Improvement on social representation of climate change through a knowledge-based MOOC in spanish

Climate Change is the most important threat to our society and all species on Earth. Large alterations in the climate are affecting every aspect of our society and in order to limit this impact we must decarbonize the economy before 2050. Although science presents solid evidence on the magnitude of the problem and outlines precisely the consequences, people do not act accordingly and do not consider this issue a priority for their survival. The reason behind this paradox might be a non-appropriate Social Representation of Climate Change in society as the Social Representation conditions and forms the response of the society. In this paper, we extend previous investigations of how this Social Representation is formed in order to find ways to improve it through a Massive Online Open Course on the Science of Climate Change. Using a validated questionnaire, we investigated the knowledge dimension of the Social Representation of Climate Change in a group of students of a MOOC on Climate Change. A pre- and posttest revealed general improvements in all the categories that were considered in this study. A detailed analysis showed different degrees of improvement for different groups, providing new insights in the efficiency of knowledge-based online courses. Well designed Massive Online Open Courses, based on scientific evidence, targeted to the general public might improve the Social Representation of Climate Change, which may in turn trigger awareness and an effective mobilization to address this important and urgent topicThis research was funded by the project 2017/00287/001 of the Fundación Biodiversidad del Ministerio de Agricultura, Pesca, Alimentación y Medio Ambiente (España)S

Widespread retreat of coastal habitat is likely at warming levels above 1.5 °C

Several coastal ecosystems—most notably mangroves and tidal marshes—exhibit biogenic feedbacks that are facilitating adjustment to relative sea-level rise (RSLR), including the sequestration of carbon and the trapping of mineral sediment. The stability of reef-top habitats under RSLR is similarly linked to reef-derived sediment accumulation and the vertical accretion of protective coral reefs. The persistence of these ecosystems under high rates of RSLR is contested. Here we show that the probability of vertical adjustment to RSLR inferred from palaeo-stratigraphic observations aligns with contemporary in situ survey measurements. A defcit between tidal marsh and mangrove adjustment and RSLR is likely at 4 mm yr−1 and highly likely at 7 mm yr−1 of RSLR. As rates of RSLR exceed 7 mm yr−1, the probability that reef islands destabilize through increased shoreline erosion and wave over-topping increases. Increased global warming from 1.5 °C to 2.0 °C would double the area of mapped tidal marsh exposed to 4 mm yr−1 of RSLR by between 2080 and 2100. With 3 °C of warming, nearly all the world’s mangrove forests and coral reef islands and almost 40% of mapped tidal marshes are estimated to be exposed to RSLR of at least 7 mm yr−1. Meeting the Paris agreement targets would minimize disruption to coastal ecosystems

Abnormal accumulation of autophagic vesicles correlates with axonal and synaptic pathology in young Alzheimer’s mice hippocampus

Dystrophic neurites associated with amyloid plaques precede neuronal death and manifest early in Alzheimer’s disease (AD). In this work we have characterized the plaque-associated neuritic pathology in the hippocampus of young (4- to 6-month-old) PS1M146L/APP751SL mice model, as the initial degenerative process underlying functional disturbance prior to neuronal loss. Neuritic plaques accounted for almost all fibrillar deposits and an axonal origin of the dystrophies was demonstrated. The early induction of autophagy pathology was evidenced by increased protein levels of the autophagosome marker LC3 that was localized in the axonal dystrophies, and by electron microscopic identification of numerous autophagic vesicles filling and causing the axonal swellings. Early neuritic cytoskeletal defects determined by the presence of phosphorylated tau (AT8-positive) and actin–cofilin rods along with decreased levels of kinesin-1 and dynein motor proteins could be responsible for this extensive vesicle accumulation within dystrophic neurites. Although microsomal Aβ oligomers were identified, the presence of A11-immunopositive Aβ plaques also suggested a direct role of plaque-associated Aβ oligomers in defective axonal transport and disease progression. Most importantly, presynaptic terminals morphologically disrupted by abnormal autophagic vesicle buildup were identified ultrastructurally and further supported by synaptosome isolation. Finally, these early abnormalities in axonal and presynaptic structures might represent the morphological substrate of hippocampal dysfunction preceding synaptic and neuronal loss and could significantly contribute to AD pathology in the preclinical stages

Intergenic Transcription, Cell-Cycle and the Developmentally Regulated Epigenetic Profile of the Human Beta-Globin Locus

