Migration Dynamics of Northern Saw-whet Owls in the Inner Piedmont of Central Virginia

Undergraduate Basi

Do More Expensive Wines Taste Better? Evidence from a Large Sample of Blind Tastings

Individuals who are unaware of the price do not derive more enjoyment from more expensive wine. In a sample of more than 6,000 blind tastings, we find that the correlation between price and overall rating is small and negative, suggesting that individuals on average enjoy more expensive wines slightly less. For individuals with wine training, however, we find indications of a positive, or at any rate non-negative, correlation. Our results are robust to the inclusion of individual fixed effects, and are not driven by outliers: when omitting the top and bottom deciles of the price distribution, our qualitative results are strengthened, and the statistical significance is improved even further. Our results indicate that both the prices of wines and wine recommendations by experts may be poor guides for non-expert wine consumers.Wine; price/quality relation; expertise

DO MORE EXPENSIVE WINES TASTE BETTER? EVIDENCE FROM A LARGE SAMPLE OF BLIND TASTINGS

Individuals who are unaware of the price do not derive more enjoyment from more expensive wine. In a sample of more than 6,000 blind tastings, we find that the correlation between price and overall rating is small and negative, suggesting that individuals on average enjoy more expensive wines slightly less. For individuals with wine training, however, we find indications of a positive relationship between price and enjoyment. Our results are robust to the inclusion of individual fixed effects, and are not driven by outliers: when omitting the top and bottom deciles of the price distribution, our qualitative results are strengthened, and the statistical significance is improved further. Our results indicate that both the prices of wines and wine recommendations by experts may be poor guides for non-expert wine consumers.wine quality, wire tasting, wine prices, Demand and Price Analysis,

Why Chromatic Imaging Matters

During the last two decades, the first generation of beam combiners at the Very Large Telescope Interferometer has proved the importance of optical interferometry for high-angular resolution astrophysical studies in the near- and mid-infrared. With the advent of 4-beam combiners at the VLTI, the u-v coverage per pointing increases significantly, providing an opportunity to use reconstructed images as powerful scientific tools. Therefore, interferometric imaging is already a key feature of the new generation of VLTI instruments, as well as for other interferometric facilities like CHARA and JWST. It is thus imperative to account for the current image reconstruction capabilities and their expected evolutions in the coming years. Here, we present a general overview of the current situation of optical interferometric image reconstruction with a focus on new wavelength-dependent information, highlighting its main advantages and limitations. As an Appendix we include several cookbooks describing the usage and installation of several state-of-the art image reconstruction packages. To illustrate the current capabilities of the software available to the community, we recovered chromatic images, from simulated MATISSE data, using the MCMC software SQUEEZE. With these images, we aim at showing the importance of selecting good regularization functions and their impact on the reconstruction.Comment: Accepted for publication in Experimental Astronomy as part of the topical collection: Future of Optical-infrared Interferometry in Europ

Toward In-Context Teaching: Adapting Examples to Students' Misconceptions

When a teacher provides examples for a student to study, these examples must be informative, enabling a student to progress from their current state toward a target concept or skill. Good teachers must therefore simultaneously infer what students already know and adapt their teaching to students' changing state of knowledge. There is increasing interest in using computational models, particularly large language models, as pedagogical tools. As students, language models in particular have shown a remarkable ability to adapt to new tasks given small numbers of examples. But how effectively can these models adapt as teachers to students of different types? To study this question, we introduce a suite of models and evaluation methods we call AdapT. AdapT has two components: (1) a collection of simulated Bayesian student models that can be used for evaluation of automated teaching methods; (2) a platform for evaluation with human students, to characterize the real-world effectiveness of these methods. We additionally introduce (3) AToM, a new probabilistic model for adaptive teaching that jointly infers students' past beliefs and optimizes for the correctness of future beliefs. In evaluations of simulated students across three learning domains (fraction arithmetic, English morphology, function learning), AToM systematically outperforms LLM-based and standard Bayesian teaching models. In human experiments, both AToM and LLMs outperform non-adaptive random example selection. Our results highlight both the difficulty of the adaptive teaching task and the potential of learned adaptive models for solving it

Polymorphisms in Plasmodium falciparum chloroquine resistance transporter and multidrug resistance 1 genes: parasite risk factors that affect treatment outcomes for P. falciparum malaria after artemether-lumefantrine and artesunate-amodiaquine.

Adequate clinical and parasitologic cure by artemisinin combination therapies relies on the artemisinin component and the partner drug. Polymorphisms in the Plasmodium falciparum chloroquine resistance transporter (pfcrt) and P. falciparum multidrug resistance 1 (pfmdr1) genes are associated with decreased sensitivity to amodiaquine and lumefantrine, but effects of these polymorphisms on therapeutic responses to artesunate-amodiaquine (ASAQ) and artemether-lumefantrine (AL) have not been clearly defined. Individual patient data from 31 clinical trials were harmonized and pooled by using standardized methods from the WorldWide Antimalarial Resistance Network. Data for more than 7,000 patients were analyzed to assess relationships between parasite polymorphisms in pfcrt and pfmdr1 and clinically relevant outcomes after treatment with AL or ASAQ. Presence of the pfmdr1 gene N86 (adjusted hazards ratio = 4.74, 95% confidence interval = 2.29 - 9.78, P < 0.001) and increased pfmdr1 copy number (adjusted hazards ratio = 6.52, 95% confidence interval = 2.36-17.97, P < 0.001 : were significant independent risk factors for recrudescence in patients treated with AL. AL and ASAQ exerted opposing selective effects on single-nucleotide polymorphisms in pfcrt and pfmdr1. Monitoring selection and responding to emerging signs of drug resistance are critical tools for preserving efficacy of artemisinin combination therapies; determination of the prevalence of at least pfcrt K76T and pfmdr1 N86Y should now be routine

