From little acorns: trees and wood in Middle English romance

Trees occupy a paradoxical place in the genre of Middle English romance. They are central to romance narratives, but their ubiquitous presence is almost completely overlooked by the genre’s protagonists, and has been largely neglected by its readership. This thesis addresses this paradox, as it seeks to account for the neglect of trees both within the narrative world of romance itself, and the broader critical discourses which have grown up around it. Drawing on a range of critical and theoretical disciplines, the thesis analyses both the broad spectrum of meanings which are attached to trees in the genre, and the ways in which trees frame and catalyse the human dramas on which romance narratives primarily focus. Trees are essential to medieval romance, as forest, wood, wilderness, garden, and orchard settings are integral to the genre. These settings form the backdrop for chivalric encounters and expressions of courtly love, as well as for the innumerable emotional dramas and rites of passage on which romance narratives hinge. The trees that make up these spaces tend to be largely invisible, both within romance texts and within most of the scholarship that addresses them. However, trees are present in many forms in medieval literature: individual trees within these settings occasionally come to the foreground, arboreal metaphors occur at key narrative moments, and wooden objects such as weapons, musical instruments, ships, and spindles make up the material world of romance. In this thesis I argue that focussing on the rare instances of arboreal visibility in certain Middle English romances – Le Morte Darthur, Ywain and Gawain, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the Middle English Breton Lays, and Sir Tristrem – provides a fruitful way to explore these texts from a new perspective. Drawing on aspects of ecocriticism, ecofeminism, and studies of materiality, this thesis is situated in fields that encourage this focus on the non-human as a way to understand what it means to be human, and to enable a greater understanding of our place in the world. Using trees as a starting point to consider human relationships with the non-human reveals how human and nonhuman are entangled in various ways that trouble conventional hierarchies of power in these medieval romances. In particular, I explore how trees can define and construct masculine, chivalric identities, and how the feminine often has a different relationship with the arboreal. Focussing on these relationships opens up spaces for alternative discourses of power, in which the feminine and the non-human hold marginal authority. Trees, arboreal metaphors, and wooden objects witness moments of heightened tension and come to participate in the narrative as actants that both protect and threaten human identities, and which have the power to communicate from the shadows of the narrative

Properties evaluation of semi-crystalline and amorphous polymers injected in AISI P20 molds repaired by welding

Injection molds can fail after a certain period of use, which may compromise the final part’s integrity and quality, but that can be solved using welding repair processes. This work aimed to investigate the influence of AISI P20 molds repaired by Gas Tungsten Arc Welding (GTAW) and Nd-YAG laser-welding processes on the properties of injection-molded parts with semi-crystalline (polypropylene) and amorphous (polycarbonate and acrylonitrile butadiene and styrene terpolymer) thermoplastics. Welds were prepared by machining 0.8 mm-deep 40 mm x 5 mm grooves to be filled by GTAW and Nd-YAG laser-welding deposits, in order to simulate the repair of AISI P20 molds. All polymers were injected into weld-repaired and unrepaired molds, and then evaluated in terms of microstructure, crystallinity degree, mechanical properties and gloss. The results suggest that the repaired region for both studied welding processes, despite the difference in hardness of the weld region, does not significantly affect the properties of semi-crystalline and amorphous injected polymers.Keywords: molds, weld repair, polymers, injected parts, AISI P20

