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Just as the story of an epic poem is woven from characters and plot, so too the individual similes within an epic create a unique simile world. Like any other story, it is peopled by individual characters, happenings, and experiences, such as the shepherd and his flocks, a storm at sea, or predators hunting prey. The simile world that complements the epic mythological story is re-imagined afresh in relation to the themes of each epic poem. As Deborah Beck argues in this stimulating book, over time a simile world takes shape across many poems composed over many centuries. This evolving landscape resembles the epic story world of battles, voyages, and heroes that comes into being through relationships among different epic poems. Epic narrative is woven from a warp of the mythological story world and a weft of the simile world. They are partners in creating the fabric of epic poetry.
Which dimensions of the religious experience of the ancient Greeks become tangible only if we foreground its local horizons? This book explores the manifold ways in which Greek religious beliefs and practices are encoded in and communicate with various local environments. Its individual chapters explore 'the local' in its different forms and formulations. Besides the polis perspective, they include numerous other places and locations above and below the polis-level as well as those fully or largely independent of the city-state. Overall, the local emerges as a relational concept that changes together with our understanding of the general or universal forces as they shape ancient Greek religion. The unity and diversity of ancient Greek religion becomes tangible in the manifold ways in which localizing and generalizing forces interact with each other at different times and in different places across the ancient Greek world.
Sound general and sports nutrition knowledge in athletes is essential for making appropriate dietary choices. Assessment of nutrition knowledge enables evaluation and tailoring of nutrition education. However, few well-validated tools are available to assess nutrition knowledge in athletes. The objective of the present study was to establish the validity of the Platform to Evaluate Athlete Knowledge Sports – Nutrition Questionnaire (PEAKS-NQ) for use in the United Kingdom and Irish (UK-I) athletes. To confirm content validity, twenty-three sports nutritionists (SNs) from elite, UK-I sports institutes provided feedback on the PEAKS-NQ via a modified Delphi method. After minor changes, the UK-I version of the PEAKS-NQ was administered to UK-I SN from the British Dietetic Association Sport and Exercise Nutrition Register, and elite athletes (EA) training at elite sports institutes in the UK and Ireland. Independent samples t-test and independent samples median tests were used to compare PEAKS-NQ total and subsection scores between EA and SN (to assess construct validity). Cronbach's alpha (good ≥ 0⋅7) was used to establish internal consistency. The SN achieved greater overall [SN (n 23) 92⋅3 (9⋅3) v. EA (n 154): 71⋅4 (10⋅0)%; P < 0⋅001] and individual section scores (P < 0⋅001) except Section B, Identification of Food Groups (P = 0⋅07). Largest knowledge differences between SN and EA were in Section D, Applied Sports Nutrition [SN: 88⋅5 (8⋅9) v. EA: 56⋅7 (14⋅5)%; P < 0⋅00]. Overall ES was large (2⋅1), with subsections ranging from 0⋅6 to 2⋅3. Cronbach's alpha was good (0⋅83). The PEAKS-NQ had good content and construct validity, supporting its use to assess nutrition knowledge of UK-I athletes.
As deliberative democracy is gaining practical momentum, the question arises whether citizens’ attitudes toward everyday political talk are congruent with this ‘talk-centric’ vision of democratic governance. Drawing on a unique survey we examine how German citizens view the practice of discussing politics in everyday life, and what determines these attitudes. We find that only a minority appreciates talking about politics. To explain these views, we combine Fishbein and Ajzen’s Expectancy-Value Model of attitudes toward behaviors with perspectives from research on interpersonal communication. Individuals’ interest in politics emerges as the only relevant political disposition for attitudes toward everyday political talk. Its impact is surpassed and conditioned by conflict orientations and other enduring psychological dispositions, as well as contextual circumstances like the closeness of social ties and the amount of disagreement experienced during conversations. The beneficial effect of political interest dwindles under adverse interpersonal conditions. The social dimension of everyday political talk thus appears to outweigh its political dimension.
This chapter discusses the IPCC’s performance as a ‘learning’ organisation. The Panel has responded to novel challenges by adjusting its governance structure and its underlying objectives and principles. Building on a heuristic of organisational learning, we reconstruct and map these past learning processes. We find that most of these challenges resulted in the IPCC adopting an adaptive mode of learning by incrementally adjusting procedures. There were only a few moments of reflexive learning. Against this backdrop, the chapter discusses future challenges for the IPCC emerging from the Paris Agreement and the call for a ‘solution-oriented assessment’. The IPCC has faced demands in the past for greater political relevance, geopolitical representation, scientific integrity, transparency, and accountability. In the post-Paris world, the Panel has to cope with its role in the polycentric architecture of the climate regime and its role as ‘mapmaker’ in the assessment of pathways to achieve the Paris ambition. We conclude by discussing how the IPCC can best use its learning capacities in responding to these challenges.
