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How to deter seals? A manually triggered acoustic deterrent study
Get PDFFunding: Scottish Government (Grant Number(s): MMSS/003/20).Peer reviewe
Intimate partner violence, traumatic brain injury and long-term mental health outcomes in midlife : the Drake IPV study
Get PDFFunding: This work was supported by funding from The Drake Foundation (WS); the National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants NS038104, NS094003, U54NS115322 and U01NS137500 (WS); the Medical Research Council grant MR/Y008502/1 (WS); NHS Research Scotland (WS); the Alzheimer’s Society grant numbers 178, 264 and 329 and the Alzheimer’s Association grant number TriBEKa-17-519007.Background Approximately 30% of women experience intimate partner violence (IPV) in their lifetime, often with traumatic brain injury (TBI) exposure. Nevertheless, there has been limited research exploring lifelong brain health outcomes following IPV with TBI. To address this, we investigated the relationship between IPV, TBI and midlife mental health outcomes within an observational cohort study. Methods PREVENT Dementia is a cohort study with participants recruited aged 40–59 years for longitudinal measures of brain health. Participants reporting histories of IPV-related physical abuse (IPV-PA) at study recruitment were identified and compared with control participants with no IPV-PA exposure regarding histories of TBI and prevalence of lifetime and ongoing mental health outcomes using standardised assessments. Results Among 632 participants, 90 (14%) reported IPV-PA history. Compared with unexposed participants, history of IPV-PA was associated with higher TBI exposure, together with higher lifetime and ongoing diagnoses of depression, anxiety and sleep disorders, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptomology. Notably, the risk of ongoing and concurrent midlife mental health disorders remained despite IPV-PA exposure having ceased on average 27 years before assessment. History of TBI in individuals with IPV was associated with increased risk of ongoing PTSD symptomology and concurrent mental health outcomes. Conclusions Our data confirm high TBI exposure among individuals with a history of IPV-PA, while also demonstrating that this population shows higher rates of ongoing adverse mental health outcomes in midlife, often decades after abuse. This work underlines the prevalence of IPV-PA and the necessity to consider TBI exposure and long-term brain health outcomes among this population.Peer reviewe
Origin of the IRAS Vela Shell : new insights from 3D dust mapping
Get PDFFunding: A.G. and T.K.S. acknowledge support from the NASA ADAP grant 80NSSC23K0779 titled “The Galactic Life Cycle: Gum Nebula Cometary Globules and Molecular Clouds.”The IRAS Vela Shell (IVS) is a structure of enhanced far-IR (FIR) emission located toward the Gum Nebula, a prominent region of Hα emission in the local Milky Way shaped by various galactic stellar feedback over the past several million years. We constrain the 3D spatial geometry of the IVS using a parsec-resolution 3D dust map and contextualize it within the broader Gum Nebula. Our analysis reveals a dense, bowl-like IVS structure below the Galactic plane, with a more diffuse component above. We obtain a total shell mass of 5.1+0.24-0.24 × 104 M☉ and, incorporating previous studies on shell expansion, a momentum of 6.0+4.7-3.4 × 105 M☉ km s-1. We find a spatial correlation between the morphology of the dust-traced IVS and the Gum Nebula’s Hα emission when projected onto the sky. We quantify contributions of feedback from stellar winds, an expanding H ɪɪ region, and supernovae to the IVS formation, finding that stellar winds are subdominant. Our momentum analysis shows that both an H ɪɪ region and supernova feedback could drive the shell’s expansion. Using astrometric constraints from Gaia and Hipparcos, we trace back nearby feedback sources and find that the massive stars γ2 Velorum and ζ Puppis are currently within the IVS, producing enough ionizing luminosity to form an H ɪɪ region of comparable size. Alternatively, if the IVS’ momentum is primarily driven by supernovae, one to two events would be required. We also identify several young massive clusters that could have hosted supernovae within the past 3 Myr.Peer reviewe
Governance in motion : the French crown, royal officers, and practices of politics in late medieval Lyon, Rouen, and Toulouse, c.1204-c.1337
No full textThis thesis examines the operation of governance and processes of statebuilding in late medieval France through a comparative study of three groups of local royal officers: the viscounts of Rouen, viguiers of Toulouse, and gardiateurs of Lyon. It interrogates a crucial period of political development and territorial expansion between the conquest of Normandy in 1204 and the beginnings of the Hundred Years War in 1337. Whilst these officers have been neglected by current historiography, this thesis repositions them at the heart of political society through a close reading of understudied archival documents from royal and municipal repositories. It demonstrates that they were integral to political praxis and the quotidian performance of the interpersonal relationships through which the French kingdom was governed.
