Hierarchical Agglomerative Cluster Analysis Applied to WIBS 5-Dimensional Bioaerosol Data Sets

Peer reviewe

Magnetic Resonance Imaging in a Patient with a Dual Chamber Pacemaker

Having a pacemaker has been seen an absolute contraindication to having an MRI scan. This has become increasingly difficult in clinical practice as insertion of pacemakers and implantable cardiac defibrillators is at an all time high. Here we outline a case where a 71-year-old male patient with a permanent pacemaker needed to have an MRI scan to ascertain the aetiology of his condition and help guide further management. Given this clinical dilemma, an emergency clinical ethics consultation was arranged. As a result the patient underwent an MRI scan safely under controlled conditions with a consultant cardiologist and radiologist present. The results of the MRI scan were then able to tailor further treatment. This case highlights that in certain conditions an MRI can be performed in patients with permanent pacemakers and outlines the role of clinical ethics committees in complex medical decision making

Enhancing dental electives through participatory research

Completion of an elective project at the University of Glasgow Dental School is a progression requirement that entails a period of self-directed and enquiry-led learning. This study sought to uncover students’ expectations and perspectives of their elective experience as there is a scarcity of supporting literature to determine if this activity has significant educational value. This qualitative study utilised a participatory research methodology, ensuring that students were at the centre of the enquiry process. Three student co-researchers analysed data collected from their peers, using a questionnaire and a focus group meeting. The findings support maintaining autonomous, enquiry-led, independent learning-focused electives and also highlight aspects of the elective which students particularly valued. This has allowed a deeper understanding of students’ perceptions of, and motivations for, particular elective projects, enabling the elective programme to respond to changing environments in education and global health. The outcomes of this study have informed the redesign of the dental elective study programme and the associated quality assurance process

Effects of Leucaena biochar addition on crop productivity in degraded tropical soils

Biochar has the potential to increase crop yields on degraded, tropical soils. It can be readily produced in rural community settings using low-cost technology and is most economically feasible if produced from local biomass or waste residues. Biochar was produced from Leucaena biomass using low-cost pyrolysis and sequential pot experiments were then conducted in Malaysia on three degraded soils. We first evaluated the effect of Leucaena biochar on yields of Amaranthus, a leafy vegetable crop and measured changes to soil pH and nutrient availability over two growth cycles. We then tested whether any yield response to biochar was dependent upon the rate of biochar or fertilizer application. We found that biochar application at 30 t ha−1 with maximal fertilizer increased yields between 17 and 53% on very strongly acidic soil. Biochar added at 15 t ha−1 with maximal fertilizer increased yield by 54% on strongly acidic soil whilst there was no significant yield response on fertilized, slightly acidic soil. Unfertilized biochar treatments showed small yield responses across all soils over 2 growth cycles (9–11%), but yields were much lower than in fertilized treatments. Biochar also decreased short-term N availability when applied with fertilizers, which may improve nitrogen retention and substantially increased soil pH. This may reduce mobility of Fe, Mn and Al ions, which were negatively associated with yield. Our results suggest that Leucaena biochar can elicit a positive crop yield response but only when combined with fertilizer additions on very strongly to strongly acidic tropical soils

Unfinished Decolonisation and Globalisation

This article locates John Darwin’s work on decolonisation within an Oxbridge tradition which portrays a British world system, of which formal empire was but one part, emerging to increasing global dominance from the early nineteenth century. In this mental universe, decolonisation was the mirror image of that expanding global power. According to this point of view, it was not the sloughing off of individual territories, but rather the shrinking away of the system and of the international norms that supported it, until only its ghost remained by the end of the 1960s. The article then asks, echoing the title of Darwin’s Unfinished Empire, whether the decolonisation project is all but complete, or still ongoing. In addition, what is the responsibility of the imperial historian to engage with, inform, or indeed refrain from, contemporary debates that relate to some of these issues? The answer is twofold. On the one hand, the toolkit that the Oxbridge tradition and Darwin provide remains relevant, and also useful in thinking about contemporary issues such as China’s move towards being a global power, the United States’ declining hegemony, and some states and groups desires to rearticulate their relationship with the global. On the other hand, the decline of world systems of power needs to be recognised as just one of several types of, and approaches to, analysing ‘decolonisation’. One which cannot be allowed to ignore or marginalise the study of others, such as experience, first nations issues, the shaping of the postcolonial state, and empire legacies. The article concludes by placing the Oxbridge tradition into a broader typology of types and methodologies of decolonisation, and by asking what a new historiography of decolonisation might look like. It suggests that it would address the Oxbridge concern with the lifecycles of systems of power and their relationship to global changes, but also place them alongside, and in dialogue with, a much broader set of perspectives and analytical approaches

Towards implementing artificial intelligence post-processing in weather and climate: Proposed actions from the Oxford 2019 workshop

The most mature aspect of applying artificial intelligence (AI)/machine learning (ML) to problems in the atmospheric sciences is likely post-processing of model output. This article provides some history and current state of the science of post-processing with AI for weather and climate models. Deriving from the discussion at the 2019 Oxford workshop on Machine Learning for Weather and Climate, this paper also presents thoughts on medium-term goals to advance such use of AI, which include assuring that algorithms are trustworthy and interpretable, adherence to FAIR data practices to promote usability, and development of techniques that leverage our physical knowledge of the atmosphere. The coauthors propose several actionable items and have initiated one of those: a repository for datasets from various real weather and climate problems that can be addressed using AI. Five such datasets are presented and permanently archived, together with Jupyter notebooks to process them and assess the results in comparison with a baseline technique. The coauthors invite the readers to test their own algorithms in comparison with the baseline and to archive their results