Are Age, Gender and the Interaction of Age and Gender Associated with Older People’s Attitudes to Ageing?

Objective: Negative attitudes to ageing (AtA) are associated with poorer health and well-being outcomes. Gendered ageing experiences may translate into gender differences in AtA. This study aims to explore whether there is a relationship between age, gender, their interaction and AtA. Method: Cross-sectional relationships between age, gender, their intersection and AtA were investigated, using a sample of 260 British people aged 60 – 100 years. AtA were assessed by the Attitudes to Ageing Questionnaire’s (AAQ; Laidlaw et al., 2007) three domains: Psychosocial Loss, Physical Change and Psychological Growth. Results: Hierarchical multiple regressions indicated that greater age was statistically significantly associated with increased psychosocial loss and less favourable attitudes regarding physical changes, but not psychological growth. Gender and gender’s interaction with age were not statistically significantly associated with any of the AAQ domains. Some demographic predictors were statistically significantly associated with domains of the AAQ, with this varying between domains. Conclusions: The ageing experiences of the males and females in the sample were not fully representative of the general population, possibly contributing to the absence of statistically significant relationships between gender, the age by gender interaction and AtA. Specific demographic factors are associated with negative AtA for both genders. However, females may be at a heightened risk of endorsing negative AtA as they may be more likely to experience those demographic factors. The current study could be replicated within multiple, smaller age categories of older people, to determine whether predictors of AtA vary across specific timepoints of later life

A parametric study to determine time-temperature-vacuum relationships for sterilization of terrestrial spores, phase 2 Summary report

Parametric study of time-temperature-vacuum relationships for terrestrial spore sterilizatio

Effects of Earth system feedbacks on the potential mitigation of large-scale tropical forest restoration

To achieve the Paris Agreement requires aggressive mitigation strategies alongside negative emission technologies. Recent studies suggest that increasing tree cover can make a substantial contribution to negative emissions, with the tropics being the most suitable region from a biogeophysical perspective. Yet these studies typically do not account for subsequent carbon cycle and climate responses to large-scale land-use change. Here we quantify the maximum potential temperature and CO2 benefits from pantropical forest restoration, including the Earth system response, using a fully coupled, emission-driven Earth system model (HadGEM2-ES). We perform an idealised experiment where all land use in the tropics is stopped and vegetation is allowed to recover, on top of an aggressive mitigation scenario (RCP2.6). We find that tropical restoration of 1529 Mha increases carbon stored in live biomass by 130 Pg C by 2100 CE. Whilst avoiding deforestation and tropical restoration in the tropics removes 42 Pg C compared to RCP2.6, the subsequent reduction in extratropical and ocean carbon uptake means that carbon in the atmosphere only reduces by 18 Pg C by 2100. The resulting small CO2 (9 ppm) benefit does not translate to a detectable reduction in global surface air temperature compared to the control experiment. The greatest carbon benefit is achieved 30–50 years after restoration before the Earth system response adjusts to the new land-use regime and declining fossil fuel use. Comparing our results with previous modelling studies, we identify two model-independent key points: (i) in a world where emission reductions follow the Paris Agreement, restoration is best deployed immediately, and (ii) the global carbon cycle response to reduced emissions limits the efficacy of negative emissions technologies by more than half. We conclude that forest restoration can reduce peak CO2 mid-century, but it can only modestly contribute to negative emissions

Impact of global SST gradients on the Mediterranean runoff changes across the Plio-Pleistocene transition

This work explores the impact of the development of global meridional and zonal sea surfacetemperature (SST) gradients on the Mediterranean runoff variability during the Plio-Pleistocene transition,about 3 Ma. Results show that total annual mean Pliocene Mediterranean runoff is about 40% larger thanduring the preindustrial period due to more increased extratropical specific humidity. As a consequenceof a weakened and extended Hadley cell, the Pliocene northwest Africa hydrological network producesa discharge 30 times larger than today. Our results support the conclusion that during the Pliocene, theMediterranean water deficit was reduced relative to today due to a larger river discharge. By means ofa stand-alone atmospheric general circulation model, we simulate the separate impact of extratropicaland equatorial SST cooling on the Mediterranean runoff. While cooling the equatorial SST does not implysignificant changes to the Pliocene Mediterranean hydrological budget, the extratropical SST coolingincreases the water deficit due to a decrease in precipitation and runoff. Consequently, river dischargefrom this area reduces to preindustrial levels. The main teleconnections acting upon the Mediterraneanarea today, i.e., the North Atlantic Oscillation during winter and the “monsoon-desert” mechanism duringsummer already have a large influence on the climate of our Pliocene simulations. Finally, our results alsosuggest that in a climate state significantly warmer than today, changes of the Hadley circulation couldpotentially lead to increased water resources in northwest Africa

Earth system impacts of the European arrival and Great Dying in the Americas after 1492

