According to International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) guidelines, all species must be assessed against all criteria during the Red Listing process. For organismal groups that are diverse and understudied, assessors face considerable challenges in assembling evidence due to difficulty in applying definitions of key terms used in the guidelines. Challenges also arise because of uncertainty in population sizes (Criteria A, C, D) and distributions (Criteria A2/3/4c, B). Lichens, which are often small, difficult to identify, or overlooked during biodiversity inventories, are one such group for which specific difficulties arise in applying Red List criteria. Here, we offer approaches and examples that address challenges in completing Red List assessments for lichens in a rapidly changing arena of data availability and analysis strategies. While assessors still contend with far from perfect information about individual species, we propose practical solutions for completing robust assessments given the currently available knowledge of individual lichen life-histories.

The most common equine tapeworm, Anoplocephala perfoliata, has often been neglected amongst molecular investigations and has been faced with limited treatment options. However, the recent release of a transcriptome dataset has now provided opportunities for in-depth analysis of A. perfoliata protein expression. Here, global, and sub-proteomic approaches were utilized to provide a comprehensive characterization of the A. perfoliata soluble glutathione transferases (GST) (ApGST). Utilizing both bioinformatics and gel-based proteomics, GeLC and 2D-SDS PAGE, the A. perfoliata ‘GST-ome’ was observed to be dominated with Mu class GST representatives. In addition, both Sigma and Omega class GSTs were identified, albeit to a lesser extent and absent from affinity chromatography approaches. Moreover, 51 ApGSTs were localized across somatic (47 GSTs), extracellular vesicles (EVs) (Whole: 1 GST, Surface: 2 GSTs) and EV depleted excretory secretory product (ESP) (9 GSTs) proteomes. In related helminths, GSTs have shown promise as novel anthelmintic or vaccine targets for improved helminth control. Thus, provides potential targets for understanding A. perfoliata novel infection mechanisms, host–parasite relationships and anthelmintic treatments.

Lichens are a well-known symbiosis between a host mycobiont and eukaryote algal or cyanobacterial photobiont partner(s). Recent studies have indicated that terrestrial lichens can also contain other cryptic photobionts that increase the lichens’ ecological fitness in response to varying environmental conditions. Marine lichens live in distinct ecosystems compared with their terrestrial counterparts because of regular submersion in seawater and are much less studied. We performed bacteria 16S and eukaryote 18S rRNA gene metabarcoding surveys to assess total photobiont diversity within the marine lichen Lichina pygmaea (Lightf.) C. Agardh, which is widespread throughout the intertidal zone of Atlantic coastlines. We found that in addition to the established cyanobacterial photobiont Rivularia, L. pygmaea is also apparently host to a range of other marine and freshwater cyanobacteria, as well as marine eukaryote algae in the family Ulvophyceae (Chlorophyta). We propose that symbiosis with multiple freshwater and marine cyanobacteria and eukaryote photobionts may contribute to the ability of L. pygmaea to survive the harsh fluctuating environmental conditions of the intertidal zone.

This study introduces a special series on validity studies of the Cognition Battery (CB) from the U.S. National Institutes of Health Toolbox for the Assessment of Neurological and Behavioral Function (NIHTB) (Gershon, Wagster et al., 2013) in an adult sample. This first study in the series describes the sample, each of the seven instruments in the NIHTB-CB briefly, and the general approach to data analysis. Data are provided on test–retest reliability and practice effects, and raw scores (mean, standard deviation, range) are presented for each instrument and the gold standard instruments used to measure construct validity. Accompanying papers provide details on each instrument, including information about instrument development, psychometric properties, age and education effects on performance, and convergent and discriminant construct validity. One study in the series is devoted to a factor analysis of the NIHTB-CB in adults and another describes the psychometric properties of three composite scores derived from the individual measures representing fluid and crystallized abilities and their combination. The NIHTB-CB is designed to provide a brief, comprehensive, common set of measures to allow comparisons among disparate studies and to improve scientific communication. (JINS, 2014, 20, 1–12)

A method to remove the effects of elastic and thermal diffuse scattering (TDS) of the incident electron probe from electron energy-loss and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy data for atomically resolved spectrum images of single crystals of known thickness is presented. By calculating the distribution of the probe within a specimen of known structure, it is possible to deconvolve the channeling of the probe and TDS from experimental data by reformulating the inelastic cross-section as an inverse problem. In electron energy-loss spectroscopy this allows valid comparisons with first principles fine-structure calculations to be made. In energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, direct compositional analyses such as ζ-factor and Cliff–Lorimer k-factor analysis can be performed without the complications of channeling and TDS. We explore in detail how this method can be incorporated into existing multislice programs, and demonstrate practical considerations in implementing this method using a simulated test specimen. We show the importance of taking into account the scattering of the probe in k-factor analysis in a zone axis orientation. The applicability and limitations of the method are discussed.

Iris' written work has been very widely admired; she has obviously helped shape the field of democratic political theory; she has deeply influenced students. The discussion of this work will go on in books and articles until her ideas have been fully absorbed. Here I will say a little about my particular experience of her collegiality. I was Iris' junior colleague at Chicago for six years. I met Iris eight years ago this week, under a portico outside a large hotel like the one in which you are all gathered, not too long after I had first read Democracy and Difference and shortly before my first APSA paper presentation on, as it happened, deliberative democracy. I had no way of knowing then how directly and deeply she would affect my intellectual life. She was already for me a standard, even before I met her. But how that fact deepened over time is what I want to render here.

This work reports on the densification of iron nanoparticles heated at moderate rates without applied pressure as observed by TEM imaging, gas adsorption pore size measurement, and X-ray diffraction. Despite a low packing density, the small pore size is amenable to significant densification by pressureless sintering. Carbon residues from the stabilizing ligands affect both the composition and processing of the particles. This approach is amenable to deposition on non-planar or fragile substrates. Additionally, large areas can be processed in parallel.