How Is Stress Reduced by a Workplace Mindfulness Intervention? A Qualitative Study Conceptualising Experiences of Change

Mindfulness-based interventions are effective as curative and preventative approaches to psychological health. However, the mechanisms by which outcomes are secured from such interventions when delivered in the workplace, and to a stressed workforce, are not well understood. The aim of the present study was to elicit and analyse accounts from past participants of a workplace mindfulness intervention in order to generate a preliminary model of how positive benefits appear to be secured. In-depth, semi-structured interviews were completed with 21 employees of a higher education institution who had completed an eight-week intervention based on Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, adapted for the workplace. Interviews invited participants to recount their experiences of the intervention and its impact, if any, on their work life. Aspects of the interview data that pertained to intervention experience and positive benefits were analysed using a version of grounded theory, leading to the generation of a provisional model of how positive change occurred. The model suggests that discrete, temporal experiences build on each other to generate multiple, positive benefits. As anticipated in mindfulness-based interventions, enhanced attentional capacity was important, but our provisional model also suggests that resonance, self-care, detection of stress markers, perceiving choice, recovering self-agency and upward spiralling may be central mechanisms that lead to positive outcomes. Understanding mechanisms of change may help support participant engagement and trust in work-based mindfulness programmes, and enhance participants’ ability to apply mindfulness in their work life

Short communications: The first documented record of Western Reef Heron Egretta (gularis) schistacea for Tanzania

No Abstrac

Modelling of microstructural evolution in multi-layered overlay coatings

Functionally graded, multi-layered coatings are designed to provide corrosion protection over a range of operating conditions typically found in industrial gas turbines. A model incorporating diffusion, equilibrium thermodynamics and oxidation has been developed to simulate the microstructural evolution within a multi-layered coating system. The phase and concentration profiles predicted by the model have been compared with an experimental multi-layered system containing an Al-rich outer layer, a Cr-enriched middle layer and an MCrAlY-type inner layer deposited on a superalloy substrate. The concentration distribution and many microstructural features observed experimentally can be predicted by the model. The model is expected to be useful for assessing the microstructural evolution of multilayer coated systems which can be potentially used on industrial gas turbine aerofoils

Trade unions and the challenge of fostering solidarities in an era of financialisation

This articles re-examines evidence that trade unions in the UK have struggled to renew themselves despite considerable investment of time and effort. It argues that financialisation in the realms of capital accumulation, organisational decision making and everyday life has introduced new barriers to building the solidarities within and between groups of workers that would be necessary to develop a stronger response to the catastrophic effects on labour of financialisation in general, and the financial crisis specifically. The crisis highlighted the weaknesses of trade unions as institutions of economic and industrial democracy, but has also given some opportunities to establish narratives of solidarity in spaces and platforms created within a financialised context

Age of Barrier Canyon-style rock art constrained by cross-cutting relations and luminescence dating techniques

