Distribution of exotic monk parakeets across an urban landscape

Monk parakeets (Myiopsitta monachus) are the most abundant and widely distributed of the naturalized parrots in the United States. Their presence is simultaneously encouraged by some humans (through use of bird feeders) and discouraged by others (through removal of their nests) and, as a result, they show an interesting spatial distribution across urban areas. We used an online public survey and field surveys to examine the influence of human activities and land use on the distribution of this exotic species around Chicago, IL (USA). These efforts resulted in detection of 249 nesting structures and approximately 778 birds across the region. A CART analysis successfully separated nesting sites from random sites and correctly classified 90?% of the nesting sites. The most important factor in the model was land use, with nests typically found in areas with less than 84?% residential zoning. We found nests on a wide variety of substrates including trees, cell phone towers, and stadium lights. Spatial point pattern analysis indicated that nests in trees and nests in built substrates were significantly dissociated with each other at all scales. Nests on built substrates were closer to railroads and highways or in areas with lower human population density, suggesting either a difference in substrate availability or human tolerance between these settings. While humans may have a positive effect on distribution of monk parakeets at large spatial scales, at the scale of this study we see a potentially negative effect of too many humans on the distribution of monk parakeet nests.     

Dose‐Response Models Incorporating Aerosol Size Dependency for Francisella tularensis

The effect of bioaerosol size was incorporated into predictive dose‐response models for the effects of inhaled aerosols of Francisella tularensis (the causative agent of tularemia) on rhesus monkeys and guinea pigs with bioaerosol diameters ranging between 1.0 and 24 μm. Aerosol‐size‐dependent models were formulated as modification of the exponential and β‐Poisson dose‐response models and model parameters were estimated using maximum likelihood methods and multiple data sets of quantal dose‐response data for which aerosol sizes of inhaled doses were known. Analysis of F. tularensis dose‐response data was best fit by an exponential dose‐response model with a power function including the particle diameter size substituting for the rate parameter k scaling the applied dose. There were differences in the pathogen's aerosol‐size‐dependence equation and models that better represent the observed dose‐response results than the estimate derived from applying the model developed by the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP, 1994) that relies on differential regional lung deposition for human particle exposure.     

A Comparative Pharmacokinetic Estimate of Mercury in U.S. Infants Following Yearly Exposures to Inactivated Influenza Vaccines Containing Thimerosal

The use of thimerosal preservative in childhood vaccines has been largely eliminated over the past decade in the United States because vaccines have been reformulated in single‐dose vials that do not require preservative. An exception is the inactivated influenza vaccines, which are formulated in both multidose vials requiring preservative and preservative‐free single‐dose vials. As part of an ongoing evaluation by USFDA of the safety of biologics throughout their lifecycle, the infant body burden of mercury following scheduled exposures to thimerosal preservative in inactivated influenza vaccines in the United States was estimated and compared to the infant body burden of mercury following daily exposures to dietary methylmercury at the reference dose established by the USEPA. Body burdens were estimated using kinetic parameters derived from experiments conducted in infant monkeys that were exposed episodically to thimerosal or MeHg at identical doses. We found that the body burden of mercury (AUC) in infants (including low birth weight) over the first 4.5 years of life following yearly exposures to thimerosal was two orders of magnitude lower than that estimated for exposures to the lowest regulatory threshold for MeHg over the same time period. In addition, peak body burdens of mercury following episodic exposures to thimerosal in this worst‐case analysis did not exceed the corresponding safe body burden of mercury from methylmercury at any time, even for low‐birth‐weight infants. Our pharmacokinetic analysis supports the acknowledged safety of thimerosal when used as a preservative at current levels in certain multidose infant vaccines in the United States.     

