Evaluation of a Higher Education institute’s Quality Framework performance during COVID-19

[EN] COVID-19 provided a challenge to the continuing high quality operation of higher education. Quality frameworks, which were created long before national lockdowns or social distancing were tested in a manner that had not been foreseen on their creation. This work examines the performance of the framework in our institute to see if it was sufficiently robust to offer our students a quality education experience and to reassure the public in terms of the standard of our graduates. Engagement with the student body is described in detail from decision-making to evaluation at the end of the academic year of their experience on their programme of study.O'leary, P.; O'byrne, D. (2021). Evaluation of a Higher Education institute’s Quality Framework performance during COVID-19. En 7th International Conference on Higher Education Advances (HEAd'21). Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 317-324. https://doi.org/10.4995/HEAd21.2021.13130OCS31732

Development of an Academic Risk Model to support Higher Education Quality Assurance

[EN] This paper presents a model of risk management in higher education, to support the quality assurance framework and the activities, more generally, of a Higher Education Institute. Its purpose is to define the Institute’s approach to academic risk and its management and to inform decision-making. Academic risk is defined and contextualized in terms of published literature. Decision-making and judgement is at the centre of all academic activities and accordingly inherent risk will always exist, through the exercise of judgement, the operation of academic policies and procedures and through compliance. A normative model of academic risk assessment is proposed, based on three levels: isolated academic risk, repeated academic risk and systemic academic risk. This is followed by a proposed model for action according to the level of risk. Finally the operation of the model in our higher education institute is presentedMcdonald, T.; O'byrne, D.; O'leary, P.; O'riordan, C. (2020). Development of an Academic Risk Model to support Higher Education Quality Assurance. En 6th International Conference on Higher Education Advances (HEAd'20). Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. (30-05-2020):1323-1329. https://doi.org/10.4995/HEAd20.2020.11261OCS1323132930-05-202

Towards understanding how individuals with inflammatory bowel disease use contemporary social media platforms for health-related discourse

© 2020 With a growing prevalence of social media use worldwide where individuals share varying aspects of their lives, this paper focuses on how individuals with a chronic illness use these communications platforms to discuss their health. This paper aims to provide a qualitative approach to understanding the connection between the technical features offered by Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and the therapeutic affordances experienced. Semi structured interviews were carried out with 38 participants living with Inflammatory Bowel Disease who use Facebook, Twitter and/or Instagram for health-related support. Interview transcripts were analysed systematically to draw connections between platform features and therapeutic affordances. The interview data was thematically coded through an adapted SCENA Model to infer therapeutic affordances, while content analysis identified the technical features discussed. Our findings indicate that most participants (79%) use more than one social media platform for health-related discourse and that features on the platforms offer different therapeutic affordances. Facebook Groups’ privacy settings affording self-presentation as individuals feel comforted that other people cannot see what they post, while hashtags afford connectivity on Twitter and Instagram, but not on Facebook. This approach enabled the authors to identify similarities and differences between social media platforms and their technical features

CAMKII as a therapeutic target for growth factor-induced retinal and choroidal neovascularisation

This study was supported by grants from the British Heart Foundation (PG/11/99/29207 and PG/11/94/29169), Fight for Sight, UK (1387/88), Health & Social Care R&D Division, Northern Ireland (STL/4748/13) and the Medical Research Council (MC_PC_15026). We would like to thank Gordon Revolta for excellent assistance with colony management and genotyping.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Critical Habitats and Biodiversity: Inventory, Thresholds and Governance

The High Level Panel for Sustainable Ocean Economy (https://oceanpanel.org/) has commissioned a series of “Blue Papers” to explore pressing challenges at the nexus of the ocean and the economy. This paper is part of a series of 16 papers to be published between November 2019 and October 2020. It addresses how multiple human impacts will impact biodiversity underpinning ecosystem services such as marine fisheries, aquaculture, coastal protection and tourism. The paper examines the distribution of marine species and critical marine habitats around the world; analyses trends in drivers, pressures, impacts and response; and establishes thresholds for protecting biodiversity hot spots, and indicators to monitor change. From this scientific base, it assesses the current legal framework and available tools for biodiversity protection, current gaps in ocean governance and management and the implications for achieving a sustainable ocean economy tailored to individual coastal states grouped by social indicators

REPORT OF THE JOINT EIFAAC/ICES/GFCM WORKING GROUP ON EELS (WGEEL)

