Assessing environmental correlates of populations of the endangered Mountain Pygmy-possum (Burramys parvus) in Kosciuszko National Park, New South Wales

Determining effective management strategies for species and environments threatened by climate change depends on accurate predictions about how environments will change and how species within them will respond to those changes. Small scale local studies investigating all factors that correlate with differences in population sizes of target species are an essential first step in identifying factors that currently constrain distribution. This understanding can be extended by overviewing records of target species that have been kept under different, non-natural conditions, as well as by considering pre-modern environmental conditions that supported ancestral populations of the target species. Understanding modern as well as pre-modern correlations of this kind will increase capacity to develop conservation strategies to optimise survival of threatened species. This thesis provides new understanding about correlates of this kind in relation to the endangered Australian marsupial, the Mountain Pygmy-possum, Burramys parvus. Restricted in distribution to small populations on isolated mountaintops and surrounded by hard limit dispersal barriers, B. parvus cannot escape debilitating changes anticipated to result from climate change. The palaeoecological records for the lineage are reviewed, as are early captive breeding records for the living species kept under a range of different artificial conditions. The restricted nature of the modern distribution of B. parvus, as previously understood, has been demonstrated to be a misleading indication of its physiological resilience. Significantly, B. parvus has been found to occur outside of its predicted bioclimatic range in areas which received, contrary to previous presumption, little to no snow cover. Long term patterns in demography were used to reassess habitat variables. Variables associated with high and medium quality habitats were quantified. The presence of a permanent watercourse (blockstream) at occupied boulderfields was found to be a significant factor correlated with population stability and density at all sites. Overall this thesis has demonstrated that although survival of B. parvus does appear to be tied to specific environmental factors, it has a higher ecophysiological resilience than previously assumed. Future modelling and management for this species should be focused on adaptive capacity rather than just the risks it confronts in its current habitat

Quick and Easy Notes: Practical Strategies for Busy Teachers

Teachers’ knowledge of each child helps them to plan appropriately challenging environments and activities that are tailored to the children’s strengths and needs. Assessing children regularly is essential to build that individualized knowledge—and to identify children who may benefit from more specialized supports. This article offers practical tips for you to engage in systematic, observation-based assessment by keeping anecdotal records on each child

Perinatal Excellence to Reduce Injury in Preterm Birth (PERIPrem) through Quality Improvement

Perinatal Excellence to Reduce Injury in Premature Birth (PERIPrem) is an 11-element perinatal care bundle designed to improve outcomes for preterm babies, in line with the National Health Service (NHS) Long Term plan. Designed in collaboration with 12 NHS Trusts (secondary care hospitals), South West and West of England Academic Health Science Networks, South West Neonatal Operational Delivery Network, parent partners and clinical experts, implementation was via bespoke quality improvement (QI) methodology. Before project initiation, there was regional variation in uptake of elements, evidenced by baseline audit. Optimisation of the preterm infant is complex; eligibility for treatments is dependent on gestation and local policies. Preterm infants experience variability in care dependent on the place of birth, and there remains an implementation gap for several effective, evidence-based treatments. The PERIPrem ambition is to reduce severe brain injury and death caused by prematurity by at least 50% through the delivery of a perinatal care bundle. The PERIPrem approach resulted in improved element implementation by 26% (from 3% to 29%) between 2019 and 2021, with dyads significantly more likely to receive the full bundle in 2021 compared with 2019 (probability=0.96 (95% CI 0.87 to 0.99), p<0.001). When examining the impact on psychological safety and team-working of PERIPrem, linear mixed models indicated an improvement in team function (p=0.021), situation monitoring (p=0.029) and communication within teams (p=0.002). Central to success was the development of a committed multiorganisational collaborative that continues to drive perinatal improvement using a common language and streamlining processes. In addition to saving the lives of the most vulnerable babies, PERIPrem aims to improve the chances of disability-free lives and is successfully nurturing high-functioning perinatal teams with enhanced QI skills

Thinking Outside the Bag:Worker-led Speculation and the Future of Gig Economy Delivery Platforms

Gig economy is presented as disruptive, technologically driven, and forward thinking. Design is explicit in this framing, through use of slick apps to reduce friction and simplify experience for customer and worker. However, this framing is often driven by the platforms, and does not fully recognize the actual experience of work. In this paper we report on a collaborative design process on developing concepts for the future of gig work from a worker-centric perspective. This explicitly does not involve the platforms as stakeholders and uses design fiction as a tool for workers to express fears, joys, and the aspects of their work that are nuanced, reflective and surprising. We reflect on the designs created through this process, the tensions, and opportuni- ties with working with gig working couriers, and issues around power and representa- tion when designing with and for this community

Lessons from one future of work: opportunities to flip the gig economy

Pervasive technologies are already transforming "The Future of Work". Mobile technologies, IoT, and data promise efficient and convenient work `on-demand'. They are convenient too for for platform providers whose clean and efficient interfaces for consumers disrupt marketplaces, offering digitally mediated access to services at a click. These same technologies provide access to work and labour markets whilst undermining promising flexible work and access to sufficient work. The global gig economy is expanding. Increasing numbers of workers see gig economy work as their main form of employment, yet have little voice in the construction of systems on which they depend. We argue that technologists must work with gig workers, policy makers and other stakeholders to address the adverse effects of technologies on gig workers. To better understand relationships between workers and the technologies they use, we describe insights from research carried out with UK cycle couriers. We reflect on technology's role in giving these workers' agency, rights and equity by design

