Using automated passive acoustic monitoring to measure changes in bird and bat vocal activity around hedgerows of different ages

Hedgerows are a semi-natural habitat that supports farmland biodiversity by providing food, shelter, and habitat connectivity. Hedgerow planting goals have been set across many countries in Europe and agri-environment schemes (AES) play a key role in reaching these targets. Passive acoustic monitoring using automated vocalisation identification (automated PAM), offers a valuable opportunity to assess biodiversity changes following AES implementation using simple, community-level metrics, such as vocal activity of birds and bats. To evaluate whether vocal activity could be used to indicate the effectiveness of AES following hedgerow planting in future result-based or hybrid schemes, we surveyed twenty-four hedgerows in England classified into a chrono-sequence of three age categories (New, Young, Old). We recorded 4466 h over the course of 30 days and measured bird and bat vocal activity using BirdNET for birds and Kaleidoscope for bats. Vocal activity of all birds, farmland birds, and bats were modelled with age and predictors of hedgerow, habitat, and weather conditions to assess changes occurring from hedgerow planting to maturity. We show an increase of vocal activity in Young and Old hedgerows compared to New ones and highlight elements of the surrounding landscape that should be considered when evaluating AES implementation on bird and bat communities. We found high BirdNET precision in community-level vocal activity and low precision of species-level observations, and we argue that vocal activity may be used in novel AES to link a result-based payment component to automated PAM results, incentivising biodiversity effective hedgerow planting and management by farmers and landowners

'Education, education, education' : legal, moral and clinical

This article brings together Professor Donald Nicolson's intellectual interest in professional legal ethics and his long-standing involvement with law clinics both as an advisor at the University of Cape Town and Director of the University of Bristol Law Clinic and the University of Strathclyde Law Clinic. In this article he looks at how legal education may help start this process of character development, arguing that the best means is through student involvement in voluntary law clinics. And here he builds upon his recent article which argues for voluntary, community service oriented law clinics over those which emphasise the education of students

Structural pathways for ultrafast melting of optically excited thin polycrystalline Palladium films

Due to its extremely short timescale, the non-equilibrium melting of metals is exceptionally difficult to probe experimentally. The knowledge of melting mechanisms is thus based mainly on the results of theoretical predictions. This work reports on the investigation of ultrafast melting of thin polycrystalline Pd films studied by optical laser pump – X-ray free-electron laser probe experiments and molecular-dynamics simulations. By acquiring X-ray diffraction snapshots with sub-picosecond resolution, we capture the sample's atomic structure during its transition from the crystalline to the liquid state. Bridging the timescales of experiments and simulations allows us to formulate a realistic microscopic picture of the crystal-liquid transition. According to the experimental data, the melting process gradually accelerates with the increasing density of deposited energy. The molecular dynamics simulations reveal that the transition mechanism progressively varies from heterogeneous, initiated inside the material at structurally disordered grain boundaries, to homogenous, proceeding catastrophically in the crystal volume on a picosecond timescale comparable to that of electron-phonon coupling. We demonstrate that the existing models of strongly non-equilibrium melting, developed for systems with relatively weak electron-phonon coupling, remain valid even for ultrafast heating rates achieved in femtosecond laser-excited Pd. Furthermore, we highlight the role of pre-existing and transiently generated crystal defects in the transition to the liquid state.</p

No evidence of an association between mitochondrial DNA variants and osteoarthritis in 7393 cases and 5122 controls.

OBJECTIVES: Osteoarthritis (OA) has a complex aetiology with a strong genetic component. Genome-wide association studies implicate several nuclear genes in the aetiology, but a major component of the heritability has yet to be defined at the molecular level. Initial studies implicate maternally inherited variants of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) in subgroups of patients with OA based on gender and specific joint involvement, but these findings have not been replicated. METHODS: The authors studied 138 maternally inherited mtDNA variants genotyped in a two cohort genetic association study across a total of 7393 OA cases from the arcOGEN consortium and 5122 controls genotyped in the Wellcome Trust Case Control consortium 2 study. RESULTS: Following data quality control we examined 48 mtDNA variants that were common in cohort 1 and cohort 2, and found no association with OA. None of the phenotypic subgroups previously associated with mtDNA haplogroups were associated in this study. CONCLUSIONS: We were not able to replicate previously published findings in the largest mtDNA association study to date. The evidence linking OA to mtDNA is not compelling at present

Evaluation of the genetic overlap between osteoarthritis with body mass index and height using genome-wide association scan data.

