One-on-one with Victoria Clarke

One place I’m lucky to live somewhere very beautiful – a small town on the southern edge of the Cotswolds. Going for an evening walk, hearing cows mooing… On my first family holiday in the Cotswolds as a teenager I fell in love with the landscape, and remember thinking ‘I want to live here’.One book Changing the Subject by Julian Henriques and colleagues. Read over and over, and highlighted in all the colours of the rainbow, as a student. It fundamentally changed my view of what psychology could and should be.One documentary I use Jennie Livingston’s fabulous documentary Paris is Burning (1990) about the drag ball culture of the black and Latino gay and trans community in New York in the 1980s to teach students about the social construction of gender and sexuality, and gender performativity, and the importance of thinking intersectionally.One tool Mindfulness. More often an aspiration than an achievement. But an amazing tool for managing stress, focusing on what’s important, and skilful living.One challenge for qualitative psychology Demand among students for qualitative research supervision far outstrips the number of supervisors with qualitative expertise

Adapt and Overcome : The Relationship Between Emergency Departments and the Opioid Epidemic

In my thesis, I argue that the opioid epidemic poses challenges but also opportunities for emergency departments to assess and improve their performance under duress for the betterment of future generations and ailments to come. I first delve into the history of emergency medicine as a specialty to put its recent emergence into context. Subsequently, I will discuss the opioid epidemic, its origin, and various causes that have contributed to its relevance and significance in public health. Then, I will examine data from emergency departments throughout the United States to track performance. After, I will describe opioid overdose cases from emergency departments throughout the country and strategies they have implemented to combat the epidemic. I will then discuss the relevance of social determinants of health. Last, I will conclude by tying in my thesis argument with the COVID-19 pandemic

Introduction

Introduction to Issue 22.

Issue Introduction

Note from incoming general editors Robert Clarke and Victoria Kuttaine

The nitrogen cost of photosynthesis

Global food security depends on three main cereal crops (wheat, rice and maize) achieving and maintaining high yields, as well as increasing their future yields. Fundamental to the production of this biomass is photosynthesis. The process of photosynthesis involves a large number of proteins that together account for the majority of the nitrogen in leaves. As large amounts of nitrogen are removed in the harvested grain, this needs to be replaced either from synthetic fertilizer or biological nitrogen fixation. Knowledge about photosynthetic properties of leaves in natural ecosystems is also important, particularly when we consider the potential impacts of climate change. While the relationship between nitrogen and photosynthetic capacity of a leaf differs between species, leaf nitrogen content provides a useful way to incorporate photosynthesis into models of ecosystems and the terrestrial biosphere. This review provides a generalized nitrogen budget for a C3 leaf cell and discusses the potential for improving photosynthesis from a nitrogen perspective.This work was supported by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Translational Photosynthesis (CE140100015) and the Grains Research Development Corporation (ANU00025)

Novel insights into patients’ life-worlds: the value of qualitative research

Livingston et al.’s paper amply demonstrates the rich potential of qualitative methods to provide insight into the life-worlds of patients, and analysis of hitherto un(der)explored facets of mental and physical health conditions. The publication of their paper reflects increasing acknowledgement of the value of qualitative methods in medical research. At the same time as some medical publications have questioned the wider value and impact of qualitative research(1), health and social policy increasingly demand engagement with the voices and perspectives of patients (e.g. https://www.england.nhs.uk/blog/putting-patients-at-the-heart-of-all-we-do/) – something only truly understood through qualitative inquiry. Through Livingston et al.’s research, we gain a moving insight into the experiences of compensatory strategies for people on the autism spectrum, those diagnosed as well as people who may be, but are not, diagnosed. Their study demonstrates the way the successful utilisation of “deep” compensatory strategies can obscure diagnosis and hinder access to reasonable adjustments in contexts like the workplace

Amending Amendments: Digital Colonialism, Bill C-11, and Assessing the Call for Improvement

