Insights into the nature of climate and vegetation changes over the last 28,000 years using combined pollen and leaf-wax biomarker analyses from the SW Iberian Margin

This thesis aims to enhance the current understanding of the response of SW Iberian ecosystems to abrupt and orbital-scale climate changes. The last ~28 thousand years can provide such insight, containing several abrupt North Atlantic climate events superimposed on orbital-scale global changes. This study presents new high-resolution pollen and leaf-wax n-alkane records combined with palaeoceanographic proxies from the same deep-sea cores (SHAK06-5K and MD01-2444) on the Southwestern (SW) Iberian Margin. The chronology of these records is based on high-resolution Accelerator Mass Spectrometry radiocarbon dating of planktonic foraminifer Globigerina bulloides from cores SHAK06-5K and MD01-2444. Changes in temperate and steppe records during the Last Glacial Maximum and subsequent deglaciation are closely coupled with changes in sea surface temperatures (SSTs), and global ice volume. This coupling continues during the onset of the Holocene, with the peak in thermophilous woodland lagging the boreal insolation maxima by ~2 kyr. This possibly arises from the persistence of residual high-latitude ice-sheets into the Holocene. A close correlation between rapid oscillations in pollen percentages and millennial/centennial-scale variations in SSTs, planktonic 18O, and lithology suggests extrinsically-forced SW Iberian ecosystem changes in response to abrupt North Atlantic climate events. In contrast, the abrupt thermophilous woodland decline at ~7.8 thousand years before present (cal ka BP) indicates an intrinsically-mediated abrupt vegetation response to the gradually declining boreal insolation, resulting in the crossing of an ecological threshold. The leaf-wax n-alkane 13C record from SHAK06-5K combined with the pollen record from the same core and modern leaf-wax n-alkane 13C data from SW Iberia suggest that this geochemical proxy is directly or indirectly driven by SW Iberian climate variations. Two potential mechanisms are proposed: i) n-alkane 13C is directly controlled by changes in regional moisture availability; or ii) climate change leads to a turnover of plant species with inherently different n-alkane 13C signatures

Puritan affective culture: emotional identities and the publications of Samuel Clarke (1599-1682)

On Black Bartholomew's Day 1662, the Presbyterian Samuel Clarke was one of over two thousand ministers and teachers ejected from their positions by the Restoration government. From the outside, puritans in general, and Presbyterians in particular, were regarded as divisive and censorious. Their dissent was characterised as emanating from zealotry and unreasonable passion that placed them beyond the bounds of a moderate middle way. But for those who counted themselves as godly, intense emotional experience was the essence of rationality and an essential part of their piety. Historians have debated the emotional impact of Calvinist theology and how feeling was central to religious experience. They have exhaustively scrutinised the place of puritanism more generally. However, the role of affect as articulated in public discourse, and the dynamics of emotion in shaping the interface between individual and collective identity has been neglected. Yet, feeling was a fundamental component of politico-religious identities that reflected cultural habituations and determined the nature of the interaction between those of different persuasions. This thesis proposes that a concept of affective culture helps to locate Clarke's Presbyterianism within these multifarious identities as they developed in the mid-seventeenth century. It draws upon concepts and methodologies from the field of emotions history to explore the relationship between cultures, published text and affect. In his published anthologies Samuel Clarke presented patterns of affect, mobilising a construction of unruly passions and rational affections to underpin his purpose of representing his confessional community as an orthodoxy at the centre of the English Church. This account begins with a macro view that establishes the place of Clarke's work in the affective context of mid-seventeenth-century politico-religious conflict. It goes on to develop an analysis of how Clarke fashioned a template of pious emotion, before considering how affective culture shaped personal and collective identities

Current Perspectives on the Use of off the Shelf CAR-T/NK Cells for the Treatment of Cancer

CAR T cells have revolutionised the treatment of haematological malignancies. Despite this, several obstacles still prohibit their widespread use and efficacy. One of these barriers is the use of autologous T cells as the carrier of the CAR. The individual production of CAR T cells results in large variation in the product, greater wait times for treatment and higher costs. To overcome this several novel approaches have emerged that utilise allogeneic cells, so called “off the shelf” CAR T cells. In this Review, we describe the different approaches that have been used to produce allogeneic CAR T to date, as well as their current pre-clinical and clinical progress

Siphoderina hustoni n. sp. (Platyhelminthes: Trematoda: Cryptogonimidae) from the Maori snapper Lutjanus rivulatus (Cuvier) on the Great Barrier Reef

A new cryptogonimid trematode, Siphoderina hustoni n. sp., is reported, collected off Lizard Island, Queensland, Australia, from the Maori snapper Lutjanus rivulatus (Cuvier). The new species is moderately distinctive within the genus. It is larger and more elongate than most other species of Siphoderina Manter, 1934, has the shortest forebody of any, a relatively large ventral sucker, a long post-testicular zone, and is perhaps most recognisable for the substantial space in the midbody between the ventral sucker and ovary devoid of uterine coils and vitelline follicles, the former being restricted to largely posterior to the ovary and the latter distributed from the level of the anterior testis to the level of the ovary. In phylogenetic analyses of 28S ribosomal DNA, the new species resolved with the other nine species of Siphoderina for which sequence data are available, all of which are from Queensland waters and from lutjanid and haemulid fishes. Molecular barcode data were also generated, for the ITS2 ribosomal DNA and cox1 mitochondrial DNA markers. The new species is the first cryptogonimid known from L. rivulatus and the first metazoan parasite reported from that fish in Australian waters

The impact of abrupt deglacial climate variability on productivity and upwelling on the southwestern Iberian margin

This study combines high-resolution records of nannofossil abundances, oxygen and carbon stable isotopes, core scanning X-ray fluorescence (XRF), and ice rafted debris (IRD) to assess the paleoceanographic changes that occurred during the last deglaciation on the SW Iberian Margin. Our results reveal parallel centennial-scale oscillations in coccolithophore productivity, nutricline depth and upwelling phenomena not previously observed, explained by means of arrival of iceberg-melting waters, iceberg-induced turbulent conditions, SST changes and riverine discharges. On millennial time-scales, higher primary productivity (PP), shallower nutricline, and upwelling occurrence/invigoration are observed for the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) and Bølling-Allerød (B/A). The opposite scenario (i.e., lower productivity, deeper nutricline and upwelling weakening/absence) is linked to cold spells such as Heinrich Stadials 2 and 1 (HS2 and HS1) and the Younger Dryas (YD). Such paleoproductivity variations are attributed to latitudinal migrations of the thermal fronts associated with oceanic gyres in the North Atlantic, in parallel to oscillations in the strength of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). Moderate-to-high PP during the Holocene is ascribed to the development of the modern seasonal surface hydrography, with a more persistent Iberian Poleward Current (IPC) and seasonal wind-induced upwelling