An Ethnobotany of Firewood in Osage Big Moon Peyotism: Practical knowledge, ritual participation, and aesthetic preference

This article examines firewood in the context of the modern practice of the Big Moon Peyote Religion by the Osage Indian community of Osage County, in northeastern Oklahoma, U.S.A. The fire and its ritual maintenance is a major component of the all night ceremony of Peyotism. The selection and preparation of the wood used in the ritual fire incorporates botanical knowledge, ceremonial experience, and aesthetic considerations to satisfy a range of preferences and criteria. We also discuss the manners in which firewood, through its ritual use and sacred properties, extends the spiritual benefit and social relationships of Peyotism to the greater Osage community

Understanding how law enforcement agencies share information in an intelligence-led environment: How operational context influences different approaches

PurposeThe importance of multi-agency information sharing is recognised as central to tackling crime and disorder in an intelligence-driven environment. However, whilst technology can facilitate and enhance this process, barriers to effective agency information exchange are consistently reported. This paper aims to categorise how information sharing takes place in a law enforcement operational setting and whether there is scope to improve the process.Design/methodology/approachThere were two stages to the method; firstly, a select group of practitioners with intelligence-related experience (n = 28) were interviewed to identify the most common approaches to operational information sharing. This generated a categorisation model, which was tested with a larger group of practitioners (n = 73). A mixed-methods approach was adopted.FindingsThe research found consensus surrounding four different approaches to information sharing, labelled as: (1) inform and request, (2) meet and share, (3) customised database and (4) integrated systems. These are used at various levels of frequency, dependent on the operational context.Originality/valueThis research provides original evidence-based research to show law enforcement practitioners vary in the way they share information. By demystifying and categorising the process, it provides understanding for practitioners, policymakers and researchers, allowing barriers to be more readily tackled in a much more cost-effective manner

Historical Scene Investigation (HSI): Engaging Students in Case Based Investigations using Web-Based Historical Documents

The Historical Scene Investigation (HSI) project builds upon the work of a number of scholars to facilitate the application and acquisition of historical thinking skills in the K-12 classroom. Through a structured yet flexible approach, HSI exercises attempt to provide scaffolding for the analysis of a variety of historical documents to simultaneously develop an understanding of the content focus of the investigation and the historiography skills embedded in their work. HSI exercises are designed to be “interpreted” and edited by classroom teachers in either a low- or high-tech approach. This article explores the background and structure of the model and discussion of the classroom implementation of two examples

Band Gap Engineering with Ultralarge Biaxial Strains in Suspended Monolayer MoS2

We demonstrate the continuous and reversible tuning of the optical band gap of suspended monolayer MoS2 membranes by as much as 500 meV by applying very large biaxial strains. By using chemical vapor deposition (CVD) to grow crystals that are highly impermeable to gas, we are able to apply a pressure difference across suspended membranes to induce biaxial strains. We observe the effect of strain on the energy and intensity of the peaks in the photoluminescence (PL) spectrum, and find a linear tuning rate of the optical band gap of 99 meV/%. This method is then used to study the PL spectra of bilayer and trilayer devices under strain, and to find the shift rates and Gr\"uneisen parameters of two Raman modes in monolayer MoS2. Finally, we use this result to show that we can apply biaxial strains as large as 5.6% across micron sized areas, and report evidence for the strain tuning of higher level optical transitions.Comment: Nano Lett., Article ASA

Eurovision 2023: Exploring Liverpool's multi-agency approach to a large-scale event

In May 2023, Liverpool hosted the Eurovision Song Contest on behalf of Ukraine, involving 37 competing nations. With over 12,000 accredited staff involved in the planning and delivery of Eurovision, it is the largest and most complex multi-agency event that Liverpool has ever hosted. The organisations involved included Culture Liverpool, Merseyside Police, Liverpool City Council, North West Ambulance Service, Liverpool One, BBC, Maritime and Coastguard Agency, Camp and Furnace, Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service, and many more. This presented an exciting opportunity to explore multi-agency working for a major live event. The research will identify the key themes associated with a multi-agency approach, around relationship building, consistency, longevity, and trust. It will also investigate the ways in which multi-agency information sharing takes place in the preparation and delivery of a large-scale live event, informing a UK Research and Innovation Future Leaders Fellowship on law enforcement information exchange. To understand how agencies work together and share information for Eurovision 2023, the following data is collected: i.) field observations during multi-agency meetings, the multi-agency tabletop exercise, and the live events (i.e. opening ceremony, semi-finals, final); ii.) policy documents; iii.) post-event online surveys; and iv.) post-event semi-structured interviews. Participants include practitioners from a range of the organisations involved. Quantitative (descriptives) and qualitative (content, thematic) analyses will be conducted. As a ‘work-in-progress’, an overview of the research and headline findings will be presented

Species-level functional profiling of metagenomes and metatranscriptomes.

