Should we turn the tent? Inuit women and climate change

Most of the climate change literature for Arctic Canada in the social sciences has focused on men’s knowledge and experiences. Drawing on research from Qikiqtarjuaq and Clyde River, Nunavut, we explore Inuit women’s perspectives on recent environmental changes, many of which are often attributed to climate change by Inuit or others. We divide issues resulting from environmental change into primary and secondary effects. Primary effects are changes in environmental features that affect, for example, hunting, fishing, and travelling. Secondary effects occur in the community as a result of environmental change. These include changes in the use and condition of country products like seal skins, and the psychological and social impact of environmental changes, such as going out on the land less often due to fear of dangerous conditions. We also offer a preliminary discussion on women’s role in responses to climate change, through their often dominant economic and political roles in their communities, the territory, and various wider global governance fora. Our research indicates that gender helps shape Inuit knowledge of environmental change, as well as social responses to perceptions of change. By examining women’s perceptions of environmental change, we draw attention to the social aspects and also highlight how women can contribute to adaptation, not only to physical changes but also to the resulting social changes.La majeure partie des publications en sciences sociales sur le changement climatique dans l’Arctique canadien a mis l’accent sur les connaissances et les expériences des hommes. En nous appuyant sur des recherches faites à Qikiqtarjuaq et Clyde River, au Nunavut, nous explorons les perspectives des femmes inuit sur les récents changements environnementaux, dont plusieurs sont souvent attribués aux changements climatiques par les Inuit ou d'autres personnes. Nous séparons les enjeux résultant des changements environnementaux en effets primaires et secondaires. Les effets primaires sont des changements environnementaux qui touchent, par exemple, la chasse, la pêche et les voyages. Les effets secondaires se produisent dans la communauté à la suite des changements environnementaux. Ces derniers sont notamment des changements dans l'utilisation et l’état des produits dérivés de la chasse, comme les peaux de phoque, et l’impact psychologique et social des changements environnementaux, notamment la diminution des sorties en dehors de la communauté en raison de la crainte de conditions dangereuses. Nous offrons également une discussion préliminaire sur le rôle des femmes dans les réponses au changement climatique, à travers leurs rôles économiques et politiques souvent dominants dans leurs communautés, sur le territoire, et par le biais de divers forums de gouvernance mondiale. Nos recherches indiquent que le sexe des individus joue un rôle dans l’élaboration des connaissances des Inuit sur les changements environnementaux, ainsi que dans les réponses sociales à la perception du changement. L’examen des perceptions des femmes sur les changements environnementaux a attiré notre attention sur les aspects sociaux de cet enjeu et met également en évidence comment les femmes peuvent contribuer à l’adaptation, non seulement à des changements physiques, mais aussi aux changements sociaux qui en découlent

Thinking through affect: Inuit knowledge on the tundra and in global environmental politics

Inuit residents of the Canadian Arctic balance a commitment to the land and to land-based traditions with full engagement in governance across different scales of decision-making. In this article, I suggest that thinking with and through 'affect' offers a promising approach to conceptualizing the dynamic role of Inuit knowledge across these different scales. Food sharing in remote Inuit settlements tangibly demonstrates the affective dimensions of Inuit knowledge, reflecting practices rooted in social and ethical relations with land, animals, and human community. Affect also informs the role of Inuit knowledge in international environmental negotiations. I explore this relationship in the work of the Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC), an organization that advocated for a ban on persistent organic pollutants (POP) in the negotiations leading up to the Stockholm Convention. Facilitated by the gift of an Inuit carving, ICC shared a moral and ethical perspective that helped connect negotiators to the physical harms caused by pollutants. Drawing on the philosophy of former ICC Chair Sheila Watt-Cloutier and the non-capitalist framework of J.K. Gibson-Graham (2006), I examine the role this gift played in the POPs negotiations. I conclude that thinking through affect offers new ways of conceptualizing the emergent possibilities of environmental politics and practice. Keywords: Indigenous knowledge, persistent organic pollutants, Stockholm Convention, environmental politics, the gift, food sharing, Gibson-Graham

