Arc Mapping Methodologies & The Pursuit of Magical Globules, Notches, & Beads: A Bridge too Far to Establish Fire Origin?

Expert fire investigators know the limits of arc mapping as an indicator of fire origin. Concerns about arc mapping are on the rise. There are doubts associated with arc-related artifacts, distinguishing “cause” from “victim” beads, visual vs. microscopic examinations, and even practitioner qualifications. Specific noteworthy complaints include: (1) overpromises on the technique’s precision, (2) exaggerated inferences from the available data, (3) failure to adequately account for potential methodological flaws, (4) deficient scientific rigor in establishing evidentiary fire origin-related reliability, (5) errors due to deficient practitioner training and experience, and (6) indeterminate findings based upon subjective visual analysis. An emerging industry of pseudoscientific expert witnesses compounds these problems. Untrustworthy and invalid fire-related arc mapping clothed as forensic science continues to invade the courtroom

‘You’re just there, alone in your room with your thoughts’: a qualitative study about the psychosocial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic among young people living in the UK

OBJECTIVES: Adolescents and young adults have been greatly affected by quarantine measures during the COVID-19 pandemic, but little is understood about how restrictions have affected their well-being, mental health, and social life. We therefore aimed to learn more about how UK quarantine measures affected the social lives, mental health and well-being of adolescents and young adults. DESIGN: Qualitative interview study. The data were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis, with particular attention paid to contextual factors (such as age, gender, ethnicity and health status) when analysing each individual transcript. SETTING: Data collection took place remotely across the UK via audio or video call, between June 2020 and January 2021. PARTICIPANTS: We conducted semi-structured interviews with 37 participants (aged 13–24 years) to elicit their views. RESULTS: Authors generated four themes during the qualitative analysis: (a) concerns about disruption to education, (b) missing social contact during lockdown, (c) changes to social relationships and (d) improved well-being during lockdown. Many participants said they struggled with a decline in mental health during the pandemic, lack of support and concern about socialising after the pandemic. However, some participants described experiences and changes brought on by the pandemic as helpful, including an increased awareness of mental health and feeling more at ease when talking about it, as well as stronger relationship ties with family members. CONCLUSIONS: Findings suggest that young people may have felt more comfortable when talking about their mental health compared with prepandemic, in part facilitated by initiatives through schools, universities and employers. However, many were worried about how the pandemic has affected their education and social connections, and support for young people should be tailored accordingly around some of these concerns

Can the Federal Baldrige Survey Measure Workforce Well-being in an Academic Health Center?

Introduction. Experts suggest health care institutions switch focusfrom measuring burnout to measuring positive organizational psychology.Concerns include burnout being a late sign of organizationaldecline. The Baldrige survey is promoted by the U.S. Departmentof Commerce to measure positive worksite conditions (e.g., workforcewellbeing of industries, including health care and education).For years, the survey has been completed by managers within organizations,but now the same survey is promoted for completion byan organization’s workforce. We tested the structure of the Baldrigesurvey when completed by an academic health care workforce. Inaddition, we tested whether the results in an academic worksite correlatewith an example metric of an organizational mission.Methods.xIn 2015, our academic health center surveyed facultyand staff with the Baldrige survey. The validity of the Baldrige wastested with confirmatory factor analyses. Within the School of Medicine,responses for the Baldrige’s concepts were correlated againsta measure of organizational outcome: graduates’ assessments ofDepartmental educational quality.Results. The structure of the Baldrige survey did not validate whenassessed by a workforce (RMSEA = 0.086; CFI = 0.829; TLI = 0.815).None of its concepts correlated with learner reported educationalquality.Conclusions. The Baldrige survey, when administered to a workforcerather than managers, did not appear to measure workforcewell-being within an academic health care center. We discourage useof the current survey for this purpose. Kans J Med 2019;12(1):4-6

