Broadening Responsibilities: Consideration Of The Potential To Broaden The Role Of Uniformed Fire Service Employees

What is this report about? This report, commissioned by the National Joint Council for Local Authority Fire and Rescue Services (NJC), aims to identify what impact, if any, firefighters can have on the delivery of emergency medical response and wider community health interventions in the UK. What are the overall conclusions? Appropriately trained and equipped firefighters co-responding1 to targeted, specific time critical medical events, such as cardiac arrest, can improve patient survival rates. The data also indicate that there is support from fire service staff – and a potential need from members of the public, particularly the elderly, isolated or vulnerable – to expand ‘wider work’. This includes winter warmth assessments, Safe and Well checks, community defibrillator training and client referrals when staff believe someone may have dementia, are vulnerable or even, for example, have substance dependencies such as an alcohol addiction. However, there is currently insufficient data to estimate the net benefit of this work

Assessing anthropogenic noise impacts and relevant soundscape cues for marine invertebrates: leveraging squid and coral reefs as model systems

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Biological Oceanography at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 2021.Sound is utilized by marine animal taxa for many ecologically important functions, and these taxa are vulnerable to adverse effects of anthropogenic noise on hearing and behavior. However, little is known about marine invertebrates’ responses to anthropogenic noise, and the ambient environmental sounds (“soundscapes”) they detect and respond to. Most acoustic studies report sound pressure (detected by mammals and some fish), but few report particle motion, the back-and-forth vibratory component of sound detected by marine invertebrates. I investigated invertebrate use of and response to sounds in two facets: 1) behavioral responses of longfin squid, Doryteuthis pealeii to anthropogenic noise, and 2) particle motion of coral reef soundscapes in the U.S. Virgin Islands. In laboratory-based experiments I exposed D. pealeii to construction noise originally recorded from an offshore wind farm. I found significant increases in squids’ alarm responses and in failed prey capture attempts during noise. Conversely, noise exposure had no significant effects on reproductive behaviors of groups of D. pealeii, indicating high motivation of these squid to reproduce during this stressor. Collectively, these experiments revealed the importance of considering behavioral context in studies and regulatory decisions regarding invertebrates’ susceptibility to anthropogenic noise impacts. In studying coral reef soundscapes, I reported particle motion trends over several months for coral reefs varying in habitat quality, including coral cover and fish abundance. I found acoustic properties over which particle motion closely scaled with pressure, and others over which it did not. I compared soundscape data with particle motion hearing thresholds, and found that invertebrates may only detect high amplitude and low frequency transient sound cues on reefs, such as those produced by fishes. My research bring new insights on natural and anthropogenic sound cues detectable by marine invertebrates, and how and when invertebrates will be vulnerable to anthropogenic noise pollution.My graduate work was funded in part by the US Department of Interior, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Environmental Studies Program through Interagency Agreement Number M17PG00029 with the U.S. Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (funding to Aran Mooney and Jenni Stanley). My work was also supported by the NSF Biological Oceanography award OCE-1536782 (funding to Aran Mooney). I received tuition and stipend support from the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program [Grant No. 2388357]. The Academic Program Office at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution provided tuition and stipend support as well as travel support. The MIT Student Assistance Fund, the Aquatic Noise 2019 Organizing Committee, and the Acoustical Society of America also provided travel support

Scientific realism and final causes: A new method for visualizing final causes in iconic models

In light of documented methodological issues and reproducibility failures, psychologists have sought to improve the scientific credibility of their field. Unfortunately, these efforts have not addressed psychology's problematic foundational philosophy, logical positivism, which has largely been abandoned by modern philosophers. Notably, other older sciences such as chemistry and physics have also replaced logical positivism with a stronger foundation, namely, philosophical realism. This thesis demonstrates how psychologists can overcome their methodological issues and reproducibility failures by likewise embracing a realist philosophy of science that includes Aristotle's four cases (viz., the material, formal, efficient, and final causes). Final causes are particularly important as they explain the purpose or reason for the occurrence of an event in nature. Utilizing Perceptual Control Theory, this thesis provides a general methodology for visually representing such causes in iconic models. Perceptual Control Theory posits that organisms are aware of sensations in the environment and respond to the awareness of these sensations towards some goal (i.e., final cause). In other words, behavior is a result of a goal held by the organism and is not merely produced from the environment. Data from a perceptual control theory task were collected and analyzed to determine the number of individuals whose responses matched the proposed final cause model. Results were highly successful as every individual's set of responses could be traced accurately through the model. Further implications and the importance of these modeling procedures are discussed. Utilizing the modeling technique developed in this thesis, psychologists can begin to rebuild their research upon the foundation of philosophical realism. In doing so, psychologists will be enabled to produce fruitful research which also restores the individual person to the center of investigation, offers inferences to best explanations, improves model testing and theory development, and most importantly, restores teleological explanations to psychological science

Comparison of dimethyl sulfoxide treated highly conductive poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrenesulfonate) electrodes for use in indium tin oxide-free organic electronic photovoltaic devices