EDIFY (Eating Disorders: Delineating Illness and Recovery Trajectories to Inform Personalised Prevention and Early Intervention in Young People) is an ambitious research project aiming to revolutionise how eating disorders are perceived, prevented and treated. Six integrated workstreams will address key questions, including: What are young people's experiences of eating disorders and recovery? What are the unique and shared risk factors in different groups? What helps or hinders recovery? How do the brain and behaviour change from early- to later-stage illness? How can we intervene earlier, quicker and in a more personalised way? This 4-year project, involving over 1000 participants, integrates arts, design and humanities with advanced neurobiological, psychosocial and bioinformatics approaches. Young people with lived experience of eating disorders are at the heart of EDIFY, serving as advisors and co-producers throughout. Ultimately, this work will expand public and professional perceptions of eating disorders, uplift under-represented voices and stimulate much-needed advances in policy and practice.
Abnormal tau, a hallmark Alzheimer’s disease (AD) pathology, may appear in the locus coeruleus (LC) decades before AD symptom onset. Reports of subjective cognitive decline are also often present prior to formal diagnosis. Yet, the relationship between LC structural integrity and subjective cognitive decline has remained unexplored. Here, we aimed to explore these potential associations.
Methods:
We examined 381 community-dwelling men (mean age = 67.58; SD = 2.62) in the Vietnam Era Twin Study of Aging who underwent LC-sensitive magnetic resonance imaging and completed the Everyday Cognition scale to measure subjective cognitive decline along with their selected informants. Mixed models examined the associations between rostral-middle and caudal LC integrity and subjective cognitive decline after adjusting for depressive symptoms, physical morbidities, and family. Models also adjusted for current objective cognitive performance and objective cognitive decline to explore attenuation.
Results:
For participant ratings, lower rostral-middle LC contrast to noise ratio (LCCNR) was associated with significantly greater subjective decline in memory, executive function, and visuospatial abilities. For informant ratings, lower rostral-middle LCCNR was associated with significantly greater subjective decline in memory only. Associations remained after adjusting for current objective cognition and objective cognitive decline in respective domains.
Conclusions:
Lower rostral-middle LC integrity is associated with greater subjective cognitive decline. Although not explained by objective cognitive performance, such a relationship may explain increased AD risk in people with subjective cognitive decline as the LC is an important neural substrate important for higher order cognitive processing, attention, and arousal and one of the first sites of AD pathology.
Estuaries and deltas are crucial zones to better understand the interactions between continents and oceans, and to characterize the mineralization and burial of different sources of organic matter (OM) and their effect on the carbon cycle. In the present study, we focus on the continental shelf of the northwest Mediterranean Sea near the Rhône river delta. Sediment cores were collected and pore waters were sampled at different depths at one station (Station E) located on this shelf. For each layer, measurements of dissolved inorganic carbon concentration (DIC) and its isotopic composition (δ13C and Δ14C) were conducted and a mixing model was applied to target the original signature of the mineralized OM. The calculated δ13C signature of the mineralized organic matter is in accordance with previous results with a δ13COM of marine origin that is not significantly impacted by the terrestrial particulate inputs from the river. The evolution with depth of Δ14C shows two different trends indicating two different Δ14C signatures for the mineralised OM. In the first 15 cm, the mineralized OM is modern with a Δ14COM = 100 ± 17‰ and corresponds to the OM produced during the nuclear period of the last 50 years. Deeper in the sediment, the result is very different with a depleted value Δ14COM = –172 ± 60‰ which corresponds to the pre-nuclear period. In these two cases, the marine substrate was under the influence of the local marine reservoir effect with more extreme Δ14C results. These differences can be largely explained by the influence of the river plume on the local marine DIC during these two periods.
Evidence from developmental psychology on children's imagination is currently too limited to support Dubourg and Baumard's proposal and, in several respects, it is inconsistent with their proposal. Although children have impressive imaginative powers, we highlight the complexity of the developmental trajectory as well as the close connections between children's imagination and reality.
Spermaceti is a waxy substance found in the head cavities of sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus and P. catodon). This substance had a variety of commercial applications from the end of the 18th to the beginning of the 20th century, such as candles, soap, cosmetics and other compounds. Spermaceti was also occasionally used as wax for modeling sculptures. In order to date such artworks the marine reservoir effect (MRE) has to be considered. The chemical library of the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle (Paris, France) contains samples of spermaceti studied by the French chemist M. E. Chevreul (1786–1889) at the beginning of the 19th century. Eight samples of substances preserved in their original containers were 14C dated. According to the whaling practices and the publications of Chevreul, we estimated that the spermaceti samples came from whales caught between 1805 and 1815. AMS 14C dating results are from 550 to 1180 ± 30 BP, R values between 393 and 1023 (± 34) 14C yr and ΔR between –168 and 504 (± 60) 14C yr. The values presented here are the first ever obtained for spermaceti. However, being based on museum specimens, further measurements on crude material would be necessary to refine these results.
