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Public perceptions of trophy hunting are pragmatic, not dogmatic
Get PDFFunding: This work is an output from the Morally Contested Conservation research project, supported by Jamma International, WWF Deutschland, and the Luc Hoffmann Institute (now Unearthodox) to the University of Oxford [grant number ATR04380].Fierce international debates rage over whether trophy hunting is socially acceptable, especially when people from the Global North hunt well-known animals in sub-Saharan Africa. We used an online vignette experiment to investigate public perceptions of the acceptability of trophy hunting in sub-Saharan Africa among people who live in urban areas of the USA, UK and South Africa. Acceptability depended on specific attributes of different hunts as well as participants' characteristics. Zebra hunts were more acceptable than elephant hunts, hunts that would provide meat to local people were more acceptable than hunts in which meat would be left for wildlife, and hunts in which revenues would support wildlife conservation were more acceptable than hunts in which revenues would support either economic development or hunting enterprises. Acceptability was generally lower among participants from the UK and those who more strongly identified as an animal protectionist, but higher among participants with more formal education, who more strongly identified as a hunter, or who would more strongly prioritize people over wild animals. Overall, acceptability was higher when hunts would produce tangible benefits for local people, suggesting that members of three urban publics adopt more pragmatic positions than are typically evident in polarized international debates.Peer reviewe
Disease: an ill‐founded concept at odds with the principle of patient‐centred medicine
Get PDFBackground Despite the at least decades long record of philosophical recognition and interest, the intricacy of the deceptively familiar appearing concepts of ‘disease’, ‘disorder’, ‘disability’, and so forth, has only recently begun showing itself with clarity in the popular discourse wherein its newly emerging prominence stems from the liberties and restrictions contingent upon it. Whether a person is deemed to be afflicted by a disease or a disorder governs their ability to access health care, be it free at the point of use or provided by an insurer; it also influences the treatment of individuals by the judicial system and employers; it even affects one's own perception of self. Aims All existing philosophical definitions of disease struggle with coherency, causing much confusion and strife, and leading to inconsistencies in real-world practice. Hence, there is a real need for an alternative. Materials and Methods In the present article I analyse the variety of contemporary views of disease, showing them all to be inadequate and lacking in firm philosophical foundations, and failing to meet the desideratum of patient-driven care. Results Illuminated by the insights emanating from the said analysis, I introduce a novel approach with firm ethical foundations, which foundations are rooted in sentience, that is the subjective experience of sentient beings. Discussion I argue that the notion of disease is at best superfluous, and likely even harmful in the provision of compassionate and patient-centred care. Conclusion Using a series of presently contentious cases illustrate the power of the proposed framework which is capable of providing actionable and humane solutions to problems that leave the current theories confounded.Peer reviewe
Rodó and Idealism in Action
No full textA discussion of the relationship in Rodó's philosophical outlook between idealism and practical action in the world. It is a Spanish translation of a section of Chapter 4, on Ariel, from my A Companion to José Enrique Rodó (2018), later translated as José Enrique Rodó: una biografía intelectual (2021
An investigation of the social behaviour of archerfish Toxotes spp.
