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Spectral Evidence for Recent/Ongoing Activity in Mercury’s Praxiteles Basin
No full textMercury’s surface, as revealed by the MESSENGER probe, lacks distinctive absorption features in the visible–near-infrared spectral range, except for hollows that display a 630 nm feature ascribed to sulfides. The general absence of spectral features makes inference of its surface mineralogical composition challenging. We inspected the Praxiteles impact basin with newly photometrically corrected MDIS data, removing the influence of topographic shading in the spectra. We detected an 830 nm absorption feature, spectrally compatible with low Fe content minerals. The morphological and spectral correlations suggest that the 830 nm band is linked to geologically recent, or even ongoing, exposure of material, as well as to the early stage of hollow formation. These results provide insight into the subsurface composition of Mercury and imply a crust material locally more oxidized than previously thought
Biological Flora of Britain and Ireland: <i>Geranium sylvaticum</i> * - No. 308
No full textThis account presents information on all aspects of the biology of Geranium sylvaticum L. (Wood Crane's‐Bill) that are relevant to understanding its ecological characteristics and behaviour. The main topics are presented within the standard framework of the Biological Flora of Britain and Ireland: distribution, habitat, communities, responses to biotic factors, responses to environment, structure and physiology, phenology, floral and seed characters, herbivores and disease, history, conservation and management.
Geranium sylvaticum is a perennial forb of woodland, semi‐natural grassland, tall‐herb vegetation, boreal dwarf shrub heaths and subalpine and subarctic scrub. In Britain and Ireland, it occurs in cool and moist northern‐montane climates, in upland hay meadows, road verges, riverbanks, fens and mires, mountain rock ledges, crags and ravines and upland mixed ash forests.
Geranium sylvaticum is widespread in Scotland and northern England, with scattered native occurrences in Wales, central England and at the coast of County Antrim, Ireland. It has an extensive native range in Europe and Asia. At the northeastern end of this range, G. sylvaticum can occur down to sea level, whereas in more southern range parts, it is limited to mountain habitats.
In Britain and Ireland, Geranium sylvaticum is a species mainly of neutral to moderately calcareous soils of intermediate fertility. In its continental Eurasian range, it also occurs on more acidic soils.
Geranium sylvaticum is gynodioecious, that is individual plants are typically female or hermaphrodite. Occasionally, individuals are gynomonoecious, producing both female and hermaphrodite flowers. Female flowers are usually smaller than the protrandrous hermaphrodite flowers. Flowers are visited by insects of the orders Hymenoptera, Diptera and Lepidoptera, as well as Coleoptera and Hemiptera.
Primary seed dispersal of G. sylvaticum is ballistic, that is seeds are ejected from fruits. The species has a transient soil seed bank persisting for less than 12 months. The seeds have physical dormancy, that is their seed coat is initially impermeable to water. The species has little capacity for vegetative spread.
In Britain and Ireland, G. sylvaticum underwent long‐term distributional decline mostly before 1987. A marked recent increase in records has been observed in northern Scotland, due to either a slight northerly shift in its distribution and/or increased recording in previously underrecorded areas
‘I’m just doing it because it’s what the club wants’: exploring the (mis)alignment between policy compliance and preferred practice among English football youth academy coaches
No full textThis article explores the various ways that coaches receive and enact policy-informed organisational expectations of practice. Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with 14 male English football academy coaches to explore their experiences of aligning practice to broader policy-led goals. Goffman’s dramaturgy theory (1959) is used to frame these experiences, with policy compliance often prompting impression management “performances” of practice. Findings suggest that the process of adopting the “role” of a policy compliant coach can cause varying degrees of misalignment between a coach’s expected practice and how they prefer to coach. This in turn shapes the extent to which coaches feel compelled to “fabricate” their practice. The paper advocates for greater recognition of how policy can shape coaching practice in varied ways. Policy makers should consider the consequences that may arise from a misalignment between a coach’s preferred practice and that which is expected of them when performing policy compliance
Instilling Fear in The Marketplace: An Institutional Mechanism of Marketplace Discrimination
No full textLittle is known about the political and sociocultural marketplace aspects of collective fear and how policymakers and other market actors contribute to its development. To better understand this undertheorized area, we draw on archival data to show how UK politicians, journalists, and retailers constructed three racially stigmatizing fear narratives targeting Romanian immigrant consumers. Building on our findings, we offer a practical guide for policy makers, journalists, and marketers on how to reduce racially charged marketplace discrimination by disengaging in creating and circulating narratives of collective fear
Severe Anaemia and Bacteraemia in Kenyan Children: Epidemiology and Mechanisms
No full textSevere anaemia and bacteraemia remain important causes of hospitalisation and mortality in African children, yet the biological mechanisms underpinning these conditions are unclear. This thesis investigates their complex relationship using a combination of epidemiological analysis, immunological and biochemical profiling, and in vitro models.
