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Applying the ‘Human Rights Model of Disability’ to Informed Consent: Experiences and Reflections from the SHAPES Project
No full textUnderstanding the complexity of informed consent processes is critically important to the success of research that requires participants to test, develop, or inform research data and results. This is particularly evident in research involving persons experiencing neurodegenerative diseases (e.g., Alzheimer’s disease, dementia) that impair cognitive functioning, who according to national law are considered to have a diminished capacity, or to lack the capacity, to consent to research participation. Those who would potentially benefit most from applied research participation may be excluded from participating and shaping data and outcomes. This article offers insights into challenges faced by the Smart and Healthy Ageing through People Engaging in Supportive Systems (SHAPES) Project in obtaining the consent of older persons, including older persons with disabilities. The promotion of continuing health, active ageing, and independent living is central to SHAPES, requiring project partners to reflect on traditional informed consent approaches to encourage the full, cognisant participation of older persons with disabilities. We examine how this issue may be addressed, with reference to the inclusive approach of SHAPES. In respecting the inalienable legal capacity of all legal persons, SHAPES uses the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and the human rights model of disability as part of the theoretical framework. A novel, inclusive, representative informed consent framework was designed and is detailed herein. This framework provides significant opportunity to advance the inclusion of persons with disabilities or those experiencing neurodegenerative diseases in innovative research and is readily transferable to other research studies. The SHAPES approach is a substantial contribution to research on informed consent, demonstrating the utility of the human rights model of disability in facilitating the full research participation of target populations
Foreign National Prisoners and Religious Practice in Irish Prisons
No full textThis policy and practice note will investigate the extent to which Foreign National Prisoners (FNPs) feel that religious expression is respected in Irish prisons and explore the degree to which the Irish Prison Service (IPS) facilitates these prisoners’ religious dietary preferences. Drawing on 82 semi-structured interviews across eight prisons, the findings demonstrate that while the IPS is generally progressive in accommodating FNPs’ religious needs, provision could be improved in certain respects.The policy and practice note briefly concludes that the IPS could potentially draw on some ‘promising practice’ that has been implemented with respect to religious expression and practice in other European prisons
Hydroxyl airglow observations for investigating atmospheric dynamics: results and challenges
No full textMeasurements of hydroxyl (OH∗
) airglow intensity are a straightforward and cost-efficient method
which allows the derivation of information about the climate and dynamics of the upper mesosphere/lower thermosphere (UMLT) on different spatiotemporal scales during darkness.
Today, instrument components can be bought “off-the-shelf” and developments in detector technology allows
operation without cooling, or at least without liquid nitrogen cooling, which is difficult to automate. This makes
instruments compact and suitable for automated operation.
Here, we briefly summarize why an OH∗
airglow layer exists, how atmospheric dynamics influence it and how
temperature can be derived from OH∗
airglow measurements.
Then, we provide an overview of the scientific results regarding atmospheric dynamics (mainly gravity waves
(GWs) but also planetary waves (PWs) and infrasound) achieved with OH∗
airglow measurements. We focus
on long-term ground-based OH∗
airglow measurements or airglow measurements using a network of groundbased instruments. The paper includes further results from global or near-global satellite-based OH∗
airglow
measurements, which are of special importance for characterizing the OH∗
airglow layer. Additionally, the results
from the very few available airborne case studies using OH∗
airglow instruments are summarized.
Scientific and technical challenges for the next few years are described
Nuclear high-ionisation outflow in the Compton-thick AGN NGC 6552 as seen by the JWST mid-infrared instrument
No full textContext. During the commissioning of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the mid-infrared instrument (MIRI) observed
NGC 6552 with the MIRI Imager and the Medium-Resolution Spectrograph (MRS). NGC 6552 is an active galactic nucleus (AGN)
at a redshift of 0.0266 (DL = 120 Mpc) classified as a Seyfert 2 nucleus in the optical and Compton-thick AGN in the X-ray.
Aims. This work exemplifies and demonstrates the MRS capabilities to study the mid-infrared (mid-IR) spectra and characterise the
physical conditions and kinematics of the ionised and molecular gas in the nuclear regions of nearby galaxies.
Methods. MIRI Imager observations covers the full NGC 6552 galaxy at 5.6 µm. MRS observations covers its nuclear region
(3.6×4.3 kpc at 17.7–27.9 µm) in a wavelength range between 4.9 and 27.9 µm. These observations were obtained with the aim to
investigate the persistence of the MIRI detectors (residual signal left from previous bright source observations). However, NGC 6552
observations demonstrate the performance and power of the MIRI instrument even with a non-optimal observational strategy.
Results. We obtained the nuclear, circumnuclear, and central mid-IR spectra of NGC 6552. They provide the first clear observational
evidence for a nuclear outflow in NGC 6552. The outflow contributes to 67±7% of the total line flux independent of the ionisation
potential (27–187 eV) and critical densities (104–4×106
cm−3
), showing an average blue-shifted peak velocity of −127±45 km s−1
and
an outflow maximal velocity of 698±80 km s−1
. Since the mid-IR photons penetrate dusty regions as efficiently as X-ray keV photons,
we interpret these results as the evidence for a highly ionised, non-stratified, AGN-powered, and fast outflowing gas in a low density
environment (few 103
cm−3
) located very close (<0.2 kpc) to the Compton-thick AGN. Nine pure rotational molecular Hydrogen lines
are detected and spectrally resolved, and exhibit symmetric Gaussian profiles, consistent with the galactic rotation, and with no evidence of outflowing H2 material. We detect a warm H2 mass of 1.9 ± 1.1 × 107 M� in the central region (1.8 kpc in diameter) of the
galaxy, with almost 30% of that mass in the circumnuclear region. Line ratios confirm that NGC 6552 has a Seyfert nucleus with a
black hole mass estimated in the range of 0.6–6 million solar masses.
