324139 research outputs found
Sort by
Land use framework consultation (England): comments from the Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery
Get PDFThe Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery (LNCR) welcomes Defra’s work on creating and sharing the Land Use Framework (LUF), and the opportunity to respond to the consultation. The LUF needs to address multiple policy areas and in our response, we make suggestions that we believe would improve outcomes for nature and support health, food, agriculture and net-zero carbon targets
The implementation of palliative care in Greece: a position paper by the Palliative Care Working Group of the Hellenic society of Medical Oncology (HeSMO)
Get PDFThe global burden of cancer continues to rise, with projections indicating a 47% increase in new cases by 2040. The integration of oncology and palliative care has emerged as a vital approach to address the complex needs of cancer patients. This position paper, endorsed by the Palliative Care Working Group of the Hellenic Society of Medical Oncology (HeSMO), emphasizes the significance of early integration of palliative care with cancer-directed therapies. It highlights the benefits of this approach, including improved quality of life, symptom control, emotional well-being, and enhanced survival rates for patients. The paper also addresses the challenges of palliative care provision in Greece and advocates for comprehensive education for health-care professionals, especially oncologists and nurses, to effectively manage palliative care needs. The importance of multidisciplinary teams (MDTs), survivorship care plans (SCPs), home-based palliative care, and end-of-life care discussions is underscored. By aligning with international guidelines and recommendations, HeSMO strives to establish a supportive health-care system in Greece that offers equitable access to high-quality palliative care for all cancer patients, thus ensuring their well-being throughout their cancer journey
Diversification dynamics of vegetation during the Cenozoic in the Neotropics: a palynological perspective from Colombia
Get PDFThe Neotropics host the highest diversity of plants on the Earth today and have done since at least the late Paleogene (~58 Ma). Several mechanisms have been proposed to explain this elevated diversity, but the empirical patterns of Neotropical plant diversification that would test key aspects of those mechanisms are still unclear. We use an extensive palynological database from northern South America to characterize patterns of extinction, origination, and diversity and their possible drivers since the Paleogene. The foreland Llanos basin of Colombia preserves the evolutionary history of Neotropical vegetation as well as the geological evolution of northern South America, offering a unique opportunity to study the relationship between the geological and fossil records. The palynological record of the Llanos basin has been intensely studied mainly for oil exploration, and we use this information to infer the evolutionary history of Neotropical vegetation in Colombia during the Cenozoic. There is no straightforward relationship between global temperature and Neotropical plant diversity. Nevertheless, environmental change had an important influence on the dynamics of diversification, especially during volatile climate intervals such as the Paleocene–Eocene and the Pleistocene. Pulses of regional extinction were driven by large-scale temperature excursions, including both warming and cooling phases. Time-lagged origination pulses results in rapid floral replacement on a timescale of 1 Myr. Origination and extinction are essentially balanced on long timescales, leading to a near-zero long-term net diversification rate. Regional geological events, like the uplift of the Andean Cordillera, and changes in paleogeography also played an important role in Neotropical plant diversification
Optogenetic vision restoration in the face of secondary and tertiary remodelling in the rd1 mouse retina
Get PDFPhotoreceptor loss in retinal degeneration is followed by progressive remodelling of the surviving retina, which may present a barrier to vision restoration. To determine the impact of remodelling on the retina’s suitability for therapeutic interventions, we track changes in visual code produced by the optogenetic actuator ReaChR expressed in ON-bipolar cells of the rd1 mouse at 3,5,9 and 12 months. Anatomical analyses confirm these ages encompass phase II (photoreceptor degeneration) to phase III (inner retinal thinning, dysmorphia, pigment epithelium infiltration) remodelling. Multi-electrode array recording from retinal ganglion cells reveal that ReaChR-driven responses to a range of visual stimuli are stable across this age range. Response amplitude, sensitivity and reproducibility all increased between 3 and 5 months, remaining consistent thereafter. Receptive field sizes, contrast sensitivity, and temporal frequency tuning showed minor changes with age. The diversity of retinal ganglion cell coding was maintained, reflected by the diversity captured by unsupervised functional clustering with 11 distinct visual channels retained across ages. Our data indicate that remodelling does not significantly impair, and at early stages may even enhance the surviving retina’s ability to support visual restoration. Clinical intervention thus remains viable throughout remodelling, suggesting a wide window in disease progression for therapeutic benefit
Global inequalities in arts, music or educational organization membership: an epidemiological analysis of 73,825 adults from 51 countries
