Breaking the Fat Stigma

Fat-shaming is seen as the last acceptable form of discrimination. Many people think just because someone is larger, that means they\u27re unhealthy. This isn\u27t always the case. This presentation hopes to teach people that weight doesn\u27t always equate to health, and there are many underlying factors why some people may not fit American society\u27s ideal body type.https://digitalcommons.tacoma.uw.edu/gender_studies/1058/thumbnail.jp

State-dependent Neural Inhibition by Extracellular Stimulation

Utilizing the Aplysia california buccal ganglia neurons, our research built upon previous findings concerning the presence of neuronal activity states, but demonstrate that these states play a role in the cell’s responsiveness to electrical stimulation. It was demonstrated that fast-firing neurons are more resistant to inhibitory stimulation as compared to slow-firing neurons. NEURON computational modeling revealed differences in ion channel dynamics that may underlie the differences in stimulation responsiveness that are associated with neuronal states

Deep Decarbonization in Cities: Pathways, Strategies, Governance Mechanisms and Actors for Transformative Climate Action

As the urgency for climate action heightens, local governments and stakeholders are developing short-term strategies and long-term pathways towards deep decarbonization at the local level. Urban areas are the largest place-based source of greenhouse gas emissions, accounting for 71%-76% of global emissions, and are projected to house 60% of the global population by 2030. Local governments have direct and indirect control of over 52% of emissions that occur within their municipalities. This study aims to qualitatively explore eight cases of best practice cities that are leading the way towards decarbonization. The eight cases are: Bridgewater (Nova Scotia, Canada), Park City (Utah, USA), Guelph (Ontario, Canada), Lahti (Finland), Vancouver (British Columbia, Canada), Oslo (Norway), Toronto (Ontario, Canada) and New York City (New York, USA). Cases were chosen based on the ambitiousness of climate action targets. Each Canadian case was paired with an international case similar in population size. The study was conducted to qualitatively explore the emerging best practice initiatives as well as highlight any patterns among the cities, depending on the population size and/or the national context. The method of qualitative investigation involved interviewing key municipal staff or plan managers on the pathways that are being implemented, the governance structures, the key actors and the tools being used for plan development and implementation. The results of this study fill theoretical gaps in the literature around the pathways that cities of different sizes are developing and the results help to provide understanding and insight on the key variables in deep decarbonization planning and implementation variables. Through identifying the key variables in the urban climate action literature, this study aimed to explore which of these were being addressed in climate action plans, and if cities were going beyond what the literature prescribed. The key research questions related to which sectors were the focus of emissions reduction pathways, what strategies were developed for plan development and implementation, how the plans were organized and governed, what key actors were involved. This study made contributions to the literature on decarbonization frameworks in six key areas by extending the literature to include new initiatives that leading cities are developing. The areas that this study contributes to are: decarbonizing the energy sector in small cities, increasing capacity of local carbon sinks, developing green economy targets and workforce development, formalizing communication structures, bottom up vertical integration tactics, and creating funding mechanisms. The findings from this study can be useful for practitioners working towards local deep decarbonization as well as transnational city networks such as C40, CNCA and ICLEI as it highlights emerging best practices

The development of a simple multi-nodal tool to identify performance issues in existing commercial buildings

Australia’s building stock includes many older commercial buildings with numerous factors that impact energy performance and indoor environment quality. The built environment industry has generally focused heavily on improving physical building design elements for greater energy efficiency (such as retrofits and environmental upgrades), however there are noticeable ‘upper limits’ to performance improvements in these areas. To achieve a stepchange improvement in building performance, the authors propose that additional components need to be addressed in a whole of building approach, including the way building design elements are managed and the level of stakeholder engagement between owners, tenants and building managers. This paper focuses on the opportunities provided by this whole-of-building approach, presenting the findings of a research project undertaken through the Sustainable Built Environment National Research Centre (SBEnrc) in Australia. Researchers worked with a number of industry partners over two years to investigate issues facing stakeholders at base building and tenancy levels, and the barriers to improving building performance. Through a mixed-method, industry-led research approach, five ‘nodes’ were identified in whole-of-building performance evaluation, each with interlinking and overlapping complexities that can influence performance. The nodes cover building management, occupant experience, indoor environment quality, agreements and culture, and design elements. This paper outlines the development and testing of these nodes and their interactions, and the resultant multi-nodal tool, called the ‘Performance Nexus’ tool. The tool is intended to be of most benefit in evaluating opportunities for performance improvement in the vast number of existing low-performing building stock

