2,444 research outputs found
Retreating to nature : rethinking 'therapeutic landscapes'
There is a long history of removing oneself from ‘society’ in order to recuperate or repair. This paper considers a yoga and massage retreat in Southern Spain, and what opportunities this retreat experience might offer for recuperation and the creation of healthy bodies. The paper positions ‘nature’ as an active participant, and as ‘enrolled’ in the experiences of the retreat as a ‘therapeutic landscape’, and questions how and what particular aspects of yoga practice (in intimate relation with place) give rise to therapeutic experiences
The Quest for the Missing Dust: II -- Two Orders of Magnitude of Evolution in the Dust-to-Gas Ratio Resolved Within Local Group Galaxies
We explore evolution in the dust-to-gas ratio with density within four
well-resolved Local Group galaxies - the LMC, SMC, M31, and M33. We do this
using new maps, which restore extended emission that was
missed by previous reductions. This improved data allows us to
probe the dust-to-gas ratio across 2.5 orders of magnitude in ISM surface
density. We find significant evolution in the dust-to-gas ratio, with
dust-to-gas varying with density within each galaxy by up to a factor 22.4. We
explore several possible reasons for this, and our favored explanation is dust
grain growth in denser regions of ISM. We find that the evolution of the
dust-to-gas ratio with ISM surface density is very similar between M31 and M33,
despite their large differences in mass, metallicity, and star formation rate;
conversely, we find M33 and the LMC to have very different dust-to-gas
evolution profiles, despite their close similarity in those properties. Our
dust-to-gas ratios address previous disagreement between UV- and FIR-based
dust-to-gas estimates for the Magellanic Clouds, removing the disagreement for
the LMC, and considerably reducing it for the SMC - with our new dust-to-gas
measurements being factors of 2.4 and 2.0 greater than the previous
far-infrared estimates, respectively. We also observe that the dust-to-gas
ratio appears to fall at the highest densities for the LMC, M31, and M33; this
is unlikely to be an actual physical phenomenon, and we posit that it may be
due to a combined effect of dark gas, and changing dust mass opacity.Comment: Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journa
The literacy practices for assessment in the vocational curriculum - the case of Hospitality
This article explores two case studies of the literacy practices of assessment in the vocational curriculum. Previous studies have identified learning in the vocational curriculum as being assessment-driven and that subjects often associated with limited levels of literacy actually require multiple literacy practices from students. Drawing upon studies of the literacy practices of assessment in the teaching of Hospitality, the study explores the academic and occupational forms of reading and writing required of students. These literacy practices are often invisible to both students and staff and yet are central to the success of students in relation to attainment. The article suggests that vocational subjects may actually be more demanding in the range of literacies required for assessment than is often considered to be the case
A Common Dominant TLR5 Stop Codon Polymorphism Abolishes Flagellin Signaling and Is Associated with Susceptibility to Legionnaires' Disease
Although Toll-like receptors (TLRs) are critical mediators of the immune response to pathogens, the influence of polymorphisms in this gene family on human susceptibility to infection is poorly understood. We demonstrated recently that TLR5 recognizes flagellin, a potent inflammatory stimulus present in the flagellar structure of many bacteria. Here, we show that a common stop codon polymorphism in the ligand-binding domain of TLR5 (TLR5392STOP) is unable to mediate flagellin signaling, acts in a dominant fashion, and is associated with susceptibility to pneumonia caused by Legionella pneumophila, a flagellated bacterium. We also show that flagellin is a principal stimulant of proinflammatory cytokine production in lung epithelial cells. Together, these observations suggest that TLR5392STOP increases human susceptibility to infection through an unusual dominant mechanism that compromises TLR5's essential role as a regulator of the lung epithelial innate immune response
Insights into the vertical stratification of microbial ecological roles across the deepest seawater column on Earth
The Earth’s oceans are a huge body of water with physicochemical properties and microbial community profiles that change with depth, which in turn influences their biogeochemical cycling potential. The differences between microbial communities and their functional potential in surface to hadopelagic water samples are only beginning to be explored. Here, we used metagenomics to investigate the microbial communities and their potential to drive biogeochemical cycling in seven different water layers down the vertical profile of the Challenger Deep (0–10,500 m) in the Mariana Trench, the deepest natural point in the Earth’s oceans. We recovered 726 metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) affiliated to 27 phyla. Overall, biodiversity increased in line with increased depth. In addition, the genome size of MAGs at ≥4000 m layers was slightly larger compared to those at 0–2000 m. As expected, surface waters were the main source of primary production, predominantly from Cyanobacteria. Intriguingly, microbes conducting an unusual form of nitrogen metabolism were identified in the deepest waters (>10,000 m), as demonstrated by an enrichment of genes encoding proteins involved in dissimilatory nitrate to ammonia conversion (DNRA), nitrogen fixation and urea transport. These likely facilitate the survival of ammonia-oxidizing archaea α lineage, which are typically present in environments with a high ammonia concentration. In addition, the microbial potential for oxidative phosphorylation and the glyoxylate shunt was enhanced in >10,000 m waters. This study provides novel insights into how microbial communities and their genetic potential for biogeochemical cycling differs through the Challenger deep water column, and into the unique adaptive lifestyle of microbes in the Earth’s deepest seawater
Forage Systems to Optimize Agronomic and Economic Performance in Organic Dairy Systems
Organic dairy production in the USA is growing, but most forage systems research focuses on conventional production practices. As a result, organic dairy producers have limited science-based information to assist with farm and livestock management. The objective of this project was to use a multi-faceted approach to determine the ideal species mixtures for organic dairy production as well as document forage quality, forage yield, soil characteristics, milk production and milk quality during the grazing season. The forages studied ranged from a single species monoculture to a four species mixture of warm and cool season grasses and legumes. Nine distinct forage systems were seeded into small plots at the University of Tennessee and University of Kentucky research farms using organic practices. These plots were monitored for three years for yield, quality, species composition, and soil characteristics. The four best performing forage systems were planted in small paddocks on organic dairy farms in Tennessee and Kentucky to evaluate forage yield, forage quality, seasonality of production, and suitability for on-farm milk production. The superior forage system was established on a 4 ha paddock and compared the existing forage system used by each of the dairy farms. These larger paddocks allowed continued measurements of forage yield and quality, as well as measurements of milk production, milk quality, and grazing behaviour of the animals. The information from this project is currently being incorporated into a total farm management system for organic dairy producers in the Southeastern USA
