A Birmingham psychogeography: continuity and closure (Volume 2)

There has been some sociological interest in MG Rover’s decline and widespread deindustrialisation in Birmingham. However, little research has considered the proximity of Rover’s closure in 2005 to another seminal event for the city – the opening of the Bullring shopping centre in 2003. These events appear indicative of Daniel Bell’s conception of ‘postindustrialism’. This thesis uses the tradition of ‘psychogeography’ to critique postindustrialism in Birmingham, examining the city’s collective psyche from a dynamic literary perspective. In Chapter 1, Daniel Bell’s predictions (made in 1973) of the likely characteristics of a post-industrial society are outlined and measured against recent economic and social events in Birmingham. In Chapter 2, the tradition of psychogeography is critically analysed, from Situationism and Kevin Lynch’s The Image of the City in the 1960s to the contemporary works of Iain Sinclair and Rebecca Solnit. I explore the argument that the key tenet of psychogeography missing from the work of contemporary practitioners is a utopian element with which writers theorize alternative forms of the city. This chapter provides a theoretical basis for both the use of literary montage and Stirchley’s inclusion in the psychogeography. Consequently, Chapters 3, 4 and 5 constitute the psychogeography itself, moving through three key geographical areas. These chapters offer a creative-critical representation of Birmingham in montage form, weaving fragments of narration with literary, theoretical and sociological works and considering the impacts of technology, industry and post-industrial urbanism on the city’s landscape and psyche. The discussion of Raymond Williams’s ‘mobile privatisation’ in Longbridge provides a catalyst for the consideration, in the final chapter, of a porous but socially divisive architecture in the Bullring. As the psychogeography progresses, the suburb of Stirchley and the Bullring market-area both emerge as contested spaces and, simultaneously, blueprints for an alternative form of the city. This thesis celebrates the variety, incoherence and inclusiveness of both spaces

Wildfire impact : natural experiment reveals differential short-term changes in soil microbial communities

A wildfire which overran a sensor network site provided an opportunity (a natural experiment) to monitor short-term post-fire impacts (immediate and up to three months post-fire) in remnant eucalypt woodland and managed pasture plots. The magnitude of fire-induced changes in soil properties and soil microbial communities was determined by comparing (1) variation in fire-adapted eucalypt woodland vs. pasture grassland at the burnt site; (2) variation at the burnt woodland-pasture sites with variation at two unburnt woodland-pasture sites in the same locality; and (3) temporal variation pre- and post-fire. In the eucalypt woodland, soil ammonium, pH and ROC content increased post-fire, while in the pasture soil, soil nitrate increased post-fire and became the dominant soluble N pool. However, apart from distinct changes in N pools, the magnitude of change in most soil properties was small when compared to the unburnt sites. At the burnt site, bacterial and fungal community structure showed significant temporal shifts between pre- and post-fire periods which were associated with changes in soil nutrients, especially N pools. In contrast, microbial communities at the unburnt sites showed little temporal change over the same period. Bacterial community composition at the burnt site also changed dramatically post-fire in terms of abundance and diversity, with positive impacts on abundance of phyla such as Actinobacteria, Proteobacteria and Firmicutes. Large and rapid changes in soil bacterial community composition occurred in the fire-adapted woodland plot compared to the pasture soil, which may be a reflection of differences in vegetation composition and fuel loading. Given the rapid yet differential response in contrasting land uses, identification of key soil bacterial groups may be useful in assessing recovery of fire-adapted ecosystems, especially as wildfire frequency is predicted to increase with global climate change

The Ursinus Weekly, September 30, 1976

Ursinus news in brief: Times cites college depression; 76\u27ers arrive for training; Simon participates in mission; Absentee ballots explained; Richter named Ursinus President • \u2776 enrollment drops • Dorm letter drafted • SFARC year opens • Comment: Action, not promises • Cheap shot commentators • Cost comparisons • Movie controversy • The Last hurrah: An introduction to Ursinus romance • Legal society success • Coming campus events • Teacher knows best! • Record review • Curriculum addition in history • Campaign-advance Ursinus • Phils to see red • Gurzynski retires from X-country • Soccer drops two • F.&M. beats Ursinus • Karas regime opens • Harriers 3 and 1 • What lies ahead • Hockey still winning • Saturday\u27s gamehttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/weekly/1057/thumbnail.jp

Local exome sequences facilitate imputation of less common variants and increase power of genome wide association studies

The analysis of less common variants in genome-wide association studies promises to elucidate complex trait genetics but is hampered by low power to reliably detect association. We show that addition of population-specific exome sequence data to global reference data allows more accurate imputation, particularly of less common SNPs (minor allele frequency 1–10%) in two very different European populations. The imputation improvement corresponds to an increase in effective sample size of 28–38%, for SNPs with a minor allele frequency in the range 1–3%

RhoB controls coordination of adult angiogenesis and lymphangiogenesis following injury by regulating VEZF1-mediated transcription

Mechanisms governing the distinct temporal dynamics that characterize post-natal angiogenesis and lymphangiogenesis elicited by cutaneous wounds and inflammation remain unclear. RhoB, a stress-induced small GTPase, modulates cellular responses to growth factors, genotoxic stress and neoplastic transformation. Here we show, using RhoB null mice, that loss of RhoB decreases pathological angiogenesis in the ischaemic retina and reduces angiogenesis in response to cutaneous wounding, but enhances lymphangiogenesis following both dermal wounding and inflammatory challenge. We link these unique and opposing roles of RhoB in blood versus lymphatic vasculatures to the RhoB-mediated differential regulation of sprouting and proliferation in primary human blood versus lymphatic endothelial cells. We demonstrate that nuclear RhoB-GTP controls expression of distinct gene sets in each endothelial lineage by regulating VEZF1-mediated transcription. Finally, we identify a small-molecule inhibitor of VEZF1–DNA interaction that recapitulates RhoB loss in ischaemic retinopathy. Our findings establish the first intra-endothelial molecular pathway governing the phased response of angiogenesis and lymphangiogenesis following injury