The Joint EIFAAC/ICES/GFCM Working group on eels (WGEEL) met in a split meeting from 4–8 September (online) and 25 September–02 October 2023 (hybrid meeting) in Helsinki, Finland, to provide the scientific basis for the ICES advice on fishing opportunities and conservation as-pects for the European eel and address requests from EIFAAC and GFCM. WGEEL assessed the state of the European eel and its fisheries, collated and analysed biometric data, reviewed the implementation of the WKFEA (Workshop on the future of eel advice) roadmap, examined available recruitment data from coastal and marine habitats, reported on any updates to the scientific basis of the advice, new and emerging threats or opportunities, in-cluding developments in the Mediterranean region. After high levels in the late 1970s, the recruitment declined dramatically in the 1980s and remains low. Compared to 1960–1979, the recruitment in the “North Sea” was 0.4% in 2023 (provisional) and 0.7 % in 2022 (final). In the “Elsewhere Europe” index series was 8.8 % in 2023 (provisional) and 11.3% in 2022 (final). For the yellow eel data series, recruitment for 2022 was 9% (final). Time-series from 1980 to 2023 show that glass eel recruitment remains at a very low level, with an historical minimum value in the North Sea. Silver eel time series have been analysed to identify patterns in abundance trends. These analyses are exploratory and have enabled us to test certain statistical methods and their limitations for analysing temporal series on silver eels. Although they give us an initial idea of trends in silver eel abundance, their results should be treated with caution. In fact, several problems have been identified and these points need to be improved in order to be able to interpret the results. The trend of reported commercial landings shows a long-term continuing decline, from a level of around 10,000 t in the 1960s, reported commercial landings have now dropped to 2028 (glass eel + yellow eel + silver eel) in 2022. The commercial glass eel fishery in 2022 was 60.1 t and 53.6 t in 2023. Reported landings from yellow and silver eel commercial fisheries (Y, S, YS) add up to 2914 t in 2021 and 2437 t in 2022. Spain was the only country allowing a recreational catch of glass eel, with landings estimated at 0.72 t in 2022 and 1.32 t in 2023. Reported recreational land-ings for yellow and silver eel combined were 240 t for 2021 (11 countries reporting) and 249 t for 2022. Progress with regards to the ‘road map’ developed within WKFEA was evaluated. The returns from the three questionnaires distributed by WKSMEEL to WGEEL members were summarised. In relation to the progress of the WKFEA roadmap, item 1; the inclusion of biological data is advanced with biometry data included in the annual data call. Item 2 relates to the reconstruction of the landings data and a workshop will take place in December 2023. Items 3 and 4 are also in progress, the Spatial database and Model for Eel (WKSMEEL) workshop was held in June 2023 with a follow up workshop planned for October 2023. A questionnaire for 3 topics (electrofish-ing, hydrographic network, and river obstructions & hydropower) was circulated to WGEEL members in August 2023. Of the 21 countries who responded, a large majority carry out electro-fishing, have available hydrographic networks and hold some information of obstructions to migration. However, it was recognised that considerable effort and resources will be required before the available data could be collated.publishedVersio

Commercial Arctic shipping through the Northeast Passage:routes, resources, governance, technology, and infrastructure

The Russian and Norwegian Arctic are gaining notoriety as an alternative maritime route connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and as sources of natural resources. The renewed interest in the Northeast Passage or the Northern Sea Route is fueled by a recession of Arctic sea ice coupled with the discovery of new natural resources at a time when emerging and global markets are in growing demand for them. Driven by the expectation of potential future economic importance of the region, political interest and governance has been rapidly developing, mostly within the Arctic Council. However, this paper argues that optimism regarding the potential of Arctic routes as an alternative to the Suez Canal is overstated. The route involves many challenges: jurisdictional disputes create political uncertainties; shallow waters limit ship size; lack of modern deepwater ports and search and rescue (SAR) capabilities requires ships to have higher standards of autonomy and safety; harsh weather conditions and free-floating ice make navigation more difficult and schedules more variable; and more expensive ship construction and operation costs lessen the economic viability of the route. Technological advances and infrastructure investments may ameliorate navigational challenges, enabling increased shipping of natural resources from the Arctic to global markets.Albert Buixadé Farré, Scott R. Stephenson, Linling Chen, Michael Czub, Ying Dai, Denis Demchev, Yaroslav Efimov, Piotr Graczyk, Henrik Grythe, Kathrin Keil, Niku Kivekäs, Naresh Kumar, Nengye Liu, Igor Matelenok, Mari Myksvoll, Derek O'Leary, Julia Olsen, Sachin Pavithran.A.P., Edward Petersen, Andreas Raspotnik, Ivan Ryzhov, Jan Solski, Lingling Suo, Caroline Troein, Vilena Valeeva, Jaap van Rijckevorsel and Jonathan Wightin