Cholesterol-Induced Buckling in Physisorbed Polymer-Tethered Lipid Monolayers

The influence of cholesterol concentration on the formation of buckling structures is studied in a physisorbed polymer-tethered lipid monolayer system using epifluorescence microscopy (EPI) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). The monolayer system, built using the Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) technique, consists of 3 mol % poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) lipopolymers and various concentrations of the phospholipid, 1-stearoyl-2-oleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (SOPC), and cholesterol (CHOL). In the absence of CHOL, AFM micrographs show only occasional buckling structures, which is caused by the presence of the lipopolymers in the monolayer. In contrast, a gradual increase of CHOL concentration in the range of 0–40 mol % leads to fascinating film stress relaxation phenomena in the form of enhanced membrane buckling. Buckling structures are moderately deficient in CHOL, but do not cause any notable phospholipid-lipopolymer phase separation. Our experiments demonstrate that membrane buckling in physisorbed polymer-tethered membranes can be controlled through CHOL-mediated adjustment of membrane elastic properties. They further show that CHOL may have a notable impact on molecular confinement in the presence of crowding agents, such as lipopolymers. Our results are significant, because they offer an intriguing prospective on the role of CHOL on the material properties in complex membrane architecture

Development of an Effective Procedure Writer’s Guide using a Human Factors and Regulatory Compliance Approach

PresentationWell-written procedures are an integral part of any industrial organization for safe operation, managing risks, and continuous improvement. Regulatory bodies around the world require industries to have current, accurate, and appropriate procedures for most processes. Although the importance of procedures is recognized by all industries in general, significant incidents have occurred in the past due to procedural breakdowns. Some of the procedural breakdowns come from obvious problems such as the procedure not being available or the procedure being wrong. However, some incidents have occurred when correct procedures were available and the operator used those procedures. In these instances, the reason why operators do not follow procedures correctly may be attributable to many factors, one of them being that the procedure is presented or designed in a manner that does not sufficiently communicate to the operators the information that is needed in a manner that is easily and quickly understood. The work presented here is focused on the latter circumstance and is part of a program of research that will ultimately lead to the development of a writer’s guide for procedures that supports operators’ comprehension and compliance with all types of industrial procedures. The writer’s guide is based on empirical findings from human factors and human performance studies and provides writers with information on how to present procedures in a manner that is clear, thorough, and (if necessary) implementable with short notice. For the first phase of the project, a sample of the regulations and standards from several industries were used to identify procedure writing practices necessary for ensure regulatory compliance. Regulations and industrial standards from around the world were organized to reflect common ideas and the implications in terms of human factors needs were identified with regard to procedure design. Any human factors (HF) that had implications for the writer’s guide that had empirical support, were included in the writer’s guide (with the reference) with an explanation of the HF implication and empirical support. The writer’s guide developed is structured to allow procedure writers access to guidance on various types of procedures they are writing, the type of information they are trying to communicate, and methods for maintaining accurate and current procedures. As mentioned, the current project is the beginning of a program of research and then next phase will include feedback from operators regarding the challenges they face when using procedures

Effect of non-uniform temperature gradient and magnetic field on Marangoni convection in a micropolar fluid

Effect of a non-uniform basic temperature gradient and magnetic field on the onset of Marangoni convection in a horizontal micropolar fluid layer bounded below by a rigid plate and above by non-deformable free surface subjected to a constant heat flux, is investigated in this study. Six different non-uniform basic state temperature profiles are considered. The resulting eigenvalue problem is solved using the Rayleigh-Ritz technique, and the influence of various parameters on the onset of convection is discussed. It is observed that the micropolar fluid layer heated from below is more stable compared to the classical fluid layer

The Contributions of Community-Based Monitoring and Traditional Knowledge to Arctic Observing Networks: Reflections on the State of the Field

