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\"Hidden for years, a secret organization known as the Court of Owls suddenly surfaces in Gotham City. But why? As Batman begins to unravel the deadly mystery, he discovers a conspiracy going back to his youth and beyond to the origins of the city he's sworn to protect. Could the Court of Owls, once thought to be nothing more than an urban myth, be behind the never-ending crime and corruption in Gotham? Or is Bruce Wayne losing his grip on sanity and falling prey to the pressures of being Batman?\"-- Provided by publisher.

The trade-off between the need to obtain new knowledge and the need to use that knowledge to improve performance is one of the most basic trade-offs in nature, and optimal performance usually requires some balance between exploratory and exploitative behaviors. Researchers in many disciplines have been searching for the optimal solution to this dilemma. Here we present a novel model in which the exploration strategy itself is dynamic and varies with time in order to optimize a definite goal, such as the acquisition of energy, money, or prestige. Our model produced four very distinct phases: Knowledge establishment, Knowledge accumulation, Knowledge maintenance, and Knowledge exploitation, giving rise to a multidisciplinary framework that applies equally to humans, animals, and organizations. The framework can be used to explain a multitude of phenomena in various disciplines, such as the movement of animals in novel landscapes, the most efficient resource allocation for a start-up company, or the effects of old age on knowledge acquisition in humans.

Functional diversity (FD) has become a principal concept for revealing mechanisms driving community assembly and ecosystem function. Multiple assembly processes, including abiotic filtering, competition and multi‐trophic relationships, operate simultaneously to structure FD. In water‐limited plant communities, FD is likely to reflect trade‐offs between drought resistance vs. disturbance resistance and competitive ability. We propose a mathematical mechanistic model for understanding the organization and function of water‐limited plant communities. The approach captures the interplay between abiotic filtering, below‐ and above‐ground competition and disturbance. We exploit this powerful model to uncover mechanisms underlying changes in functional diversity along stress gradients. Our approach links biomass production and FD to environmental conditions through plant resource capture ability. Functional groups are defined along a single trade‐off axis according to investment in capturing light (shoot) vs. water (root). Species growth rate is determined dynamically by the species traits, water availability and grazing stress. We derive biomass production, functional diversity and composition along precipitation and grazing gradients. Model's results revealed several regimes structuring FD along the precipitation gradient: ‘Struggle for water’ at low precipitation, ‘competition for water’ at intermediate precipitation and ‘competition for light’ at high precipitation. We observed a shift in grazing effect on FD from negative at very low precipitation, to positive at higher precipitation. Unimodal FD–grazing intensity relationship was observed under high precipitation, while under low precipitation, FD decreased moderately with increasing grazing intensity. Synthesis. Our model showcases how fundamental tradeoffs in plant traits may drive functional diversity and ecosystem function along environmental gradients. It offers a mechanism through which novel understandings can be obtained regarding the interplay between water stress, below‐ and above‐ground competition and disturbance intensity and history. We discuss further model testing possibilities as well as required empirical work.

This article argues that two words in line 8.612 of the Aeneid, promissa and perfecta, have been transposed since the poem's composition, and that the restoration of their correct order yields a preferable sense. This corruption would have happened at an early stage in the poem's transmission, but there is some reason to believe that Servius’ comment on the verse reflects its original state.

Abstract The word taʿărōg, which appears three times in the Hebrew Bible, has been traditionally interpreted as a third-person feminine form. This article proposes that it instead be treated as a second-person masculine form, and that the two verses in which it appears be re-analysed accordingly.

Two major forms of vegetation patterns have been observed in drylands: nearly periodic patterns with characteristic length scales, and amorphous, scale-free patterns with wide patch-size distributions. The emergence of scale-free patterns has been attributed to global competition over a limiting resource, but the physical and ecological origin of this phenomenon is not understood. Using a spatially explicit mathematical model for vegetation dynamics in water-limited systems, we unravel a general mechanism for global competition: fast spatial distribution of the water resource relative to processes that exploit or absorb it. We study two possible realizations of this mechanism and identify physical and ecological conditions for scale-free patterns. We conclude by discussing the implications of this study for interpreting signals of imminent desertification.

