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19 results

  • A cryptic elapid snake persists in the wake of catastrophic wildfires

  • Mitchell J. Hodgson, Alexandra K. Ross, Yingyod Lapwong, Santiago Cuartas, Bridget Roberts, Owen Price, Jonathan Webb, Nicola Sentinella, Joshua Lee, Shawn W. Laffan, Hugh M. Burley, Finlay McIntosh, Mike Letnic
  • Journal:
    Oryx / Volume 58 / Issue 6 / November 2024
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    22 November 2024, pp. 769-778
    Print publication:
    November 2024
    • Article
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  • The increased severity and frequency of bushfires accompanying human-induced global warming have dire implications for biodiversity conservation. Here we investigate the response of a cryptic, cool-climate elapid, the mustard-bellied snake Drysdalia rhodogaster, to the extensive Black Summer fires of 2019/2020 in south-eastern Australia. The species is categorized as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List (last assessed in 2017), but because a large part of its range was burnt during the Black Summer and little was known about its ecology, D. rhodogaster was identified as a priority species for post-fire impact assessment. We evaluated three lines of evidence to assess the impact of the Black Summer fires on D. rhodogaster. Habitat suitability modelling indicated that c. 46% of the predicted range of the species was affected by bushfire. Field surveys conducted 9–36 months post-fire and collation of records from public databases submitted 0–24 months post-fire indicated that D. rhodogaster persisted in burnt landscapes. Fire severity and proportion of the landscape that was burnt within a 1,000-m radius of survey sites were poor predictors of site occupancy by D. rhodogaster. Although conclusions regarding the effects of fire on D. rhodogaster are limited because of the lack of baseline data, it is evident that the species has persisted across the landscape in the wake of extensive bushfires. Our work highlights the need for baseline knowledge on cryptic species even when they are categorized as Least Concern, as otherwise assessments of the impacts of catastrophic events will be constrained.

Textiles of the Viking North Atlantic

  • Preface

  • Edited by Alexandra Lester-Makin, Gale R. Owen-Crocker, University of Manchester
  • Book:
    Textiles of the Viking North Atlantic
    Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    09 May 2024
    Print publication:
    23 April 2024, pp xv-xvi

  • Summary

    The genesis of this volume was a conference strand that took place at the IONA: Early Medieval Studies on the Islands of the North Atlantic conference, held at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada, in 2019. ‘From Fibres to Decorated Textiles in the Early North Atlantic: Making, Methods, Meanings’ brought together scholars, practitioners and other professionals specialising in different aspects of textile study and production from the Viking North Atlantic (800–1000 CE). The aim of the interdisciplinary strand was to explore how scholars and makers interpret and understand early medieval textiles and, as a result, the people and cultures that inhabited the early North Atlantic region.

    The strand combined taster workshops and seminars that ran across the three days of the conference. The workshops gave attendees opportunities to experience weaving on a warp-weighted loom, tablet weaving, sprang, nalbinding and preparing fish skin for use as leather. The first seminar focused on theoretical approaches to studying surviving textiles and their meaning and use within society. The final session brought together both practical and theoretical strands with presentations demonstrating how both approaches can work together to give people who would not normally consider themselves interested in history opportunities to explore and enjoy both craft and the distant past. The success of these sessions could be measured by the buzz and positive atmosphere that pervaded them and it was through the resulting discussions that the idea for an edited volume was first conceived.

    This book is the culmination of that project. Many of the original contributors to the conference strand have written chapters for the book. These have been supplemented with chapters by other emerging and leading scholars and practitioners of research on textiles from the early North Atlantic. The editors hope that the work it contains will enthuse those who already work in the field and engage others who are new to it: that it will show that many different approaches can be used to generate knowledge and understanding of the people and cultures that inhabited the North Atlantic lands in the Viking period and that by engaging in interdisciplinary approaches to the study of textiles, we can develop a more nuanced and holistic knowledge and understanding not only of these now-fragile objects but also of the worlds in which they were made, used, treasured, buried and discarded.

  • Introduction

  • Edited by Alexandra Lester-Makin, Gale R. Owen-Crocker, University of Manchester
  • Book:
    Textiles of the Viking North Atlantic
    Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    09 May 2024
    Print publication:
    23 April 2024, pp 1-8

