Making Meaning Together – New approaches to Governance and Community in Modern Democracies

Social, economic, educational and infrastructure development programs in Bangladesh, including national and international aid and grants, currently focus on the agenda of ‘poverty alleviation’. However, they are not performing as expected – social degradation, poverty elevation, high rate of population growth with lower rate of intellectual growth, and mal-development are clearly on the increase. Environmental degradation, including floods, droughts, desertification and biodiversity depletion, is also increasingly taking place.This is legacy content. It is provided as a reference source only. The Queensland Government does not own or maintain this content. Please contact the original authors if you have any questions

Artistic Representations of the Sea and Coast: Implications For Sustainability

This article explores artistic representations of Australian seas and coasts, and the power of art to sustain seas and coasts. Research into artworks at the National Gallery of Australia was supplemented with a study of other local public and private works. A number of substantive themes emerged in viewing the paintings; the sea and coast has been represented as: sea country, sovereign territory, sublime spaces, a Romantic space of yearning, a psychological journey, a literal journey, a site of social and political comment, social places, ecological places and a site for industry. We discuss these themes, reflecting on the various expressions of human-sea relations and the cultural, political and ideological values that inform the artworks. This article points to possible artistic representations of sustainable seas and coasts. In turning to the power of art in sea and coastal sustainability, we discuss the potential of art to create shifts in consciousness and relationships by challenging humans to imagine the sea differently

Ultrassonografia como método auxiliar de diagnóstico precoce na doença renal crônica felina

A doença renal crônica (DRC) é caracterizada pela perda progressiva da função renal, em decorrência de anormalidades funcionais e/ou estruturais ocorridas por um período longo de tempo (normalmente mais de três meses). A doença pode acometer um ou ambos os rins, e tem caráter irreversível. Por sua elevada prevalência na população felina e pela gravidade da doença, é de extrema importância que o diagnóstico seja feito o mais breve possível, iniciando-se o tratamento com o objetivo de retardar o avanço das lesões. Porém, sabe-se que muitos métodos utilizados para diagnóstico só vão detectar alterações após o comprometimento de 75% da função renal, dificultando a estabilização do paciente e piorando o prognóstico. Dessa forma, buscou-se aliar os exames laboratoriais aos exames de imagem, para que se possa ter um diagnóstico mais completo e precoce. Por ser prática, com resultados satisfatórios e de fácil acesso, a ultrassonografia tem sido o método de escolha para visualizar alterações no rim felino. Porém, é visto que muitos médicos veterinários ainda têm dificuldades na interpretação desses exames. Por isso, este trabalho tem como objetivo fazer uma revisão de literatura sobre a prática e os achados da ultrassonografia renal felina, comparando-se um rim normal a um rim doente, visando facilitar a interpretação dos resultados deste exame.Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is characterized by progressive damage of renal function as a result of functional and/or structural abnormalities occurring over a long period of time (usually more than three months). The disease can affect one or both kidneys, and is irreversible. Because of its high prevalence in the feline population and the severity of the disease, it is extremely important to find a diagnosis as soon as possible, in order to start the treatment with the objective to delay the progression of the lesions. However, it is known that many methods used for diagnosis will only detect changes after 75% of impairment of renal function, making it difficult to stabilize the patient and getting worse the prognosis. Therefore, the laboratory tests must be combined with imaging tests, so there a more complete and early diagnosis can be achieved. Because it is practical, with satisfactory results and easy access, ultrasonography has been the method of choice to visualize changes in the feline kidney. However, many veterinarians still have difficulty interpreting these tests. Therefore, this work aims to review the literature, describing the findings of feline renal ultrasonography, comparing a normal kidney to a diseased kidney, in order to facilitate the interpretation of the results of this diagnostic method

Sequential capillarity-assisted particle assembly in a microfluidic channel

The authors acknowledge support from an ETH Research Grant ETH-15 17-1 (R. S.), from an ETH Postdoctoral Fellowship FEL-21 15-2 and SNSF PRIMA Grant 179834 (E. S.), from a Postdoctoral fellowships programme “Beatriu de Pinós”, funded by the Secretary of Universities and Research (Government of Catalonia) and by the Horizon 2020 programme of research and innovation of the European Union under the Marie Sklodwoska-Curie grant agreement no. 801370 (Grant 2018 BP 00029) (M. A. F. R.) and from a Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation Investigator Award on Aquatic Microbial Symbiosis (grant GBMF9197) (R. S.). The authors thank Dr. Heiko Wolf at IBM Research Zurich for insightful discussions.Colloidal patterning enables the placement of a wide range of materials into prescribed spatial arrangements, as required in a variety of applications, including micro- and nano-electronics, sensing, and plasmonics. Directed colloidal assembly methods, which exploit external forces to place particles with high yield and great accuracy, are particularly powerful. However, currently available techniques require specialized equipment, which limits their applicability. Here, we present a microfluidic platform to produce versatile colloidal patterns within a microchannel, based on sequential capillarity-assisted particle assembly (sCAPA). This new microfluidic technology exploits the capillary forces resulting from the controlled motion of an evaporating droplet inside a microfluidic channel to deposit individual particles in an array of traps microfabricated onto a substrate. Sequential depositions allow the generation of a desired spatial layout of colloidal particles of single or multiple types, dictated solely by the geometry of the traps and the filling sequence. We show that the platform can be used to create a variety of patterns and that the microfluidic channel easily allows surface functionalization of trapped particles. By enabling colloidal patterning to be carried out in a controlled environment, exploiting equipment routinely used in microfluidics, we demonstrate an easy-to-build platform that can be implemented in microfluidics labs.ETH Research Grant ETH-15 17-1ETH Postdoctoral Fellowship FEL-21 15-2SNSF PRIMA Grant 179834Postdoctoral fellowships programme "Beatriu de Pinos" - Government of CataloniaHorizon 2020 programme of research and innovation of the European Union under the Marie Sklodwoska-Curie grant 801370 2018 BP 00029Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation Investigator Award on Aquatic Microbial Symbiosis GBMF919

