Positive change with Ménière’s disease

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published article is available from the link below. Copyright © 2009 The British Psychological Society.Objective - The aims of this study were twofold: to determine in what way people with a non-fatal chronic illness experience positive change after the onset of their illness, and to determine whether comparing with other people with Ménière's disease influenced perceiving this change. Design - Using a longitudinal method, questionnaires were administered at baseline and at ten-month follow-up. Method - At both time points 301 people with Ménière's disease completed the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory and at baseline they also completed questionnaires measuring, demographic variables, disease severity, psychological variables (self-esteem, perceived control, and optimism), and social comparison variables. Results - People with Ménière's disease in this study perceived positive change. Greater positive change was perceived on the domain of ‘appreciation of life,’ followed by ‘relating to others,’ ‘personal strength,’ ‘new possibilities,’ and ‘spiritual change’. In addition, more change was perceived at follow-up than at baseline. Social comparison was associated with perceiving change at both time points. Conclusions - People with Ménière's disease do perceive positive change. Perceiving change is an on-going process for people with Ménière's disease, as they perceived more change over time. Social comparison was related to the perception of change, in particular, to the perception of growth in personal strength.Economic and Social Research Council, UK and the Ménière's Society, U

The Chernobyl Reference Horizon (?) in the Greenland Ice Sheet

Published reports of the presence of radioactive debris from the Chernobyl reactor accident in snow on the Greenland ice sheet raised the strong prospect that such debris might constitute a valuable time stratigraphic marker all over the ice sheet. Large volume snow samples to test this possibility were collected from 7 snowpits as part of a wide ranging regional snow chemistry survey conducted during 1987 and 1988. Snow “labeled” with Chernobyl derived radioactivity was detected in all of the pits. However, the total amount of radioactive debris found at the different locations varied over a 20 fold range. The variability in total fallout showed no clear large scale spatial pattern that could be related to the presumed progress of the radioactive plume over Greenland, suggesting that small scale differences in precipitation pattern and reworking of the snow by wind were predominantly responsible for the patchy preservation of the Chernobyl “layer” on the Greenland ice sheet

Beryllium-7 and Lead-210 in the atmosphere and surface snow over the Greenland ice sheet in the summer of 1989

The concentrations of 7Be and 210Pb were measured in surface air and fresh and aging snow samples from Summit (72°20′N, 38°45′W) and Dye 3 (65°10′N, 44°45′W) Greenland, during June and July 1989. The aerosol concentrations of these radionuclides showed rapid variations at both sites, but were nearly twice as high, on average, at Summit. Concentrations in the 16 fresh snowfall events that were sampled also showed wide variability, but the averages were the same at the two sites. The apparent difference in air-snow fractionation and the lack of coherence in the concentration in air time series between the two sites indicate previously unsuspected complexity in atmospheric dynamics over the ice sheet. Improved understanding of atmospheric processes, and how the results of those processes are recorded in snow and ice, is crucial for full interpretation of the information about past atmospheric chemistry and climate contained in the snow and ice of glaciers around the world

Atmospheric deposition of beryllium 7 in the Chesapeake Bay region

Bulk (combined wet and dry) atmospheric deposition of the cosmogenic isotope 7Be was monitored at Solomons, Maryland, from March 1986 to November 1987. The observed deposition of 7Be supported an inventory ranging from 2 to 4 dpm (disintegrations per minute)/cm2. The supported inventory and monthly fluxes of 7Be showed maxima in late spring (March-May). The peak in 7Be deposition was very similar in 1986 and 1987 despite 1986 having a very dry spring. It thus appears that given even modest amounts of precipitation, there is strong seasonality in the atmospheric deposition of 7Be near 40°N. The timing and magnitude of the spring peak in 7Be deposition are in close agreement with estimates of the seasonal variation in the injection of stratospheric air into the troposphere, suggesting that on a monthly time scale the bulk deposition of 7Be closely reflects the tropospheric inventory of 7Be. -Autho

The geopolitical implications of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

This paper analyses the reasons why President Putin decided to invade Ukraine and annex Crimea, the implications of this for Russia’s return as a major power, and the broader geopolitical policy implications. Executive summary This is the worst crisis in Europe since the end of the Cold War. It marks the return of a Russia hostile to the West that is prepared to reject international norms about state sovereignty and risk confrontation with NATO. Under Putin, we can expect protracted and wider confrontation with the West. Putin invaded Ukraine and annexed Crimea because he regarded the threat of Ukraine’s membership of NATO as undermining Russia’s vital national security interests. Russia has significantly improved its military capabilities since its invasion of Georgia in 2008. This was demonstrated in the surprise occupation of Crimea. Moscow’s positioning of 50,000 troops on the eastern Ukrainian border threatens further intervention, the risk of civil war and military conflict with Ukraine. The strategic implications for Australia are whether Washington’s pivot to Asia will now be diverted to Europe and whether China also will be encouraged to greater territorial adventurism. Policy recommendation Australia’s defence strategy should now take account of how major powers such as China and Russia might use conventional force, or threats of use of conventional force, to challenge territorial sovereignty and impose their will more generally. Canberra also needs to factor into its strategic assessments the impact of the Ukrainian crisis on a) China’s strategic policy and regional ambitions and b) the US military commitment to Asia. Given the rise of military capabilities and nationalism in our region, the new Defence White Paper should give appropriate priority to policies of countering conventional threats and coercion, including from major powers

Snow accumulation, surface height change, and firn densification at Summit, Greenland: Insights from 2 years of in situ observation

