Understanding ontogenetic patterns is important in vertebrate paleontology because the assessed skeletal maturity of an individual often has implications for paleobiogeography, species synonymy, ...paleobiology, and body size evolution of major clades. Further, for many groups the only means of confidently determining ontogenetic status of an organism is through the destructive process of histological sampling. Although the ontogenetic patterns of Late Jurassic and Cretaceous dinosaurs are better understood, knowledge of the ontogeny of the earliest dinosaurs is relatively poor because most species‐level growth series known from these groups are small (usually, maximum of n ~ 5) and incomplete. To investigate the morphological changes that occur during ontogeny in early dinosaurs, I used ontogenetic sequence analysis (OSA) to reconstruct developmental sequences of morphological changes in the postcranial ontogeny of the early theropods Coelophysis bauri and Megapnosaurus rhodesiensis, both of which are known from large sample sizes (n = 174 and 182, respectively). I found a large amount of sequence polymorphism (i.e. intraspecific variation in developmental patterns) in both taxa, and especially in C. bauri, which possesses this variation in every element analyzed. Megapnosaurus rhodesiensis is similar, but it possesses no variation in the sequence of development of ontogenetic characters in the tibia and tarsus. Despite the large amount of variation in development, many characters occur consistently earlier or later in ontogeny and could therefore be important morphological features for assessing the relative maturity of other early theropods. Additionally, there is a phylogenetic signal to the order in which homologous characters appear in ontogeny, with homologous characters appearing earlier or later in developmental sequences of early theropods and the close relatives of dinosaurs, silesaurids. Many of these morphological features are important characters for the reconstruction of archosaurian phylogeny (e.g. trochanteric shelf). Because these features vary in presence or appearance with ontogeny, these characters should be used with caution when undertaking phylogenetic analyses in these groups, since a specimen may possess certain character states owing to ontogenetic stage, not evolutionary relationships.
Making Ends Meet Griffin, Tessa C
JAMA : the journal of the American Medical Association,
03/2024, Letnik:
331, Številka:
10
Journal Article
Recenzirano
In this narrative medicine essay, a second-year medical student describes how slipping into poverty starting with her father’s myocardial infarction has cast a long shadow that persists even in ...medical school.
The ability of a modern near infra-red laser tape placement system to produce high-quality laminates is investigated by performing short beam strength tests on samples manufactured at different ...process temperatures from 400°C to 600°C at placement rates of 100mm/s and 400mm/s. The temperature history in tape placement is highly dynamic and the correlation between the process control temperature, laser power and the consolidation temperature is not well understood. The complete temperature history was therefore estimated with a previously developed optical-thermal model and validated using long wave infra-red imaging. Short beam strengths equivalent to conventional manufacturing methods were found for placement rates of 400mm/s. Failure modes of the samples were elucidated by scanning electron microscopy of the fracture surfaces. Signs of degradation were observed on samples prepared with a 600°C process temperature at 100mm/s, however none was evidenced at 400mm/s for the same process temperature.
Background: Excessive alcohol drinking continues to be an important health problem. Recent studies from our laboratory and others have demonstrated that animal models of ethanol dependence and ...relapse can contribute to understanding factors that contribute to excessive drinking. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that the amount and duration of ethanol exposure is critical for promoting the escalation in drinking by mice given access to ethanol in a limited access paradigm.
Methods: We used several methods of chronic intermittent ethanol exposure in male C57BL/6J mice that would vary in the amount and duration of exposure to ethanol as indicated by blood ethanol concentrations (BEC). After establishing baseline drinking in the mice using a 2 hours, 2 bottle choice drinking paradigm, each study involved alternating between periods of ethanol exposure and periods of limited access to ethanol (1 cycle) for a total of 3 cycles. In Study 1, mice were allowed extended access (16 hours) to ethanol for oral consumption or remained in the home cage. In Study 2, the ethanol exposure consisted of intragastric gavage of increasing doses of ethanol or isocaloric sucrose as the control. Study 3 compared intragastric gavage combined with pyrazole, an alcohol dehydrogenase inhibitor, with vapor inhalation of ethanol using procedures known to lead to increased drinking in mice. Finally, Study 4 was a retrospective review of several studies conducted in our laboratory using inhalation procedures. The retrospective review encompassed a range of postvapor chamber BEC values and ethanol intakes that would allow a relationship between increased drinking and BEC to be examined.
Results: Allowing mice to drink for longer periods of time did not cause increased drinking in subsequent limited access sessions. Likewise, gastric intubation of ethanol which produced high BEC (>300 mg/dl) with or without pyrazole did not increase drinking. Only the vapor inhalation procedure, which was associated with sustained BEC above 175 mg/dl for the entire exposure period resulted in increased drinking. The retrospective study provided further evidence that sustained BEC levels above 175 mg/dl was critical to the escalation in drinking.
Conclusions: We found that the intensity (amount) and duration of ethanol exposure, indexed by BEC, is critical to produce increased drinking in mice. Specifically, BEC must regularly exceed 175 mg/dl for the escalation in drinking to occur. Future studies will examine neurobiological adaptations that may underlie the increased drinking behavior caused by chronic intermittent ethanol exposure.
Automated placement of thermoplastic-based composite tape is a highly non-isothermal process with temperature gradients often exceeding 1000°C/s. Models for the process often assume that bonding ...ceases below the melting point, however the extreme cooling rates combined with high placement velocities can result in a highly amorphous polymer during consolidation. Bonding below the melting point is generally limited due to the presence of crystallites which impede reptation of the polymer molecules, however in the case of an amorphous state, autohesion should proceed. This paper investigates bonding of carbon-fibre(CF)/PEEK with experimental trials performed where sub-melting point temperatures occur at the nip point. The thermal history was recorded with thermocouples embedded in the substrate. Bond predictions are compared with experimental strengths determined by lap shear measurements. Bonding below the melting point was shown to occur, indicating the processing window could be wider than previously estimated by bonding models, particularly for higher placement rates.
A combined optical-thermal model is presented for near-infrared laser heating of carbon fibre reinforced thermoplastic composites in an automated tape placement process. For the first time a three ...dimensional ray tracing model is presented for a near-infrared laser tape placement process which captures the unique anisotropic scattering behaviour of the composite. Predicted irradiance distributions on the composite are subsequently applied to a 2D non-linear finite element thermal model. It is shown that a shadow is present in the process and causes a significant drop in temperature prior to the consolidation zone. The effect of various source and surface model simplifications was also studied. The modelled temperature profiles agree well with experimental data. Substrate fibre orientation was investigated and found to have only a small influence on the temperature history.
Cross‐fertilisation predominates in eukaryotes, but shifts to self‐fertilisation are common and ecologically and evolutionarily important. Reproductive assurance under outcross gamete limitation is ...one eco‐evolutionary process held responsible for the shift to selfing. Although small effective population size is a situation where selfing plants could theoretically benefit from reproductive assurance, empirical tests of the role of population size are rare. Here, we show that selfing evolved repeatedly at range margins, where historical demographic processes produced low effective population sizes. Outcrossing populations of North American Arabidopsis lyrata have low genetic diversity at geographic margins, with a signature of post‐glacial range expansion in the north and rear‐edge isolation in the south. Selfing populations occur at the margins of two genetic groups and never in their interior. These results corroborate small effective population size as the promoter of self‐fertilisation and have important implications for our understanding of species turnover, range limits and range dynamics.
PDF
