Despite a political context marked by affective explicitness and an ongoing affective turn in social sciences, representation theory rarely takes affects and emotions into account. In this article, I ...respond to this gap by focusing on indignation, as a key affect of the crisis of representation. Building on recent constructivist theories of representation and affect theory, I unpack three affective dynamics of indignation which play a constitutive role in representation: affective imitation, affective transformation and the creation of affective publics. I conclude by raising normative questions on the role of indignation, and affect at large, in theories and practices of representation.
The dramatic impacts of climate change have pushed thousands of young activists to shout out their indignation. These mobilizations have become the symbol of our 'tipping era': a clash of worlds ...between attachments to modernity and attempts to become 'terrestrial' (Latour, 2018) to stay within ecological boundaries. In this field, there has been an increasing body of theoretical work but empirical research is still in its infancy, providing little evidence of this ongoing struggle and what we can learn from the young activists' indignation. This article responds to this gap by exploring the case of Youth for Climate (YfC), the Belgian branch of the Fridays for Future movement. In particular, I show how their indignation, expressed in a narrative form, is pivotal to understand the competition between the modern and the terrestrial imaginary within the movement. Based on survey data, participant observations and focus groups, I conduct a two-level analysis. First, I find that the YfC indignation produces three inter-related stories: of unworthy politics, economic abuse and human survival. Second, I reveal how the affectivity of these stories articulates the competition between the modern and the terrestrial imaginary: from hope in the existing political institutions which anchors them in the modern imaginary, to compassion and fear which open a more terrestrial imaginary of collapse. Together, rather than mere competition, these stories reveal an ongoing oscillation and intersection between the modern and the terrestrial.
Recent research suggests that addition and subtraction induce horizontal shifts of attention. Previous studies used single-digit (1d) problems or verification paradigms that lend themselves to ...alternative solution strategies beyond mental arithmetic. To measure spatial attention during the active production of solutions to complex two-digit arithmetic problems (2d) without manual motor involvement, we used a temporal order judgement (TOJ) paradigm in which two lateralised targets were sequentially presented on screen with a varying stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA). Participants verbally indicated which target appeared first. By varying the delay between the arithmetic problem presentation and the TOJ task, we investigated how arithmetically induced attention shifts develop over time (Experiment 1, n = 31 and Experiment 2, n = 58). In Experiment 2, we additionally varied the carry property of the arithmetic task to examine how task difficulty modulates the effects. In the arithmetic task, participants were first presented with the arithmetic problem via headphones and performed the TOJ task after the delay before responding to the arithmetic task. To account for spontaneous attentional biases, a baseline TOJ was run without arithmetic processing. Both experiments revealed that addition induces shifts of spatial attention to the right suggesting that visuospatial attention mechanisms are recruited during complex arithmetic. We observed no difference in spatial attention between the carry and noncarry condition (Experiment 2). No shifts were observed for subtraction problems. No common and conclusive influence of delay was observed across experiments. Qualitative differences between addition and subtraction and the role of task difficulty are discussed.
The drivers of year-to-year difference in winter abundance patterns, particularly dramatic in the "eruptions" of many boreal seed-eating birds, are poorly understood. Varied Thrush (Ixoreus naevius ...(Gmelin, 1789)), endemic to the Pacific Northwest of North America, is a boreal species that exhibits pronounced, often biennially cyclic, changes in winter abundance within most of its normal wintering range. Although the drivers of this variability have not previously been explored, it has been suggested that differences in acorn abundance, a key winter food resource, might be important. Here, we examine three hypotheses for the drivers of this pattern: the acorn crop within the bird's normal winter range, weather within the bird's winter range, and weather during the previous breeding season within the bird's breeding range. Analyses supported the importance of breeding season conditions, particularly breeding season rainfall, with more birds wintering following wetter years. No support was found for the hypotheses that winter conditions, neither the acorn crop nor winter weather, correlate with winter abundance patterns. For this forest species, year-to-year differences in winter abundance patterns are apparently not driven by the "pull" of winter food supply or winter conditions, but by environmental factors during the prior breeding season that presumably affect reproductive success and subsequent population size.
