148 research outputs found
Assessing impact of ICT intercultural work
This article reports on a school-based ICT initiative, called Dissolving Boundaries (DB) which links primary,
(students aged 5-11), post-primary (students aged 12-18) and special schools (students aged 5-18) in partnerships
across the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The aim of the research was to
investigate if participation in DB was associated with an increased awareness and understanding of life on
the other side of the border. The ICT skills of students were also probed. Two cohorts of students were used
in the study, one which had taken part in the Dissolving Boundaries program during an academic year and
another cohort of similar age in the same schools, which had not taken part. Findings suggest that participation
in the program contributed to students’ knowledge and awareness in general of the other jurisdiction. In
terms of collaborative work, a large majority of DB students agreed that they could learn something new from
working with another school. Participating students in the DB program showed much higher competence in
those ICT skills associated with communication and collaboration than their non-participant peers
Book Reviews
Reviews of the following books: The Massachusetts Historical Society: A Bicentennial History, 1791-1991 by Louis Leonard Tucker; Interpreting Early American History Essays by Jack P. Greene; Molly Spotted Elk: A Penobscot in Paris by Bunny McBride; The Artist\u27s Mount Desert: American Painters on the Maine Coast by John Wilmerding; Politics of Conscience: A Biography of Margaret Chase Smith by Patricia Ward Wallace; Maine, A Peopled Landscape: Salt Documentary Photography, 1978 to 1995 edited by Hugh French, with essays by C. Stewart Doty, James C. Curtis and R. Todd Hoffman; Always Rachel: The Letters of Rachel Carson and Dorothy Freeman, 1952-1964 by Martha Free.man; Sarah Orne Jewett: Her World and Her Work by Paula Blanchar
Impacts and effects of ocean warming on intertidal rocky habitats.
• Intertidal rocky habitats comprise over 50% of the shorelines of the world, supporting a diversity of marine life and providing extensive ecosystem services worth in the region of US$ 5-10 trillion per year. • They are valuable indicators of the impacts of climate change on the wider marine environment and ecosystems. • Changes in species distributions, abundance and phenology have already been observed around the world in response to recent rapid climate change. • Species-level responses will have considerable ramifications for the structure of communities and trophic interactions, leading to eventual changes in ecosystem functioning (e.g. less primary producing canopy-forming algae in the North-east Atlantic). • Whilst progress is made on the mitigation1 required to achieve goals of a lower-carbon world, much can be done to enhance resilience to climate change. Managing the multitude of other interactive impacts on the marine environment, over which society has greater potential control (e.g. overfishing, invasive non-native species, coastal development, and pollution), will enable adaptation1 in the short and medium term of the next 5-50 years
Ethnic differences in the clustering and outcomes of health behaviours during pregnancy: results from the Born in Bradford cohort
OBJECTIVE. Pregnancy is a time of optimal motivation for many women to make positive behavioural changes. We aim to describe pregnant women with similar patterns of self-reported health behaviours and examine associations with birth outcomes.
METHODS. We examined the clustering of multiple health behaviours during pregnancy in the Born in Bradford cohort, including smoking physical inactivity, vitamin d supplementation, and exposure to second hand smoke.
Latent class analysis was used to identify groups of individuals with similar patterns of health behaviours separately for White British (WB) and Pakistani mothers. Multinomial regression was then used to examine the association between group membership and birth outcomes, which included preterm birth and mean birth weight.
RESULTS. For WB mothers, offspring of those in the ‘Unhealthiest’ group had lower mean birth weight than those in the ‘Mostly healthy but inactive’ class, although no association was observed for preterm birth. For Pakistani mothers, group membership was not associated with birth weight differences, although the odds of preterm birth was higher in ‘Inactive smokers’ compared to the ‘Mostly healthy but inactive’ group.