Community-based monitoring (CBM) in the Arctic is gaining increasing support from a wide range of interested parties, including community members, scientists, government agencies, and funders. Through CBM initiatives, Arctic residents conduct or are involved in ongoing observing and monitoring activities. Arctic Indigenous peoples have been observing the environment for millennia, and CBM often incorporates traditional knowledge, which may be used independently from or in partnership with conventional scientific monitoring methods. Drawing on insights from the first Arctic Observing Summit, we provide an overview of the state of CBM in the Arctic. The CBM approach to monitoring is centered on community needs and interests. It offers fine-grained, local-scale data that are readily accessible to community and municipal decision makers. In spite of these advantages, CBM initiatives remain little documented and are often unconnected to wider networks, with the result that many practitioners lack a clear sense of the field and how best to support its growth and development. CBM initiatives are implemented within legal and governance frameworks that vary significantly both within and among different national contexts. Further documentation of differences and similarities among Arctic communities in relation to observing needs, interests, and legal and institutional capacities will help assess how CBM can contribute to Arctic observing networks. While CBM holds significant potential to meet observing needs of communities, more investment and experimentation are needed to determine how observations and data generated through CBM approaches might effectively inform decision making beyond the community level.Dans l’Arctique, la surveillance communautaire (SC) reçoit un appui de plus en plus grand de la part de nombreuses parties intéressées, dont les membres de la communauté, les scientifiques, les organismes gouvernementaux et les bailleurs de fonds. Dans le cadre des initiatives de SC, des habitants de l’Arctique effectuent des tâches permanentes d’observation et de surveillance ou participent à de telles tâches. Les peuples indigènes de l’Arctique observent l’environnement depuis des millénaires. Souvent, la SC fait appel aux connaissances traditionnelles, connaissances qui peuvent être employées seules ou conjointement avec les méthodes classiques de surveillance scientifique. Nous nous sommes appuyés sur les connaissances dérivées du premier sommet d’observation de l’Arctique pour donner un aperçu de l’état de la SC dans l’Arctique. La méthode de SC est centrée sur les besoins et les intérêts de la communauté. Elle permet d’obtenir des données à grain fin à l’échelle locale, données qui sont facilement accessibles par la communauté et les preneurs de décisions municipaux. Malgré ces avantages, il existe peu de documentation au sujet des initiatives de SC et souvent, ces initiatives ne sont pas rattachées aux grands réseaux, ce qui fait que bien des intervenants ne comprennent pas clairement ce qui se passe sur le terrain et ne savent pas vraiment comment appuyer la croissance et le développement de la surveillance communautaire. Les initiatives de SC respectent les cadres de référence nécessaires en matière de droit et de gouvernance, et ceux-ci varient considérablement au sein des contextes nationaux. L’enrichissement de la documentation en ce qui a trait aux différences et aux similitudes qui existent entre les communautés de l’Arctique en matière de besoins d’observation, d’intérêts et de capacités juridiques et institutionnelles aidera à déterminer en quoi la SC pourra jouer un rôle au sein des réseaux d’observation de l’Arctique. Bien que la SC ait la possibilité de jouer un rôle important dans les besoins d’observation des communautés, il y a lieu de faire plus d’investissements et d’expériences pour déterminer comment les observations et les données découlant des méthodes de SC pourront favoriser la prise de décisions au-delà des communautés

A survey of performance enhancement of transmission control protocol (TCP) in wireless ad hoc networks

This Article is provided by the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund - Copyright @ 2011 Springer OpenTransmission control protocol (TCP), which provides reliable end-to-end data delivery, performs well in traditional wired network environments, while in wireless ad hoc networks, it does not perform well. Compared to wired networks, wireless ad hoc networks have some specific characteristics such as node mobility and a shared medium. Owing to these specific characteristics of wireless ad hoc networks, TCP faces particular problems with, for example, route failure, channel contention and high bit error rates. These factors are responsible for the performance degradation of TCP in wireless ad hoc networks. The research community has produced a wide range of proposals to improve the performance of TCP in wireless ad hoc networks. This article presents a survey of these proposals (approaches). A classification of TCP improvement proposals for wireless ad hoc networks is presented, which makes it easy to compare the proposals falling under the same category. Tables which summarize the approaches for quick overview are provided. Possible directions for further improvements in this area are suggested in the conclusions. The aim of the article is to enable the reader to quickly acquire an overview of the state of TCP in wireless ad hoc networks.This study is partly funded by Kohat University of Science & Technology (KUST), Pakistan, and the Higher Education Commission, Pakistan

Gene Expression Disruptions of Organism versus Organ in Drosophila Species Hybrids

