The Frosty Winters of Ireland: Poems of Climate Crisis 1739-41

The period between 1450 and 1850 in Europe is often referred to as the ‘Little Ice Age’ but it was in the years 1739-1741 that Ireland experienced some of the most severe weather conditions ever recorded in the country. The Great Frost, as it later became known, caused unprecedented disturbance in Ireland’s ecology: lakes and rivers were frozen, potato crops and grain harvests were ruined, and livestock and humans perished from hunger and disease. This devastation of the natural world was accompanied by upheaval in civic life, including the break-up of rural communities and an increase in crime and social unrest. Though the extraordinary weather witnessed at this time has largely been forgotten, it calls attention to the impact of climatic conditions on both human and non-human environments, as well as exploring the challenge these circumstances presented to existing human perceptions of the relationship between man and nature. Many of the poems written and published at the time explore this unprecedented experience, some drawing on the conventions of poetic representations of the natural world, others offering innovative expressions of diverse conditions. Using the work of well known figures such as William Dunkin and Laurence Whyte, as well as hitherto uncollected texts by lesser-known and anonymous writers, this essay will explore the poetic mediation of this important environmental event and consider its impact on our understanding of the natural world in Ireland in this period

The effect of habitat creation for predatory arthropods on aphid populations in winter wheat

Data are presented from research conducted to investigate the role of beetle banks in the biological control of cereal aphids. A project designed to compare overwintering predator densities in a newly established beetle bank and two conventional hedgebanks over a five year period, indicated that predator densities were similar to or greater than those in the surrounding hedgebanks by the second year of the beetle banks establishment Predators found overwintering on the beetle bank included many species that are considered to be important predators of cereal aphids. A further overwintering experiment conducted over a four year period, investigated five different grass species sown on beetle banks and a natural regeneration treatment, for their suitability in providing overwintering cover for polyphagous predators. Overall, the highest overwintering predator densities were recorded in grass species with tussocky growth forms and the lowest predator densities were recorded in treatments where the vegetation on the beetle bank had been allowed to naturally regenerate. During the spring and summer, a predator exclusion experiment was conducted to explore the effect of. polyphagous predators emigrating from a beetle bank on cereal aphid populations in an adjacent crop of winter wheat. The results from this experiment indicated that polyphagous predators significantly reduced aphid populations in the crop, though the impact of polyphagous predation appeared to decrease with increasing distance away from the beetle bank. The results from the exclusion experiment, together with the results from a further experiment investigating the effect of the presence or absence of a beetle bank on the distribution of polyphagous predators in crops, also indicated that beetle banks aid the rapid colonisation of cereal fields by polyphagous predators in the early spring, when the potential for aphid control is optimal. Cost-benefit analysis suggested that an aphid population kept below spray threshold levels C by enhanced natural enemy populations emigrating from a beetle bank, could result in a small but potentially useful saving in insecticide costs. The results are discussed in the context of current agricultural policies and in relation to the potential environmental benefits of reducing the .reliance upon chemical methods to control cereal aphids. Further research needs are also identified

Psychiatrists’ views on recovery colleges

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide insight into the views and attitudes that psychiatrists have about Recovery Colleges (RCs). Design/methodology/approach: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 psychiatrists from the Norfolk and Suffolk Foundation Trust (NSFT). Findings: Psychiatrists had a strong concept of the RC model, and were broadly positive about it, recognising many benefits. Various challenges were also acknowledged including how the RC model interacts with the medical model. Originality/value: This is the first known study to explore solely psychiatrist’s views of RCs, a group who are likely to be particularly influential within services. The sample was relatively unexposed to RCs, enabling insight into how the RC is perceived by those outside of its functioning as well as the state of wider organisational support, which is important for the success of RCs

The Genetic Basis of Cognitive Impairment and Dementia in Parkinson's Disease.

Cognitive dysfunction is a common feature of Parkinson's disease (PD) with mild cognitive impairment affecting around a quarter of patients in the early stages of their disease, and approximately half developing dementia by 10 years from diagnosis. However, the pattern of cognitive impairments and their speed of evolution vary markedly between individuals. While some of this variability may relate to extrinsic factors and comorbidities, inherited genetic heterogeneity is also known to play an important role. A number of common genetic variants have been identified, which contribute to cognitive function in PD, including variants in catechol-O-methyltransferase, microtubule-associated protein tau, and apolipoprotein E. Furthermore, rarer mutations in glucocerebrosidase and α-synuclein and are strongly associated with dementia risk in PD. This review explores the functional impact of these variants on cognition in PD and discusses how such genotype-phenotype associations provide a window into the mechanistic basis of cognitive heterogeneity in this disorder. This has consequent implications for the development of much more targeted therapeutic strategies for cognitive symptoms in PD.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Frontiers via http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2016.0008

