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Formation of silicic crust on early Earth and young planetary bodies in an Iceland-like setting
Get PDFFunding: This work was funded by a Leverhulme Research Project Grant awarded to A.R.H. (ICASE) RPG-2019-282.Four billion years ago, Earth’s surface was covered with a thick basaltic crust and, similar to other rocky planets and the Moon, parts of this basaltic crust underwent partial melting to produce silicic crust. On Earth, silicic crust grew into the continents. An analogue of a pre-subduction early Earth and rocky planetary bodies is found in Iceland, where poorly understood granitic rocks are encased in thick basaltic crust away from any active subduction zone. Here, we investigate these Icelandic granitoids to understand the mechanisms that generated the Earth’s oldest continents, and silicic rocks on Mars and Venus. New geochemical data from silicic Icelandic intrusions, show that the granitoids are formed through partial melting of the Icelandic crust, but are compositionally unlike early Earth continental material. We show that intra-crustal partial melting of basalt can potentially form silicic material on other planetary bodies but cannot produce the first continents on Earth.Peer reviewe
George Alfred Walker’s public health campaign for burial reform, 1839–1852
Get PDFFunding: This work was supported by the UKRI Future Leader’s Fellowship ‘The Human Remains: a digital library of British science and mortuary investigation’ [MR/S032800/1/MR/X023567/1]Nineteenth-century sanitary and burial reform were motivated by public health concerns and transformed the Victorian landscape with two forms of new infrastructure: sewers and out-of-town cemeteries. However, the history of burial reform ‘always sat awkwardly’ (in the words of Julie Rugg) with that of sanitary reform. In this article, we re-examine the campaigning career of George Alfred Walker (1807–84), a surgeon-apothecary who made public health the core of his argument for burial reform, to demonstrate that burial and sanitary reform were deeply intertwined via sanitary science, politics and science communication. We argue that Walker represented city graveyards as a nuisance similar to poor sewerage, utilising Thomas Southwood Smith’s heterodox fever theory to make his argument amenable to Edwin Chadwick’s goals and solutions: infrastructure ahead of poor relief. Walker’s solutions gave the medical profession positive reasons to support sanitary reform, as they proffered much-needed employment via burial reform. At the same time, his extremely active and varied campaigning throughout the 1840s took inspiration and strategy from the broader sanitation movement. By providing a comprehensive account of his campaigning for the first time, we show that sanitary reform politics was central to changing British burial management as a contested scientific theory was utilised to fit political ends.Peer reviewe
Furriery and taxidermy in Uwe Timm : the implications of Handwerk
Get PDFTaking its cue from Alle meine Geister (2023), this article traces the personal, familial, and narrative connections to furriery and taxidermy in Uwe Timm’s work, which reveal a broad and long-standing interest in the animal other. These two forms of Handwerk — understood as both skilled craft and tactile engagement — are performed at a remove from the animal death that is their prerequisite, but raise questions about our implication (in Michael Rothberg’s sense) in different forms and histories of violence. Furriery and taxidermy have metaphorical and metonymic significance for Timm and, like his own apprenticeship, are fundamental to his post-war project.Peer reviewe
The use of machine learning to predict pharmacological therapy in gestational diabetes : a scoping review
Get PDFFunding: JRK is funded by Medical Research Scotland (PHD-50224-2020). RMR acknowledges the support of the British Heart Foundation (RE/18/5/34216).Aims: Early identification of pharmacological therapy for gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM), a common pregnancy complication, through machine learning could allow for better therapeutic strategies and improved treatment efficiency. This scoping review aimed to comprehensively review the machine learning models used to predict the need for pharmacological therapy in GDM. Methods: Four electronic databases—Embase, Medline, IEEE Xplore and Webof Science—were searched for publications between 1 July 2007 and 31 August 2024. Studies predicting pharmacological therapy for GDM using machine learning were included. The Joanna Briggs Institute and PRISMA-ScR checklist was followed, and the Prediction model Risk Of Bias ASsessment Tool (PROBAST)was used to assess quality. Results: Included were 17 studies presenting 44 models, 61.4% (27/44) predicted any pharmacological therapy use and 38.6% (17/44) predicted insulin use alone. All were binary classifiers, and logistic regression was typically used. The overall area under the receiver operating curve had a median of 0.75. Common clinical variables were found to be predictors, such as history of GDM, gestational week at GDM diagnosis, pregestational body mass index, maternal age, HbA1c, fasting and 1 h glucose from 75 g oral glucose tolerance test. Though 65.9% of models were validated, there was a lack of external validation. There was no evidence of clinical application of the models. Conclusion: Logistic regression with common clinical variables was often used to predict pharmacological therapy for GDM. Few models were externally vali-dated or clinically applicable.Peer reviewe
Against academic “resoursification" : collaboration as delinking from extractivist “area studies” paradigms
