Gäddan (Esox lucius) är en toppredator och nyckelart som är beroende av grunda och vegetationsrika rekryteringsmiljöer. Dessa miljöer hyser risk att minska i sjöar med mänsklig påverkan, vilket i sin tur skulle kunna leda till lägre överlevnad hos gäddlarver och yngel till följd av intraspecifik konkurrens av föda. Under två veckors tid undersöktes överlevnaden hos gäddyngel (< 30 mm, medellängd = 20 mm) i relation till täthet, för tätheter mellan 2-20 individer/m2, fördelat i 10 burar placerade i en naturlig uppväxtmiljö. Jag fann ett signifikant negativt samband mellan täthet och överlevnad i burarna, där en ökad täthet miskade överlevnaden av gäddyngel. Täthetsberoende tillväxt kunde inte konstateras hos gäddynglen, men de två längsta individerna och individerna med högst individuell tillväxt återfanns vid högst- respektive näst högst initial täthet. Mina resultat stöder hypotesen att överlevnaden är täthetsberoende för gäddlarver i en naturlig rekryteringsmiljö, och bidrar med kunskap att ta hänsyn till vid förvaltning av gäddpopulationer. / Pike (Esox lucius) is a top predator keystone species dependent on shallow, vegetated areas for recruitment. These types of habitats stand at risk of reduction in human impacted lakes, which in turn could lead to lower survival of pike fry and -larvae due to intraspecific competition for food. During a time period of two weeks, the survival of pike fry (< 30 mm, mean length = 20 mm) was studied in relation to fry densities between 2-20 pike/m2, in 10 enclosures placed in a natural nursery habitat. I found that survival of pike-fry within the enclosures was significantly negatively correlated to initial stocking density, where an increase in density led to lower survival of pike fry. No evidence of density dependence was found for growth of pike fry, although the two longest fry and fry with the highest individual length increase were found at the highest- and second highest initial densities. The results support my hypothesis that the survival of pike fry is density dependent in a natural nursery habitat, and provides further knowledge for consideration in population management of pike.

Lake Tahoe kokanee salmon have experienced decreasing mean adult size and fluctuating populations since 1970. We proposed to determine whether fish production was limited by spawning and incubation processes in Taylor Creek , or by growth constraints , or by mortality in the lake by studying egg-to-fry survival rates and early life history . Estimated egg-to-fry survival was 15. 9% for the 1994 brood year and 1.5% for the 1995 brood year. Egg-to-adult survival was 3.5% for the 1991 brood year and 5.9% for the 1992 brood year. Of the 35 possible survival scenarios, egg-to-fry survival was 7.5-20% and fry-to-adult survival (inlake phase) was 20-60%. The differing egg-to-fry survival rates corresponded to different stream temperature regimes during critical incubation periods. During and after the outmigration, fry inhabited the littoral zone, pelagic zone, and an estuarine environment created by a flooded meadow. Chironomids were the dominant prey in both 1995 and 1996 for fry in the littoral regions. Fry declined in the littoral zone approximately 30 days after peak outmigration during both 1995 and 1996. Juveniles and adults in the lake inhabited the upper 10 m of the water column and consumed primarily copepods for most of their limnetic life. Otolith analysis revealed that five year classes were present with the fifth year class representing 15.0% (1995) to 7.6% (1996) of the spawning population. Despite Lake Tahoe's low productivity, kokanee achieved greater size at age-4 than many other populations. Low densities (14.5 fish/hectare) and warmer winter temperatures may enable kokanee to reach greater size. Kokanee production may be limited by warm stream temperatures during spawning and early incubation in some years. Egg-to-fry survival is the most limiting factor. Enhancement of the kokanee population should focus on this phase of life history. Kokanee are not native to the Lake Tahoe Basin, which is considerably south of their historic range. Kokanee may be limited by inadequate adaptation to California's mild climate.

In a modern theatre increasingly preoccupied with the mundane, the sordid, the perverse, and the hopeless, Christopher Fry's plays loom like beacons~ For Hr. Fry finds the world, however chaotic, magnificent; and he chooses to explore its more civilized areas in a language undauntedly poetic, through characters cultivated enough to speak that poetry...

