32151 research outputs found
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Defining terminology and outcome measures for evaluating overdose response technology : an international Delphi study
Get PDFFunding: Canadian Institutes of Health Research,Grant/Award Number: 181006; Health Canada Substance Use and Addictions Program, Grant/Award Number:2122-HQ-000021.Introduction: Various novel harm reduction services leverage technology to reduce the rising number of drug poisoning deaths, particularly among those who use drugs alone. There is significant variability in terminology and outcome measures in reporting these interventions, complicating efforts to build a comprehensive knowledge base. Thus, we conducted a Delphi study to establish consensus and heterogeneity in these metrics. Methods: Panellists from three stakeholder groups (people who use drugs, virtual harm reduction service operators and academics) participated in a multi-round Delphi study. The first round included open-ended questions to propose items in three categories: terminology, demographic information and outcomes. Subsequent rounds included options from a previously conducted scoping review for consideration. Likert ratings were used to achieve consensus, with a 70% threshold. Final rounds involved ranking terminology that reached a consensus. Results: Of 23 initial participants, 14 completed the fourth survey round. ?Overdose response technology? was identified as the most appropriate term for these harm reduction technologies. This definition includes drug contamination alerts, overdose response hotlines and applications, wearable overdose detection technology and overdose detection tools. Fourteen demographic outcomes reached a consensus for data collection, including name or handle, neighbourhood, age, gender, past overdose experience, substance used, amount and route of use. Six service use outcomes were recommended: response type, service outcomes, morbidity and mortality, overdose events, responder arrival time and post-rescue care. Discussion and Conclusions: The study results are recommended to standardise terminology and guide future research and knowledge dissemination in the field, ensuring clear communication with a shared language.Peer reviewe
Continent-wide differentiation of fitness traits and patterns of climate adaptation among European populations of Drosophila melanogaster
Get PDFFunding: This research was supported by a Special Topics Network (STN) grant from the European Society of Evolutionary Biology (ESEB) to the DrosEU consortium as well as by individual grants and fellowships (grantees in alphabetical order): J.A.: Swedish Research Council (VR) grants 2015-04680 and 2020-05412; A.J.B.: European Research Council (ERC CoG TE_INVASION); S.D.: Ministry of Science, Technological Development and Innovation of the Republic of Serbia (NITRA) grant 451-03-66/2024-03/200007; K.E.: Ministry of Science, Technological Development and Innovation of the Republic of Serbia (NITRA) grant 451-03-66/2024-03/200007; P.E.: Ministry of Science, Technological Development and Innovation of the Republic of Serbia (NITRA) grant 451-03-66/2024-03/200007; P.E.: Jane Coffin Childs Memorial Fund for Medical Research 61-1673: T.F.: Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) grants 31003A-182262, 310030_219283, FZEB-0-214654; C.F.: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) grants 2973/5-1 and 2973/11; J.G.: Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades/Agencia Estatal de Investigación (MICIU/AEI/10.13039/501100011033/) grant PID2020-115874GB-I00; Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades/Agencia Estatal de Investigación (MICIU/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and FEDER, UE) grant PID2023-148838NB-I00; Departament de Recerca i Universitats Generalitat de Catalunya grant 2021 SGR 00417; S.G.: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) grants 271330745 and 514085304; K.M.H.: Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship (H2020-MSCA-IF-2015) 701949; J.H.: Czech Ministry of Education, grant; European Research Council (ERC CZ LL2001); M.J.: Ministry of Science, Technological Development and Innovation of the Republic of Serbia (NITRA) grant 451-03-65/2024-03/200178; M.K.: Academy of Finland grant 322980; E.K.: European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) ALTF 248-2018; M.S.M.: ALW Open Programme grant 101185; J.P.: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) grants 255619725 (GR 4495/2-2) and 503272152 (GR 4495/4-1); E.G.P.: Russian state budget, assignment NRC “KI”; A.P.: Ministry of Science, Technological Development and Innovation of the Republic of Serbia (NITRA) grant 451-03-66/2024-03/200007; N.P.: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) grants PO 1648/7-1, PO 1648/3-1, PO 1648/3-2; M.S.V.: Ministry of Science, Technological Development and Innovation of the Republic of Serbia (NITRA) grant 451-03-65/2024-03/200178; C.S.: Austrian Science Fund (FWF) grants 10.55776/P32935, 10.55776/W1225, 10.55776/P33734; P.S.: National Institutes of Health (NIH) R01GM137430; M.S.