Lewis Coastal Chapel-Sites Survey: Topographic Survey 2005

This report describes the results of topographic surveys undertaken for the second year of the Lewis Coastal Chapel-sites Survey (LCCS) on four chapel-sites on the Isle of Lewis in 2005. Desktop study undertaken in the first year (2004) of the LCCS identified thirty-seven recorded and five potential chapel-sites in Lewis and its outlying islands, and this was followed up with walkover survey of sixteen sites and plane table survey of three sites. However, further, more detailed topographic survey was recommended for eight sites, and this prompted the work in 2005. In February detailed topographic survey of three sites was undertaken: Teampall Pheadair, Suainebost (Site no 4), Teampall Mhealastadh, Uig (Site no 20) and Tigh na Cailleachan Dubha, Uig (Site no 21). In May - June 2005 topographic survey of the chapel-site of St Mary’s on Eilean an Tighe, Shiant Islands (formerly known as Eilean na Cille) on the Shiant Islands (Site no 32) was also undertaken with joint funding from the Shiants Island Project (SHIP)

A landscape given meaning: an archaeological perspective on landscape history in Highland Scotland

In Highland Scotland, evidence for Early Medieval and Medieval settlement has proved difficult to recognise, in spite of the fact that recent landscape survey has revealed a dense palimpsest of archaeological remains. The publications of North-east Perth in 1990, the first RCAHMS volume to take a more landscape oriented approach to the recording and presentation of this survey data, made available a wealth of material for a previously little known area of Perthshire. It resulted in the identification of a new building group - the Pitcarmick-type buildings - to which a Medieval, or potentially earlier date, was assigned. It raised the possibility that the general absence of firs millennium A.D. settlement across much of Highland Scotland was not the case in this part of Perthshire, while suggesting the potential for building upon the resource made available by the RCAHMS to further our understandings of upland settlement and land use in the Highlands over a broad chronological framework. This thesis aims to explore ways in which this data can be approached in order to achieve more comprehensive and meaningful understandings of cultural landscapes. This has been done by approaching the archaeology of a particular area - in this case Highland Perthshire - within a variety of temporal and geographical scales. At Pitcarmick North in Strathardle, detailed topographic survey of a discrete area, where the remains spanned a broad chronological range from the later Prehistoric period to the eighteenth century, was undertaken. By utilising the landscape to anchor the often divergent and competing strands of evidence produced by detailed documentary research, alongside analysis of the physical remains at Pitcarmick North, it has been possible to glean a greater comprehension of the immediate historical and social frameworks within which these cultural landscapes developed

Social change, migration and pregnancy intervals

Maternity histories from residents of a Pacific Island society, Tokelau, and migrants to New Zealand, are analysed using life table techniques. Inter-cohort differentials in patterns of family formation were found in the total Tokelau-origin population. The process of accelerated timing and spacing of pregnancies was more pronounced among migrants who tended to marry later, be pregnant at marriage, have shorter inter-pregnancy intervals at lower parities and to show evidence of family limitation occurring at higher parities. These results point to the significance of changing patterns of social control on strategies of family building

Implications of Environmental Uncertainty for Business-IT Alignment: A Comparative Study of SMEs and Large Organizations

This paper presents a comprehensive study of the influence of environmental uncertainty on business-IT alignment. The existing literature postulates environmental uncertainty as a key challenge to achieving business-IT alignment. Hence, the first objective of this study is to identify the extent of the impact of environmental uncertainty on business-IT alignment, and to determine its relative impact in the light of the other antecedents. Furthermore, small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) differ fundamentally from large firms in many ways. Thus this paper also aims to investigate the variation between SMEs and large firms with regard to the antecedents for strategic alignment. Based on data collected from 212 firms, a conceptual model is tested against the research objectives. The findings provide important contributions to both research and practice by demonstrating the relative impact of environmental uncertainty, and showing how the antecedents of alignment vary between SMEs and large firms

Prostatic trypsin-like kallikrein-related peptidases (KLKs) and other prostate-expressed tryptic proteinases as regulators of signalling via proteinase-activated receptors (PARs)

The prostate is a site of high expression of serine proteinases including members of the kallikrein-related peptidase (KLK) family, as well as other secreted and membrane-anchored serine proteinases. It has been known for some time that members of this enzyme family elicit cellular responses by acting directly on cells. More recently, it has been recognised that for serine proteinases with specificity for cleavage after arginine and lysine residues (trypsin-like or tryptic enzymes) these cellular responses are often mediated by cleavage of members of the proteinase-activated receptor (PAR) family - a four member sub-family of G protein-coupled receptors. Here, we review the expression of PARs in prostate, the ability of prostatic trypsin-like KLKs and other prostate-expressed tryptic enzymes to cleave PARs, as well as the prostate cancer-associated consequences of PAR activation. In addition, we explore the dysregulation of trypsin-like serine proteinase activity through the loss of normal inhibitory mechanisms and potential interactions between these dysregulated enzymes leading to aberrant PAR activation, intracellular signalling and cancer-promoting cellular changes

