EU multilingualism: the looming challenges

The European Union’s motto “Unity in Diversity” is the demonstration of the enduring vision of Europe’s different languages and different cultures as a priceless asset. Ensuring that this diversity is not a barrier to understanding is the task of 10% of the European Commission staff, comprising roughly three quarters translators, one quarter interpreters. I shall of course be concentrating on the latter. Danica Seleskovitch very pertinently pointed out that the chain of communication does not stop in the booth. We in the European Commission’s Directorate-general for Interpretation have long taken this to heart, both literally and figuratively. Literally, in the sense that the ultimate destination of the message is of course the customer: I will present some key findings of our latest Customer Satisfaction Survey which has just been finalised. Figuratively, because the looming shortage of good young conference interpreters coming into the profession threatens that the message may only reach an empty booth for some languages. Within those two over-arching themes, there are of course other important interwoven issues which I would like to tease out for your consideration

A Journey Around the World Mind

Replaces 2005 version at http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/217830Browsing among the stacks of Cambridge University Library has been described as ‘walking around the world mind’ – this is one of the great libraries of the world. Our collections range in age from 3,000-year-old handwritten texts to current electronic articles, and in material from bone, papyrus, animal skin and palm leaf to paper and plastic. They are written in over 2,000 languages and originate from every continent on the planet. In this book we can give only a flavour of the variety of materials collected, preserved and made available to readers who themselves come from all parts of the globe

The Response to BSE in the United States

Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

Depressive symptoms are associated with visceral adiposity in a community-based sample of middle-aged women and men

To examine the relation between measures of adiposity and depressive symptoms in a large well characterized community-based sample, we examined the relations of visceral adipose tissue (VAT) and subcutaneous adipose tissue (SAT) to depressive symptoms in 1581 women (mean age 52.2 years) and 1718 men (mean age 49.8 years) in the Framingham Heart Study. Depressive symptoms were measured using the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression (CES-D) scale. Regression models were created to examine the association between each fat depot (exposure) and depressive symptoms (outcome). Sex specific models were adjusted for age, body mass index, smoking, alcohol consumption, diabetes, hypertension, total and HDL cholesterol, lipid lowering treatment, CVD, menopause, C-reactive protein, and physical activity. Mean CES-D scores were 6.8 and 5.6 in women and men. High levels of depressive symptoms were present in 22.5% of women and 12.3% of men. In women, one standard deviation increase in VAT was associated with a 1.3 point higher CES-D score after adjusting for age and BMI (p<0.01) and remained significant in the fully adjusted model (p=0.03). The odds ratio of depressive symptoms per 1 standard deviation increase in VAT in women was 1.33 (p=0.015); results were attenuated in fully adjusted models (OR 1.29, p=0.055). In men, the association between VAT and CES-D score and depressive symptoms was not significant. SAT was not associated with CES-D score or depressive symptoms. This study supports an association between VAT and depressive symptoms in women. Further work is needed to uncover the complex biologic mechanisms mediating the association

Ecophysiology of coral reef primary producers across an upwelling gradient in the tropical central Pacific

© The Author(s), 2020. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Johnson, M. D., Fox, M. D., Kelly, E. L. A., Zgliczynski, B. J., Sandin, S. A., & Smith, J. E. Ecophysiology of coral reef primary producers across an upwelling gradient in the tropical central Pacific. Plos One, 15(2), (2020): e0228448, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0228448.Upwelling is an important source of inorganic nutrients in marine systems, yet little is known about how gradients in upwelling affect primary producers on coral reefs. The Southern Line Islands span a natural gradient of inorganic nutrient concentrations across the equatorial upwelling region in the central Pacific. We used this gradient to test the hypothesis that benthic autotroph ecophysiology is enhanced on nutrient-enriched reefs. We measured metabolism and photophysiology of common benthic taxa, including the algae Porolithon, Avrainvillea, and Halimeda, and the corals Pocillopora and Montipora. We found that temperature (27.2–28.7°C) was inversely related to dissolved inorganic nitrogen (0.46–4.63 μM) and surface chlorophyll a concentrations (0.108–0.147 mg m-3), which increased near the equator. Contrary to our prediction, ecophysiology did not consistently track these patterns in all taxa. Though metabolic rates were generally variable, Porolithon and Avrainvillea photosynthesis was highest at the most productive and equatorial island (northernmost). Porolithon photosynthetic rates also generally increased with proximity to the equator. Photophysiology (maximum quantum yield) increased near the equator and was highest at northern islands in all taxa. Photosynthetic pigments also were variable, but chlorophyll a and carotenoids in Avrainvillea and Montipora were highest at the northern islands. Phycobilin pigments of Porolithon responded most consistently across the upwelling gradient, with higher phycoerythrin concentrations closer to the equator. Our findings demonstrate that the effects of in situ nutrient enrichment on benthic autotrophs may be more complex than laboratory experiments indicate. While upwelling is an important feature in some reef ecosystems, ancillary factors may regulate the associated consequences of nutrient enrichment on benthic reef organisms.This work was supported by funding from the Moore Family Foundation, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the Scripps family, and anonymous donors. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, or preparation of the manuscript