What Influences the Diffusion of Grassroots Innovations for Sustainability? Investigating Community Currency Niches

Community action for sustainability is a promising site of socio-technical innovation. Here we test the applicability of co-evolutionary niche theories of innovation diffusion (Strategic Niche Management, SNM) to the context of ‘grassroots innovations’. We present new empirical findings from an international study of 12 community currency niches (such as LETS, time banks, local currencies). These are parallel systems of exchange, designed to operate alongside mainstream money, meeting additional sustainability needs. Our findings confirm SNM predictions that niche-level activity correlates with diffusion success, but we highlight additional or confounding factors, and how niche theories might be adapted to better fit civil-society innovations. In so doing, we develop a model of grassroots innovation niche diffusion which builds on existing work and tailors it to this specific context. The paper concludes with a series of theoretically-informed recommendations for practitioners and policymakers to support the development and potential of grassroots innovations

Can rates of ocean primary production and biological carbon export be related through their probability distributions?

© The Author(s), 2018. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Global Biogeochemical Cycles 32 (2018): 954-970, doi:10.1029/2017GB005797.We describe the basis of a theory for interpreting measurements of two key biogeochemical fluxes—primary production by phytoplankton (p, μg C · L−1 · day−1) and biological carbon export from the surface ocean by sinking particles (f, mg C · m−2 · day−1)—in terms of their probability distributions. Given that p and f are mechanistically linked but variable and effectively measured on different scales, we hypothesize that a quantitative relationship emerges between collections of the two measurements. Motivated by the many subprocesses driving production and export, we take as a null model that large‐scale distributions of p and f are lognormal. We then show that compilations of p and f measurements are consistent with this hypothesis. The compilation of p measurements is extensive enough to subregion by biome, basin, depth, or season; these subsets are also well described by lognormals, whose log‐moments sort predictably. Informed by the lognormality of both p and f we infer a statistical scaling relationship between the two quantities and derive a linear relationship between the log‐moments of their distributions. We find agreement between two independent estimates of the slope and intercept of this line and show that the distribution of f measurements is consistent with predictions made from the moments of the p distribution. These results illustrate the utility of a distributional approach to biogeochemical fluxes. We close by describing potential uses and challenges for the further development of such an approach.National Science Foundation Grant Number: OCE-1315201; Simons Foundation Grant Numbers: 329108, 553242; National Aeronautics and Space Administration Grant Numbers: NNX16AR47G, NNX16AR49

Primary vs. Secondary Antibody Deficiency: Clinical Features and Infection Outcomes of Immunoglobulin Replacement

<div><p>Secondary antibody deficiency can occur as a result of haematological malignancies or certain medications, but not much is known about the clinical and immunological features of this group of patients as a whole. Here we describe a cohort of 167 patients with primary or secondary antibody deficiencies on immunoglobulin (Ig)-replacement treatment. The demographics, causes of immunodeficiency, diagnostic delay, clinical and laboratory features, and infection frequency were analysed retrospectively. Chemotherapy for B cell lymphoma and the use of Rituximab, corticosteroids or immunosuppressive medications were the most common causes of secondary antibody deficiency in this cohort. There was no difference in diagnostic delay or bronchiectasis between primary and secondary antibody deficiency patients, and both groups experienced disorders associated with immune dysregulation. Secondary antibody deficiency patients had similar baseline levels of serum IgG, but higher IgM and IgA, and a higher frequency of switched memory B cells than primary antibody deficiency patients. Serious and non-serious infections before and after Ig-replacement were also compared in both groups. Although secondary antibody deficiency patients had more serious infections before initiation of Ig-replacement, treatment resulted in a significant reduction of serious and non-serious infections in both primary and secondary antibody deficiency patients. Patients with secondary antibody deficiency experience similar delays in diagnosis as primary antibody deficiency patients and can also benefit from immunoglobulin-replacement treatment.</p></div

'Sexercise': Working out heterosexuality in Jane Fonda’s fitness books

This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article published in Leisure Studies, 30(2), 237 - 255, 2011, copyright Taylor & Francis, available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/02614367.2010.523837.This paper explores the connection between the promotion of heterosexual norms in women’s fitness books written by or in the name of Jane Fonda during the 1980s and the commodification of women’s fitness space in both the public and private spheres. The paper is set in the absence of overt discussions of normative heterosexuality in leisure studies and draws on critical heterosexual scholarship as well as the growing body of work theorising geographies of corporeality and heterosexuality. Using the principles of media discourse analysis, the paper identifies three overlapping characteristics of heterosexuality represented in Jane Fonda’s fitness books, and embodied through the exercise regimes: respectable heterosexual desire, monogamous procreation and domesticity. The paper concludes that the promotion and prescription of exercise for women in the Jane Fonda workout books centred on the reproduction and embodiment of heterosexual corporeality. Set within an emerging commercial landscape of women’s fitness in the 1980s, such exercise practices were significant in the legitimation and institutionalisation of heteronormativity

Do oceanic zooplankton aggregate at, or near, the deep chlorophyll maximum?

Grazing pressure, varying with depth, must play a role in shaping the general form of the chlorophyll profile which often contains a deep chlorophyll maximum (DCM). Until we obtain enough coincident high-precision profiles of chlorophyll and grazing plankton (such as the BATFISH profiles, discussed below) it is difficult to be sure that this is so, though the problem is important enough to warrant an attempt, and several have been made...