Media scholars Nick Couldry and Ulises Mejias (2019) define digital colonialism as the “term for the extension of a global process of extraction that started under colonialism and continues through industrial capitalism, culminating in today\u27s new form: instead of natural resources in labor, what is now being appropriated is human life through its conversion into data” (p. 22). This research will critically analyze the Canadian government’s ill-received Bill C-11: the Amended Consumer Privacy Protection Act by using digital colonialism as a conceptual framework to reveal the Bill’s essential limitations. It will consist of two sections: 1) an in-depth exploration of the definition of digital colonialism and Indigenous Subjectivity, which will inform the objective, and 2) an examination of amendment recommendations (7, 8, 11 and 15), put forth by the previous Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien to improve Bill C-11. By using digital colonial theory and applying it to a critical legislative case study, this research addresses the following questions: What is digital colonialism and how, from a digital colonial standpoint, can we critically unpack the recommended amendments proposed by Therrien

An investigation into silver nanoparticles removal from water during sand filtration and activated carbon adsorption

Wastewater treatment plants (WwTP) act as the principle buffer between anthropogenic sources of Silver Nanoparticles (AgNPs) and environmental targets. AgNPs, given their effective anti-microbial properties, have the potential to negatively impact WwTP processes and organisms within the natural environment. A clear understanding of the fate and transport of AgNPs as they pass through WwTPs is crucial in evaluating AgNPs impacts for WwTP process, the natural environment and in the development of a comprehensive environmental risk assessment for AgNPs. The main aim of this thesis was to carry out an analysis on the fate, transport and transformation of AgNPs through WwTP relevant filtration medias in order to understand more about the toxicological implications for both WwTP processes and receiving environments. AgNPs were synthesised in-house, via an in-situ reduction method, which produced a homogeneous dispersion of nanoparticles of average particle diameter 9.98nm, with a standard deviation of 3.11nm. Column studies and adsorption isotherm experiments were conducted to investigate the fate and transport of silver nitrate, AgNPs and bulk silver across media beds of quartz sand and granulated activated carbon (GAC), both chosen for their relevance in wastewater treatment protocols. TEM imaging and EDS analysis was employed to characterise the AgNPs physically and elementally within the column influents and effluents. An original contribution made to the existing knowledge on AgNPs is that in contrast to bulk silver and silver nitrate, uncoated AgNPs were observed to be highly mobile through the quartz sand media. This high mobility was in contrast with the prior expectation that van der Waals forces of attraction between the positively charged AgNPs and the negative charge of the silica surfaces within the sand bed would lead to some measure of retention within the column matrix. The resulting high mobility of the AgNPs was attributed to particle surface contamination of boride ions originating from the reduction agent used during the synthesis process. This highlights (and reinforces) the importance of better understanding on the implications of the various methods of synthesis and use of capping agents for AgNPs characteristics and the impact this has on fate and transport. AgNPs were also noted to have been significantly altered after their passage through the quartz sand media, with up to 83% of the sample increasing in size, from 9.98nm to an average of 18.26nm and a maximum of 144nm. Particle size measurements were made using the measuring tool available in the GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP). This size increase was attributed to the formation of nano-alloy clusters with residual gold and iron compounds, naturally present within the sand bed. In the case of silver-gold alloy clusters, this is expected to exhibit positive implications for future environmental fates of the resulting AgNPs, where the presence of gold in alloy clusters has been observed to significantly deactivate AgNPs silver ion release. In contrast to the sand, it was observed that the GAC was an effective absorber of AgNPs. However, this was observed to be a size dependant relationship, where the GAC was not observed to be effective for adsorption of bulk silver at particle sizes of 300 – 800nm. In this thesis, in addition to the experimental work, a novel, low complexity technique was developed for the detection and quantification of AgNPs in laboratory aqueous solutions. This protocol utilises a laboratory bench top photometer and gave AgNPs concentration results that reliably and accurately reflected that of ICP-MS and ICP-OES results within a detection range of 0.01 and 20mg/L; where the correlation coefficient between the instrument absorbance response and ICP-MS/OES concentration (at 450nm) was R2 0.994.College of Engineering, Mathematics and Physical Sciences, University of Exeter

Introduction

Introduction to JASAL volume 23, issue 1