The thesis studies governance in motion, focusing on moments of encounter between officers, local communities, urban interest groups, and the crown. It examines the political culture and normative frameworks within which offices were delineated, the communicative tissue intended to tie the polity together, and the core themes of justice and jurisdiction structuring political interactions. The thesis also provides, for the first time, a detailed prosopographical analysis of the lives, careers, and backgrounds of the fifty-five viscounts, viguiers, and gardiateurs serving between 1204 and 1337.
This research addresses significant gaps in existing knowledge of the French royal state and local administration, which remains relatively superficial and highly regionalised, whilst contributing to broader debates about late medieval politics, statebuilding, information, accountability, and corruption. In contrast to frequent emphases on the sophistication of late medieval French government, it argues that close study of this level of officialdom reveals a more ambiguous picture, in which royal ambitions and local realities frequently collided. This was a kind of disordered order in which officers facilitated and problematised the growth of royal authority in the localities."The donors of the Dorothy B. Miller Fellowship in History funded a three-year scholarship without which I could not have taken up my place, and to them I am truly thankful. For funds which enabled crucial archival research, my deepest thanks go to the Turing mobility scheme, the donors of the Berenike Walburg fund at St Andrews, the Society for the Study of French History, and the Royal Historical Society."--Fundin
Risk reduction in cardiac surgery
Get PDFIntroduction: Cardiac surgery, even in the non-urgent setting, presents an enormous physiological burden to the body. With or without extra-corporeal circulation, manipulation of the heart can affect any system of the body, with potentially catastrophic complications.
Mortality risks: The advent of risk stratification tools began with simple scoring systems to determine mortality after cardiac surgery. These were additive tools which matured into the simple but well-validated Logistic EuroSCORE. The second iteration of the EuroSCORE employed an equally parsimonious array of variable, which was no less accurate than the significantly more complex STS score (1). As surgical safety has improved, patients who were once considered inoperable, such as the octogenarian requiring cardiac surgery, can now be riskstratified to derive maximum benefit from a surgical strategy (2).
Risks of serious complications: Alongside the risk of death, a better understanding of major adverse outcomes has also been sought. The external validity of such tools, such as that for predicting the devasting complication of deep sternal wound infection, are often less well established, and therefore these tools are not as widely adopted (3). Equally, prophylactic efforts to reduce the incidence of such devastating complications using novel methods such as the application of platelet gel have not been shown to reduce risk (4). More common but less debilitating risks such as bleeding can be mitigated by intra-operative point of care measurements such as platelet aggregation (5) and thromboelastography (6). Such diagnostic tests, including crosssectional imaging in appropriate cases, help to alert clinicians to the need for strategy change that can reduce the risks of complications (7).
Surgical strategy: There are multiple approaches to performing the same procedure in cardiac surgery, each with opponents and advocates. It is likely that no single technique is applicable in all scenarios. For example, the anastomosis of the left internal mammary artery to the left anterior descending coronary artery is considered the gold standard of bypass grafts, with the expectation that it is used universally in coronary artery surgery. However, surgeons must exercise discretion when utilising the mammary artery as conduit in all patients and should be cognisant of the potential for steal from other branches of the subclavian, such as in dialysis dependent renal failure (8). Similarly, the use of arterial grafts such as the radial artery may be associated with greater benefit in men than women (9).
Minimising invasiveness: Reducing the size of surgical incisions to reduce risk has also been increasingly sought after in the last five decades. In cardiac surgery, the benefit of these procedures has been less compelling than for thoracic, abdominal or pelvic surgery. Concerns about the quality of coronary artery bypass grafts undertaken using minimally invasive methods was raised and, over a period of time, dismissed (10). The impact of the learning curve may also be relevant to delivering minimally invasive options to patients (11). Minimally invasive methods in cardiac surgery are still immature and while they have not shown any benefits over open surgery in aortic valve replacement (12), they appear to be non-inferior (13).
Off-pump coronary artery bypass grafting: Surgery on the beating heart (without the aid of cardiopulmonary bypass, or “off-pump”) has seen a resurgence as a technique to maintain physiological blood flow through the heart and to reduce the exogenous activation of the inflammatory cascade associated with extracorporeal circulation. Early studies indicated that off-pump coronary artery bypass (OPCAB) was most advantageous for certain patient subgroups (14), but large studies have now demonstrated that this is at least as effective for long-term survival (15) and reintervention (16) as bypass grafting on-pump. The technique might even confer an advantage (17). The corollary to this is that OPCAB is exquisitely sensitive to operator experience (18), and the inexperienced may struggle to derive all its benefits (19) (20).
