An Observation and Analysis of Ordinary Bible Reading among British, Evangelical, Emerging Adults

This study contributes to the under-researched field of how ‘ordinary’ British Christians engage with their Scriptures. It examines the Bible reading habits of young evangelicals and explores how these shape their ability to engage contentious themes within the text. It also examines attitudes towards gender and, following Arnett’s model of ‘emerging adulthood’, traces patterns of faith development, comparing evangelical belief with wider findings on emerging adult religiosity. Findings are based on a qualitative research project undertaken with emerging adults from three churches that span the evangelical tradition: egalitarian charismatics, mainstream evangelicals and Reformed neo-conservatives. In each church three mixed-gender focus groups were run, comprised of cohorts aged 18-22, 23-26 and 27-33. All nine groups read and freely discussed three biblical narratives: 2 Kings 5, 1 Samuel 25 and Acts 12. These were chosen for their relative unfamiliarity and the contested theological issues they raise: divine violence, supernaturalism and issues of gender. Discussions were examined in light of the official doctrinal positions of their churches and the expectations their leaders expressed. They were also compared across theological tradition and age range. After a review of the research context and methodology, findings are discussed in three sections. The first explores the groups’ reading priorities and hermeneutical processes, revealing considerable similarities across all three churches. The second section contains three chapters exploring theological and age-related diversity around the contested issues. Finally group dynamics and patterns of evangelical behaviour are explored before some conclusions are drawn and suggestions made for ongoing research. This project presents a new methodology for comparative exploration of beliefs and challenges assumptions about the faith of emerging adults. It provides nuanced findings on the dynamic relationship young British evangelicals have with their faith and Scriptures

Evidence for distinct coastal and offshore communities of bottlenose dolphins in the north east Atlantic.

Bottlenose dolphin stock structure in the northeast Atlantic remains poorly understood. However, fine scale photo-id data have shown that populations can comprise multiple overlapping social communities. These social communities form structural elements of bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) [corrected] populations, reflecting specific ecological and behavioural adaptations to local habitats. We investigated the social structure of bottlenose dolphins in the waters of northwest Ireland and present evidence for distinct inshore and offshore social communities. Individuals of the inshore community had a coastal distribution restricted to waters within 3 km from shore. These animals exhibited a cohesive, fission-fusion social organisation, with repeated resightings within the research area, within a larger coastal home range. The offshore community comprised one or more distinct groups, found significantly further offshore (>4 km) than the inshore animals. In addition, dorsal fin scarring patterns differed significantly between inshore and offshore communities with individuals of the offshore community having more distinctly marked dorsal fins. Specifically, almost half of the individuals in the offshore community (48%) had characteristic stereotyped damage to the tip of the dorsal fin, rarely recorded in the inshore community (7%). We propose that this characteristic is likely due to interactions with pelagic fisheries. Social segregation and scarring differences found here indicate that the distinct communities are likely to be spatially and behaviourally segregated. Together with recent genetic evidence of distinct offshore and coastal population structures, this provides evidence for bottlenose dolphin inshore/offshore community differentiation in the northeast Atlantic. We recommend that social communities should be considered as fundamental units for the management and conservation of bottlenose dolphins and their habitat specialisations

Transforming Land for Sustainable Food: Emerging contests to property regimes in the Global North

Land relations—property, access, tenure, landscape—are a central underlying driver of the material form of food systems, from farm to distribution. Despite their fluidity and historical and geographical diversity, land relations have a tendency to become normalized through law, custom, and practice. In particular, the exclusionary private “ownership model” of property has come to be deeply entrenched in legal systems worldwide, particularly in the Global North. The power of this normalization is evidenced, for example, in how research and practice aimed at reshaping food systems from grassroots movement, policy-level, or biophysical perspectives often omit the role of land relations in bringing about agricultural sustainability and agrarian change. Understanding land relations as static thus potentially constrains or directs the kinds of sustainable agriculture and food transformations that can take place. Entrenched norms of property drastically limit the urgent possibilities of food system transformation. However, a confluence of political and ecological conflagrations may be placing land back on the agenda and in the forefront of people’s minds. In a moment when hegemonic understandings of land and property can also appear absurd and paper thin, we describe counter movements bubbling up to contest the status quo of the land food nexus from within the core. This article introduces a Special Feature centering the role of land in sustainable food transformations. The collection provides new understandings on how governance of land (property relations, land access, land tenure, landscape policy) mediates the potential for food system change. The special feature goes beyond understanding dynamics of the land food nexus to ask how land relations can be reformed to create favorable conditions for more just and sustainable food systems to emerge. We highlight five empirical domains of transforming land relations from within the Global North: legislating land reform, quasi market reforms, remaking land for sustainability agendas, Indigenous claims to land in the settler state, and using municipal power to unlock land. Each domain has the potential to act as a non-reformist reform but each carries its own drawbacks and limitations. Nevertheless, if our argument holds that there will be no food system transformation without a parallel remake of land relations, it is time to start organizing a concerted effort for land reform bespoke to geographical and political contexts

