Early Permian (Asselian) brachiopods from Karakorum (Pakistan) and their palaeobiogeographical significance

Abstract: Early Permian (Asselian) brachiopods collected from the Gircha Formation of western Karakorum (Pakistan) are described. They include Bandoproductus girchensis sp. nov., Kiangsiella sp. indet., Trigonotreta lyonsensis Archbold and Thomas, Trigonotreta larghii sp. nov., Spirelytha petaliformis (Pavlova), Punctospirifer afghanus Termier, Termier, de Lapparent and Marin, and ?Dielasma sp. indet. and belong to the Trigonotreta lyonsensis–Punctospirifer afghanus Assemblage Biozone, the oldest so far recovered from the Permian succession of Karakorum. The faunal succession of Karakorum records a significant biotic change from the Asselian to the Sakmarian, a shift in diversity and composition that is also recorded along most of the Gondwanan margin and Peri‐Gondwanan regions and that should be related to a major climatic change: the end of the Gondwanan glaciation. A palaeobiogeographical analysis has been performed by means of multivariate methods applying cluster and ordination analyses based on the Jaccard Coefficient and Simpson Index to a matrix consisting of the presence/absence of 23 brachiopod genera from seven geographical operational units from central Afghanistan to eastern Australia. The results suggest the occurrence of a single biotic province during the Asselian, the Indoralian Province, embracing all the faunal stations examined, as a consequence of the global cold phase related to the last pulse of the Gondwanan glaciation.     

WPA guidance on the protection and promotion of mental health in children of persons with severe mental disorders

This guidance details the needs of children, and the qualities of parenting that meet those needs. Parental mental disorders can damage the foetus during pregnancy through the action of drugs, prescribed or abused. Pregnancy and the puerperium can exacerbate or initiate mental illness in susceptible women. After their birth, the children may suffer from the social disadvantage associated with severe mental illness. The parents (depending on the disorder, its severity and its persistence) may have intermittent or prolonged difficulties with parenting, which may sometimes result in childhood psychological disturbance or child maltreatment. This guidance considers ways of preventing, minimizing and remedying these effects. Our recommendations include: education of psychiatrists and related professions about the effect of parental mental illness on children; revision of psychiatric training to increase awareness of patients as caregivers, and to incorporate relevant assessment and intervention into their treatment and rehabilitation; the optimum use of pharmacological treatment during pregnancy; pre-birth planning when women with severe mental illness become pregnant; development of specialist services for pregnant and puerperal women, with assessment of their efficacy; community support for parenting by mothers and fathers with severe mental disorders; standards of good practice for the management of child maltreatment when parents suffer from mental illness; the importance of multi-disciplinary teamwork when helping these families, supporting their children and ensuring child protection; the development of child and adolescent mental health services worldwide.     

Scale-independent criteria and scale-dependent agents determining the structure of a ground cricket mosaic hybrid zone (Allonemobius socius – Allonemobius fasciatus)

The structure of the hybrid zone between the ground crickets, Allonemobius socius and Allonemobius fasciatus , approximates an environmental mosaic based on temperature/moisture at regional spatial scales. In the present study, we show that the micro-geographic spatial structure (i.e. single fields) of this hybrid zone is governed by the same criteria. Thus, the criteria that structure this hybrid zone are scale independent, even though the agents that implement these criteria may differ at various scales (climate, latitude, and elevation at regional scales; grass height, slope aspect, and field use at micro-geographic scales). Additionally, the study demonstrates a previously unknown barrier to genetic exchange in this system that acts before conspecific sperm precedence.  © 2008 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society , 2008, 94 , 777–796.     

MAPPING IN PRODUCT TESTING AND SENSORY ANALYSIS: A WELL LIT PATH OR A DARK STATISTICAL LABYRINTH?

Mapping is a popularly accepted statistical method, currently used in many applications in order to reveal and perhaps understand relations between stimuli. This paper discusses some of the shortcomings of mapping as a procedure, specifically those having to do with the 'actionability' of the data. The paper recommends that mapping be used to embed the stimuli in a geometric space, but then the coordinates of that space be used as independent variables in a model. In this way the geometrical representation does not stop at being a 'pretty picture' without further utility, but instead incorporates within it the necessary tools to allow researchers to go from any location in the space to any other location.     

Kinetics of Leaf Growth in Lolium temulentum at Optimal and Chilling Temperatures

Lolium temulentum plants were grown at 20 °C, under an 8-hdaylength, in a controlled-environment chamber, and the kineticsof leaf expansion were observed by measuring the movement ofan optical grid attached to the fourth leaf. The leaf emerged23–24 d after sowing and was fully expanded 9–10d later. Extension rate was maximal between the second and fifthdays after emergence and declined markedly thereafter. Duringthe rapid growth phase the rate of elongation exhibited a distinctdiurnal rhythm, fluctuating between 1.9 to 2.3 mm h^–1in the light period, and 1.3 to 1.7 mm h^–1 in the dark.A circadian oscillation with a period of about 27 h was observedin leaves elongating in continuous darkness. When plants weretransferred to 5 °C soon after emergence of the fourth leafthere was an immediate reduction in rate of growth to about22 per cent of the rate at 20 °C: the Q₁₀ for the mean elongationrate in the range 20–5 °C was 3.7. When plants weretransferred from 20 to 2 °C at fourth leaf emergence, meanextension rate declined to less than 5 per cent, correspondingto a Q₁₀ in the range 5–2 °C of more than 300. Furthermore,growth at 2 °C was confined almost entirely to the darkphase of the photoperiod cycle. The responsive tissue was shownto be a small area of expanding leafless than 1.5 cm above theshoot apex and the possible mechanisms underlying low temperatureeffects in this region are discussed. Lolium temulentum L., leaf growth, auxanometer, low temperature, diurnal rhythm     

Studies on the role of microtubules in myofibrillogenesis

Co-localization of microtubule (MT) and muscle myosin (MHC) myofibril immunofluoresoonoe in developing myotubes of chicken skeletal muscle cultures was observed by using double staining of tubulin and MHC indirect immunofluorescence.120-tetradecanoyl-phorbol-12-acetate (TPA) selectively and reversibly blocks myofibrillogenesis and alters the morphology of myotubes in to myosacs where MTs are present in radiating pattern.When the arrested myogenic cells recover and start myofibrillogenesis after released from TPA,prior to the emergence of myofibrils,the pre-ecisting MTs become bipolarly aligned coincidently with the tubular restoration of cell shape.Single nascent myofibrils overlapping with MTs extend into the base of growth tips where MTs go farther to the end of the tips.That MT might act as scaffold in guiding the bipolar elongation of the growing myofibrils was suggested.Taxol and colcemid disturbed MT polymerization and disposition,and interfered with the normal spatial assembly of myofibrils in developing myotubes.