Rock art compels interest from both researchers and a broader public, inspiring many hypotheses about its cultural origin and meaning, but it is notoriously difficult to date numerically. Barrier Canyon-style (BCS) pictographs of the Colorado Plateau are among the most debated examples; hypotheses about its age span the entire Holocene epoch and previous attempts at direct radiocarbon dating have failed. We provide multiple age constraints through the use of cross-cutting relations and new and broadly applicable approaches in optically stimulated luminescence dating at the Great Gallery panel, the type section of BCS art in Canyonlands National Park, southeastern Utah. Alluvial chronostratigraphy constrains the burial and exhumation of the alcove containing the panel, and limits are also set by our related research dating both a rockfall that removed some figures and the rock’s exposure duration before that time. Results provide a maximum possible age, a minimum age, and an exposure time window for the creation of the Great Gallery panel, respectively. The only prior hypothesis not disproven is a late Archaic origin for BCS rock art, although our age result of A.D. ∼1–1100 coincides better with the transition to and rise of the subsequent Fremont culture. This chronology is for the type locality only, and variability in the age of other sites is likely. Nevertheless, results suggest that BCS rock art represents an artistic tradition that spanned cultures and the transition from foraging to farming in the region. Archaeology is focused upon material records, contextualized in time. Rock art is a record with the potential to provide unique insight into the dynamics and evolution of culture, but it generally lacks stratigraphic or chronologic context. Interpretation of the origin and meaning of rock art is indirect at best, or simply speculative. In the case of some pictographs, pigments may include or have enough accessory carbon for accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) radiocarbon dating (1⇓⇓–4). In other special situations, such as caves, minimum age constraints have been obtained by various techniques of dating material that overlies or entombs rock art (5⇓–7). However, most rock art remains undatable and researchers rely upon stylistic comparison and indirect associations with artifacts at nearby sites (8, 9). The case in point for this study is arguably the most compelling and debated rock art in the United States—the Barrier Canyon style (BCS) of the Colorado Plateau. Previous attempts to derive an absolute chronology have failed and its age remains unknown, with widely ranging hypotheses that have remained untested until now. The continued development of dating techniques offers new possibilities for hypothesis testing. The optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) signals from mineral grains make it possible to date the deposition of most sediment that is exposed to a few seconds of full sunlight before burial, and its use in the earth and cultural sciences has greatly increased (10, 11). Among the latest applications of OSL are techniques dating the outer surfaces of rock clasts that have become shielded from light, including those with archaeological context (12⇓⇓–15). Recent work has furthermore used the “bleaching” profile of decreasing luminescence signal toward the surface of rock to estimate exposure time to sunlight (16, 17). Using these dating tools, we can constrain the age of rock art and gain new insight into past cultures and landscapes. Here, we synthesize results from three approaches to dating the type section of BCS art, the Great Gallery in Canyonlands National Park of southeastern Utah. Through dating the full alluvial stratigraphy and a rockfall event that both have incontrovertible cross-cutting relations with the rock art, and then by determining the exposure duration of a painted rock surface, we greatly narrow the window of time when the rock art was created. These approaches do not require direct sampling of rock art and have strong potential for application to other archaeological and surface processes research. Although our results are only for the type section of BCS art, and chronological variability should be expected for the style across the region, they suggest that BCS art coincides with the transition to agriculture in the northern Colorado Plateau and may not have been limited to a specific archaeological culture

Reply to Simon and Reed: Independent and Converging Results Rule Out Historic Disturbance and Confirm Age Constraints for Barrier Canyon Rock Art

We welcome this further discussion of our results on the age of the Great Gallery rock art in the Canyonlands of Utah. The comment by Simon and Reed (1) focuses on just one of the three components of our study (2), which is presented in greater technical detail in ref. 3 and is surely our best-constrained and least-surprising result: the dating of a rock-fall that removed some of the art and thus provides a minimum age. Simon and Reed (1) point out that the Great Gallery panel is not pristine and relate the sordid human history of visitation and possible disturbance to the site. Indeed, being aware of this during our research, one of our initial hypotheses was that the rock fall may be historic. Despite the possibility of recent disturbance to some of the talus boulders, our results document that the rock fall occurred ∼900 y ago, and for the boulder we sampled a scenario of historic disturbance and exposure such as postulated by Simon and Reed (1) can be ruled out

"Petit spot" rejuvenated volcanism superimposed on plume-derived Samoan shield volcanoes: Evidence from a 645-m drill core from Tutuila Island, American Samoa

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Geochemistry Geophysics Geosystems 20(3), (2019): 1485-1507, doi:10.1029/2018GC007985.In 2015 a geothermal exploration well was drilled on the island of Tutuila, American Samoa. The sample suite from the drill core provides 645 m of volcanic stratigraphy from a Samoan volcano, spanning 1.45 million years of volcanic history. In the Tutuila drill core, shield lavas with an EM2 (enriched mantle 2) signature are observed at depth, spanning 1.46 to 1.44 Ma. These are overlain by younger (1.35 to 1.17 Ma) shield lavas with a primordial “common” (focus zone) component interlayered with lavas that sample a depleted mantle component. Following ~1.15 Myr of volcanic quiescence, rejuvenated volcanism initiated at 24.3 ka and samples an EM1 (enriched mantle 1) component. The timing of the initiation of rejuvenated volcanism on Tutuila suggests that rejuvenated volcanism may be tectonically driven, as Samoan hotspot volcanoes approach the northern terminus of the Tonga Trench. This is consistent with a model where the timing of rejuvenated volcanism at Tutuila and at other Samoan volcanoes relates to their distance from the Tonga Trench. Notably, the Samoan rejuvenated lavas have EM1 isotopic compositions distinct from shield lavas that are geochemically similar to “petit spot” lavas erupted outboard of the Japan Trench and late stage lavas erupted at Christmas Island located outboard of the Sunda Trench. Therefore, like the Samoan rejuvenated lavas, petit spot volcanism in general appears to be related to tectonic uplift outboard of subduction zones, and existing geochemical data suggest that petit spots share similar EM1 isotopic signatures.Reviews from Kaj Hoernle and three anonymous reviewers are gratefully acknowledged. M. G. J. acknowledges support from the American Samoa Power Authority and National Science Foundation grants OCE‐1736984 and EAR‐1624840. The Tutuila drill core was the brainchild of Tim Bodell, without whom we would still have no stratigraphic record of Tutuila volcanism. The support of Utu Abe Malae and Matamua Katrina Mariner was instrumental to the project's success. We dedicate this paper to the memory of Abe Malae and his efforts to support science and education in American Samoa. Images of the entire drill core are available online (escholarship.org/uc/item/6gg6p61w). All data presented are either part of this study or previously published and are referenced in text.2019-08-1