Get PDFBackground: Arts and cultural engagement is a ubiquitous human behavior and considered to be evolutionarily and developmentally adaptive, with wide-ranging health benefits. Although levels of engagement are known to be far from equal within countries, comprehensive data comparing the rates and profiles of engagement on a global scale are lacking. Methods: This study analyzed cross-sectional data from Wave 7 of the World Values Survey (2017–2023), with 73,825 respondents from 51 countries. Using multilevel logistic regression, we tested whether a set of individual-level demographic and socio-economic factors and country-level socio-demographic and political factors were associated with arts, music, or educational organization membership rates. We additionally explored whether those individual-level factors differed across regions using single-level regression. Results: Prevalence of arts organization membership varies substantially across countries, from fewer than 1 in 30 people living in Egypt to more than 1 in 2 people living in Kenya. Education, income, and age are consistently identified individual-level factors contributing to membership disparities, alongside other region-specific individual-level factors such as gender and employment status. Membership is also positively influenced by country-level income inequality and net migration rate. Conclusions: We found a universal social gradient in membership, which suggests differential opportunities and potential barriers to access arts organizations across population subgroups. Given that participation in arts organizations has been shown to improve health outcomes, reducing disparities in access to and participation in the arts may have the potential to help reduce health inequalities and should therefore be a priority in global health
MRS-BIDS, an extension to the Brain Imaging Data Structure for magnetic resonance spectroscopy
Get PDFThe Brain Imaging Data Structure (BIDS) is an increasingly adopted standard for organizing scientific data and metadata. It facilitates easier and more straightforward data sharing and reuse. BIDS currently encompasses several biomedical imaging and non-imaging techniques, and as more research groups begin to use it, additional experimental techniques are being incorporated into the standard, allowing diverse experimental methods to be stored within the same cohesive structure. Here, we present an extension for magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) data, termed MRS-BIDS
Ferromagmatic Intrusions on Asteroid (16) Psyche May Be Magnetized
Get PDFNASA's Psyche mission will arrive at the metal‐rich asteroid (16) Psyche in 2029. The mission will test whether (16) Psyche is a remnant of a melted, differentiated planetesimal that formed a molten iron metallic core. Previous studies have suggested that a molten metallic core fluid could erupt volcanically, explaining the high metal content of (16) Psyche's surface. Here we describe an origin story for (16) Psyche using thermal and compositional evolution modeling that outlines when ferrovolcanism could occur. We highlight how Psyche's Magnetometer could detect remanent magnetization associated with mantle intrusions of the core metal
Quantum Powers and Primitive Ontology
Get PDFThis article surveys recent work on primitive ontology (PO) approaches to quantum mechanics, focusing on proposals that seek to integrate this approach with the metaphysics of causal powers. PO approaches aim to provide a clear metaphysical picture in which the world consists of local entities such as particles, matter density fields or flashes, and these entities compose macroscopic objects, such as scientists and their measuring devices. To account for the behaviour of these local entities, some PO theories invoke the metaphysics of powers. After motivating PO approaches and contrasting them with wave function realism, I consider the development of power‐based POs, contrasting them with both Humean POs and POs which invoke primitive laws. I explain how different power‐based frameworks address key quantum phenomena, and I survey some difficulties, including the Problem of Holism, of small worlds and of top‐down causation. Such challenges are best confronted, I suggest, by drawing on Aristotelian hylomorphism: If powers are grounded in forms that unify physical systems, then power‐based POs can accommodate holistic and context‐sensitive behaviour
Soliciting David Wills
Get PDFSolicitation was the theme of David Wills’ keynote at the Derrida Today Conference in London in 2016. As an after-echo of that event, at the Derrida Today Conference in Athens in 2024, this postcard stages a solicitation of David Wills by way of some of the key themes in his work from Prosthesis to Killing Times and in conversation with the ideas of thinkers he reads, including Derrida and Cixous. Solicitation is thrown into deconstruction, with the suggestion that Wills’ thought might in turn come to tremble.ble
Observability of nonlinear discrete-time systems with unmeasured inputs
No full textThe observability analysis of a dynamic system for a given sensor setup offers useful insights on the ability to estimate its states and parameters. Recent works have further extended the concept of observability to systems under unmeasured inputs, while efficient algorithms have allowed the study of realistic dynamic systems which typically involve multiple degrees of freedom and parameters to be identified. Observability algorithms however typically rely on the assumption that the measurements are obtained continuously in time. While the results obtained from this assumption are still useful, some of the observations from the observability analysis, e.g., the derivatives of the measurements needed for the system to become observable, are hard to link to system identification algorithms. Such algorithms use measurements that have been logged at some finite sampling frequency, while the inputs are often represented using a discretization in time. In this work, the concept of (state, parameter and input) observability under the presence of unmeasured inputs is extended to discrete-time systems. This allows accounting for the measurements and inputs being sampled at some finite frequency. The outcomes of the observability analysis are extended to include the number of measurements needed for a state, parameter or input to become observable. The work will discuss how this property is especially important in the case of unmeasured inputs. An efficient algorithm to calculate the observability of discrete systems under the presence of unmeasured inputs is introduced. An efficient numerical implementation of the algorithm is introduced using stabilization of the results across different numerical precisions. The algorithm is then used for dynamic systems which are discretized by methods of different order, and the effect of this process on the observability properties of the system is discussed. Suitable examples demonstrate how the observability of discrete-time systems with unmeasured inputs can guide significant decisions in terms of sensor placement and the modelling of the system