Throughout their 250 Myr history, archosaurian reptiles have exhibited a wide array of body sizes, shapes, and locomotor habits, especially in regard to terrestriality. These features make Archosauria a useful clade with which to study the interplay between body size, shape, and locomotor behavior, and how this interplay may have influenced locomotor evolution. Here, digital volumetric models of 80 taxa are used to explore how mass properties and body proportions relate to each other and locomotor posture in archosaurs. One-way, nonparametric, multivariate analysis of variance, based on the results of principal components analysis, shows that bipedal and quadrupedal archosaurs are largely distinguished from each other on the basis of just four anatomical parameters (p < 0.001): mass, center of mass position, and relative forelimb and hindlimb lengths. This facilitates the development of a quantitative predictive framework that can help assess gross locomotor posture in understudied or controversial taxa, such as the crocodile-line Batrachotomus (predicted quadruped) and Postosuchus (predicted biped). Compared with quadrupedal archosaurs, bipedal species tend to have relatively longer hindlimbs and a more caudally positioned whole-body center of mass, and collectively exhibit greater variance in forelimb lengths. These patterns are interpreted to reflect differing biomechanical constraints acting on the archosaurian Bauplan in bipedal versus quadrupedal groups, which may have shaped the evolutionary histories of their respective members.

Research shows that childhood dysregulation is associated with later psychiatric disorders. It does not yet resolve discrepancies in the operationalization of dysregulation. It is also far from settled on the origins and implications of individual differences in dysregulation. This study tested several operational definitions of dysregulation using Achenbach attention, anxious/depressed, and aggression subscales. Individual growth curves of dysregulation were computed, and predictors of growth differences were considered. The study also compared the predictive utility of the dysregulation indexes to standard externalizing and internalizing indexes. Dysregulation was indexed annually for 24 years in a community sample (n = 585). Hierarchical linear models considered changes in dysregulation in relation to possible influences from parenting, family stress, child temperament, language, and peer relations. In a test of the meaning of dysregulation, it was related to functional and psychiatric outcomes in adulthood. Dysregulation predictions were further compared to those of the more standard internalizing and externalizing indexes. Growth curve analyses showed strong stability of dysregulation. Initial levels of dysregulation were predicted by temperamental resistance to control, and change in dysregulation was predicted by poor language ability and peer relations. Dysregulation and externalizing problems were associated with negative adult outcomes to a similar extent.

Parasites of the genera Plasmodium and Haemoproteus (Apicomplexa: Haemosporida) are a diverse group of pathogens that infect birds nearly worldwide. Despite their ubiquity, the ecological and evolutionary factors that shape the diversity and distribution of these protozoan parasites among avian communities and geographic regions are poorly understood. Based on a survey throughout the Neotropics of the haemosporidian parasites infecting manakins (Pipridae), a family of Passerine birds endemic to this region, we asked whether host relatedness, ecological similarity and geographic proximity structure parasite turnover between manakin species and local manakin assemblages. We used molecular methods to screen 1343 individuals of 30 manakin species for the presence of parasites. We found no significant correlations between manakin parasite lineage turnover and both manakin species turnover and geographic distance. Climate differences, species turnover in the larger bird community and parasite lineage turnover in non-manakin hosts did not correlate with manakin parasite lineage turnover. We also found no evidence that manakin parasite lineage turnover among host species correlates with range overlap and genetic divergence among hosts. Our analyses indicate that host switching (turnover among host species) and dispersal (turnover among locations) of haemosporidian parasites in manakins are not constrained at this scale.

We present a response to Dowsett-Lemaire et al. regarding their contention that there is a “new threat” posed by scientific collecting in Malawi and elsewhere.

Using data from two long-term longitudinal projects, we investigated reciprocal relations between maternal reports of physical discipline and teacher and self-ratings of child externalizing behavior, accounting for continuity in both discipline and externalizing over time. In Study 1, which followed a community sample of 562 boys and girls from age 6 to 9, high levels of physical discipline in a given year predicted high levels of externalizing behavior in the next year, and externalizing behavior in a given year predicted high levels of physical discipline in the next year. In Study 2, which followed an independent sample of 290 lower income, higher risk boys from age 10 to 15, mother-reported physical discipline in a given year predicted child ratings of antisocial behavior in the next year, but child antisocial behavior in a given year did not predict parents' use of physical discipline in the next year. In neither sample was there evidence that associations between physical discipline and child externalizing changed as the child aged, and findings were not moderated by gender, race, socioeconomic status, or the severity of the physical discipline. Implications for the reciprocal nature of the socialization process and the risks associated with physical discipline are discussed.

