Typhlocoelum cucumerinum is a tracheal parasite of birds widely distributed across the globe. Nevertheless, aspects of the biology of this cyclocoelid are still poorly understood. Herein, we report the finding of T. cucumerinum in definitive and intermediate hosts from an urban waterbody of Brazil. The parasite was initially detected during the necropsy of domestic Muscovy ducks (Cairina moschata) found dead in the locality. Coproparasitological tests in live animals revealed that 12/47 (25.53%) Muscovy ducks and 2/8 (25%) mallards (Anas platyrhynchos platyrhynchos) were infected with T. cucumerinum. Moreover, rediae and metacercariae morphologically similar to T. cucumerinum were found in 3/248 (1.33%) Biomphalaria straminea collected in the same waterbody frequented by the birds. The conspecificity between the adult and the larval stages was confirmed molecularly (100% similarity in Cox-1). Moreover, the phylogenetic position of T. cucumerinum was determined for the first time based on partial fragments of the 28S, Cox-1 and Nad-1 genes. The species grouped with other members of the subfamily Typhlocoelinae with sequences available, but the data obtained do not support the distinctiveness of the genera Typhlocoelum and Tracheophilus. Further studies involving a broader range of species can result in taxonomic rearrangements in Typhlocoelinae.

The correspondence between Leibniz and Arnauld was judged by Leibniz himself to be very useful for understanding his philosophy. Historians have concurred in this judgment. Leibniz did not find any philosophy of independent interest in the letters Arnauld sent him. Historians have, for the most part, also concurred in this finding. I shall argue that on one set of issues at least — modal metaphysics and free will — Arnauld accomplished more than facilitating Leibnizian elucidations. He held his own in this dispute. Indeed, were it not for the general sophistication and superior handling of such issues as identity, unity, and the nature of body enjoyed by the Leibnizian system, the Cartesian position on modal metaphysics and free will espoused by Arnauld might have won the day in the eyes of later philosophers. A proper appreciation of the Cartesian framework should also make it of considerable interest to philosophers presently at work on the metaphysics of modality. I shall argue that Descartes and some Cartesians like Arnauld espoused a strongly actualist doctrine. This means they thought that all philosophically interesting uses of possibles were analyzable into facts about actually existing things.

Despite a growing body of literature on integrated land–sea management (ILSM), very little critical assessment has been conducted in order to evaluate ILSM in practice on island systems. Here we develop indicators for assessing 10 integrated island management principles and evaluate the performance of planning and implementation in four island ILSM projects from the tropical Pacific across different governance structures. We find that where customary governance is still strongly respected and enabled through national legislation, ILSM in practice can be very effective at restricting access and use according to fluctuations in resource availability. However, decision-making under customary governance systems may be vulnerable to mismanagement. Government-led ILSM processes have the potential to design management actions that address the spatial scale of ecosystem processes and threats within the context of national policy and legislation, but may not fully capture broad stakeholder interests, and implementation may be poorly coordinated across highly dispersed island archipelagos. Private sector partnerships offer unique opportunities for resourcing island ILSM, although these are highly likely to be geared towards private sector interests that may change in the future and no longer align with community and/or national objectives. We identify consistent challenges that arise during island ILSM planning and implementation and offer recommendations for improvement.

Comparison of histories of great earthquakes and accompanying tsunamis at eight coastal sites suggests plate-boundary ruptures of varying length, implying great earthquakes of variable magnitude at the Cascadia subduction zone. Inference of rupture length relies on degree of overlap on radiocarbon age ranges for earthquakes and tsunamis, and relative amounts of coseismic subsidence and heights of tsunamis. Written records of a tsunami in Japan provide the most conclusive evidence for rupture of much of the plate boundary during the earthquake of 26 January 1700. Cascadia stratigraphic evidence dating from about 1600 cal yr B.P., similar to that for the 1700 earthquake, implies a similarly long rupture with substantial subsidence and a high tsunami. Correlations are consistent with other long ruptures about 1350 cal yr B.P., 2500 cal yr B.P., 3400 cal yr B.P., 3800 cal yr B.P., 4400 cal yr B.P., and 4900 cal yr B.P. A rupture about 700–1100 cal yr B.P. was limited to the northern and central parts of the subduction zone, and a northern rupture about 2900 cal yr B.P. may have been similarly limited. Times of probable short ruptures in southern Cascadia include about 1100 cal yr B.P., 1700 cal yr B.P., 3200 cal yr B.P., 4200 cal yr B.P., 4600 cal yr B.P., and 4700 cal yr B.P. Rupture patterns suggest that the plate boundary in northern Cascadia usually breaks in long ruptures during the greatest earthquakes. Ruptures in southernmost Cascadia vary in length and recurrence intervals more than ruptures in northern Cascadia.

