Ice-rafted dropstones at midlatitudes in the Cretaceous of continental Iberia

The Cretaceous is widely considered to have been a period subjected to super-greenhouse conditions. Here, we provide multiscale sedimentologic evidence of glaciers developing at mid-paleolatitudes (~45°N) in continental Iberia during the Hauterivian cold snap. Striated and faceted ice-rafted glacial dropstones (cobble to boulder size) and striated and grooved silt- to sand-sized grains (ice-rafted debris [IRD]) occur in a lacustrine sequence of the Enciso Group in the eastern Cameros Basin, Spain. The ice-rafted materials constitute the first evidence reported for a Cretaceous continental cryospheric record in Europe, and they are attributed to calving of glacier snouts, releasing icebergs into an ice-contact lake. The sedimentary succession resembles glacial-deglacial records in lakes overridden by the late Pleistocene Laurentide Ice Sheet in eastern Arctic Canada. The Iberian glacial succession was coeval with plateau permafrost in Asia and IRD records in the Arctic and Australia, revealing a stronger than previously thought cryosphere during the global Hauterivian cold snap.</p

Familiarity-taxis: a bilateral approach to view-based snapshot navigation

Many insects use view-based navigation, or snapshot matching, to return to familiar locations, or navigate routes. This relies on egocentric memories being matched to current views of the world. Previous Snapshot navigation algorithms have used full panoramic vision for the comparison of memorised images with query images to establish a measure of familiarity, which leads to a recovery of the original heading direction from when the snapshot was taken. Many aspects of insect sensory systems are lateralised with steering being derived from the comparison of left and right signals like a classic Braitenberg vehicle. Here, we investigate whether view-based route navigation can be implemented using bilateral visual familiarity comparisons. We found that the difference in familiarity between estimates from left and right fields of view can be used as a steering signal to recover the original heading direction. This finding extends across many different sizes of field of view and visual resolutions. In insects, steering computations are implemented in a brain region called the Lateral Accessory Lobe, within the Central Complex. In a simple simulation, we show with an SNN model of the LAL an existence proof of how bilateral visual familiarity could drive a search for a visually defined goal.</p

Characterisation of an XRCC1-deficient human neuronal cell model and investigating PARP1-specific inhibitors as a therapeutic approach

EMBARGOED - expected end date 20.02.2027</p

What the subject did negotiating agency within representation

Lisa and John is a radical re-imagination of an earlier photographic project. As an intervention devised through participation with those depicted within the photographs, the project interrogates recurring theoretical questions that challenge the discourse of social documentary photography through alternate mediums. Lisa and John presents distinct contributions to knowledge, to question representational methods evoking what else was knowable from the terrain of possibilities when the sovereign images were captured, reaching into photographs, to open contextual focus on the social, political and relational aspects of production. The critical commentary identifies the project in the context of expanded documentary photography as a substantial piece of practice-based research. After a chance meeting with Lisa in 2015, I invited her and her former husband John, both of whom were portrayed within my series Pictures from the Real World: Colour Photographs, 1987-88 (Moore, 2013), to review the full body of documentary photographs interpreting their own lives. The couple’s participation as former subjects facilitated a step into the space of production, providing the catalyst for Lisa and John, itself, a response through the media of performance and three-dimensionality that renegotiated the initiating project. This submission for PhD by Publication comprises; theatrical maquettes representing the making of the earlier photographs, and a verbatim play based on conversations with Lisa and John, who were depicted in the earlier series.</p

Assessing the risks pesticides pose to birds

Environmental pollution, particularly by pesticides, is a global issue affecting biodiversity. Pesticides are toxic substances used to control pests but can also have harmful effects on non-target organisms, including birds. Birds, which play crucial roles in ecosystems such as pollination, pest control, or seed dispersion, have experienced a global decline. It is estimated that 13% of bird species are being threatened by extinction worldwide (IUCN, 2023). Farmland birds are particularly threatened; for example, 63% of farmland bird species in the UK have declined since 1970. This decline observed worldwide has mainly been associated with intensified agricultural practice, but the role pesticide plays in driving this decline is unclear. This thesis contributes to our understanding of bird ecotoxicology and bird conservation by investigating both agricultural and domestic pesticides’ potential exposure and impact on birds. Initially, I focused on agricultural pesticides and examined changes in pesticide use in Great Britain from 1990 to 2016. While identifying current pesticides with the highest risk to birds, I highlight that the threat from herbicides has been underestimated. Pesticide seeds coatings have been identified as posing a risk to birds, so I quantified exposure of wild birds, by analysing their consumption of fludioxonil treated winter wheat seeds. Chaffinch was identified as being most at risk due to high consumption relative to body mass. Then, I investigated how gardens and management practice influence bird populations directly, and indirectly by impacting an important food source for many bird species, insects. Finally, I explore how birds are exposed to veterinary products used as ectoparasitic treatment on pets and livestock, via collecting hairs to line their nest. Some evidence was found suggesting that this exposure increases offspring mortality. Based on the finding of my thesis, I show that some groups of chemicals (e.g., herbicides) and type of pesticide application (on crops, in gardens or as veterinary products) pose particular risks to birds and require more attention and scrutiny.</p

Rights of the child or parental authority in children’s medical treatment cases?