  • Summary

    THE NORTH ATLANTIC IN THE VIKING AGE

    The term North Atlantic describes the geographical area situated between modern Scandinavia in the east and the east coast of North America in the west; and from Greenland in the north to the south coast of England (see Map, p. xvi). This is the area that people from Scandinavia explored, raided, traded with and settled between c. 750 and 1050 CE. The Norse people who engaged in these expeditions are now called Vikings, and sometimes thought of as sea pirates. However, the word Viking is of uncertain origins. It has been linked to two Old Norse words vikingr (m.) and viking (f.), which refer to an individual who is away from home engaged in group activities, and a group endeavour also taking place away from home, respectively. In turn, these two words may have derived from Vik, The Oslofjord, Viken, The Bay, and/or vik, bay, which could indicate that a vikingr was originally an individual associated with one of these places, either a local or a sea pirate. The etymology of all these words is part of a complex and ongoing debate that has only been touched upon here. The term Viking has become synonymous with a whole society that flourished first in Norway, Sweden and Denmark and, later, in parts of the British archipelago, Ireland, the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland and possibly as far west as the coast of North America. To the east, this society or culture spread into Finland, the Baltic and Russia and had trade networks that extended into the Byzantine Empire (the capital of which, Byzantium, is present-day Istanbul, Turkey), and along the silk route, possibly as far as China, although this is still debated. To the south, the Norse penetrated as far as the Iberian Peninsula in the Mediterranean and the north coast of Africa, setting up winter camps and raiding there between c. 859 and 862. Viking Age society was complex and it is not the aim of this volume to unpack what others have already done, and continue to do so well. For many cultures, including those of Scandinavia, the British Isles and Ireland, this period of history is now called the Viking Age.

  • 1 Associations between social determinants of health and 10-year change in everyday functioning within Black and White older adults from the ACTIVE study

  • Alexandra L. Clark, Alexandra J. Weigand, Olivio J. Clay, Michael Marsiske, Joshua Owens, Jacob Fiala, Michael Crowe, Kelsey R. Thomas
  • Journal:
    Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society / Volume 29 / Issue s1 / November 2023
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    21 December 2023, pp. 783-784
    • Article
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  • Objective:

    Social determinants of health (SDoH) are structural elements of our living and working environments that fundamentally shape health risks and outcomes. The Healthy People 2030 campaign delineated SDoH into five distinct categories that include: economic stability, education access/quality, healthcare access, neighborhood and built environment, and social and community contexts. Recent research has demonstrated that minoritized individuals have greater disadvantage across SDoH domains, which has been linked to poorer cognitive performance in older adulthood. However, the independent effects of SDoH on everyday functioning across and within racial groups remains less clear. The current project explored the association between SDoH factors and 10-year change in everyday functioning in a large sample of community-dwelling Black and White older adults.

    Participants and Methods:

    Data from 2,505 participants without dementia enrolled in the Advanced Cognitive Training for Independent and Vital Elderly (ACTIVE) study (age M=73.5; 76% women; 28% Black/African American). Sociodemographic, census, and industry classification data were reduced into five SDoH factors: economic stability, education access and quality, healthcare access and quality, neighborhood and built environment, and social and community contexts. The Observed Tasks of Daily Living, a performance-based measure of everyday functioning with tasks involving medication management, finances, and telephone use, was administered at baseline, 1-, 2-, 3-, 5, and 10-year follow up visits. Mixed-effects models with age as the timescale tested (1) racial group differences in OTDL trajectories, (2) race x SDOH interactions on OTDL trajectories, and (3) associations between SDoH and OTDL trajectories stratified within Black and White older adults. Covariates included sex/gender, vocabulary score, Mini-Mental Status Examination, depressive symptoms, visual acuity, general health, training group status, booster status, testing site, and recruitment wave.

    Results:

    Black older adults had a steeper decline of OTDL performance compared to Whites (linear: b = -.25, quadratic b=-.009, ps < .001). There was a significant race x social and community context interaction on linear OTDL trajectories (b =.06, p=.01), but no other significant race x SDoH interactions were observed (bs =-.007-.05, ps=.73-.11). Stratified analyses revealed lower levels of social and community context were associated with steeper age-related linear declines in OTDL performance in Black (b = .08, p=.001), but not White older adults (b =.004, p=.64). Additionally, lower levels of economic stability were associated with steeper age-related linear declines in OTDL performance in Black (b =.07, p=.04), but not White older adults (b =.01, p=.35). Finally, no significant associations between other SDoH and OTDL trajectories were observed in Black (bs = -.04-.01, ps =.09-.80) or White (bs = -.02-.003, ps=.07-.96) older adults.

    Conclusions:

    SDoH, which measure aspects of structural racism, play an important role in accelerating age-related declines in everyday functioning. Lower levels of economic and community-level social resources are two distinct SDoH domains associated with declines in daily functioning that negatively impact Black, but not White, older adults. It is imperative that future efforts focus on both identifying and acting upon upstream drivers of SDoH-related inequities. Within the United States, this will require addressing more than a century of antiBlack sentiment, White supremacy, and unjust systems of power and policies designed to intentionally disadvantage minoritized groups.

  • Pre-treatment allostatic load and metabolic dysregulation predict SSRI response in major depressive disorder: a preliminary report

  • Christina M. Hough, F. Saverio Bersani, Synthia H. Mellon, Alexandra E. Morford, Daniel Lindqvist, Victor I. Reus, Elissa S. Epel, Owen M. Wolkowitz
  • Journal:
    Psychological Medicine / Volume 51 / Issue 12 / September 2021
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    22 May 2020, pp. 2117-2125
  • Background

    Major depressive disorder (MDD) is associated with increased allostatic load (AL; a measure of physiological costs of repeated/chronic stress-responding) and metabolic dysregulation (MetD; a measure of metabolic health and precursor to many medical illnesses). Though AL and MetD are associated with poor somatic health outcomes, little is known regarding their relationship with antidepressant-treatment outcomes.

