Anglicans and Aviators: The First World War and the Forgotten Origins of Royal Air Force Chaplaincy

Nineteen-eighteen saw the formation of the world’s first independent air force, and the inauguration of the first independent chaplaincy organisation devoted to military aviation. However, the neglected creation of the Chaplains’ Branch of the Royal Air Force towards the end of the First World War represents far more than just a minor footnote in the institutional history of Britain’s armed forces. The circumstances of its creation, which occurred just as the German sociologist Max Weber was identifying scientific progress as driving the ineluctable ‘disenchantment of the world’, not only belied this famous sociological maxim in the highly technological and supremely modern context of aerial warfare but also demonstrated the competence of Anglican chaplaincy methods and the resilience of British ‘Christendom’ in the context of a war which is widely perceived as having exposed and exacerbated the weaknesses of both

Homological invariants of strongly invertible knots

This thesis explores the relationship between Khovanov homology and strongly invertible knots through the use of a geometric construction due to Sakuma. On the one hand, new homological and polynomial invariants of strongly invertible knots are extracted from Sakuma's construction, all of which are related to Khovanov homology. Conversely, these invariants are used to study the two-component links and annular knots obtained from Sakuma's construction, the latter of which are almost entirely disjoint from the class of braid closures. Applications include the problem of unknot detection in the strongly invertible setting, the efficiency of an invariant when compared with the $\eta$-polynomial of Kojima and Yamasaki, and the use of polynomial invariants to bound the size of the intrinsic symmetry group of a two-component Sakuma link. We also define a new quantity, $\varkappa_A$, and conjecture that it is an invariant of strongly invertible knots

Enduring Learning: Integrating C21st soft skills through Technology Education

As times change we need to continually review what our education systems offer and where priorities might lie.  The Technology and Knowledge Ages of the twenty-first century have brought about new understandings, new ways of doing things, and an array of new career and workplace opportunities.  Employees today are expected to bring more than an accumulation of traditional knowledge acquisition. Increasingly important today are a plethora of attitudinal skills and dispositions that enable workers to engage in much greater collaboration, communication, problem-solving, and critical thinking.  What are these newly emphasised skills and dispositions and how should they be addressed within the education system?  Meaningful learning of these ‘soft skills’ will occur best in authentic and integrated programmes where explicit teaching identifies the required learning.  This paper will investigate the nature of the skills, consider some implications and barriers and then demonstrate connections between the nature of technological practice and ‘soft skills’.  An essential consideration of this new learning focus is how it might be assessed.  A new authentic assessment practice within a Technology Education tertiary education programme is introduced as an example of how knowledge and ‘soft skill’ acquisition can be combined and achieved. 

Dynamics of Charcoal Alteration in a Tropical Biome: A Biochar-Based Study

Pyrogenic carbon (PyC) is a polyaromatic residue of the incomplete combustion of biomass or fossil fuels. There is a growing recognition that PyC forms an important part of carbon budgets, due to production rates of 116–385 Tg C yr, and the size and ubiquity of PyC stocks in global carbon reservoirs. At least a proportion of PyC exists in a highly recalcitrant chemical form, raising the prospect of long-term carbon sequestration through soil amendment with “biochar,” which is generally produced with the aim of making a particularly recalcitrant form of PyC. However, there is growing evidence that some PyC, including biochar, can be both physically and chemically altered and degraded upon exposure to the environment over annual timescales, yet there is a lack of information concerning the mechanisms and determining factors of degradation. Here, we investigate three main factors; production temperature, feedstock composition, and the characteristics of the environment to which the material is exposed (e.g., pH, organic matter composition, oxygen availability) by analysis of biochar samples in a litterbag experiment before and after a year-long field study in the tropical rainforests of northeast Australia. We find that non-lignocellulosic feedstock has lower aromaticity, plus lower O/C and H/C ratios for a given temperature, and consequently lower carbon sequestration potential. The rate at which samples are altered is production temperature-dependant; however even in the highest temperature samples loss of the semi-labile aromatic carbon component is observed over 1 year. The results of 13C-MAS-NMR measurements suggest that direct oxygenation of aromatic structures may be even more important than carboxylation in environmental alteration of biochar (as a subset of PyC). There is a clear effect of depositional environment on biochar alteration even after the relatively short timescale of this study, as changes are most extensive in the most oxygenated material that was exposed on the soil surface. This is most likely the result of mineral ingress and colonization by soil microbiota. Consequently, oxygen availability and physical or chemical protection from sunlight and/or rainwater is vital in determining the alteration trajectory of this material