Conclusions. This work demonstrates the power of the newly commissioned MIRI Medium Resolution Spectrograph to reveal new
insights in the kinematics and ionisation state of the interstellar medium around the dusty nuclear regions of nearby active galaxies
Equilibrium existence and expected payoffs in all-pay auctions with constraints
No full textThis paper introduces constraints on player choices in a broad class of all-pay auctions
by allowing for upper bounds on players’ strategy sets. It proves the existence of
equilibrium and derives simple closed-form formulae for players’ expected payoffs in
any equilibrium. These formulae are straightforward to calculate in applications and do
not require the derivation of the equilibrium or equilibria. This may be useful because:
(i) In some applications players’ expected payoffs are the main item of interest. For
example, one may be concerned about the effect of a policy on the market participants.
In these cases the results can be used directly, bypassing the need for the full derivation
of the equilibrium. (ii) In all-pay auctions, equilibrium is typically in mixed strategies.
So in applications where the full characterization of the equilibrium is of interest,
finding the players’ expected payoffs is a crucial first step in the derivation of the
equilibrium
Going beyond richness: Modelling the BEF relationship using species identity, evenness, richness and species interactions via the DImodels R package
No full text1. Biodiversity and ecosystem function (BEF) studies aim to understand how ecosystems respond to a gradient of species diversity. Generalised Diversity- Interactions (DI) models are suitable for analysing the BEF relationship. These models relate an ecosystem function response of a community to the identity of the species in the community, their evenness (proportions) and interactions. The number of species in the community (richness) is included implicitly in a DI model.2. It is common in BEF studies to model an ecosystem function as a function of richness; while this can uncover trends in the BEF relationship, by definition, species diversity is broader than richness alone, and important patterns in the BEF relationship may remain hidden. Here, we introduce the DI models R package for implementing DI models. We show how richness is mathematically equivalent to a simplified DI model under certain conditions, and illustrate how using the DI multidimensional definition of species diversity can provide deeper insight to the BEF relationship compared to traditional approaches.3. Using DI models can lead to considerably improved model fit over other methods; it does this by incorporating variation due to the multiple facets of species diversity. Predicting from a DI model is not limited to the study design points, the model can interpolate or extrapolate to predict for any species composition and proportions (assuming there is sufficient coverage of this space in the study design).4. Expressing the BEF relationship as a function of richness alone can be useful to capture overall trends. However, collapsing the multiple dimensions of species diversity to a single dimension (such as richness) can result in valuable ecological information being lost
Intermediate Ricci Curvatures and Gromov’s Betti number bound
No full textWe consider intermediate Ricci curvatures Rick on a closed Riemannian manifold
Mn. These interpolate between the Ricci curvature when k = n − 1 and the sectional
curvature when k = 1. By establishing a surgery result for Riemannian metrics with
Rick > 0, we show that Gromov’s upper Betti number bound for sectional curvature
bounded below fails to hold for Rick > 0 when (n/2) + 2 ≤ k ≤ n − 1. This was
previously known only in the case of positive Ricci curvature (Sha and Yang in J Differ Geom 29(1):95–103, 1989, J Differ Geom 33:127–138, 1991)
NEAL: an open-source tool for audio annotation
No full textPassive acoustic monitoring is used widely in ecology, biodiversity, and conservation
studies. Data sets collected via acoustic monitoring are often extremely large and built to
be processed automatically using artificial intelligence and machine learning models,
which aim to replicate the work of domain experts. These models, being supervised
learning algorithms, need to be trained on high quality annotations produced by
experts. Since the experts are often resource-limited, a cost-effective process for
annotating audio is needed to get maximal use out of the data. We present an
open-source interactive audio data annotation tool, NEAL (Nature+Energy Audio
Labeller). Built using R and the associated Shiny framework, the tool provides a reactive
environment where users can quickly annotate audio files and adjust settings that
automatically change the corresponding elements of the user interface. The app has been
designed with the goal of having both expert birders and citizen scientists contribute
to acoustic annotation projects. The popularity and flexibility of R programming in
bioacoustics means that the Shiny app can be modified for other bird labelling data
sets, or even to generic audio labelling tasks. We demonstrate the app by labelling data
collected from wind farm sites across Ireland
The association between daily life changes and anxiety among Ukrainians following the Russian invasion
No full textThis study sought to explore the association between changes in daily life and war-related anxiety. In this study,
we analyzed self-reported data from 2,004 Ukrainian adults, obtained through an opportunistic survey in the
Ukraine. Our assessment focused on changes in everyday routines and generalized anxiety symptoms since the
Russian invasion of Ukraine on the 24 February 2022. The data were collected between July-September 2022.
Results show a significant dose-response connection between everyday routine changes and increased war-related anxiety. Not surprisingly, the ongoing Ukraine-Russia conflict is impacting the lives of Ukrainians.
These changes are linked to heightened anxiety levels. Effective population-based crisis management should
consider both war-related stressors and changes in daily life routines