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With reference to Steven Feld’s “acoustemology,” his epistemology of sounding and listening, developed in the Bosavi Rainforest in Papua New Guinea, where the trees are too dense to afford a distant view and meaning has to be found up close, on the body with other human and more-than-human bodies, this essay deliberates how sound knows in entanglements and from the in-between: in a being with as a knowing with rather than from a distance. In this way, this essay, from the densities of the rainforest, critiques Western knowledge and its reliance on visual categories, straight lines, and universalising principles that pretend objectivity and a distant view. Instead, it turns to the relational indivisibility of sound that lets us hear interdependencies and confronts us with the invisible of which we are part. In conclusion, it proposes that sound studies as applied, transversal studies enable such a paradigm shift that at once reveals what hegemonic knowledge strands exclude and invites a different dialogue from the in-between of everything.

Abstract Background Immune checkpoint inhibitors of programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) represent a significant breakthrough in treating head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC), with long-lasting responses and prolonged survival observed in first- and second-line therapy. However, this is observed in

This experimental study investigated pre-service and experienced teachers’ formative feedback responding to upper-secondary English as a Second Language (ESL) argumentative essays. It examined differences in feedback quality and linguistic features regarding teaching experience and text quality (high/low). We developed holistic criteria of effective formative feedback based on empirical findings in order to rate comments by 26 experienced and 41 pre-service teachers. Natural language processing tools were then applied to evaluate linguistic features of these comments. Results indicate that teachers provided more high-quality feedback to stronger essays than to weaker texts. No significant difference was found between pre-service and experienced teachers in terms of feedback quality. Further, comment length and absence of negative adjectives seem to predict feedback quality. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Excess phosphorus abundance often drives eutrophication and affects surface water quality. Formation of vivianite (Fe3(PO4)2 • 8H2O) in aquatic sediments acts as a significant sink for phosphate (P), crucial for resorting surface waters. Authigenic vivianite formation, however, can be limited by other ferrous iron containing phases, in particular iron sulfides. Although thermodynamically feasible under suitable conditions, the formation of vivianite from mackinawite has been widely disregarded for authigenic phosphate mineral formation. Here we investigated the formation of vivianite from mackinawite (FeS) in batch experiments in which dissolved sulfide was continuously removed, at P levels between 0 – 5 mM in a pH of 6 to 8. Solid characterizations by electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction as well as Mössbauer and X-ray absorption spectroscopy demonstrates that vivianite was formed at all pH values in P amended experiments. The temporal evolution of dissolved Fe(II) concentrations indicates that the transformation proceeds via the release of the dissolved Fe(II) by FeS dissolution and subsequent vivianite precipitation, over time scales of days. The kinetics of the transformation are controlled by the dissolution rates of FeS. Aging and transformation of FeS, however, compete with vivianite formation. Aging is more pronounced at higher pH but is inhibited by P adsorption. Hence, the effect of pH and P concentration on aging is the main reason for the influence on these parameters on the rates and extent of vivianite formation. Our findings demonstrate that FeS can be an effective iron source for vivianite formation in aquatic sediments when sulfide concentrations decrease due to, for example, changes in external forcing or microbial sulfide oxidation. Formation of vivianite from FeS as an Fe source can also open new perspectives in P recovery in water treatment, for example when Fe is added to digesters to bind H2S.

This is an essay that was a talk, which preceded a workshop that tried to make its participants experience the world as an interdependent environment generated by breath and sound and manifesting as a viral sphere. In this way it hoped to develop an embodied thinking, able to engage with the interdependent global and local challenges of today. The essay continues this intention and describes the relationality of current emergencies, outlining the connected reality between planetary and public health, scarcity of resources, consequent migratory pressures, growing population density, persecution, exclusion, violence and death. In response it acknowledges that the entanglements of these challenges necessitate the capacity to think and sense relationally. It proposes a transversal sound studies as the practice of a theory that generates the knowledge and sensibility of the world and of human and more-than-human beings and things with the world, as an entangled and responsible socio-geography that aims to know accountably from the connections and the in-between, generating a “response-able conviviality”: a being as being with, and an understanding of the inevitable contagion or contamination that this being with entails.

