The Transition Town Network: a review of current evolutions and renaissance

The Transition Network started as a movement with Transition Totnes (Devon, UK) in late 2005, with Rob Hopkins as its founder. To date it has grown to encompass 313 official Transition Network initiatives spread across the world from the UK (with roughly 50% of all initiatives) to the USA, Canada, Italy, Japan, Germany, Ireland, New Zealand, Chile, the Netherlands, Brazil and so on (Transition Network, 2010a). For any social movement, this could most certainly be described as something of a success and warrants a closer examination. Indeed, the aim of this profile is to explore the movement's aims and modus operandi, the problematics it has faced and how it is now evolving. The profile draws on my auto-ethnographic encounters with the movement in Transition Nottingham and at the recent Transition Network Conference 2010, whilst also being grounded in the material made publically available on the Transition Network and Transition Culture websites (see Transition Network, 2010b and Transition Culture, 2010a)

Comprehensive simulations of superhumps

(Abridged) We use 3D SPH calculations with higher resolution, as well as with more realistic viscosity and sound-speed prescriptions than previous work to examine the eccentric instability which underlies the superhump phenomenon in semi-detached binaries. We illustrate the importance of the two-armed spiral mode in the generation of superhumps. Differential motions in the fluid disc cause converging flows which lead to strong spiral shocks once each superhump cycle. The dissipation associated with these shocks powers the superhump. We compare 2D and 3D results, and conclude that 3D simulations are necessary to faithfully simulate the disc dynamics. We ran our simulations for unprecedented durations, so that an eccentric equilibrium is established except at high mass ratios where the growth rate of the instability is very low. Our improved simulations give a closer match to the observed relationship between superhump period excess and binary mass ratio than previous numerical work. The observed black hole X-ray transient superhumpers appear to have systematically lower disc precession rates than the cataclysmic variables. This could be due to higher disc temperatures and thicknesses. The modulation in total viscous dissipation on the superhump period is overwhelmingly from the region of the disc within the 3:1 resonance radius. As the eccentric instability develops, the viscous torques are enhanced, and the disc consequently adjusts to a new equilibrium state, as suggested in the thermal-tidal instability model. We quantify this enhancement in the viscosity, which is ~10 per cent for q=0.08. We characterise the eccentricity distributions in our accretion discs, and show that the entire body of the disc partakes in the eccentricity.Comment: 18 pages (mn2e LaTeX), 14 figures, 5 tables, Accepted for publication in MNRA

Physiological Arousal and Self-Reported Valence for Erotica Images Correlate with Sexual Policy Preferences

Individuals do not always accurately report the forces driving their policy preferences. Such inaccuracy may result from the fact that true justifications are socially undesirable or less persuasive than competing justifications or are unavailable in conscious awareness. Because of the delicate nature of these issues, people may be particularly likely to misstate the reasons for preferences on gay marriage, abortion, abstinence-only education, and premarital sex. Advocates on both sides typically justify their preferences in terms of preserving social order, maintaining moral values, or protecting civil liberties, not in terms of their own sexual preferences. Though these are the stated reasons, in empirical tests we find that psychophysiological response to sexual images also may be a significant driver of policy attitudes.This work was supported by the National Science Foundation [BCS-0826828]

Nursing Implications in the ECMO Patient

Effective care and positive outcomes of the extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) patient necessitate optimal interdisciplinary management from the healthcare team, including expert care from specially trained registered nurses (RNs). It is incumbent upon the RN caring for the ECMO patient to excel in both time management and assessment skills, as this population often demands care delivery at the pinnacle of intensive care unit (ICU) acuity. Astute and nuanced monitoring of neurological status, bleeding risk with potential (often massive) transfusions, poor hemodynamics, and integrity of the ECMO pump itself are only the few specialized areas of focus that must share priority with traditional nursing considerations involving the critically ill, such as prevention of pressure injuries and bloodstream infections. These high-intensity medical foci must be balanced with ethical considerations, as the ultimate goal of returning the patient to their normal life is not always possible. These demands highlight the dynamic proficiency of the RN caring for the ECMO patient. The following chapter will highlight the importance of specialized nursing care in the critically ill patient supported with ECMO

Evaluation of excess 234Th activity in sediments as an indicator of food quality for deep-sea deposit feeders

