Improving Small Community Flood Resilience: The Multiple Strategies of Watershed Partnerships

Flooding in New England is often seen as a coastal concern, but inland, in the mountainous rural communities of New England, river floods present serious threats to communities and livelihoods. Recent large storm events such as Tropical Storm Irene, and rising concerns over climate change, have catalyzed conversations over the vulnerability of communities across inland New England to flooding. This thesis examines two very different watershed organizations in New England; the White River Partnership and Deerfield Creating Resilient Communities. Both are working towards flood resilience in their communities. My approach is not to judge “best practices” or to evaluate what is better about one versus the other, but rather to highlight a range of approaches, institutions, policies and applications that enable flood resilience. By examining two very different institutions in depth, I will identify, explain and explore a variety of ways in which regional watershed partnerships can build partnerships and improve local flood resilience

An exploratory investigation into the effects of mental defeat on pain threshold, pain rating, pain anticipation, and mood

In chronic pain, mental defeat is considered as a disabling type of self-evaluation triggered by repeated episodes of debilitating pain. This exploratory study experimentally tested the effect of an activated sense of defeat, as well as its interaction with pain catastrophizing, on pain and mood. Participants (N = 71) were allocated to either high or low pain catastrophizing groups and then randomly assigned to receive either defeat or neutral manipulations. A cold pressor task administered before and after the thought manipulation measured pain threshold, alongside visual analogue scales for mental defeat, attention, pain intensity, pain anticipation as well as mood. Thought manipulation checks supported successful defeat activation. Defeat activation was associated with increased negative mood and attentional disengagement from the nociceptive stimuli, irrespective of pain catastrophizing tendency. There were no changes in pain threshold, pain or pain anticipation ratings. The results suggest that mental defeat can be experimentally activated using an autobiographical memory task and that an activated sense of defeat appears to operate independently from pain catastrophizing in influencing mood and attentional disengagement from the nociceptive stimuli. Future research can utilize our experimental approach to evaluate the effect of an activated sense of mental defeat in people with chronic pain, for whom the magnitude of pain, mood and attentional responses may be stronger and broader

Mental defeat and suicidality in chronic pain : a prospective analysis

Living with chronic pain has been identified as a significant risk factor for suicide. Qualitative and cross-sectional studies have reported an association between mental defeat and suicidal thoughts and behavior in patients with chronic pain. In this prospective cohort study, we hypothesized that higher levels of mental defeat would be associated with increased suicide risk at a 6-month follow-up. A total of 524 patients with chronic pain completed online questionnaires measuring variables related to suicide risk, mental defeat, sociodemographic, psychological, pain, activity, and health variables. At 6 months, 70.8% (n=371) of respondents completed the questionnaires again. Weighted univariate and multivariable regression models were run to predict suicide risk at 6 months. The clinical suicide risk cutoff was met by 38.55% of participants at baseline and 36.66% at 6 months. Multivariable modeling revealed that mental defeat, depression, perceived stress, head pain, and active smoking status significantly increased the odds of reporting higher suicide risk, while older age reduced the odds. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis showed that assessment of mental defeat, perceived stress, and depression is effective in discriminating between ‘low’ and ‘high’ suicide risk. Awareness of the prospective links from mental defeat, depression, perceived stress, head pain, and active smoking status to increased suicide risk in patients with chronic pain may offer a novel avenue for assessment and preventative intervention

Considerations for Climate Change and Variability Adaptation on the Navajo Nation

[6], 204 p. : color illustrations, color mapshttps://scholar.law.colorado.edu/books_reports_studies/1002/thumbnail.jp

Considerations for Climate Change and Variability Adaptation on the Navajo Nation

[6], 204 p. : color illustrations, color mapshttps://scholar.law.colorado.edu/books_reports_studies/1002/thumbnail.jp

Limited release of previously-frozen C and increased new peat formation after thaw in permafrost peatlands