Rainbow trout represents the most prominent species in freshwater farming in UK aquaculture. One of the common diseases constraining rainbow trout production and increasingly causing problems in Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar L.) hatcheries worldwide is rainbow trout fry syndrome (RTFS) or bacterial cold water disease (BCWD). During the last 20 years, the development of a commercial vaccine against RTFS has been hindered by the prevalence of a wide range of the fish pathogen F. psychrophilum, thus the current treatment of choice is the use of antibiotics. Studies involved in understanding the innate and adaptive immune response of vaccinated rainbow trout fry using inactivated whole cell are still lacking. Therefore, the aim of this thesis is to characterise the strain diversity and antibiotic susceptibility of UK F. psychrophilum isolates, evaluate the efficacy of a whole-cell formalin-killed polyvalent vaccine, which was developed based on the characterisation results of this study, and investigate the immune response in trout fry following the immersion vaccination via the changes in expression of relevant immune genes. A total of 315 F. psychrophilum isolates, 293 of which were collected within the UK, were characterised using four genotyping methods and a serotyping scheme. A high strain diversity was identified among the isolates with 54 pulsotypes, ten (GTG)5-PCR types, two 16S rRNA allele lineages, seven plasmid profiles and three serotypes. The predominant profile observed within the F. psychrophilum isolates examined was PFGE cluster II – (GTG)5-PCR type r1 – 16S rRNA lineage II – serotype Th (n= 70/156, 45%). The characterisation results not only revealed the wide distribution within the UK and the persistence within a site of predominant pulsotypes, but also the presence of unique genotypes in certain sites or countries. Co-existence of genetically and serologically heterogeneous isolates within each farm was detected, highlighting the reasons this disease is so difficult to control, especially by vaccination. The occurrence over time of F. psychrophilum pulsotypes within a site could provide important epidemiological data for farm management and the development of site-specific vaccines. The antimicrobial susceptibilities of 140 F. psychrophilum strains, 125 of which were from the UK, were evaluated by the broth microdilution (MIC) and disc diffusion methods. There was evidence of reduced susceptibilities to three of the main antimicrobials used in UK aquaculture. Broth microdilution testing showed that only 12% of 118 UK isolates tested were WT to oxolinic acid (MIC COWT 0.25 mg L-1), 42% were WT for oxytetracycline (MIC COWT 0.25 mg L-1), and 66% were WT for amoxicillin. In contrast, all the isolates tested were WT (MIC COWT 2 mg L-1) for florfenicol, the antimicrobial of choice for RTFS control in the UK. Despite the imprecision of disc diffusion-based COWT values due to high standard deviations, there was a high categorical agreement between the classification of the strains (into WT or NWT) by MIC and disc diffusion methods for florfenicol (100%), oxolinic acid (99%), amoxicillin (97%) and oxytetracycline (94%). In general, this study showed that the UK F. psychrophilum isolates examined remain susceptible to florfenicol and also stresses the importance of performing susceptibility testing using standardised methods and COWT values. Several statistically significant associations between genotypes and the reduced susceptibilities of F. psychrophilum strains were revealed. A whole-cell formalin killed polyvalent vaccine against RTFS/BCWD was developed by combining three genetically and serologically divergent strains, recently collected from UK farms. The efficacy of this polyvalent vaccine was evaluated after immersion vaccination in 5 g trout and bath challenge using hydrogen peroxide as a pre-stressor with a virulent heterologous isolate of F. psychrophilum strain. Significant protection was achieved with an RPS of 84%. The combination of exposure to hydrogen peroxide prior to bath challenge may be an alternative to an injection challenge with 12 g trout, although further standardisation and optimisation of the challenge model is required. Changes in the innate immune response of trout fry following the initial vaccination included the up-regulation of the interleukin 1 β (IL-1β) gene in head kidney at 4 h and the up-regulation of toll-like receptor-2 (TLR-2) in skin at day 2. While the expression levels of C3 was unchanged, the down regulation of CD8-α in head kidney and spleen and CD4-1 in spleen were documented. IgM and IgT transcripts were found to be up-regulated in hind-gut two days post-vaccination. Understanding the strain diversity and the antibiotic susceptibility of UK F. psychrophilum isolates could help improve the control strategies, such as preventing the spreading of pathogenic F. psychrophilum clones between fish farms, reducing the use of antibiotics in RTFS/BCWD treatment and monitoring the development of acquired antibiotic resistance mechanisms. Moreover, strain characterisation data of UK F. psychrophilum species has assisted in selecting suitable candidates for developing an effective RTFS vaccine.

This study focuses on the phonetics of creaky voice saliency and the perceptual sociolinguistic indexes that are evoked during creaky voice use. This study consists of two experiments: the first a listener judgment based Likert scale, the second an AXB study. The first experiment used modal and creaky voice statement-of-fact tokens to determine whether the speaker is or isn’t x characteristic (intelligent, feminine, educated, masculine, hesitant, and confident). This study found that both male and female speakers were found to be less intelligent, less educated, less feminine, more masculine, less confident, and more hesitant when using creaky voice phonation as compared to the modal register. Participants also rated male and female speakers as statistically different. During the second experiment the participants listened to continuums that went from modal register to extreme creaky voice (based on F0 levels). Participants performed an AXB task to determine ability at distinguishing levels of creaky voice along the continuum. This study found that participants were less able to correctly detect the level of creaky voice in the female speaker for the lower half of the continuum when compared to the male speaker.