‘Instead of fetching flowers, the youths brought in flakes of snow’: exploring extreme weather history through English parish registers

Parish registers provide organized, dated and located population data and as such, are routinely among the most frequently consulted documents within the holdings of county record offices and archives. Throughout history, extreme weather has had significant impacts on the church, its congregation, and local landscape. It is for these reasons that extreme weather events have been deemed worthy of official note by authors of many registers. Although isolated entries have been used as supporting evidence for the occurrence of a number of historic extreme weather events, the information that parish registers contain relating to weather history has not been studied in its own right. Parish register narratives add new events to existing chronologies of extreme weather events and contribute to our understanding of their impacts at the local level. As public and well used documents they also function to keep the memory of particular events alive. The examples in this paper cover a wide range of weather types, places, and time periods, also enabling recording practice to be explored. Finally, as the number of digitized registers increases, we highlight the risks of weather narratives being obscured, and reflect on how the weather history contained within might be systematically captured

Factors regulating the Great Calcite Belt in the Southern Ocean and its biogeochemical significance

The Great Calcite Belt (GCB) is a region of elevated surface reflectance in the Southern Ocean (SO) covering ~16% of the global ocean and is thought to result from elevated, seasonal concentrations of coccolithophores. Here we describe field observations and experiments from two cruises that crossed the GCB in the Atlantic and Indian sectors of the SO. We confirm the presence of coccolithophores, their coccoliths, and associated optical scattering, located primarily in the region of the subtropical, Agulhas, and Subantarctic frontal regions. Coccolithophore-rich regions were typically associated with high-velocity frontal regions with higher seawater partial pressures of CO2 (pCO2) than the atmosphere, sufficient to reverse the direction of gas exchange to a CO2 source. There was no calcium carbonate (CaCO3) enhancement of particulate organic carbon (POC) export, but there were increased POC transfer efficiencies in high-flux particulate inorganic carbon regions. Contemporaneous observations are synthesized with results of trace-metal incubation experiments, 234Th-based flux estimates, and remotely sensed observations to generate a mandala that summarizes our understanding about the factors that regulate the location of the GCB

Global-scale quantification of mineralization pathways in marine sediments: A reaction-transport modeling approach

[1] The global-scale quantification of organic carbon (Corg) degradation pathways in marine sediments is difficult to achieve experimentally due to the limited availability of field data. In the present study, a numerical modeling approach is used as an alternative to quantify the major metabolic pathways of Corg oxidation (Cox) and associated fluxes of redox-sensitive species fluxes along a global ocean hypsometry, using the seafloor depth (SFD) as the master variable. The SFD dependency of the model parameters and forcing functions is extracted from existing empirical relationships or from the NOAA World Ocean Atlas. Results are in general agreement with estimates from the literature showing that the relative contribution of aerobic respiration to Cox increases from 80% in deep-sea sediments. Sulfate reduction essentially follows an inversed SFD dependency, the other metabolic pathways (denitrification, Mn and Fe reduction) only adding minor contributions to the global-scale mineralization of Corg. The hypsometric analysis allows the establishment of relationships between the individual terminal electron acceptor (TEA) fluxes across the sediment-water interface and their respective contributions to the Corg decomposition process. On a global average, simulation results indicate that sulfate reduction is the dominant metabolic pathway and accounts for approximately 76% of the total Cox, which is higher than reported so far by other authors. The results also demonstrate the importance of bioirrigation for the assessment of global species fluxes. Especially at shallow SFD most of the TEAs enter the sediments via bioirrigation, which complicates the use of concentration profiles for the determination of total TEA fluxes by molecular diffusion. Furthermore, bioirrigation accounts for major losses of reduced species from the sediment to the water column prohibiting their reoxidation inside the sediment. As a result, the total carbon mineralization rate exceeds the total flux of oxygen into the sediment by a factor of 2 globally

Ocean acidification reduces demersal zooplankton that reside in tropical coral reefs

The in situ effects of ocean acidification on zooplankton communities remain largely unexplored. Using natural volcanic CO2 seep sites around tropical coral communities, we show a threefold reduction in the biomass of demersal zooplankton in high-CO2 sites compared with sites with ambient CO2. Differences were consistent across two reefs and three expeditions. Abundances were reduced in most taxonomic groups. There were no regime shifts in zooplankton community composition and no differences in fatty acid composition between CO2 levels, suggesting that ocean acidification affects the food quantity but not the quality for nocturnal plankton feeders. Emergence trap data show that the observed reduction in demersal plankton may be partly attributable to altered habitat. Ocean acidification changes coral community composition from branching to massive bouldering coral species, and our data suggest that bouldering corals represent inferior daytime shelter for demersal zooplankton. Since zooplankton represent a major source of nutrients for corals, fish and other planktivores, this ecological feedback may represent an additional mechanism of how coral reefs will be affected by ocean acidification

Local Air Quality Management policy and practice in the UK: The case for greater Public Health integration and engagement

© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. The UK's Local Air Quality Management (LAQM) regime is designed to protect people's health from the ill-effects of air pollution, but it is failing to achieve its full potential. The Public Health aspects of, perspectives on, and integration and engagement in, LAQM have been poorly considered to date. This critical literature review assessed LAQM-related strengths and limitations in order to explore how Public Health, through greater integration and engagement, can add value to the regime.'Structure' and 'process' weaknesses were identified, including: A poorly defined Public Health role, a narrowly-scoped prescribed process, risk assessment uncertainties, ineffective communications, shallow evaluations and disconnected policies. Separately and cumulatively, these have hindered Public Health integration in LAQM policy and practice and stunted the regime's evolution. Engaging Public Health in LAQM future design and delivery can help solve these problems, by improving risk assessments and raising awareness of air pollution and other health-influencing relationships, targeting action in high-need areas, coordinating air pollution mitigation and health improvement interventions, and connecting different policy areas.Increasing Public Health integration and engagement in LAQM can enhance the existing regime. Acting now is timely from both LAQM and Public Health perspectives. This review's findings should be used to inform debates and decisions around the future development of Local Air Quality Management arrangements both in the UK and beyond