The fishes of ascension Island, central Atlantic Ocean - new records and an annotated checklist

A checklist of the fishes of Ascension Island is presented. The species Rhincodon typus, Alopias superciliosus, Isurus oxyrinchus, Carcharhinus obscurus, Galeocerdo cuvier, Sphyrna lewini, Hexanchus griseus, Manta birostris, Gymnothorax vicinus, Hippocampus sp., Epinephelus itajara, Cookeolus japonicus, Apogon pseudomaculatus, Phaeoptyx pigmentaria, Remora albescens, Caranx bartholomaei, Carangoides ruber, Decapterus tabl, Seriola dumerili, Thalassoma sanctaehelenae, Cryptotomus sp., Ruvettus pretiosus, Acanthocybium solandri, Auxis rochei, Auxis thazard, Euthynnus alletteratus, Katsuwonus pelamis, Thunnus alalunga, Thunnus obesus, Xiphias gladius, Istiophorus platypterus, Kajikia albida, Makaira nigricans, Tetrapturus pfluegeri, Hyperoglyphe perciformis, Schedophilus sp., Cantherhines macrocerus, Sphoeroides pachygaster and Diodon eydouxii are recorded for the first time from Ascension Island. We have recognized two previous records as identification errors and indicate 11 other records as doubtful. Including the 40 new records, we now list 173 fish species from Ascension Island, of which 133 might be considered 'coastal fish species'. Eleven of these (8.3%) appear to be endemic to the island and a further 16 species (12%) appear to be shared endemics with St Helena Island.Darwin Initiative [EIDCF012]info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Insight: An Invitation

My abstractions originate in my relationships to my mother, father, and self. Visual entry points of whiteness, flatness, and organic shapes become a language and form of communication that speak to my connections with my family. They begin as quiet and contemplative works with minimal use of color and imagery that oscillate around an ovular organic form and shift to more colorful pure abstractions. Working consecutively with a similar shape in size and appearance came naturally to me as I began putting paintbrush to paper. My impetus was to complete a form and reveal its edges with gesso – lines that connect in infinity with muted color, making a shape embedded within the charged white around the spaces. It was months later that I attended my first ultrasound and saw a tiny circular form surrounded by deep space; its mark resonated within me. Shapes and text became even more meaningful to the work after the unexpected passing of my father. Organically rendered pages with quasi-biblical phrasing collaged on top began to correlate with my grief. They transformed from random religious poetic sentiments into a manual on what it means for me to grieve with words like: “The cold damp terrified her” and “There was a deep silence.” The text, which meditates on sin and wickedness, relates to conditions that I concern myself with as a Christian. Inclusion of found phrases from the discarded library book Infelice began as a curiosity to explore textual conversation in abstract work. Out-of-context quotes from a nun scolding a little girl about killing her pet dove became odd poetic phrasings, which intrigued me. The language of the shapes also connects in all of the works due to the pervasive reworking of the surfaces. Sanding represents a physical change of the page. My act of removal is a process that reveals a more unified or complete image. Each page, crafted over a series of months is worked, layered, sanded, and drawn upon again. The labor and intensity within each page represents my desire to offer the viewer a gift at my show, where they are invited to engage with the pages through prompting text to sit, contemplate, and take one from the wall. A small space, built by two walls at my thesis exhibition welcomes the viewer to spend time in a room where formalism and experience meet. I provide two benches in this space, which invite an opportunity for a collective experience. Taken from my church, they symbolize my connection with my community and where I spend my time. Through communal participatory actions I invite the viewer to become a part of my community. This setting is meant to coax the viewer into a moment where their only task in the world, right then and there, is to be present in the intimate space. This is achieved by viewing the work through the lens of a prompt on the wall or taking the time to sift through the imagery and choose which piece they want. Within here lies the insight for the viewer. I do not remember when we began using the word with each other in conversation but somewhere over the years my mom and I began referring to the fateful events in our lives as “kismet” (kis·met /ˈkizmit,-ˌmet/ noun destiny; fate). A true lover of random occurrences, my mom always marveled at the kismet of her zodiac readings, once choosing a life-changing career due to the prediction of a Chinese fortune cookie. Kismet became a dialogue between us for all of the things that we could not communicate, such as my deepening move towards faith and spirituality or her occasional frustration with her lot in life – it was all just kismet. Perhaps then, it too was kismet the evening she began painting a sketchbook as a gift for me from an old textbook titled Insight. Every night, settled into the couch long after work, she would flip the page, paint a spread, and wait for it to dry. Sometimes the paintings took the form of milky whites drifting to pinks and browns and other times she skipped passages and pages where the text was too important to cover. Maybe she had run out of that one color in the paint-by-number set left over from her younger years or maybe she felt the need to switch things up. Either way, every night she would flip the page and paint. My works on paper incorporate all of these elements: through stages over time, including screen-printed text, painting over the text, various choices of materials and fortunes written on the back (fortune source: Infelice by Augusta Jane Evans). My thesis exhibition presents an installation of these works in which the viewer is welcomed into an inner sanctum space and offered an invitation – a gift of art and of time to contemplate their inner world. My communication of generosity is a chance to be a part of something larger and a chance to participate in an event guided by kismet and insight. Advisor: Karen Kun