CONCLUSION. The use of latent class methods provides important information about the clustering of health behaviours which can be used to target population segments requiring behaviour change interventions considering multiple risk factors. Given the dominant negative association of smoking with the birth outcomes investigated, latent class groupings of other health behaviours may not confer additional risk information for these outcomes
Thermal management roadmap: Cooling electronic products from hand-held dvices to supercomputers
Enhanced neutrophil extracellular trap formation in COVID-19 is inhibited by the protein kinase C inhibitor ruboxistaurin
Background: Neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) are web-like DNA and protein lattices which are expelled by neutrophils to trap and kill pathogens, but which cause significant damage to the host tissue. NETs have emerged as critical mediators of lung damage, inflammation and thrombosis in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and other diseases, but there are no therapeutics to prevent or reduce NETs that are available to patients.
Methods: Neutrophils were isolated from healthy volunteers (n=9) and hospitalised patients with COVID-19 at the acute stage (n=39) and again at 3–4 months post-acute sampling (n=7). NETosis was measured by SYTOX green assays.
Results: Here, we show that neutrophils isolated from hospitalised patients with COVID-19 produce significantly more NETs in response to lipopolysaccharide (LPS) compared to cells from healthy control subjects. A subset of patients was captured at follow-up clinics (3–4 months post-acute sampling), and while LPS-induced NET formation is significantly lower at this time point, it remains elevated compared to healthy controls. LPS- and phorbol myristate acetate (PMA)-induced NETs were significantly inhibited by the protein kinase C (PKC) inhibitor ruboxistaurin. Ruboxistaurin-mediated inhibition of NETs in healthy neutrophils reduces NET-induced epithelial cell death.
Conclusion: Our findings suggest ruboxistaurin could reduce proinflammatory and tissue-damaging consequences of neutrophils during disease, and since it has completed phase III trials for other indications without safety concerns, it is a promising and novel therapeutic strategy for COVID-19
Seismic structure across the rift valley of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge at 23°20′ (MARK area): Implications for crustal accretion processes at slow spreading ridges
International audienc
Characterization of soil structure and porosity under long-term conventional tillage and no-tillage systems
Estimated Benefits of IBWC Rio Grande Flood-Control Projects in the United States
The International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC) is responsible for
maintaining a series of flood-control projects beginning in New Mexico and extending along the
Rio Grande’s international border dividing the United States and Mexico. A review by the
USIBWC indicate that, over time, the flood-control capability of the levees has been
compromised, possibly to the point where the level of protection is below original-design
capacities. Prior to investing federal monies in the rehabilitation of major flood-system
infrastructure, the U.S. Office of Management and Budget requires an economic analysis of
expected benefits, or losses avoided with implemented protection measures. Recent flood events
along the international border, resulting in significant economic damages and loss of human life,
emphasized the need for a timely assessment of impacts of potential flood-control failure. Given
a short project time line mandated by IBWC and the large geographic extent of the river- and
floodway-levee system, innovative methods were developed to conduct a rapid and preliminary
economic assessment of the flood-control infrastructure. Estimates for four major project areas
relating only to the U.S.-side of the border only (stretching from Caballo Reservoir in New
Mexico to the Rio Grande’s mouth, near Brownsville, TX.) comprise the study’s focus.
Millions populate the cities and towns along these economic reaches of the Rio Grande
where extensive housing, commerce, industry, tourism, and irrigated agricultural production
exist. Areas susceptible to flooding, along with land-use, were identified and quantified through
high-resolution map imagery. Estimates of representative residential, commercial, and industrial
property values and agricultural production values were developed from property assessment
records, economic development councils, crop enterprise budgets and cropping patterns, census
data, previous U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ flooding studies, etc. Gross economic values of
flood-control benefits for a sample of each of the land-use types were determined and
extrapolated to similar land-use areas in the flood zone. This analytical method provides a rapidassessment of potential flood-control benefits for a single event for each of the four IBWCdesignated
flood-control project areas. An aggregate estimate arrived at by summing the
potential benefits across all four project areas assumes avoidance of, or protection against, a
simultaneous breach in all areas.
Baseline economic benefits for agriculture and developed property along the Rio Grande
Canalization project are estimated at 139.1 million, while those for the Presidio Valley
Flood Control project amount to 167.2 million in flood-control benefits.
Combined, the four project areas provide 183.0 million in other costs
(i.e., emergency, roads, utilities, and vehicles) are added to the baseline estimate, the total floodcontrol
protection benefits provided by the four project areas increases to $506.0 million
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