Exploring the dynamics of compliance with community penalties

In this paper, we examine how compliance with community penalties has been theorized hitherto and seek to develop a new dynamic model of compliance with community penalties. This new model is developed by exploring some of the interfaces between existing criminological and socio-legal work on compliance. The first part of the paper examines the possible definitions and dimensions of compliance with community supervision. Secondly, we examine existing work on explanations of compliance with community penalties, supplementing this by drawing on recent socio-legal scholarship on private individuals’ compliance with tax regimes. In the third part of the paper, we propose a dynamic model of compliance, based on the integration of these two related analyses. Finally, we consider some of the implications of our model for policy and practice concerning community penalties, suggesting the need to move beyond approaches which, we argue, suffer from compliance myopia; that is, a short-sighted and narrowly focused view of the issues

Solving the taxonomic identity of Pseudotomentella tristis s.l. (Thelephorales, Basidiomycota) – a multi-gene phylogeny and taxonomic review, integrating ecological and geographical data

P. tristis is an ectomycorrhizal, corticioid fungus whose name is frequently assigned to collections of basidiomata as well as root tip and soil samples from a wide range of habitats and hosts across the northern hemisphere. Despite this, its identity is unclear; eight heterotypic taxa have in major reviews of the species been considered synonymous with or morphologically similar to P. tristis, but no sequence data from type specimens have been available. With the aim to clarify the taxonomy, systematics, morphology, ecology and geographical distribution of P. tristis and its morphologically similar species, we studied their type specimens as well as 147 basidiomata collections of mostly North European material. We used gene trees generated in BEAST 2 and PhyML and species trees estimated in STACEY and ASTRAL to delimit species based on the ITS, LSU, Tef1α and mtSSU regions. We enriched our sampling with environmental ITS sequences from the UNITE database. We found the P. tristis group to contain 13 molecularly and morphologically distinct species. Three of these, P. tristis, P. umbrina and P. atrofusca, are already known to science, while ten species are here described as new: P. sciastra sp. nov., P. tristoides sp. nov., P. umbrinascens sp. nov., P. pinophila sp. nov., P. alnophila sp. nov., P. alobata sp. nov., P. pluriloba sp. nov., P. abundiloba sp. nov., P. rotundispora sp. nov. and P. media sp. nov. We discovered P. rhizopunctata and P. atrofusca to form a sister clade to all other species in P. tristis s.l. These two species, unlike all other species in the P. tristis complex, are dimitic. In this study, we designate epitypes for P. tristis, P. umbrina and Hypochnopsis fuscata and lectotypes for Auricularia phylacteris and Thelephora biennis. We show that the holotype of Hypochnus sitnensis and the lectotype of Hypochnopsis fuscata are conspecific with P. tristis, but in the absence of molecular information we regard Pseudotomentella longisterigmata and Hypochnus rhacodium as doubtful taxa due to their aberrant morphology. We confirm A. phylacteris, Tomentella biennis and Septobasidium arachnoideum as excluded taxa, since their morphology clearly show that they belong to other genera. A key to the species of the P. tristis group is provided. We found P. umbrina to be a common species with a wide, Holarctic distribution, forming ectomycorrhiza with a large number of host species in habitats ranging from tropical forests to the Arctic tundra. The other species in the P. tristis group were found to be less common and have narrower ecological niches

Factors that shape pedagogical practices in next generation learning spaces

International figures on university expenditure on the development of next generation learning spaces (NGLS) are not readily available but anecdote suggests that simply retrofitting an existing classroom as an NGLS conservatively costs $AUD200,000, while developing new buildings often cost in the region of 100 million dollars and over the last five years, many universities in Australia, Europe and North America have developed new buildings. Despite this considerable investment, it appears that the full potential of these spaces is not being realised. While researchers argue that a more student centred learning approach to teaching has inspired the design of next generation learning spaces (Tom, Voss, & Scheetz, 2008) and that changed spaces change practice (Joint Information Systems Committee, 2009) when 'confronted' with a next generation learning spaces for the first time, anecdotes suggest that many academics resort to teaching as they have always taught and as they were taught. This chapter highlights factors that influence teaching practices, showing that they are to be found in the external, organisational and personal domains. We argue that in order to fully realise significant improvements in student outcomes through the sector's investment in next generation learning spaces, universities need to provide holistic and systematic support across three domains - the external, the organisational and the personal domains, by changing policies, systems, procedures and localised practices to better facilitate changes in teaching practices that maximise the potential of next generation learning spaces