Indium tin oxide (ITO)-free organic photovoltaic (OPV) devices were fabricated using highly conductive poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) as the transparent conductive electrode (TCE). The intrinsic conductivity of the PEDOT:PSS films was improved by two different dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) treatments – (i) DMSO was added directly to the PEDOT:PSS solution (PEDOT:PSSADD) and (ii) a pre-formed PEDOT:PSS film was immersed in DMSO (PEDOT:PSSIMM). X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and conductive atomic force microscopy (CAFM) studies showed a large amount of PSS was removed from the PEDOT:PSSIMM electrode surface. OPV devices based on a poly(3-hexylthiophene):[6,6]-phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester (P3HT:PCBM) bulk hetrojunction showed that the PEDOT:PSSIMM electrode out-performed the PEDOT:PSSADD electrode, primarily due to an increase in short circuit current density from 6.62 mA cm−2 to 7.15 mA cm−2. The results highlight the importance of optimising the treatment of PEDOT:PSS electrodes and demonstrate their potential as an alternative TCE for rapid processing and low-cost OPV and other organic electronic devices

National Outreach Programming for Landowners—Natural Resource Enterprises

We conducted a survey of Mississippi landowners to determine revenues collected and expenditures incurred during 1996-1998 for fee hunting on their properties (inflated to 2011 estimates). Study findings revealed that respondents diversified incomes derived through fee hunting enterprises on their lands. This information has been used to design a series of multi-state landowner workshops about natural resource enterprises development and conservation practices on private lands. With state and local collaborator assistance, we have conducted over 50 landowner workshops in nine U.S. states and Sweden and have received requests to expand outreach programming to other U.S. states

Daily cycle in oxygen consumption by the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis Stephenson

© The Author(s), 2016. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Biology Open (2016): 1-4, doi:10.1242/bio.013474.In bilaterian animals, the circadian clock is intimately involved in regulating energetic metabolism. Although cnidarians exhibit diel behavioral rhythms including cycles in locomotor activity, tentacle extension and spawning, daily cycles in cnidarian metabolism have not been described. To explore a possible circadian metabolic cycle, we maintained the anemone Nematostella vectensis in a 12 h light/dark cycle, a reversed light cycle, or in constant darkness. Oxygen consumption rates were measured at intervals using an optical oxygen meter. Respiration rates responded to entrainment with higher rates during light periods. During a second experiment with higher temporal resolution, respiration rates peaked late in the light period. The diel pattern could be detected after six days in constant darkness. Together, our results suggest that respiration rates in Nematostella exhibit a daily cycle that may be under circadian control and that the cycle in respiration rate is not driven by the previously described nocturnal increase in locomotor activity in this species.Funding was provided by the US–Israel Binational Science Foundation [Grant 201187]. I.T.J. was supported by the WHOI Summer Student Fellow program, which is partially funded by the National Science Foundation Research Experience for Undergraduates program. A.M.R. was supported by National Institutes of Heath [R15GM114740]

Model-assisted measurements of suspension-feeding flow velocities

Author Posting. © Company of Biologists, 2017. This article is posted here by permission of Company of Biologists for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Experimental Biology 220 (2017): 2096-2107, doi:10.1242/jeb.147934.Benthic marine suspension feeders provide an important link between benthic and pelagic ecosystems. The strength of this link is determined by suspension-feeding rates. Many studies have measured suspension-feeding rates using indirect clearance-rate methods, which are based on the depletion of suspended particles. Direct methods that measure the flow of water itself are less common, but they can be more broadly applied because, unlike indirect methods, direct methods are not affected by properties of the cleared particles. We present pumping rates for three species of suspension feeders, the clams Mya arenaria and Mercenaria mercenaria and the tunicate Ciona intestinalis, measured using a direct method based on particle image velocimetry (PIV). Past uses of PIV in suspension-feeding studies have been limited by strong laser reflections that interfere with velocity measurements proximate to the siphon. We used a new approach based on fitting PIV-based velocity profile measurements to theoretical profiles from computational fluid dynamic (CFD) models, which allowed us to calculate inhalant siphon Reynolds numbers (Re). We used these inhalant Re and measurements of siphon diameters to calculate exhalant Re, pumping rates, and mean inlet and outlet velocities. For the three species studied, inhalant Re ranged from 8 to 520, and exhalant Re ranged from 15 to 1073. Volumetric pumping rates ranged from 1.7 to 7.4 l h−1 for M. arenaria, 0.3 to 3.6 l h−1 for M. mercenaria and 0.07 to 0.97 l h−1 for C. intestinalis. We also used CFD models based on measured pumping rates to calculate capture regions, which reveal the spatial extent of pumped water. Combining PIV data with CFD models may be a valuable approach for future suspension-feeding studies.This research is part of a collaborative project (National Science Foundation grant OCE-1260232 to P.A.J., and grant OCE-1260199 to J. Crimaldi, University of Colorado). Funding was also provided by NSF grant OIA-1355457 to Maine EPSCoR at the University of Maine (D.C.B.).2018-05-3

The potential for dietary factors to prevent or treat osteoarthritis

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a degenerative joint disease for which there are no disease-modifying drugs. It is a leading cause of disability in the UK. Increasing age and obesity are both major risk factors for OA and the health and economic burden of this disease will increase in the future. Focusing on compounds from the habitual diet that may prevent the onset or slow the progression of OA is a strategy that has been under-investigated to date. An approach that relies on dietary modification is clearly attractive in terms of risk/benefit and more likely to be implementable at the population level. However, before undertaking a full clinical trial to examine potential efficacy, detailed molecular studies are required in order to optimise the design. This review focuses on potential dietary factors that may reduce the risk or progression of OA, including micronutrients, fatty acids, flavonoids and other phytochemicals. It therefore ignores data coming from classical inflammatory arthritides and nutraceuticals such as glucosamine and chondroitin. In conclusion, diet offers a route by which the health of the joint can be protected and OA incidence or progression decreased. In a chronic disease, with risk factors increasing in the population and with no pharmaceutical cure, an understanding of this will be crucial