OBJECTIVES: Obesity as measured by body mass index (BMI) is one of the major risk factors for osteoarthritis. In addition, genetic overlap has been reported between osteoarthritis and normal adult height variation. We investigated whether this relationship is due to a shared genetic aetiology on a genome-wide scale. METHODS: We compared genetic association summary statistics (effect size, p value) for BMI and height from the GIANT consortium genome-wide association study (GWAS) with genetic association summary statistics from the arcOGEN consortium osteoarthritis GWAS. Significance was evaluated by permutation. Replication of osteoarthritis association of the highlighted signals was investigated in an independent dataset. Phenotypic information of height and BMI was accounted for in a separate analysis using osteoarthritis-free controls. RESULTS: We found significant overlap between osteoarthritis and height (p=3.3×10(-5) for signals with p≤0.05) when the GIANT and arcOGEN GWAS were compared. For signals with p≤0.001 we found 17 shared signals between osteoarthritis and height and four between osteoarthritis and BMI. However, only one of the height or BMI signals that had shown evidence of association with osteoarthritis in the arcOGEN GWAS was also associated with osteoarthritis in the independent dataset: rs12149832, within the FTO gene (combined p=2.3×10(-5)). As expected, this signal was attenuated when we adjusted for BMI. CONCLUSIONS: We found a significant excess of shared signals between both osteoarthritis and height and osteoarthritis and BMI, suggestive of a common genetic aetiology. However, only one signal showed association with osteoarthritis when followed up in a new dataset

Using Narrative Research and Portraiture to Inform Design Research

Abstract. Employing an interdisciplinary perspective, this paper addresses how narrative research and portraiture- methods originating from, and commonly used in social sciences- can be beneficial for HCI and design research communities. Narrative research takes stories as a basis for data collection and analysis, while portraiture can be used to create written narratives about interview participants. Drawing on this knowledge, we show how a focus on narrative data, and analysis of such data through portraiture, can be adopted for the specific purpose of enhancing design processes. We hope to encourage design and HCI researchers to consider adopting these methods. By drawing on an illustrative example, we show how these methods served to inform design ideas for digital crafting. Based on our experiences, we present guidelines for using narrative research and portraiture for design research, as well as discussing opportunities and strengths, and limitations and risks

Consistent patterns of common species across tropical tree communities

Trees structure the Earth’s most biodiverse ecosystem, tropical forests. The vast number of tree species presents a formidable challenge to understanding these forests, including their response to environmental change, as very little is known about most tropical tree species. A focus on the common species may circumvent this challenge. Here we investigate abundance patterns of common tree species using inventory data on 1,003,805 trees with trunk diameters of at least 10 cm across 1,568 locations1,2,3,4,5,6 in closed-canopy, structurally intact old-growth tropical forests in Africa, Amazonia and Southeast Asia. We estimate that 2.2%, 2.2% and 2.3% of species comprise 50% of the tropical trees in these regions, respectively. Extrapolating across all closed-canopy tropical forests, we estimate that just 1,053 species comprise half of Earth’s 800 billion tropical trees with trunk diameters of at least 10 cm. Despite differing biogeographic, climatic and anthropogenic histories7, we find notably consistent patterns of common species and species abundance distributions across the continents. This suggests that fundamental mechanisms of tree community assembly may apply to all tropical forests. Resampling analyses show that the most common species are likely to belong to a manageable list of known species, enabling targeted efforts to understand their ecology. Although they do not detract from the importance of rare species, our results open new opportunities to understand the world’s most diverse forests, including modelling their response to environmental change, by focusing on the common species that constitute the majority of their trees