Over the past two decades, our understanding of the gut microbiome has increased dramatically. However, most studies involving healthy adults have relied almost exclusively on cross-sectional design, negating the changes occurring within an individual’s microbiome through time. With this, we performed a small longitudinal study over a period of ~2 years with a cohort of 8 healthy adults. By sequencing the DNA encoding the 16S ribosomal RNA gene, we assessed the community level change in this cohort through time. Similar to previous findings, we found that using these methods there was remarkable stability through time with nearly 50% of the microbiome remaining the same throughout the study period in the participants. However, analysis of 16S ribosomal RNA sequences limits taxonomic resolution. By cultivating members of the Enterobacteriaceae, we found that turnover at the clone-level (below the species level) was common. Within the Enterobacteriaceae, Escherichia coli was the most numerically dominant species and most often observed as a long-term member of the gut (i.e. resident). Longitudinal analysis of Escherichia coli revealed that some phylogenetic groups within the species are more often long-term residents than other phylogroups. We next assessed the means by which the resident E. coli were capable of establishing and maintaining themselves in the gut. We found that residents were much more likely to produce antagonism (inhibition of other clones) than the E. coli that did not reside in the gut long-term.

Osteoarthritis and degenerative joint disease are largely intractable and difficult to address with current traditional surgical methods due to the poor inherent regenerative capacity, complex stratified architecture, and disparate biomechanical properties of the host tissue and implanted graft. The current clinical gold standard for catastrophic or late stage joint degradation is total joint arthroplasty where the damaged joint is completely excised and replaced with a composite artificial joint. Unfortunately, small or focal sized defects are either left untreated or inadequately addressed leading to degeneration of the tissue. With the advent of three-dimensional (3D) printing and bioactive biomaterials, our studies have sought to employ advanced techniques to effectively regrow osteochondral (bone-cartilage) tissue. Nanomaterial inclusion and controlled 3D printed structures serve to effectively increase nanoscale surface roughness, mechanical performance as well as provide effective ordered microchannel structure for nutrient diffusion and waste removal. All of the approaches explored through the scope of this work have proved highly effective for enhancing stem cell growth and morphogenesis. Finally, growth factor loaded polymeric nanospheres fabricated through a highly controlled wet electrospray method greatly improved cell behavior through sustained and controlled growth factor release for stem cell and mature cell tissue formation. In conclusion, 3D printing when combined effectively with biomimetic and bioactive nanomaterials can provide highly tunable and bioactively functional implants to serve as effective tissue forming 3D environments.

This dissertation poses two basic questions: (1) Under what conditions are leaders more or less likely to publicly acknowledge cooperative security negotiations or to pursue talks secretly? (2) What impact does this decision have on leaders' subsequent bargaining behavior and their overall prospects of achieving cooperation? To answer these questions, I develop a realist-inspired theoretical framework that advances two main arguments about leaders' management of national security information. First, international audiences—namely, third-party states—rather than domestic audiences often constitute the principal targets of official secrecy and public acknowledgement. Second, leaders' control of information is shaped primarily by the international strategic context and the scope of their states' national security interests rather than domestic political incentives and institutions. My central claim and finding is that states' power positions in the international system fundamentally influence not only the way that leaders control information during cooperative security negotiations but also the impact that information management has on leaders' subsequent willingness to make concessions during talks and their likelihood of reaching an agreement. I evaluate these arguments empirically by studying leaders' control of information during negotiations for foreign military base rights. Based on extensive archival research, I have constructed an original comprehensive dataset of 218 negotiation rounds and 59 agreements for U.S. overseas base rights during 1939–1971. I use this dataset to test seven novel hypotheses through rigorous statistical analyses that produce strong support for my argument about international power position and strategic context while systematically controlling for the effects of important domestic political factors. Additional support comes from rich historical examples and comparative case studies based primarily on declassified government records that illustrate the causal processes underlying each of the main quantitative findings.