South-west Scotland Research Articles

Improving the primary care clinical testing process in southwest Scotland: a systems-based approach

IntroductionAcross all healthcare environments, inadequately specified patient test requests are commonly encountered and can lead to wasted clinician time and healthcare resources, in addition to either missed or unnecessary testing...

James (Carrick) Moore (1763-1860): Another (Scottish) Local Anaesthetic Hero.

Modern technology has provided the author with access to a previously unobtainable publication, John Moore's 1784 work, 'A Method of Preventing or diminishing Pain in Several Operations of Surgery'. Not only did this allow direct consideration of his technique of nerve compression (which has been described briefly by many others since), but also showed that Moore had very advanced humane views on the need to try and produce pain relief for surgery. It also became possible to obtain far more information on the author, notably that although he worked in London he was born and educated in Glasgow, and did his initial medical training in Edinburgh. He thus is one of a group, all of whom were Scots, who did preliminary work on local anaesthesia before the recognition of the local action of cocaine. His technique was tried, apparently successfully, for a below-knee amputation by John Hunter, and while both the technique and his humane approach were noted by others, the method does not seem to have found wider favour. He continued working as a surgeon in London until he inherited an estate in south-west Scotland, this allowing him to give up clinical practice and focus on writing and campaigning. He wrote the definitive biography of his brother (Sir John Moore of Corunna fame) and was a leading advocate of vaccination, leading the organisation after Jenner's death. These activities meant that he was well known in his lifetime, but he deserves to be better known today as being the first person to promote the need for pain relief during surgery.

A new crinoid morphotaxon from the Silurian (Llandovery) of south-west Scotland (Ayrshire)

A new crinoid morphotaxon from the Silurian (Llandovery) of south-west Scotland (Ayrshire)

Lightweight den boxes enhance habitat for pine martens Martes martes in a conifer plantation in south-west Scotland

The European pine marten Martes martes typically occupies woodland and preferentially rests and breeds in arboreal, insulated den sites, which are particularly critical for breeding females. An absence of elevated cavities may force pine martens to use suboptimal den sites, and consequently limit population distribution, abundance, and breeding success. Artificial den boxes have been designed and installed in recent years and occupied by both non-breeding and breeding pine martens. However, the large size and weight of these boxes makes them too heavy to use in young forestry plantations. We tested two smaller, lighter box designs (the Galloway Lite Mk1 (‘GLMk1’) and Galloway Lite Mk2 (‘GLMk2’)) that could be more easily deployed in commercial conifer plantations. Fifty boxes of each design were installed in Galloway Forest, south-west Scotland, and monitored for evidence of pine marten occupation and breeding. Overall, GLMk2 boxes were occupied more frequently than the GLMk1 boxes, including for breeding. The Galloway Lite boxes provide a lightweight, economical and practical option for increasing the availability of elevated den sites for pine martens and can be deployed as a conservation tool to enhance habitat conditions.

Lightweight den boxes enhance habitat for pine martens Martes martes in a conifer plantation in south-west Scotland

The European pine marten Martes martes typically occupies woodland and preferentially rests and breeds in arboreal, insulated den sites, which are particularly critical for breeding females. An absence of elevated cavities may force pine martens to use suboptimal den sites, and consequently limit population distribution, abundance, and breeding success. Artificial den boxes have been designed and installed in recent years and occupied by both non-breeding and breeding pine martens. However, the large size and weight of these boxes makes them too heavy to use in young forestry plantations. We tested two smaller, lighter box designs (the Galloway Lite Mk1 (‘GLMk1’) and Galloway Lite Mk2 (‘GLMk2’)) that could be more easily deployed in commercial conifer plantations. Fifty boxes of each design were installed in Galloway Forest, south-west Scotland, and monitored for evidence of pine marten occupation and breeding. Overall, GLMk2 boxes were occupied more frequently than the GLMk1 boxes, including for breeding. The Galloway Lite boxes provide a lightweight, economical and practical option for increasing the availability of elevated den sites for pine martens and can be deployed as a conservation tool to enhance habitat conditions.

Comparison of test strip, conductivity, and novel smartphone digital image colorimetry methods for field assessment of soil chloride and salinity.

