Tritrophic interactions in forests: Direct and indirect interactions between birds, insect herbivores, and oaks

This study examines direct and indirect relationships between three trophic levels to determine effects on plant damage, herbivore abundance and community structure, and bird distribution in forest ecosystems. Exclusion experiments on white oak (Quercus alba) revealed that bird predation effects to not vary spatially despite variation in abundance of both birds and insects. Using a leaf quality manipulation, I demonstrated that bird impacts do not differ with host plant quality. Rather, birds and plant traits had additive effects on herbivore damage. Bottom-up effects of leaf quality were also more important than top-down effects of birds in structuring the insect herbivore community on white oak. Leaf quality influenced the total abundance and richness of herbivores as well as the abundance of different feeding guilds. These effects of leaf quality were strongest at the end of the growing season, when leaf quality is presumably lowest overall. Bottom-up effects may also be modified by the physical environment in which a plant grows. I studied abundance and distribution of a specialist oak herbivore and showed that individuals choosing a host plant may face a trade off between the optimal physical environment and suitable plant traits. Finally, I demonstrated a bottom-up effect of invasive prey on insectivorous birds: outbreaking gypsy moths alter the annual distribution of native cuckoos at a regional scale. This study indicates that complex interactions exist beyond a simple, unidirectional consumption model of plants, herbivores, and avian predators. The indirect positive effect of birds on plants appears robust to variation in the abundance and traits of the three trophic levels, but the mechanism for this effect may vary through time and space. The impact of birds, however, did not vary with plant characteristics. These characteristics, which can depend on environmental context, likely play a larger role in determining the abundance, structure, and impacts of herbivores than do insectivorous bird predators

HND Degree 'Top-up' Students' Perceptions of Their Experience at the University of Worcester: How Can Future Students' Experiences Be Improved?

This study investigated the experiences of students on a top-up degree course in the Institute of Sport and Exercise Science. Two students on the current ‘top-up’ were interviewed after having completed a HND at a partner college which revealed some useful insights in relation to their experiences on the degree course.For example, these students noted that as well as greater demands being placed on them at University compared with College, feedback was more relaxed on the HND. The students proposed the notion of a 'move-up' day prior to studying the degree top-up in order to settle students quickly onto their degree course and to smooth a successful transition onto the top- up course

Sediment, nutrient and runoff management and mitigation in rural catchments

PhD ThesisThis Thesis is concerned with the quality of surface waters in rural catchments across northern England and the mitigation of Diffuse Water Pollution from Agriculture (DWPA). Runoff Attenuation Features (RAFs) are a range of soft--‐engineered DWPA transport management options, which target hydrological flow pathways for the purpose of slowing, storing and filtering water. This study demonstrates the potential of RAFs to significantly reduce losses of suspended sediment (SS), phosphorus (P) and nitrate (NO3) in agricultural runoff. To implement RAFs effectively it is vital to understand how, where and when to best target mitigation efforts. This relies on knowledge of the sediment and nutrient regime and hydrological functioning of a catchment. In response to this a stratified, synchronous grab sampling programme was implemented over two consecutive years in the upper Eden catchment (334 km2), Cumbria, covering thirteen sub--‐catchments of multiple scales. No relationship was found between sedimentutrient yield and catchment area but it was recognised that certain lowland sub--‐catchments deliver a disproportionate amount of the pollutant load, particularly SS and P, due to increased agricultural activity, and that there were large variations in flux affected by season and hydrological conditions. One particular sub--‐catchment dominated by improved grassland, Blind Beck (9 km2), exhibited both higher nutrient and SS concentrations per unit runoff and higher yields compared with any other sub--‐catchment. The Blind Beck sub--‐catchment was selected in which to implement a more detailed investigation of SS and nutrient delivery, which included event sampling. High flows (accounting for 10% of flow duration) contributed 84% of the annual SS load, 76% of the total P and 68% of the soluble reactive P, but just 32% of the NO3 load. This highlights the acute nature of the SS and P diffuse pollution problem and demonstrates the need to target storm events for effective mitigation. A number of RAFs were constructed in two established research catchments in Northumberland with a similar mixed land use to the Eden: Belford (15 ha) and Netherton (80 ha). Synchronous inlet and outlet water samples were collected during storm events. Results demonstrate that relatively small RAFs, principally sediment traps, constructed in farm ditches (<1 km2 catchment area) can reduce mean SS, TP, SRP and NO3 loads during storm events by 30--‐49%, 23--‐37%, 12--‐27% and 8--‐14%, respectively. The potential of RAFs designed to reduce DWPA in key locations and at certain scales will be proposed based on the findings of the PhD study

