24 research outputs found

    Clocks in the wild: biological rhythms of great tits and the environment

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    Biological clocks play a fundamental role in the physiological and behavioural processes of organisms. Internal timekeepers evolved to anticipate environmental changes, the most important of these being the geophysical light-dark cycle, to coordinate external changes with the timing of internal processes. Research into functions of the biological clock during captive studies has provided valuable insight into mechanisms by which clocks function, and how small environmental changes can affect the clock and its outputs. However, biological clocks have so far been understudied in ecology. In this thesis, this gap in knowledge was addressed by placing studies of chronobiology into the context of the natural environment. A model species in avian ecology, the great tit (Parus major) was used to investigate biological rhythms in the wild at three levels; behaviour, transcripts and life histories. This thesis investigated how features of the natural environment shapes rhythms of behaviour and physiology in a wild animal, using experimental and observational approaches. Differences in timing of individual rhythms, or chronotype, may provide wild animals with different consequences for fitness. In this thesis, individual behavioural rhythms of incubating great tits were quantified for birds in city and forest environments. There were strong effects of both the number of days to hatching and site on timing of incubation activities, where city birds rose earlier, and stayed out later, than forest birds. Maternal chronotype was then linked to fitness traits. City birds face a number of new challenges in the urban habitat. The impacts of one feature of the urban habitat, artificial light at night, was tested using a forest nest box system. Nestling great tits were experimentally exposed to low-level artificial light at night, and aspects of condition and clock and immune gene transcripts were compared for nestlings under light at night and dark-night control. Nestlings under light at night treatment weighed less than control birds, and suppressive effects of light at night treatment were found for genes involved in the core pathways of the circadian clock and immune system. Time of day differences were also observed in transcript levels of genes. Parasitic infections can cause consequences for fitness and reproductive success of wild birds. In this study, effects of infection with avian malaria parasites on nestling condition and immune system were investigated, at city and forest sites. The prevalence of Leucocytozoon parasites was higher at forest sites than city sites and increased with the season. Infection had no suppressive effects on immune genes of nestlings, and no negative effects on condition were found. In mammals, malaria is otherwise known as the “circadian disease” due to rhythmic development of parasites during their life cycle. In this study, host-parasite interactions with avian malaria parasites were investigated in the context of biological rhythms in wild great tits. Transcript levels of nestlings were determined by field sampling across a temporal profile and linked to infections with Leucocytozoon parasites. Leucocytozoon infection reduced overall transcript levels for circadian clock and immune gene targets, but did not alter the timing of expression. This study ultimately demonstrated the importance of biological clocks for the ecology of great tits and provided important advances for studies of clocks in the wild

    STV At 60

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    This article traces the history of Scottish Television (STV) since it was first established as the independent television channel serving central Scotland in 1957 by charting the company’s landmark productions across a range of genres made for both Scottish and UK network audiences. The article argues that the main achievement of STV is simply that it has survived for six decades despite the radical transformation of the broadcasting landscape across the UK. By reviewing the previous studies of broadcast media in Scotland and surveying the archive of STV’s output the article highlights the limited previous research on this topic. The article identifies four distinct phases during which STV’s management has pursued different strategies as a commercial broadcaster and compares the challenges that have been faced during these periods. It also examines how STV and BBC Scotland have competed to deliver public service broadcasting for the Scottish audience and assesses ways in which the channel has contributed to Scottish cultural life. The article concludes that in 2018 the company is at the start of a new fifth phase during which survival will depend upon innovation and expanded production to deliver programme content across new digital platforms and serve the Scottish audience in ways that reflect and respond to changing media consumption and audience viewing behaviours

    Effect of rate and extent of starch digestion on performance, physiology and behaviour of broilers and laying hens

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    The effect of rate and extent of starch digestion on broiler and laying hen performance, digestive tract physiology and feeding behaviour, with particular focus on the ileal brake activation, was assessed. Semi-purified wheat (WS, rapidly digested) and pea (PS, slowly digested) starch were combined to create six WS:PS ratios (100:0, 80:20, 60:40, 40:60, 20:80, 0:100) in treatment diets, and were fed to Ross 308 broilers for 28 days and Lohmann LSL-lite laying hens for 20 weeks. Mortality-corrected gain:feed ratio of broilers was maximized at 25% PS. Breast meat yield relative to live body weight increased linearly with dietary PS inclusion, while fat pad, and breast and thigh skin decreased in a linear fashion. Overall hen-day egg production increased linearly with PS, but it was maximized at 70% PS during the second half of the experiment. Feed:egg mass ratio was minimized at 26% PS (quadratic). Ileal brake activation potential was found in both broilers and laying hens. Increasing PS inclusion in broiler diets resulted in lower in-vivo starch digestibility, and quadratic responses in both crop pH (minimum at 55% PS) and ileum SCFA (maximum at 58% PS). Likewise, crop and ileum pH in laying hens increased with PS inclusion. Actual indications of ileal brake activation were not as clear. While most digestive tract morphological parameters increased linearly with PS in broilers, GLP-1 and PYY serum concentrations and small intestine transcript abundance were not affected by PS inclusion. Feeding behaviour of broilers was not affected either. Digestive tract parameters of laying hens responded with a combination of linear increasing and quadratic effects with maximum values in the mid-range of PS concentrations. In addition, serum GLP-1 also increased linearly, while PYY was maximized at 34% PS. However, dietary PS concentration did not affect feed passage rate. Likewise, laying hen day-time feeding behaviour was not affected by PS concentration, but night feeding behaviour increased with PS inclusion. In conclusion, the positive effect of including PS in poultry diets was confirmed, but L-cell activation and its consequences seem to differ between bird types and act in a different manner compared to mammal

