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A modified primer-pair designed for the molecular sex identification of black-legged Kittiwake (Laridae: <i>Rissa tridactyla</i>)
No full textIn studies of avian populations accurate sex identification facilitates the study of sex-linked behaviour, ecology, social structure, decision-making, and life histories. To improve molecular sex identification protocols for the black-legged kittiwake (Laridae: Rissa tridactyla, hereafter ‘kittiwake’), primers previously developed for other bird species were realigned against the kittiwake CHD1 Z and W chromosomes to generate a species-specific primer-pair. Amplicons of 602 bp and 375 bp were produced using typical PCR and gel electrophoresis procedures. The modified primer-pair was validated on a test sample of 138 kittiwakes from four Atlantic breeding colonies sexed a priori using head-bill length.</p
Engaging with temporal others:memory, trauma and (in)security across time
No full textThis paper examines how traumatic memory traverses temporal boundaries and shapes ontological (in)security across the past, present and future. Drawing on illustrative cases from South Korea, Japan and Indonesia, it explores how political actors engage with their ‘temporal others’ – constructed manifestations of identity across different temporalities – and how these engagements reveal selective memory and reconfigure identity over time. While temporal othering has traditionally focused on the past, this paper extends the concept to include anticipated future selves, highlighting how actors manage not only historical legacies but also feared or undesirable futures. Through an analysis of South Korea’s Vietnam War compensation dispute, Japan’s resistance to renewed forced labour claims and Indonesia’s acknowledgment of past human rights abuses, the paper examines how states navigate unwanted memories to stabilise fragmented national narratives. Ultimately, it shows how traumatic histories continue to shape contemporary political landscapes and the pursuit of future ontological security
Brachiopods as archives of intrannual, annual, and interannual environmental variations
No full textBrachiopods have been employed for environmental and climatic reconstructions in the near and geological past. Traditionally, one datapoint is obtained per shell, providing time-averaged bulk signals. However, brachiopods also have the potential to provide time-resolved information on (sub)annual timescales, but this has been understudied due to difficulties in accounting for brachiopod shell growth. We investigated the distribution of δ18O, δ13C and Element/Ca along growth profiles of three Recent terebratulides from temperate and polar latitudes. We employed a novel approach using the Brody–Bertalanffy equation to transform shell distances into ages, permitting the study of periodicity in the measured signatures. We show that, superimposed on ontogenetic trends, faster-growing temperate species record annual and intrannual changes at collection sites, whereas slower-growing Antarctic species are also controlled by endogenous cycles. δ18O profiles reflect annual and intrannual variations in midlatitudes and interannual variations at high latitudes. δ13C and Element/Ca are additionally influenced by vital effects.</p
The NHS and the pharmaceutical industry:high risk of harmful interactions
No full textThe pharmaceutical industry has been responsible for many interventions of great benefit to patients. However, great harm to patients and healthcare systems have been created through conflicts of interest, when the behaviours of individual doctors and healthcare systems have been compromised and patient harm has resulted. The interests of the pharmaceutical industry and the NHS cannot be assumed to overlap. This means that medical decision making should be as independent and unbiased as possible. Transparency about conflicts is important, but should be a means to the end it must be part of a system which stops conflicts harming patients and healthcare systems. Given the uncertainty of how the benefits of transparency can be used in practice, it is an imperative that conflicts are avoided, and not just ‘managed’
How Russia is putting symbols of its war on Ukraine on Scottish War Memorials
No full textThe Kremlin’s hybrid warfare doctrine entails attacks executed with different means than troops, tanks and rockets. Complacent Europeans and Scots fail to notice this insidious Russian conquest of our minds and public spaces.Unless we wake up to the ugly reality, soon we may have to live under Moscow’s dominance, diligently learning Russian and careful not to anger the overlord in the Kremlin.<br/
Stratospheric impacts on weather regimes following the 2018 and 2019 sudden stratospheric warmings
No full textMajor disruptions of the stratospheric polar vortex can improve subseasonal forecast skill for surface climate, as negative North Atlantic Oscillation-like (NAO−) states can follow sudden stratospheric warmings (SSWs). Yet most insights come from observational studies or large operational forecast archives. Here we use Stratospheric Nudging And Predictable Surface Impacts (SNAPSI) project experiments, which applies stratospheric nudging to forecasts of two SSWs (2018 and 2019) followed by differing tropospheric evolutions. We show that SSWs systematically shift the atmosphere toward negative NAO-like regimes (stronger Greenland anticyclone) in both the North Atlantic-European and North American regions. Comparisons among nudged, free, and control runs quantify the benefits of improving and removing SSW representation in diagnosing tropospheric regime shifts. In 2018, accurate stratospheric representation improved weather regime forecasts. However, in 2019, despite persistent observed ridged regimes, nudged SSWs still induced negative NAO-like patterns, implying that subseasonal models sometimes underrepresent other teleconnections and overrepresent stratosphere-troposphere coupling
Exploring the dark side of continuous social media brand community participation on consumer psychological ill-being: initial vs sustained participation
No full textPurposeThis study explores the dark side effects of continuous social media brand community (SMBC) participation on consumer psychological ill-being.Design/methodology/approachA two-wave online quantitative survey was conducted over a 12-month period, involving 805 consumers with prior experience participating in social media brand communities. The proposed model was analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM) with AMOS 26.0.FindingsThe research indicates that individuals using social media for escapism are significantly linked to their SMBC participation and the experience of social media fatigue. Over time, participation in SMBC was found to greatly influence both social media fatigue and information overload. Notably, while negative emotions were closely tied to consumer psychological ill-being, information overload did not exhibit the same connection. Additionally, social media fatigue served as a mediator between SMBC participation and negative emotions. Similarly, negative emotions acted as a mediator between social media fatigue and psychological ill-being.Research limitations/implicationsThis research examined the dark side of using social media as an escape and continuous participation in SMBC, employing a two-wave quantitative methodology. The study was confined to brand communities on the Facebook platform. This presents a limitation in terms of the broade applicability of the findings, as the analysis did not encompass a comprehensive range of social media platforms.Practical implicationsThe study highlights the importance of managers maintaining order and promoting an environment of fairness on social media platforms to minimize negative emotions and reduce tensions among users. Additionally, governments can collaborate with social marketing agencies and NGOs to raise awareness about the potential adverse effects of excessive social media use, particularly focusing on protecting young people who are more susceptible to its negative impacts.Originality/valueThis research stands out as one of the few studies examining the potential negative aspects of SMBC activities, offering a meaningful addition to the existing body of literature on SMBC and psychological ill-being. Grounded in the theory of compensatory Internet use and the stressor-strain-outcome model, it provides valuable insights into the darker side of consumer social media escapism and participation in SMBCs, particularly in relation to their psychological ill-being
Measurement-induced dynamical quantum thermalization
No full textOne of the fundamental problems of quantum statistical physics is how an ideally isolated quantum system can ever reach thermal equilibrium behavior despite the unitary time evolution of quantum-mechanical systems. Here, we study, via explicit time evolution for the generic model system of an interacting, trapped Bose gas with discrete single-particle levels, how the measurement of one or more observables subdivides the system into observed and non-observed Hilbert subspaces and the tracing over the non-measured quantum numbers defines an effective, thermodynamic bath, induces the entanglement of the observed Hilbert subspace with the bath, and leads to a bi-exponential approach of the entanglement entropy and of the measured observables to thermal equilibrium behavior as a function of time. We find this to be more generally fulfilled than in the scenario of the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH), namely for both local particle occupation numbers and non-local density correlation functions, and independent of the specific initial quantum state of the time evolution