Living deep-water Lophelia and Madrepora corals in Maltese waters (Strait of Sicily, Mediterranean Sea)

The occurrence of living deep-water corals, Lophelia pertusa and Madrepora oculata, from stations 21-42 km off the southern and south-western coast of Malta is reported. Fragments of living colonies of both species, as well as some large pieces of Lophelia frameworks were recovered from depths of 390-617 m together with the solitary coral Desmophyllum dianthus (= cristagalli). The accompanying biota included the barnacle Pachylasma giganteum, the gastropod Coralliophila richardi, the bivalves Asperarca nodulosa and Spondylus gussonii, and the polychaete Eunice norvegicus, all of which are frequently associated with deep-water corals. The occurrence of the Lophelia-Madrepora- Desmophyllum triad, the large pieces of coral frameworks consisting predominantly of live, healthy polyps, and the associated biota, suggest that coral patches may be present in at least some of the investigated localities, rather than just fragmented remains or isolated colonies.peer-reviewe

Approaches to hazard-oriented groundwater management based on multivariate analysis of groundwater quality

Drinking water extracted near rivers in alluvial aquifers is subject to potential microbial contamination due to rapidly infiltrating river water during high discharge events. The heterogeneity of river-groundwater interaction and hydrogeological characteristics of the aquifer renders a complex pattern of groundwater quality. The quality of the extracted drinking water can be managed using decision support and HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point) systems, but the detection of potential contamination remains a complex task to master. The methodology proposed herein uses a combination of high-resolution measurements and multivariate statistical analyses to characterise actual groundwater quality and detect potential contamination. The aim of this project was to improve the protection of riverine groundwater extraction wells and to increase the degrees of freedom available to the management of fluvial planes with drinking-water production and aquifer recharge by river-groundwater interaction. The monitoring network was set up in the Reinacherheide in North-west Switzerland and encompassed the depth-oriented installation of multiparameter instruments, a surface-water monitoring station and a flow-through cell with an automated sampler and high-precision measurement instruments. The parameters recorded included temperature, electrical conductivity, spectral absorption coefficient, particle density and turbidity. Two of the observation wells were equipped with a telemetry system and the flow cell could be controlled remotely. The well-field encompassed eight groundwater extraction wells. The optimal choice of observation wells and indicator parameters was assessed using principal component analysis of groundwater head, temperature and electrical conductivity time-series to detect the influence of, for example, river-water infiltration or river-stage fluctuations on the time-series recorded in the groundwater observation wells. Groundwater head was susceptible to pressure waves induced by both river-stage fluctuations and groundwater extraction. Temperature time-series showed only weak responses to high discharge events. Electrical conductivity, however, showed a distance-driven response pattern to high discharge events. To further assess the representative strength of individual groundwater quality indicator parameters for identifying microbial contamination, a bi-weekly and a high-resolution sampling campaign were carried out. The results showed high faecal-indicator bacteria densities (E. coli and Enterococcus sp.) at the beginning of high discharge events, followed by a rapid decrease, leading to a strong hit-and-miss characteristic in the bi-weekly sampling campaign. The third approach applied used the neural network-based combination of self-organizing maps and Sammon's projection (SOM-SM) to detect shifts in groundwater quality system states. The nonlinear analysis was carried out with groundwater head, temperature and electrical conductivity time-series from six observation wells. The subsequent shading of the projected trajectory of system states with independent time-series (spectral absorption coefficient and particle density) allowed the identification of critical system states, when actual groundwater quality decreased and contamination of the extraction wells was imminent. The time at which the changes in system state occurred and were detected were used as potential warning indicators for the water supplier. The effects of altered groundwater extraction (as a consequence of the SOM-SM warning) were then simulated using a groundwater flow model. The outcome of the SOM-SM analysis is, thus, proposed as an interface between the monitoring system and extraction-well management system. The proposed approach incorporates hydrogeological knowledge and the analysis of prevalent conditions concerning river-groundwater interaction with real-time telemetric data transfer, data-base management and nonlinear statistical analysis to detect deterioration in actual groundwater quality due to rapidly infiltrating river water. As the SOM-SM is not based on threshold values and independent of indicator parameters, the approach can be transferred to other sites with similar characteristics