Weekly measurements of surface height change were made at an accumulation forest of 100 stakes at Summit, Greenland, over a 2-year period (17 August 2000 to 8 August 2002). On average, the surface height relative to the stakes increased 64 (±4.8) cm in the first year and 65 (±5.3) cm in the second, identical to the average (65 ± 4.5 cm yr−1) previously reported for the period 1991–1995 in a similar forest 28 km to the southwest. The continuous 2-year data set indicates that the rate of surface rise was not constant, with the summers of 2001 and 2002 both showing markedly slower increases. On-site weather observations suggest that more new snow fell during the summer months than in any other season, consistent with results from previous snow pit and modeling studies yet apparently at odds with the slow rate of height increase. Density profiles from a series of 1-m-deep snow pits sampled monthly reveal that the thickness of the most recent year of accumulated snow (25 cm water equivalent) decreased rapidly between late May and early July, and the layers remained thin through early September. The thinning of the top year is clearly due to compaction in the snowpack. Combining the observed variations in annual layer thickness with a linear height increase based on assumed constant accumulation at 0.18 cm d−1 explains much of the variation in surface height found in the stake measurements. Estimated surface height changes can be forced to exactly match the stake measurements by combining changes in annual layer thickness with a variable accumulation rate over the intervals between pits. This exercise suggests that during the 2 years of this study a consistent seasonal pattern in accumulation was not apparent, rather the intervals indicated to have had enhanced accumulation in the first year (August–October and March–April) apparently had reduced accumulation in the second year

Logic circuitry used to automatically test shielded cables

Automatic cable tester checks multiple shielded conductors assembly cable connections. The tester uses logic circuitry to sequentially test all conductors and their shields to reveal any connection error in a GO-NO GO test

Evidence of road salt in New Hampshire’s snowpack hundreds of meters from roadways

Salinization of surface and groundwater has been directly linked to the area of road surfaces in a watershed and the subsequent wintertime maintenance used to keep roads free of snow and ice. Most studies that explore road salt in snow along roadways limit the study to within 100 m from a roadway and conclude that there is negligible deposition of de-icing salt at distances greater than 100 m. In this study, we analyze the ion content of the southern New Hampshire snowpack and use Mg2+ as a conservative sea-salt tracer to calculate sea salt and non-sea salt fractions of Cl−. There is a minimum of 60% non-sea salt Cl−, which we attribute to road salt, in the snowpack at our study sites 115 to 350 m from the nearest maintained roadways. This suggests that larger areas need to be considered when investigating the negative impact of Cl− loading due to winter-time maintenance

Magnetic susceptibility anisotropy of myocardium imaged by cardiovascular magnetic resonance reflects the anisotropy of myocardial filament α-helix polypeptide bonds.

BackgroundA key component of evaluating myocardial tissue function is the assessment of myofiber organization and structure. Studies suggest that striated muscle fibers are magnetically anisotropic, which, if measurable in the heart, may provide a tool to assess myocardial microstructure and function.MethodsTo determine whether this weak anisotropy is observable and spatially quantifiable with cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR), both gradient-echo and diffusion-weighted data were collected from intact mouse heart specimens at 9.4 Tesla. Susceptibility anisotropy was experimentally calculated using a voxelwise analysis of myocardial tissue susceptibility as a function of myofiber angle. A myocardial tissue simulation was developed to evaluate the role of the known diamagnetic anisotropy of the peptide bond in the observed susceptibility contrast.ResultsThe CMR data revealed that myocardial tissue fibers that were parallel and perpendicular to the magnetic field direction appeared relatively paramagnetic and diamagnetic, respectively. A linear relationship was found between the magnetic susceptibility of the myocardial tissue and the squared sine of the myofiber angle with respect to the field direction. The multi-filament model simulation yielded susceptibility anisotropy values that reflected those found in the experimental data, and were consistent that this anisotropy decreased as the echo time increased.ConclusionsThough other sources of susceptibility anisotropy in myocardium may exist, the arrangement of peptide bonds in the myofilaments is a significant, and likely the most dominant source of susceptibility anisotropy. This anisotropy can be further exploited to probe the integrity and organization of myofibers in both healthy and diseased heart tissue

Airborne sampling of aerosol particles: Comparison between surface sampling at Christmas Island and P-3 sampling during PEM-Tropics B

Bulk aerosol sampling of soluble ionic compounds from the NASA Wallops Island P-3 aircraft and a tower on Christmas Island during PEM-Tropics B provides an opportunity to assess the magnitude of particle losses in the University of New Hampshire airborne bulk aerosol sampling system. We find that most aerosol-associated ions decrease strongly with height above the sea surface, making direct comparisons between mixing ratios at 30 m on the tower and the lowest flight level of the P-3 (150 m) open to interpretation. Theoretical considerations suggest that vertical gradients of sea-salt aerosol particles should show exponential decreases with height. Observed gradients of Na+ and Mg2+, combining the tower observations with P-3 samples collected below 1 km, are well described by exponential decreases (r values of 0.88 and 0.87, respectively), though the curve fit underestimates average mixing ratios at the surface by 25%. Cascade impactor samples collected on the tower show that \u3e99% of the Na+ and Mg2+mass is on supermicron particles, 65% is in the 1–6 micron range, and just 20% resides on particles with diameters larger than 9 microns. These results indicate that our airborne aerosol sampling probes must be passing particles up to at least 6 microns with high efficiency. We also observed that nss SO42− and NH4+, which are dominantly on accumulation mode particles, tended to decrease between 150 and 1000 m, but they were often considerably higher at the lowest P-3 sampling altitudes than at the tower. This finding is presently not well understood