Clergy work-related psychological health : listening to the Ministers of Word and Sacrament within the United Reformed Church in England

Drawing on the classic model of balanced affect proposed by Bradburn (The structure of psychological well-being, Aldine, Chicago, IL, 1969), this study conceptualised poor work-related psychological health in terms of high levels of negative affect in the absence of acceptable levels of positive affect. In order to illuminate self-perceptions of work-related psychological health among a well-defined group of clergy, a random sample of 58 ministers of word and sacrament serving within the west midlands synod of the United Reformed Church in England completed an open-ended questionnaire concerned with the following six guiding questions. Do you enjoy your work? How would you define stress? How would you define burnout? What stresses are there in your ministry? What do you do to keep healthy? What can the church do to enhance the work-related psychological health of ministers? Content analysis highlighted the main themes recurring through these open-ended responses. The conclusion is drawn that ministers of word and sacrament within the United Reformed Church in England are exposed to a number of recurrent recognisable sources of stress. Suggestions are advanced regarding the need for future more detailed research and for the development of more effective pastoral strategies

Revisiting and revitalizing political ecology in the American West

Political ecology, initially conceived to better understand the power relations implicit in management and distribution of natural resources in the developing world, came “home” to the American West in the 1990s and 2000s. This groundswell of research did much to problematize socio-environmental conflicts in the region, long typified by tensions over land and resources, identity and belonging, autonomy and authority. Since first touching down in the West, however, the “big tent” of political ecology has only grown bigger, incorporating new perspectives, epistemologies, and ontologies. At the same time, the nexus of environment and society is perhaps even more salient today, amid a regional conjuncture of populist revolt, climate change, and rapid political economic transformation. Here we reflect on three longstanding regional concerns – energy development, wolf reintroduction, and participatory governance – leveraging the pluralism of contemporary political ecology to better understand their contemporary incarnations. In so doing, we highlight the need to bring together insights from both “traditional” approaches and newer directions to better understand and engage contemporary challenges, with their heightened stakes and complexity. Such an approach demonstrates what we might learn about global processes in this place, as well as what insights regional praxis (often woefully provincial) might gain from elsewhere – new ways of seeing and doing political ecology. Our goal is to generate discussion among and between political ecologists and regional critical scholars, initiating new collaborative engagements that might serve the next wave of political ecology in the 21st century American West

Hoplia equina (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae) and Nontarget Capture Using 2-Tetradecanone-Baited Traps

Using bucket traps baited with 2-tetradecanone, the sex pheromone of Hoplia equina LeConte, an important pest of cranberries in Massachusetts, we investigated the effect of trap height, color, pheromone load, and lure aging on male capture, as well as captures of nontarget arthropods including pollinators. Male capture was inversely related to height of traps over the four heights tested (0, 20, 60, and 100 cm). Captures increased with increasing pheromone load over the doses of 0, 100, 300, and 600 μg, but captures at the highest load, 1,000 μg, were not significantly different from 300 or 600 μg. H. equina captures were strongly diurnal, with a flight period spanning ≈6 wk starting in mid-June. Vane color of traps (white, yellow, green, blue, red, black) did not affect H. equina capture but significantly influenced capture of nontargets, including pollinators. A bucket trap with the funnel opening at 20 cm, and green (or red) vanes, baited with 600 μg of 2-tetradecanone, was the optimal design for high male capture and low nontarget capture. The low-cost capture of over 50,000 H. equina on a 2.4-ha commercial bog in Massachusetts with this lure-trap combination indicates the feasibility of mass trapping for managing established infestations of H. equin

Infinite products involving binary digit sums

Let $(u_n)_{n\ge 0}$ denote the Thue-Morse sequence with values $\pm 1$. The Woods-Robbins identity below and several of its generalisations are well-known in the literature \begin{equation*}\label{WR}\prod_{n=0}^\infty\left(\frac{2n+1}{2n+2}\right)^{u_n}=\frac{1}{\sqrt 2}.\end{equation*} No other such product involving a rational function in $n$ and the sequence $u_n$ seems to be known in closed form. To understand these products in detail we study the function \begin{equation*}f(b,c)=\prod_{n=1}^\infty\left(\frac{n+b}{n+c}\right)^{u_n}.\end{equation*} We prove some analytical properties of $f$. We also obtain some new identities similar to the Woods-Robbins product.Comment: Accepted in Proc. AMMCS 2017, updated according to the referees' comment

Experimental Evidence for Three Pheromone Races of the Scarab Beetle Phyllophaga anxia (LeConte)