Factors associated with low fitness in adolescents – A mixed methods study

Background: Fitness and physical activity are important for cardiovascular and mental health but activity and fitness levels are declining especially in adolescents and among girls. This study examines clustering of factors associated with low fitness in adolescents in order to best target public health interventions for young people. Methods: 1147 children were assessed for fitness, had blood samples, anthropometric measures and all data were linked with routine electronic data to examine educational achievement, deprivation and health service usage. Factors associated with fitness were examined using logistic regression, conditional trees and data mining cluster analysis. Focus groups were conducted with children in a deprived school to examine barriers and facilitators to activity for children in a deprived community. Results: Unfit adolescents are more likely to be deprived, female, have obesity in the family and not achieve in education. There were 3 main clusters for risk of future heart disease/diabetes (high cholesterol/insulin); children at low risk (not obese, fit, achieving in education), children ‘visibly at risk’ (overweight, unfit, many hospital/GP visits) and ‘invisibly at risk’ (unfit but not overweight, failing in academic achievement). Qualitative findings show barriers to physical activity include cost, poor access to activity, lack of core physical literacy skills and limited family support. Conclusions: Low fitness in the non-obese child can reveal a hidden group who have high risk factors for heart disease and diabetes but may not be identified as they are normal weight. In deprived communities low fitness is associated with non-achievement in education but in non-deprived communities low fitness is associated with female gender. Interventions need to target deprived families and schools in deprived areas with community wide campaigns

Community prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 in England from April to November, 2020: results from the ONS Coronavirus Infection Survey

Background: Decisions about the continued need for control measures to contain the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) rely on accurate and up-to-date information about the number of people testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 and risk factors for testing positive. Existing surveillance systems are generally not based on population samples and are not longitudinal in design. Methods: Samples were collected from individuals aged 2 years and older living in private households in England that were randomly selected from address lists and previous Office for National Statistics surveys in repeated crosssectional household surveys with additional serial sampling and longitudinal follow-up. Participants completed a questionnaire and did nose and throat self-swabs. The percentage of individuals testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 RNA was estimated over time by use of dynamic multilevel regression and poststratification, to account for potential residual non-representativeness. Potential changes in risk factors for testing positive over time were also assessed. The study is registered with the ISRCTN Registry, ISRCTN21086382. Findings: Between April 26 and Nov 1, 2020, results were available from 1 191 170 samples from 280327 individuals; 5231 samples were positive overall, from 3923 individuals. The percentage of people testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 changed substantially over time, with an initial decrease between April 26 and June 28, 2020, from 0·40% (95% credible interval 0·29–0·54) to 0·06% (0·04–0·07), followed by low levels during July and August, 2020, before substantial increases at the end of August, 2020, with percentages testing positive above 1% from the end of October, 2020. Having a patient facing role and working outside your home were important risk factors for testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 at the end of the first wave (April 26 to June 28, 2020), but not in the second wave (from the end of August to Nov 1, 2020). Age (young adults, particularly those aged 17–24 years) was an important initial driver of increased positivity rates in the second wave. For example, the estimated percentage of individuals testing positive was more than six times higher in those aged 17–24 years than in those aged 70 years or older at the end of September, 2020. A substantial proportion of infections were in individuals not reporting symptoms around their positive test (45–68%, dependent on calendar time. Interpretation: Important risk factors for testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 varied substantially between the part of the first wave that was captured by the study (April to June, 2020) and the first part of the second wave of increased positivity rates (end of August to Nov 1, 2020), and a substantial proportion of infections were in individuals not reporting symptoms, indicating that continued monitoring for SARS-CoV-2 in the community will be important for managing the COVID-19 pandemic moving forwards

Testing a global standard for quantifying species recovery and assessing conservation impact.

