The present study investigated whether dietary n-3 very-long-chain PUFA (n-3 VLC-PUFA) could increase skin and bone mineralisation in Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) in vivo and examined their potential effects on human osteoblast proliferation and differentiation in vitro. Atlantic salmon were fed different dietary levels of n-3 VLC-PUFA, and changes in tissue n-3 VLC-PUFA composition, skeletal morphology, skin and bone mineral content, bone mineral density (BMD) and gene expression patterns were examined. Additionally, in vitro experiments using human foetal osteoblast cells were conducted to investigate the potential influence of n-3 VLC-PUFA supplementation on cell proliferation, osteogenic differentiation and cytokine expression. The results demonstrated that increasing the dietary levels of n-3 VLC-PUFA increased the mineral content of vertebrae and BMD in salmon, with subtle yet significant impacts on the expression of genes involved in bone-related processes. Furthermore, in vitro experiments showed a potential contextual influence of n-3 VLC-PUFA supplementation on gene expression of osteogenic markers and cytokine expression. Our findings indicate for the first time that n-3 VLC-PUFA may influence processes related to bone mineralisation.

We give a simple sufficient condition for Quinn’s ‘bordism-type’ spectra to be weakly equivalent to commutative symmetric ring spectra. We also show that the symmetric signature is (up to weak equivalence) a monoidal transformation between symmetric monoidal functors, which implies that the Sullivan–Ranicki orientation of topological bundles is represented by a ring map between commutative symmetric ring spectra. In the course of proving these statements, we give a new description of symmetric L theory which may be of independent interest.

During the Cold War, logical rationality – consistency axioms, subjective expected utility maximization, Bayesian probability updating – became the bedrock of economics and other social sciences. In the 1970s, logical rationality underwent attack by the heuristics-and-biases program, which interpreted the theory as a universal norm of how individuals should make decisions, although such an interpretation is absent in von Neumann and Morgenstern’s foundational work and dismissed by Savage. Deviations in people’s judgments from the theory were thought to reveal stable cognitive biases, which were in turn thought to underlie social problems, justifying governmental paternalism. In the 1990s, the ecological rationality program entered the field, based on the work of Simon. It moves beyond the narrow bounds of logical rationality and analyzes how individuals and institutions make decisions under uncertainty and intractability. This broader view has shown that many supposed cognitive biases are marks of intelligence rather than irrationality, and that heuristics are indispensable guides in a world of uncertainty. The passionate debate between the three research programs became known as the rationality wars. I provide a brief account from the ‘frontline’ and show how the parties understood in strikingly different ways what the war entailed.

eHealth development faces the challenge of generating evidence about health effectiveness in real-world settings. Designers can potentially support this challenge but must understand health approaches to evidence generation about health outcomes. This case study investigates how health and care professionals conceptualise health outcomes and their evidence generation in eHealth. Our results identify three key conceptual dimensions: effect, meaning, and collection. We discuss how these inform future design competencies to support evidence generation about health outcomes in eHealth design.

In the study of the arithmetic degrees the $\omega \text {-REA}$ sets play a role analogous to the role the r.e. degrees play in the study of the Turing degrees. However, much less is known about the arithmetic degrees and the role of the $\omega \text {-REA}$ sets in that structure than about the Turing degrees. Indeed, even basic questions such as the existence of an $\omega \text {-REA}$ set of minimal arithmetic degree are open. This paper makes progress on this question by demonstrating that some promising approaches inspired by the analogy with the r.e. sets fail to show that no $\omega \text {-REA}$ set is arithmetically minimal. Finally, it constructs a $\prod ^0_{2}$ singleton of minimal arithmetic degree. Not only is this a result of considerable interest in its own right, constructions of $\prod ^0_{2}$ singletons often pave the way for constructions of $\omega \text {-REA}$ sets with similar properties. Along the way, a number of interesting results relating arithmetic reducibility and rates of growth are established.

Wildlife conservation on private land is an important approach that is increasingly utilized to protect biodiversity and can help contribute to the 30 by 30 target of the Global Biodiversity Framework. In 2018, a Chilean non-profit conservation organization launched a land conservation programme aiming to build long-term partnerships with private landowners to protect critical habitat for threatened amphibians in Chilean Patagonia. Here we describe a new locality record of the micro-endemic, Endangered Barrio's frog Insuetophrynus acarpicus found at a site that joined the programme in 2020. Barrio's frog is ranked 11th in the list of Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered amphibians. Our systematic literature search showed that most aspects of the natural history and ecology of this species are unknown, limiting our ability to provide actionable science to inform its conservation. The newly described Barrio's frog population is the eighth known locality of this species and one of only three occurring within a protected area. Habitat quality assessments indicated optimal conditions for most of the measured habitat parameters in the high-gradient stream where the species occurs. This case study illustrates that long-term partnerships between private landowners and conservationists can be used as an effective tool to protect the habitat of highly threatened amphibians.

The editors asked me to contribute to the Benin symposium on the ‘Encounter Between Rationalities’ from the particular perspective of my research experience in ethnomathematics - the study of mathematical ideas and practices as embedded in their cultural contexts.

High-precision U-Pb zircon ages on SE Newfoundland tuffs now bracket the Avalonian Lower–Middle Cambrian boundary. Upper Lower Cambrian Brigus Formation tuffs yield depositional ages of 507.91 ± 0.07 Ma (Callavia broeggeri Zone) and 507.67 ± 0.08 Ma and 507.21 ± 0.13 Ma (Morocconus-Condylopyge eli Assemblage interval). Lower Middle Cambrian Chamberlain’s Brook Formation tuffs have depositional ages of 506.34 ± 0.21 Ma (Kiskinella cristata Zone) and 506.25 ± 0.07 Ma (Eccaparadoxides bennetti Zone). The composite unconformity separating the Brigus and Chamberlain’s Brook formations is constrained between these ages. An Avalonian Lower–Middle Cambrian boundary between 507.2 ± 0.1 and 506.3 ± 0.2 Ma is consistent with maximum depositional age constraints from southwest Laurentia, which indicate an age for the base of the Miaolingian Series, as locally interpreted, of ≤ 506.6 ± 0.3 Ma. The Miaolingian Series’ base is interpreted as correlative within ≤ 0.3 ± 0.3 Ma between Cambrian palaeocontinents, although its exact synchrony is questionable due to taxonomic problems with a possible Oryctocephalus indicus-plexus, invariable dysoxic lithofacies control of O. indicus and diachronous occurrence of O. indicus in temporally distinct δ 13C chemozones in South China and SW Laurentia. The lowest occurrence of O. indicus assemblages is linked to onlap (epeirogenic or eustatic) of dysoxic facies. A united Avalonia is shown by late Early Cambrian volcanics in SW New Brunswick; Cape Breton Island; SE Newfoundland; and the Wrekin area, England. The new U-Pb ages revise Avalonian geological evolution as they show rapid epeirogenic changes through depositional sequences 4a–6.