Understanding the extent of salt-affected soils is important in agriculture for irrigation, crop selection and land management, and affordable smartphone-based techniques can broaden access to environmental analysis in resource-limited settings. A novel smartphone-based Digital Image Colorimetry (DImC) technique using colorimetric chloride test strips has been developed and compared to 3 other field techniques (direct soil conductivity (Csoil), soil extract solution conductivity (Cext), titration test strips (TS)) and 1 lab-based method (chloride analyser (CA)) for the assessment of soil salinity. A survey of soils from a coastal saltmarsh and neighbouring farmland was conducted in Southwest Scotland and a rapid sample preparation method suitable for in-field use was evaluated. Comparison of each method with the reference method (CA) using correlation plots, Bland-Altman plots, and concordance correlation coefficients, showed that the accuracy and precision of the methods decreased in the order Cext > DImC ≃ TS > Csoil. The novel DImC method had good accuracy, although the limit of detection (LOD = 20.30 mg L-1) and precision was poorer than Cext. The analysis of field-wet soils enabled a rapid estimate of soil Cl- in approximately 6 minutes and spatially interpolated maps of soil Cl- concentration, prepared using smartphone location data, identified areas of elevated soil salinity. Each field analysis method had specific benefits, and the low cost, portability and lack of specialist equipment required for the DImC method demonstrated suitability for use in agriculture, citizen science or conservation settings where resources may be limited. The example presented demonstrates how smartphones may be used to broaden access to environmental analysis techniques.

A comparison of ligatures on gravestones in Scotland, Northern Germany and the French Basque region

Although ligatures have a long history and can be found on a range of artefacts, they are particularly characteristic of gravestone inscriptions of the 17th and 18th centuries in several parts of Western Europe. The grouping of two or more letters as a ligature can be attributed to minimising mason’s costs and workload, or stone brittleness, but it is suggested that their function was primarily a space-saving device. This research, based solely on statistical analysis, suggests that there may be other, possibly more common, reasons as to why they were employed in gravestone inscriptions. Ligatures have an uneven distribution throughout Western Europe. They are especially frequent in gravestone inscriptions from north and south-west Scotland, Northern Germany and the French Basque region. These areas were selected for analysis. Ligatures were recorded from 36 sites in northern and south-western Scotland, 35 sites in Northern Germany and 24 sites in the French Basque region. Frequencies at each site were calculated. The most common ligature in Scotland and north Germany was HE and in the French Basque region it was DE. All ligature frequencies were compared with the frequencies of bigrams in English, German and French to determine whether or not this influenced their frequency in gravestone inscriptions. It was found that there was no evidence of correlation between gravestone ligatures and bigrams in any of the three languages. The possible reasons for the use of ligatures are discussed.

Reading Walter Scott on the Solway Firth: Books and Borrowing at the Wigtown Subscription Library, 1828–36

Abstract: This article analyzes a previously unstudied set of borrowing records covering 1828–36 from the Wigtown Subscription Library in Galloway, southwest Scotland. It describes the context of the library and key features of this borrowing data, including the finding that forty-one Walter Scott titles accounted for 19 percent of all borrowing in this period. Galloway famously provided the outland setting of Scott's Guy Mannering (1815); this borrowing data enables an alternative view of the region and his influence on it. The article argues that readers at the Wigtown library were encountering an expansive network of "thickly" described localities through Scott.

Protect the land. Poison the sea. An environmental history of the Kirkcudbright Training Area and the firing of depleted uranium by the British Army (1982–2013)

AbstractLocated in the South West of Scotland, the Kirkcudbright Training Area, alongside the extensive Dundrennan weapons ranges, have been used since the Second World War for the training of the British Army. From the Cold War to today, Dundrennan has been the testing ground for the majority of British armoured vehicles, and the controversial firing of depleted uranium shells which took place from 1982 to 2013. This paper examines the response to the firings from protestors, campaigners and environmental campaign groups, and outlines why Scottish nationalists found common ground with them in opposing the actions of the Ministry of Defence (MOD). The response by the MOD, and in particular the Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO), to accusations of environmental mismanagement of the site are also discussed here. This counter narrative, which stresses the role of military conservation practices (known as ‘khaki conservation’) disseminated through the DIO publication Sanctuary is also scrutinised, noting the tensions between the requirements of the military and its environmental impact.

Health gains from home energy efficiency measures: The missing evidence in the UK net-zero policy debate