A 30 ka paleo-climate record of the Boise area, Idaho, USA has been delineated using groundwater stable isotopic compositions. Groundwater ages are modern (cold batholith), 5–15 ka (thermal batholith), 10–20 ka (frontal fault), and 20–30 ka (Snake River plain thermal). The stable isotopic composition of groundwaters have been used as a surrogate for the stable isotopic composition of precipitation. Using δ2H and δ18O compositions, local groundwater lines (LGWL's) were defined for each system. Each LGWL has been evaluated with defined slopes of 6.94 and 8, respectively, and resulting deuterium excess values (d) were found for each groundwater system for each slope. Time dependent changes in moisture source humidity and temperature, and Boise area recharge temperatures, calculated from stable isotopic data and the deuterium excess factors, agree with previous paleo-climate studies. Results indicate that from the last glacial maximum to the present time the humidity over the ocean moisture source increased by 9%, sea surface temperature at the moisture source increased 6–7°C, and local Boise temperature increased by 4–5°C. A greater increase of temperature at the moisture source as compared to the Boise area may impart be due to a shift in the moisture source area.

Timpanogos Cave, located near the Wasatch fault, is about 357 m above the American Fork River. Fluvial cave sediments and an interbedded carbonate flowstone yield a paleomagnetic and U–Th depositional age of 350 to 780 ka. Fault vertical slip rates, inferred from calculated river downcutting rates, range between 1.02 and 0.46 mm yr− 1. These slip rates are in the range of the 0–12 Ma Wasatch Range exhumation rate (∼ 0.5–0.7 mm yr− 1), suggesting that the long-term vertical slip rate remained stable through mid-Pleistocene time. However, the late Pleistocene (0–250 ka) decelerated slip rate (∼ 0.2–0.3 mm yr− 1) and the accelerated Holocene slip rate (∼ 1.2 mm yr− 1) are consistent with episodic fault activity. Assuming that the late Pleistocene vertical slip rate represents an episodic slowing of fault movement and the long-term (0–12 Ma) average vertical slip rate, including the late Pleistocene and Holocene, should be ∼ 0.6 mm yr− 1, there is a net late Pleistocene vertical slip deficit of ∼ 50–75 m. The Holocene and late Pleistocene slip rates may be typical for episodes of accelerated and slowed fault movement, respectively. The calculated late Pleistocene slip deficit may mean that the current accelerated Wasatch fault slip rate will extend well into the future.

Peaty, tidal-marsh soils interbedded with estuarine mud in late Holocene stratigraphic sequences near Coos Bay, Oregon, may have been submerged and buried during great (M > 8) subduction earthquakes, smaller localized earthquakes, or by nontectonic processes. Radiocarbon dating might help distinguish among these alternatives by showing that soils at different sites were submerged at different times along this part of the Cascadia subduction zone. But comparison of conventional 14C ages for different materials from the same buried soils shows that they contain materials that differ in age by many hundreds of years. Errors in calibrated soil ages represent about the same length of time as recurrence times for submergence events (150–500 yr)—this similarity precludes using conventional 14C ages to distinguish buried soils along the southern Oregon coast. Accelerator mass spectrometer 14C ages of carefully selected macrofossils from the tops of peaty soils should provide more precise estimates of the times of submergence events.

We describe bright microwave events that were first detected with the Parkes 64-m telescope at 8.4 or 22 GHz from six active-chromosphere stars. In some flares spectral data were obtained over a large frequency range from simultaneous measurements with the Parkes reflector (8.4 or 22 GHz), the Tidbinbilla interferometer (8.4 and 2.29 GHz), the Fleurs synthesis telescope (1.42 GHz) and the Molonglo Observatory synthesis telescope (0.843 GHz). Data on circular polarization were obtained from the Parkes observations at 8.4 GHz.

