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Disentangling complex disease ecology networks: using Structural Equation Modelling to quantify the direct and indirect effects of deer on Lyme borreliosis hazard
No full textQuantifying the strengths of interactions in complex vector-borne disease ecological systems is challenging. Yet, overcoming this challenge is fundamental for understanding the ecological mechanisms shaping disease hazard. Here we quantified the strengths of the hypothesised direct and indirect mechanistic pathways through which deer affect ticks and one of the Lyme borreliosis pathogens, Borrelia afzelii, by conducting a combined analysis of three previously published datasets from 39 sites across Scotland. Structural equation modelling revealed that, as predicted, deer had a strong positive overall effect (direct and indirect pathways combined) on questing Ixodes ricinus nymph density and a weak, non-significant, negative overall effect on B. afzelii prevalence. This resulted in an overall weak, non-significant, positive effect of deer on B. afzelii hazard (the density of infected nymphs), indicating that their negative effect on B. afzelii prevalence was weaker than their positive effect on questing nymph density. A key novelty of this study was being able to tease apart the direct and indirect pathways for each of these overall effects and demonstrating that they were primarily driven by direct mechanisms, such as deer driving nymph density. Although deer negatively affected rodent abundance, the hypothesised indirect pathways from deer to ticks and pathogen, acting through vegetation and/or rodents, were weak. This could result from low densities of rodents relative to deer in Scotland, consistent with Scotland having among the lowest nymphal Lyme borreliosis pathogen prevalences in Europe. Applying the methodological framework used in this study would be useful for teasing apart complex interactions in other vector-borne disease systems
Researching a Rigged Game: Digital Approaches to Tracing the Illicit Trade in Cultural Objects
Get PDFThis open access book on open-source data and the trade in cultural heritage is foundational for object biography, provenance research studies, and social science methodological education. Interest in studying the (illicit) trade in cultural objects, as well questions around ownership, access and protection, have grown in recent years. However, this interdisciplinary field requires a range of methodological skills in order to trace an object's ownership history and the social network underpinning its trade. Drawing from a diverse group of researchers and practitioners, this edited volume brings together methodological, ethical and disciplinary considerations in the use of open source data to research the trade and transfer of cultural objects. As such, it will serve as the paramount guide to anyone who is interested in doing research on this topic
Optical, composition, durability, and environmental properties of the microwave plasma-assisted sputter-deposited silicon nitride
Get PDFA study is presented of the optical, mechanical, composition, durability, environmental, and structural properties of silicon nitride thin films deposited at room temperature using a vertical axis rotating drum-based microwave plasma-assisted sputter system. The deposited material composition was investigated using both X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and elastic recoil detection analysis with time of flight (ERDA-TOF). The results indicate that the layers present a uniform composition with thickness and despite the incorporation of impurities, the Si/N ratio remains close to stoichiometric Si3N4. The deposited material provides homogeneous low dispersion—with a refractive index of approximately 1.98 over a wide transmittance range (350 nm to 5 µm). Additionally, the single layer silicon nitride was found to be durable with a hardness, Young’s modulus, and compressive stress of 31 GPa, 240 GPa, and −454 MPa, respectively. The coating was subjected to and passed external surface environmental tests covered by MIL-C-48497A durability requirements (adhesion, abrasion, and temperature/humidity cycling) and MIL-C-675C (para 4.5.9) salt spray. Moreover, 10,000 wipes on the TS1888 (para 5.4.3) sand slurry abrasion test were achieved with no visible signs of damage. A silicon nitride/silica multilayer durable broadband visible anti-reflection coating is demonstrated, passing the same range of durability and environmental tests as single layer silicon nitride
‘Cracking History Open’: psychic life and Palestinian resistance
