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‘Problem representations’ in post-abortion contraception:a critical review of UK literature
No full textObjective To critically review post-abortion contraception literature from the UK based on Bacchi’s ‘What’s the Problem Represented to Be?’ (WPR) approach.Methods A systematic search of six electronic databases – complemented by a grey literature search encompassing reports, policy documents and government publications – identified a total of 31 publications: 19 peer-reviewed articles and 12 items of grey literature.Results Multiple – and sometimes conflicting – ‘problem representations’ coexisted across the texts, operating at different levels of abstraction. Applying the WPR approach, six ‘problems’ were identified: existing abortion rates and repeat abortion; risky groups; meeting service users’ needs; organisational capacity; knowledge of contraceptive methods; and abortion stigma.Conclusions While some problem representations focused on service user needs, care satisfaction and organisational capacity, the dominant framing positioned abortion rates – particularly subsequent abortions – as the central ‘problem’. It is implied that too many abortions are being had and that a key purpose of post-abortion contraception is to address this issue. Abortion was often framed as an individual’s failure to use (effective) contraception (correctly). This places the burden on individuals, further exacerbates abortion stigma and obscures structural constraints. Several conceptual slippages were identified, including using ‘unplanned’, ‘unintended’ and ‘unwanted’ pregnancy synonymously. Such practices risk collapsing and misrepresenting different kinds of lived experiences, creating barriers to the provision of person-centred abortion and contraceptive care. We recommend greater critical reflection on the language and assumptions within post-abortion contraception discourse to ensure research, policy and practice remain person-centred, evidence-informed and committed to principles of reproductive justice
Perspectives on Marine Carbon Dioxide Removal from the Global Ocean Acidification Observing Network
No full textAlong with other carbon monitoring groups, the ocean acidification (OA) community has been observing, modeling, and projecting the impacts of changing carbonate chemistry for over two decades. The Global Ocean Acidification Observing Network (GOA-ON) has three key goals related to these issues: (1) improve understanding of global OA conditions, (2) improve understanding of ecosystem responses to OA, and (3) acquire and exchange data necessary to optimize modeling for OA and its impacts. GOA-ON and associated networks have a wealth of knowledge, data, models, and best practice guides on how to monitor global carbonate chemistry, and GOA-ON regional hubs collaborate at local scales to inform policy and action for coastal communities. Here, the GOA-ON community shares lessons learned relevant for marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR) research and development. Understanding whether, how, and where mCDR approaches should be deployed will require knowledge of the carbonate system, robust observations, sensor technology, and modeling capacities. Ongoing monitoring, reporting, and verification during field trials and any eventual implementation of mCDR will again require these resources. The GOA-ON community’s knowledge about environmental impacts, running laboratory and field experiments, and deriving biological indicators of change is of fundamental importance for assessing the environmental impacts of mCDR and of the potential for mitigating or exacerbating OA. Finally, we present recommendations for utilizing this OA experience toward mCDR research
Towards a transformative approach to just rural transitions: Landscape restoration in the Scottish Highlands
No full textDriven by international policy agendas to restore landscapes, large-scale land-use changes are expected in rural areas, with significant implications for landscape characteristics, land-uses, livelihoods, economies and cultures. It is increasingly recognised that the long-term success of restoration initiatives requires integrating social considerations, yet uncertainties remain over the pathways for achieving this. This paper explores the basis for- and barriers to- a just and sustainable vision of the landscape through a case study of the Affric-Kintail area in the Scottish Highlands, a context in which environmental policy agendas and natural capital investments are driving rural landscape change. Drawing from multidimensional, empirical environmental justice, this paper investigates the diverse justice claims voiced by rural communities. The research highlights a spectrum of justice concerns tied to diverse, contested meanings and practices of just transitions, where we distinguish between socio-technical and transformative approaches to just transition. As a result, our case study points to fundamental structural and socio-economic barriers to realising just transformation in rural Scotland, rooted in vast inequalities in power, wealth and landownership, and a depth of justice concerns around rural landscape transformations which have so far been left aside by restoration agendas and just transition policy discourses