Several lines of evidence have established strong links between transcriptional activity and specific post-translation modifications of histones. Here we show using RNA FISH that in erythroid cells, intergenic transcription in the human β-globin locus occurs over a region of greater than 250 kb including several genes in the nearby olfactory receptor gene cluster. This entire region is transcribed during S phase of the cell cycle. However, within this region there are ∼20 kb sub-domains of high intergenic transcription that occurs outside of S phase. These sub-domains are developmentally regulated and enriched with high levels of active modifications primarily to histone H3. The sub-domains correspond to the β-globin locus control region, which is active at all developmental stages in erythroid cells, and the region flanking the developmentally regulated, active globin genes. These results correlate high levels of non-S phase intergenic transcription with domain-wide active histone modifications to histone H3

Britain and Albion in the mythical histories of medieval England

This dissertation examines the ideological role and adaptation of the mythical British past (derived from Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae) in chronicles of England written in Anglo-Norman, Latin, and English from the twelfth to the fifteenth century, in terms of the shaping of English history during this time. I argue that the past is an important lens through which we can read the imagined geographies (Albion, Britain and England) and ‘imagined communities’ (the British and English), to use Benedict Anderson’s term, constructed by historical texts. I consider how British history was carefully re-shaped and combined with chronologically conflicting accounts of early English history (derived from Bede) to create a continuous view of the English past, one in which the British kings are made English or ‘of England’. Specifically, I examine the connections between geography and genealogy, which I argue become inextricably linked in relation to mythical British history from the thirteenth century onwards. From that point on, British kings are increasingly shown to be the founders and builders of England, rather than Britain, and are integrated into genealogies of England’s contemporary kings. I argue that short chronicles written in Latin and Anglo-Norman during the thirteenth century evidence a confidence that the ancient Britons were perceived as English, and equally a strong sense of Englishness. These texts, I contend, anticipate the combination of British and English histories that scholars find in the lengthier and better-known Brut histories written in the early fourteenth century. For the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, my study takes account of the Albina myth, the story of the mothers of Albion’s giants (their arrival in Albion before Brutus’s legendary conquest of the land). There has been a surge of scholarship about the Albina myth in recent years. My analysis of hitherto unknown accounts of the tale, which appear in some fifteenth-century genealogical rolls, leads me to challenge current interpretations of the story as a myth of foundation and as apparently problematic for British and English history. My discussion culminates with an analysis of some copies of the prose Brut chronicle (c. 1300) – the most popular secular, vernacular text in later medieval England, but it is seldom studied – and of some fifteenth-century genealogies of England’s kings. In both cases, I am concerned with presentations of the passage of dominion from British to English rulership in the texts and manuscripts in question. My preliminary investigation of the genealogies aims to draw attention to this very under-explored genre. In all, my study shows that the mythical British past was a site of adaptation and change in historical and genealogical texts written in England throughout the high and later Middle Ages. It also reveals short chronicles, prose Brut texts and manuscripts, and royal genealogies to have great potential future research.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Romance and the literature of religious instruction, c.1170—c.1330

This thesis investigates the relations between romance and texts of religious instruction in England between c.1170–c.1330, taking as its principal textual corpus the exceptionally rich literary traditions of insular French romance and religious writing that subsist during this period. It argues that romance is a mode which engages closely with religious and ethical questions from a very early stage, and demonstrates the discourses of opposition in which both kinds of text participate throughout the period. The thesis offers substantial readings of a number of neglected insular French religious texts of the thirteenth century, including Robert Grosseteste's Chasteau d'Amour, John of Howden's Rossignos, and Robert of Gretham's Miroir, alongside new readings of romances such as Gui de Warewic and Ipomedon. This juxtaposition of romance narrative and religious instruction sheds new light onto both kinds of text: romance emerges as a mode with deep-rooted didactic qualities; insular French religious literature is shown to be intensely concerned with the need to compete with romance’s entertaining appeal in literary culture. This oppositional discourse profoundly affects the form of instructional writing and romance alike. The discussion of the interactions between insular French romance and instructional literature presented here also serves as a new pre-history of Middle English romance. The final chapter of the thesis offers several new readings of texts from the Auchinleck manuscript, including the canonical romance Sir Orfeo and the neglected, puzzling Speculum Gy de Warewyk. These readings demonstrate that fourteenthcentury romance intelligently adapts the material it inherits from Francophone literature to a new cultural situation. In these acts of reformation, Middle English romance reveals itself as a discursive space capable of accommodating a wide range of ethical and ideological affiliations; the complex negotiations between romance and instructional literature in the preceding centuries are an important cultural condition for this widening of possibilities.This thesis is not currently available via ORA