The Performance Nexus - A framework for improving energy efficiency in existing commercial buildings by considering a whole-of-building approach

Efforts to reduce carbon emissions in the buildings sector have been focused on encouraging green design, construction and building operation; however, the business case is not very compelling if considering the energy cost savings alone. In recent years green building has been driven by a sense that it will improve the productivity of occupants, something with much greater economic returns than energy savings. Reducing energy demand in green commercial buildings in a way that encourages greater productivity is not yet well understood as it involves a set of complex and interdependent factors. This paper outlines an investigation into these factors and focuses on better understanding the performance of and interaction between: design elements, internal environmental quality, occupant experience, tenant/leasing agreements, and building regulation and management. In doing so the paper presents a framework for improving energy efficiency in existing commercial buildings by considering a range of interconnected and synergistic elements

On the Feasibility of Intense Radial Velocity Surveys for Earth-twin Discoveries

This work assesses the potential capability of the next generation of high-precision Radial Velocity (RV) instruments for Earth-twin exoplanet detection. From the perspective of the importance of data sampling, the Terra Hunting Experiment aims to do this through an intense series of nightly RV observations over a long baseline on a carefully selected target list, via the brand-new instrument HARPS3. This paper describes an end-to-end simulation of generating and processing such data to help us better understand the impact of uncharacterised stellar noise in the recovery of Earth-mass planets with orbital periods of the order of many months. We consider full Keplerian systems, realistic simulated stellar noise, instrument white noise, and location-specific weather patterns for our observation schedules. We use Bayesian statistics to assess various planetary models fitted to the synthetic data, and compare the successful planet recovery of the Terra Hunting Experiment schedule with a typical reference survey. We find that the Terra Hunting Experiment can detect Earth-twins in the habitable zones of solar-type stars, in single and multi-planet systems, and in the presence of stellar signals. Also that it out-performs a typical reference survey on accuracy of recovered parameters, and that it performs comparably to an uninterrupted space-based schedule.S. J. Thompson and D. Queloz acknowledges the support from the Science and Technologies Facilities Council (STFC) as part of research grant ST/N002997/1. R. Hall acknowledges the STFC for his PhD studentship award number 164162

The development of a simple multi-nodal tool to identify performance issues in existing commercial buildings

Australia’s building stock includes many older commercial buildings with numerous factors that impact energy performance and indoor environment quality. The built environment industry has generally focused heavily on improving physical building design elements for greater energy efficiency (such as retrofits and environmental upgrades), however there are noticeable ‘upper limits’ to performance improvements in these areas. To achieve a stepchange improvement in building performance, the authors propose that additional components need to be addressed in a whole of building approach, including the way building design elements are managed and the level of stakeholder engagement between owners, tenants and building managers. This paper focuses on the opportunities provided by this whole-of-building approach, presenting the findings of a research project undertaken through the Sustainable Built Environment National Research Centre (SBEnrc) in Australia. Researchers worked with a number of industry partners over two years to investigate issues facing stakeholders at base building and tenancy levels, and the barriers to improving building performance. Through a mixed-method, industry-led research approach, five ‘nodes’ were identified in whole-of-building performance evaluation, each with interlinking and overlapping complexities that can influence performance. The nodes cover building management, occupant experience, indoor environment quality, agreements and culture, and design elements. This paper outlines the development and testing of these nodes and their interactions, and the resultant multi-nodal tool, called the ‘Performance Nexus’ tool. The tool is intended to be of most benefit in evaluating opportunities for performance improvement in the vast number of existing low-performing building stock

Survey of southern Missouri Plethodontidae in Ozark caves

Plethodontidae is a large family of salamanders with a distribution ranging from eastern North Americato northern South America. Three genera and nine species occur in Missouri, most of which are typically found in cavesfor at least part of their lives. These species have been recorded to emerge from hibernation in early April and throughoutMay. This study shares the species abundance and diversity in ten Missouri Ozark caves: seven near St. Louis andthree near Springfield. Each cave was surveyed at least once between November 2021 and September 2022 using visualencounter surveys. Observational data were recorded without handling any individuals to minimize disturbance. Thethree caves near St. Louis had few to no salamanders present in early April, despite optimal weather conditions, buttended to have larger populations throughout the summer. Two caves near Springfield held at least a dozen individualsof multiple species in mid-April. Few individuals were recorded in the most southwestern cave sampled, potentiallydue to pollution or recent flooding. Our findings could aid others studying plethodontid salamanders to determine theprime conditions for emergence from hibernation, optimal habitats for different species in each cave zone, and potentialbiological or chemical impacts that could affect salamander abundance in caves