Cervical Traction in the Home

The indications for and contraindications to cervical traction are discussed. The social and economic advantages to be obtained from carrying out such treatment at home are obvious. A special technique is described which does not make use of weights and in which traction is applied in a position of flexion rather than of extension.     

Les Rhynchonelles du Bathonien du domaineprovencal: Liaison entre l'installation des peuplements et les modalités de la transgression bathonienne dans les Alpes-Maritimes

In the Maritime Alps, the Middle and Upper Bathoniancorresponds to a transgressive episode on the Provençal platform. The advancement of the marine invasion is very noticeable between Grasse and Antibes. The sediment shows the existence of a shallow marine environment in which benthic organisms were predominant.The deposits are at first varied: marly layers withbivalves (burrowers for the most part) and calcareous layers with monospecific populations of brachiopods (Burmirhynchia mediterranea nov. sp. in a calm environment, and B. turgidaBuckman in a more turbulent environment).The deposits then become uniform and show theexistence of very shallows environments: B. decorata kiliani nov. subsp. is the only representative of macrofauna in the micritic limestones that can be attributed to the Upper Bathonian.The Rhynchonellids, as on the other Bathonian carbonateplatforms of Western Europe, seem to be the only organisms likely to stay alive and proliferate in the specific environments in which entirely carbonate sediments are deposited in shallow water. Due to their relationships to those existing in other platforms, the species described in this article permit the clarification of biostratigraphic correlations.     

Monitoring tropical forests under a functional perspective with satellite‐based vegetation optical depth

Monitoring ecosystem functions in forests is a priority in a climate change scenario, as climate‐induced events may initially alter the functions more than slow‐changing attributes, such as biomass. The ecosystem functional properties (EFPs) are quantities that characterize key ecosystem processes. They can be derived by point observations of gas and energy exchanges between the ecosystems and the atmosphere that are collected globally at FLUXNET flux tower sites and upscaled at ecosystem level. The properties here considered describe the ability of ecosystems to optimize the use of resources for carbon uptake. They represent functional forest information, are dependent on environmental drivers, linked to leaf traits and forest structure, and influenced by climate change effects. The ability of vegetation optical depth (VOD) to provide forest functional information is investigated using 2011–2014 satellite data collected by the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity mission and using the EFPs as reference dataset. Tropical forests in Africa and South America were analyzed, also according to ecological homogeneous units. VOD jointly with water deficit information explained 93% and 87% of the yearly variability in both flux upscaled maximum gross primary productivity and light use efficiency functional properties, in Africa and South America forests respectively. Maps of the retrieved properties evidenced changes in forest functional responses linked to anomalous climate‐induced events during the study period. The findings indicate that VOD can support the flux upscaling process in the tropical range, affected by high uncertainty, and the detection of forest anomalous functional responses. Preliminary temporal analysis of VOD and EFP signals showed fine‐grained variability in periodicity, in signal dephasing, and in the strength of the relationships. In selected drier forest types, these satellite data could also support the monitoring of functional dynamics.     

The evolution of body size, Cope's rule and the origin of amniotes

The evolution of body size in tetrapods is assessed using a database that includes 107 early stegocephalian species ranging in time from the Frasnian (Upper Devonian) to the Tatarian (Upper Permian). All analyses use methods that incorporate phylogenetic information (topology and branch lengths). In all tests, the impact of alternative topologies and branch lengths are assessed. Previous reports that raised doubts about the accuracy of squared-change parsimony assessment of ancestral character value appear to have used datasets in which there was no phylogenetic signal. Hence, squared-change parsimony may be more reliable than suggested in recent studies, at least when a phylogenetic signal is present in the datasets of interest. Analysis using random taxon reshuffling on three reference phylogenies shows that cranial and presacral length include a strong phylogenetic signal. Character optimization of body size in stegocephalians using squared-change parsimony on a time-calibrated phylogeny incorporating branch length information is used to test a previously published scenario on the origin of amniotes and of the amniotic egg that implies that the ancestors of amniotes were small (no more than 10 cm in snout-vent length), and that their size increased subsequent to the appearance of the amniotic egg. The optimization suggests that first amniotes were somewhat larger than previously hypothesized; the estimated snout-vent length is about 24 cm, and the lower end of the 95% confidence interval of the phylogeny that yields the smallest inferred size suggests that no ancestor of amniotes measured less than 12 cm in snout-vent length. Character optimization, permutational multiple linear regressions, and independent contrast analyses show that Cope's rule of phyletic size increase applies to early reptiliomorphs but that it does not apply to early stegocephalians globally.     

