Starlings show considerable variation in egg mass among clutches. Mean clutch egg mass was highly repeatable for females, but few characteristics of females were found to relate to egg mass. Egg mass related weakly to female age, but female age only explained a small part of the variation. Hatchling mass was strongly correlated with egg mass, but body mass at 14 d of age was unrelated to egg mass.

We consider a selection of recent experimental results on electroweak W±,Z gauge boson production in pp collisions at BNL RHIC and CERN LHC energies in comparison to prediction of perturbative QCD calculations based on different sets of NLO parton distribution functions including the statistical PDF model known from fits to the DIS data. We show that the current statistical PDF parametrization (fi

The purpose of this study was to determine the chemical composition and antioxidant capacity of blue maize (BM) (Zea mays L.) flour and to investigate the effects of polyphenol-containing extracts and BM wholegrain flour on starch digestion under uncooked and cooked conditions; commercial white maize flour was used as control. Total phenolic content in BM flour (BMF) (164 ± 14 mg gallic acid/g of

Evidence of a dynamic Holocene glacial history is preserved in the terrestrial and marine archives of St. Jonsfjorden, a small fjord-system on the west coast of Spitsbergen, Svalbard. High-resolution, remotely sensed imagery from marine and terrestrial environments was used to construct geomorphological maps that highlight an intricate glacial history of the entire fjord-system. The geomorphology

Background: The Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) plays a central role in immunity and has been given considerable attention by evolutionary ecologists due to its associations with fitness-related traits. Songbirds have unusually high numbers of MHC class I (MHC-I) genes, but it is not known whether all are expressed and equally important for immune function. Classical MHC-I genes are highly

Histatin 5 (Hst5) is a naturally occurring antimicrobial peptide that acts as the first line of defense against oral candidiasis. It has been shown that conjugation of the active Hst5 fragment, Hst54-15, and the polyamine spermidine (Spd) improves the candidacidal effect. Knowledge about the structure of these conjugates is, however, very limited. Thus, the aim of this study was to characterize th

In the past 20 years, the study of dissociation has flourished partly because of the research on the links between traumatic events and dissociation. Epidemiological studies have shown that dissociative symptoms and disorders are not uncommon. The nonspecialist in this area needs a guide to the extensive literature on the evaluation of dissociation across the lifespan to choose the most appropriat

Aims: The aim of this study was to investigate the associations between socioeconomic status (SES) and self-reported unmet health care needs, taking economic stress, generalized trust in other people and trust in the health care system into account. Methods: The 2012 public health survey in Scania was conducted using a postal questionnaire and included 28,029 participants aged 18-80 years. The stu

Objective: To investigate the ability of small-for-gestational-age (SGA) fetuses to develop lacticemia during hypoxia. Methods: Umbilical cord arterial and venous pH, lactate and glucose concentrations were determined in 1777 SGA (

This paper deals with the description of two new species of Horismenus Walker (Hymenoptera: Eulophidae) from Brazil, parasitoids of larvae of Adetus analis (Haldeman) (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae). Both species are similar to Horismenus steirastomae (Girault), a species that also parasitizes cerambycids. Adetus analis is a pest of Sechium edule (Jacq.) Swartz (Cucurbitaceae), a minor crop in Brazil,

This article offers a theoretical approach to the concepts of sacred place, identity, and religious tradition in the context of Jerusalem, in which disputes over sacred place are highly contentious. It explores contemporary theories on claims to sacred place as expressions of power, and the invention of tradition, offering a critical reading that argues for the inherent dignity of religious tradit

Scolecodonts provide fossil evidence of the evolution and diversification of jaw-bearing polychaetes from the latest Cambrian onwards. However, their record before the Darriwilian (Middle Ordovician) is scarce worldwide, which limits our understanding of key evolutionary events. One such event is the emergence of taxa possessing the asymmetrical labidognath-type jaw apparatus architecture, which b

Mechanism reductions of the detailed aqueous phase chemistry mechanism CAPRAM 3.0i are performed. Manual methods and automatic techniques are both applied in order to provide a less computationally intensive mechanism which is operational in regional chemistry transport models (CTMs). The finally reduced mechanism contains less than 200 reactions (4 times smaller than the detailed CAPRAM 3.0i) and

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Surgical treatment of chronic acromioclavicular joint dislocations is challenging, and no single procedure can be considered to be the gold standard. In 2010, the GraftRope method (Arthrex Inc., Naples, FL) was introduced in a case series of 10 patients, showing good clinical results and no complications. We wanted to evaluate the GraftRope method in a prospective consecuti

(1) We studied the effect of sex, size, age and prior occupancy on social dominance winter flock establishment in a population of marsh tits Parus palustris L. (2) When sex was accounted for, time of establishment in the winter flock-prior occupancy, was critical for the outcome of later aggressive interactions juveniles within flocks. Residents won all interactions with intruders irrespective con

Male marsh tits, Parus palustris, regularly feed their mates from the beginning of nest building until hatching. Over three periods (the 15 days preceding egg formation, egg formation/laying and incubation) the number of food passes by the male to the female increased significantly. There was a significant negative relationship between the frequency with which the male fed the female in the nest d