Fine-Tuning Large Language Models with Sequential Instructions
No full textWe find that existing instruction-tuned models usually struggle to adhere to a query with multiple intentions, which impairs their performance when the completion of several tasks is demanded by a single command. Hence, this paper teaches models to respond to sequential instructions. Our first attempt stems from a task-driven perspective, manually creating additional intermediate tasks to train multilingual and visual question answering. Next, we develop an automatic and generic process that turns instructions in existing data into diverse and complex task chains. Models that underwent sequential instruction tuning follow a list of instructions better and deliver higher results in coding, maths, and open-ended generation. Moreover, we put forward a new benchmark named SeqEval to evaluate a model's ability to follow all the instructions in a sequence, which further corroborates the benefits of our sequential instruction tuning method
Epidemiology of pathologic myopia in UK adults with high myopia
No full textAims: To conduct the first cross-sectional epidemiological investigation of pathologic myopia (PM) in UK adults with high myopia. Methods: Fundus photographs of 3024 highly myopic eyes (spherical equivalent refraction (SER) ≤-5.00D) from 2000 randomly sampled adults (aged 40-70 years) in the UK Biobank were double graded by an ophthalmic reading centre using the Meta-analysis for Pathologic Myopia framework. Adjudication was performed by one of two retinal specialists. Multivariable mixed-effects logistic regression was used to explore potential risk factors and fundus biomarkers - initially adjusting for SER, age and sex, before including these and other variables with p<0.10 in a single model. Results: PM was present in 1138 of 3006 gradable fundus photographs, with 41.7% (95% CI 39.5% to 43.9%) of participants affected in at least one eye graded. Most eyes with PM exhibited diffuse chorioretinal atrophy (97.4%), while the more severe stages - patchy chorioretinal atrophy and macular atrophy - were observed in only 24 and 5 eyes, respectively. 13 eyes had 'plus' lesions or suspected staphyloma. Factors independently associated with increased odds of PM (all p<0.05) included decreasing SER (adjusted OR: 0.22, 95% CI 0.15 to 0.32), older age (2.20, 1.63 to 2.97), female sex (1.87, 1.12 to 3.12), lower deprivation (0.73, 0.56 to 0.94), white ethnicity (52.3, 17.3 to 158.3), lower retinal arteriovenous ratio (0.47, 0.37 to 0.58), increased retinal vascular complexity (4.68, 3.22 to 6.81) and a relatively horizontal disc orientation (2.98, 1.88 to 4.72). None of the explored modifiable lifestyle or health-related variables were associated with PM. Conclusions: PM prevalence is high among mid-life adults with high myopia in the UK Biobank, although most cases are relatively mild (diffuse chorioretinal atrophy). The only modifiable risk factor identified is myopia severity.</p
TTSDS2:Robust objective evaluation for human-quality synthetic speech
Get PDFRecent near-parity TTS systems sound so natural that objective evaluation is more challenging than ever. This paper presents TTSDS2, a robust objective evaluation measure. TTSDS2 is an improved, fully unsupervised version of the Text-to-Speech Distribution Score that needs only a small pool of reference and noise data. We conduct what we believe is one of the largest listening test evalations of human-quality synthetic speech to date: we collect MOS, CMOS and SMOS judgements from 200 raters, scoring 20 recent voice-cloning models over four domains: clean and noisy audiobooks, in-the-wild YouTube speech, and children’s dialogue. We compare 16 TTS objective metics, finding that across all 12 domain–score pairs, TTSDS2 is the only objective metric that achieves a Spearman correlation above 0.50 with respect to every one of the subjective scores (mean 0.67). TTSDS2 therefore offers a robust, interpretable yardstick for future TTS research
Relapsing meningoencephalitis of unknown origin in dogs results in changes in neuroanatomical localization, magnetic resonance imaging, and cerebrospinal fluid
Get PDFOBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to provide a description of clinical neuroanatomical localization, MRI, and CSF in dogs with relapsing meningoencephalitis of unknown origin (MUO).METHODS: This was a multicenter, retrospective, observational descriptive study of dogs with a clinical diagnosis of presumptive MUO and relapse, with a full medical history and MRI scan at initial presentation and relapse. The study period was over 12 years (April 2011 to August 2023).RESULTS: 39 dogs with a clinical diagnosis of presumptive MUO and relapse were included. The clinical neuroanatomical localization differed between relapse and initial presentation in 22 of 39 cases (56%). The initial MRI changes were observed on nearly all MRIs at relapse (36 of 39 cases [92%]), and the majority (33 of 39 [85%]) of relapse MRIs had new lesions. New lesions with similar MRI characteristics occurred, especially in the parietal area. Lesions resolved more frequently in the brainstem and cerebellum. Cerebrospinal fluid nucleated cell count was lower at relapse compared to initial presentation (median change, 107 cells/µL; 95% CI, 11 to 1,217; P = .005), and relapse CSF showed lower lymphocyte counts.CONCLUSIONS: Cases of relapsing MUO show notable differences in neuroanatomical localization, MRI findings, and CSF characteristics compared to initial presentation.CLINICAL RELEVANCE: Repeat MRI and CSF analysis provides additional insights into disease progression, enabling potential treatment adjustments.</p