We review the evidence for the conceptual association between arithmetic and space and quantify the effect size in meta-analyses. We focus on three effects: (a) the operational momentum effect (OME), ...which has been defined as participants' tendency to overestimate results of addition problems and underestimate results of subtraction problems; (b) the arithmetic cueing effect, in which arithmetic problems serve as spatial cues in target detection or temporal order judgment tasks; and (c) the associations between arithmetic and space observed with eye- and hand-tracking studies. The OME was consistently found in paradigms that provided the participants with numerical response alternatives. The OME shows a large effect size, driven by an underestimation during subtraction while addition was unbiased. In contrast, paradigms in which participants indicated their estimate by transcoding their final estimate to a spatial reference frame revealed no consistent OME. Arithmetic cueing studies show a reliable small to medium effect size, driven by a rightward bias for addition. Finally, eye- and hand-tracking studies point to replicable associations between arithmetic and eye or hand movements. To account for the complexity of the observed pattern, we introduce the Adaptive Pathways in Mental Arithmetic (APiMA) framework. The model accommodates central notions of numerical and arithmetic processing and helps identifying which pathway a given paradigm operates on. It proposes that the divergence between OME and arithmetic cueing studies comes from the predominant use of non-symbolic versus symbolic stimuli, respectively. Overall, our review and findings clearly support an association between arithmetic and spatial processing.
Adding nutrients to nutrient-limited ecosystems typically lowers plant diversity and decreases species asynchrony. Both, in turn, decrease the stability of productivity in the response to negative ...climate fluctuations such as droughts. However, most classic studies examining stability have been done in relatively wet grasslands dominated by perennial grasses. We examined how nutrient additions influence the stability of productivity to rainfall variability in an arid grassland with a mix of perennial and annual species. Of the nutrients, only nitrogen increased productivity, and only in wet years. In addition, only nitrogen decreased the stability of productivity. Thus, nutrient addition makes ecosystem productivity less stable in both wet and arid grasslands. However, the mechanism is very different. In contrast to wet grasslands, adding nitrogen to an arid grassland did not decrease diversity. Rather, stability decreased with nitrogen addition due to an increase in annual species that increased productivity. In other words, in our arid grassland, nitrogen addition decreased ecosystem stability because of increased ecosystem responsiveness to positive climate fluctuations. These climate fluctuations were facilitated by annual species that take advantage of wet years and can escape dry years as seeds. Our data support the conclusion that nutrient additions decrease the stability of productivity in both wet and arid grasslands. Nutrient enrichment increases the sensitivity of productivity to low rainfall years in wet grasslands, whereas nutrient enrichment in arid grasslands increases the sensitivity of productivity to high rainfall years.
Masting, the synchronized production of variable seed crops, is widespread among woody plants, but there is no consensus about the underlying proximate mechanisms. To understand this population‐level ...behaviour, it is necessary to dissect the behaviour of individual trees as well as the interactions that synchronize them. Here, we test a model of masting in which variability in seed set is driven by resource limitation within trees and synchrony is driven by pollen limitation due to phenological asynchrony in some years. We used a 35‐year seed set data set and a 12‐year phenological data set to analyse seed production of 84 valley oaks (Quercus lobata) in central coastal California. Individual trees varied tremendously in their seed production patterns; trees with high levels of seed production were less variable over time, but showed stronger negative autocorrelation between years, suggesting that they are more resource‐limited than unproductive trees. In years of more asynchronous flowering, Q. lobata produced fewer seeds, consistent with the importance of phenological synchrony. We parametrized a model with these results to investigate how individual resource limitation and population‐wide pollen limitation – a consequence of asynchronous flowering during cold spring temperatures – interact to shape annual variation in seed production. The model illustrates that this proximate abiotic driver can synchronize the behaviour of individuals, resulting in population‐wide seed production patterns that closely resemble the field data. Synthesis. Our findings support the hypothesis that an interaction between two proximate mechanisms, individual resource limitation and environmental variation affecting population‐wide pollen availability, drives masting in this population of Quercus lobata. This combination of internal and external proximate drivers may underlie masting behaviour in many wind‐pollinated plants.