Get PDFFor the Palestinian people, psychic life is just as much a site of struggle for liberation as social life. Palestinians are persistently refused psychological amplitude, characteristics easily granted to those who are never worried they might fall out of what is constituted as the category of the human. Abdaljawad Omar’s writings in English published since 7 October 2023 (as well as writings by other Palestinians, other Arabs, and those of Palestinian descent) offer means of understanding material resistance in relation to the terrain of the psyche. Omar offers distinctive accounts of mourning, loss, and ruins, as well as of how settler colonialism reorganises experiences of time and relations between past, present, future. The article reads Omar’s writings against other accounts of mourning and of psychic phenomena that are indebted to psychoanalysis. Omar’s analyses of Palestinians’ resistance to unfreedom and annihilation open up other ways of understanding the psychic vicissitudes of those who suffer, grieve, and struggle to exit a colonial condition characterised by the colonizer’s repeated attempts to break psychic worlds as well as erase bodily life. Understandings of psychic life that do justice to how Palestine is redrawing the world are central to the work of cracking history open
Renewable dependence as an institutional transition risk in hydrocarbon economies: insights from Azerbaijan
Get PDFTransition to renewable energy leads to assumed economic diversification; however, the institutional risks for hydrocarbon-dependent economies remain high. This paper identifies the conditions under which transitioning economies enter a novel dependency during the renewable transition. Our analysis combines the Multi-Level Perspective with Historical Institutionalism to explore Azerbaijan’s 30-year trajectory across the oil, gas, and emerging renewable phases, serving as an illustrative case. Evidence from the literature and expert interviews illustrates that renewable investments are channelled through hydrocarbon-era institutional practices, enclave-style contracting, centralised decision-making, and reliance on foreign technology providers. These conditions constrain domestic niche formation and limit opportunities for local capability development. As a result, renewables become embedded within the existing institutional architecture rather than displacing it, serving primarily to substitute hydrocarbons as an export commodity rather than to catalyse diversification. The paper conceptualises this trajectory as a possible renewable dependence: a pathway in which renewable energy is integrated into an export-oriented, state-dominated political economy without altering its core institutional logic. The identified configurations are common across hydrocarbon economies in Central Asia and MENA, offering transferable insights into when and why renewable transitions risk reproducing, rather than transforming, established development models
Modelling of magneto-mechanically coupled soft thin shells
No full textA geometrically exact, dimensionally reduced model is developed to describe the nonlinear deformation of thin magnetoelastic shells. The classical Kirchhoff–Love assumptions for the mechanical fields are extended to the magnetic variables, yielding a consistent two-dimensional theory derived rigorously through a variational framework. Unlike traditional approaches that rely on mid-surface kinematics, the full deformation map is adopted as the primary variable, and the influence of the surrounding free space due to the Maxwell stress on the shell’s upper and lower surfaces is accommodated through a novel application of Green’s theorem. The governing equations are solved in closed form for the canonical case of a hyperelastic thin flat plate and for an infinite cylindrical magnetoelastic shell, to illustrate the capabilities of the model and elucidate the non-standard variables arising in the modified variational formulation
When joy comes your way, you have to grab it!” Troubling how queer joy features in the lives of LGBT+ school-attending youth in South Africa
Get PDFRecently, the concept ‘queer joy’ has gained interest in LGBT+ scholarship in the West. I use this scholarship as an entry point to explore how school-attending LGBT+ youth express joy and how joy serves as a form of resistance against gender and sexuality norms in educational settings. While I prioritise a focus on joy, I do not overlook the existing South African research on the adverse experiences of LGBT+ youth but explore how LGBT+ youth talk about joy as resistance and liberatory praxis against cisheteronormative power. I draw on in-depth interviews from a larger project with 18 LGBT+ school-attending youth from a range of South African schools, aiming to understand their cultural worlds and how broader cultural meanings and practices influence their experience of gender, sexuality and everyday schooling. I conducted all the interviews, which were subsequently subject to both thematic and within-case and cross-case analysis. The findings reveal a nuanced understanding and interpretation of joy, which I have organised into two parts. Participants portray joy as socially produced and circulatory, rather than as having any interior quality. They explain how school structures, discourses and practices reinforce social norms and differences, which determine the circuitous nature of joy. Second, the findings emphasise queer joy as a catalyst for social awareness through cultural and reflective practices and a springboard for resistance and social change. On the face of it, the findings signal directions for leveraging joy to address normative power and school climate, as well as for repurposing it within curriculum and educational practice
