Mobile Phone Call Data as a Regional Socio-Economic Proxy Indicator

The advent of publishing anonymized call detail records opens the door for temporal and spatial human dynamics studies. Such studies, besides being useful for creating universal models for mobility patterns, could be also used for creating new socio-economic proxy indicators that will not rely only on the local or state institutions. In this paper, from the frequency of calls at different times of the day, in different small regional units (sub-prefectures) in Côte d''Ivoire, we infer users'' home and work sub-prefectures. This division of users enables us to analyze different mobility and calling patterns for the different regions. We then compare how those patterns correlate to the data from other sources, such as: news for particular events in the given period, census data, economic activity, poverty index, power plants and energy grid data. Our results show high correlation in many of the cases revealing the diversity of socio-economic insights that can be inferred using only mobile phone call data. The methods and the results may be particularly relevant to policy-makers engaged in poverty reduction initiatives as they can provide an affordable tool in the context of resource-constrained developing economies, such as Côte d''Ivoire''s.     

Early Life Stage Mortality Syndrome in Fishes of the Great Lakes and Baltic Sea (American Fisheries Society Symposium 21). Edited by Gordon McDonald,John D. Fitzsimons and Dale C. Honeyfield

Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries -     

Leaching losses of nitrogen from a clay soil under grass and cereal crops in Finland

Summary A 16-plot experimental field was established in 1975 on a clay soil in Jokioinen, Finland. The water discharge through tile drains was measured and its ammonium and nitrate N contents determined for each plot separately. The surface runoff was also measured and analysed. The annual runoff and the N leached from the surface of moderately fertilized (100 kg/ha/y N) cereal plots varied during 1976–1982 from 21 to 301 mm and from 2 to 7 kg/ha, respectively. The discharge of water and leaching of N through subdrains varied from 65 to 225 mm and from 1 to 38 kg/ha, respectively. The highest leaching was probably caused by a previous fallow. The annual N uptake by the crop varied between 41 and 122 kg/ha.Of the fertilizer-N used for cereals, 20% of that applied in the autumn was lost, but only 1 to 4 per cent was lost when applied in the spring. There was much less N leaching from ley than from barley plots, although the former was given twice as much N. The rate of N fertilization had only a very slight effect on N leaching from both ley and barley plots.The results were compared with those obtained in lysimeters filled with clay, silt, sand and peat soils. No definite conclusions can be drawn because the lysimeter experimental data are only for the first year.     

Ornithine Decarboxylase Activity in Brain Regulated by a Specific Macromolecul, the Antizyme

Mouse brain ornithine decarboxylase activity is about 70-fold higher at the time of birth compared with that of adult mice. Enzyme activity declines rapidly after birth and reaches the adult level by 3 weeks. Immunoreactive enzyme concentration parallels very closely the decrease of enzyme activity during the first postnatal week, remaining constant thereafter. The content of brain antizyme, the macromolecular inhibitor to ornithine decarboxylase, in turn is very low during the first 7 days and starts then to increase and at the age of 3 weeks it is about six times the level of that in newborn mice. This may explain the decrease in enzyme activity during brain maturation, and suggests the regulation of polyamine biosynthesis by an antizyme-mediated mechanism in adult brain.     

Origin and development of the catecholamine-storing cells of the human fetal carotid body

Summary The carotid bifurcation areas of 25 human fetuses aged from 8 to 22 weeks were studied using the formaldehyde-induced fluorescence method. A long process from the sympathetic trunk reached the area at the age of 8 weeks contacting with the carotid body primordium. Brightly fluorescent cells can be seen both in the carotid body and in the ganglionic process. Migration of these cells from the sympathetic trunk to the carotid body is suggested. The connection from the sympathetic trunk to the carotid body totally disappeared after the tenth week, leaving no fluorescent elements between these two. Control electron microscopy and light microscopy were performed to identify the fluorescent and nonfluorescent components of the human fetal carotid body.     