Fertilisation experiments have demonstrated that nutrient availability is a key determinant of biomass production and carbon sequestration in grasslands. However, the influence of nutrients in ...explaining spatial variation in grassland biomass production has rarely been assessed. Using a global dataset comprising 72 sites on six continents, we investigated which of 16 soil factors that shape nutrient availability associate most strongly with variation in grassland aboveground biomass. Climate and N deposition were also considered. Based on theory‐driven structural equation modelling, we found that soil micronutrients (particularly Zn and Fe) were important predictors of biomass and, together with soil physicochemical properties and C:N, they explained more unique variation (32%) than climate and N deposition (24%). However, the association between micronutrients and biomass was absent in grasslands limited by NP. These results highlight soil properties as key predictors of global grassland biomass production and point to serial co‐limitation by NP and micronutrients.
Using a dataset comprising 72 sites on six continents, we show that of 16 investigated soil factors determining nutrient availability, soil physicochemical properties, C:N and micronutrients are the strongest predictors of the variation in grassland aboveground biomass. Our results highlight soil properties as key predictors of global grassland biomass production and point to the potential importance of micronutrients as co‐limiting factors in grasslands.
Febrile urinary tract infections (UTIs) are important bacterial infections in children but increasingly difficult to treat due to antimicrobial resistance. We performed a retrospective analysis of ...the prevalence of uropathogens in hospitalized children with a febrile UTI between 2000 and 2019 in our university hospital to get more insight into trend and determinants of antimicrobial resistance over time. There were 1010 hospitalizations in children with a median age of 1.1 years. Thirty-six percent had an abnormal ultrasound and/or the presence of vesico-ureteral reflux, defined as CAKUT.
Escherichia coli
was the most prevalent pathogen (76%). However, there was an increasing prevalence towards other gram-negative organisms over time, and these pathogens were more common in children with congenital anomalies of kidney and urinary tract (CAKUT) (OR 4.26 (3.14–5.78),
p
< 0.001).
E. coli
strains demonstrated an increase in resistance against amoxicillin clavulanic acid (AMC) over time from 16% (2000–2004) to 36% (2015–2019) with an average increase of 2.0%/year; this was + 1.1%/year for third-generation cephalosporin. Multivariate analysis demonstrated that prior antibiotic use was an additional risk factor for antimicrobial resistance in
E. coli
. Nevertheless, increasing resistance was also observed in children without reported previous antibiotic treatment (+ 1.9%/year,
p
= 0.04).
Conclusion
: We observed a significant pattern of increasing antimicrobial resistance of
E. coli
within a relatively short period of time, making it increasingly difficult to treat pediatric UTIs. This pattern was also seen in children without underlying risk factors (recent antibiotic treatment or structural urological disease). This is indicative for a larger problem in the general population and an important threat to our current standard of health care.
What is Known:
•
Escherichia coli is the most frequent pathogen in pediatric urinary tract infections.
•
There is an increasing antimicrobial resistance against commonly used antibiotics in urinary tract infections.
What is New:
•
The first 20-year retrospective, longitudinal study on characteristics of the microorganisms of pediatric urinary tract infections in a single center.
•
A 1–2% yearly increase in antimicrobial resistance, not only in children with congenital anomalies of the kidneys or recent antibiotic treatment but also in children without risk factors.
Several urban landscape planning solutions have been introduced around the world to find a balance between developing urban spaces, maintaining and restoring biodiversity, and enhancing quality of ...human life. Our global mini-review, combined with analysis of big data collected from Google Trends at global scale, reveals the importance of enjoying day-to-day contact with nature and engaging in such activities as nature observation and identification and gardening for the mental well-being of humans during the COVID-19 pandemic. Home-based activities, such as watching birds from one’s window, identifying species of plants and animals, backyard gardening, and collecting information about nature for citizen science projects, were popular during the first lockdown in spring 2020, when people could not easily venture out of their homes. In our mini-review, we found 37 articles from 28 countries with a total sample of 114,466 people. These papers suggest that home-based engagement with nature was an entertaining and pleasant distraction that helped preserve mental well-being during a challenging time. According to Google Trends, interest in such activities increased during lockdown compared to the previous five years. Millions of people worldwide are chronically or temporarily confined to their homes and neighborhoods because of illness, childcare chores, or elderly care responsibility, which makes it difficult for them to travel far to visit such places as national parks, created through land sparing, where people go to enjoy nature and relieve stress. This article posits that for such people, living in an urban landscape designed to facilitate effortless contact with small natural areas is a more effective way to receive the mental health benefits of contact with nature than visiting a sprawling nature park on rare occasions.
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