-R.: Ministry of Science, Technological Development and Innovation of the Republic of Serbia (NITRA) grant 451-03-47/2023-01/200178; M.T.: Ministry of Science, Technological Development and Innovation of the Republic of Serbia (NITRA) grant 451-03-66/2024-03/200007; E.T.: Israel Science Foundation (ISF) 2121/23; C.V.: Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR) grant Longevity ANR-20-CE02-0015, J.V.: Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) UIDB/04293/2020; C.W.: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) grant WE 2652/7-1.A particularly well-studied evolutionary model is the vinegar fly Drosophila melanogaster, a cosmopolitan insect of ancestral southern-central African origin. Recent work suggests that it expanded out of Africa ∼9,000 years ago, and spread from the Middle East into Europe ∼1,800 years ago. During its global expansion, this human commensal adapted to novel climate zones and habitats. Despite much work on phenotypic differentiation and adaptation on several continents (especially North America and Australia), typically in the context of latitudinal clines, little is known about phenotypic divergence among European populations. Here, we sought to provide a continent-wide study of phenotypic differentiation among European populations of D. melanogaster. In a consortium-wide phenomics effort, we assayed 16 fitness-related traits on a panel of 173 isofemale lines from 9 European populations, with the majority of traits measured by several groups using semi-standardized protocols. For most fitness-related traits, we found significant differentiation among populations on a continental scale. Despite inevitable differences in assay conditions among labs, the reproducibility and hence robustness of our measurements were overall remarkably good. Several fitness components (e.g., viability, development time) exhibited significant latitudinal or longitudinal clines, and populations differed markedly in multivariate trait structure. Notably, populations experiencing higher humidity/rainfall and lower maximum temperature showed higher viability, fertility, starvation resistance, and lifespan at the expense of lower heat-shock survival, suggesting a pattern of local adaptation. Our results indicate that derived populations of this tropical fly have been shaped by pervasive spatially varying multivariate selection and adaptation to different climates on the European continent.Peer reviewe
Stratospheric impacts on weather regimes following the 2018 and 2019 sudden stratospheric warmings
Get PDFFunding: RWL and AJCP were supported by the University of Reading.Major disruptions of the stratospheric polar vortex can improve subseasonal forecast skill for surface climate, as negative North Atlantic Oscillation-like (NAO−) states can follow sudden stratospheric warmings (SSWs). Yet most insights come from observational studies or large operational forecast archives. Here we use Stratospheric Nudging And Predictable Surface Impacts (SNAPSI) project experiments, which applies stratospheric nudging to forecasts of two SSWs (2018 and 2019) followed by differing tropospheric evolutions. We show that SSWs systematically shift the atmosphere toward negative NAO-like regimes (stronger Greenland anticyclone) in both the North Atlantic-European and North American regions. Comparisons among nudged, free, and control runs quantify the benefits of improving and removing SSW representation in diagnosing tropospheric regime shifts. In 2018, accurate stratospheric representation improved weather regime forecasts. However, in 2019, despite persistent observed ridged regimes, nudged SSWs still induced negative NAO-like patterns, implying that subseasonal models sometimes underrepresent other teleconnections and overrepresent stratosphere-troposphere coupling.Peer reviewe
Empirical evidence that diversionary feeding increases productivity in ground-nesting birds
Get PDFFunding: the authors acknowledge funding from a NERC SUPER DTP studentship to J.A.B. (NE/S007342/1) and from Forestry and Land Scotland. X.L. was in receipt of a Leverhulme Fellowship, RF-2024-363.The recovery of predator populations may negatively impact other species of conservation concern, leading to conservation conflicts. Evidence-based solutions are needed to resolve such conflicts. Robust, large-scale field experiments provide the most rigorous evidence to justify new forms of intervention. Still, they are hard to implement and often call for indirect and non-invasive monitoring. In this study, we used camera traps to experimentally evaluate diversionary feeding to reduce conservation conflict and non-invasively monitor capercaillie hen productivity over 3 years