Complex Genetic Effects on Early Vegetative Development Shape Resource Allocation Differences Between Arabidopsis lyrata Populations

Costs of reproduction due to resource allocation trade-offs have long been recognized as key forces in life history evolution, but little is known about their functional or genetic basis. Arabidopsis lyrata, a perennial relative of the annual model plant A. thaliana with a wide climatic distribution, has populations that are strongly diverged in resource allocation. In this study, we evaluated the genetic and functional basis for variation in resource allocation in a reciprocal transplant experiment, using four A. lyrata populations and F₂ progeny from a cross between North Carolina (NC) and Norway parents, which had the most divergent resource allocation patterns. Local alleles at quantitative trait loci (QTL) at a North Carolina field site increased reproductive output while reducing vegetative growth. These QTL had little overlap with flowering date QTL. Structural equation models incorporating QTL genotypes and traits indicated that resource allocation differences result primarily from QTL effects on early vegetative growth patterns, with cascading effects on later vegetative and reproductive development. At a Norway field site, North Carolina alleles at some of the same QTL regions reduced survival and reproductive output components, but these effects were not associated with resource allocation trade-offs in the Norway environment. Our results indicate that resource allocation in perennial plants may involve important adaptive mechanisms largely independent of flowering time. Moreover, the contributions of resource allocation QTL to local adaptation appear to result from their effects on developmental timing and its interaction with environmental constraints, and not from simple models of reproductive costs.     

What Data to Use for Forest Conservation Planning? A Comparison of Coarse Open and Detailed Proprietary Forest Inventory Data in Finland

The boreal region is facing intensifying resource extraction pressure, but the lack of comprehensive biodiversity data makes operative forest conservation planning difficult. Many countries have implemented forest inventory schemes and are making extensive and up-to-date forest databases increasingly available. Some of the more detailed inventory databases, however, remain proprietary and unavailable for conservation planning. Here, we investigate how well different open and proprietary forest inventory data sets suit the purpose of conservation prioritization in Finland. We also explore how much priorities are affected by using the less accurate but open data. First, we construct a set of indices for forest conservation value based on quantitative information commonly found in forest inventories. These include the maturity of the trees, tree species composition, and site fertility. Secondly, using these data and accounting for connectivity between forest types, we investigate the patterns in conservation priority. For prioritization, we use Zonation, a method and software for spatial conservation prioritization. We then validate the prioritizations by comparing them to known areas of high conservation value. We show that the overall priority patterns are relatively consistent across different data sources and analysis options. However, the coarse data cannot be used to accurately identify the high-priority areas as it misses much of the fine-scale variation in forest structures. We conclude that, while inventory data collected for forestry purposes may be useful for forest conservation purposes, it needs to be detailed enough to be able to account for more fine-scaled features of high conservation value. These results underline the importance of making detailed inventory data publicly available. Finally, we discuss how the prioritization methodology we used could be integrated into operative forest management, especially in countries in the boreal zone.     

Lactobacillus oligofermentans sp. nov., Associated with Spoilage of Modified-Atmosphere-Packaged Poultry Products

Unidentified lactic acid bacterium (LAB) isolates which had mainly been detected in spoiled, marinated, modified atmosphere packaged (MAP) broiler meat products during two previous studies, were identified and analyzed for their phenotypic properties and the capability to produce biogenic amines. To establish the taxonomic position of these isolates, 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis, numerical analysis of ribopatterns, and DNA-DNA hybridization experiments were done. Unexpectedly for a meat-spoilage-associated LAB, the strains utilized glucose very weakly. According to the API 50 CHL test, arabinose and xylose were the only carbohydrates strongly fermented. None of the six strains tested for production of histamine, tyramine, tryptamine, phenylethylamine, putrescine, and cadaverine were able to produce these main meat-associated biogenic amines in vitro. The polyphasic taxonomy approach showed that these strains represent a new Lactobacillus species. The six isolates sequenced for the 16S rRNA encoding genes shared the highest similarity (95.0 to 96.3%) with the sequence of the Lactobacillus durianis type strain. In the phylogenetic tree, these isolates formed a distinct cluster within the Lactobacillus reuteri group, which also includes L. durianis. Numerical analyses of HindIII-EcoRI ribotypes placed all isolates together in a cluster with seven subclusters well separated from the L. reuteri group reference strains. The DNA-DNA hybridization levels between Lactobacillus sp. nov. isolates varied from 67 to 96%, and low hybridization levels (3 to 15%) were obtained with the L. durianis type strain confirming that these isolates belong to the same species different from L. durianis. The name Lactobacillus oligofermentans sp. nov. is proposed, with strain LMG 22743^T (also known as DSM 15707^T or AMKR18^T) as the type strain.