ObjectivesThis study examined the health gains from a programme of external wall insulation works to homes in south-west Scotland, and in particular the impact upon hospitalisations for respiratory and cardiovascular conditions. Furthermore, to consider how evidence on health outcomes could form part of the debate around actions to meet net-zero goals in the UK. Study designThis was a two-part study. Part one involved before-and-after interviews with 229 recipient households. The second part comprised an observational study of hospital admissions in 184 postcode areas. MethodsAcross three years, interviews collected thermal comfort and self-reported health data(Sf-36) in the winter months prior to installation, and again in follow-up interviews the next winter. Standarised monthly data on non-elective admissions for each set of conditions were compared between the intervention postcodes and the wider health board area over a ten year period. ResultsFollowing receipt of wall insulation, inability to achieve thermal comfort in winter reduced by two-thirds. Improvements in thermal comfort were associated with gains in physical health scores. Relative standardised admissions fell in the treatment areas, remaining lower than the district-wide standardised rate for the majority of a five year period, this effect ending during the Covid-19 pandemic. The impact on admissions was greater for respiratory conditions than for cardiovascular conditions. ConclusionA weak policy commitment to energy efficiency could be strengthened with further evidence of the cost-savings and reduced hospital bed demand resulting from insulations works. The potential health gain may also encourage more home owners to participate.

Rotational fishing enables biodiversity recovery and provides a model for oyster (Ostrea edulis) habitat restoration.

Reefs formed by Ostrea edulis, the European native oyster, are among many biogenic habitats that have declined globally. European oyster habitats are now rare, and undisturbed examples have not been described. As more is understood of the ecosystem services provided by the reefs, oyster restoration efforts are on the rise, becoming a more prominent component of Europe's portfolio of marine conservation practices. It is therefore important to establish the relationship between the development of oyster reefs and their associated biotic community if the biodiversity benefits are to be accurately predicted and the progress of restoration projects assessed. The Loch Ryan oyster fishery in Southwest Scotland is the last of its type and uses a rotational harvest system where different areas are fished each year and then left for six years before they are fished again. This provided an opportunity to study the effect of oyster reef development and biodiversity gain at different stages of habitat recovery. In this study three treatments were surveyed for faunal biodiversity, oyster shell density and oyster shell percentage cover. Treatments were plots that had been harvested one year before, two years before, and six years before the study. The treatments were surveyed with SCUBA using a combination of video transects and photo quadrats. Oyster shell density, oyster shell percent cover and macrofaunal biodiversity differed significantly between treatments, with the highest values observed in the six-year treatment. Shell density was 8.5 times higher in the six-year treatment compared to the one-year treatment, whilst Shannon-Wiener's diversity was 60.5% higher, and Margalef's richness 68.8% higher. Shell density and percent cover had a significant positive relationship with macrofaunal biodiversity. This is probably due to the provision of increased structural complexity in the matrix of live and dead oyster shells. Projecting forward the trend of biodiversity increase in relation to time since disturbance indicates that full recovery would take approximately ten years in which time diversity (Shannon-Wiener) would probably have doubled. The findings from the present study indicate the probable biodiversity benefits of oyster habitat restoration and a cost-effective metric (shell density) to judge progress in restoration projects.

Contributors to this Issue

Other| March 01 2023 Contributors to this Issue Nineteenth-Century Literature (2023) 77 (4): 268–269. https://doi.org/10.1525/ncl.2023.77.4.268 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Contributors to this Issue. Nineteenth-Century Literature 1 March 2023; 77 (4): 268–269. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/ncl.2023.77.4.268 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentNineteenth-Century Literature Search Gerard Lee McKeever is Lecturer in Scottish Literature in the Department of English and Scottish Literature at the University of Edinburgh. He is the author of Dialectics of Improvement: Scottish Romanticism, 1786–1831 (2020), winner of the BARS First Book Prize 2021. He is currently finishing a monograph titled Regional Romanticism: Southwest Scotland, c.1770–1830 for Palgrave Macmillan, as well as editing John Galt’s autobiographies for Angela Esterhammer’s “Edinburgh Edition of the Works of John Galt” series. Claudia Stokes is Professor of English at Trinity University. She is the author of Writers in Retrospect: The Rise of American Literary History, 1875–1910 (2006); The Altar at Home: Sentimental Literature and Nineteenth-Century American Religion (2014); and Old Style: Unoriginality and Its Uses in Nineteenth-Century U.S. Literature (2022). She is currently preparing a scholarly edition of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s religious writings for Oxford University Press. * * *... You do not currently have access to this content.

Extreme Attachment

Gerard Lee McKeever, “Extreme Attachment: Allan Cunningham’s ‘South Countree’” (pp. 223–252) This article positions Allan Cunningham (1784–1842) as an extreme case of literary place-making in the first half of the nineteenth century. Cunningham lived from 1810 in London, where he became superintendent of the sculptor Francis Chantrey’s workshop. Yet over the following decades, he produced literary work that is remarkably consistent in its return to his native southwest Scotland and the Anglo-Scottish borders region, developing a longue durée imaginative geography through a rotating cast of characters, places, tales, and topoi. This work emblematizes a moment in the transformation of the long-eighteenth-century condition of “nostalgia,” or homesickness, which over the course of the nineteenth century became a patriotic virtue and—eventually—an aestheticized sense of the past. The article interrogates Cunningham’s overall literary career from a geographical perspective, before focusing in on two unfairly neglected later works: the long poem The Maid of Elvar (1832) and his final novel, Lord Roldan (1836). In general, Cunningham’s work performs regional attachment in such a precariously literary manner that it forces the reader to reckon with the imaginative quality of belonging. By the 1830s, however, it had reached an acutely self-referential phase, exercising and recycling a vocabulary of belonging that had been decades in the making.