Insight: An Invitation

My abstractions originate in my relationships to my mother, father, and self. Visual entry points of whiteness, flatness, and organic shapes become a language and form of communication that speak to my connections with my family. They begin as quiet and contemplative works with minimal use of color and imagery that oscillate around an ovular organic form and shift to more colorful pure abstractions. Working consecutively with a similar shape in size and appearance came naturally to me as I began putting paintbrush to paper. My impetus was to complete a form and reveal its edges with gesso – lines that connect in infinity with muted color, making a shape embedded within the charged white around the spaces. It was months later that I attended my first ultrasound and saw a tiny circular form surrounded by deep space; its mark resonated within me. Shapes and text became even more meaningful to the work after the unexpected passing of my father. Organically rendered pages with quasi-biblical phrasing collaged on top began to correlate with my grief. They transformed from random religious poetic sentiments into a manual on what it means for me to grieve with words like: “The cold damp terrified her” and “There was a deep silence.” The text, which meditates on sin and wickedness, relates to conditions that I concern myself with as a Christian. Inclusion of found phrases from the discarded library book Infelice began as a curiosity to explore textual conversation in abstract work. Out-of-context quotes from a nun scolding a little girl about killing her pet dove became odd poetic phrasings, which intrigued me. The language of the shapes also connects in all of the works due to the pervasive reworking of the surfaces. Sanding represents a physical change of the page. My act of removal is a process that reveals a more unified or complete image. Each page, crafted over a series of months is worked, layered, sanded, and drawn upon again. The labor and intensity within each page represents my desire to offer the viewer a gift at my show, where they are invited to engage with the pages through prompting text to sit, contemplate, and take one from the wall. A small space, built by two walls at my thesis exhibition welcomes the viewer to spend time in a room where formalism and experience meet. I provide two benches in this space, which invite an opportunity for a collective experience. Taken from my church, they symbolize my connection with my community and where I spend my time. Through communal participatory actions I invite the viewer to become a part of my community. This setting is meant to coax the viewer into a moment where their only task in the world, right then and there, is to be present in the intimate space. This is achieved by viewing the work through the lens of a prompt on the wall or taking the time to sift through the imagery and choose which piece they want. Within here lies the insight for the viewer. I do not remember when we began using the word with each other in conversation but somewhere over the years my mom and I began referring to the fateful events in our lives as “kismet” (kis·met /ˈkizmit,-ˌmet/ noun destiny; fate). A true lover of random occurrences, my mom always marveled at the kismet of her zodiac readings, once choosing a life-changing career due to the prediction of a Chinese fortune cookie. Kismet became a dialogue between us for all of the things that we could not communicate, such as my deepening move towards faith and spirituality or her occasional frustration with her lot in life – it was all just kismet. Perhaps then, it too was kismet the evening she began painting a sketchbook as a gift for me from an old textbook titled Insight. Every night, settled into the couch long after work, she would flip the page, paint a spread, and wait for it to dry. Sometimes the paintings took the form of milky whites drifting to pinks and browns and other times she skipped passages and pages where the text was too important to cover. Maybe she had run out of that one color in the paint-by-number set left over from her younger years or maybe she felt the need to switch things up. Either way, every night she would flip the page and paint. My works on paper incorporate all of these elements: through stages over time, including screen-printed text, painting over the text, various choices of materials and fortunes written on the back (fortune source: Infelice by Augusta Jane Evans). My thesis exhibition presents an installation of these works in which the viewer is welcomed into an inner sanctum space and offered an invitation – a gift of art and of time to contemplate their inner world. My communication of generosity is a chance to be a part of something larger and a chance to participate in an event guided by kismet and insight. Advisor: Karen Kun