Sexuality in the Therapeutic Relationship: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of the Experiences of Gay Therapists
This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Journal of Gay & Lesbian Mental Health on 17/10/2014 date, available online: DOI: 10.1080/19359705.2014.957882Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) clients have reported experiencing heterosexist/homophobic attitudes from heterosexual therapists, but this has seldom been discussed for gay therapists. Such experiences could impact the therapeutic process and a gay therapist’s willingness to self-disclose their sexuality. Self- disclosure of sexuality can be therapeutically beneficial for LGBTQ or heterosexual clients. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with seven gay male therapists and analyzed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. Five themes emerged: affinity for work- ing with LGBTQ clients, heterosexual males’ resistance to the therapeutic process, the impact of homophobia within the therapeu- tic relationship, empathy through shared humanity, and utilizing therapist sexuality as a tool within the therapeutic relationship
Cluster Lenses
Clusters of galaxies are the most recently assembled, massive, bound
structures in the Universe. As predicted by General Relativity, given their
masses, clusters strongly deform space-time in their vicinity. Clusters act as
some of the most powerful gravitational lenses in the Universe. Light rays
traversing through clusters from distant sources are hence deflected, and the
resulting images of these distant objects therefore appear distorted and
magnified. Lensing by clusters occurs in two regimes, each with unique
observational signatures. The strong lensing regime is characterized by effects
readily seen by eye, namely, the production of giant arcs, multiple-images, and
arclets. The weak lensing regime is characterized by small deformations in the
shapes of background galaxies only detectable statistically. Cluster lenses
have been exploited successfully to address several important current questions
in cosmology: (i) the study of the lens(es) - understanding cluster mass
distributions and issues pertaining to cluster formation and evolution, as well
as constraining the nature of dark matter; (ii) the study of the lensed objects
- probing the properties of the background lensed galaxy population - which is
statistically at higher redshifts and of lower intrinsic luminosity thus
enabling the probing of galaxy formation at the earliest times right up to the
Dark Ages; and (iii) the study of the geometry of the Universe - as the
strength of lensing depends on the ratios of angular diameter distances between
the lens, source and observer, lens deflections are sensitive to the value of
cosmological parameters and offer a powerful geometric tool to probe Dark
Energy. In this review, we present the basics of cluster lensing and provide a
current status report of the field.Comment: About 120 pages - Published in Open Access at:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/j183018170485723/ . arXiv admin note:
text overlap with arXiv:astro-ph/0504478 and arXiv:1003.3674 by other author
A dimensional summation account of polymorphous category learning
This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Springer via the DOI in this record.Data and code availaibility: The data and code for all analyses for all experiments are available at the OSF addresses
given in each Results section. The stimuli are available at the same locations.Polymorphous concepts are hard to learn, and this is perhaps surprising because
they, like many natural concepts, have an overall similarity structure. However, the dimensional summation hypothesis (Milton & Wills, 2004) predicts this difficulty. It also makes a
number of other predictions about polymorphous concept formation, which are tested here.
In Experiment 1 we confirm the theory’s prediction that polymorphous concept formation
should be facilitated by deterministic pretraining on the constituent features of the stimulus.
This facilitation is relative to an equivalent amount of training on the polymorphous concept itself. In Experiments 2–4, the dimensional summation account of this single feature
pretraining effect is contrasted with some other accounts, including a more general strategic
account (Experiment 2), seriality of training and stimulus decomposition accounts (Experiment 3), and the role of errors (Experiment 4). The dimensional summation hypothesis
provides the best account of these data. In Experiment 5, a further prediction is confirmed
— the single feature pretraining effect is eliminated by a concurrent counting task. The
current experiments suggest the hypothesis that natural concepts might be acquired by the
deliberate serial summation of evidence. This idea has testable implications for classroom
learning.Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC
Skillful long-range prediction of European and North American winters
This is the final version. Available from AGU via the DOI in this recordUntil recently, long-range forecast systems showed only modest levels of skill in predicting surface winter climate around the Atlantic Basin and associated fluctuations in the North Atlantic Oscillation at seasonal lead times. Here we use a new forecast system to assess seasonal predictability of winter North Atlantic climate. We demonstrate that key aspects of European and North American winter climate and the surface North Atlantic Oscillation are highly predictable months ahead. We demonstrate high levels of prediction skill in retrospective forecasts of the surface North Atlantic Oscillation, winter storminess, near-surface temperature, and wind speed, all of which have high value for planning and adaptation to extreme winter conditions. Analysis of forecast ensembles suggests that while useful levels of seasonal forecast skill have now been achieved, key sources of predictability are still only partially represented and there is further untapped predictability. Key Points The winter NAO can be skilfully predicted months ahead The signal-to-noise ratio of the predictable signal is anomalously low Predictions of the risk of regional winter extremes are possibleThis work was supported by the Joint DECC/Defra Met Office Hadley Centre Climate Programme (GA01101), the UK Public Weather Service research program, and the European Union Framework 7 SPECS project. Leon Hermanson was funded as part of his Research Fellowship by Willis as part of Willis Research Network (WRN)
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