Deep-sea deposit feeders selectively ingest large volumes of sediment. Knowledge of the nature of this selectivity will help to elucidate the limiting nutritional requirements and geochemical impacts of these abundant animals. Shallow-water and theoretical studies suggest that deep-sea deposit feeders should select particles rich in protein, bacterial biomass, and/or chloropigment concentrations. Recent studies indicate that deep-sea megafaunal deposit feeders exhibit strong gut enrichment of excess (xs) 234Th activity, even though 234Thxs lacks nutritional value. To explore the significance of selective ingestion of 234Thxs activity, we evaluated the correlations between 234Thxs activity and three potential tracers of deposit feeder food quality: chlorophyll a (chl a), enzymatically hydrolyzable amino acids (EHAA), and adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Surface sediments from three quiescent bathyal basins off Southern California (San Nicolas, Santa Catalina, and San Clemente) were collected by a multiple corer and analyzed for 234Thxs activity, chl a, EHAA, ATP, and total organic carbon and nitrogen. 234Thxs activity was positively correlated with chl a and phaeopigment concentrations and negatively correlated with EHAA concentrations. Excess 234Th was not linearly correlated with concentrations of ATP, organic carbon, or total nitrogen. The results suggest that deep-sea deposit feeders select sediments with high 234Thxs activity because it is associated with recently settled phytodetrital material. There is no evidence that this 234Thxs-rich material has particularly high concentrations of labile amino acids or microbial biomass. Phytodetrital material may be an important source of some other limiting nutrient to deep-sea deposit feeders, e.g., polyunsaturated fatty acids, labile organic carbon and/or vitamins

The Physiology of Political Participation

Political involvement varies markedly across people. Traditional explanations for this variation tend to rely on demographic variables and self-reported, overtly political concepts. In this article, we expand the range of possible explanatory variables by hypothesizing that a correlation exists between political involvement and physiological predispositions. We measure physiology by computing the degree to which electrodermal activity changes on average when a participant sequentially views a full range of differentially valenced stimuli. Our findings indicate that individuals with higher electrodermal responsiveness are also more likely to participate actively in politics. This relationship holds even after the effects of traditional demographic variables are taken into account, suggesting that physiological responsiveness independently contributes to a fuller understanding of the underlying sources of variation in political involvement

Functional screening of amplification outlier oncogenes in organoid models of early tumorigenesis

Genomics; Organoid; Squamous cancerGenómica funcional; Organoide; Cáncer escamosoGenòmica funcional; Organoide; Càncer escamósSomatic copy number gains are pervasive across cancer types, yet their roles in oncogenesis are insufficiently evaluated. This inadequacy is partly due to copy gains spanning large chromosomal regions, obscuring causal loci. Here, we employed organoid modeling to evaluate candidate oncogenic loci identified via integrative computational analysis of extreme copy gains overlapping with extreme expression dysregulation in The Cancer Genome Atlas. Subsets of “outlier” candidates were contextually screened as tissue-specific cDNA lentiviral libraries within cognate esophagus, oral cavity, colon, stomach, pancreas, and lung organoids bearing initial oncogenic mutations. Iterative analysis nominated the kinase DYRK2 at 12q15 as an amplified head and neck squamous carcinoma oncogene in p53−/− oral mucosal organoids. Similarly, FGF3, amplified at 11q13 in 41% of esophageal squamous carcinomas, promoted p53−/− esophageal organoid growth reversible by small molecule and soluble receptor antagonism of FGFRs. Our studies establish organoid-based contextual screening of candidate genomic drivers, enabling functional evaluation during early tumorigenesis.This work was supported by the NCI Cancer Target Discovery and Development (CTD∧2) Network (U01CA217851, C.J.K and C.C.; U01CA176058, W.C.H.). Support was also provided by NIH K08DE027730 and D.R. discretionary funds to A.A.S., AEI RYC2019- 026576-I, “LaCaixa” Foundation LCF/PR/PR17/51120011 to J.A.S., and NIH U54CA224081, NIH U01CA199241, Emerson Collective, Ludwig Cancer Research, and Stand Up To Cancer to C.J.K. This manuscript is dedicated to the memories of Dr. Daniela Gerhard and Dr. Kenneth Scott