Hybrid dysfunctions, such as sterility, may result in part from disruptions in the regulation of gene expression. Studies of hybrids within the Drosophila simulans clade have reported genes expressed above or below the expression observed in their parent species, and such misexpression is associated with male sterility in multigenerational backcross hybrids. However, these studies often examined whole bodies rather than testes or had limited replication using less-sensitive but global techniques. Here, we use a new RNA isolation technique to re-examine hybrid gene expression disruptions in both testes and whole bodies from single Drosophila males by real-time quantitative RT-PCR. We find two early-spermatogenesis transcripts are underexpressed in hybrid whole-bodies but not in assays of testes alone, while two late-spermatogenesis transcripts seem to be underexpressed in both whole-bodies and testes alone. Although the number of transcripts surveyed is limited, these results provide some support for a previous hypothesis that the spermatogenesis pathway in these sterile hybrids may be disrupted sometime after the expression of the early meiotic arrest genes

Large introns in relation to alternative splicing and gene evolution: a case study of Drosophila bruno-3

Background: Alternative splicing (AS) of maturing mRNA can generate structurally and functionally distinct transcripts from the same gene. Recent bioinformatic analyses of available genome databases inferred a positive correlation between intron length and AS. To study the interplay between intron length and AS empirically and in more detail, we analyzed the diversity of alternatively spliced transcripts (ASTs) in the Drosophila RNA-binding Bruno-3 (Bru-3) gene. This gene was known to encode thirteen exons separated by introns of diverse sizes, ranging from 71 to 41,973 nucleotides in D. melanogaster. Although Bru-3's structure is expected to be conducive to AS, only two ASTs of this gene were previously described. Results: Cloning of RT-PCR products of the entire ORF from four species representing three diverged Drosophila lineages provided an evolutionary perspective, high sensitivity, and long-range contiguity of splice choices currently unattainable by high-throughput methods. Consequently, we identified three new exons, a new exon fragment and thirty-three previously unknown ASTs of Bru-3. All exon-skipping events in the gene were mapped to the exons surrounded by introns of at least 800 nucleotides, whereas exons split by introns of less than 250 nucleotides were always spliced contiguously in mRNA. Cases of exon loss and creation during Bru-3 evolution in Drosophila were also localized within large introns. Notably, we identified a true de novo exon gain: exon 8 was created along the lineage of the obscura group from intronic sequence between cryptic splice sites conserved among all Drosophila species surveyed. Exon 8 was included in mature mRNA by the species representing all the major branches of the obscura group. To our knowledge, the origin of exon 8 is the first documented case of exonization of intronic sequence outside vertebrates. Conclusion: We found that large introns can promote AS via exon-skipping and exon turnover during evolution likely due to frequent errors in their removal from maturing mRNA. Large introns could be a reservoir of genetic diversity, because they have a greater number of mutable sites than short introns. Taken together, gene structure can constrain and/or promote gene evolution

UK and Ireland Joint Advisory Group (JAG) consensus statements for training and certification in diagnostic endoscopic ultrasound (EUS)

Background and Aims: International endoscopy societies vary in their approach for credentialing individuals in endoscopic ultrasound (EUS) to enable independent practice; however, there is no consensus in this or its implementation. In 2019, the Joint Advisory Group on GI Endoscopy (JAG) commissioned a working group to examine the evidence relating to this process for EUS. The aim of this was to develop evidence-based recommendations for EUS training and certification in the UK.Methods: Under the oversight of the JAG quality assurance team, a modified Delphi process was conducted which included major stakeholders from the UK and Ireland. A formal literature review was made, initial questions for study were proposed and recommendations for training and certification in EUS were formulated after a rigorous assessment using the Grading of Recommendation Assessment, Development and Evaluation tool and subjected to electronic voting to identify accepted statements. These were peer reviewed by JAG and relevant stakeholder societies before consensus on the final EUS certification pathway was achieved.Results: 39 initial questions were proposed of which 33 were deemed worthy of assessment and finally formed the key recommendations. The statements covered four key domains, such as: definition of competence (13 statements), acquisition of competence (10), assessment of competence (5) and postcertification mentorship (5). Key recommendations include: (1) minimum of 250 hands-on cases before an assessment for competency can be made, (2) attendance at the JAG basic EUS course, (3) completing a minimum of one formative direct observation of procedural skills (DOPS) every 10 cases to allow the learning curve in EUS training to be adequately studied, (4) competent performance in summative DOPS assessments and (5) a period of mentorship over a 12-month period is recommended as minimum to support and mentor new service providers.Conclusions: An evidence-based certification pathway has been commissioned by JAG to support and quality assure EUS training. This will form the basis to improve quality of training and safety standards in EUS in the UK and Ireland.</p