No description available.

Continuing from Eckert’s line of research, I aim to explore the social meaning of common features loaded with gendered ideology: uptalk, creaky voice, and tag questions to name a few (Eckert 2008). Some indexical properties of these features have been alluded to in a study by Ikuko Patricia Yuasa, who found in a match-guise test that many female users of creaky voice are perceived as “educated, urban-oriented and upwardly mobile” (2010). Yet these findings are divorced from the “interactional and stylistic ends” to which girls used these marked features that Eckert and McLemore identify, when in fact they should be in direct conversation. In the process, I aim to make speech used by mainstream populations a conscious object of study, critically examining whether the features index a specific and exclusive construction of femininity that represents any sort of prestige in the specific setting of a women’s college. This entails studying not only who adopts these features and to what means, but who do not and what alternative patterns of speech they pursue instead. Thus, this project aims to elucidate the complicated choices that young women make in speech and the social meanings they convey in those choices.

No description available.

O ovo tem sido estudado por sua riqueza nutricional, por apresentar interesse industrial, como matéria-prima, e pelo seu elevado conteúdo de colesterol. Ao mesmo tempo, por sua susceptibilidade à contaminação por salmonela, principalmente, é proposta a irradiação ionizante como medida sanitária. O colesterol está sujeito à oxidação, facilitada por vários fatores, entre os quais a radiação ionizante. Os óxidos de colesterol formados, por sua vez, apresentam propriedades biológicas prejudiciais à saúde, relacionadas com a aterogenicidade, citotoxicidade, carcinogenicidade e mutagenicidade, além de outras manifestações. Os objetivos deste trabalho foram avaliar o efeito da radiação ionizante sobre o pH, viscosidade e cor, além da estabilidade oxidativa do colesterol, em ovos crus armazenados e processados. Com o aumento nas doses utilizadas (1, 2 e 3 kGy) houve redução na viscosidade da clara e na cor da gema, além do aumento da oxidação lipídica, medida através das substâncias que reagem ao ácido tiobarbitúrico (TBARS). Parâmetros como umidade, lípides totais e colesterol das gemas não foram influenciados. No caso da umidade e do colesterol, houve alteração significativa pelo armazenamento (30 dias, a 4ºC). O somatório dos óxidos analisados não variou com a irradiação, só individualmente, contudo variaram com o armazenamento. O processamento térmico provocou um aumento significativo das TBARS, mas apesar disso, o somatório dos óxidos não diferiu entre os tratamentos. / The egg have being studied due its nutritional wealth, for show industrial interest as a raw material, e due its higher cholesterol content. At the same time, due its susceptibility to contamination mainly with salmonella, it is being proposed the ionizating radiation as a hygienic measure. Cholesterol is subject to oxidation, that it is facilitated by several factors, among them ionizating radiation. Formed cholesterol oxides, by its turn, show harmful biological properties to human health, as atherogenicity, cytotoxicity, carcinogenicity and mutagenicity, among others. The objectives of this work were evaluate the effect of ionizating radiation over pH, viscosity and color, besides the oxidative stability of cholesterol, in storaged and processed crude eggs. With the increasement of used doses (1, 2 and 3 KGy), there was an reduction in the viscosity of the egg white and in the color yolk egg, besides the increase in lipidic oxidation, measured through tiobarbituric acid-reactive substances (TBARS). Specifications as humidity, total lipids and egg yolk cholesterol were not influenced. In the subject of humidity and of cholesterol, there was an meaningful alteration due storage (30 days in 4ºC). The sum of the analyzed oxides didn\'t variate with the irradiation, only individually, although it did vary with storage. The themical processing caused an meaningful increase of TBARS, but despite this, the oxides sum didn\'t differed between treatments.

This study examines the readability of text books used by Year 11 students at a Secondary College in the A.C.T. Twenty-seven texts are examined with the majority being taken from the area of Social Science. The texts are examined using the following measures, The Fry Readability Index, The SMOG Formula, The Cloze Measure, The number of Words per T-Unit and the level of Abstraction of the text. According to these indices between 60% and 84% of the texts are too difficult for students commencing Year 11. This study also examined the interrelationship between the indices. A feature of this study is that it introduces into readability measures a consideration of the number of words per T-Unit and level of Abstraction