Religious young adults recounting the past:narrating sexual and religious cultures in school

Schooling can be a pivotal time in young people’s formative experience when identities are negotiated and forged. However, contradictory dominant cultures can operate within the school context, making it very challenging for individuals to negotiate their religious and sexual identities within a sexualised and heteronormative space. This essay draws on interview data relating to 18- to 25-yearolds of diverse religious faiths in the UK, who recounted their secondary schooling experiences, and focuses on the formal and informal ways in which the school was constituted in relation to religion and sexuality.

Explaining the increase in coronary heart disease mortality in Syria between 1996 and 2006

Background Despite advances made in treating coronary heart disease (CHD), mortality due to CHD in Syria has been increasing for the past two decades. This study aims to assess CHD mortality trends in Syria between 1996 and 2006 and to investigate the main factors associated with them. Methods The IMPACT model was used to analyze CHD mortality trends in Syria based on numbers of CHD patients, utilization of specific treatments, trends in major cardiovascular risk factors in apparently healthy persons and CHD patients. Data sources for the IMPACT model included official statistics, published and unpublished surveys, data from neighboring countries, expert opinions, and randomized trials and meta-analyses. Results Between 1996 and 2006, CHD mortality rate in Syria increased by 64%, which translates into 6370 excess CHD deaths in 2006 as compared to the number expected had the 1996 baseline rate held constant. Using the IMPACT model, it was estimated that increases in cardiovascular risk factors could explain approximately 5140 (81%) of the CHD deaths, while some 2145 deaths were prevented or postponed by medical and surgical treatments for CHD. Conclusion Most of the recent increase in CHD mortality in Syria is attributable to increases in major cardiovascular risk factors. Treatments for CHD were able to prevent about a quarter of excess CHD deaths, despite suboptimal implementation. These findings stress the importance of population-based primary prevention strategies targeting major risk factors for CHD, as well as policies aimed at improving access and adherence to modern treatments of CHD.

Data compilation on the biological response to ocean acidification: environmental and experimental context of data sets and related literature

The exponential growth of studies on the biological response to ocean acidification over the last few decades has generated a large amount of data. To facilitate data comparison, a data compilation hosted at the data publisher PANGAEA was initiated in 2008 and is updated on a regular basis (doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.149999). By January 2015, a total of 581 data sets (over 4 000 000 data points) from 539 papers had been archived. Here we present the developments of this data compilation five years since its first description by Nisumaa et al. (2010). Most of study sites from which data archived are still in the Northern Hemisphere and the number of archived data from studies from the Southern Hemisphere and polar oceans are still relatively low. Data from 60 studies that investigated the response of a mix of organisms or natural communities were all added after 2010, indicating a welcomed shift from the study of individual organisms to communities and ecosystems. The initial imbalance of considerably more data archived on calcification and primary production than on other processes has improved. There is also a clear tendency towards more data archived from multifactorial studies after 2010. For easier and more effective access to ocean acidification data, the ocean acidification community is strongly encouraged to contribute to the data archiving effort, and help develop standard vocabularies describing the variables and define best practices for archiving ocean acidification data.

The biogeographical status of Alnus crispa (Ait.) Pursch in sub-Arctic southern Greenland : do pollen records indicate local populations during the past 1500 years?

Peer reviewed

Age model and palaeoclimate records over the past 22,000 years of sediment core GeoB10053-7

The Australian-Indonesian monsoon is an important component of the climate system in the tropical Indo-Pacific region. However, its past variability, relation with northern and southern high-latitude climate and connection to the other Asian monsoon systems are poorly understood. Here we present high-resolution records of monsoon-controlled austral winter upwelling during the past 22,000 years, based on planktic foraminiferal oxygen isotopes and faunal composition in a sedimentary archive collected offshore southern Java. We show that glacial-interglacial variations in the Australian-Indonesian winter monsoon were in phase with the Indian summer monsoon system, consistent with their modern linkage through cross-equatorial surface winds. Likewise, millennial-scale variability of upwelling shares similar sign and timing with upwelling variability in the Arabian Sea. On the basis of element composition and grain-size distribution as precipitation-sensitive proxies in the same archive, we infer that (austral) summer monsoon rainfall was highest during the Bølling-Allerød period and the past 2,500 years. Our results indicate drier conditions during Heinrich Stadial 1 due to a southward shift of summer rainfall and a relatively weak Hadley cell south of the Equator. We suggest that the Australian-Indonesian summer and winter monsoon variability were closely linked to summer insolation and abrupt climate changes in the northern hemisphere.

“Animanazo”. Song and memories. Cultural expressions and movements in the reconstruction of the past inside a north Argentinian town

This article analyses the context of production and local situations of appropriation and resignification related to the folk song “Fire on Animaná” as well as the request and mobilization (“The animanazo”) provoked by this song in order to examine different mechanisms and foundations by which a population connect with an event from its community past, identifying with this and taking it in a specific way. In this article we combine discourse analysis of the song and of interviews to participants in this event with the reconstruction —through ethnographic observation— of how to use this song.

