Aspects of the ecology and behaviour of the thick-tailed bushbaby Galago crassicaudatus

A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Science University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Johannesburg 1974The extant prosimian primates, with the exception of some lemurs of the Republic of Malagasy, are nocturnal arid secretive in their habits. Several lines of evidence suggest that they have remained similar to the basal orimate stock, but their study under natural conditions has, until recent'y, been largely overlooked. Only eight prosimian species remain on the Continent of Africa. Two relatively slow-moving lorises (Perodicticus potto and Arctocebus calabarensis) and three active galagos, or bushbabies (Euoticus elegantulus; Galago alleni and G. demidovii) are confined to the equatorial forest belt, while three other galagos (Euoticus inustis ; G. crassicaudatus and G. senegalensis) show adaptations for more open environments. A field study of G. crassicaudatus has been carried out in three distinct habitat types in southern Africa by means of direct observation with red light. Aspects of the ecology and behaviour of this species are presented and compared with those of other lorisoids and lemurs, particularly G. senegalensis, which is sympatric in some areas. In the absence of an adequate fossil record a consideration of species typical behaviour patterns and functional morphology leads to inferences concerning the probable behavioural and ecological condition of ancestral species, and conclusions regarding the separation and divergencies of recent forms. The morphological characteristics of G. crassicaudatus conform to the typical Galagine pattern of adaptation for active leaping progression but some features of their benaviour are reminiscent of members of the Lorisinae, with which they show a superficial similarity in their karyotype. It is concluded that the species directly ancestral to G. crassicaudatus were smaller and more active leaping animals which underwent a secondary, behavioural, adaptation towards slower quadrupedal locomotion. It is assumed that this was accompanied by an increase in body weight which facilitated infant transport on the fur leading to closer contact between mother and offspring and a better developed social group structure. On the basis of this interpretation the behavioural similarities with the Lorisinae are seen as the result of convergence and not due to a close phylogenetic relationship

A conceptual approach to gene expression analysis enhanced by visual analytics

The analysis of gene expression data is a complex task for biologists wishing to understand the role of genes in the formation of diseases such as cancer. Biologists need greater support when trying to discover, and comprehend, new relationships within their data. In this paper, we describe an approach to the analysis of gene expression data where overlapping groupings are generated by Formal Concept Analysis and interactively analyzed in a tool called CUBIST. The CUBIST workflow involves querying a semantic database and converting the result into a formal context, which can be simplified to make it manageable, before it is visualized as a concept lattice and associated charts

Programming and Problem Solving: A Transcript of the Spring 1999 Class

This report contains edited transcripts of the discussion held in Columbia's Programming and Problem-Solving course, taught as W4995-01during Spring 1999. The class notes were taken by the teaching assistant so that students could focus on the class material. As a service to both the students and to others who would like to get some insight into the class experience, we have drawn all of the class handouts, discussion, and some of the results into this technical report

On the prevalence of bridged macrocyclic pyrroloindolines formed in regiodivergent alkylations of tryptophan.

A Friedel-Crafts alkylation is described that efficiently transforms tryptophan-containing peptides into macrocycles of varying ring connectivity. Factors are surveyed that influence the distribution of regioisomers, with a focus on indole C3-alkylations leading to bridged endo-pyrroloindolines. We probe the stability and stereochemistry of these pyrroloindolines, study their rearrangement to C2-linked indolic macrocycles, and demonstrate a scalable, stereoselective synthesis of this compound class. Placing the macrocyclization in sequence with further template-initiated annulation leads to extraordinary polycyclic products and further demonstrates the potential for this chemistry to drive novel peptidomimetic lead discovery programs

Nucleotide sequence of the luxA gene of Vibrio harveyi and the complete amino acid sequence of the alpha subunit of bacterial luciferase

The nucleotide sequence of the 1.85-kilobase EcoRI fragment from Vibrio harveyi that was cloned using a mixed-sequence synthetic oligonucleotide probe (Cohn, D. H., Ogden, R. C., Abelson, J. N., Baldwin, T. O., Nealson, K. H., Simon, M. I., and Mileham, A. J. (1983) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 80, 120-123) has been determined. The alpha subunit-coding region (luxA) was found to begin at base number 707 and end at base number 1771. The alpha subunit has a calculated molecular weight of 40,108 and comprises a total of 355 amino acid residues. There are 34 base pairs separating the start of the alpha subunit structural gene and a 669-base open reading frame extending from the proximal EcoRI site. At the 3' end of the luxA coding region there are 26 bases between the end of the structural gene and the start of the luxB structural gene. Approximately two-thirds of the alpha subunit was sequenced by protein chemical techniques. The amino acid sequence implied by the DNA sequence, with few exceptions, confirmed the chemically determined sequence. Regions of the alpha subunit thought to comprise the active center were found to reside in two discrete and relatively basic regions, one from around residues 100-115 and the second from around residues 280-295

Phonon Density of States and Anharmonicity of UO2

Phonon density of states (PDOS) measurements have been performed on polycrystalline UO2 at 295 and 1200 K using time-of-flight inelastic neutron scattering to investigate the impact of anharmonicity on the vibrational spectra and to benchmark ab initio PDOS simulations performed on this strongly correlated Mott-insulator. Time-of-flight PDOS measurements include anharmonic linewidth broadening inherently and the factor of ~ 7 enhancement of the oxygen spectrum relative to the uranium component by the neutron weighting increases sensitivity to the oxygen-dominated optical phonon modes. The first-principles simulations of quasi-harmonic PDOS spectra were neutron-weighted and anharmonicity was introduced in an approximate way by convolution with wavevector-weighted averages over our previously measured phonon linewidths for UO2 that are provided in numerical form. Comparisons between the PDOS measurements and the simulations show reasonable agreement overall, but they also reveal important areas of disagreement for both high and low temperatures. The discrepancies stem largely from an ~ 10 meV compression in the overall bandwidth (energy range) of the oxygen-dominated optical phonons in the simulations. A similar linewidth-convoluted comparison performed with the PDOS spectrum of Dolling et al. obtained by shell-model fitting to their historical phonon dispersion measurements shows excellent agreement with the time-of-flight PDOS measurements reported here. In contrast, we show by comparisons of spectra in linewidth-convoluted form that recent first-principles simulations for UO2 fail to account for the PDOS spectrum determined from the measurements of Dolling et al. These results demonstrate PDOS measurements to be stringent tests for ab initio simulations of phonon physics in UO2 and they indicate further the need for advances in theory to address lattice dynamics of UO2.Comment: Text slightly modified, results unchange

Developing supervisory competence: Preliminary data on the impact of CBT supervision training

Clinical supervision is key to the delivery and governance of effective psychological work. We place increasing emphasis on the evidence base in our clinical decision making, and yet there is no comparable body of information to inform our supervisory practice. This is a serious problem for psychological therapists; there is an urgent need for theoretically driven and empirically evaluated approaches to supervision, and the training of such skills. This preliminary evaluation examined the impact of a 5-day training designed for Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) supervisors new to the role. A within-subject, repeated-measures design was used to compare self-assessed supervision competencies over the course of training. Twenty-eight IAPT supervisors completed 5 days’ training based on the Supervision Competencies Framework and IAPT Supervision Guidance. Significant improvements were found in ratings of generic, specific, applied and meta-supervision competencies, as well as overall competency. This evaluation gives preliminary support for the impact of training on supervisory competencies. There are clear limitations, particularly the lack of objective measures and comparison training. Nevertheless, in the context of a very limited evidence base to date, the study contributes to a more robust approach to developing supervisory competence in clinical practice