Public Art Commission Rung by Rung, Tina O'Connell

Research based on a significant public art commissions awarded through competition (peer reviewed) – Pearse Street Clinic Public Art Commission (€20K). Research was examining issues of the relationship between sculpture, exchange and communication, health and well-being. The research used an approach to question the aspirations and dreams of those who were visiting the health centre as part of a routine of daily life. Based on the aspirational concerns of individual visitors, and secondary research of positive effects of light, the final output draws on ideas based around the language of physical signage to occupy a space concerned with visitor health and wellbeing – a Health Clinic. The output has had an impact both at the site and more broadly in the context of examining sculpture and fine art as a social catalyst - based on work of socially-engaged historical practices. The installation at Pearse Street work in Dublin in Nov 09 has received critical and local acclaim. Further commissions within the public arena have been forthcoming despite difficult local economic landscape.

Atmospheric predictability revisited

This article examines the potential to improve numerical weather prediction (NWP) by estimating upper and lower bounds on predictability by re-visiting the original study of Lorenz (1982) but applied to the most recent version of the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) forecast system, for both the deterministic and ensemble prediction systems (EPS). These bounds are contrasted with an older version of the same NWP system to see how they have changed with improvements to the NWP system. The computations were performed for the earlier seasons of DJF 1985/1986 and JJA 1986 and the later seasons of DJF 2010/2011 and JJA 2011 using the 500-hPa geopotential height field. Results indicate that for this field, we may be approaching the limit of deterministic forecasting so that further improvements might only be obtained by improving the initial state. The results also show that predictability calculations with earlier versions of the model may overestimate potential forecast skill, which may be due to insufficient internal variability in the model and because recent versions of the model are more realistic in representing the true atmospheric evolution. The same methodology is applied to the EPS to calculate upper and lower bounds of predictability of the ensemble mean forecast in order to explore how ensemble forecasting could extend the limits of the deterministic forecast. The results show that there is a large potential to improve the ensemble predictions, but for the increased predictability of the ensemble mean, there will be a trade-off in information as the forecasts will become increasingly smoothed with time. From around the 10-d forecast time, the ensemble mean begins to converge towards climatology. Until this point, the ensemble mean is able to predict the main features of the large-scale flow accurately and with high consistency from one forecast cycle to the next. By the 15-d forecast time, the ensemble mean has lost information with the anomaly of the flow strongly smoothed out. In contrast, the control forecast is much less consistent from run to run, but provides more detailed (unsmoothed) but less useful information.

Species richness declines and biotic homogenization have slowed down for NW-European pollinators and plants

Concern about biodiversity loss has led to increased public investment in conservation. Whereas there is a widespread perception that such initiatives have been unsuccessful, there are few quantitative tests of this perception. Here, we evaluate whether rates of biodiversity change have altered in recent decades in three European countries (Great Britain, Netherlands and Belgium) for plants and flower visiting insects. We compared four 20-year periods, comparing periods of rapid land-use intensification and natural habitat loss (1930–1990) with a period of increased conservation investment (post-1990). We found that extensive species richness loss and biotic homogenisation occurred before 1990, whereas these negative trends became substantially less accentuated during recent decades, being partially reversed for certain taxa (e.g. bees in Great Britain and Netherlands). These results highlight the potential to maintain or even restore current species assemblages (which despite past extinctions are still of great conservation value), at least in regions where large-scale land-use intensification and natural habitat loss has ceased.

The identity of crop pollinators helps target conservation for improved ecosystem services

Insect pollinated mass flowering crops are becoming more widespread and there is a need to understand which insects are primarily responsible for the pollination of these crops so conservation measures can be appropriately targeted in the face of pollinator declines. This study used field surveys in conjunction with cage manipulations to identify the relative contributions of different pollinator taxa to the pollination of two widespread flowering crops, field beans and oilseed rape. Flower visiting pollinator communities observed in the field were distinct for each crop; while field beans were visited primarily by a few bumblebee species, multiple pollinator taxa visited oilseed, and the composition of this pollinator community was highly variable spatially and temporally. Neither pollinator community, however, appears to be meeting the demands of crops in our study regions. Cage manipulations showed that multiple taxa can effectively pollinate both oilseed and field beans, but bumblebees are particularly effective bean pollinators. Combining field observations and cage manipulations demonstrated that the pollination demands of these two mass flowering crops are highly contrasting, one would benefit from management to increase the abundance of some key taxa, whilst for the other, boosting overall pollinator abundance and diversity would be more appropriate. Our findings highlight the need for crop specific mitigation strategies that are targeted at conserving specific pollinator taxa (or group of taxa) that are both active and capable of crop pollination in order to reduce pollination deficits and meet the demands of future crop production.

