This study investigates 'risk' as discussed in news coverage and in relation to pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP): a treatment that has been proven to restrict the transmission of the human ...immunodeficiency virus (HIV). In the U.S. and the U.K. & Ireland, there are issues concerning the provision and take-up of PrEP, which can lead to health inequalities. Raising awareness and tackling stigma are priorities in ensuring that those who would benefit from PrEP can access it, since these are reported to be obstacles to potential users seeking out the treatment. The media has been shown to be an important resource for public understanding of health issues and there is evidence to suggest that the news media have contributed to the uncertainty and stigma around PrEP, which has discouraged some from supporting and taking PrEP. In this study, I examine a corpus of 1424 news articles on PrEP (1,017,743 words) from the U.S. and the U.K. & Ireland, in the period 2016-2019. Using methods from corpus linguistics, I show that forms of 'risk' appear to a statistically significant degree in the data, providing a quantitative basis on which to explore these in more detail. Focusing on publications that use a high proportion of 'risk' words (compared with the overall average), I show that the focus on various risks associated with PrEP differs according to publication and that references to 'risk' are used both to advocate for the wider provision of PrEP and to caution against the effects of providing PrEP, i.e. concerns about 'risk compensation'. Corpus methods are shown to augment existing studies of PrEP coverage, providing a systematic method for identifying recurrent lexical features in the data and thereby showing how we can report the linguistic aspects of risk representation.
CDC, Centres for Disease Control and Prevention; HIV, Human immunodeficiency virus; NAT, National Aids Trust; PrEP, Pre-exposure prophylaxis; WHO, World Health Organisation.
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Eliciting information from patients is fundamental to medical professionals' capacity to deliver good healthcare outcomes in Emergency Departments (EDs). There are different kinds of utterances that ..."do questioning", and health professionals can variously attend to the medical agenda and the interpersonal aspects of their interactions with those attending the ED in the way that they construct these utterances. We investigate a corpus of ED interactions to determine the prevalence and range of utterances produced by doctors and directed at patients that "do questioning." We developed a questioning utterance typology, informed by previous research on the formulation of such utterances and extended according to observations of our data. We subsequently manually coded 4,355 questioning utterances and report the variety of forms that such utterances can take, considering how these are distributed across doctors at different levels of seniority. We found that doctors at different seniority levels favored similar questioning utterance types and the most frequently used appeared to restrict the contributions of patients. We conclude that our extended typology of questioning utterances has value for understanding the ways in which doctors may encourage patients to provide more extensive responses.
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Abstract
Extreme fire seasons characterised by very large ‘mega-fires’ have demonstrably increased area burnt across forested regions globally. However, the effect of extreme fire seasons on fire ...severity, a measure of fire impacts on ecosystems, remains unclear. Very large wildfires burnt an unprecedented area of temperate forest, woodland and shrubland across south-eastern Australia in 2019/2020, providing an opportunity to examine the impact of extreme fires on fire severity patterns. We developed an atlas of wildfire severity across south-eastern Australia between 1988 and 2020 to test (a) whether the 2019/2020 fire season was more severe than previous fire seasons, and (b) if the proportion of high-severity fire within the burn extent (HSp) increases with wildfire size and annual area burnt. We demonstrate that the 2019/2020 wildfires in south-eastern Australia were generally greater in extent but not proportionally more severe than previous fires, owing to constant scaling between HSp and annual fire extent across the dominant dry-forest communities. However, HSp did increase with increasing annual fire extent across wet-forests and the less-common rainforest and woodland communities. The absolute area of high-severity fire in 2019/2020 (∼1.8 M ha) was larger than previously seen, accounting for ∼44% of the area burnt by high-severity fire over the past 33 years. Our results demonstrate that extreme fire seasons are a rare but defining feature of fire regimes across forested regions, owing to the disproportionate influence of mega-fires on area burnt.
Visual representations in news media contribute to the social construction of health concerns such as obesity. Media representations of obesity, however, have been shown to be stigmatizing, focusing ...on disembodied abdomens or depicting people in ill-fitting clothing, for example. In addition, analyses of image representations have typically focused on small datasets and relied upon inductive thematic coding. This article presents the application of Google Cloud Vision – an automated image annotation tool – to a collection of images collected from articles on obesity in the UK press. In addition, the World Obesity Federation (WOF) has produced an image bank designed to support journalists in offering respectable depictions of people with obesity, alongside its general guidelines for media representations. The authors compare the images from the news with the WOF Image Bank, on the basis of the tags generated by Google Cloud Vision. They use corpus methods to highlight frequently occurring tags that demonstrate similarities and differences between what is represented in the news and what is provided by the WOF. They observe only minimal consistencies between the datasets in that, while both image collections often depict people with obesity in relation to food, the WOF Image Bank provides a greater variety of activities that include food purchase and preparation. In the news, the analysis finds a greater occurrence of ‘body positive’ representations but also a continuation of the focus on abdomens and pinched skin. In the WOF Image Bank, the authors observe more ‘body neutral’ representations, with people engaged in a greater range of recreational activities and socializing with others. The article reflects on the utility of Vision as an automatic tool for capturing salient elements of visual representations in images.
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Aim
Increased tree mortality linked to droughts and fires is occurring across temperate regions globally. Vegetation recovery has been widely reported; however, less is known about how disturbance ...may alter forests structurally and functionally across environmental gradients. We examined whether dry forests growing on low‐fertility soils were more resilient to coupled extreme drought and severe fire owing to lower tree mortality rates, higher resprouting success and persistence of juveniles relative to wetter forests on more fertile soils.
Location
Fire‐tolerant eucalypt forests of temperate southeastern Australia.