Human impacts prior to the Industrial Revolution are not well constrained. We investigate whether the decline in global atmospheric CO2 concentration by 7–10 ppm in the late 1500s and early 1600s which globally lowered surface air temperatures by 0.15∘C, were generated by natural forcing or were a result of the large-scale depopulation of the Americas after European arrival, subsequent land use change and secondary succession. We quantitatively review the evidence for (i) the pre-Columbian population size, (ii) their per capita land use, (iii) the post-1492 population loss, (iv) the resulting carbon uptake of the abandoned anthropogenic landscapes, and then compare these to potential natural drivers of global carbon declines of 7–10 ppm. From 119 published regional population estimates we calculate a pre-1492 CE population of 60.5 million (interquartile range, IQR 44.8–78.2 million), utilizing 1.04 ha land per capita (IQR 0.98–1.11). European epidemics removed 90% (IQR 87–92%) of the indigenous population over the next century. This resulted in secondary succession of 55.8 Mha (IQR 39.0–78.4 Mha) of abandoned land, sequestering 7.4 Pg C (IQR 4.9–10.8 Pg C), equivalent to a decline in atmospheric CO2 of 3.5 ppm (IQR 2.3–5.1 ppm CO2). Accounting for carbon cycle feedbacks plus LUC outside the Americas gives a total 5 ppm CO2 additional uptake into the land surface in the 1500s compared to the 1400s, 47–67% of the atmospheric CO2 decline. Furthermore, we show that the global carbon budget of the 1500s cannot be balanced until large-scale vegetation regeneration in the Americas is included. The Great Dying of the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas resulted in a human-driven global impact on the Earth System in the two centuries prior to the Industrial Revolution

Christianity, paranormal belief and personality: a study among 13- to 16-year-old pupils in England and Wales

Studies concerning the changing landscapes of religiosity and spirituality in the lives of young people in England and Wales draw attention to decline in traditional religiosity and to growth in alternative spiritualities. The present study examined whether such alternative spiritualities occupy the same personality space as traditional religiosity. A sample of 2,950 13- to 16-year-old pupils attending 11 secondary schools in England and Wales completed the Francis Scale of Attitude toward Christianity and an index of paranormal belief, alongside the abbreviated-form Junior Eysenck Personality Questionnaire Revised. The data demonstrated that these two forms of belief were related in different ways to Eysenck's dimensional model of personality space. While attitude toward Christianity occupied the space defined by low psychoticism scores (tendermindedness) and high lie scale scores (social conformity), paranormal belief was related to high psychoticism scores (toughmindedness) and was independent of lie scale scores. These findings support the view that alternative spiritualities may be associated with different personalities

Regional variations in the ocean response to tropical cyclones: Ocean mixing versus low cloud suppression

Tropical cyclones (TCs) tend to cool sea surface temperature (SST) via enhanced vertical mixing and evaporative fluxes. This cooling is substantially reduced in the subtropics, especially in the northeastern Pacific where the occurrence of TCs can warm the ocean surface. Here we investigate the cause of this anomalous warming by analyzing the local oceanic features and TC-induced anomalies of SST, surface fluxes, and cloud fraction using satellite and in situ data. We find that TCs tend to suppress low clouds at the margins of the tropical ocean warm pool, enhancing shortwave radiative surface fluxes within the first week following storm passage, which, combined with spatial variations in ocean thermal structure, can produce a ~1°C near-surface warming in the northeastern Pacific. These findings, supported by high-resolution Earth system model simulations, point to potential connections between TCs, ocean temperature, and low cloud distributions that can influence tropical surface heat budgets

Constructing Mutually Unbiased Bases in Dimension Six

The density matrix of a qudit may be reconstructed with optimal efficiency if the expectation values of a specific set of observables are known. In dimension six, the required observables only exist if it is possible to identify six mutually unbiased complex 6x6 Hadamard matrices. Prescribing a first Hadamard matrix, we construct all others mutually unbiased to it, using algebraic computations performed by a computer program. We repeat this calculation many times, sampling all known complex Hadamard matrices, and we never find more than two that are mutually unbiased. This result adds considerable support to the conjecture that no seven mutually unbiased bases exist in dimension six.Comment: As published version. Added discussion of the impact of numerical approximations and corrected the number of triples existing for non-affine families (cf Table 3

Disseminated bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG): a cause of delirium in an older adult

Intra-vesical Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) immunotherapy is an effective treatment for high-risk bladder cancer. Less well known is that fewer than 1% of patients receiving BCG treatment can develop disseminated BCG. The reaction can range from a mild flu-like illness to a systemic disorder with a fulminant course which in the most severe cases can lead to death. The diagnostic yield is low and diagnosis is often made after a comprehensive exclusion of more common causes of pyrexia of unknown origin. A high level of suspicion is therefore required in those who may be at risk. We report a case of disseminated BCG in an older patient for whom early involvement of his family was pertinent to determining the precipitant for delirium

Compilation of an Arabic Children’s Corpus

Inspired by the Oxford Children's Corpus, we have developed a prototype corpus of Arabic texts written and/or selected for children. Our Arabic Children's Corpus of 2950 documents and nearly 2 million words has been collected manually from the web during a 3-month project. It is of high quality, and contains a range of different children's genres based on sources located, including classic tales from The Arabian Nights, and popular fictional characters such as Goha. We anticipate that the current and subsequent versions of our corpus will lead to interesting studies in text classification, language use, and ideology in children's texts