Contribution of insect pollinators to crop yield and quality varies with agricultural intensification

Background: Up to 75% of crop species benefit at least to some degree from animal pollination for fruit or seed set and yield. However, basic information on the level of pollinator dependence and pollinator contribution to yield is lacking for many crops. Even less is known about how insect pollination affects crop quality. Given that habitat loss and agricultural intensification are known to decrease pollinator richness and abundance, there is a need to assess the consequences for different components of crop production. Methods: We used pollination exclusion on flowers or inflorescences on a whole plant basis to assess the contribution of insect pollination to crop yield and quality in four flowering crops (spring oilseed rape, field bean, strawberry, and buckwheat) located in four regions of Europe. For each crop, we recorded abundance and species richness of flower visiting insects in ten fields located along a gradient fromsimple to heterogeneous landscapes. Results: Insect pollination enhanced average crop yield between 18 and 71% depending on the crop. Yield quality was also enhanced in most crops. For instance, oilseed rape had higher oil and lower chlorophyll contents when adequately pollinated, the proportion of empty seeds decreased in buckwheat, and strawberries’ commercial grade improved; however, we did not find higher nitrogen content in open pollinated field beans. Complex landscapes had a higher overall species richness of wild pollinators across crops, but visitation rates were only higher in complex landscapes for some crops. On the contrary, the overall yield was consistently enhanced by higher visitation rates, but not by higher pollinator richness. Discussion. For the four crops in this study, there is clear benefit delivered by pollinators on yield quantity and/or quality, but it is not maximized under current agricultural intensification. Honeybees, the most abundant pollinator, might partially compensate the loss of wild pollinators in some areas, but our results suggest the need of landscape-scale actions to enhance wild pollinator populations.

Official use of social network sites by African universities

The use of social network sites (SNS) has become very valuable to educational institutions. Some universities have formally integrated these social media in their educational systems and are using them to improve their service delivery. The main aim of this study was to establish whether African universities have embraced this emerging technology by having official presence on SNS. A purposive sampling method was used to study 24 universities from which data were obtained by visiting their official websites and following the official links to the most common SNS.

Delivery of crop pollination services is an insufficient argument for wild pollinator conservation

There is compelling evidence that more diverse ecosystems deliver greater benefits to people, and these ecosystem services have become a key argument for biodiversity conservation. However, it is unclear how much biodiversity is needed to deliver ecosystem services in a cost-effective way. Here we show that, while the contribution of wild bees to crop production is significant, service delivery is restricted to a limited subset of all known bee species. Across crops, years and biogeographical regions, crop-visiting wild bee communities are dominated by a small number of common species, and threatened species are rarely observed on crops. Dominant crop pollinators persist under agricultural expansion and many are easily enhanced by simple conservation measures, suggesting that cost-effective management strategies to promote crop pollination should target a different set of species than management strategies to promote threatened bees. Conserving the biological diversity of bees therefore requires more than just ecosystem-service-based arguments.

Local and landscape effects on bee functional guilds in pigeon pea crops in Kenya

Pollinators face many challenges within agricultural systems due to landscape changes and intensification which can affect resource availability that can impact pollination services. This paper examines pigeon pea pollination and considers how landscape context and agricultural intensification in terms of pesticide use affects the abundance of bees characterized by species guilds on crops. The study was conducted on six paired farms across a gradient of habitat complexity based on the distance of each farm from adjacent semi-natural vegetation in Kibwezi Sub-county, Kenya. The study found that farms which do not use insecticides in farm management, but are in close proximity to natural habitat have greater bee guild abundance, but at further distances, overall abundance is reduced with or without insecticide use. At 1 km landscape radius, the complexity of habitats but not patch size had a positive impact on the abundance of cavity nesting bees and mason bees, which can be attributed to the interspersion of the small-holder farms with semi-natural habitats across the landscapes producing mosaics of heterogeneous habitats. The study revealed the strongest relationships between fruit set and bee abundance to be with the carpenter bee, social bee and solitary bee guilds, which are among the most abundant bees visiting pigeon pea flowers in this system. Our findings provide the foundation for conservation efforts by identifying which bee guilds pollinated pigeon peas. From this study, we suggest managing the floral and nesting resources that would best support the most abundant crop pollinators, and also reducing insecticide application to the crop.