Provision of obstetrics and gynaecology services during the COVID-19 pandemic:a survey of junior doctors in the UK National Health Service

Objective: The COVID-19 pandemic is disrupting health services worldwide. We aimed to evaluate the provision of obstetrics and gynaecology services in the UK during the acute-phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. Design: Interview-based national survey. Setting: Women’s healthcare units in the National Health Service. Population: Junior doctors in obstetrics and gynaecology. Methods: Participants were interviewed by members of the UKARCOG trainees’ collaborative between 28th March and 7th of April 2020. We used a quantitative analysis for closed-ended questions and a thematic framework analysis for open comments. Results: We received responses from 148/155 units (95%), majority of the participants were in years 3-7 of training (121/148, 82%). Most completed specific training drills for managing obstetric and gynaecological emergencies in women with COVID-19 (89/148, 60.1%) and two-persons donning and doffing of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) (96/148, 64.9%). The majority of surveyed units implemented COVID-19 specific protocols (130/148, 87.8%), offered adequate PPE (135/148, 91.2%) and operated dedicated COVID-19 emergency theatres (105/148, 70.8%). Most units reduced face-to-face antenatal clinics (117/148, 79.1%), and suspended elective gynaecology services (131/148, 88.5%). The two-week referral pathway for oncology gynaecology was not affected in half of the units (76/148, 51.4%), while half reported a planned reduction in oncology operating (82/148, 55.4%). Conclusion: The provision of obstetrics and gynaecology services in the UK during the acute phase of the COVID-19 pandemic seems to be in line with current guidelines, but strategic planning is needed to restore routine gynaecology services and ensure safe access to maternity care on the longterm

Reflections on a crisis: political disenchantment, moral desolation, and political integrity

Declining levels of political trust and voter turnout, the shift towards populist politics marked by appeals to ‘the people’ and a rejection of ‘politics-as-usual’, are just some of the commonly cited manifestations of our culture of political disaffection. Democratic politics, it is argued, is in crisis. Whilst considerable energy has been expended on the task of lamenting the status of our politics and pondering over recommendations to tackle this perceived crisis, amid this raft of complaints and solutions lurks confusion. This paper seeks to explore the neglected question of what the precise nature of the crisis with which we are confronted involves, and, in so doing, to go some way towards untangling our confusion. Taking my cue from Machiavelli and his value-pluralist heirs, I argue that there is a rift between a morally admirable and a virtuous political life. Failure to appreciate this possibility causes narrations of crisis to misconstrue the moral messiness of politics in ways that lead us to misunderstand how we should respond to disenchantment. Specifically, I suggest that: (i) we think that there is a moral crisis in politics because we have an unsatisfactorily idealistic understanding of political integrity in the first place; and (ii) it is a mistake to imagine that the moral purification of politics is possible or desirable. Put simply, our crisis is not moral per se but primarily philosophical in nature: it relates to the very concepts we employ—the qualities of character and context we presuppose whilst pondering over political integrity

Improvement on social representation of climate change through a knowledge-based MOOC in spanish

Climate Change is the most important threat to our society and all species on Earth. Large alterations in the climate are affecting every aspect of our society and in order to limit this impact we must decarbonize the economy before 2050. Although science presents solid evidence on the magnitude of the problem and outlines precisely the consequences, people do not act accordingly and do not consider this issue a priority for their survival. The reason behind this paradox might be a non-appropriate Social Representation of Climate Change in society as the Social Representation conditions and forms the response of the society. In this paper, we extend previous investigations of how this Social Representation is formed in order to find ways to improve it through a Massive Online Open Course on the Science of Climate Change. Using a validated questionnaire, we investigated the knowledge dimension of the Social Representation of Climate Change in a group of students of a MOOC on Climate Change. A pre- and posttest revealed general improvements in all the categories that were considered in this study. A detailed analysis showed different degrees of improvement for different groups, providing new insights in the efficiency of knowledge-based online courses. Well designed Massive Online Open Courses, based on scientific evidence, targeted to the general public might improve the Social Representation of Climate Change, which may in turn trigger awareness and an effective mobilization to address this important and urgent topicThis research was funded by the project 2017/00287/001 of the Fundación Biodiversidad del Ministerio de Agricultura, Pesca, Alimentación y Medio Ambiente (España)S