Thinking globally acting locally : an overview of local environmental activism in Britain

Over the last four decades national environmental groups have become an important means of political participation for many British citizens. Since the mid-1980s these organizations have established a number of local groups. There are still some gaps in our understanding of these groups, particularly relating to participation at the grass-roots level. This investigation examines the British environmental movement, focusing on those who become coordinators of local groups, and attempts to find the correlates of their environmental activism. The research reviews the existing empirical data relating to environmental activism, and theoretical accounts relating to participation. It also considers the significance of the emergence of postmaterial values, and looks at the theoretical framework that informs environmental activism. The hypothesis that the conservation and ecology movements are effectively sub-groups within the broader ecology movement is tested, and the thesis explores the possibility that those who participate in these movements have different socio-demographic and cognitive profiles, and methods of activism. The history and development of environmentalism in Britain is discussed, revealing the fundamental differences between the conservation and ecology movements. To test the hypothesis a national, internet based, questionnaire was conducted. In total, 380 activists were surveyed, all of whom were coordinators of local environmental groups that were affiliated to one of six nationally prominent environmental organisations. The findings of the research indicated that although many national environmental organizations seem to have become closer together in terms of their core beliefs and objectives. There are some notable differences between conservationists and ecologists at the grass-roots level, particularly in relation to sociopsychological variables, and means of participation

The effect of volatile fatty acid inclusion in drinking water on intestinal microflora, VFA, pH, dry matter, and performance in weanling pigs

In a series of three 17 d replicate trials, a total of 36 ileal cannulated pigs were used to determine the effects of volatile fatty acid (VFA) inclusion in drinking water on ileal microflora, hemolytic Escherichia coli, VFA concentrations, pH, dry matter (DM), and pig performance. All pigs were weaned at 21 d-of-age and assigned to one of three treatments including: Tl)ad libitimi access to water, T2)ad libitum access to water containing acetate(50mM), propionate(5mM), and butyrate (3mM), and T3)ad libitum access to water containing acetate(25mM), propionate(2.5mM), and butyrate(1.5mM). Individual water intake was measured daily and feed intake was measured twice weekly. All pigs were individually caged in an environmentally controlled room with ad libitiam access to a phase starter diet. Ileal samples were collected at 21, 24, 28, 31, 35, and 38 d-ofage. At 38 d-of-age, pigs were sacrificed and contents were collected from the stomach, duodenum, ileum, cecum, and spiral colon. Digesta were analyzed for total E. coli, streptococci, lactobacilli, VFA, pH, and DM. Neither water nor feed intake differed between treatments and no differences were observed in microflora concentrations between treatments. Average ileal E. coli concentrations of 6.23, 5.87, and 6.15, streptococci concentrations of 7.55, 7.39, and 7.34, and lactobacilli concentrations of 7.32, 7.49, and 7.15 log10;CFU/g were observed for Tl, T2, and T3 pigs, respectively. Time(day) effects (P = .0001) were observed for E.coli, streptococci, and lactobacilli. Additionally, VFA concentrations were unaffected by treatment; however, day effects were observed (P = .0001). Treatment had no effect on ileal pH or DM; however, pH was observed to increase (P = .0001) by day 3 postweaning for all treatments. Furthermore, treatment had no effect on pH in the various gastrointestinal sites. Results indicate that VFA inclusion in drinking water had no significant effect on ileal microflora, VFA, pH, DM, or performance in weanling pigs