Recent cases concerned with the future medical treatment of a child with a life-limiting condition have presented, on appeal, the argument that the threshold for intervention in a parental decision about the child’s medical treatment should be significant harm rather than best interests. The basis of the claim is that parents know their child best and, consequently, should have the right or authority to make decisions about their child’s future. Although unsuccessful before the courts, these legal arguments have inspired the inclusion of provisions in Bills before Parliament aimed at enhancing parental authority in such cases. This article examines this modern reincarnation of the claim to parental authority, in the context of the medical treatment of a seriously ill child. It argues that reform of the law to re-assert parental authority would be a seriously retrograde development - a contemporary conservative reformulation of the child as object - which would significantly erode the rights of the child. Rather, it is argued that the child should be at the centre of the shared care of parents and professionals focused upon the individual child’s needs, interests and rights. This article concludes with a fictional account of an attempt to reform the law to place the interests, rights, and voice of the child at the centre of determination of their future medical treatment.</p

Challenges and prospects for a united opposition in the 2024 Lok Sabha election in India: an analytical perspective

The 2014 Lok Sabha election in India saw the BJP winning majority of seats with a relatively low national vote share of 31%. The BJP won another majority victory in the next Lok Sabha election in 2019 improving its tally of seats, but its vote share remained well short of majority at about 38%. Since the 2019 election, the party has won many state assembly elections and further strengthened its position as the dominant party at the national level. As we approach the 2024 Lok Sabha election, the Congress, the principal opposition party, and several other parties have initiated a major effort to forge electoral alliances with an objective of defeating the BJP. Using constituency level data, this paper provides an analytical perspective on the prospects and challenges for a united opposition to succeed in their efforts to counter the BJP. It finds that even if the opposition parties can put up a united front, it will not be easy to defeat the BJP in most of the seats the party won in 2014 and 2019. The paper concludes that the opposition parties would need both a high degree of unity and coordination across many states, as well as a significant vote swing against the BJP to have any chance of defeating it in 2024. Thus, it is doubtful whether merely forming an anti-BJP alliance, without a credible alternative narrative and policy agenda, can yield substantial electoral benefits for the opposition.</p

Efficient generation of magnetic-field gradients for microwave trapped ion quantum computing using soft ferromagnetic materials in a cryogenic system

EMBARGOED – expected end date 20.03.2027</p

Revisiting young masculinities through a sound art installation: what really counts?

What Really Counts? was a sound art installation created in 2019 through a collaboration between a sociologist and a multidisciplinary artist, working with in-depth interviews with young men recorded as part of a British feminist social research project in 1990, exploring sexualities and the threat of HIV/AIDS. In this article, we describe the evolution and staging of the sound art installation project, situating it within interdisciplinary literatures on the use of sociological archives and reanimation of analogue media in a digital age. Working within a fractured tradition of curated sociology, we consider the potential of interdisciplinary collaboration for refreshing sociological analytic practice, revealing the unrealised potential of archived data sets and utilising temporal displacement as a generative analytic strategy for feeling history. We are working with a 30-year time span characterised by a stretching of intergenerational experience in relation to expectations for and mediation of sex/gender. The project attempts to realise the potential for an experimental sociological practice through the staging of open-ended past–present encounters.</p

Physical vs. virtual representations within concreteness fading for primary school computing

Computing concepts are often introduced to children using interactive concrete representations, such as Computer Science Unplugged (CSU) activities - an approach that may have a positive effect on attitudes towards computing when applied in extra-curricular settings. However, within the classroom, children may be required to interact with abstract representations e.g. during programming tasks, and little is known about how to design CSU activities that support this. Prior work, in mathematics and computing, suggests that the Theoretical Model of Concreteness Fading (TMCF) may effectively scaffold the progression from concrete to abstract and improve learning outcomes. This paper aims to investigate one of the TMCF recommendations: the use of physical manipulatives, motivated by the growing body of evidence to suggest that virtual manipulatives can, in many contexts, be equally as effective while providing several design advantages. An experiment was conducted with 48 children to compare two alternative implementations of Concreteness Fading learning materials: physical concrete (Playmobil toys) vs. virtual concrete (an AR iPad app), on learning gains and attitudinal change. Using these materials, children were taught the fundamentals of network structure and internet routing. Results indicated no significant difference between groups on either measure.</p