Time period
2020–2023.
Major taxa studied
Eucalyptus, Corymbia, Angophora.
Methods
Demographic surveys of tree mortality and regeneration in all combinations of dry/wet forest, fertile/less fertile substrates exposed to extreme drought and fire were conducted. We used Bayesian regression modelling to compare tree mortality, diameter, response traits, population structure and occurrence of fire scars between substrates/forest types.
Results
Overall mortality (20%–33%) and topkill (34%–41%) were within historically reported ranges for various forests and soil types. However, we observed an atypical trend of increased mortality and topkill in the largest trees, particularly when they had structural damage from past fires. Trees in wet forests on more fertile soils had the highest levels of mortality. Numbers of persistent resprouting juveniles were highest in dry forests on low‐fertility soils. Dry forests growing on low‐fertility soils appear more resilient to compound disturbances due to lower rates of mortality and higher rates of juvenile persistence. Wet forests on more fertile soils may experience greater demographic change due to higher mortality of small and large trees.
Main conclusions
Mesic forests on relatively fertile soils were found to be at relatively high risk of demographic change from compound disturbances. Combined, fire and drought are likely to reduce the number of large trees in affected areas, with consequences for forest carbon cycling and storage.
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Aim
Megafires are increasing in intensity and frequency globally. The impacts of megafires on biodiversity can be severe, so conservation managers must be able to respond rapidly to quantify their ...impacts, initiate recovery efforts and consider conservation options within and beyond the burned extent. We outline a framework that can be used to guide conservation responses to megafires, using the 1.5 million hectare 2019/2020 megafires in Victoria, Australia, as a case study.
Location
Victoria, Australia.
Methods
Our framework uses a suite of decision support tools, including species attribute databases, ~4,200 species distribution models and a spatially explicit conservation action planning tool to quantify the potential effects of megafires on biodiversity, and identify species‐specific and landscape‐scale conservation actions that can assist recovery.
Results
Our approach identified 346 species in Victoria that had >40% of their modelled habitat affected by the megafire, including 45 threatened species, and 102 species with >40% of their modelled habitat affected by high severity fire. We then identified 21 candidate recovery actions that are expected to assist the recovery of biodiversity. For relevant landscape‐scale actions, we identified locations within and adjacent to the megafire extent that are expected to deliver cost‐effective conservation gains.
Main conclusion
The 2019/2020 megafires in south‐eastern Australia affected the habitat of many species and plant communities. Our framework identified a range of single‐species (e.g., supplementary feeding, translocation) and landscape‐scale actions (e.g., protection of refuges, invasive species management) that can help biodiversity recover from megafires. Conservation managers will be increasingly required to rapidly identify conservation actions that can help species recover from megafires, especially under a changing climate. Our approach brings together commonly used datasets (e.g., species distribution maps, trait databases, fire severity mapping) to help guide conservation responses and can be used to help biodiversity recover from future megafires across the world.
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This article presents findings from an analysis of English-language media reports following the publication of the fifth Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Assessment Report in September 2013. ...Focusing on the way they reported the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s use of ‘calibrated’ language, we find that of 1906 articles relating to the issuing of the report only 272 articles (14.27%) convey the use of a deliberate and systematic verbal scale. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s carefully calibrated language was rarely discussed or explicated, but in some instances scientists, political actors or journalists would attempt to contextualise or elaborate on the reported findings by using analogies to other scientific principles or examples of taking action despite uncertainty. We consider those analogies in terms of their efficacy in communicating (un)certainty.
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Wildfire occurrence and severity are projected to increase in response to anthropogenic climate change, leading to fire regimes that may exceed the limits of tolerance for some species. Plants ...capable of regenerating from aerial shoots following high intensity fires, termed ‘epicormic resprouters’, are assumed to be resilient to changes in fire regimes. However, empirical tests of the response of epicormic resprouters to extreme fire regimes, such as repeated canopy fires at short intervals, are currently lacking.
This study examined the effect of combinations of understorey fire and canopy fire across two successive wildfires (2007, 2013) on the resilience of eucalypts that resprout epicormically. The study took place in a temperate eucalypt forest in south eastern Australia. Measures used to infer community resilience included stem topkill and damage, and seedling recruitment. It was predicted that: (a) stems will exhibit lower resistance (i.e. increased topkill and damage) to canopy fire than understorey fire; (b) recruitment will be higher following canopy fire than understorey fire; (c) prior exposure to canopy fire will reduce stem resistance and recruitment in response to subsequent wildfires; and (d) stem resistance will vary depending on bark traits.
Topkill of saplings and small stems (<30 cm diameter at breast height) was higher in sites that recently (i.e. 2013) experienced canopy fire as opposed to understorey fire. Recent fire severity had no effect on topkill of large trees. Tree species with dense bark on the main stem and larger branches were less prone to topkill or partial stem and branch mortality than species with fibrous bark or exposed branches. Seedling recruitment was greater following canopy fire than understorey fire. Exposure to past canopy fire (i.e. in 2007) did not decrease stem resistance or recruitment.
Synthesis. The results of this study suggest that communities of eucalypts that can resprout epicormically following fire will experience demographic shifts following repeated canopy fires. However, given the high resistance of large trees and rapid post‐fire recovery of the seedbank, ecosystem conversion appears unlikely. The findings support the presumption that forest communities of epicormic resprouters are highly resilient to shifts in fire regimes.
Communities of eucalypts that can resprout epicormically show resilience to biome change following repeated canopy fires, owing to the resistance of large trees and rapid post‐fire recovery of the seedbank. However, repeated canopy fires will change forest structure by increasing stem and branch mortality, leading to reduced stocking of small trees and lowering of the canopy.
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