Sécurité Alimentaire au Bénin: Les Grandes Familles de Pratiques Agro-écologiques Adoptées dans les Zones Cotonnières

Dans le but de contribuer de façon durable à la sécurité alimentaire des ménages, cinq (05) grandes familles de pratiques agro-écologiques (Gestion Intégrée de l’Agriculture et de l’Elevage (GIAE), Gestion Intégrée de la Fertilité des Sols (GIFS), Agro-Foresterie (AF), Conservation des Eaux et du Sol (CES), Agriculture de Conservation (AC)) ont été introduites, depuis les années 90, dans les zones cotonnières au Bénin. Trente ans après leur introduction, il importe d’identifier les grandes familles de pratiques agro-écologiques réellement adoptées par les producteurs. Ainsi, à travers un questionnaire semi-structuré, les données ont été collectées auprès de 300 producteurs de coton choisis au hasard et répartis dans trois communes (Banikoara, Sinendé et Djidja) représentatives des trois zones cotonnières (haut nord, centre-nord et sud) du Bénin. Une Analyse Factorielle des Correspondantes (AFC) a été réalisée avec le logiciel R i386 4.0.4. Les résultats de l’AFC montrent que, sur les cinq (05) grandes familles de pratiques agro-écologiques introduites dans les zones cotonnières au Bénin, trois (03) grandes familles ((GIFS), (GIAE) et (AF)) ont été fortement adoptées. Par contre, les pratiques de la grande famille du CES ont été marginalement adoptées et celles de l’AC n’ont pas du tout été adoptées dans ces zones. &nbsp; In order to contribute in a sustainable way to household food security, five (05) major families of agro-ecological practices (Integrated Management of Agriculture and Livestock (GIAE), Integrated Management of Soil Fertility (GIFS), Agro-Forestry (AF), Water and Soil Conservation (CES), Conservation Agriculture (CA)) have been introduced since the 1990s in the cotton-growing areas of Benin. Thirty years after their introduction, it is important to identify the main families of agro-ecological practices actually adopted by producers. Thus, through a semi-structured questionnaire, data were collected from 300 cotton producers chosen at random and distributed in three communes (Banikoara, Sinendé and Djidja) representative of the three cotton-growing areas (upper north, center-north and south ) from Benin. A Corresponding Factor Analysis (FCA) was performed with R i386 4.0.4 software. The results of the AFC show that, out of the five (05) large families of agro-ecological practices introduced in cotton-growing areas in Benin, three (03) large families ((GIFS), (GIAE) and (AF)) have been strongly adopted. On the other hand, the practices of the large SWH family have been marginally adopted and those of CA have not been adopted at all in these areas

Extending genome-wide association study (GWAS) results to test classic anthropological hypotheses: Human third molar agenesis and the ‘probable mutation effect’

A genome-wide association study (GWAS) identifies regions of the genome that likely affect the variable state of a phenotype of interest. These regions can then be studied with population genetic methods to make inferences about the evolutionary history of the trait. There are increasing opportunities to use GWAS results – even from clinically-motivated studies – for tests of classic anthropological hypotheses. One such example, presented here as a case study for this approach, involves tooth development variation related to dental crowding. Specifically, more than 10% of humans fail to develop one or more permanent third molars (M3 agenesis). M3 presence/absence variation within human populations has a significant genetic component (heritability estimate h2 = 0.47). The evolutionary significance of M3 agenesis has a long history of anthropological speculation. First, the modern frequency of M3 agenesis could reflect a relaxation of selection pressure to retain larger and more teeth following the origins of cooking and other food-softening behaviors (i.e., the genetic drift hypothesis, or classically, the “probable mutation effect”). Alternatively, commensurate with increasing hominin brain size and facial shortening, M3 agenesis may have conferred an adaptive fitness advantage if the risk of M3 impaction and potential health complications was reduced (i.e., the positive selection hypothesis). A recent GWAS identified 70 genetic loci that may play a role in human M3 presence/absence variation. To begin evaluating the contrasting evolutionary scenarios for M3 agenesis, we used the integrated haplotype score (iHS) statistic to test whether those 70 genetic regions are enriched for genomic signatures of recent positive selection. None of our findings are inconsistent with the null hypothesis of genetic drift to explain the high prevalence of human M3 agenesis. This result might suggest that M3 impaction rates for modern humans don’t accurately retrodict those of the pre-agricultural past. Alternatively, the absence of support for the positive selection hypothesis could reflect a lack of power; this analysis should be repeated following the completion of more comprehensive GWAS analyses for human M3 agenesis