Improved antibacterial activities of coumarin antibiotics bearing 5',5'-dialkylnoviose: biological activity of RU79115

A new series of coumarin inhibitors of DNA gyrase B bearing a N-propargyloxycarbamate at C-3' of various 5',5'-dialkylnoviose, including RU79115, were synthesised and their antibacterial activities have been delineated. Introduction of dialkyl substituents at 5'5'-position of noviose leads to coumarin analogues with improved in vitro and in vivo antibacterial activity.     

Third meeting of the International Society for Phylogenetic Nomenclature: a report

The Third Meeting of the International Society for Phylogenetic Nomenclature (ISPN) convened at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada, from 20 to 22 July 2008. In addition to contributed talks, the conference included a progress report on the PhyloCode 'Companion Volume', a discussion of how to complete this book in a timely fashion, a demonstration of the online registration data base (RegNum), plenary talks, and Council and business meetings. Topics discussed at the meeting include problems created by rank-based nomenclature in various eukaryotic taxa, dealing with hybrids in rank-based and phylogenetic nomenclature, phyloinformatics, the choice of names to use when the taxonomic content associated with available names varies, teaching phylogenetic nomenclature, and the application of phylogenetic nomenclature to specific taxa.     

Microanatomical diversity of the humerus and lifestyle in lissamphibians

A study of body size and the compactness profile parameters of the humerus of 37 species of lissamphibians demonstrates a relationship between lifestyle (aquatic, amphibious or terrestrial) and bone microstructure. Multiple linear regressions and variance partitioning with Phylogenetic eigenVector Regressions reveal an ecological and a phylogenetic signal in some body size and compactness profile parameters. Linear discriminant analyses segregate the various lifestyles (aquatic vs. amphibious or terrestrial) with a success rate of up to 89.2%. The models built from data on the humerus discriminate aquatic taxa relatively well from the other taxa. However, like previous models built from data on the radius of amniotes or on the femur of lissamphibians, the new models do not discriminate amphibious taxa from terrestrial taxa on the basis of body size or compactness profile data. To make our inference method accessible, spreadsheets (see supplementary material on the website), which allow anyone to infer a lissamphibian lifestyle solely from body size and bone compactness parameters, were produced. No such easy implementation of habitat inference models is found in earlier papers on this topic.     

Fossils, molecules, divergence times, and the origin of lissamphibians

A review of the paleontological literature shows that the early dates of appearance of Lissamphibia recently inferred from molecular data do not favor an origin of extant amphibians from temnospondyls, contrary to recent claims. A supertree is assembled using new Mesquite modules that allow extinct taxa to be incorporated into a time-calibrated phylogeny with a user-defined geological time scale. The supertree incorporates 223 extinct species of lissamphibians and has a highly significant stratigraphic fit. Some divergences can even be dated with sufficient precision to serve as calibration points in molecular divergence date analyses. Fourteen combinations of minimal branch length settings and 10 random resolutions for each polytomy give much more recent minimal origination times of lissamphibian taxa than recent studies based on a phylogenetic analyses of molecular sequences. Attempts to replicate recent molecular date estimates show that these estimates depend strongly on the choice of calibration points, on the dating method, and on the chosen model of evolution; for instance, the estimate for the date of the origin of Lissamphibia can lie between 351 and 266 Mya. This range of values is generally compatible with our time-calibrated supertree and indicates that there is no unbridgeable gap between dates obtained using the fossil record and those using molecular evidence, contrary to previous suggestions.