Effects of corn plant maturity at ensiling on the performance of feeder heifers

The three objectives in this investigation were to (1) determine the effects of the four stages of maturity on silage yields and losses; (2) to evaluate both a visual method of silage scoring and chemical analysis; and (3) to determine the effects of corn silage harvested at four stages of maturity (late milk, early dough, late dough, and mealy endosperm) on the performance of feeder heifers. Theoretical green chop yield had a tendency to decrease as matu-rity increased. The tonnage of green chop ensiled was similar for the first three stages of maturity and higher than for the fourth stage. Expressed either as a percent of the theoretical yield or as dry matter per acre, the quantity of green chop ensiled increased through the third stage. Edible silage expressed as tons of dry matter per acre, increased through the third cutting. Losses between the theoretical values and the quantity ensiled were lower for the two middle stages of maturity as were the unaccountable losses between the time of en-siling and the actual quantity fed. Total visual score was closely associated with animal perform-ance with the second and third stages of maturity, but was not as good an indicator for the first and fourth stages of maturity. It was a good indicator of the daily air dry intake of silage by the animals. Individual components of the chemical analysis, on an as fed basis, had a tendency to increase with increasing maturity in the three year summary. Chemical analysis was not closely associated with animal performance. Animal performance showed yearly differences in silages which were not indicated by (1) chemical analysis, (2) by consumption on either an as fed or dry matter basis, or (3) the silage scores. Neither could the differences be explained by the digestibility studies conducted on the same silages by Prigge (1968). Average daily silage intake as fed decreased with increasing maturity, with the fourth stage of maturity being significantly less (P \u3c .05) than the other three. However, in the three year summary expressed on an air dry basis, it was significantly higher (P \u3c .05) for the middle stages of maturity than for the first and fourth stages. Average daily gains of the heifers during the silage phase for the late milk, early dough, and late dough stages were similar, but significantly higher (P \u3c .05) than the gains obtained with the mealy endosperm stage. Pounds of feed required per pound of gain on an as fed basis had a tendency to decrease with increasing maturity. However, expressed on an air dry basis the trend reversed. No significant (P \u3c .05) differences were found in (1) the live condition grades taken at the end of the silage phase, (2) the final live condition grades, and (3) the carcass characteristics obtained at the end of the full fed phase. Pounds of beef produced per acre of silage was highest for the late dough stage, and followed in decreasing order by the early dough, mealy endosperm, and late milk stages. In the full fed phase no significant (P \u3c .05) differences were found in average daily gain or air dry matter intake indicating no carry over effects from the silage phase to the full fed phase

Systematic review and meta-analysis of the sero-epidemiological association between Epstein-Barr virus and rheumatoid arthritis

Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank Cynthia Fraser for helping run the literature search, Dr Neil Basu for providing advice on search terms for rheumatoid arthritis and to Xueli Jia, Katie Bannister and Kubra Boza for their help with foreign language papers. The authors would also like to thank the University of Aberdeen librarians at the Foresterhill medical library for their help in locating articles used for this systematic review and meta-analysis.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Thinking globally acting locally : an overview of local environmental activism in Britain

Over the last four decades national environmental groups have become an important means of political participation for many British citizens. Since the mid-1980s these organizations have established a number of local groups. There are still some gaps in our understanding of these groups, particularly relating to participation at the grass-roots level. This investigation examines the British environmental movement, focusing on those who become coordinators of local groups, and attempts to find the correlates of their environmental activism. The research reviews the existing empirical data relating to environmental activism, and theoretical accounts relating to participation. It also considers the significance of the emergence of postmaterial values, and looks at the theoretical framework that informs environmental activism. The hypothesis that the conservation and ecology movements are effectively sub-groups within the broader ecology movement is tested, and the thesis explores the possibility that those who participate in these movements have different socio-demographic and cognitive profiles, and methods of activism. The history and development of environmentalism in Britain is discussed, revealing the fundamental differences between the conservation and ecology movements. To test the hypothesis a national, internet based, questionnaire was conducted. In total, 380 activists were surveyed, all of whom were coordinators of local environmental groups that were affiliated to one of six nationally prominent environmental organisations. The findings of the research indicated that although many national environmental organizations seem to have become closer together in terms of their core beliefs and objectives. There are some notable differences between conservationists and ecologists at the grass-roots level, particularly in relation to sociopsychological variables, and means of participation.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Expansion of Foxp3+ T-cell populations by Candida albicans enhances both Th17-cell responses and fungal dissemination after intravenous challenge

Research Funding Wellcome Trust, UK. Grant Numbers: 086827, 080088 NIH. Grant Number: DE022550Peer reviewedPublisher PD

The Red Blood Cell as a Novel Regulator of Human B-cell Activation

Acknowledgements We thank Dr Helen Connaris and Professor Garry Taylor from the University of St Andrews for providing recombinant neuraminidase and Professor Claudia Mauri and Dr Madhvi Menon from Imperial College London for their advice on B‐cell phenotypes. The authors gratefully acknowledge the funding for this project from the Cancer Research Aberdeen North‐East Scotland (CRANES), and from the Wellcome Trust, UK (grant 094847). Data are available on reasonable request from the corresponding author.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Improving the robustness of right whale detection in noisy conditions using denoising autoencoders and augmented training

The aim of this paper is to examine denoising autoencoders (DAEs) for improving the detection of right whales recorded in harsh marine environments. Passive acoustic recordings are taken from autonomous surface vehicles (ASVs) and are subject to noise from sources such as shipping and offshore construction. To mitigate the noise we apply DAEs and consider how best to train the classifier by augmenting clean training data with examples contaminated by noise. Evaluations find that the DAE improves detection accuracy and is particularly effective when the classifier is trained on data that has itself been denoised rather than using a clean model. Further, testing on unseen noises is also effective particularly for noises that exhibit similar character to noises seen in training