Digital Commons Network^™

Intertidal Seagrass Meadows In South West England: The Ecology Of Expansion, Oliver Thomas

School of Biological and Marine Sciences Theses

Within the space of a decade, intertidal sediments in the Tamar estuary, South West England, have undergone a shift from unvegetated mudflats to dense perennial seagrass habitat. Yet despite the increasing prevalence of intertidal seagrass meadows in the South West, there are large knowledge gaps relating to intertidal meadow biodiversity, function and ecosystem service provision, particularly within the context of the estuarine meadows of the South West: as such we do not fully understand the implications of this recent colonisation within the Tamar. This study aims to characterise the spatial expansion of these newly-established Zostera marina meadows using Earth observation …

Sources Of Tensions In Ai Adoption For Organ Procurement Organizations, Amaneh Babaee

Masters Theses

"Although medical AI systems have promise, the healthcare system has not fully integrated them for improved organizational operations. Studies have been conducted to identify root causes for this hesitancy without targeting a specific domain in healthcare. This generalization can be enhanced for the nuanced or domain-specific factors that offer practical insights to organizations leader. In this thesis, I focus on the factors and sources of tensions in AI adoption in transplant system, which is highly regulated but encourages innovation. Applying the Extended Technology, Organization, Environment (TOE) framework, 10 interviews were conducted at Organ Procurement Organizations (OPOs).

Although not always technically …

Planetarity And Relation: Ecology As Method, Ashish Ghadiali

School of Art, Design and Architecture Theses

The List of Works submitted comprises research through film, text, exhibition, performance and policy engagement, developed during a three-year period from 2021 to 2024 in the site-specific location of Southwest England. This multi-modal and interdisciplinary practice is framed in response to the question of how art and cultural strategy can, in the contexts of climate breakdown and global racial inequity, be conceived of as agency for environmental justice. In this integrative summary, I present a theoretical framework where ecology, in response to conditions of environmental crisis, is understood not only as a subject of inquiry but also as method. In …

Space Mining, Richard Painter

Articles

The Trump Administration and U.S. Congress are promoting new ventures to extract valuable minerals from outer space. This Article does not dismiss the idea out of hand, but explores reasons for caution, including practical problems with space mining, its environmental impact, the likelihood that the United States could violate international law, and the risk of armed conflict. These problems are exacerbated by financial conflicts of interest in our government with a handful of billionaires, who have a financial interest in space mining work. The promotion of their agenda could involve wasteful government spending on subsidies for private ventures, with a …

Quantifying The Response Of Bankfull Channel Width To Active Faulting In The Qianhe Graben On The Southwest Margin Of Ordos Block, China, Zhiheng Liu, Sarah Boulton, Suiping Zhou, Jianhua Guo, Tingting Wu, Wenjie Zhang, Ling Han

School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences

River longitudinal profiles have been widely used to quantify the transient landscape response to active faulting, but the fluvial cross-section is often ignored, yet width can also reveal river incision and tectonic activity. Channel width responds to tectonic forcing through flow concentration effects resulting in channel narrowing where vertical incision dominates during uplift acceleration. Here we employ a novel bankfull channel width extraction method using Landsat and ZY-3 satellite images, and SRTM DEM data to evaluate the cross-section landscape response to active faulting in the Qianhe Graben of southwest Ordos, China. Although some areas are difficult to access (e.g., thick …

Royal College Of Psychiatrists College Report 244: Optimising Psychotropic Medication Prescribing For People With Intellectual Disability, Rohit Shankar

Peninsula Medical School

No abstract provided.

Growth In The Margins: Field Measured Protein Metabolism Rates In The Common Limpet, Patella Vulgata, Ignacio A. Cienfuegos, Benjamin J. Ciotti, Richard A. Billington, Paul A. Sutton, Keiron P.P. Fraser

School of Biological and Marine Sciences

Intertidal shores are characterised by a high variability in abiotic conditions, resulting in marked daily, tidal, seasonal and vertical differences in stress conditions, yet our ability to understand the consequences for key physiological processes at corresponding scales are limited. In particular, no previous studies have directly measured protein metabolism, the key process underpinning animal growth, in the field, in any organism. We measured whole-animal (SGR) and tissue (TSGR) mass growth, protein metabolism (synthesis (k_s), degradation (k_d) and growth (k_g)), RNA to protein ratios and oxidative stress in Patella vulgata in the field every season …

Testing The Transferability Of Ai Models For Cold-Water Coral Detection And Classification, Kyran P. Graves, Louise Allcock, David K.A. Barnes, Amelia E.H. Bridges, Kerry L. Howell

School of Biological and Marine Sciences

The proliferation of accessible deep-water imaging platforms has resulted in the acquisition of vast amounts of image data, resulting in an analysis bottleneck. Object detection is now being applied to assist the image annotation process, with the potential to reduce analysis time. However, for object detectors to effectively tackle the scale of the challenge, models need to be generalisable to allow the transfer between imaging platforms and in space. This study trains YOLOv5 object detection models to identify six coral morphology groups using annotated imagery collected by ROV ISIS in the UK (JC136). Model performance was tested with independent datasets …

Educating The Next Generation Of Engineers: Spatial Thinking Is Key To Their Success, Sheryl Sorby, Gavin Duffy, Jack Parkinson, Gibin Raju, John Lynch, Muhammad Asghar

Research Outputs: 2025-Present

This paper attempts to answer questions regarding the link between engineering success and spatial skills through three themes. The previous research of the authors in examining the questions surrounding each theme is the focus of this paper; we acknowledge that others around the world may have conducted similar research, but the specific findings of the authors are the main focus of this paper. In the first theme, we examine data from several author-led studies where positive correlations have been found between spatial skill levels and proficiency in tasks that are a part of what it means to be an engineer. …

Lack Of Disparities In Postoperative Care After Ileocecal Resection In Patients With Crohn's Disease At Tertiary Inflammatory Bowel Diseases Centers, Shannon Coombs, Molly Powell, Kemmian Johnson, Jessica Hu, Mollie Webb, Philip Mcdaniel, Parakkal Deepak, Edward L Barnes

2020-Current year OA Pubs

BACKGROUND: Prior studies suggest that longer drive time (DT) to specialists and higher area deprivation index (ADI) are linked to worse outcomes in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), but their impact on postileocolic resection (ICR) care in patients with Crohn's disease (CD) is not well defined.

OBJECTIVES: We aimed to evaluate disparities in post-ICR care based on DT and ADI.

METHODS: Spatial analysis was performed with ArcGIS Pro to geocode patient and medical facility addresses with StreetMap Premium locators. High DT was defined as >60 min from the center. Data were analyzed using basic statistics and multivariate logistic regression.

DESIGN: A …