Hydrodynamics and sediment processes at beach–inlet systems are dynamic and complicated. Beach–inlet systems are characteristic of mostly shallow and complicated bathymetry. As ocean waves propagate into shallow water with complex bathymetry, wave refraction, diffraction, shoaling, and breaking occur. The shallow water associated with the ebb tidal delta has significant influence on the pattern of wave propagation. Eventually in the vicinity of the shoreline and over the very shallow portions of the ebb tidal delta, waves break and generate intense turbulence that induce active sediment transport. Both wave and tide play significant roles in transporting sediments and causing morphology change at barrier–inlet systems. In general, wave-induced sediment transport dominates in areas far from the inlet where tidal currents tend to be weak. Within the deeper parts of inlet channels, tide-driven current constitutes the main mechanism for moving sediments. Over the ebb and flood tidal deltas, sediment movements are driven by both wave and current. This chapter reviews the above topics and commonly used equations on the hydrodynamics and sediment transport relevant to the beach–inlet system.
Although barrier islands occur under a variety of coastal settings, coasts with an ample supply of sand-sized sediment, a wide and gentle continental shelf, and a broad coastal plain are more conducive to the formation of barrier islands. When the above three conditions, combined with a slow sea-level rise rate of 1–3 mm/year, occur, barrier islands can be the dominant coastal features, such as along the US Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean coasts. Although not as common, barrier islands also occur along rocky coasts and river-delta coasts. This chapter discusses different morphologic and sedimentologic characteristics under different geologic and oceanographic settings. The various sub-environments, also referred to as morphologic features, that compose a barrier–inlet system are described, along with a morphodynamic classification of barrier island under different coastal settings. These morphologic features and the morphodynamic classification are used in the following chapters discussing sediment transport processes, sediment exchange among the different features and the associated pathways, and management of the sediment resources among the various morphologic features.
A beach–inlet system is composed of several sub-environments, including beach and nearshore, tidal inlet and ebb and flood tidal deltas, and coastal dunes. Building upon Chapter 2, this chapter discusses in detail the sedimentologic characteristics and morphodynamics of the various sub-environments composing a beach–inlet system. Commonly used concepts in quantifying beach morphology and its changes, including equilibrium beach profile, depth of closure, and the Bruun Rule, are reviewed. Coastal dunes and their morphodynamics are discussed in the context of beach–dune interaction. Morphologic and sedimentologic characteristics of tidal inlets and their associated ebb tidal delta and flood tidal delta are described in detail in terms of various morphology features. General patterns of sediment exchange for wave-dominated and mixed-energy beach–inlet systems are introduced.
Building upon regional scale discussions in Chapter 2, this chapter discusses the interactions between barrier beaches and tidal inlets at a local scale from the perspective of inlet stability, and mechanisms and pathways of sediment bypassing across tidal inlets. Inlet stability can be significantly influenced by local geologic conditions such as outcropping of erosion resistant bedrocks or stiff mud, in addition to hydraulic conditions as controlled by tidal prism. Local geology such as shoreline exposure of bedrocks and stiff mud can also influence beach morphodynamics by controlling its planform. However, tidal inlets and their ebb tidal deltas impose the major interruption to the continuity of longshore sand transport. How sand moving along the beach can reach from one barrier island to another constitutes the main issue for beach–inlet interaction, and subsequently the erosion or accretion of barrier beaches. Several conceptual models have been developed and are discussed in this chapter. The rapidly improving numerical modeling provides a promising tool to quantify sediment bypassing and is introduced here.
The concept and application of resilience have been significantly expanded in the last three decades and the term is being used more and more broadly to represent a large-scale multi-disciplinary and comprehensive approach to both natural and human-related coastal issues associated with rising sea level, increased storm frequency and intensity, and human stressors. This chapter reviews the relevant findings from the recent global climate-change reports and introduces the resilience of barrier–inlet systems. In terms of the natural system, the survival of the very landform under the condition of accelerating sea-level rise is discussed via a conceptual model or a couple of numerical models. The resiliency of the human–natural barrier–inlet environment is far more complicated than just the natural system. The concepts and complicated framework outlined in the recent NRC (National Research Council) and USGCRP (US Global Climate Research Program) reports are reviewed, and illustrated with two case studies.
Prior to the 1950s, general shore-protection practice was to use hard structures to protect against beach erosion or storm damage. Generally, the hard structures can be divided into two categories. The first category functions through anchoring the position of either a shoreline or a dune-line, such as seawalls and revetments. The second category is mainly sand-trapping structures such as groins and detached breakwaters. Realizing that the accumulation of sand produced by a structure is at the expense of an adjacent section of the shore, since the 1970s, 90% of the US Federal appropriation for shore protection has been for beach nourishment. Although beach and dune nourishment has become by far the most dominant approach to shore protection, principles of hard engineering structures are still reviewed in this chapter. More recently, since the 2010s, Engineering with Nature (EWN), defined as the intentional alignment of natural and engineering processes to efficiently and sustainably deliver economic, environmental, and social benefits through collaborative processes, are being promoted and applied more and more. The concept and practice of EWN are introduced in this chapter.