The Management of LGBTQ+ Identities on Social Media: A Student Perspective

Social media can be used to both enhance and diminish students’ experiences of university and its influence is strong for LGBTQ+ people facing stigma and discrimination. Students may feel exposed when identifying as LGBTQ+, particularly whilst transitioning to university life. In this study, we used theories of performance and digital personhood to explore how LGBTQ+ students use social media for identity management. We report a thematic analysis of 16 interviews. Four themes were generated from the data, showing that students use social media to explore, conceal, protect, and express their identities. We found that different social media provide stages where LGBTQ+ identities are constrained by different and distinctive social factors. Thus, LGBTQ+ students’ online identities are multiple, situated, and bound to specific platforms, with some alternatives to Facebook offering a space where students may feel more comfortable performing their authentic selves

The position of graptolites within Lower Palaeozoic planktic ecosystems.

An integrated approach has been used to assess the palaeoecology of graptolites both as a discrete group and also as a part of the biota present within Ordovician and Silurian planktic realms. Study of the functional morphology of graptolites and comparisons with recent ecological analogues demonstrates that graptolites most probably filled a variety of niches as primary consumers, with modes of life related to the colony morphotype. Graptolite coloniality was extremely ordered, lacking any close morphological analogues in Recent faunas. To obtain maximum functional efficiency, graptolites would have needed varying degrees of coordinated automobility. A change in lifestyle related to ontogenetic changes was prevalent within many graptolite groups. Differing lifestyle was reflected by differing reproductive strategies, with synrhabdosomes most likely being a method for rapid asexual reproduction. Direct evidence in the form of graptolithophage 'coprolitic' bodies, as well as indirect evidence in the form of probable defensive adaptations, indicate that graptolites comprised a food item for a variety of predators. Graptolites were also hosts to a variety of parasitic organisms and provided an important nutrient source for scavenging organisms

Magnetic Field Generation in Stars

Enormous progress has been made on observing stellar magnetism in stars from the main sequence through to compact objects. Recent data have thrown into sharper relief the vexed question of the origin of stellar magnetic fields, which remains one of the main unanswered questions in astrophysics. In this chapter we review recent work in this area of research. In particular, we look at the fossil field hypothesis which links magnetism in compact stars to magnetism in main sequence and pre-main sequence stars and we consider why its feasibility has now been questioned particularly in the context of highly magnetic white dwarfs. We also review the fossil versus dynamo debate in the context of neutron stars and the roles played by key physical processes such as buoyancy, helicity, and superfluid turbulence,in the generation and stability of neutron star fields. Independent information on the internal magnetic field of neutron stars will come from future gravitational wave detections. Thus we maybe at the dawn of a new era of exciting discoveries in compact star magnetism driven by the opening of a new, non-electromagnetic observational window. We also review recent advances in the theory and computation of magnetohydrodynamic turbulence as it applies to stellar magnetism and dynamo theory. These advances offer insight into the action of stellar dynamos as well as processes whichcontrol the diffusive magnetic flux transport in stars.Comment: 41 pages, 7 figures. Invited review chapter on on magnetic field generation in stars to appear in Space Science Reviews, Springe

Middle to late Pleistocene palaeoecological reconstructions and palaeotemperature estimates for cold/cool stage deposits at Whittlesey, eastern England

Fossiliferous beds in a complex sequence of late Middle to Late Pleistocene deposits at Whittlesey, eastern England, provided a rare opportunity for a multidisciplinary study of the palaeoecology of cool/cold stage deposits from different glacial stages. The fossiliferous sediments investigated form part of the River Nene 1st Terrace. Three of the four fossil assemblages investigated pre-date the last interglacial stage (Ipswichian/Eemian/marine oxygen isotope stage (MIS) 5e), whereas the other dates to part of the MIS 3 interstadial complex (Middle Devensian/Weichselian). Pollen, plant macrofossil, molluscan, coleopteran, ostracod, foraminifera and vertebrate data are available to a greater or lesser extent for each cool/cold stage assemblage, and they broadly present the same ecological picture for each one: a continuum from low-energy permanent to non-permanent aquatic habitats through marshland with associated waterside taxa, together with flood influxes of fluvial, riparian and ruderal taxa. Although each fossil assemblage records cool/cold climatic conditions, to a greater or lesser extent, these conditions are more apparent in the insect and ostracod faunas. In comparison with results published for the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) stadial in The Netherlands, palaeotemperature estimates based on ranges of mutual agreement between independent coleopteran and ostracod methods for the three pre-Ipswichian/Eemian assemblages indicate minimum mean July air temperatures that are from +1° to +3 °C warmer, but January values that embrace the −8 °C estimate for the LGM. There is, however, a disparity between the coleopteran and ostracod palaeotemperature estimates for the Middle Devensian/Weichselian fossil assemblage, which are based on two different sample stratigraphic levels; the lower, coleopteran assemblage is indicative of very cool, continental climates, whereas the stratigraphically slightly higher ostracod assemblage suggests a climatic amelioration. Lack of numerical age-estimates prevents a robust stratigraphical interpretation, but the youngest pre-Ipswichian/Eemian fossil assemblage could date to the MIS 7–6 transition, at a time when cooling possibly preceded glacially driven sea-level fall. It is apparent from the rich coleopteran data that some continental cold-indicator taxa also appeared in pre-Ipswichian/Eemian cold stages and therefore assignment of continental cold-indicator taxa to particular Devensian/Weichselian intervals should be undertaken with care

Accounting for nature: assessing habitats in the UK countryside.

