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Skateboarding as imperial endeavour:A response to “The ludic lives of memoryscapes”
No full textThe present commentary explores the implicit and explicit role of skateboarding and skate studies in upholding Russian colonial practices in, and the coloniality of knowledge on, the territories of the former Soviet Union. Addressing Duncan McDuie-Ra’s article ‘The ludic lives of memoryscapes: Skateboarding post-Soviet peripheries’, I argue for the need to consider more openly how the power relations extant in leisure practices may shape the region’s construction both in geopolitical terms and within academic discourse. In doing so, this examination urges a broader reconsideration of how skateboarding is analysed while simultaneously adding to the understanding of memoryscapes in the post-Soviet context
Complex families in the United Kingdom:mapping children’s diverse family pathways and their correlates from birth to age ten
No full textThe rise in divorce, cohabitation, non-marital childbearing and multi-partner fertility means that today’s children are more likely to experience less common or less stable family settings compared to previous generations. This may lead to increasing inequalities across the life course. Unlike most existing studies on family change, we investigate family trajectories in the United Kingdom from children’s perspective. We map the family trajectories characterising children’s first ten years of life using multi-channel sequence analysis on data from the UK Household Longitudinal Study, jointly capturing the dynamics of maternal partnership histories and paternal co-residence patterns from the children’s perspective. Multinomial logistic regression is applied to understand the characteristics associated with experiencing different childhood family trajectories. Children experience six typical family trajectories: continuously married; early separation; continuously cohabiting; later separation; early solo motherhood; and a new father. From birth to age ten, over a quarter of children do not continuously live with their two biological parents. Children with lower-educated mothers, mothers in the youngest or oldest groups, who live in urban areas, and belong to certain ethnic groups (White British, Mixed, Caribbean, Black African) tend to experience less common or less stable trajectories. Our elucidation of factors associated with more/less stable childhood family pathways can inform policy decision-making around support for families to mitigate growing short- and long-term inequalities giving rise to children’s diverging destinies
WASP-12, shrouded in mystery or just cold gas?
No full textObservations of the planet-hosting star WASP-12 show a distinctive depression in the Mg ɪɪ and Ca ɪɪ resonance lines. This has been interpreted as a marker of atmospheric loss from the close-in hot Jupiter WASP-12b and the resulting formation of a gas torus around the star. In this paper we quantify the Mg ii absorption from this torus, compared to that provided by the stellar wind, the stellar astrosphere and the interstellar medium (ISM). To do this we piece together the full density profile of Mg ii from WASP-12 to an observer on Earth using a combination of hydrodynamical simulations and observations. We find that the bulk of the gas along the line of sight is contained within a dense torus close to WASP-12. However, the temperatures in this torus are sufficient to promote Mg into a doubly (Mg ɪɪɪ) or higher ionized state. As a result, the singly ionized fraction (Mg ɪɪ) is low. We find that most of the Mg ɪɪ is not in the torus but in the ISM. Despite this, the total column density of Mg ɪɪ is two orders of magnitude lower than required to explain observations of the system. To resolve this discrepancy, we note that the torus gas is at a temperature where it will cool efficiently. We speculate that the onset of the cooling instability will cause the torus to fragment, forming cold clumps with a higher fraction of Mg ɪɪ, capable of explaining the observed absorption
Male mating behaviour is shaped by previous experience of both conspecific and heterospecific females in the seed bug<i> Lygaeus simulans</i>
No full textMating decisions are often context-dependent. For example, choosy individuals may benefit from relaxing mate preferences if conspecific mates are scarce. However, prior experience of heterospecifics can also alter mating decisions, and this can influence the strength of species discrimination and/or sexual selection. Here, we investigate the effect of previous mating opportunities on the subsequent mating decisions of male Lygaeus simulans seed bugs, a species known both to experience reproductive interference (reproductive interactions with heterospecifics that are costly) and also male mate choice for larger females. We used a nested, hierarchical design whereby focal males were: (1) paired with a conspecific female or remained unpaired on day 1; (2) paired with a conspecific female, a heterospecific female, or were unpaired on day 6; (3) paired with a conspecific female or a heterospecific female on day 8. The sister species L. equestris provided the heterospecific partners. We found that males were less likely to mate with heterospecific L. equestris females if they had previously encountered a heterospecific, but only if copulation had not occurred during that encounter. Additionally, the willingness of males to copulate with conspecifics increased when males had prior conspecific experience, and decreased with prior heterospecific experience, suggesting that male pre-copulatory mating decisions are plastic and can be influenced by experience of both con- and heterospecifics