Permafrost stores globally significant amounts of carbon (C) which may start to decompose and be released to the atmosphere in form of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) and methane (CH 4 ) as global warming promotes extensive thaw. This permafrost carbon feedback to climate is currently considered to be the most important carbon-cycle feedback missing from climate models. Predicting the magnitude of the feedback requires a better understanding of how differences in environmental conditions post-thaw, particularly hydrological conditions, control the rate at which C is released to the atmosphere. In the sporadic and discontinuous permafrost regions of north-west Canada, we measured the rates and sources of C released from relatively undisturbed ecosystems, and compared these with forests experiencing thaw following wildfire (well-drained, oxic conditions) and collapsing peat plateau sites (water-logged, anoxic conditions). Using radiocarbon analyses, we detected substantial contributions of deep soil layers and/or previously-frozen sources in our well-drained sites. In contrast, no loss of previously-frozen C as CO 2 was detected on average from collapsed peat plateaus regardless of time since thaw and despite the much larger stores of available C that were exposed. Furthermore, greater rates of new peat formation resulted in these soils becoming stronger C sinks and this greater rate of uptake appeared to compensate for a large proportion of the increase in CH 4 emissions from the collapse wetlands. We conclude that in the ecosystems we studied, changes in soil moisture and oxygen availability may be even more important than previously predicted in determining the effect of permafrost thaw on ecosystem C balance and, thus, it is essential to monitor, and simulate accurately, regional changes in surface wetness

THE COUNTRY UNDER THE CITY: THE SYMBOLIC TOPOGRAPHY OF THE RUSTIC PAST IN LATE REPUBLICAN AND EARLY IMPERIAL ROME

This dissertation, The Country under the City: The Symbolic Topography of the Rustic Past in Late Republican and Early Imperial Rome, argues that fundamental to the Roman conception of their capital city was the idea of its being superimposed on top of a pre-existing rural topography, quite literally, a “rus sub urbe.” To demonstrate the various strategies by which this “monumentalization” of the city’s rustic past was achieved, the project considers a number of sites that rarely feature in discussions of Roman topography, largely because there is no trace of them in the archaeological record, ranging from plots of un-built public land termed “meadows” (prata) to the electoral voting precinct designated as the “Sheepyard” (Ovilia). Using the accounts of authors writing across a wide array of genres – pastoral and bucolic poetry, history and antiquarian investigation, as well as the agronomic writings of Cato, Varro, and Pliny the Elder – and comparison with existing structures, I reconstruct their physical appearance in order to demonstrate how, for centuries, the city’s evolving architectural forms and preserved open spaces insisted on Rome’s rustic origins, even as its growth into a pan-Mediterranean empire would suggest otherwise. Ultimately, the research shows that – even in the context of the march toward empire, even as the city’s older buildings burned or fell down and were gradually replaced with ever grander ones – Romans used key topographic features both to vivify the story of the city’s rise from humble beginnings, and to foster a genuine sense of continuity with the landscape and religion of their farmer ancestors, beyond mere nostalgia or conceit

Investigating mental defeat in patients with chronic pain : protocol for a longitudinal experience sampling study

Gillett JL, Karadag P, Themelis K, et al. Investigating mental defeat in individuals with chronic pain: Protocol for a longitudinal experience sampling study. BMJ Open . 2023;13(2):e066577.INTRODUCTION: Previous qualitative and cross-sectional research has identified a strong sense of mental defeat in people with chronic pain who also experience the greatest levels of distress and disability. This study will adopt a longitudinal experience sampling design to examine the within-person link between the sense of mental defeat and distress and disability associated with chronic pain. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: We aim to recruit 198 participants (aged 18-65 years) with chronic pain, to complete two waves of experience sampling over 1week, 6 months apart (time 1 and time 2). During each wave of experience sampling, the participants are asked to complete three short online surveys per day, to provide in-the-moment ratings of mental defeat, pain, medication usage, physical and social activity, stress, mood, self-compassion, and attention using visual analogue scales. Sleep and physical activity will be measured using a daily diary as well as with wrist actigraphy worn continuously by participants throughout each wave. Linear mixed models and Gaussian graphical models will be fit to the data to: (1) examine the within-person, day-to-day association of mental defeat with outcomes (ie, pain, physical/social activity, medication use and sleep), (2) examine the dynamic temporal and contemporaneous networks of mental defeat with all outcomes and the hypothesised mechanisms of outcomes (ie, perceived stress, mood, attention and self-compassion). ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: The current protocol has been approved by the Health Research Authority and West Midlands-Solihull Research Ethics Committee (Reference Number: 17/WM0053). The study is being conducted in adherence with the Declaration of Helsinki, Warwick Standard Operating Procedures and applicable UK legislation