Functional profiles of microbial communities are typically generated using comprehensive metagenomic or metatranscriptomic sequence read searches, which are time-consuming, prone to spurious mapping, and often limited to community-level quantification. We developed HUMAnN2, a tiered search strategy that enables fast, accurate, and species-resolved functional profiling of host-associated and environmental communities. HUMAnN2 identifies a community's known species, aligns reads to their pangenomes, performs translated search on unclassified reads, and finally quantifies gene families and pathways. Relative to pure translated search, HUMAnN2 is faster and produces more accurate gene family profiles. We applied HUMAnN2 to study clinal variation in marine metabolism, ecological contribution patterns among human microbiome pathways, variation in species' genomic versus transcriptional contributions, and strain profiling. Further, we introduce 'contributional diversity' to explain patterns of ecological assembly across different microbial community types

Systematic, continental scale temporal monitoring of marine pelagic microbiota by the Australian Marine Microbial Biodiversity Initiative

Sustained observations of microbial dynamics are rare, especially in southern hemisphere waters. The Australian Marine Microbial Biodiversity Initiative (AMMBI) provides methodologically standardized, continental scale, temporal phylogenetic amplicon sequencing data describing Bacteria, Archaea and microbial Eukarya assemblages. Sequence data is linked to extensive physical, biological and chemical oceanographic contextual information. Samples are collected monthly to seasonally from multiple depths at seven sites: Darwin Harbour (Northern Territory), Yongala (Queensland), North Stradbroke Island (Queensland), Port Hacking (New South Wales), Maria Island (Tasmania), Kangaroo Island (South Australia), Rottnest Island (Western Australia). These sites span ~30° of latitude and ~38° longitude, range from tropical to cold temperate zones, and are influenced by both local and globally significant oceanographic and climatic features. All sequence datasets are provided in both raw and processed fashion. Currently 952 samples are publically available for bacteria and archaea which include 88,951,761 bacterial (72,435 unique) and 70,463,079 archaeal (24,205 unique) 16 S rRNA v1-3 gene sequences, and 388 samples are available for eukaryotes which include 39,801,050 (78,463 unique) 18 S rRNA v4 gene sequences

New genetic loci link adipose and insulin biology to body fat distribution.

Body fat distribution is a heritable trait and a well-established predictor of adverse metabolic outcomes, independent of overall adiposity. To increase our understanding of the genetic basis of body fat distribution and its molecular links to cardiometabolic traits, here we conduct genome-wide association meta-analyses of traits related to waist and hip circumferences in up to 224,459 individuals. We identify 49 loci (33 new) associated with waist-to-hip ratio adjusted for body mass index (BMI), and an additional 19 loci newly associated with related waist and hip circumference measures (P < 5 × 10(-8)). In total, 20 of the 49 waist-to-hip ratio adjusted for BMI loci show significant sexual dimorphism, 19 of which display a stronger effect in women. The identified loci were enriched for genes expressed in adipose tissue and for putative regulatory elements in adipocytes. Pathway analyses implicated adipogenesis, angiogenesis, transcriptional regulation and insulin resistance as processes affecting fat distribution, providing insight into potential pathophysiological mechanisms

An immune dysfunction score for stratification of patients with acute infection based on whole-blood gene expression

Dysregulated host responses to infection can lead to organ dysfunction and sepsis, causing millions of global deaths each year. To alleviate this burden, improved prognostication and biomarkers of response are urgently needed. We investigated the use of whole-blood transcriptomics for stratification of patients with severe infection by integrating data from 3149 samples from patients with sepsis due to community-acquired pneumonia or fecal peritonitis admitted to intensive care and healthy individuals into a gene expression reference map. We used this map to derive a quantitative sepsis response signature (SRSq) score reflective of immune dysfunction and predictive of clinical outcomes, which can be estimated using a 7- or 12-gene signature. Last, we built a machine learning framework, SepstratifieR, to deploy SRSq in adult and pediatric bacterial and viral sepsis, H1N1 influenza, and COVID-19, demonstrating clinically relevant stratification across diseases and revealing some of the physiological alterations linking immune dysregulation to mortality. Our method enables early identification of individuals with dysfunctional immune profiles, bringing us closer to precision medicine in infection.peer-reviewe