Conclusion: Outcomes in cardiac surgery in the United Kingdom are enviable and arise from the close scrutiny of surgeon-specific mortality. In order to achieve this, a multi-faceted approach to risk-reduction must be adopted, consisting of thorough pre-operative assessment, multimodal investigation and the use of strategy changes in response to those findings
Passive acoustic monitoring of baleen whale seasonal presence across the New York Bight
Get PDFFunding for this study was provided by a contract from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (https://dec.ny.gov/) to ANR and SEP (Contract C009925).The New York Bight is an ecologically and economically important marine region along the U.S. Atlantic Coast. Extensive assessments have characterized the habitats and biota in this ecosystem; however, most have focused on fishes, benthic habitats, and human impacts. To investigate the spatial and temporal occurrence of whales in this region, we conducted a three-year passive acoustic monitoring survey that documented the acoustic presence of five baleen whale species that occur within the New York Bight and are of conservation concern: North Atlantic right whales (Eubalaena glacialis), humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae), fin whales (Balaenoptera physalus), sei whales (Balaenoptera borealis), and blue whales (Balaenoptera musculus). Data were recorded with 14 bottom-mounted acoustic sensors across the continental shelf between 2017 and 2020. Right whales were detected across all seasons, with most detections in autumn closer to New York Harbor and spring detections at sites closer to the continental shelf edge. Humpbacks were detected during all months of the year with varying distribution of detections across the shelf. The year-round presence of right and humpback whales challenges previous hypotheses that this region is primarily a stopover location along their migration paths. Fin whales were detected at all sites on most days. Sei whales were detected primarily during the spring at offshore sites. Blue whales were detected in the winter at sites closer to the continental shelf edge, but were rare. These data improve our understanding of baleen whale seasonal occurrences in the New York Bight and can inform monitoring and mitigation efforts associated with the management and conservation of these species.Peer reviewe
Moduli of finite flat torsors over nodal curves
Get PDFFunding: The authors thank the Institut de Mathématiques de Bordeaux for funding a research visit of T. Poiret to Bordeaux. S. Mehidi was funded partially by the Dutch Research Council (NWO) grant VI.Vidi.213.019, which also funded a research visit of T. Poiret to Utrecht. T. Poiret was funded partially by EPSRC New Investigator Grant EP/V051830/1 and by EPSRC New Investigator award EP/X002004/1.We show that log flat torsors over a family ∕ of nodal curves under a finite flat commutative group scheme ∕ are classified by maps from the Cartier dual of to the log Jacobian of . We deduce that fppf torsors on the smooth fiberss of ∕ can be extended to global log flat torsors under some regularity hypotheses.Peer reviewe
Daily rhythm in DNA methylation and the effect of total sleep deprivation
Get PDFFunding: Netherlands Forensic Institute. Grant Number: 018741; Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council. Grant Number: BB/I019405/1; Finska Läkaresällskapet Academy of Finland. Grant Number: 357643.Summary Numerous hormones and genes exhibit diurnal 24-hr rhythms that can also be affected by sleep deprivation. Here we studied diurnal rhythms in DNA methylation under a 24-hr sleep/wake cycle and a subsequent 29?hr of continual wakefulness (1?night of sleep deprivation). Fifteen healthy men (19?35?years) spent 3?days/nights in a sleep laboratory: (1) adaptation; (2) baseline; (3) total sleep deprivation day/night. DNA methylation was analysed from peripheral blood leukocytes, collected every 3?hr for 45?hr (starting at 15:00?hours) during the baseline period and the total sleep deprivation period. Epigenome-wide DNA methylation variation was assessed with the Infinium MethylationEPIC v2.0 Beadchip kit. Rhythm analysis was performed separately for the baseline and the total sleep deprivation time-series data. Pairwise analysis between diurnal samples and sleep deprivation samples at the same timepoint was also carried out to detect differentially methylated positions related to sleep deprivation. Of all DNA methylation sites, 14% exhibited a diurnal rhythm in methylation on the baseline day/night that was altered by sleep deprivation. During sleep deprivation, the number of differentially methylated positions increased towards the end of the sleep deprivation period, with a dominating pattern of hypomethylation. Among differentially methylated positions, an enrichment of genes related to the FAS immune response pathway was detected. In conclusion, DNA methylation exhibits diurnal rhythmicity, and this time-of-day variation needs to be considered when studying DNA methylation as a biomarker in biomedical studies. In addition, the observed DNA methylation changes under wakefulness might serve as a mediator of sleep deprivation-related immune response alterations.Peer reviewe
pi-par : a dependently-typed parallel language with algorithmic skeletons
Get PDFAlgorithmic skeletons are an effective, pattern-based approach for parallelising software. However, despite implementations for a range of languages and paradigms, there is currently no support for dependently-typed languages, such as Idris, Agda and Coq. Such languages promote safer software via the ability to express logical properties and specifications, along with their proofs, directly in code. In this paper, we present pi-par, a prototype dependently-typed language based on Idris, with message-passing concurrency and built-in Pipeline and Task Farm skeletons. We evaluate pi-par on a series of standard Task Farm and Pipeline examples, achieving speedups of up to 23.35 × on a 28-core machine.Peer reviewe
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