Tepezza: Improving Delays in Treatment

Problem: There is gap in time from when a Tepezza (teprotumumab) order is placed until the time a patient receives their first infusion. Context: Delays in the initiation of Tepezza infusions result in worsening symptoms and a decrease in quality of life for patients diagnosed with thyroid eye disease. Interventions: Interventions included scheduling regular meetings with involved departments, following each patient who has been prescribed Tepezza through the initiation of therapy, and improving staff and patient education. Measures: Outcome measures include decreasing days from order placement to first infusion from an average of 61 days to 30 days or less and increasing patient education and satisfaction. Process measures consist of establishing regular meetings with stakeholders, following patients from order to first infusion to collect data, creating a patient education pamphlet, and initiating a patient satisfaction survey. Balancing measures include maintaining regular meetings with stakeholders to assure that other involved departments do not sustain additional burden with new clinic workflows. Results: At the end of this project, 96% of patients receive their first dose of Tepezza within 30 days from the time the order was initiated. Conclusions: A timely benefits investigation, in addition to improved communication amongst stakeholders, led to the improvement in the previous delays in care

Site as experiential playground: artistic research for a learning landscape

The contemporary American schoolyard remains an under-utilized opportunity for experiential learning. Contemporary public schoolyards are often designed in response to perceptions of liability and a limited interpretation of child development. This paper examines a design proposal for an un-built, natural learning landscape through two lenses: epistemology and form. First, we propose that designers of school landscapes embrace artistic research as a humanities mode of knowledge. We illustrate an artistic research process using the design of an experiential schoolyard. Second, we present an un-built, primary grade schoolyard design as an exemplar for natural play and learning. Beginning with literature review of research on play and experiential learning, the proposed design layers child development, humanities, and landscape architectural knowledge to form a provisional understanding of how form and space may affect the child’s play experience

Being Nomadic in a Neo World

Teachers are often classified into groups based on performance, identity, and through the use of metaphors. This article utilizes a post structuralist lens to build on past research by posing the classification of teachers into three personas: the nematode, neo, and nomad. These personas are not always chosen by the teacher, but instead are reactions to environments, colleagues and administrators, and education mandates. Standardization and accountability, which are forced on education by neoliberal policies, affect teachers’ identities in negative ways and often cause them to be the type of teacher they never desired to be to their students. Utilizing Deleuze’s theory of the nomad, the article explores the nomad as the persona that teachers should assume and offers suggestions of how teachers can be exposed to discourses that are not hijacked by standardization and accountability

Co-creating prisons knowledge inspired by collective autoethnography

This is a story, a kind of map, about a study we co-produced on prison peer support work. The social science community call these mapping stories methodology papers. We have tried to write this one in an informal (less academic) style to appeal to a broad audience – including people who live or have lived in prisons and who may not have had access to further education. ‘We’, the authors, are four people interested in prisons. Two of us became interested having lived parts of our lives in prison, two of us became interested by studying prisons at university. We met as part of a co-authorship project, which was originally made up of five former prisoner researchers and three academic researchers. Having published our original study in 2023, we decided to write about our pioneering work together. (All eight original co-authors were invited to co-write this methodology paper and four of the team decided to do so). We hope the method we introduce will be useful to those interested in capturing (often traumatic) lived experiences in a way that values and centres those most impacted, and that we address the concern that people with lived experience often only emerge in research as subjects, rather than authors.UKRI FLF grant number MR/T019085/

Drought Adaptation Among Western Colorado Water Systems: Understanding Institutional Readiness for Drought Information Adoption and the Role of Extreme Drought Events as Drivers of Adaptation

Water is a critical and scarce resource across the western United States. Communities across the region are facing increasing risk of water shortage as demand for water resources rises and as availability of water supply is projected to decrease in the coming decades. Water managers in particular play a critical role in ensuring the sustainable management of water resources, specifically in monitoring, responding to, mitigating risks of, and ultimately building resilience to hydro-climatic variability, and to drought in particular. This thesis examines two aspects of drought adaptation among water managers, specifically a) managers’ access to and adoption of scientific knowledge and information as a key determinant of adaptive capacity, and b) the role of past experience with extreme drought events as a driver of adaptation among water systems. Using a comparative case study design, the study examines five small water systems in the Western Slope region of Colorado, which comprises most of the Upper Colorado River Basin. As a snowmelt-dependent region, the Western Slope faces rising drought risk as temperatures are projected to increase with anthropogenic climate change and as the hydrologic cycle is expected to shift, making the task of improving drought preparedness ever more urgent. Regarding the use of scientific information, this study finds that water managers’ willingness and ability to adopt information products is dependent on how an information product is disseminated and proven successful in other water systems and that managers of smaller-scale water systems are embedded within strong communities of practice in which information use practices are replicated and shared across professional networks. Regarding the role of past experience with extreme drought events as a driver of adaptation, this study finds that extreme events do not consistently drive adaptive change in time and space as is commonly theorized and that political motivation that arises from drought events can both serve to help and hinder drought preparedness goals. Ultimately, this paper contributes important context for state agencies, boundary organizations and other entities interested in finding windows of opportunity to support drought preparedness, including drought early warning, among local water systems