Making America A Better Place for All: Sustainable Development Recommendations for the Biden Administration

In 2015, the United Nations Member States, including the United States, unanimously approved 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be achieved by 2030. The SDGs are nonbinding; each nation is to implement them based on its own priorities and circumstances. This Article argues that the SDGs are a critical normative framework the United States should use to improve human quality of life, freedom, and opportunity by integrating economic and social development with environmental protection. It collects the recommendations of 22 experts on steps that the Biden-Harris Administration should take now to advance each of the SDGs. It is part of a book project that will recommend not only federal actions, but also actions by state and local governments, the private sector, and civil society. In the face of multiple challenges and opportunities, this Article is intended to contribute to a robust public discussion about how to accelerate the transition to a sustainable society and make America a better place for all

Making America a Better Place for All: Sustainable Development Recommendations for the Biden Administration

In 2015, the United Nations Member States, including the United States, unanimously approved 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be achieved by 2030. The SDGs are nonbinding; each nation is to implement them based on its own priorities and circumstances. This Article argues that the SDGs are a critical normative framework the United States should use to improve human quality of life, freedom, and opportunity by integrating economic and social development with environmental protection. It collects the recommendations of 22 experts on steps that the Biden-Harris Administration should take now to advance each of the SDGs. It is part of a book project that will recommend not only federal actions, but also actions by state and local governments, the private sector, and civil society. In the face of multiple challenges and opportunities, this Article is intended to contribute to a robust public discussion about how to accelerate the transition to a sustainable society and make America a better place for all

Transcriptomic signatures reveal immune dysregulation in human diabetic and idiopathic gastroparesis

Abstract Background Cellular changes described in human gastroparesis have revealed a role for immune dysregulation, however, a mechanistic understanding of human gastroparesis and the signaling pathways involved are still unclear. Methods Diabetic gastroparetics, diabetic non-gastroparetic controls, idiopathic gastroparetics and non-diabetic non-gastroparetic controls underwent full-thickness gastric body biopsies. Deep RNA sequencing was performed and pathway analysis of differentially expressed transcripts was done using Ingenuity®. A subset of differentially expressed genes in diabetic gastroparesis was validated in a separate cohort using QT-PCR. Results 111 genes were differentially expressed in diabetic gastroparesis and 181 in idiopathic gastroparesis with a log2fold difference of | ≥ 2| and false detection rate (FDR) < 5%. Top canonical pathways in diabetic gastroparesis included genes involved with macrophages, fibroblasts and endothelial cells in rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis pathway and differential regulation of cytokine production in macrophages and T helper cells by IL-17A and IL-17F. Top canonical pathways in idiopathic gastroparesis included genes involved in granulocyte adhesion and diapedesis, agranulocyte adhesion and diapedesis, and role of macrophages, fibroblasts and endothelial cells in rheumatoid arthritis. Sixty-five differentially expressed genes (log2fold difference | ≥ 2|, FDR < 5%) were common in both diabetic and idiopathic gastroparesis with genes in the top 5 canonical pathways associated with immune signaling. 4/5 highly differentially expressed genes (SGK1, APOLD1, CXCR4, CXCL2, and FOS) in diabetic gastroparesis were validated in a separate cohort of patients using RT-PCR. Immune profile analysis revealed that genes associated with M1 (pro inflammatory) macrophages were enriched in tissues from idiopathic gastroparesis tissues compared to controls (p < 0.05). Conclusions Diabetic and idiopathic gastroparesis have both unique and overlapping transcriptomic signatures. Innate immune signaling likely plays a central role in pathogenesis of human gastroparesis.https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/145193/1/12920_2018_Article_379.pd