This study offers experimental evidence for the existence of three pheromone races of the northern genitalic form of Phyllophaga anxia: one race in which females produce and males respond mainly to l-valine methyl ester, a second producing and responding to l-isoleucine methyl ester, and a third producing and responding to an intermediate range of blends of the two compounds. At Franklinville, NY, pheromone gland contents of females were analyzed using coupled gas chromatography-electroantennogram detection. Two types of females were found, one that produced greater than 99% l-valine methyl ester and another that produced greater than 99% l-isoleucine methyl ester. Capture-mark-release-recapture field tests with males at Franklinville established that most males were recaptured in traps baited with the same blends with which they were originally captured. The populations characterized at Franklinville, NY, have also been found at numerous locations from eastern Canada and the northeast and north central USA, sometimes in allopatry and sometimes in sympatry. At a site in Carver, MA, P. anxia males responded to blends of the methyl esters of l-valine and l-isoleucine, and Carver females produced blends similar to those to which the males responded. Populations responding to blends have been identified only from southeastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island. At a field site near Waterloo, NY, the addition of small proportions of l-isoleucine methyl ester to lures containing l-valine methyl ester did not affect trap captures, but higher proportions of l-isoleucine methyl ester were inhibitory, decreasing trap capture

The insect state: Development, politics and capital in African desert locust control

The African Desert Locust (Schistocerca gregaria) has presented a long (indeed deeply historical) problem for producers throughout northern and western Africa. Gestating in isolated settings in the Saharafor extended periods, populations of the insect periodically increase in density, change behavior and morphology, and take to the air in swarms that consume crops and pasture over hundreds of thousands of square kilometers, moving across dozens of countries, spanning the range of the Mediterranean to the Congo. This paper reviews analysis by an international multidisciplinary team of researchers to examine and explain the political and economic barriers to locust control in the region. The conclusions suggest that: (1) the bifurcated resolution and extent of the insect's ecology - from its isolated solitary condition to its continental scale gregarious condition - are mismatched to the institutional scalar capacities of the modern nation state; but that (2) governmental and international institutions have become adapted to the cycles of locust outbreaks, leveraging these to capture, control, and absorb development resources on a massive scale. (Texte intégral

l-Leucine Methyl Ester: The Female-Produced Sex Pheromone of the Scarab Beetle, Phyllophaga lanceolata

The female-produced sex pheromone of the scarab beetle Phyllophaga lanceolata was identified as the methyl ester of an essential amino acid, l-leucine. During field testing, 239 male P. lanceolata were caught in traps baited with l-leucine methyl ester. l-Isoleucine and l-valine methyl esters, similar in structure to l-leucine methyl ester and previously identified as female-produced sex pheromone compounds employed by other Phyllophaga species, were also tested. Addition of l-valine or l-isoleucine methyl esters to the l-leucine methyl ester in 1:1 ratios completely inhibited attraction of P. lanceolata males. Males of P. squamipilosa were also captured using l-leucine methyl ester. This is the first record of P. squamipilosa from Kansa

Identification of antisense nucleic acid hybridization sites in mRNA molecules with self-quenching fluorescent reporter molecules

We describe a physical mRNA mapping strategy employing fluorescent self-quenching reporter molecules (SQRMs) that facilitates the identification of mRNA sequence accessible for hybridization with antisense nucleic acids in vitro and in vivo, real time. SQRMs are 20–30 base oligodeoxynucleotides with 5–6 bp complementary ends to which a 5′ fluorophore and 3′ quenching group are attached. Alone, the SQRM complementary ends form a stem that holds the fluorophore and quencher in contact. When the SQRM forms base pairs with its target, the structure separates the fluorophore from the quencher. This event can be reported by fluorescence emission when the fluorophore is excited. The stem–loop of the SQRM suggests that SQRM be made to target natural stem–loop structures formed during mRNA synthesis. The general utility of this method is demonstrated by SQRM identification of targetable sequence within c-myb and bcl-6 mRNA. Corresponding antisense oligonucleotides reduce these gene products in cells

Essential Amino Acid Methyl Esters: Major Sex Pheromone Components of the Cranberry White Grub, Phyllophaga anxia (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae)

Chiral capillary gas chromatographic-electroantennographic detection (GC-EAD) analysis indicates that L-valine and L-isoleucine methyl esters are the major sex pheromone components released by females of the cranberry white grub, Phyllophaga anxia (LeConte). The GC retention times and GC-mass spectrometry of the two natural compounds were identical to those of authentic standards. Of five reproducible GC-EAD active components revealed with female volatiles, the L-valine and L-isoleucine methyl esters elicited the strongest male antennal responses. The ratio of L-valine and L-isoleucine methyl esters was determined to be 3:1 by analysis of pheromone gland extracts. Chirality was shown to be critical by GC-EAD, since only the L-form of these amino acid methyl esters elicited an EAD response. In field experiments conducted in Massachusetts, a synthetic 3:1 blend of L-valine and L-isoleucine methyl esters on a rubber septum was attractive to P. anxia male

Algorithmic Randomness and Capacity of Closed Sets

We investigate the connection between measure, capacity and algorithmic randomness for the space of closed sets. For any computable measure m, a computable capacity T may be defined by letting T(Q) be the measure of the family of closed sets K which have nonempty intersection with Q. We prove an effective version of Choquet's capacity theorem by showing that every computable capacity may be obtained from a computable measure in this way. We establish conditions on the measure m that characterize when the capacity of an m-random closed set equals zero. This includes new results in classical probability theory as well as results for algorithmic randomness. For certain computable measures, we construct effectively closed sets with positive capacity and with Lebesgue measure zero. We show that for computable measures, a real q is upper semi-computable if and only if there is an effectively closed set with capacity q