Faecal Indicator Bacteria: Groundwater Dynamics and Transport Following Precipitation and River Water Infiltration

Faecal contamination of drinking water extracted from alluvial aquifers can lead to severe problems. River water infiltration can be a hazard for extraction wells located nearby, especially during high discharge events. The high dimensionality of river-groundwater interaction and the many factors affecting bacterial survival and transport in groundwater make a simple assessment of actual water quality difficult. The identification of proxy indicators for river water infiltration and bacterial contamination is an important step in managing groundwater resources and hazard assessment. The time resolution of microbial monitoring studies is often too low to establish this relationship. A proxy-based approach in such highly dynamic systems requires in-depth knowledge of the relationship between the variable of interest, e.g. river water infiltration, and its proxy indicator. In this study, continuously recorded physico-chemical parameters (temperature, electrical conductivity, turbidity, spectral absorption coefficient, particle density) were compared to the counts for faecal indicator bacteria, Escherichia coli and Enterococcus sp. obtained from intermittent sampling. Sampling for faecal indicator bacteria was conducted on two temporal scales: (a) routine bi-weekly monitoring over a month and (b) intense (bi-hourly) event-based sampling over 3 days triggered by a high discharge event. Both sampling set-ups showed that the highest bacterial concentrations occurred in the river. E. coli and Enterococcus sp. concentrations decreased with time and length of flow path in the aquifer. The event-based sampling was able to demonstrate differences in bacterial removal between clusters of observation wells linked to aquifer composition. Although no individual proxy indicator for bacterial contamination could be established, it was shown that a combined approach based on time-series of physico-chemical parameters could be used to assess river water infiltration as a hazard for drinking water quality managemen

The Right Hemisphere in Esthetic Perception

Little about the neuropsychology of art perception and evaluation is known. Most neuropsychological approaches to art have focused on art production and have been anecdotal and qualitative. The field is in desperate need of quantitative methods if it is to advance. Here, we combine a quantitative approach to the assessment of art with modern voxel-lesion-symptom-mapping methods to determine brain–behavior relationships in art perception. We hypothesized that perception of different attributes of art are likely to be disrupted by damage to different regions of the brain. Twenty participants with right hemisphere damage were given the Assessment of Art Attributes, which is designed to quantify judgments of descriptive attributes of visual art. Each participant rated 24 paintings on 6 conceptual attributes (depictive accuracy, abstractness, emotion, symbolism, realism, and animacy) and 6 perceptual attributes (depth, color temperature, color saturation, balance, stroke, and simplicity) and their interest in and preference for these paintings. Deviation scores were obtained for each brain-damaged participant for each attribute based on correlations with group average ratings from 30 age-matched healthy participants. Right hemisphere damage affected participants’ judgments of abstractness, accuracy, and stroke quality. Damage to areas within different parts of the frontal parietal and lateral temporal cortices produced deviation in judgments in four of six conceptual attributes (abstractness, symbolism, realism, and animacy). Of the formal attributes, only depth was affected by inferior prefrontal damage. No areas of brain damage were associated with deviations in interestingness or preference judgments. The perception of conceptual and formal attributes in artwork may in part dissociate from each other and from evaluative judgments. More generally, this approach demonstrates the feasibility of quantitative approaches to the neuropsychology of art

The Critical Role of Communities of Practice and Peer Learning in Scaling

Significant effort has been put into advancing the use and usability of information products to support adaptation to drought and climate variability, particularly for the water supply sector. Evidence and experience show that advancing the usability of information through processes such as coproduction is time consuming for both providers and users of information. One challenge for boundary organizations and researchers interested in enhancing the usability of their information is how such processes might &lsquo;&lsquo;scale&rsquo;&rsquo; to all the potential organizations and individual managers that might possibly be able to benefit from improved climate information. This paper examines information use preferences and practices specifically among managers of small water systems in the Upper Colorado River basin, with an eye toward identifying newopportunities to effectively scale information usability and uptake among all water managers&mdash;regardless oflocation or capacity&mdash;in a resource-constrained world. We find that boundary organizations and other usablescience efforts would benefit from capitalizing on the communities of practice that bind water managerstogether. Specifically, strategic engagement with larger, well-respected water systems as early adopters,supporting dissemination of successes and experiences with new information products among a broadercommunity of water managers, and increasing well-respected water systems&rsquo; capacity to engage directly withrural systems may all serve as useful strategies to promote widespread distribution, access, and adoption ofinformation.</p