The 2015 edition of the GEISA spectroscopic database

The GEISA database (Gestion et Etude des Informations Spectroscopiques Atmosphériques: Management and Study of Atmospheric Spectroscopic Information) has been developed and maintained by the ARA/ABC(t) group at LMD since 1974. GEISA is constantly evolving, taking into account the best available spectroscopic data. This paper presents the 2015 release of GEISA (GEISA-2015), which updates the last edition of 2011 and celebrates the 40th anniversary of the database. Significant updates and additions have been implemented in the three following independent databases of GEISA. The “line parameters database” contains 52 molecular species (118 isotopologues) and transitions in the spectral range from 10−6 to 35,877.031 cm−1, representing 5,067,351 entries, against 3,794,297 in GEISA-2011. Among the previously existing molecules, 20 molecular species have been updated. A new molecule (SO3) has been added. HDO, isotopologue of H2O, is now identified as an independent molecular species. Seven new isotopologues have been added to the GEISA-2015 database. The “cross section sub-database” has been enriched by the addition of 43 new molecular species in its infrared part, 4 molecules (ethane, propane, acetone, acetonitrile) are also updated; they represent 3% of the update. A new section is added, in the near-infrared spectral region, involving 7 molecular species: CH3CN, CH3I, CH3O2, H2CO, HO2, HONO, NH3. The “microphysical and optical properties of atmospheric aerosols sub-database” has been updated for the first time since 2003. It contains more than 40 species originating from NCAR and 20 from the ARIA archive of Oxford University. As for the previous versions, this new release of GEISA and associated management software facilities are implemented and freely accessible on the AERIS/ESPRI atmospheric chemistry data center website

Pediatric Medical Subspecialist Use in Outpatient Settings

Importance A first step toward understanding whether pediatric medical subspecialists are meeting the needs of the nation’s children is describing rates of use and trends over time. Objectives To quantify rates of outpatient pediatric medical subspecialty use. Design, Setting, and Participants This repeated cross-sectional study of annual subspecialist use examined 3 complementary data sources: electronic health records from PEDSnet (8 large academic medical centers [January 1, 2010, to December 31, 2021]); administrative data from the Healthcare Integrated Research Database (HIRD) (14 commercial health plans [January 1, 2011, to December 31, 2021]); and administrative data from the Transformed Medicaid Statistical Information System (T-MSIS) (44 state Medicaid programs [January 1, 2016, to December 31, 2019]). Annual denominators included 493 628 to 858 551 patients younger than 21 years with a general pediatric visit in PEDSnet; 5 million beneficiaries younger than 21 years enrolled for at least 6 months in HIRD; and 35 million Medicaid or Children’s Health Insurance Program beneficiaries younger than 19 years enrolled for any amount of time in T-MSIS. Exposure Calendar year and type of medical subspecialty. Main Outcomes and Measures Annual number of children with at least 1 completed visit to any pediatric medical subspecialist in an outpatient setting per population. Use rates excluded visits in emergency department or inpatient settings. Results Among the study population, the proportion of girls was 51.0% for PEDSnet, 51.1% for HIRD, and 49.3% for T-MSIS; the proportion of boys was 49.0% for PEDSnet, 48.9% for HIRD, and 50.7% for T-MSIS. The proportion of visits among children younger than 5 years was 37.4% for PEDSnet, 20.9% for HIRD, and 26.2% for T-MSIS; most patients were non-Hispanic Black (29.7% for PEDSnet and 26.1% for T-MSIS) or non-Hispanic White (44.9% for PEDSnet and 43.2% for T-MSIS). Annual rates for PEDSnet ranged from 18.0% to 21.3%, which were higher than rates for HIRD (range, 7.9%-10.4%) and T-MSIS (range, 7.6%-8.6%). Subspecialist use increased in the HIRD commercial health plans (annual relative increase of 2.4% [95% CI, 1.6%-3.1%]), but rates were essentially flat in the other data sources (PEDSnet, −0.2% [95% CI, −1.1% to 0.7%]; T-MSIS, −0.7% [95% CI, −6.5% to 5.5%]). The flat PEDSnet growth reflects a balance between annual use increases among those with commercial insurance (1.2% [95% CI, 0.3%-2.1%]) and decreases in use among those with Medicaid (−0.9% [95% CI, −1.6% to −0.2%]). Conclusions and Relevance The findings of this cross-sectional study suggest that among children, 8.6% of Medicaid beneficiaries, 10.4% of those with commercial insurance, and 21.3% of those whose primary care is received in academic health systems use pediatric medical subspecialty care each year. There was a small increase in rates of subspecialty use among children with commercial but not Medicaid insurance. These data may help launch innovations in the primary-specialty care interface

Achieving Food System Resilience Requires Challenging Dominant Land Property Regimes

Although evidence continues to indicate an urgent need to transition food systems away from industrialized monocultures and toward agroecological production, there is little sign of significant policy commitment toward food system transformation in global North geographies. The authors, a consortium of researchers studying the land-food nexus in global North geographies, argue that a key lock-in explaining the lack of reform arises from how most food system interventions work through dominant logics of property to achieve their goals of agroecological production. Doing so fails to recognize how land tenure systems, codified by law and performed by society, construct agricultural land use outcomes. In this perspective, the authors argue that achieving food system “resilience” requires urgent attention to the underlying property norms that drive land access regimes, especially where norms of property appear hegemonic. This paper first reviews research from political ecology, critical property law, and human geography to show how entrenched property relations in the global North frustrate the advancement of alternative models like food sovereignty and agroecology, and work to mediate acceptable forms of “sustainable agriculture.” Drawing on emerging cases of land tenure reform from the authors’ collective experience working in Scotland, France, Australia, Canada, and Japan, we next observe how contesting dominant logics of property creates space to forge deep and equitable food system transformation. Equally, these cases demonstrate how powerful actors in the food system attempt to leverage legal and cultural norms of property to legitimize their control over the resources that drive agricultural production. Our formulation suggests that visions for food system “resilience” must embrace the reform of property relations as much as it does diversified farming practices. This work calls for a joint cultural and legal reimagination of our relation to land in places where property functions as an epistemic and apex entitlement