Temporal and spatial drivers of Lyme disease hazard differ between urban and rural environments
No full textOur ability to predict how urban planning may influence public health and wellbeing is limited, because our understanding of the ecological drivers of key human diseases transmitted by wildlife vectors is poor in urban compared to rural environments. Here we examined how temporal and spatial ecological factors shape the environmental hazards of ticks and Lyme disease in urban greenspaces compared to rural environments. Deer space-use, Ixodes ricinus tick density and Lyme disease hazard were estimated at 60 urban greenspaces and 48 rural woodlands across 12 cities in the United Kingdom. Spatial and temporal metrics of urbanisation (built-up cover surrounding sites, extent of recent urbanisation, age of adjacent built-up area), woodland (tree cover) and connectivity, that were hypothesised to influence tick densities and Lyme disease hazard, were generated and their effects were tested using structural equation modelling. Nymphal ticks were detected in 73% of urban and 98% of rural sites, with nymph density and Lyme disease hazard were 3.6 and 5 times lower respectively in urban than rural woodlands. In cities, nymph density and Lyme disease hazard were positively correlated with tree cover within sites, connectivity to larger woodlands and negatively correlated with built-up cover surrounding sites and age of adjacent built-up cover. Conversely, in rural woodlands, woodland age was the strongest predictor of nymph density and Lyme disease hazard. These differences highlight the additional urbanisation-related pressures shaping urban tick and Lyme disease ecology, and the importance of the history of a site and its surroundings, which has strong implication for urban planning
Regioselective iodination of arenes using iron- or silver-catalyzed activation of N-iodosaccharin
No full textAryl iodides are privileged intermediates in organic synthesis, underpinning cross-coupling chemistry, late-stage functionalization, and radiolabeling in medicinal chemistry. However, regioselective arene iodination remains a challenge, as traditional electrophilic iodination methods often require harsh conditions, exhibit poor selectivity, or suffer from limited functional group tolerance and substrate scope. We report a rapid and regioselective arene iodination enabled by Lewis acid activation of N-iodosaccharin. Iron(III) chloride and silver(I) triflimide were found to catalyze the efficient iodination of a broad range of electron-rich arenes at room temperature. The method displayed broad functional group tolerance and was applicable to complex substrates, including natural products and pharmaceuticals. Furthermore, the iodination was found to be compatible with cross-coupling reactions, allowing one-pot halogenation and arylation sequences for direct access to biaryl compounds
Facing the Anthropocene: community resilience and environmental pedagogy for a fragile planet
No full textThe Anthropocene has become a significant framework for understanding the scale and impacts of human activity on Earth (Crutzen, 2002; Steffen et al., 2007). Whether or not it is officially recognised as a geological epoch, the term denotes a planetary state in which human actions destabilise climate systems, cause biodiversity loss, and raise urgent questions of justice, responsibility, and care (Haraway, 2016).
This article, adapted from a keynote delivered at the Scottish Educational Research Association (sera) conference in Dundee in December 2024, examines how education can respond to socio-ecological change in this context. Focusing on environmental pedagogy (or ecopedagogy), it argues that effective educational responses to the Anthropocene must move beyond the transmission of information to cultivate systemic literacy, ecological responsibility, and justice-oriented practice. These orientations are framed as conditions of learning in the Anthropocene, shaping how learners and communities engage with uncertainty, interdependence, and uneven geographies of power.
Drawing on the Natural Environment Research Council (nerc)-funded gallant (Glasgow as a Living Laboratory for Accelerating Novel Transformation) project, the article explores how place-based, participatory approaches can support learning that connects knowledge-making with action and advocacy. The paper argues that while education cannot resolve the challenges of the Anthropocene, it can equip learners and communities to navigate systemic crises and to build capacities for resilience, care, and solidarity in the face of planetary change
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