Early to Mid-Holocene Tree Immigration and Spread in the Isle of Man: The Roles of Climate and Other Factors

The Isle of Man is a large island which lies in the middle of the northern Irish Sea between Britain and Ireland and, because of its insularity and size, has an impoverished flora compared with the two main islands. This has been the case throughout the postglacial and warrants the island’s description as a separate phytogeographic province. We have considered Holocene tree pollen data from seventeen sites on the island which together preserve a vegetation history that spans the six thousand years of the early and mid-postglacial from the end of the Lateglacial at 11,700 cal. BP to the mid-Holocene Ulmus decline at ca. 5800 cal. BP. Radiocarbon dating of the rational limits of the pollen curves for the main tree taxa has allowed an appraisal of the timing of each one’s expansion to become a significant component of the island’s woodland, and comparison with the dates of their expansion on the adjacent regions of Britain and Ireland. The radiocarbon dates show that, although some variability exists probably due to local factors, there is considerable concordance between the timings of major pollen zone boundaries in Britain and Ireland around the northern Irish Sea. On the Isle of Man the expansions of both Juniperus and Betula were delayed by several centuries compared to the British/Irish data, however the timing of the expansions of Corylus, Ulmus, Quercus, Pinus and Alnus on the Isle of Man all appear closely comparable to the ages for these pollen stratigraphic events in north Wales, northwest England, southwest Scotland and eastern Ireland, as are those for the Ulmus decline. It is likely that local pedological and edaphic factors on the island account for the differences in the first Holocene millennium, while regional climatic factors governed the timings for the rest of the expansions of tree taxa across the wider region, including the Isle of Man. Disturbance, including by human agency, was important at the site scale and perhaps triggered early tree expansion in some places, including Quercus, Ulmus and Alnus. Insularity seems not to have been a significant factor in the expansion of the major forest trees.

Inter-colony variation in the foraging behaviour and resource selection of breeding Herring Gulls Larus argentatus

The resources available to breeding seabirds within their foraging ranges can influence productivity, either directly through the quality and quantity of food consumed by chicks, or indirectly by affecting the foraging behaviour and efficiency of parent birds. Where local resource availability is low, or the quality of resources are poor, species with flexible time-energy budgets can increase their foraging effort to provide adequate energy and nutrients to their chicks, although this may come at the expense of nest attendance. We investigated provisioning rates and nest attendance in European Herring Gulls Larus argentatus from seven colonies across southwest Scotland and Northern Ireland during two chick-rearing periods (2013 and 2014) in relation to the food resources used by these colonies. We observed variation in provisioning rates and nest attendance between colonies, and variation between years in nest attendance. We found no significant relationships between these behaviours and the proportion of intertidal prey consumed, suggesting that provisioning rate and nest attendance did not differ between resource types at the colony level. We also found no evidence that variation in behaviours was related to breeding success. Our results suggest that, within this region, the type of resources consumed had a greater influence on Herring Gull breeding success than differences in two proxies of foraging efficiency (provisioning rate and nest attendance), although other factors may also have influenced breeding success. Our work highlights the benefit of determining what food resources are provided to chicks, in addition to measuring foraging behaviours, to fully understand the consequences of consuming different resources on the breeding success of generalist foragers.

New integrated molecular approaches for investigating lake settlements in north-western Europe

Lake settlements, particularly crannogs, pose several contradictions—visible yet inaccessible, widespread yet geographically restricted, persistent yet vulnerable. To further our understanding, we developed the integrated use of palaeolimnological (scanning XRF, pollen, spores, diatoms, chironomids, Cladocera, microcharcoal, biogenic silica, SEM-EDS, stable-isotopes) and biomolecular (faecal stanols, bile acids, sedaDNA) analyses of crannog cores in south-west Scotland and Ireland. Both can be effective methods sets for revealing occupation chronologies and identifying on-crannog activities and practices. Strong results from sedaDNA and lipid biomarker analyses demonstrate probable on-site animal slaughter, food storage and possible feasting, suggesting multi-period, elite site associations, and the storage and protection of valuable resources.

