The dynamics of catechol in zeolite Beta was studied using quesielastic neutron scattering (QENS) experiments and molecular dynamics simulations at 393 K, to understand the behaviour of phenolic monomers relevant in the catalytic conversion of lignin via metal nanoparticles supported on zeolites. Compared to previous work studying phenol, both methods observe that the presence of the second OH group in catechol can hinder mobility significantly, as explained by stronger hydrogen-bonding interactions between catechol and the...

Ungulates (antelopes, deer and relatives) have some of the most diverse social systems among mammals. To understand the evolution of ungulate social organisation, Jarman (1974) proposed an ecological scenario of how distribution of resources, habitat and feeding style may have influenced social organisation. Although Jarman’s scenario makes intuitive sense and remain a textbook example of social evolution, it has not been scrutinised using modern phylogenetic comparative methods. Here we use 230 ungulate species from 10...

This paper studies distributed estimation and inference for a general statistical problem with a convex loss that could be non-differentiable. For the purpose of efficient computation, we restrict ourselves to stochastic first-order optimization, which enjoys low per-iteration complexity. To motivate the proposed method, we first investigate the theoretical properties of a straightforward Divide-and-Conquer Stochastic Gradient Descent (DC-SGD) approach. Our theory shows that there is a restriction on the number of machines and this restriction becomes...

This article studies distributed estimation and inference for a general statistical problem with a convex loss that could be nondifferentiable. For the purpose of efficient computation, we restrict ourselves to stochastic first-order optimization, which enjoys low per-iteration complexity. To motivate the proposed method, we first investigate the theoretical properties of a straightforward divide-and-conquer stochastic gradient descent approach. Our theory shows that there is a restriction on the number of machines and this restriction becomes more...

Prevalence of quinolone qnrS resistance gene in the aquatic environment from the Avon river catchment area receiving treated wastewater from 5 wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs), serving 1.5 million people and accounting for 75% of inhabitants living in the catchment area in the South West of England. Funded by NERC Grant NE/N019261/1

This dataset comprises of weekly concentrations of fluoroquinolones in wastewater and receiving waters collected in the Avon river catchment South West UK. The following fluoroquinolones were analysed: (±)-ofloxacin, (±)-ofloxacin-N-oxide, (±)-desmethyl-ofloxacin, (±)-lomefloxacin, (±)-moxifloxacin, S,S-moxifloxacin-N-sulfate, R-(+)-besifloxacin, (±)-prulifloxacin, (±)-ulifloxacin, (±)-flumequine and (±)-nadifloxacin; ciprofloxacin, desethylene-ciprofloxacin, norfloxacin and nalidixic acid. The concentrations of (fluoro)quinolones were measured in receiving treated wastewater from 5 wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs), which serves 1.5 million people accounting for 75% of inhabitants living in the catchment...

This article studies distributed estimation and inference for a general statistical problem with a convex loss that could be nondifferentiable. For the purpose of efficient computation, we restrict ourselves to stochastic first-order optimization, which enjoys low per-iteration complexity. To motivate the proposed method, we first investigate the theoretical properties of a straightforward divide-and-conquer stochastic gradient descent approach. Our theory shows that there is a restriction on the number of machines and this restriction becomes more...

The last three decades have seen an expansion of morphological disparity analyses, which is now routinely indexed alongside species diversity in clades. Strikingly, species diversity is often a poor correlate of morphological diversity across clades and time bins. Small clades with only a handful of species can encompass spectacular morphological diversity, whereas species rich groups may be morphologically highly conservative and vice versa. Higher morphological disparity should ultimately result from changes at the DNA level,...

Cladistic character matrices are routinely repurposed in analyses of morphological disparity. Unfortunately, the sampling of taxa and characters within such datasets reflects their intended application - to resolve phylogeny, rather than distinguish between phenotypes - resulting in tree shapes that often misrepresent broader taxonomic and morphological diversity. Here we use tree shape as a proxy to explore how sampling can affect perceptions of evolving morphological disparity. Through analyses of simulated and empirical data, we demonstrate...

Body size often differs between the sexes (leading to sexual size dimorphism, SSD), as a consequence of differential responses by males and females to selection pressures. Adult sex ratio (the proportion of males in the adult population, ASR) should influence SSD because ASR relates to both the number of competitors and available mates, which shape the intensity of mating competition and thereby promotes SSD evolution. However, whether ASR correlates with SSD variation among species has...

For detailed information concerning data collection please see Gonzalez-Voyer et al. Sex roles in birds: phylogenetic analyses of the influence of climate, life histories and social environment. Ecology Letters. Briefly, data on ecology, life histories and behaviour of birds were extracted from published literature. If several data were available for a given species, we included the ones that were extracted from breeding individuals or had larger sample sizes. The details regarding data processing are provided...

Adult survival is a key component of population dynamics and understanding variation in and the drivers of adult survival rates and longevity is critical for ecological and evolutionary studies, as well as for conservation biology and practice. Tropical species of landbirds are often selected to have higher adult survival due to high nest predation rates, but it is unclear if the same patterns occur in other avian lineages with different life history strategies. Here, we...

Males and females often display different behaviours and, in the context of reproduction, these behaviours are labelled sex roles. The Darwin–Bateman paradigm argues that the root of these differences is anisogamy (i.e., differences in size and/or function of gametes between the sexes) that leads to biased sexual selection, and sex differences in parental care and body size. This evolutionary cascade, however, is contentious since some of the underpinning assumptions have been questioned. Here we investigate...

The structure was detmined of a cold active family IV esterase (EstN7) cloned from Bacillus cohnii strain N1. EstN7 is a dimer with a classical α/β hydrolase fold. It has an acidic surface that is thought to play a role in cold-adaption by retaining solvation under changed water solvent entropy at lower temperatures. The conformation of the functionally important cap region is significantly different to EstN7's closest relatives, forming a bridge-like structure with reduced helical...