Enhancing drought monitoring and early warning for the UK through stakeholder co-enquiries

Drought is widely written about as a complex, multi-faceted phenomenon, with complexity arising not just from biophysical drivers, but also human understanding and experiences of drought and its impacts. This has led to a proliferation of different drought definitions and indicators, creating a challenge for the design of drought monitoring and early warning (MEW) systems, which are a key component of drought preparedness. Here, we report on social learning workshops conducted in the UK aimed at improving the design and operation of drought MEW systems, as part of a wider international project including parallel events in the USA and Australia. We highlight key themes for MEW design and use: ‘types’ of droughts; indicators and impacts; uncertainty; capacity and decision-making; communications; and governance. We shed light on the complexity of drought through the multiple framings of the problem by different actors, and how this influences their needs for MEW. Our findings suggest that MEW systems need to embrace this complexity and strive for consistent messaging while also tailoring information for a wide range of audiences in terms of the drought characteristics, temporal and spatial scales, and impacts that are important for their particular decision-making processes. We end with recommendations to facilitate this approach

Effects of gravitational darkening on the determination of fundamental parameters in fast rotating B-type stars

In this paper we develop a calculation code to account for the effects carried by fast rotation on the observed spectra of early-type stars. Stars are assumed to be in rigid rotation and the grid of plane-parallel model atmospheres used to represent the gravitational darkening are calculated by means of a non-LTE approach. Attention is paid on the relation between the apparent and parent non-rotating counterpart stellar fundamental parameters and apparent and true vsini parameters as a function of the rotation rate Omega/Omega_c, stellar mass and inclination angle. It is shown that omission of gravitational darkening in the analysis of chemical abundances of CNO elements can produce systematic overestimation or underestimation, depending on the lines used, rotational rate and inclination angle. The proximity of Be stars to the critical rotation is re-discussed by correcting not only the vsini of 130 Be stars, but also their effective temperature and gravity to account for stellar rotationally induced geometrical distortion and for the concomitant gravitational darkening effect. We concluded that the increase of the vsini estimate is accompanied by an even higher value of the stellar equatorial critical velocity, so that the most probable average rate of angular velocity of Be stars attains Omega/Omega_c ~ 0.88.Comment: 20 pages, 16 figures. Submitted for publication in A&

External points of view in the PrEPUK News Corpus

This work examines the use of reported external points of view (EPVs), with a focus on quotations, in a corpus of U.K. news coverage of Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP). Forms of external attribution have been shown to be a prominent feature of news discourse (e.g., Juillan, 2011; Semino and Short, 2004) and this has implications for public understanding of health issues. In the case of PrEP, the polarised views found in news coverage (Jaspal and Nerlich, 2017) have implications for the wider support and uptake of the treatment. We report the findings of a corpus-assisted study of quotation, outlining patterns in the prevalence and distribution of quotes across the corpus according to frequently-cited sources and reporting verbs. Drawing on the Appraisal framework (White, 2012), we then provide a closer analysis of three articles covering the same news event to discuss the broader integration of external points of view and the ways in which journalists indicate their dialogistic association with the views they report. We find that forms of speech presentation in quotations are relatively uniform, with journalists favouring — in particular — forms of the reporting verb say, or declining to use a reporting expression at all. This reflects a broader practice in which dialogistic association with quotations is largely unmarked. We find that journalists rely on the content of quotations for inscribed attitude, yet still invoke attitudes towards EPVs through the labelling of their sources, the reporting verbs they use and through the inclusion and positioning of EPVs in the article

PrEP in the Press:A corpus-assisted discourse analysis of how users of HIV-prevention treatment are represented in British newspapers

This research reports on newspaper representations of PrEP, a HIV-prevention drug recently made available on a trial basis to at-risk individuals in England. Using corpus-assisted queer critical discourse analysis, we investigate the linguistic representations of the users of PrEP within three leading British newspapers from across the political spectrum between 2014-2018. We find that users of PrEP are most frequently positioned as 'men who have sex with men' or 'gay men', a representation that we argue limits public awareness of HIV itself, and of available HIV prevention. Furthermore, while the most left-leaning newspaper in our corpus focuses on the human benefit of PrEP, the most right-leaning newspaper takes a moralistic stance which frames gay men as risk-taking and therefore less deserving of healthcare funding than other groups. We therefore argue that certain representations of PrEP's beneficiaries are implicitly homophobic, and that most representations are unhelpfully restrictive