Longitudinal Links between Adolescent and Peer Conduct Problems and Moderation by a Sensitivity Genetic Index

The most extensively studied influence on adolescent conduct problem behaviors is peers, and the literature points to genetics as one source of individual differences in peer influence. The purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that an environmental sensitivity genetic index comprised of DRD4, 5‐HTTLPR, and GABRA2 variation would moderate the association between peer and adolescent conduct problems. Latent growth modeling was applied to PROSPER project longitudinal data from adolescents and their peers. Results showed the hypothesis was supported; adolescents with more copies of putative sensitivity alleles were more strongly influenced by their peers. The interaction form was consistent with differential susceptibility in follow‐up analyses. Strengths and weaknesses of genetic aggregates for sensitivity research are discussed.     

Ambiguity aversion in multi-armed bandit problems

In multi-armed bandit problems, information acquired from experimentation is valuable because it tells the agent whether to select a particular option again in the future. This article tests whether people undervalue this information because they are ambiguity averse, or have a distaste for uncertainty about the average quality of each alternative. It is shown that ambiguity averse agents have lower than optimal Gittins indexes, appearing to undervalue information from experimentation, but are willing to pay more than ambiguity neutral agents to learn the true mean of the payoff distribution, appearing to overvalue objectively given information. This prediction is tested with a laboratory experiment that elicits a Gittins index and a willingness to pay on six two-armed bandits. Consistent with the predictions of ambiguity aversion, the Gittins indexes are significantly lower than optimal and willingnesses to pay are significantly higher than optimal.     

The political process of the revolutionary samurai: a comparative reconsideration of Japan’s Meiji Restoration

In the 1860s and 1870s, the feudal monarchy of the Tokugawa shogunate, which had ruled Japan for over two centuries, was overthrown, and the entire political order it had commanded was dismantled. This immense political transformation, comparable in its results to the great social revolutions of the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries in the West, was distinctive for lacking a major role for mass political mobilization. Since popular political action was decisive elsewhere for both providing the force for social revolutions to defeat old regimes and for pushing revolutionary leaders to more radical policies, the Meiji Restoration’s combination of revolutionary outcomes with conservative personnel and means is puzzling. This article argues that previous accounts fail to explain why a group of relatively low-status samurai—administrative functionaries with some hereditary political privileges but in fact little secure power within the old regime—was able to overcome far more deeply entrenched political actors. To explain this, it is necessary to distinguish clearly between two political processes: the long-standing political relations of feudal monarchy and magnate lords and the unprecedented emergence of independent samurai political action and organizations cutting across domain boundaries. It was the interaction of these two processes that produced the overthrow of the Tokugawa and enabled the revolutionary outcomes that followed it. This article’s revised explanation of the Meiji Restoration clearly places it within the same theoretical parameters as the major revolutions of the seventeenth century and later.     

Coloring vertices of claw-free graphs in three colors

We study the computational complexity of the vertex 3-colorability problem in the class of claw-free graphs. Both the problem and the class received much attention in the literature, separately of each other. However, very little is known about the 3-colorability problem restricted to the class of claw-free graphs beyond the fact the problem is NP-complete under this restriction. In this paper we first strengthen this negative fact by revealing various further restrictions under which the problem remains NP-complete. Then we derive a number of positive results that deal with polynomially solvable cases of the problem in the class of claw-free graphs.     

Recollections of Jack Michael and the Application of Skinner’s Analysis of Verbal Behavior

The Analysis of Verbal Behavior - Jack Michael offered a course on verbal behavior almost every year throughout his teaching career. Jack was also interested in the application of Skinner's...     

Gay guys using gay language: friendship,shared values and the intent‐context‐effect matrix

This article draws on in‐depth interviews with 35 openly gay male undergraduates from four universities in England to develop an understanding of the changing nature of language related to homosexuality. In addition to finding a diminution in the prevalence of homophobic language, we demonstrate that participants maintain complex and nuanced understandings of phrases that do not use homophobic pejoratives, such as ‘that's so gay’. The majority of participants rejected the notion that these phrases are inherently homophobic, instead arguing that the intent with which they are said and the context in which they are used are vital in understanding their meaning and effect. We conceptualize an intent‐context‐effect matrix to understand the interdependency of these variables. Highlighting the situated nature of this matrix, we also demonstrate the importance of the existence of shared norms between those saying and hearing the phrase when interpreting such language.