War and Literature

War was the first subject of literature; at times, war has been its only subject. In this volume, the contributors reflect on the uneasy yet symbiotic relations of war and writing, from medieval to modern literature. War writing emerges in multiple forms, celebratory and critical, awed and disgusted; the rhetoric of inexpressibility fights its own battle with the urgent necessity of representation, record and recognition. This is shown to be true even to the present day: whether mimetic or metaphorical, literature that concerns itself overtly or covertly with the real pressures of war continues to speak to issues of pressing significance, and to provide some clues to the intricate entwinement of war with contemporary life. Particular topics addressed include writings of and about the Crusades and battles during the Hundred Years War; Shakespeare\u27s treatment of war; Auden\u27s \u27Journal of an Airman\u27; and War and Peace -- publisher description. Contents: Acts of vengeance, acts of love : crusading violence in the twelfth century / Susanna A. Throop -- Peril, flight and the Sad Man : medieval theories of the body in battle / Katie L. Walter -- Is this war? : British fictions of emergency in the Hot Cold War / James Purdon -- Crossing the Rubicon : history, authority and civil war in twelfth-century England / Catherine A.M. Clarke -- The reader myghte lamente : the sieges of Calais (1346) and Rouen (1418) in chronicle, poem and play / Joanna Bellis -- Shakespeare\u27s casus belly, or, Cormorant war, and the wasting of men on Shakespeare\u27s stage / Andrew Zurcher -- Unnavigable kinship in a time of conflict : Loyalist calligraphies, sovereign power and the muckle honor of Elizabeth Murray Inman / Carol Watts -- Proclaiming the war news : Richard Caton Woodville and Herman Melville / Tom F. Wright -- A feeling for numbers : representing the scale of the war dead / Mary A. Favret -- The guilt of the noncombatant and W.H. Auden\u27s Journal of an airman / Rachel Galvin -- Does Tolstoy\u27s War and peace make modern war literature redundant? / Mark Rawlinson.https://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/faculty_books/1009/thumbnail.jp

'Exile-and-return' in medieval vernacular texts of England and Spain 1170-1250

The motif of 'exile-and-return' is found in works from a wide range of periods and linguistic traditions. The standard narrative pattern depicts the return of wrongfully exiled heroes or peoples to their former abode or their establishment of a superior home, which signals a restoration of order. The appeal of the pattern lies in its association with undue loss, rightful recovery and the universal vindication of the protagonist. Though by no means confined to any one period or region, the particular narrative pattern of the exile-and-return motif is prevalent in vernacular texts of England and Spain around 1170–1250. This is the subject of the thesis. The following research engages with scholarship on Anglo-Norman romances and their characteristic use of exile-and-return that sets them apart from continental French romances, by highlighting the widespread employment of this narrative pattern in Spanish poetic works during the same period. The prevalence of the pattern in both literatures is linked to analogous interaction with continental French works, the relationship between the texts and their political contexts, and a common responses to wider ecclesiastical reforms. A broader aim is to draw attention to further, unacknowledged similarities between contemporary texts from these different linguistic traditions, as failure to take into account the wider, multilingual literary contexts of this period leads to incomplete arguments. The methodology is grounded in close reading of four main texts selected for their exemplarity, with some consideration of the historical context and contemporary intertexts: the Romance of Horn, the Cantar de mio Cid, Gui de Warewic and the Poema de Fernán González. A range of intertexts are considered alongside in order to elucidate the particular concerns and distinctive use of exile-and-return in the main works.This thesis is not currently available on ORA

Gcn4 is required for the response to peroxide stress in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae

An oxidative stress occurs when reactive oxygen species overwhelm the cellular antioxidant defenses. We have examined the regulation of protein synthesis in Saccharomyces cerevisiae in response to oxidative stress induced by exposure to hydroperoxides (hydrogen peroxide, and cumene hydroperoxide), a thiol oxidant (diamide), and a heavy metal (cadmium). Examination of translational activity indicates that these oxidants inhibit translation at the initiation and postinitiation phases. Inhibition of translation initiation in response to hydroperoxides is entirely dependent on phosphorylation of the α subunit of eukaryotic initiation factor (eIF)2 by the Gcn2 kinase. Activation of Gcn2 is mediated by uncharged tRNA because mutation of its HisRS domain abolishes regulation in response to hydroperoxides. Furthermore, Gcn4 is translationally up-regulated in response to H(2)O(2), and it is required for hydroperoxide resistance. We used transcriptional profiling to identify a wide range of genes that mediate this response as part of the Gcn4-dependent H(2)O(2)-regulon. In contrast to hydroperoxides, regulation of translation initiation in response to cadmium and diamide depends on both Gcn2 and the eIF4E binding protein Eap1. Thus, the response to oxidative stress is mediated by oxidant-specific regulation of translation initiation, and we suggest that this is an important mechanism underlying the ability of cells to adapt to different oxidants