This study examined the mediating role of loneliness (assessed by self-report at Time 2; Grade 6) in the relation between early social preference (assessed by peer report at Time 1; kindergarten through Grade 3) and adolescent anxious/depressed symptoms (assessed by mother, teacher, and self-reports at Time 3; Grades 7–9). Five hundred eighty-five boys and girls (48% female; 16% African American) from three geographic sites of the Child Development Project were followed from kindergarten through Grade 9. Loneliness partially mediated and uniquely incremented the significant effect of low social preference in childhood on anxious/depressed symptoms in adolescence, controlling for early anxious/depressed symptoms at Time 1. Findings are critical to understanding the psychological functioning through which early social experiences affect youths' maladjusted development. Directions for basic and intervention research are discussed, and implications for treatment are addressed.

Experimental studies of silicate glass/water reactions at low temperatures have previously identified the glass surface area-to-solution volume ratio (SA/V) as a significant rate determining parameter [1-4]. The value produced when SA/V is multiplied by reaction time, hereafter referred to as SVT, has been proposed as a scaling factor for comparing experimental results collected under different test conditions and for extrapolating short-term results to longer periods of time. Developing an understanding of the effect of SAN is needed for modeling experimental results where SA/V ranges in value or may vary during experiments. It is also useful to understand the effect of SA/V for modeling natural systems where this value almost certainly varies, such as during the hydrothermal diagenesis of natural glasses or projecting the long-term reaction of water and borosilicate nuclear waste glass in a geologic repository.

Molecular water diffusion in natural obsidians and tektite was investigated in vapor hydration tests performed between 75 and 230°C for up to 400 days. Reaction progress was monitored using measurements of the birefringent hydration layer, an alteration feature associated with strain caused by molecular water diffusion in obsidians. The hydration rate constants and temperature dependence of the reaction are strongly correlated with the logarithm of the initial total water content of the glass. These values have been quantified for conditions relevant to the potential Yucca Mountain repository. The low initial total water concentrations of Savannah River Lab nuclear waste glasses produced at the bench-top scale help to minimze the effects of molecular water diffusion in waste glasses. The results of this study indicate that molecular water diffusion does not dominate waste glass reactions under conditions considered in this study. However, it is unknown whether molecular water diffusion will be important under other reaction conditions, especially longer time periods.

Test samples of 131 type glass that have been reacted for extended time periods in water vapor atmospheres of different relative humidities and in static leaching solution have been examined to characterize the reaction products. Analytical electron microscopy (AEM) was used to characterize the leached samples, and a complicated layer structure was revealed, consisting of phases that precipitate from solution and also form within the residual glass layer. The precipitated phases include birnessite, saponite, and an iron species, while the intralayer phases include the U-TI containing phase brannerite distributed within a matrix consisting of bands of an Fe rich montmorillonite clay. Comparison is made between samples leached at 40°C for 4 years with those leached at 90°C for 3-1/2 years. The samples reacted in water vapor were examined with scanning electron microscopy and show increasing reaction as both the relative humidity and time of reaction increases. These samples also contain a layered structure with reaction products on the glass surface.

The influence of gamma irradiation on the reaction of actinide doped SRL 165 and PNL 76–68 glasses in a saturated tuff environment has been studied in a series of tests lasting up to 56 days. The reaction, and subsequent actinide release, of both glasses depends on the dynamic interaction between radiolysis effects which cause the solution pH to become more acidic and glass reaction which drives the pH more basic. The use of large gamma irradiation dose rates to accelerate reactions that would occur in an actual repository radiation field may affect this dynamic balance by unduly influencing the mechanism of the glass-water reaction. Comparisons are made between the present results and data obtained by reacting the same or similar glasses using MCC-1 and NNWSI rock cup procedures.