Synthesis and polymorphism of mixed aluminium-gallium oxides

DSC is grateful to the EPSRC for award of an industrial CASE studentship, partly funded by Johnson Matthey plc. SEA, DMD and JEH thank the ERC (EU FP7 Consolidator Grant 614290 “EXONMR”) for funding. SEA would also like to thank the Royal Society and Wolfson Foundation for a merit award.The synthesis of a new solidsolution of the oxyhydroxide Ga5–xAlxO7(OH) isinvestigated via solvothermalreaction between gallium acetylacetonate and aluminium isopropoxide in1,4-butanediol at 240 °C. A limited compositional range 0 ≤ x ≤ 1.5 is produced, with the hexagonalunit cell parameters refined from powder X-ray diffraction (XRD) showing alinear contraction in unit cell volume with increasing Al content. Solid-state 27Aland 71Ga NMR spectroscopy show a strong preference for Ga to occupythe tetrahedral sites and Al to occupy the octahedral sites. Using isopropanolas the solvent, g-Ga2–xAlxO3defect spinel solid solutions with x ≤ 1.8 can be prepared at 240 °C in24 hours. These materials are nanocrystalline, as evidenced by their broaddiffraction profiles, but the refined cubic lattice parameter shows a linearrelationship with the Ga:Al content and solid-state NMR spectroscopy again showsa preference for Al to occupy the octahedral sites. Thermal decomposition ofthe Ga5–xAlxO7(OH)occurs via poorly ordered materials that resemble e-Ga2–xAlxO3and k-Ga2–xAlxO3,but g-Ga2–xAlxO3transforms above 750 °C to monoclinic b-Ga2–xAlxO3for 0 ≤ x ≤ 1.3 and to hexagonal a-Ga2–xAlxO3for x = 1.8, with intermediate compositions 1.3 < x < 1.8 giving mixturesof the aand b polymorphs.Solid-state NMR spectroscopy shows only the expected octahedral Al for a-Ga2–xAlxO3and, for b-Ga2–xAlxO3,the ~1:2 ratio of tetrahedral:octahedral Al is in good agreement with Rietveldanalysis of the average structures against powder XRD data. Relative energiescalculated by periodic density functional theory (DFT) confirm that there is a~5.2 kJ mol–1 penalty for tetrahedral rather than octahedral Al inGa5–xAlxO7(OH), whereas this penalty is muchlower (~2.0 kJ mol–1) for b-Ga2–xAlxO3,in good qualitative agreement with the experimental NMR spectra.PostprintPeer reviewe

Prenatal pet keeping and caregiver-reported attention deficit hyperactivity disorder through preadolescence in a United States birth cohort

BACKGROUND: While the keeping of pets has been shown to protect against childhood allergic disease and obesity, less is known regarding potential associations of prenatal pet keeping and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). We sought to examine the associations between prenatal dog or cat keeping with caregiver-reported ADHD in preadolescents in the Wayne County Health, Environment, Allergy and Asthma Longitudinal Study (WHEALS) birth cohort (N = 1258). METHODS: At an interview with the caregiver at child age 10-12 years, caregivers reported if the WHEALS child had ever been diagnosed with ADHD. Similarly, during an interview with the mother prenatally, pet keeping (defined as dog or cat kept inside ≥1 h/day) was ascertained. Logistic regression models were fit to examine the association of prenatal pet keeping (dog keeping and cat keeping, separately) with ADHD. RESULTS: A subset of 627 children were included in the analyses: 93 who had ADHD and 534 with neurotypical development. After accounting for confounders and loss to follow-up, maternal prenatal dog exposure was associated with 2.23 times (95% CI: 1.15, 4.31; p = 0.017) greater odds of ADHD among boys. Prenatal dog keeping was not statistically significantly associated with ADHD in girls (odds ratio = 0.27, 95% CI: 0.06, 1.12; p = 0.070). Prenatal cat keeping was not associated with ADHD. CONCLUSIONS: In boys, but not girls, maternal prenatal dog keeping was positively associated with ADHD. Further study to confirm these findings and to identify potential mechanisms of this association (e.g., modification of the gut microbiome, exposure to environmental toxicants or pet-related medications) is needed

Prenatal Vitamin D Supplementation and Child Respiratory Health: A Randomised Controlled Trial

PMCID: PMC3691177This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

Museums and the ‘new museology’ : theory, practice and organisational change

The widening of roles and expectations within cultural policy discourses has been a challenge to museum workers throughout Great Britain. There has been an expectation that museums are changing from an ‘old’ to a ‘new museology’ that has shaped museum functions and roles. This paper outlines the limitations of this perceived transition as museum services confront multiple exogenous and endogenous expectations, opportunities, pressures and threats. Findings from 23 publically funded museum services across England, Scotland and Wales are presented to explore the roles of professional and hierarchical differentiation, and how there were organisational and managerial limitations to the practical application of the ‘new museology’. The ambiguity surrounding policy, roles and practice also highlighted that museum workers were key agents in interpreting, using and understanding wide-ranging policy expectations. The practical implementation of the ‘new museology’ is linked to the values held by museum workers themselves and how they relate it to their activities at the ground level