Distinct responses of soil respiration to experimental litter manipulation in temperate woodland and tropical forest

Global change is affecting primary productivity in forests worldwide, and this, in turn, will alter long‐term carbon (C) sequestration in wooded ecosystems. On one hand, increased primary productivity, for example, in response to elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2), can result in greater inputs of organic matter to the soil, which could increase C sequestration belowground. On other hand, many of the interactions between plants and microorganisms that determine soil C dynamics are poorly characterized, and additional inputs of plant material, such as leaf litter, can result in the mineralization of soil organic matter, and the release of soil C as CO2 during so‐called “priming effects”. Until now, very few studies made direct comparison of changes in soil C dynamics in response to altered plant inputs in different wooded ecosystems. We addressed this with a cross‐continental study with litter removal and addition treatments in a temperate woodland (Wytham Woods) and lowland tropical forest (Gigante forest) to compare the consequences of increased litterfall on soil respiration in two distinct wooded ecosystems. Mean soil respiration was almost twice as high at Gigante (5.0 μmol CO2 m−2 s−1) than at Wytham (2.7 μmol CO2 m−2 s−1) but surprisingly, litter manipulation treatments had a greater and more immediate effect on soil respiration at Wytham. We measured a 30% increase in soil respiration in response to litter addition treatments at Wytham, compared to a 10% increase at Gigante. Importantly, despite higher soil respiration rates at Gigante, priming effects were stronger and more consistent at Wytham. Our results suggest that in situ priming effects in wooded ecosystems track seasonality in litterfall and soil respiration but the amount of soil C released by priming is not proportional to rates of soil respiration. Instead, priming effects may be promoted by larger inputs of organic matter combined with slower turnover rates

Eventide Along the Grand: Homer Watson's Mystical Landscape

Homer Watson believed that the greatest message a painting could convey was the mystical relationship between man, nature and the spirit world. Imbued with a strong missionary drive, the artist spent his life attempting to express this connection through his landscapes of rural southern Ontario. Building on numerous letters that indicate the artist’s spiritual artistic intention, this thesis takes a socio-historical approach by examining the North American and European social and artistic contexts that led Watson to embrace the spiritist doctrine and envision his art as an exploration of mystical concerns. It will also analyze his paintings in order to identify how those concerns manifested themselves visually through his choice of subject matter, manipulation of nature’s elements, choice of paint colours, and use of impasto

Learning to Listen to Hunger and Fullness Cues

This fact sheet explains how learning to listen to internal cues, such as hunger and fullness signals, may encourage people to consume less calories and develop a healthier relationship with food

Evaluating Normative Epistemic Frameworks in Medicine: EBM and Casuistic Medicine

Since its inception in the early 1990s, evidence-based medicine (EBM) has become the dominant epistemic framework for Western medical practice. However, in light of powerful criticisms against EBM, alternatives such as casuistic medicine have been gaining support in both the medical and philosophical community. In the absence of empirical evidence in support of the claim that EBM improves patient outcomes, and in light of considerations that it is unlikely that such evidence will be forthcoming, another standard is needed to assess EBM against its alternatives. In this paper, I propose a set of criteria for this purpose based on Helen Longino's criteria for assessing the objectivity of a knowledge productive community. I then apply these criteria to assess EBM against a casuistic framework for medical knowledge. I argue that EBM's strict adherence to a hierarchical organization of knowledge can reasonably be expected to block it from fulfilling a high level of objectivity. A casuistic framework, on the other hand, because it emphasizes critical evaluation in conjunction with the flexibility of a case-based approach, could be expected to better facilitate a more optimal epistemic community

Body Image in Adolescence

This fact sheet addresses risk factors and protective factors in order to help adolescents navigate this critical time frame