Women’s Dietary Diversity and Child Feeding Practices Amidst COVID-19 in India: Findings From National Family Health Surveys, 2016-2021
Get PDFThe COVID-19 pandemic caused a crisis that jeopardized food consumption and dietary diversity. This study aimed to: 1) investigate relationship between COVID-19 and women’s and children’s diets in India; 2) examine how this varies by socio-economic status and mothers' vegetarianism; and 3) assess whether mobility restrictions during India's national lockdown influenced these dietary changes. The analysis drew on data from India’s National Family Health Survey 2015–16 and 2019–21, focusing on 11 states surveyed before and during COVID-19 (N=567,727 women, 141,905 children). COVID-19 exposure was defined as interviews after 24 March 2020 (national lockdown). Outcomes included child feeding practices and women’s food consumption and dietary diversity . The impact of COVID-19 on diets was estimated using a difference-in-difference model; effect of mobility reduction on diets was examined using linear regression. All analyses were adjusted for confounders, interview month, state fixed effects, and sampling weights. Results showed that COVID-19 exposure was linked to significant declines in child feeding practices (-6.9 percentage points [pp] for minimum dietary diversity , -5.0pp for minimum acceptable diet, and -6.1pp for fruit consumption) and women’s diet (-5.7pp for dietary diversity and green vegetable consumption). While magnitude of impact varied across socio-economic sub-strata and mothers’ vegetarianism status, the differences were not statistically significant. The diets of women and children were greatly impacted by mobility reduction. COVID-19 has worsened the diets of women and children in India. More research is needed on the impact of relief measures to strengthen food safety nets nationwide
The Microbial Factor in Subsurface Hydrogen Behavior: Implications for Wettability and Interfacial Dynamics
Get PDFMicrobial activity plays a significant role in subsurface hydrogen behavior, with implications for underground storage and natural hydrogen systems. This study examines how microbial processes influence the wettability and solid–liquid interfacial characteristics of key subsurface minerals, calcite, dolomite, quartz, and gypsum, in hydrogen-brine-rock systems under realistic subsurface conditions. Wettability directly affects hydrogen distribution, flow dynamics, and trapping, making it a critical factor for both storage and natural recovery applications. Experiments were conducted under high-pressure, high-temperature conditions, with SEM/EDS analysis used to characterize interfacial modifications and mineral surface changes across three scenarios: clean, organic acid-aged, and microbial-aged. Microbial aging consistently increased mineral hydrophilicity, reducing advancing contact angles, such as from 57° (clean) to 40° (microbial-aged) on calcite at 50 °C and 8 MPa. Similar trends were observed for dolomite, with smaller changes for quartz and gypsum. Microbial biofilms were most prominent on calcite and dolomite surfaces, accompanied by decreases in brine pH (e.g., from 7.4 to 5.2 for calcite). These results reveal how microbial processes reshape mineral properties and hydrogen behavior in the subsurface. This study provides critical insights into microbial-mineral interactions, offering valuable guidance for optimizing hydrogen storage and natural hydrogen recovery systems
Decay stages of Jurassic wood debris from Scotland: evidence for the coevolution of fungal rot, arthropods and the nurse log strategy
Get PDFA key feature of extant conifer forests is the high percentage of seeds that germinate and establish on dead wood; in some forests, this can exceed 90%. This deadwood can act as an ideal nursery for young tree species, leading to this type of seedbed being termed ‘nurse logs’. It is unclear how common this ecological strategy has been throughout the evolutionary history of conifers.Here, we describe a c. 150-million-year-old wood fragment from the Jurassic of Scotland using classic palaeobotanical techniques and microscopy. We interpret our new finding within the evolution of gymnosperms with a literature review of fossil nurse logs, and fungal and arthropod evolution.We interpret the timeline of decay processes on this log as consisting of three main stages: breakdown of the wood by white pocket rot; two types of arthropod boring, likely by beetles and mites; and colonisation by small roots. These findings demonstrate the complexity of decay processes occurring on a Jurassic forest floor, and the key role that white rot and arthropods play in the nurse log ecological strategy.Conifer germination on nurse logs facilitated by white rot fungi is a conserved ecological strategy of relevance in shaping forest ecosystems over geological timescales
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