No full textFunding: This work was supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, grant number AH/V001051/1.This article engages Asia Bazdyrieva’s idea of the “resourcification” of Ukraine – that is, the reduction of Ukraine in Soviet and Western geopolitical imaginations to a mere extraction resource – to develop and criticize the idea of “academic resourcification.” The author argues that Western researchers have often treated Ukrainian (and other non-Western) subjects as extraction resources, mining their expertise and knowledge, without acknowledging their agency or contributions in their work. The article argues for the decolonization of Western academic practice in the form of “delinking” from such exploitative and extractivist paradigms of knowledge production and instead aspiring, in the words of the decolonial scholar Walter Mignolo, to “thinking and doing otherwise.” Asking what it means to decolonize academia, the article turns for inspiration to Ukrainian decolonial researcher-artist-activists, considering the ways in which these individuals are modelling more equitable and ethical forms of knowledge production. The article ends by advocating collaborative methods – that is, the co-production of knowledge with local thinkers, rather than about them – as a productive model for Western scholars in their efforts to decolonize their research.Peer reviewe
Conditional cash transfers : effects on labour market outcomes and household financial well-being in Kazakhstan
Get PDFI investigate the impact of conditional cash payments in Kazakhstan on adult labour supply and the household financial outcomes. The identification strategy exploits the random assignment of sub-districts into treatment and control groups. The results show evidence that the benefits increased the likelihood of employment among mothers by 7.6 percentage points, but had no effect on household heads or fathers. Additionally, households in the treatment group were 8.5 percentage points more likely to borrow. This study extends the literature on developing countries by examining the effect of a conditional cash transfer programme in a new, understudied setting.Peer reviewe
'And on one toils, into the hill' : Working and walking in Nan Shepherd's North East
Get PDFThis article considers the duality of working and walking in Nan Shepherd’s writings about the North East of Scotland. Exploring Shepherd’s works from the perspectives of social and intellectual history, it considers the ways in which she represented both working and walking as labour during the first half of Scotland’s twentieth century.Peer reviewe
Review: Apt imaginings: Feelings for Fictions and Other Creatures of the Mind by Jonathan Gilmore
Get PDFA book review of Jonathan Gilmore. Apt Imaginings: Feelings for Fictions and Other Creatures of the Mind. New York and London: Oxford University Press, 2020, x + 258pp. ISBN978-0-19-009634-2.Non peer reviewe
Shear heating during rapid subduction initiation beneath the Samail Ophiolite
Get PDFFunding: This research was supported by National Science Foundation grant EAR-2120931 to J.M.G. and A.J.S., National Science Foundation grants EAR-1250522 and EAR-1650407 to M.R. and The Pennsylvania State University.Metamorphic soles beneath ophiolites are thought to record subduction initiation. However, there is ambiguity about the tectonic and thermal mechanisms operative during subduction initiation, arising partly from uncertainty in the duration of sole metamorphism. Here we use chemical mapping and diffusion speedometry of garnet crystals from the metamorphic sole of the Samail Ophiolite (Oman and United Arab Emirates) to show that high-temperature (≥750 °C) metamorphism was rapid, lasting ≤1 Myr (potentially ≤100 kyr) at peak temperature conditions. The short durations are supported by zircon U–Pb ages and new garnet–whole-rock–zircon Lu–Hf data from the same rocks, contrasting with previous inferences for ≥8 Myr metamorphic durations. These observations are nominally consistent with the spontaneous sinking of a dense lower plate. However, the rapid metamorphic timescales cannot be accounted for solely by conductive thermal equilibration with juxtaposed oceanic mantle. One potential explanation is dissipative heating driven by relative motion across the nascent plate interface. This interpretation accounts for the timescales, the spatial pattern of metamorphism and the global similarities in sole pressure–temperature conditions independent of other geodynamic variables.Peer reviewe
High-speed organic light-emitting diodes based on dinaphthylperylene achieving 4-Gbps communication
Get PDFFunding: The authors would like to acknowledge the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council of the UK for financial support from grant EP/R035164/1 and EP/Y037243/1.Organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) offer advantages for device-integrated transmitters for optical wireless communication because of their simple fabrication, mechanical flexibility, and integration of multiple color devices on a single substrate. However, they are generally considered to be slow due to low charge mobilities. Here, we show they can be made faster by suitable material selection and device design to achieve record-fast transmission by an OLED. We achieve a data rate of 2.9 Gbps in a 10-m data link at a bit error ratio (BER) of 5.54 × 10−3, corresponding to a coded data transmission rate of 2.7 Gbps after accounting for 7.15% overhead. This performance is comparable to the previous record for single-OLED transmitters but over a link 40 times longer. In addition, for a 2-m link, we obtain a record data rate of 4.0 Gbps at a BER of 5.54 × 10−3 (coded data rate of 3.7 Gbps). Our results show that the operational stability of OLEDs is important for high-speed operation. Thus, with synergetic developments in the stability of OLEDs for displays and lighting industries, OLEDs will become increasingly faster, expanding their applications for spectroscopy, communications, and sensing.Peer reviewe
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