Multigene engineering of secretion in mammalian cell factories

Chinese hamster ovary cells are widely used in the production of biopharmaceuticals such as monoclonal antibodies. Since their first use for this application in the 1980s much engineering of manufacturing processes and the CHO cell itself has been undertaken, leading to increased cell productivity, product specificity and overall product titres and yields. Much CHO cell engineering has thus far focused on increasing transcription and translation levels, with the engineering of protein folding and modification also being targeted. Whilst this has increased the protein production capacity of the CHO cell it has also had the effect of increasing pressure on the CHO biosynthetic and secretory pathways. The secretory pathway of the CHO cell is not adapted to high levels of secretion as is seen in plasma cells, the main function of which is to produce and secret high levels of antibodies. As such an increase in secretory load upon the CHO cell has introduced bottlenecks that limit the amount of recombinant product that can be transported out of the cell. Engineering strategies to ease these bottlenecks have so far focused on expression of single genes or two genes in combination. Two engineering strategies were utilised to engineer the CHO cell secretory pathway and enhance CHO cell productivity. Firstly a literature- and ‘omics-driven approach was used to select genes with which to engineer the CHO secretory pathway. Engineering of the secretory and biosynthetic pathways, using single genes and multiple genes in combination, showed that this approach can increase CHO productivity levels through enhancing specific productivity and overall titre. Secondly, directed evolution was used as a method to bring about myriad fine global changes within the CHO biosynthetic and secretory pathways. From these results we hypothesise that a more holistic, global approach to biosynthetic and secretory pathway engineering proves more successful in increasing CHO cell productivity when compared to more directed techniques

Meeting user needs in national healthcare systems: lessons from early adopter community pharmacists using the electronic prescriptions service

BACKGROUND: The Electronic Prescription Service release Two (EPS2) is a new national healthcare information and communication technology in England that aims to deliver effective prescription writing, dispensing and reimbursement service to benefit patients. The aim of the study was to explore initial user experiences of Community Pharmacists (CPs) using EPS2. METHODS: We conducted nonparticipant observations and interviews in eight EPS2 early adopter community pharmacies classified as ‘first-of-type’ in midlands and northern regions in England. We interviewed eight pharmacists and two dispensers in addition to 56 hours recorded nonparticipant observations as field notes. Line-by-line coding and thematic analysis was conducted on the interview transcripts and field notes. RESULTS: CPs faced two types of challenge. The first was to do with missing electronic prescriptions. This was sometimes very disrupting to work practice, but pharmacists considered it a temporary issue resolvable with minor modifications to the system and user familiarity. The second was to do with long term design-specific issues. Pharmacists could only overcome these by using the system in ways not intended by the developers. Some felt that these issues would not exist had ‘real’ users been involved in the initial development. The issues were: 1) printing out electronic prescriptions (tokens) to dispense from for safe dispensing practices and to free up monitors for other uses, 2) logging all dispensing activities with one user’s Smartcard for convenience and use all human resources in the pharmacy, and, 3) problematic interface causing issues with endorsing prescriptions and claiming reimbursements. CONCLUSIONS: We question if these unintended uses and barriers would have occurred had a more rigorous user-centric principles been applied at the earlier stages of design and implementation of EPS. We conclude that, since modification can occur at the evaluation stage, there is still scope for some of these barriers to be corrected to address the needs, and enhance the experiences, of CPs using the service, and make recommendations on how current challenges could be resolved

The effects of assimilation on sulphide saturation and the formation of norite-hosted Cu-Ni deposits in the Duluth Complex, Minnesota

Non peer reviewe

Employability and the UseMyAbility Online Tool: Raising Sports Students’ Awareness to Inform the Development of Their Skills and Attributes

The collaborative project UseMyAbility (UMA) sought to reduce discrimination and enhance disabled graduates’ employability through equipping them with the skills to match employability skills and attributes. An outcome from the project, completed in 2011, was a web-based tool which gave students advice on how to improve their employability. Subsequently, an online self-audit questionnaire was developed, which allowed students to record and map their employability skills and attributes. This paper reports on two projects that used this UMA online questionnaire with undergraduate sports students at a UK University. The first group were students undertaking a second-year Physical Education (PE) module and the second were students undertaking internships in a variety of sporting contexts. Drawing on data gained from questionnaires and student and mentor interviews, the two projects sought to evaluate the effectiveness of the UMA questionnaire for the students in these two contexts. It aimed to enhance students’ employability profiles, enable them to benchmark and track their development, provide practical help in preparing job applications, tackle interview questions and develop evidence-based curricula vitae. It is hoped that through identifying ways of adapting the use of the questionnaire to these contexts, learning from participant data from the completion of the questionnaires, and gaining a better understanding of students’ and mentors’ perceptions of its use, that insights may be gained that will aid the wider adoption of the online tool