Tectonostratigraphic and paleoenvironmental settings of host-replacing phreatic calcrete hardpans developed at basin margins in the Upper Devonian Kinnesswood Formation of southwest Scotland

Abstract In the Firth of Clyde area of southwest Scotland, the Famennian Kinnesswood Formation includes an interval of massive, host-replacing phreatic calcrete hardpan (HRPCH), the likes of which have been documented only at few locations and few intervals in geological history. The HRPCH is found only at basin-margin shoulders, where the Kinnesswood Formation succession is thin and incomplete. The isles of Bute and Great Cumbrae provide well exposed sections in which adjacent shoulder and trough successions can be correlated and compared to clarify the tectonostratigraphic and paleoenvironmental settings of the HRPCHs. In the Cumbraes Trough, above a thin interval of peritidal limestone, the middle part of the Kinnesswood Formation (lower part of the Foul Port Member) is pervasively disturbed by large syndepositional dewatering structures interpreted to be products of the intermittent deposition and dissolution of evaporites. These structures occur at approximately the same stratigraphic interval as the HRPCHs on the isles of Bute and possibly Arran. The HRPCH in Bute is interpreted to have developed on a syndepositional shoulder adjacent to a growth fault (the Kerrycroy Fault) delimiting a trough that accommodated intermittent seawater incursions in a restricted, evaporitic setting. This is consistent with the current model for HRPCH formation, which involves the mixing of fresh groundwater issued from source areas with the high pH groundwater that surrounds evaporitic basins. A significant increase in silica solubility paired with a decrease in calcite solubility occurs in the mixing zone, thus promoting the thorough replacement of silicates with calcrete.

Improving the annual monitoring rates of testosterone replacement therapy patients in primary care

IntroductionTestosterone replacement therapy (TRT) is the treatment of choice for male hypogonadism. British Society for Sexual Medicine (BSSM) guidelines on adult testosterone deficiency recommend that TRT patients undergo annual monitoring...

Regional variation in longitudinal trajectories of primary care opioids prescribing across Health Boards in Scotland: a population-based study

Background This study aims to describe the longitudinal trajectory of opioid prescribing at the practice level and assess factors associated with utilization, including Health Boards and socioeconomic status. Research design and methods This drug utilization research used practice-level dispensing data from 2016 to 2018. Practice-level prescription opioids dispensed were quantified by the defined daily doses (DDDs) per 1000 registrants. Group-based trajectory models were used to identify groups of practices with similar trajectories based on the difference in monthly opioid utilization. Characteristics of registrants were associated with the trajectory by a conditional logistic regression and the prescription opioids dispensed by a random-effect regression model. Results Of the 798 practices, 29.5% increased opioid prescription by an additional 100 DDDs/1000 registrants/month during 2017 and 2018. Practice in southwest Scotland tended to be categorized into the group with increasing opioid utilization. Deprived socioeconomic status was associated with increasing opioid utilization (odds ratio: 2.2; 95% confidence interval:1.5, 3.2) or higher annual opioid utilization (coefficient: 358.2; 95% confidence interval: 327.6, 388.8) in 2018. Conclusions Increasing opioid utilization over time was related to deprived socioeconomic status associated with chronic pain conditions and inequality in pain services. Further strategies to balance inequality are needed, which needs further investigation.

A monitoring-based classification system for risk management of bridge scour

Flood-induced scour is the principal cause of bridge failure worldwide. Nevertheless, bridge scour risk assessment is still based on visual inspections, which may be affected by human errors and cannot be performed during flood peaks. This problem, together with the simplifications in scour estimation, might cause misclassification of the bridge scour risk, unnecessary bridge closures or recourse to avoidable scour mitigation measures. Structural-health-monitoring (SHM) systems allow overcoming these issues, providing bridge managers with more accurate information about scour, thus supporting them in taking optimal management decisions. This paper illustrates the development of an SHM- and event-based classification system for bridge scour management, which extends and complements current risk-rating procedures by incorporating the various sources of uncertainty characterising the scour estimation and information from different sensors. The proposed system is based on a probabilistic framework for scour risk estimation and can be used to provide transport agencies with real-time scour risk classification of bridges under a heavy-flood event. The system is applied to a bridge network located in south-west Scotland in a heavy-flood scenario, and information from heterogeneous sources is considered for updating the knowledge of scour. It is shown that integrating scour-monitoring data leads to an overall uncertainty reduction that is reflected in more accurate scour risk classification, thus helping transport agencies in prioritising bridge inspections and risk mitigation actions.