under a randomized control (unfed) and treatment (fed) design. Diversionary feeding significantly increased the probability that a detected hen would have a brood. Brood size decreased over time, but the change did not differ between fed and unfed treatments. Importantly, the increased chance of having a brood with diversionary feeding substantially increases overall productivity at the end of the sampling season. This was just 0.82 (0.35–1.29) chicks per hen without diversionary feeding, and more than doubled to 1.90 (1.24–2.55) with diversionary feeding. This study provides compelling empirical evidence that diversionary feeding positively affects productivity, offering an effective non-lethal solution to the increasingly common conservation conflict where both predator and prey are afforded protection.Peer reviewe
Single-molecule localization microscopy error is sensor dependent and larger than theory predicts
Get PDFFunding: P.A. gratefully acknowledges support from the Leverhulme Trust (RL-2022-015) and UKRI BBSRC IAA.Since the advent of stochastic localization microscopy approaches in 2006, the number of studies employing this strategy to investigate the subdiffraction limit features of fluorescently labeled structures in biology, biophysics and solid state samples has increased exponentially. Underpinning all these approaches is the notion that the position of single molecules can be determined to high precision, provided enough photons are collected. The determination of exactly how precisely, has been demanded to formulas that try to approximate the so-called Cramer-Rao lower bound based on input parameters such as the number of photons collected from the molecules, or the size of the camera pixel. These estimates should, however, be matched to the experimental localization precision, which can be easily determined if, instead of looking at single beads, we study the distance between a pair. We revisit here a few key works, observing how these theoretical determinations tend to routinely underestimate the experimental localization precision of the order of a factor 2. A software-independent metric to determine, based on each individual setup, the appropriate value to set on the localization error of individual emitters is provided. [Abstract copyright: Copyright © 2025 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.]Peer reviewe
The eschatological imagination in literature
Get PDFThis article examines the role of the eschatological imagination in literature. It begins by arguing that eschatology, far from being abstract or outdated, shapes both individual and collective imagination and desire, orienting lives toward an implied or explicit end. In modernity, traditional religious eschatologies have often been replaced by political, technological, or psychological visions of fulfillment, many of which result in “eschatological antinomies”—the self-defeating pursuit of desire. Literature, Wolfe contends, provides a unique space to live within the tension between longing for resolution and acknowledging the impossibility of full closure. Works by Shakespeare, Eliot, Tolkien, and others embody a dual movement: they draw readers toward a sense of meaning while simultaneously letting go, resisting total narrative containment. This mirrors the Christian eschatological vision—a promise that is glimpsed but not yet realized. Such literature becomes a training ground for hope: not an escapist fantasy, but a way of preparing the heart to live well amid uncertainty. Like the liturgy, these works offer a moment of transformation that sends the reader back into life with both courage and humility.Peer reviewe
Learning to love : a theological response to our polarised world
Get PDF‘Love your enemy’ has always been one of the most pressing and difficult of Jesus Christ’s commands to follow. The term ‘polarisation’ accurately describes the barriers that are faced when attempting to follow it and love one’s enemy. It denotes the tribal divides that lead to emotive reactions, self-enclosed ideologies, and embittered narratives about the ‘enemy’. This thesis explores how Christians can learn to love their enemy within polarised contexts that provides convincing reasons for doing so. It achieves this by showing how narratives underlie much of what groups believe and think as well as informing how they see, listen to, and treat each other.
After establishing this, Bonhoeffer’s theology is turned to as an impetus to propose how attention to Christs’ revelation and its effects on believers can help expose, challenge, and renarrate these ‘polarising’ narratives with narratives guided by Christ’s love. This is used as a basis to propose a model of dialogue that helps provide opportunity for believers to learn to love their enemy and find amicable and productive ways of engaging with each other across polarised differences through the identification of common aims.