Limitations of microscopy to differentiate Plasmodium species in a region co-endemic for Plasmodium falciparum, Plasmodium vivax and Plasmodium knowlesi

BackgroundIn areas co-endemic for multiple Plasmodium species, correct diagnosis is crucial for appropriate treatment and surveillance. Species misidentification by microscopy has been reported in areas co-endemic for vivax and falciparum malaria, and may be more frequent in regions where Plasmodium knowlesi also commonly occurs. MethodsThis prospective study in Sabah, Malaysia, evaluated the accuracy of routine district and referral hospital-based microscopy, and microscopy performed by an experienced research microscopist, for the diagnosis of PCR-confirmed Plasmodium falciparum, P. knowlesi, and Plasmodium vivax malaria. ResultsA total of 304 patients with PCR-confirmed Plasmodium infection were enrolled, including 130 with P. knowlesi, 122 with P. falciparum, 43 with P. vivax, one with Plasmodium malariae and eight with mixed species infections. Among patients with P. knowlesi mono-infection, routine and cross-check microscopy both identified 94 (72%) patients as &ldquo;P. malariae/P. knowlesi&rdquo;; 17 (13%) and 28 (22%) respectively were identified as P. falciparum, and 13 (10%) and two (1.5%) as P. vivax. Among patients with PCR-confirmed P. falciparum, routine and cross-check microscopy identified 110/122 (90%) and 112/118 (95%) patients respectively as P. falciparum, and 8/122 (6.6%) and 5/118 (4.2%) as &ldquo;P. malariae/P. knowlesi&rdquo;. Among those with P. vivax, 23/43 (53%) and 34/40 (85%) were correctly diagnosed by routine and cross-check microscopy respectively, while 13/43 (30%) and 3/40 (7.5%) patients were diagnosed as &ldquo;P. malariae/P. knowlesi&rdquo;. Four of 13 patients with PCR-confirmed P. vivax and misdiagnosed by routine microscopy as &ldquo;P. malariae/P. knowlesi&rdquo; were subsequently re-admitted with P. vivax malaria. ConclusionsMicroscopy does not reliably distinguish between P. falciparum, P. vivax and P. knowlesi in a region where all three species frequently occur. Misdiagnosis of P. knowlesi as both P. vivax and P. falciparum, and vice versa, is common, potentially leading to inappropriate treatment, including chloroquine therapy for P. falciparum and a lack of anti-relapse therapy for P. vivax. The limitations of microscopy in P. knowlesi-endemic areas supports the use of unified blood-stage treatment strategies for all Plasmodium species, the development of accurate rapid diagnostic tests suitable for all species, and the use of PCR-confirmation for accurate surveillance

Geochemistry of shield stage basalts from Baluran volcano, East Java, Sunda arc

We report petrography and geochemistry of basaltic lava flows from the shield stage of Baluran, a Quaternary volcanic center in the rear of East Java, Sunda Arc, Indonesia. These basalts contain abundant plagioclase, clinopyroxene, olivine, and minor magnetite. Geochemically, they resemble other medium-K calc alkaline basalts from eastern Java’s volcanoes, but they are less enriched in light ion lithophile elements (LILE) and Pb. The predicted primary basalt of Baluran lavas can be sourced to a more primitive primary melt composition which may also generate medium-K calc-alkaline magmas in the region. The fractionation trajectory of these primary magmas shows the importance of plagioclase, clinopyroxene, olivine, and magnetite phase removal from the melt. Regardless of the diverse composition of the derivatives, the calculated primary basalts from the eastern Java are all in the field of nepheline-normative. This finding suggests variably small degree of melting of clinopyroxene-rich mantle source is at play in the generation of these magmas. Our result further suggests that the clinopyroxene source rock is possibly present as veins in peridotite mantle which have experienced metasomatism by addition of slab-derived fluids at differing proportion

Global, regional, and national levels of maternal mortality, 1990–2015: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2015

Seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were adopted by the global community to provide benchmark targets for global development between 2015 and 2030 and to reframe the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to achieve sustainable global development. This report presents data on maternal mortality in 195 countries from 1990 to 2015. Maternal mortality data were categorized in 3 formats, namely, number of deaths, cause-specific mortality rate per capita, and cause fraction. The overall maternal mortality was modeled using cause-of-death ensemble modeling (CODEm). The number of deaths, maternal mortality ratios (MMRs), and 95% uncertainty intervals were reported for all estimates