Get PDFSociality has evolved multiple times in animals. Social living is a balance between the advantages and disadvantages of the increased presence of conspecifics. These costs and benefits are especially prevalent when foraging, as both the chance to discover resources and the rate at which they are depleted increase with group size. This holds true for archerfish Toxotes spp., a genus known for shooting down terrestrial prey using concentrated jets of water. This hunting method leaves the shooters open to theft, but whether and how their foraging behaviour and decision-making are affected by this threat is unclear. I investigated how group size affected aiming duration and shooting success, performed a pilot investigation into the use of video demonstrators for standardising social stimuli in such experiments, and tested whether archerfish socially learn target preferences when foraging in a group. I found evidence that archerfish decrease their aiming duration in the presence of more conspecifics. My results contradict previous research on kleptoparasitism in archerfish, mainly that the rate of kleptoparasitism is dependent on the behaviour of the shooter’s neighbours rather than group size. I also showed that archerfish avoid videos of conspecifics, although the explanation for this remains elusive. I attempted to find out whether archerfish can learn socially but instead found no evidence of learning. As scientists, we must study the natural world and share our findings with the public who fund our work. Accordingly, I created a tabletop role-playing style game based on archerfish ecology to test whether it could educate the public about my research and found that most participants improved their knowledge of archerfish. This thesis not only helps to further elucidate the social behaviour of archerfish but also illustrates how an animal’s ecology must be taken into consideration when conducting research and conveying the results to the public."This work was supported by a BBSRC Eastbio PhD studentship awarded to Dagmar der Weduwen."--Fundin
The "Maggie" filament : physical properties of a giant atomic cloud
Get PDFFunding: H.B. and J.D.S. further acknowledge funding from the European Research Council under the Horizon 2020 Framework Program via the ERC Consolidator Grant CSF-648505. This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant agreement No. 851435). European Research Council via the ERC Synergy Grant ECOGAL (grant 855130). R.J.S. is funded by an STFC ERF (grant ST/N00485X/1).Context. The atomic phase of the interstellar medium plays a key role in the formation process of molecular clouds. Due to the line-of-sight confusion in the Galactic plane that is associated with its ubiquity, atomic hydrogen emission has been challenging to study. Aims. We investigate the physical properties of the “Maggie” filament, a large-scale filament identified in H I emission at line-of-sight velocities, vLSR ~−54 km s−1. Methods. Employing the high-angular resolution data from The H I/OH Recombination line survey of the inner Milky Way (THOR), we have been able to study H I emission features at negative vLSR velocities without any line-of-sight confusion due to the kinematic distance ambiguity in the first Galactic quadrant. In order to investigate the kinematic structure, we decomposed the emission spectra using the automated Gaussian fitting algorithm GAUSSPY+. Results. We identify one of the largest, coherent, mostly atomic H I filaments in the Milky Way. The giant atomic filament Maggie, with a total length of 1.2 ± 0.1 kpc, is not detected in most other tracers, and it does not show signs of active star formation. At a kinematic distance of 17 kpc, Maggie is situated below (by ≈500 pc), but parallel to, the Galactic H I disk and is trailing the predicted location of the Outer Arm by 5−10 km s−1 in longitude-velocity space. The centroid velocity exhibits a smooth gradient of less than ±3 km s−1 (10 pc)−1 and a coherent structure to within ±6 km s−1. The line widths of ~10 km s−1 along the spine of the filament are dominated by nonthermal effects. After correcting for optical depth effects, the mass of Maggie’s dense spine is estimated to be 7.2−1.9+2.5 × 105 M⊙. The mean number density of the filament is ~4 cm−3, which is best explained by the filament being a mix of cold and warm neutral gas. In contrast to molecular filaments, the turbulent Mach number and velocity structure function suggest that Maggie is driven by transonic to moderately supersonic velocities that are likely associated with the Galactic potential rather than being subject to the effects of self-gravity or stellar feedback. The probability density function of the column density displays a log-normal shape around a mean of ⟨NH I⟩ = 4.8 × 1020 cm−2, thus reflecting the absence of dominating effects of gravitational contraction. Conclusions. While Maggie’s origin remains unclear, we hypothesize that Maggie could be the first in a class of atomic clouds that are the precursors of giant molecular filaments.Peer reviewe
3D terrain mapping and filtering from coarse resolution data cubes extracted from real-aperture 94 GHz radar
Get PDFFunding: William D. Harcourt was funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC; grant number: EP/R513337/1) and the Scottish Alliance for Geoscience, Environment and Society (SAGES).Accurate, high-resolution 3-D mapping of environmental terrain is critical in a range of disciplines. In this study, we develop a new technique, called the PCFilt-94 algorithm, to extract 3-D point clouds from coarse-resolution millimeter-wave radar data cubes and quantify their associated uncertainties. A technique to noncoherently average neighboring waveforms surrounding each AVTIS2 range profile was developed to reduce speckles and was found to reduce point cloud uncertainty by 13% at long range and 20% at short range. Furthermore, a Voronoi-based point cloud outlier removal algorithm was implemented, which iteratively removes outliers in a point cloud until the process converges to the removal of 0 points. Taken together, the new processing methodology produces a stable point cloud, which means that: 1) it is repeatable even when using different point cloud extraction and filtering parameter values during preprocessing and 2) is less sensitive to overfiltering through the point cloud processing workflow. Using an optimal number of ground control points (GCPs) for georeferencing, which was determined to be 3 at close ranges (3 km), point cloud uncertainty was estimated to be approximately 1.5 m at 1.5 km to 3 m at 3 km and followed a Lorentzian distribution. These uncertainties are smaller than those reported for other close-range radar systems used for terrain mapping. The results of this study should be used as a benchmark for future application of millimeter-wave radar systems for 3-D terrain mapping.Peer reviewe
A more nuanced investigation into mixed emotion understanding in children
No full textThis thesis investigated mixed emotional development across childhood using the Analogue Emotions Scale (AES). The AES is an underused emotion methodology which offers detailed insight into emotion interactions across both temporal and intensity dimensions. It has been well established that having a good understanding of mixed emotions offers many benefits to children, including advanced Theory of Mind (ToM), greater grit, enhanced peer and non-peer relationships, and being more prosocial. Therefore, the current thesis aimed to explore these themes using the AES to ascertain the developmental trajectory of mixed emotion reporting across childhood and into early adolescences (ages 4-17).