Work placements in doctoral research training in the humanities: eight cases from translation studies

Research cooperation between academic and nonacademic institutions tends not to concern the humanities, where mutual financial rewards are mostly not in evidence. The study of eight nonacademic placements of doctoral researchers working on inter- lingual translation nevertheless indicates some degree of success. It is found that the placements lead to ongoing cooperation when the following conditions are met: 1) the nature of the placement is understood and relations of trust are established; 2) mutual benefits are envisaged; and 3) there are prior arrangements for receiving visiting researchers. A placement can be successful even when one of the last two factors is missing. Further, the measure of success for placements in the humanities should concern social and symbolic benefits, in addition to financial profits.

Apple pollination: demand depends on variety and supply depends on pollinator identity

Insect pollination underpins apple production but the extent to which different pollinator guilds supply this service, particularly across different apple varieties, is unknown. Such information is essential if appropriate orchard management practices are to be targeted and proportional to the potential benefits pollinator species may provide. Here we use a novel combination of pollinator effectiveness assays (floral visit effectiveness), orchard field surveys (flower visitation rate) and pollinator dependence manipulations (pollinator exclusion experiments) to quantify the supply of pollination services provided by four different pollinator guilds to the production of four commercial varieties of apple. We show that not all pollinators are equally effective at pollinating apples, with hoverflies being less effective than solitary bees and bumblebees, and the relative abundance of different pollinator guilds visiting apple flowers of different varieties varies significantly. Based on this, the taxa specific economic benefits to UK apple production have been established. The contribution of insect pollinators to the economic output in all varieties was estimated to be £92.1M across the UK, with contributions varying widely across taxa: solitary bees (£51.4M), honeybees (£21.4M), bumblebees (£18.6M) and hoverflies (£0.7M). This research highlights the differences in the economic benefits of four insect pollinator guilds to four major apple varieties in the UK. This information is essential to underpin appropriate investment in pollination services management and provides a model that can be used in other entomolophilous crops to improve our understanding of crop pollination ecology.

First evidence of insect attraction by a Southern Hemisphere Splachnaceae: The case of Tayloria dubyi Broth. in the Reserve Biosphere Cape Horn, Chile

The moss Tayloria dubyi (Splachnaceae) is endemic to the subantarctic Magallanes ecoregion where it grows exclusively on bird dung and perhaps only on feces of the goose Chloephaga picta, a unique habitat among Splachnaceae. Some species of Splachnaceae from the Northern Hemisphere are known to recruit coprophilous flies as a vector to disperse their spores by releasing intense odors mimicking fresh clung or decaying corpses. The flies land on the capsule, and may get in contact with the protruding mass of spores that stick to the insect body. The dispersal strategy relies on the spores falling off when the insect reaches fresh droppings or carrion. Germination is thought to be rapid and a new population is quickly established over the entire substrate. The objectives of this investigation were to determine whether the coprophilous T. dubyi attracts flies and to assess the taxonomic diversity of the flies visiting this moss. For this, fly traps were set up above mature sporophyte bearing populations in two peatlands on Navarino Island. We captured 64 flies belonging to the Muscidae (Palpibracus chilensis), Tachinidae (Dasyuromyia sp) and Sarcophagidae (not identified to species) above sporophytes of T. dubyi, whereas no flies were captured in control traps set up above Sphagnum mats nearby.