Recognizing the imperative to evaluate species recovery and conservation impact, in 2012 the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) called for development of a "Green List of Species" (now the IUCN Green Status of Species). A draft Green Status framework for assessing species' progress toward recovery, published in 2018, proposed 2 separate but interlinked components: a standardized method (i.e., measurement against benchmarks of species' viability, functionality, and preimpact distribution) to determine current species recovery status (herein species recovery score) and application of that method to estimate past and potential future impacts of conservation based on 4 metrics (conservation legacy, conservation dependence, conservation gain, and recovery potential). We tested the framework with 181 species representing diverse taxa, life histories, biomes, and IUCN Red List categories (extinction risk). Based on the observed distribution of species' recovery scores, we propose the following species recovery categories: fully recovered, slightly depleted, moderately depleted, largely depleted, critically depleted, extinct in the wild, and indeterminate. Fifty-nine percent of tested species were considered largely or critically depleted. Although there was a negative relationship between extinction risk and species recovery score, variation was considerable. Some species in lower risk categories were assessed as farther from recovery than those at higher risk. This emphasizes that species recovery is conceptually different from extinction risk and reinforces the utility of the IUCN Green Status of Species to more fully understand species conservation status. Although extinction risk did not predict conservation legacy, conservation dependence, or conservation gain, it was positively correlated with recovery potential. Only 1.7% of tested species were categorized as zero across all 4 of these conservation impact metrics, indicating that conservation has, or will, play a role in improving or maintaining species status for the vast majority of these species. Based on our results, we devised an updated assessment framework that introduces the option of using a dynamic baseline to assess future impacts of conservation over the short term to avoid misleading results which were generated in a small number of cases, and redefines short term as 10 years to better align with conservation planning. These changes are reflected in the IUCN Green Status of Species Standard

Rehabilitation versus surgical reconstruction for non-acute anterior cruciate ligament injury (ACL SNNAP): a pragmatic randomised controlled trial

BackgroundAnterior cruciate ligament (ACL) rupture is a common debilitating injury that can cause instability of the knee. We aimed to investigate the best management strategy between reconstructive surgery and non-surgical treatment for patients with a non-acute ACL injury and persistent symptoms of instability.MethodsWe did a pragmatic, multicentre, superiority, randomised controlled trial in 29 secondary care National Health Service orthopaedic units in the UK. Patients with symptomatic knee problems (instability) consistent with an ACL injury were eligible. We excluded patients with meniscal pathology with characteristics that indicate immediate surgery. Patients were randomly assigned (1:1) by computer to either surgery (reconstruction) or rehabilitation (physiotherapy but with subsequent reconstruction permitted if instability persisted after treatment), stratified by site and baseline Knee Injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score—4 domain version (KOOS4). This management design represented normal practice. The primary outcome was KOOS4 at 18 months after randomisation. The principal analyses were intention-to-treat based, with KOOS4 results analysed using linear regression. This trial is registered with ISRCTN, ISRCTN10110685, and ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT02980367.FindingsBetween Feb 1, 2017, and April 12, 2020, we recruited 316 patients. 156 (49%) participants were randomly assigned to the surgical reconstruction group and 160 (51%) to the rehabilitation group. Mean KOOS4 at 18 months was 73·0 (SD 18·3) in the surgical group and 64·6 (21·6) in the rehabilitation group. The adjusted mean difference was 7·9 (95% CI 2·5–13·2; p=0·0053) in favour of surgical management. 65 (41%) of 160 patients allocated to rehabilitation underwent subsequent surgery according to protocol within 18 months. 43 (28%) of 156 patients allocated to surgery did not receive their allocated treatment. We found no differences between groups in the proportion of intervention-related complications.InterpretationSurgical reconstruction as a management strategy for patients with non-acute ACL injury with persistent symptoms of instability was clinically superior and more cost-effective in comparison with rehabilitation management

Making it Through the Wilderness: Trees as Markers of Gendered Identities in Sir Orfeo

Wood was an essential material in the Middle Ages, but trees – and human relationships with them – are too often ignored. Using trees as a lens through which to view medieval romance can provide us with a new perspective on the genre, on medieval gender norms, and on human relationships with the material non-human. This article focusses on the trees in the Middle English Sir Orfeo in order to interrogate how Orfeo’s identity is linked to trees and wooden objects. Although Orfeo’s harp is the most obvious wooden marker of his identity, the ympe-tree in Orfeo and Herodis’s orchard, the hollow tree in which Orfeo hides his harp while in the wilderness, and the ympe-tree as it appears in the Otherworld each mark different stages of Orfeo’s characterisation. Finally, Orfeo himself becomes a tree through metaphor when he returns to his kingdom. By exploring each of these trees in turn, this essay will show how the text can be read as one that breaks down binaries and hierarchies through its arboreal imagery, even if only briefly