Interannual and (multi-)decadal variability in the sedimentary BIT index of Lake Challa, East Africa, over the past 2200 years: assessment of the precipitation proxy

The branched vs. isoprenoid tetraether (BIT) index is based on the relative abundance of branched tetraether lipids (brGDGTs) and the isoprenoidal GDGT crenarchaeol. In Lake Challa sediments the BIT index has been applied as a proxy for local monsoon precipitation on the assumption that the primary source of brGDGTs is soil washed in from the lake's catchment. Since then, microbial production within the water column has been identified as the primary source of brGDGTs in Lake Challa sediments, meaning that either an alternative mechanism links BIT index variation with rainfall or that the proxy's application must be reconsidered. We investigated GDGT concentrations and BIT index variation in Lake Challa sediments at a decadal resolution over the past 2200 years, in combination with GDGT time-series data from 45 monthly sediment-trap samples and a chronosequence of profundal surface sediments.

Our 2200-year geochemical record reveals high-frequency variability in GDGT concentrations, and therefore in the BIT index, superimposed on distinct lower-frequency fluctuations at multi-decadal to century timescales. These changes in BIT index are correlated with changes in the concentration of crenarchaeol but not with those of the brGDGTs. A clue for understanding the indirect link between rainfall and crenarchaeol concentration (and thus thaumarchaeotal abundance) was provided by the observation that surface sediments collected in January 2010 show a distinct shift in GDGT composition relative to sediments collected in August 2007. This shift is associated with increased bulk flux of settling mineral particles with high Ti / Al ratios during March–April 2008, reflecting an event of unusually high detrital input to Lake Challa concurrent with intense precipitation at the onset of the principal rain season that year. Although brGDGT distributions in the settling material are initially unaffected, this soil-erosion event is succeeded by a massive dry-season diatom bloom in July–September 2008 and a concurrent increase in the flux of GDGT-0. Complete absence of crenarchaeol in settling particles during the austral summer following this bloom indicates that no Thaumarchaeota bloom developed at that time. We suggest that increased nutrient availability, derived from the eroded soil washed into the lake, caused the massive bloom of diatoms and that the higher concentrations of ammonium (formed from breakdown of this algal matter) resulted in a replacement of nitrifying Thaumarchaeota, which in typical years prosper during the austral summer, by nitrifying bacteria. The decomposing dead diatoms passing through the suboxic zone of the water column probably also formed a substrate for GDGT-0-producing archaea. Hence, through a cascade of events, intensive rainfall affects thaumarchaeotal abundance, resulting in high BIT index values.

Decade-scale BIT index fluctuations in Lake Challa sediments exactly match the timing of three known episodes of prolonged regional drought within the past 250 years. Additionally, the principal trends of inferred rainfall variability over the past two millennia are consistent with the hydroclimatic history of equatorial East Africa, as has been documented from other (but less well dated) regional lake records. We therefore propose that variation in GDGT production originating from the episodic recurrence of strong soil-erosion events, when integrated over (multi-)decadal and longer timescales, generates a stable positive relationship between the sedimentary BIT index and monsoon rainfall at Lake Challa. Application of this paleoprecipitation proxy at other sites requires ascertaining the local processes which affect the productivity of crenarchaeol by Thaumarchaeota and brGDGTs.

“Who controls the past? An investigation into the role of heritage interventions in post-conflict nation narration”

Poster presentation

“Who controls the past? An investigation into the role of heritage interventions in post-conflict nation narration in the former Yugoslavia”

Urban Conflicts: Ethno-national divisions, States and Cities conference

The past, present and projected scenarios in the Lake Albert and Albert Nile fisheries: implications for sustainable management

Lake Albert is one of the largest lakes in Uganda that still supports a multi-species fishery which as a result of variable adult sizes of the species, causes management challenges especially in relation to gear mesh size enforcement. Prior to the 1980s, commercial species were 17 large sized fishes especially Citharinus citharinus, Distichodus niloticus and Lates spp. that were confimed to inshore habitats of the lake and were thus rapidly over fished. Frame and catch assessment surveys conducted in this study revealed a >80% dominance of small size fish species (Neobola bredoi and Brycinus nurse) and a 40 -60% decrease in the contribution of the large commercial species. Sustainability of small size fish species is uncertain due to seasonal fluctuations and low beach value. At about 150,000 tons of fish recorded from Lake Albert and Albert Nile, the beach value was estimated at 55.3 million USD. Despite the noted decline in catches of the large sized fishes their contribution was more than 50% of total beach value. Therefore, management measures should couple value addition for the small sized species and maintain effort regulation targeting recovery of the large previously important commercial species.

Change-point detection in environmental time series based on the informational approach

In this study, the Schwarz Information Criterion (SIC) is applied in order to detect change-points in the time series of surface water quality variables. The application of change-point analysis allowed detecting change-points in both the mean and the variance in series under study. Time variations in environmental data are complex and they can hinder the identification of the so-called change-points when traditional models are applied to this type of problems. The assumptions of normality and uncorrelation are not present in some time series, and so, a simulation study is carried out in order to evaluate the methodology’s performance when applied to non-normal data and/or with time correlation.