examine the relationship between religious involvement, gauged mainly in terms of affiliation and frequency of attendance at services, and abortion attitudes among three major Hispanic subgroups: Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, and Cuban Americans.The study analyzes data from the Latino National Political Survey, a sample of over 2,700 U.S. Hispanics completed in 1990.Committed (i.e., regularly attending) Hispanic Protestants, most of whom belong to conservative groups, are more strongly pro-life than any other segment of the Latino population, and are much more likely than others to support a total abortion ban. Committed Catholics also tend to hold pro-life views, but they are relatively more likely to endorse an abortion ban that includes exceptions for rape, incest, and threats to the mother's life. Less devoted Catholics and Protestants generally do not differ from religiously unaffiliated Hispanics in their abortion views. There are also modest variations in the links between religious involvement and abortion attitudes across the three Latino subgroups.Religious factors are highly important predictors of Hispanics' preferences regarding abortion policies. Contrary to some previous discussions, it is committed Protestants, more so than Catholics, who are the staunchest opponents of abortion in the Latino population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing body of evidence shows that minorities are disproportionately the targets of police brutality, but important theoretical questions about the causes of that inequity remain unanswered. One promising line of research involves structural-level analyses of the incidence of police brutality complaints; however, existing studies do not incorporate variables from alternative theoretical explanations. Drawing on the community accountability hypothesis and the threat hypothesis, we tested the predictions of two prominent structural-level explanations of police brutality in a study of civil rights criminal complaints. The study included cities of 150,000+ population (n = 114). The findings reveal that two community accountability variables — ratio percent Hispanic citizens to percent Hispanic police officers and the presence of citizen review — were related positively to police brutality complaints, partially supporting that perspective. Two threat hypothesis measures of threatening people — percent black and percent Hispanic (in the South-west) — were related positively to complaints, as predicted. The relative degree of support for the two hypotheses is assessed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Macrolevel studies of police killings generally focus on testing the conflict and community violence hypotheses. This research generally supports both the conflict proposition that minority threat is related to police violence and the community violence proposition that locations with higher levels of violence have a greater number of police-caused homicides. However, some of the most common proposals to reduce police-citizen violence, namely changing police personnel, are largely overlooked in existing research. The majority of studies that have examined police homicides do not acknowledge the possibility that the personnel composition of police agencies may affect levels of police violence. The current article extends previous lines of research on police-caused homicides by including measures of the personnel composition of police agencies as predictors of police-caused homicides. More specifically, this study examined the influence of minority and female representation within large municipal police agencies on police-caused homicides. The findings show that more diversified departments do not have significantly lower levels of police-caused homicides. The results do, however, support both the conflict and community violence propositions. Furthermore, the pattern of findings suggests the existence of a generalized threat in the nation's largest cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High-grade ductile tectonites of the Precambrian Nimrod Group in the central Transantarctic Mountains form the Miller Range shear zone (MRSZ). With no exposed boundaries, this zone has a minimum structural thickness of 12-15 km. Shear-sense indicators record consistent top-to-the-SE, or left-lateral, shear within the NW striking, moderately SW dipping zone. Cylindrical folds with axes normal to elongation lineation (Le) are kinematically consistent with other shear indicators. They may represent early stages in the development of subordinate noncylindrical sheath folds, which indicate locally high bulk ductile strain and a moderate strain gradient. Pervasive, open to tight cylindrical folds with axes parallel to Le formed during shear and may reflect a component of constrictional strain. Quartz c axis fabrics from micaceous quartzites show asymmetric single girdles evident of dominantly rhombohedral slip, with limited basal-plane slip, affirming both the consistency of shear sense and high-grade syn-kinematic conditions. Deformation did not persist during subamphibolite facies cooling, as shown by (1) a lack of basal-plane slip in ductilely deformed quartz, (2) a lack of quartz subgrains and grain shape-preferred orientation, and (3) the presence of oriented muscovite 'fish' included within polygonal quartz grains, which show that quartz grain boundaries migrated and annealed under static conditions following ductile shear. From the uniform Le orientation and consistent shear sense, we interpret that ductile deformation resulted from a single, kinematically simple, left-lateral (top-to-the-SE) shear event. Together, the scale, high total strains (γ ≥ 5), fabric uniformity, and the widespread presence of asymmetric microstructures formed at high temperatures, all indicate that strain rates within the MRSZ were high and that it represents a major crustal structure. Orogen-parallel displacements within this zone during the latest Neoproterozoic to Early Cambrian were at a high angle to penecontemporaneous orogen-normal contraction in outboard supracrustal rocks, suggesting that the Neoproterozoic to early Paleozoic plate margin of Antarctica was characterized by left-oblique convergence in which strain within the orogen was partitioned into deep-level strike slip and shallow-level contraction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]