This thesis extended the previous developmental literature that uses the AES. First, it replicated across three studies (Chapters 2-4) the developmental trend reported in previous literature and provided a contribution to knowledge by demonstrating the rich and nuanced mixed emotional understanding that children have, by widening the emotional choice provided to the participants in these studies. In Chapter 3, this thesis demonstrated that the emotions provided in a study have a significant impact on the mixed emotional trajectory reported. This was further developed in Chapter 4, which demonstrated that the event provided, upon which mixed emotions is reflected also has a significant effect on the mixed emotions reported. This thesis has made a further original contribution to knowledge by employing a data driven approach to the AES methodology which provided more ecological validity to the AES methodology (Chapters 2-4).
This thesis also investigated influencing variables on mixed emotion reporting, such as ToM, grit, alexithymia, and behavioural difficulties. Despite previous literature showing an association between mixed emotions and these factors, the present thesis found that age was a more dominant driver for mixed emotional understanding than ToM, grit or alexithymia. However, whilst it was not found to be a mediator of mixed emotional understanding, Chapter 5 demonstrated a link between behavioural difficulties and mixed emotional understanding
Taiwan's COVID-19 response : the interdependence of state and private sector institutions
Get PDFDuring 2020, Taiwan's facemask policy formed a critical part of its relatively successful response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It also served to showcase capacities for coordinated action by state and business actors. This article demonstrates that Taiwan's ability to rapidly increase facemask production called for the government and key industry players to overcome a series of cooperation challenges. The authors show that the effective industry response required concerted action in three domains: the state sector, business–government cooperation, and cooperation among private firms. This article makes two contributions. First, it differentiates the dynamics attached to coordination, commitment and collective action challenges that actors in public and private sectors needed to overcome in order to deliver on the policy. Second, it contributes to the literature by endorsing the view that business–government cooperation and private sector coordination are complementary and interdependent. The findings presented here further illustrate the evolution of Taiwan's state institutions in their capacity to take on new tasks and modes of interaction with private sector actors.Peer reviewe
VerSoX B07‐B : a high‐throughput XPS and ambient pressure NEXAFS beamline at Diamond Light Source
No full textSLMS thanks the Royal Academy of Engineering, Diamond Light Source and Infineum UK Ltd for financial support of the Bragg Centenary Chair. DCG, PF, SK and GH thank the European Union Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme for funding (grant No. 101017928) (HYSOLCHEM).The beamline optics and endstations at branch B of the Versatile Soft X‐ray (VerSoX) beamline B07 at Diamond Light Source are described. B07‐B provides medium‐flux X‐rays in the range 45–2200 eV from a bending magnet source, giving access to local electronic structure for atoms of all elements from Li to Y. It has an endstation for high‐throughput X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and near‐edge X‐ray absorption fine‐structure (NEXAFS) measurements under ultrahigh‐vacuum (UHV) conditions. B07‐B has a second endstation dedicated to NEXAFS at pressures from UHV to ambient pressure (1 atm). The combination of these endstations permits studies of a wide range of interfaces and materials. The beamline and endstation designs are discussed in detail, as well as their performance and the commissioning process.Peer reviewe
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