Polyetherureas as aqueous binders for Li ion batteries
No full textWe report here the application of polyetherureas as a new class of aqueous binder for the LiFePO4 positive electrode material in lithium-ion batteries. Polyetherureas have been synthesized by ruthenium-catalyzed dehydrogenative coupling of polyethylene glycol diamine and methanol avoiding conventionally used toxic diisocyanate feedstock. The best binder performance was obtained when polyetherurea was used in combination with SBR (Styrene–Butadiene Rubber), exhibiting a coulombic efficiency of ∼99.9% and a cell polarization of 30 mV. Remarkably, the combination of polyetherurea/SBR as a binder demonstrates comparable performance as that of CMC (carboxymethyl cellulose), which is a commonly used aqueous binder for lithium-ion batteries. Evidence of the involvement of polyetherureas in binder performance has been provided using IR spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy. Physical, electrochemical, and mechanical properties of the polyetherurea have been studied using TGA, DSC, powder XRD, cyclic voltammetry, nanoindentation, tensile testing, and 180° peel test that shed light on why this polymer acts as a good binder
Biocompatible TADF probes for highly multiplexed fluorescence lifetime imaging
No full textFluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy (FLIM) is an optical imaging modality that can provide multiplexed readouts with remarkable sensitivity to cellular microenvironments. Even though fluorescence lifetimes can distinguish fluorophores having overlapping spectral profiles, conventional fluorophores possess a narrow range of emission lifetimes (typically shorter than 5 ns) that limits their potential for multiplexed imaging. In this work, we have systematically designed and evaluated a combination of thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) nanoprobes for multiplexed FLIM. We have synthesized a collection of 36 TADF biocompatible nanoprobes with long and diverse fluorescence lifetimes in aqueous media (up to 15 ns) and employed selected probes for live-cell imaging of bacterial cells under physiological conditions. By leveraging the exceptionally broad range of fluorescence lifetimes of these TADF emitters, we have achieved unprecedented simultaneous imaging of five nanoprobes within a single spectral window using a FLIM-phasor strategy. These findings demonstrate that TADF emitters are excellent scaffolds to unlock the capabilities of fluorescence lifetime imaging for multi-color biological studies
Do Transformers Understand Ancient Roman Coin Motifs Better than CNNs?
No full textAutomated analysis of ancient coins has the potential to help researchers extract more historical insights from large collections of coins and to help collectors understand what they are buying or selling. Recent research in this area has shown promise in focusing on identification of semantic elements as they are commonly depicted on ancient coins, by using convolutional neural networks (CNNs). This paper is the first to apply the recently proposed Vision Transformer (ViT) deep learning architecture to the task of identification of semantic elements on coins, using fully automatic learning from multi-modal data (images and unstructured text). This article summarises previous research in the area, discusses the training and implementation of ViT and CNN models for ancient coins analysis and provides an evaluation of their performance. The ViT models were found to outperform the newly trained CNN models in accuracy
"We don't mix with those married women":Widowhood as an emergent gender for development projects in urban Papua New Guinea
No full textLife histories of research participants on applied development projects can bring into view unanticipated social forms. This is particularly true for the way such projects frame gender. We document development-focused research in two cities in Papua New Guinea (PNG) that elicited accounts of widowhood, wherein participants called our attention to the implications of this kinship category for the urban context of our work. Widowhood in PNG refers not only to a woman whose husband has died but also to a woman whose husband has absconded from the marriage without a formal divorce. In the absence of support from their families, our interlocutors describe how widowhood required them to explore new ways of connecting with each other for mutual support. Their stories underscore the necessity of attention to emergent gendered subjectivities in development contexts, and to the changing nature of marriage and social reproduction in contemporary PNG
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