Instant detection of synthetic cannabinoids on physical matrices, implemented on a low-cost, ultraportable device

Synthetic cannabinoids (SCs) make up a class of novel psychoactive substances (NPS), used predominantly in prisons and homeless communities in the U.K. SCs can have severe side effects, including psychosis, stroke, and seizures, with numerous reported deaths associated with their use. The chemical diversity of SCs presents the major challenge to their detection since approaches relying on specific molecular recognition become outdated almost immediately. Ideally one would have a generic approach to detecting SCs in portable settings. The problem of SC detection is more challenging still because the majority of SCs enter the prison estate adsorbed onto physical matrices such as paper, fabric, or herb materials. That is, regardless of the detection modality used, the necessary extraction step reduces the effectiveness and ability to rapidly screen materials on-site. Herein, we demonstrate a truly instant generic test for SCs, tested against real-world drug seizures. The test is based on two advances. First, we identify a spectrally silent region in the emission spectrum of most physical matrices. Second, the finding that background signals (including from autofluorescence) can be accurately predicted is based on tracking the fraction of absorbed light from the irradiation source. Finally, we demonstrate that the intrinsic fluorescence of a large range of physical substrates can be leveraged to track the presence of other drugs of interest, including the most recent iterations of benzodiazepines and opioids. We demonstrate the implementation of our presumptive test in a portable, pocket-sized device that will find immediate utility in prisons and law enforcement agencies around the world

Photochemical fingerprinting Is a sensitive probe for the detection of synthetic cannabinoid receptor agonists; toward robust point-of-care detection

With synthetic cannabinoid receptor agonist (SCRA) use still prevalent across Europe and structurally advanced generations emerging, it is imperative that drug detection methods advance in parallel. SCRAs are a chemically diverse and evolving group, which makes rapid detection challenging. We have previously shown that fluorescence spectral fingerprinting (FSF) has the potential to provide rapid assessment of SCRA presence directly from street material with minimal processing and in saliva. Enhancing the sensitivity and discriminatory ability of this approach has high potential to accelerate the delivery of a point-of-care technology that can be used confidently by a range of stakeholders, from medical to prison staff. We demonstrate that a range of structurally distinct SCRAs are photochemically active and give rise to distinct FSFs after irradiation. To explore this in detail, we have synthesized a model series of compounds which mimic specific structural features of AM-694. Our data show that FSFs are sensitive to chemically conservative changes, with evidence that this relates to shifts in the electronic structure and cross-conjugation. Crucially, we find that the photochemical degradation rate is sensitive to individual structures and gives rise to a specific major product, the mechanism and identification of which we elucidate through density-functional theory (DFT) and time-dependent DFT. We test the potential of our hybrid “photochemical fingerprinting” approach to discriminate SCRAs by demonstrating SCRA detection from a simulated smoking apparatus in saliva. Our study shows the potential of tracking photochemical reactivity via FSFs for enhanced discrimination of SCRAs, with successful integration into a portable device

The state of the Martian climate

60°N was +2.0°C, relative to the 1981–2010 average value (Fig. 5.1). This marks a new high for the record. The average annual surface air temperature (SAT) anomaly for 2016 for land stations north of starting in 1900, and is a significant increase over the previous highest value of +1.2°C, which was observed in 2007, 2011, and 2015. Average global annual temperatures also showed record values in 2015 and 2016. Currently, the Arctic is warming at more than twice the rate of lower latitudes

The UNITE database for molecular identification and taxonomic communication of fungi and other eukaryotes : sequences, taxa and classifications reconsidered

Acknowledgements We acknowledge Marie Zirk for her work in designing the UNITE logotype and creating the visual abstract for this article. Funding UNITE database development is financed by the Estonian Research Council [PRG1170]; European Union's Horizon 2020 project BGE [101059492]. The PlutoF digital infrastructure is supported by the European Union's Horizon 2020 project BiCIKL [101007492]; Estonian Research Infrastructure roadmap project DiSSCo Estonia. Funding for open access charge: UNITE Community. Conflict of interest statement. None declared.Peer reviewedPublisher PD