Are personalities genetically determined? Inferences from subsocial spiders.

BACKGROUND:Recent research has revealed that polymorphic behavioral strategies shape intra-and interspecific interactions and contribute to fitness in many animal species. A better understanding of the proximate mechanisms underlying these behavioral syndromes will enhance our grasp this phenomenon. Spiders in the genus Anelosimus exhibit inter-individual behavioral variation on several axes: individuals have consistent responses to stimuli (e.g. bold vs. shy individuals) and they are subsocial (exhibiting extended maternal care and sibling cooperation) across most of their range, but they sometimes form permanent social groups in northern temperate regions. Here, we seek genetic variants associated with boldness and with social structure in a socially polymorphic population of the spider Anelosimus studiosus. We also develop preliminary genomic resources, including a genome assembly and linkage map, that support this and future genomic research on this group. RESULTS:Remarkably, we identify a small genomic scaffold (~ 1200 bp) that harbors seven single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with boldness. Moreover, heterozygotes are less common than expected based on Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, suggesting that either assortative mating or selection against heterozygotes may be occurring in this system. We find no loci significantly associated with social organization. Our draft genome assembly allows us to localize SNPs of interest in this study and to carry out genetic comparisons with other published genomes, although it remains highly fragmented. CONCLUSIONS:By identifying a locus associated with a well-studied animal personality trait, this study opens up avenues for future research to link behavioral studies of animal personality with genotype and fitness

Reassessing the Link between Voter Heterogeneity and Political Accountability: A Latent Class Regression Model of Economic Voting

While recent research has underscored the conditioning effect of individual characteristics on economic voting behavior, most empirical studies have failed to explicitly incorporate observed heterogeneity into statistical analyses linking citizens' economic evaluations to electoral choices. In order to overcome these drawbacks, we propose a latent class regression model to jointly analyze the determinants and influence of economic voting in Presidential and Congressional elections. Our modeling approach allows us to better describe the effects of individual covariates on economic voting and to test hypotheses on the existence of heterogeneous types of voters, providing an empirical basis for assessing the relative validity of alternative explanations proposed in the literature. Using survey data from the 2004 U.S. Presidential, Senate and House elections, we and that voters with college education and those more interested in political campaigns based their vote on factors other than their economic perceptions. In contrast, less educated and interested respondents assigned considerable weight to economic assessments, with sociotropic jugdgments strongly in uencing their vote in the Presidential election and personal financial considerations affecting their vote in House elections. We conclude that the main distinction in the 2004 election was not between `sociotropic' and `pocketbook' voters, but rather between `economic' and `non-economic' voters

The Status of Spectroscopic Data for the Exoplanet Characterisation Missions

The status of laboratory spectroscopic data for exoplanet characterisation missions such as EChO is reviewed. For many molecules (eg H2O, CO, CO2, H3+, O2, O3) the data are already available. For the other species work is actively in progress constructing this data. Much of the is work is being undertaken by ExoMol project (www.exomol.com). This information will be used to construct and EChO-specific spectroscopic database.Comment: Experimental Astronomy, accepte

Applications of wavelet-based compression to multidimensional Earth science data

A data compression algorithm involving vector quantization (VQ) and the discrete wavelet transform (DWT) is applied to two different types of multidimensional digital earth-science data. The algorithms (WVQ) is optimized for each particular application through an optimization procedure that assigns VQ parameters to the wavelet transform subbands subject to constraints on compression ratio and encoding complexity. Preliminary results of compressing global ocean model data generated on a Thinking Machines CM-200 supercomputer are presented. The WVQ scheme is used in both a predictive and nonpredictive mode. Parameters generated by the optimization algorithm are reported, as are signal-to-noise (SNR) measurements of actual quantized data. The problem of extrapolating hydrodynamic variables across the continental landmasses in order to compute the DWT on a rectangular grid is discussed. Results are also presented for compressing Landsat TM 7-band data using the WVQ scheme. The formulation of the optimization problem is presented along with SNR measurements of actual quantized data. Postprocessing applications are considered in which the seven spectral bands are clustered into 256 clusters using a k-means algorithm and analyzed using the Los Alamos multispectral data analysis program, SPECTRUM, both before and after being compressed using the WVQ program

How has the Louisiana Scholarship Program Affected students? A Comprehensive Summary of Effects After Three Years

School choice reforms comprise a broad category of policies aimed at improving public education through the introduction of market forces that expand customer choice and competition between schools. Here we summarize our research to date on the effects of a large statewide school voucher initiative, the Louisiana Scholarship Program (LSP), and draw the following conclusions: • Overall, participating in the LSP had no statistically significant impact on student English Language Arts (ELA) or math scores after using an LSP scholarship for three years. • The subgroup of students who were lower achieving before applying to the program did show significant gains in ELA after three years of scholarship usage. Students applying to lower grades demonstrated significant losses in math. • Students without disabilities were less likely to be identified to receive special education services if they participated in the LSP than if they did not. Students with disabilities were more likely to be de-identified as requiring special education services if they participated in the private school choice program. • The private schools that chose to participate in the LSP were disproportionately Catholic, had low tuitions, had low enrollments, and served a high percentage of minority students. We discuss these findings in the remainder of this brief and in greater detail in the three accompanying technical reports. Combined with prior evidence, these results are informative about the specific design of voucher and other choice policies and about how the effects of choice evolve over time as programs mature

CO Line Emission from Compact Nuclear Starburst Disks Around Active Galactic Nuclei

There is substantial evidence for a connection between star formation in the nuclear region of a galaxy and growth of the central supermassive black hole. Furthermore, starburst activity in the region around an active galactic nucleus (AGN) may provide the obscuration required by the unified model of AGN. Molecular line emission is one of the best observational avenues to detect and characterize dense, star-forming gas in galactic nuclei over a range of redshift. This paper presents predictions for the carbon monoxide (CO) line features from models of nuclear starburst disks around AGN. These small scale (\la 100 pc), dense and hot starbursts have CO luminosities similar to scaled-down ultra-luminous infrared galaxies and quasar host galaxies. Nuclear starburst disks that exhibit a pc-scale starburst and could potentially act as the obscuring torus show more efficient CO excitation and higher brightness temperature ratios than those without such a compact starburst. In addition, the compact starburst models predict strong absorption when J_{\mathrm{Upper}} \ga 10, a unique observational signature of these objects. These findings allow for the possibility that CO SLEDs could be used to determine if starburst disks are responsible for the obscuration in z \la 1 AGN. Directly isolating the nuclear CO line emission of such compact regions around AGN from galactic-scale emission will require high resolution imaging or selecting AGN host galaxies with weak galactic-scale star formation. Stacking individual CO SLEDs will also be useful in detecting the predicted high-$J$ features.Comment: 27 pages, 5 figures, accepted by ApJ, updated to suit referee's suggestion