Editorial—Culture and Cosmos : The Marriage of Astronomy and Culture, Volume 21

This volume of Culture and Cosmos draws together a selection of papers delivered at the 24th annual conference of the European Society for Astronomy in Culture (SEAC). The conference, titled \u27The Marriage of Astronomy and Culture: Theory and Method in the Study of Cultural Astronomy\u27, occurred between the 12th and the 16th September 2016 and was held at The Bath Literary and Scientific Institution (BRLSI), which has been hosting research endeavours since it foundation in 1824. SEAC 2016 combined history with the latest in twenty-first century developments and, for the very first time, was webcast to SEAC members who could not attend, in addition to students of the MA in Cultural Astronomy and Astrology at the Sophia Centre University of Wales Trinity Saint David. The papers in this volume are organized around archaeology, ethnography, and images. These are available to download at http://www.cultureandcosmos.org/issues/vol21.php. Other papers from this conference appear in issue 3.2 (2017) of the Journal of Skyscape Archaeology

Self-similar and charged spheres in the diffusion approximation

We study spherical, charged and self--similar distributions of matter in the diffusion approximation. We propose a simple, dynamic but physically meaningful solution. For such a solution we obtain a model in which the distribution becomes static and changes to dust. The collapse is halted with damped mass oscillations about the absolute value of the total charge.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figure

Bladder sensory desensitization decreases urinary urgency

Research articl

Impaired IFN-γ production and proliferation of NK cells in Multiple Sclerosis

NK cells are multicompetent lymphocytes of the innate immune system with a central role in host defense and immune regulation. Studies in experimental animal models of multiple sclerosis (MS) provided evidence for both pathologic and protective effects of NK cells. Humans harbor two functionally distinct NK-cell subsets exerting either predominantly cytotoxic (CD56dimCD16+) or immunoregulatory (CD56brightCD16−) functions. We analyzed these two subsets and their functions in the peripheral blood of untreated patients with relapsing-remitting MS compared with healthy blood donors. While ex vivo frequencies of CD56brightCD16− and CD56dimCD16+ NK cells were similar in patients and controls, we found that cytokine-driven in vitro accumulation and IFN-γ production of CD56brightCD16− NK cells but not of their CD56dimCD16+ counterparts were substantially diminished in MS. Impaired expansion of CD56brightCD16− NK cells was cell intrinsic because the observed effects could be reproduced with purified NK cells in an independent cohort of patients and controls. In contrast, cytolytic NK-cell activity toward the human erythromyeloblastoid leukemia cell line K562, the allogeneic CD4+ T cell line CEM and allogeneic primary CD4+ T-cell blasts was unchanged. Thus, characteristic functions of CD56brightCD16− NK cells, namely cytokine-induced NK cell expansion and IFN-γ production, are compromised in the NK cell compartment of MS patient

Monitoring Change in Child Mortality through Household Surveys

Background: Most low- and middle-income countries lack fully functional civil registration systems. Measures of under-five mortality are typically derived from periodic household surveys collecting detailed information from women on births and child deaths. However, such surveys are expensive and are not appropriate for monitoring short-term changes in child mortality. We explored and tested the validity of two new analysis methods for less-expensive summary histories of births and child deaths for such monitoring in five African countries. Methods and Findings: The first method we explored uses individual-level survey data on births and child deaths to impute full birth histories from an earlier survey onto summary histories from a more recent survey. The second method uses cohort changes between two surveys in the average number of children born and the number of children dead by single year of age to estimate under-five mortality for the inter-survey period. The first method produces acceptable annual estimates of under-five mortality for two out of six applications to available data sets; the second method produced an acceptable estimate in only one of five applications, though none of the applications used ideal data sets. Conclusions: The methods we tested were not able to produce consistently good quality estimates of annual under-five mortality from summary birth history data. The key problem we identified was not with the methods themselves, but with the underlying quality of the summary birth histories. If summary birth histories are to be included in general household surveys, considerable emphasis must be placed on quality control

COVID‑19 pneumonia imaging follow‑up: when and how? A proposition from ESTI and ESR

Abstract This document from the European Society of Thoracic Imaging (ESTI) and the European Society of Radiology (ESR) discusses the role of imaging in the long-term follow-up of COVID-19 patients, to define which patients may benefit from imaging, and what imaging modalities and protocols should be used. Insights into imaging features encountered on computed tomography (CT) scans and potential pitfalls are discussed and possible areas for future review and research are also included. Key Points • Post-COVID-19 pneumonia changes are mainly consistent with prior organizing pneumonia and are likely to disappear within 12 months of recovery from the acute infection in the majority of patients. • At present, with the longest series of follow-up examinations reported not exceeding 12 months, the development of persistent or progressive fibrosis in at least some individuals cannot yet be excluded. • Residual ground glass opacification may be associated with persisting bronchial dilatation and distortion, and might be termed “fibrotic-like changes” probably consistent with prior organizing pneumonia.publishedVersio

Towards a conceptualization of young people’s political engagement: a qualitative focus group study

Disenchantment with politics and low electoral turnout does not mean young people are not engaged with politics. However, our understanding of what being ‘politically engaged’ entails is somewhat challenged by the lack of consensus concerning the definition of this particular concept. Furthermore, existing conceptualizations of political engagement and participation (offline and online) often center on a limited set of political action items, failing to realize that a person can be politically engaged but not participate in political actions. Despite attempts to understand how young people themselves define politics, there are insufficient youth specific explanations of what being politically engaged means. In the present study, focus groups including young people (18–24 years) were conducted to examine understandings of political engagement. Participants were also asked to group a set of items they considered most accurately assessed this construct. Using the results, a conceptualization is proposed taking into account young people’s definitions of political engagement; this suggests that young people consider political engagement to have emotional and cognitive dimensions but also to be conceptually distinct from political participation