The stars were in a wide variety of evolutionary states, ranging from a single pre-main-sequence star (HD 36705), two RS CVn binaries (HD 127535, HD 128171), an Algol (HD 132742) and two apparently single K giants (HD 32918 and HD 196818). Their high brightness temperatures, positive spectral indices and low polarization are consistent with optically thick gyrosynchrotron emission from mildly relativistic electrons with average energies 0.5 to 3 MeV gyrating in inhomogeneous magnetic fields of 5 to 100 G.

Very sensitive low-noise amplifiers designed to receive transmissions from spacecraft are not necessarily suitable receivers for radio astronomy. In the former case a good signalto- noise ratio is required so that high data rates can be achieved. In the latter the ratio of signal to noise power may be as low as 10-4 and the stability of receiver gain and that of ail sources of noise during long integration times become of equal importance.

This paper describes a novel solution to the problem, which allowed important astronomy to be performed while the ruby maser receivers belonging to the European Space Agency were installed on the Parkes radio telescope for an extended period of time.

We present an overview of the survey for radio emission from active stars that has been in progress for the last six years using the observatories at Fleurs, Molonglo, Parkes and Tidbinbilla. The role of complementary optical observations at the Anglo-Australian Observatory, Mount Burnett, Mount Stromlo and Siding Spring Observatories and Mount Tamborine are also outlined. We describe the different types of star that have been included in our survey and discuss some of the problems in making the radio observations.

We present some preliminary results of an optical and radio study of the very active RS CVn binary HD 127535. Photometric measurements show the presence of a large amplitude wave which exhibits marked changes in shape and range on time scales as short as a few months. This photometric variation is almost certainly due to large cool starspots on the cooler, more luminous component. As part of a survey of southern active-chromosphere stars with the Parkes radio telescope, HD 127535 has been observed at 5, 8.4 and 22 GHz. No detection was made at 5 GHz, possibly because of confusion due to the angular proximity of the star to the galatic plane. However, it is one of the strongest sources detected in the 8.4 GHz survey, and is one of only two stars detected at 22 GHz. Photometry obtained two cycles before the 8.4 GHz observations suggest a possible correlation between the radio emission and the photometric wave, i.e. spot visibility, but more data are needed.

Properties of the microwave emission from HR1099 are examined in an attempt to determine whether the emission arises as gyro-synchrotron radiation from mildly relativistic electrons trapped in magnetic fields above starspots on the active K subgiant component. It is shown that radio curves do not exhibit a systematic variation in phase with the rotation rate, as one might expect for emission from a source situated above a long-lived starspot. However, there is some evidence that the radio flaring occurs at two preferred longitude zones. Whether these zones agree with starspot locations remains to be determined by light curve modelling. What we can say with confidence is that the measured spectral index of the microwave emission does not fit a simple gyro-synchrotron source model, such as that proposed to explain the observed reversal with frequency of the sense of circular polarization.

Macroevolutionary and macroecological studies must account for biases in the fossil record, especially when questions concern the relative abundance and diversity of taxa that differ in preservation and sampling potential. Using Cenozoic marine mollusks from a temperate setting (New Zealand), we find that much of the long-term temporal variation in gastropod versus bivalve occurrences is correlated with the stage-level sampling probabilities of aragonitic versus calcitic taxa. Average sampling probabilities are higher for calcitic species, but this contrast is time-varying in a predictable way, being concentrated in stages with widespread carbonate deposition.

To understand these results fully, we link them with analyses at the level of individual point occurrences. Doing so reveals that aragonite bias is effectively absent in terrigenous clastic sediments. In limestones, by contrast, calcitic species have at least twice the odds of sampling as aragonitic species. This result is most pronounced during times of widespread carbonate deposition, where the difference in the per-collection odds of sampling species is a factor of eight. During carbonate-rich intervals, calcitic taxa also have higher odds of sampling in clastics. At first glance this result may suggest simple preservational bias against aragonite. However, comparing relative odds of aragonitic versus calcitic sampling with absolute sampling rates shows that the positive calcite bias during carbonate-rich times reflects higher than average occurrence rates for calcitic taxa (rather than lower rates for aragonitic taxa) and that the negative aragonite bias in limestones reflects lower than average occurrence rates for aragonitic taxa (rather than higher rates for calcitic taxa).

Our results therefore indicate a time-varying interplay of two main factors: (1) taphonomic loss of aragonitic species in carbonate sediments, with no substantial bias in terrigenous clastics; and (2) an ecological preference of calcitic taxa for environments characteristic of periods with pervasive carbonate deposition, irrespective of lithology per se.