After proposing this as a strategy for helping to resolve polarised tensions, the model is applied to two different types of fundamentalism. Christian fundamentalism is engaged with to show how dialogue with those who share an overarching interpretative framework might help to resolve polarisation. Islamic fundamentalism is engaged with to show the effects of dialogue when this overarching interpretative framework cannot be taken for granted. These theoretical case studies will demonstrate the overall thesis that resolving polarised tensions ultimately must involve renarrating the polarising narratives that are told about each other through narratives of love. It is only by finding ways of doing this that believers can adhere to Christ’s command and learn to love their enemies by coming to see their enemies as beloved
A seawater oxygen oscillation recorded by iron formations prior to the Great Oxidation Event
Get PDFFunding: This work was supported by the National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) under grant no. RGPIN-2019-06003 (for L.L.) and RGPIN-165831 (for K.O.K.). E.E.S. acknowledges funding from a NERC Frontiers grant (NE/V010824/1). K.O.K. also acknowledges support from the Royal Society and the Wolfson Foundation, provided through the Royal Society Wolfson Visiting Fellowship.Earth’s atmosphere underwent permanent oxidation during the Great Oxidation Event approximately 2.45–2.22 billion years ago (Ga) due to excess oxygen (O2) generated by marine cyanobacteria. However, understanding the timing and tempo of seawater oxygenation before the Great Oxidation Event has been hindered by the absence of sensitive tracers. Nitrogen (N) isotopes can be an indicator of marine oxygenation. Here we present an ~200 Myr nitrogen isotope oscillation recorded by Neoarchaean and Palaeoproterozoic banded iron formations from the Hamersley Basin, Western Australia, that were deposited in relatively deep marine shelf environments. Paired with the Jeerinah Formation shale record, our data from the Marra Mamba Iron Formation suggest that oxic conditions expanded to banded iron formation depositional environments from ~2.63 to 2.60 Ga. Subsequently, a positive δ15N excursion occurred in the ~2.48 Ga Dale Gorge Member, marking a decline in seawater O2 and enhanced denitrification. This O2 deficit was followed by a second phase of increasing O2 levels as indicated by a gradual return to moderately positive δ15N values in the ~2.46 Ga Joffre Member and 2.45 Ga Weeli Wolli Iron Formation. These variations underscore a nonlinear history of marine oxygenation and reveal a previously unrecognized oscillation in seawater O2 levels preceding the Great Oxidation Event.Peer reviewe
Magic, self and (world) society : groundwork for an existential and cosmopolitan anthropology
Get PDFHuman beings can be found everywhere (Piette) and the true subject of anthropology is anyone (Rapport). What do we need to do to our epistemology and practice to reframe anthropology in existential and cosmopolitan terms? This paper explores processes of cosmology- and society-making through an existential and cosmopolitan epistemology and axiology. We can reenlist classic anthropological discussions on magic to understand how subjects generate a Society into which they insert themselves as creative agents. Magical practice shows how Society is uniquely biographical and personal, and that subjectivity is an irreducible and ‘in-additive’ source of social and cosmological structure. Cosmopolitan anthropology describes, then, encounters of ‘non-interchangeable’ (Kneubuhler) biographical selves meeting in and constructing world-space; different selves on diverse cosmopolitanizing trajectories engage in divergent biographical worldmaking practices. In this light, cosmopolitan anthropology takes the form of analytic biography, tracing and retracing these unfoldings of self-orienting structure. Two radically distinct examples of subject-oriented cosmology-making are enlisted: Rastafari I-Yaric and Arrernte tjurunga knowledgePeer reviewe
Do chimpanzees produce context-specific vocal structures in group-specific ways?
Get PDFFunding: Core funding for the Budongo Conservation Field Station by the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland. The study was funded by Swiss National Science Foundation (310030_143359) and European Research Council project grants awarded to KZ (PRILANG 283871), as well as a BBSRC studentship, a Leakey Foundation General Grant, and an American Society of Primatologists General Small Grant to PF.Learning how to link a signal to its appropriate behavioural context in a flexible and meaningful way is foundational to human language but there is little evidence of this capacity in non-human primates. We addressed this by studying chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) pant hoot contextual use in two communities, Sonso and Kanyawara, from two different wild populations. Pant hoots are complex, composite vocal signals comprising four acoustically distinct phases produced in different contexts, mostly during travelling and feeding to mediate grouping dynamics. We measured 18 acoustic parameters across phase types and found significant effects of context in all four phases, confirming that pant hoots have the potential to inform others about the caller’s behaviour. We also found two interaction effects between context and community in the final let-down phase: Sonso males produced let-down call elements at higher rates during feeding than travelling and were also more likely to omit the let-down phase entirely during feeding than travelling, than Kanyawara males. We concluded that despite their largely fixed call repertoire, chimpanzees modulate acoustic features according to the behavioural context and, in the case of a few acoustic parameters, do so differently in different populations, with learning potentially being involved in this process. Overall, however, the link between most of the acoustic features of chimpanzee calls and context seems to be largely independent of population, which contrasts with human language where different and novel signals are often flexibly attached to different information via social learning.Peer reviewe
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