Dietary analysis of an uncharacteristic population of the Mountain Pygmy-possum (Burramys parvus) in the Kosciuszko National Park, New South Wales, Australia

Background The Mountain Pygmy-possum (Burramys parvus) is a critically endangered marsupial, endemic to alpine regions of southern Australia. We investigated the diet of a recently discovered population of the possum in northern Kosciuszko National Park, NSW, Australia. This new population occurs at elevations well below the once-presumed lower elevation limit of 1,600 m. Goals and Methods Faecal material was analysed to determine if dietary composition differed between individuals in the newly discovered northern population and those in the higher elevation southern population, and to examine how diet was influenced by rainfall in the southern population and seasonal changes in resource availability in the northern population. Results and Discussion The diet of B. parvus in the northern population comprised of arthropods, fruits and seeds. Results indicate the diet of both populations shares most of the same invertebrate orders and plant species. However, in the absence of preferred food types available to the southern population, individuals of the northern population opportunistically consumed different species that were similar to those preferred by individuals in higher altitude populations. Differing rainfall amounts had a significant effect on diet, with years of below average rainfall having a greater percentage composition and diversity of invertebrates. Seasonal variation was also recorded, with the northern population increasing the diversity of invertebrates in their diet during the Autumn months when Bogong Moths (Agrotis infusa) were absent from those sites, raising questions about the possum’s dependence on the species Conclusions Measurable effects of rainfall amount and seasonal variation on the dietary composition suggest that predicted climatic variability will have a significant impact on its diet, potentially impacting its future survival. Findings suggest that it is likely that B. parvus is not restricted by dietary requirements to its current pattern of distribution. This new understanding needs to be considered when formulating future conservation strategies for this critically endangered species

Developing observational methods to drive future hydrological science: can we make a start as a community?

Hydrology is still, and for good reasons, an inexact science, even if evolving hydrological understanding has provided a basis for improved water management for at least the last three millennia. The limitations of that understanding have, however, become much more apparent and important in the last century as the pressures of increasing populations, and the anthropogenic impacts on catchment forcing and responses, have intensified. At the same time, the sophistication of hydrological analyses and models has been developing rapidly, often driven more by the availability of computational power and geographical data sets than any real increases in understanding of hydrological processes. This sophistication has created an illusion of real progress but a case can be made that we are still rather muddling along, limited by the significant uncertainties in hydrological observations, knowledge of catchment characteristics and related gaps in conceptual understanding, particularly of the sub-surface. These knowledge gaps are illustrated by the fact that for many catchments we cannot close the water balance without significant uncertainty, uncertainty that is often neglected in evaluating models for practical applications

A rule based quality control method for hourly rainfall data and a 1 km resolution gridded hourly rainfall dataset for Great Britain: CEH-GEAR1hr

High-resolution gridded precipitation products are rare globally, particularly below a daily time-step, yet many hydrological applications require, or can be improved by, a higher temporal resolution of rainfall data. Here, we present a new 1 km resolution gridded hourly rainfall dataset for Great Britain (Gridded estimates of hourly areal rainfall for Great Britain (1990–2014) [CEH-GEAR1hr]) using data from over 1900 quality controlled rainfall gauges, which improves upon the current UK national gridded precipitation datasets at daily time-step. We extend and automate a quality control (QC) procedure to permit the use of hourly data for 1990–2014 and independently validate the QC using daily rainfall data and recorded historic events. Our two-tiered validation approach, at daily and hourly timescales, indicates that spurious extreme values are excluded from the resultant dataset, while legitimate values are preserved. We use a nearest neighbour interpolation scheme to derive gridded hourly rainfall values at 1 km resolution, to temporally disaggregate the CEH-GEAR daily gridded dataset and produce an hourly dataset with consistent daily totals. This provides a unique resource for hydrological applications in Great Britain. The CEH-GEAR1hr dataset, associated metadata and QC information, will be freely available from the Environmental Information Data Centre (EIDC) and hosted alongside the daily and monthly CEH-GEAR product

池田婚姻願（宮内大臣宛様式）

The heat shock response (HSR) is a mechanism to cope with proteotoxic stress by inducing the expression of molecular chaperones and other heat shock response genes. The HSR is evolutionarily well conserved and has been widely studied in bacteria, cell lines and lower eukaryotic model organisms. However, mechanistic insights into the HSR in higher eukaryotes, in particular in mammals, are limited. We have developed an in vivo heat shock protocol to analyze the HSR in mice and dissected heat shock factor 1 (HSF1)-dependent and-independent pathways. Whilst the induction of proteostasis-related genes was dependent on HSF1, the regulation of circadian function related genes, indicating that the circadian clock oscillators have been reset, was independent of its presence. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the in vivo HSR is impaired in mouse models of Huntington's disease but we were unable to corroborate the general repression of transcription that follows a heat shock in lower eukaryotes