This text practices a philosophical voice that deviates from visuo-centric theory and the muteness of its language and instead sings a complex simultaneity of things and thoughts that burn through the walls of the discipline and illuminate the activities at the margins. This philosophical voice sings a refrain of “I,” which brings us back to bring us forward, surprising us in its renewal again and again. It is a body that is, as Samuel Beckett’s Not I, at once not I and I; an idiosyncratic subjectivity that carries its plural name in its mouth. In this way, it further diffracts the sonic possibility of counterfactual slices into simultaneous dimensionalities open to our gaze in the dark, when we have let go of a normative orientation and are able to see the image at its depth. Between text scores, Churten theory, Canto Cardenche, and the breath of a humpback whale, this voice tries not to theorise. It does not want to produce a philosophical message, supporting a “philosophism” which akin to “scientism” treats philosophy as a phenomenon unconnected to cultural values or location, gender or racial specificity. Instead, it aims to practice a philosophy that opens in song to its own anxiety of objectivity, its fear of a reflective centre, and performs a translucent marginality that generates the view of a plural world burning through a permeable skin.

Groundwater is a much safer and more dependable source of drinking water than surface water. However, natural (geogenic) hazardous elements can contaminate groundwater and lead to severe health problems in consumers. Arsenic concentrations exceeding the WHO drinking water guideline of 10 μg/L globally affect over 220 million people and can cause arsenicosis (skin lesions and cancers). Fluoride, while preventing caries at low concentrations, has detrimental effects when above the WHO drinking water guideline of 1.5 mg/L and puts several hundred million people at risk of dental and skeletal fluorosis. In this article, we report on the geochemistry and occurrence of arsenic and fluoride in groundwater and on the development of global and regional risk maps that help alert governments and water providers to take appropriate mitigation measures for the provision of safe drinking water. We then summarize research on the removal of arsenic and fluoride from drinking water, focusing on adapted technologies for water treatment. Finally, we discuss the applicability of various measures in a larger context and future challenges in reaching the goal of access to safe drinking water for all.

Abstract Iron(III)-precipitates formed by the oxidation of dissolved Fe(II) are important sorbents for major and trace elements in aquatic and terrestrial systems. Their reductive dissolution in turn may result in the release of associated elements. We examined the reductive dissolution kinetics of an environmentally relevant set of Fe(II)-derived arsenate-containing Fe(III)-precipitates whose structure as function of phosphate (P) and silicate (Si) content varied between poorly-crystalline lepidocrocite, amorphous Fe(III)-phosphate, and Si-containing ferrihydrite. The experiments were performed with 0.2–0.5 mM precipitate-Fe(III) using 10 mM Na-ascorbate as reductant, 5 mM bipyridine as Fe(II)-complexing ligand, and 10 mM MOPS/5 mM NaOH as pH 7.0 buffer. Times required for the dissolution of half of the precipitate (t50%) ranged from 1.5 to 39 h; spanning a factor 25 range. At loadings up to ~ 0.2 P/Fe (molar ratio), phosphate decreased the t50% of Si-free precipitates, probably by reducing the crystallinity of lepidocrocite. The reductive dissolution of Fe(III)-phosphates formed at higher P/Fe ratios was again slower, possibly due to P-inhibited ascorbate binding to precipitate-Fe(III). The slowest reductive dissolution was observed for P-free Si-ferrihydrite with ~ 0.1 Si/Fe, suggesting that silicate binding and polymerization may reduce surface accessibility. The inhibiting effect of Si was reduced by phosphate. Dried-resuspended precipitates dissolved 1.0 to 1.8-times more slowly than precipitates that were kept wet after synthesis, most probably because drying enhanced nanoparticle aggregation. Variations in the reductive dissolution kinetics of Fe(II) oxidation products as reported from this study should be taken into account when addressing the impact of such precipitates on the environmental cycling of co-transformed nutrients and contaminants.