Argonne National Laboratory Reports

Test L5 simulated a hypothetical loss-of-flow accident in an LMFBR using three (plutonium, uranium) dioxide fuel elements of the FTR type. The test elements were irradiated before TREAT Test L5 in the General Electric Test Reactor to 8 at. % burnup at about 40 kW/m. The pre-irradiation in GETR caused a fuel-restructuring range characteristic of moderate-power structure relative to the FTR. The test transient was devised so that a power burst would be initiated at incipient cladding melting after the loss of flow. The test simulation corresponds to a scenario for FTR in which fuel in high-power-structure subassemblies slump, resulting in a power excursion. The remaining subassemblies are subjected to this power burst. Test L5 addressed the fuel-motion behavior of the subassemblies in this latter category. Data from test-vehicle sensors, hodoscope, and post-mortem examinations were used to construct the sequence of events within the test zone. From these observations, the fuel underwent a predominantly dispersive event just after reaching a peak power six times nominal at, or after, scram. The fuel motion was apparently driven by the release of entrained fission-product gases, since fuel vapor pressure was deliberately kept below significant levels for the transient. The test remains show a wide range of microstructural evolution, depending on the extent of heat deposition along the active fuel column. Extensive fuel swelling was also observed as a result of the lack of the cladding restraint. The results of the thermal-hydraulic calculations with the SAS3A code agreed qualitatively with the postmortem results with respect to the extent of the melting and the dispersal of cladding and fuel. However, the calculated times of certain events did not agree with the observed times

Delivery of index-linked HIV testing for children: learnings from a qualitative process evaluation of the B-GAP study in Zimbabwe

Background Index-linked HIV testing for children, whereby HIV testing is offered to children of individuals living with HIV, has the potential to identify children living with undiagnosed HIV. The “Bridging the Gap in HIV Testing and Care for Children in Zimbabwe” (B-GAP) study implemented and evaluated the provision of index-linked HIV testing for children aged 2–18 years in Zimbabwe. We conducted a process evaluation to understand the considerations for programmatic delivery and scale-up of this strategy. Methods We used implementation documentation to explore experiences of the field teams and project manager who delivered the index-linked testing program, and to describe barriers and facilitators to index-linked testing from their perspectives. Qualitative data were drawn from weekly logs maintained by the field teams, monthly project meeting minutes, the project coordinator’s incident reports and WhatsApp group chats between the study team and the coordinator. Data from each of the sources was analysed thematically and synthesised to inform the scale-up of this intervention. Results Five main themes were identified related to the implementation of the intervention: (1) there was reduced clinic attendance of potentially eligible indexes due to community-based differentiated HIV care delivery and collection of HIV treatment by proxy individuals; (2) some indexes reported that they did not live in the same household as their children, reflecting the high levels of community mobility; (3) there were also thought to be some instances of ‘soft refusal’; (4) further, delivery of HIV testing was limited by difficulties faced by indexes in attending health facilities with their children for clinic-based testing, stigma around community-based testing, and the lack of familiarity of indexes with caregiver provided oral HIV testing; (5) and finally, test kit stockouts and inadequate staffing also constrained delivery of index-linked HIV testing. Conclusions There was attrition along the index-linked HIV testing cascade of children. While challenges remain at all levels of implementation, programmatic adaptations of index-linked HIV testing approaches to suit patterns of clinic attendance and household structures may strengthen implementation of this strategy. Our findings highlight the need to tailor index-linked HIV testing to subpopulations and contexts to maximise its effectiveness