Countryside Survey 2000 (CS2000) and the Northern Ireland Countryside Survey 2000 (NICS2000) have been designed to provide detailed information about the habitats and landscape features that are important elements of our countryside. They can tell us about the ‘stock’ of these resources, that is how much of them we have and where they are to be found, and they can give us an insight into their condition based on the variety and abundance of the plant species associated with them. Using information from previous surveys, we can also gain an understanding of how the stock and condition of these habitats and landscape features are changing over time. We can build up a sort of balance sheet or an account of natural assets in the UK countryside. In this report we look in particular at the period between the last two surveys, 1990 and 1998

Registered Replication Report: Dijksterhuis and van Knippenberg (1998)

Dijksterhuis and van Knippenberg (1998) reported that participants primed with a category associated with intelligence ("professor") subsequently performed 13% better on a trivia test than participants primed with a category associated with a lack of intelligence ("soccer hooligans"). In two unpublished replications of this study designed to verify the appropriate testing procedures, Dijksterhuis, van Knippenberg, and Holland observed a smaller difference between conditions (2%-3%) as well as a gender difference: Men showed the effect (9.3% and 7.6%), but women did not (0.3% and -0.3%). The procedure used in those replications served as the basis for this multilab Registered Replication Report. A total of 40 laboratories collected data for this project, and 23 of these laboratories met all inclusion criteria. Here we report the meta-analytic results for those 23 direct replications (total N = 4,493), which tested whether performance on a 30-item general-knowledge trivia task differed between these two priming conditions (results of supplementary analyses of the data from all 40 labs, N = 6,454, are also reported). We observed no overall difference in trivia performance between participants primed with the "professor" category and those primed with the "hooligan" category (0.14%) and no moderation by gender

Meta-analysis of type 2 Diabetes in African Americans Consortium

Type 2 diabetes (T2D) is more prevalent in African Americans than in Europeans. However, little is known about the genetic risk in African Americans despite the recent identification of more than 70 T2D loci primarily by genome-wide association studies (GWAS) in individuals of European ancestry. In order to investigate the genetic architecture of T2D in African Americans, the MEta-analysis of type 2 DIabetes in African Americans (MEDIA) Consortium examined 17 GWAS on T2D comprising 8,284 cases and 15,543 controls in African Americans in stage 1 analysis. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) association analysis was conducted in each study under the additive model after adjustment for age, sex, study site, and principal components. Meta-analysis of approximately 2.6 million genotyped and imputed SNPs in all studies was conducted using an inverse variance-weighted fixed effect model. Replications were performed to follow up 21 loci in up to 6,061 cases and 5,483 controls in African Americans, and 8,130 cases and 38,987 controls of European ancestry. We identified three known loci (TCF7L2, HMGA2 and KCNQ1) and two novel loci (HLA-B and INS-IGF2) at genome-wide significance (4.15 × 10(-94)<P<5 × 10(-8), odds ratio (OR)  = 1.09 to 1.36). Fine-mapping revealed that 88 of 158 previously identified T2D or glucose homeostasis loci demonstrated nominal to highly significant association (2.2 × 10(-23) < locus-wide P<0.05). These novel and previously identified loci yielded a sibling relative risk of 1.19, explaining 17.5% of the phenotypic variance of T2D on the liability scale in African Americans. Overall, this study identified two novel susceptibility loci for T2D in African Americans. A substantial number of previously reported loci are transferable to African Americans after accounting for linkage disequilibrium, enabling fine mapping of causal variants in trans-ethnic meta-analysis studies.Peer reviewe

Observation of inverse Compton emission from a long γ-ray burst.

Long-duration γ-ray bursts (GRBs) originate from ultra-relativistic jets launched from the collapsing cores of dying massive stars. They are characterized by an initial phase of bright and highly variable radiation in the kiloelectronvolt-to-megaelectronvolt band, which is probably produced within the jet and lasts from milliseconds to minutes, known as the prompt emission1,2. Subsequently, the interaction of the jet with the surrounding medium generates shock waves that are responsible for the afterglow emission, which lasts from days to months and occurs over a broad energy range from the radio to the gigaelectronvolt bands1-6. The afterglow emission is generally well explained as synchrotron radiation emitted by electrons accelerated by the external shock7-9. Recently, intense long-lasting emission between 0.2 and 1 teraelectronvolts was observed from GRB 190114C10,11. Here we report multi-frequency observations of GRB 190114C, and study the evolution in time of the GRB emission across 17 orders of magnitude in energy, from 5 × 10-6 to 1012 electronvolts. We find that the broadband spectral energy distribution is double-peaked, with the teraelectronvolt emission constituting a distinct spectral component with power comparable to the synchrotron component. This component is associated with the afterglow and is satisfactorily explained by inverse Compton up-scattering of synchrotron photons by high-energy electrons. We find that the conditions required to account for the observed teraelectronvolt component are typical for GRBs, supporting the possibility that inverse Compton emission is commonly produced in GRBs