Differential patterns of prefrontal MEG activation during verbal & visual encoding and retrieval

The spatiotemporal profile of activation of the prefrontal cortex in verbal and non-verbal recognition memory was examined using magnetoencephalography (MEG). Sixteen neurologically healthy right-handed participants were scanned whilst carrying out a modified version of the Doors and People Test of recognition memory. A pattern of significant prefrontal activity was found for non-verbal and verbal encoding and recognition. During the encoding, verbal stimuli activated an area in the left ventromedial prefrontal cortex, and non-verbal stimuli activated an area in the right. A region in the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex also showed significant activation during the encoding of non-verbal stimuli. Both verbal and non-verbal stimuli significantly activated an area in the right dorsomedial prefrontal cortex and the right anterior prefrontal cortex during successful recognition, however these areas showed temporally distinct activation dependent on material, with non-verbal showing activation earlier than verbal stimuli. Additionally, non-verbal material activated an area in the left anterior prefrontal cortex during recognition. These findings suggest a material-specific laterality in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex during encoding for verbal and non-verbal but also support the HERA model for verbal material. The discovery of two process dependent areas during recognition that showed patterns of temporal activation dependent on material demonstrates the need for the application of more temporally sensitive techniques to the involvement of the prefrontal cortex in recognition memory

Ancient DNA and deep population structure in sub-Saharan African foragers

Multiple lines of genetic and archaeological evidence suggest that there were major demographic changes in the terminal Late Pleistocene epoch and early Holocene epoch of sub-Saharan Africa(1-4). Inferences about this period are challenging to make because demographic shifts in the past 5,000 years have obscured the structures of more ancient populations(3,5). Here we present genome-wide ancient DNA data for six individuals from eastern and south-central Africa spanning the past approximately 18,000 years (doubling the time depth of sub-Saharan African ancient DNA), increase the data quality for 15 previously published ancient individuals and analyse these alongside data from 13 other published ancient individuals. The ancestry of the individuals in our study area can be modelled as a geographically structured mixture of three highly divergent source populations, probably reflecting Pleistocene interactions around 80-20 thousand years ago, including deeply diverged eastern and southern African lineages, plus a previously unappreciated ubiquitous distribution of ancestry that occurs in highest proportion today in central African rainforest hunter-gatherers. Once established, this structure remained highly stable, with limited long-range gene flow. These results provide a new line of genetic evidence in support of hypotheses that have emerged from archaeological analyses but remain contested, suggesting increasing regionalization at the end of the Pleistocene epoch. DNA analysis of 6 individuals from eastern and south-central Africa spanning the past approximately 18,000 years, and of 28 previously published ancient individuals, provides genetic evidence supporting hypotheses of increasing regionalization at the end of the Pleistocene.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The implications of three major new trials for the effect of water, sanitation and hygiene on childhood diarrhea and stunting: a consensus statement

BACKGROUND: Three large new trials of unprecedented scale and cost, which included novel factorial designs, have found no effect of basic water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) interventions on childhood stunting, and only mixed effects on childhood diarrhea. Arriving at the inception of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals, and the bold new target of safely managed water, sanitation and hygiene for all by 2030, these results warrant the attention of researchers, policy-makers and practitioners. MAIN BODY: Here we report the conclusions of an expert meeting convened by the World Health Organization and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to discuss these findings, and present five key consensus messages as a basis for wider discussion and debate in the WASH and nutrition sectors. We judge these trials to have high internal validity, constituting good evidence that these specific interventions had no effect on childhood linear growth, and mixed effects on childhood diarrhea. These results suggest that, in settings such as these, more comprehensive or ambitious WASH interventions may be needed to achieve a major impact on child health. CONCLUSION: These results are important because such basic interventions are often deployed in low-income rural settings with the expectation of improving child health, although this is rarely the sole justification. Our view is that these three new trials do not show that WASH in general cannot influence child linear growth, but they do demonstrate that these specific interventions had no influence in settings where stunting remains an important public health challenge. We support a call for transformative WASH, in so much as it encapsulates the guiding principle that - in any context - a comprehensive package of WASH interventions is needed that is tailored to address the local exposure landscape and enteric disease burden

Hanford Site National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) Characterization

This document describes the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Hanford Site environment. It is updated each year and is intended to provide a consistent description of the Hanford Site environment for the many National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) documents being prepared by DOE contractors. No statements of significance or environmental consequences are provided. This year's report is the thirteenth revision of the original document published in 1988 and is (until replaced by the fourteenth revision) the only version that is relevant for use in the preparation of Hanford NEPA, State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA), and Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) documents. The two chapters included in this document (Chapters 4 and 6) are numbered to correspond to the chapters where such information is typically presented in environmental impact statements (Weiss) and other Hanford Site NEPA or CERCLA documentation. Chapter 4.0 (Affected Environment) describes Hanford Site climate and meteorology, geology, hydrology, ecology, cultural, archaeological, and historical resources, socioeconomics, occupational safety, and noise. Chapter 6.0 (Statutory and Regulatory Requirements) describes federal and state laws and regulations, DOE directives and permits, and presidential executive orders that are applicable to the NEPA documents prepared for Hanford Site activities