Risk factors for dengue virus infection in rural Amazonia: Population-based cross-sectional surveys

A comparison of dengue virus (DENV) antibody levels in paired serum samples collected from predominantly DENV-naive residents in an agricultural settlement in Brazilian Amazonia (baseline seroprevalence, 18.3%) showed a seroconversion rate of 3.67 episodes/100 person-years at risk during 12 months of follow-up. Multivariate analysis identified male sex, poverty, and migration from extra-Amazonian states as significant predictors of baseline DENY seropositivity, whereas male sex, a history of clinical diagnosis of dengue fever, and travel to an urban area predicted subsequent seroconversion. The laboratory surveillance of acute febrile illnesses implemented at the study site and in a nearby town between 2004 and 2006 confirmed 11. DENV infections among 102 episodes studied with DENV IgM detection, reverse transcriptase-polymerise chain reaction, and virus isolation; DENV-3 was isolated. Because DENV exposure is associated with migration or travel, personal protection measures when visiting high-risk urban areas may reduce the incidence of DENV infection in this rural population.

Texture analysis based on maximum contrast walker

Recently, the deterministic tourist walk has emerged as a novel approach for texture analysis. This method employs a traveler visiting image pixels using a deterministic walk rule. Resulting trajectories provide clues about pixel interaction in the image that can be used for image classification and identification tasks. This paper proposes a new walk rule for the tourist which is based on contrast direction of a neighborhood. The yielded results using this approach are comparable with those from traditional texture analysis methods in the classification of a set of Brodatz textures and their rotated versions, thus confirming the potential of the method as a feasible texture analysis methodology. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Childbirth self-efficacy inventory in Tanzania : a pilot study

Background. To give birth can be a stressful experience and women cope with thisstress in many different ways and have different personal outcomes. Self-efficacy orconfidence in ability to cope with labour can be considered as an important factoraffecting pregnant women’s motivation of normal childbirth and their interpretation ofthe childbirth event.The aim. The purpose of this study was to test the Chinese short form of theinstrument Childbirth self-efficacy instrument (CBSEI) in Tanzania, that measurepregnant women’s self-confidence and coping abilities during childbirth.Method. The Chinese short form of the CBSEI was used to pilot test the pregnantwomen’s confidence of childbirth to see if the questions were understood in theTanzanian culture. Besides this instrument socio-demographic data was collectedtogether with two open questions asking about attitudes and experiences of childbirth.The instrument was translated into Kiswahili. A sample of 60 pregnant women whowere visiting antenatal clinic (ANC) regularly were asked to participate and with helpfrom midwifes at two ANC places the questionnaires were filled out.Result. The result shows that the validity and reliability of the two subscales OE-16and EE-16 were established. The internal consistency reliability of the two subscaleswere high, suggesting that each of the subscale mean score provides a good overviewof self- reported belief in coping ability for childbirth.The results further show that the instrument, CBSEI in this pilot study is not able toidentify women who need extra support during childbirth.Conclusion. The reliability and validity of information presented in this pilot studysupport the use of the Chinese short form of the CBSEI as a research instrument in theTanzania culture. Further studies are recommended to get a wider understandingabout women’s coping abilities in a culture like Tanzania.

Produktion av marknadsförings- och korrespondensmaterial för DUCIS

The report describes the production of graphic correspondence and marketing material for DUCIS(Dalarna University Centre for Irish Studies).A logotype symbol is created on the basis of an element from the Celtic art, and a graphic material thatharmonies with this ideal of style is built around the symbol. A unique visiting card, correspondence cardand letterhead is produced to strengthen the identity of DUCIS outwards.The work proceeds with an international education folder which is an important element in the marketingwork for the MA-education which starts in the autumn of 2003. Two posters, one for the opening ofDUCIS in may 2003 and one for a conference in 2004, are produced. Finally, a redesign of the book coverfor NIS, Nordic Irish Studies, is carried out.The report describes the working process consisting of meetings, practical work and other elementswithin the process. The conclusion is that the work has been quite successful and that this, to a largeextent, depended on an engaged and supporting commissioner. The commissioner also is very satisfi edwith the results.The in-depth studies of the project is about the art and design of the Celtic culture throughout history.The text gives an account for the history and expressions of Celtic art from its birth, 2800 years ago, untilits death in 13th century Ireland and Scotland. Special attention is payed to the golden age of ChristianCeltic art on the british islands, the era from which the pattern of the DUCIS logotype originates.