Using long-term paediatric surveillance data from Kilifi, Kenya, I showed that severe anaemia is highly prevalent in both community and hospital settings and is strongly associated with an increased risk of bacteraemia, particularly from non-typhoidal Salmonella, Escherichia coli, Streptococcus pneumoniae, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Haemophilus influenzae. Severely anaemic children had marked disruption of iron homeostasis, while cytokine responses appeared largely independent of haemoglobin levels. In vitro and ex vivo experiments demonstrated that increased levels of free iron and haemoglobin, typical of severe anaemia, enhanced bacterial growth and impaired macrophage function.
Severe acute malnutrition (SAM), a group identified in this thesis to have a high prevalence of severe anaemia, was also associated with increased risk of bacteraemia and in-hospital mortality. Concomitant severe anaemia amplified this risk. Bacteraemia and mortality risks were higher in kwashiorkor compared to marasmus. Children with kwashiorkor had markedly low transferrin levels, which were strongly associated with increased probability of mortality.
A systematic review of literature revealed a paucity of studies on the effects of anaemia, and micronutrient deficiencies causing anaemia, on vaccine responses. Using data from vaccine cohorts in Kilifi, I found that anaemia and vitamin B12 deficiency were associated with impaired pneumococcal vaccine responses.
Taken together, this thesis provides new insights into the interplay between severe anaemia, iron metabolism, immune function, and bacterial infection. The findings underscore the need for age-specific anaemia management, nutritional strategies to improve vaccination outcomes, transferrin-based therapies for severely malnourished children, and a re-evaluation of iron supplementation policies in high-risk populations
Thuntai and its place among the Yam languages of Southern New Guinea: insights from preliminary documentation.
No full textOur understanding of the diversity of southern New Guinea’s linguistic landscape has dramatically increased over the last decade, thanks to extensive documentation efforts on several languages of the Yam family (Evans 2012). Recent years have seen the publication of in-depth studies of languages spoken at both sides of the Indonesian-Papua New Guinean border, particularly on Nen (e.g., Evans 2014, 2015, 2017), Komnzo (Döhler 2018), Nama (Siegel 2023), Ngkolmpu (Carroll 2016) or Nmbo (Kashima 2020). Moreover, the unusual morphological features shared by these languages —particularly, their ‘distributed exponence’ (Evans 2015; Carroll 2016)— have attracted considerable attention from linguists interested in morphology and linguistic complexity. However, there are still important gaps in the documentation of other Yam languages, and many questions remain open for comparative analyses of the language family (Evans et al. 2017). In this talk, I will present some features observed in my preliminary documentation of Thuntai (Warta Thuntai at Glottolog; GNT at ISO 639-3), a language of the Tonda subgroup of Yam languages, spoken by around 400 people in the south-western corner of Papua New Guinea. The observations, which build upon (and qualify) Quinn’s (2014) foundational description of the language, will focus on a small number of key phonetic and morphosyntactic features that
either align with or differ from other Yam languages
Where have all the business women gone? Women and business in the 20th century
No full textThis Special Issue (SI) explores the development of female entrepreneurship throughout the twentieth century. The articles employ a mixed-methods approach to showcase various forms of female entrepreneurship, from self-employment and co-working in family businesses to innovators across underrepresented sectors, economic conditions, and institutional contexts in both Western and non-Western settings. The SI illustrates how qualitative and quantitative methods work together to provide new insights into how women pursued business opportunities in non-Western environments characterised by different paths of industrialisation, regional diversity, and business structures. Focusing on the twentieth century—which has received less attention in the history of female entrepreneurship—the articles also engage with current debates on female entrepreneurship. We offer a systematic review of existing literature, highlighting key themes, methods, and findings from prior research, along with their limitations. We then emphasise the contributions of this Special Issue in filling these gaps and suggest directions for future research