    All the Noises:Hijacking Listening Machines for Performative Research

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    Research into machine listening has intensified in recent years creating a variety of techniques for recognising musical features suitable, for example, in musicological analysis or commercial application in song recognition. Within NIME, several projects exist seeking to make these techniques useful in real-time music making. However, we debate whether the functionally-oriented approaches inherited from engineering domains that much machine listening research manifests is fully suited to the exploratory, divergent, boundary-stretching, uncertainty-seeking, playful and irreverent orientations of many artists. To explore this, we engaged in a concerted collaborative design exercise in which many different listening algorithms were implemented and presented with input which challenged their customary range of application and the implicit norms of musicality which research can take for granted. An immersive 3D spatialised multichannel environment was created in which the algorithms could be explored in a hybrid installation/performance/lecture form of research presentation. The paper closes with reflections on the creative value of 'hijacking' formal approaches into deviant contexts, the typically undocumented practical know-how required to make algorithms work, the productivity of a playfully irreverent relationship between engineering and artistic approaches to NIME, and a sketch of a sonocybernetic aesthetics for our work

    CILIP Yorkshire and Humberside Member Network Visit to Insight: Collections and Research Centre at The National Science and Media Museum, Bradford, West Yorkshire, 09 March 2017

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    This article is an account of a Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) Yorkshire and Humberside Member Network visit to Insight: Collections and Research Centre at the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford, West Yorkshire. It highlights the range and depth of their collection and some of the research currently being undertaken. Their library is an underused resource and efforts are being made to enhance the accessibility and usage of the whole collection. The article hopes to illustrate how the collection is extremely useful and fascinating to those studying social history, not just science and technology. The visit allowed the author to continue her professional development (CPD), benefitting both her studies for a CILIP-accredited qualification and her work in Libraries and Learning Innovation. This article is an expanded version of a report on the visit written for the CILIP Yorkshire and Humberside Member Network blog (Green, 2017)

    PICKING UP (ON) FRAGMENTS: TOWARDS A LABORATORIAL MEDIA ARCHAEOLOGY THROUGH REENACTMENT

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    This thesis recognises the incompleteness of early television history, specifically as it is articulated in media archeological explorations. Through the process of reenactment, a series of tropes, conceits and insights are suggested which oblige us to reappraise the ontology of television. These insights are not by imitation but by a multiplicity of readings in the viewing of a historical act in the present day through a laboratorial media archaeological arts practice. The thesis interrogates a perceived gap in media archaeology’s body of knowledge through creative, playful and experimental practice borne of archival and historical research, developed from the proposition that both contemporary media archaeology and television historiography do not concentrate on how television is and can be used, only on how it has been used. The practical elements of the thesis focus on one of the formative moments, John Logie Baird’s first television drama (in collaboration with the BBC): The Man with the Flower in his Mouth. The thesis draws upon Media Studies and the discipline of Media Archaeology which both suggest that historical fragments have stable readings and meanings, recognising that both miss the crucial aspect of artistic license, playfulness, and that a laboratorial media archaeological approach, aligned to a considered reenactment process can create a televisual arts practice to tease out the hidden and forgotten. This activated historical account through reenactment keeps the theatrical, the cinematic and the teleportation in a simultaneous presence, digging into the past to address present and future television through this televisual arts practice

    Injuries, accidents and falls in adults with learning disabilities and their carers: a prospective cohort study

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    Injuries are among the leading causes of death and disability in the world and a major public health concern. Young persons with learning disabilities have a higher rate and different pattern of injuries when compared with young persons without learning disabilities, but little is known regarding adults. The aim of this study was to determine the incidence and types of injuries experienced by a community-based cohort of adults with learning disabilities (n = 511). Face-to-face interviews were conducted with participants and their carers two years after they had first been recruited into a longitudinal study. The measures were based on those previously used with a large population-based sample (n = 6,104) in the Scottish Health Survey (2003). Results were compared between the adults with learning disabilities and the general population. Incidence of at least one injury that required medical or nursing attention or treatment in a 12-month period was 20.5% (105), of which 12.1% (62) was due to falls. The standardised incident injury ratio for adults with learning disabilities aged 18 - 64 years, compared with the regional general population aged 18 – 64 years, is 1.63 (95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.55 – 1.71). The types and causes of injuries experienced differed from those found in the general population. Incident injury was predicted by having epilepsy (odds ratio (OR) 1.809), and not having autism (OR 0.153). Incident fall injury was predicted by urinary incontinence (OR 1.976), whilst Down syndrome reduced risk (OR 0.416). Carers of adults with learning disabilities (n = 446) were less likely to experience at least one injury in a 12-month period overall, but they were significantly more likely to experience harmful injury from another person (p = 0.048), and less likely to experience injury through the use of a tool, implement or equipment (p = 0.045), when compared with the regional general population. These findings are first steps towards understanding the considerable burden of injuries, accidents and falls in the learning disabilities population, and towards informing interventions to prevent injuries and falls in adults with learning disabilities in the future. The types and causes of injury experienced by carers of adults with learning disabilities are also reported for the first time
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