Protecting 30% of the planet for nature: costs, benefits and economic implications

A. Waldron, K. Nakamura, J. Sze, T. Vilela, A. Escobedo, P. Negret Torres, R. Button, K. Swinnerton, A. Toledo, P. Madgwick, N. Mukherjee were supported by National Geographic and the Resources Legacy Fund. V. Christensen was supported by NSERC Discovery Grant RGPIN-2019-04901. M. Coll and J. Steenbeek were supported by EU Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 817578 (TRIATLAS). D. Leclere was supported by TradeHub UKRI CGRF project. R. Heneghan was supported by Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, Acciones de Programacion Conjunta Internacional (PCIN-2017-115). M. di Marco was supported by MIUR Rita Levi Montalcini programme. A. Fernandez-Llamazares was supported by Academy of Finland (grant nr. 31176). S. Fujimori and T. Hawegawa were supported by The Environment Research and Technology Development Fund (2-2002) of the Environmental Restoration and Conservation Agency of Japan and the Sumitomo Foundation. V. Heikinheimo was supported by Kone Foundation, Social Media for Conservation project. K. Scherrer was supported by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 682602. U. Rashid Sumaila acknowledges the OceanCanada Partnership, which funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). T. Toivonen was supported by Osk. Huttunen Foundation & Clare Hall college, Cambridge. W. Wu was supported by The Environment Research and Technology Development Fund (2-2002) of the Environmental Restoration and Conservation Agency of Japan. Z. Yuchen was supported by a Ministry of Education of Singapore Research Scholarship Block (RSB) Research Fellowship

Working paper analysing the economic implications of the proposed 30% target for areal protection in the draft post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framewor

58 pages, 5 figures, 3 tables- The World Economic Forum now ranks biodiversity loss as a top-five risk to the global economy, and the draft post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework proposes an expansion of conservation areas to 30% of the earth’s surface by 2030 (hereafter the “30% target”), using protected areas (PAs) and other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs). - Two immediate concerns are how much a 30% target might cost and whether it will cause economic losses to the agriculture, forestry and fisheries sectors. - Conservation areas also generate economic benefits (e.g. revenue from nature tourism and ecosystem services), making PAs/Nature an economic sector in their own right. - If some economic sectors benefit but others experience a loss, high-level policy makers need to know the net impact on the wider economy, as well as on individual sectors. [...]A. Waldron, K. Nakamura, J. Sze, T. Vilela, A. Escobedo, P. Negret Torres, R. Button, K. Swinnerton, A. Toledo, P. Madgwick, N. Mukherjee were supported by National Geographic and the Resources Legacy Fund. V. Christensen was supported by NSERC Discovery Grant RGPIN-2019-04901. M. Coll and J. Steenbeek were supported by EU Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 817578 (TRIATLAS). D. Leclere was supported by TradeHub UKRI CGRF project. R. Heneghan was supported by Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, Acciones de Programacion Conjunta Internacional (PCIN-2017-115). M. di Marco was supported by MIUR Rita Levi Montalcini programme. A. Fernandez-Llamazares was supported by Academy of Finland (grant nr. 311176). S. Fujimori and T. Hawegawa were supported by The Environment Research and Technology Development Fund (2-2002) of the Environmental Restoration and Conservation Agency of Japan and the Sumitomo Foundation. V. Heikinheimo was supported by Kone Foundation, Social Media for Conservation project. K. Scherrer was supported by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 682602. U. Rashid Sumaila acknowledges the OceanCanada Partnership, which funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). T. Toivonen was supported by Osk. Huttunen Foundation & Clare Hall college, Cambridge. W. Wu was supported by The Environment Research and Technology Development Fund (2-2002) of the Environmental Restoration and Conservation Agency of Japan. Z. Yuchen was supported by a Ministry of Education of Singapore Research Scholarship Block (RSB) Research FellowshipPeer reviewe