    Methods

    We determined pre-treatment AL and MetD in 67 healthy controls and 34 unmedicated, medically healthy MDD subjects. Following this, MDD subjects completed 8-weeks of open-label selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressant treatment and were categorized as ‘Responders’ (⩾50% improvement in depression severity ratings) or ‘Non-responders’ (<50% improvement). Logistic and linear regressions were performed to determine if pre-treatment AL or MetD scores predicted SSRI-response. Secondary analyses examined cross-sectional differences between MDD and control groups.

    Results

    Pre-treatment AL and MetD scores significantly predicted continuous antidepressant response (i.e. absolute decreases in depression severity ratings) (p = 0.012 and 0.014, respectively), as well as post-treatment status as a Responder or Non-responder (p = 0.022 and 0.040, respectively), such that higher pre-treatment AL and MetD were associated with poorer SSRI-treatment outcomes. Pre-treatment AL and MetD of Responders were similar to Controls, while those of Non-responders were significantly higher than both Responders (p = 0.025 and 0.033, respectively) and Controls (p = 0.039 and 0.001, respectively).

    Conclusions

    These preliminary findings suggest that indices of metabolic and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal-axis dysregulation are associated with poorer SSRI-treatment response. To our knowledge, this is the first study to demonstrate that these markers of medical disease risk also predict poorer antidepressant outcomes.

  • Visuospatial Processing Deficits Linked to Posterior Brain Regions in Premanifest and Early Stage Huntington’s Disease

  • Izelle Labuschagne, Amy Mulick Cassidy, Rachael I. Scahill, Eileanoir B. Johnson, Elin Rees, Alison O’Regan, Sarah Queller, Chris Frost, Blair R. Leavitt, Alexandra Dürr, Raymond Roos, Gail Owen, Beth Borowsky, Sarah J. Tabrizi, Julie C. Stout, the TRACK-HD Investigators
  • Journal:
    Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society / Volume 22 / Issue 6 / July 2016
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    23 May 2016, pp. 595-608

  • Objectives: Visuospatial processing deficits have been reported in Huntington’s disease (HD). To date, no study has examined associations between visuospatial cognition and posterior brain findings in HD. Methods: We compared 119 premanifest (55> and 64<10.8 years to expected disease onset) and 104 early symptomatic (59 stage-1 and 45 stage-2) gene carriers, with 110 controls on visual search and mental rotation performance at baseline and 12 months. In the disease groups, we also examined associations between task performance and disease severity, functional capacity and structural brain measures. Results: Cross-sectionally, there were strong differences between all disease groups and controls on visual search, and between diagnosed groups and controls on mental rotation accuracy. Only the premanifest participants close to onset took longer than controls to respond correctly to mental rotation. Visual search negatively correlated with disease burden and motor symptoms in diagnosed individuals, and positively correlated with functional capacity. Mental rotation (“same”) was negatively correlated with motor symptoms in stage-2 individuals, and positively correlated with functional capacity. Visual search and mental rotation were associated with parieto-occipital (pre-/cuneus, calcarine, lingual) and temporal (posterior fusiform) volume and cortical thickness. Longitudinally, visual search deteriorated over 12 months in stage-2 individuals, with no evidence of declines in mental rotation. Conclusions: Our findings provide evidence linking early visuospatial deficits to functioning and posterior cortical dysfunction in HD. The findings are important since large research efforts have focused on fronto-striatal mediated cognitive changes, with little attention given to aspects of cognition outside of these areas. (JINS, 2016, 22, 595–608)

  • Using Legislation to Protect Against Unethical Conversions in Sri Lanka

  • Alexandra Owen
  • Journal:
    Journal of Law and Religion / Volume 22 / Issue 2 / 2007
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    24 April 2015, pp. 323-351

  • The year 2006 marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief. In her recent report to the United Nations General Assembly, Asma Jahangir, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, stated that despite the time that has elapsed since the Declaration was drafted, it “seems evident that contentious religious issues have not only evolved but also become more acute in many societies.” In a report submitted to the Commission on Human Rights in late 2004, the Special Rapporteur listed “the continuing violations of human rights of members of certain religious minorities, as well as the still widely applied practice of forced conversion” among the main concerns in the area of freedom of religion. Jahangir said that she considers that “such a practice breaches the strongest and most fundamental part of freedom of religion or belief and should be given greater attention by the international community.”

    In May 2005 the Special Rapporteur made an in situ visit to Sri Lanka—a country where the issue of unethical conversions has fueled religious tensions in recent years. Approximately 69% of Sri Lanka's population are Buddhists, followed by Hindus (15%), Christians (8%), Muslims (7%) and others (1%). Despite such a majority, the ethnic conflict which has affected Sri Lanka for decades, and which began to escalate again in December 2005 and throughout 2006-07, has been largely devoid of a religious element: relations between the different religious groups have for some time been relatively peaceful. This religious co-existence has, however, begun to deteriorate, due largely to the issue of unethical conversions and a desire to protect the majority religion.