Talking about Hillsborough: ‘panic’ as discourse in survivors' accounts of the 1989 football stadium disaster

Popular representations of crowd behaviour in disasters are often characterised by irrationalist discourses, in particular ‘mass panic’ despite their rejection by current scientific research. This paper reports an analysis of four survivors' accounts of the 1989 Hillsborough disaster to investigate if and how they used the term ‘panic’. Reference to ‘panic’ occurred frequently, but more detailed analysis found that their accounts did not match the classic criteria for ‘mass panic’ (e.g. uncontrolled emotion and selfish behaviour). Indeed, participants referred to ‘orderly’ behaviour, and cooperation, even when they said the threat of death was present. ‘Panic’ was therefore being used as a description of events that was not consistent. A discourse analysis of usage suggests that participants used ‘panic’ not only to convey feelings of fear and distress but also to apportion culpability towards the actions of the police who they considered responsible for the tragedy (as indeed recent independent research has confirmed). It is concluded that the term ‘panic’ is so deeply embedded in popular discourse that people may use it even when they have reason to reject its irrationalist implications. Alternative discourses that emphasise collective resilience in disasters are suggested

TLR4 and NLRP3 Caspase 1- IL-1β- Axis are not Involved in Colon Ascendens Stent Peritonitis (Casp)-Associated Heart Disease

Hemodynamic collapse and myocardial dysfunction are among the major causes ofdeath in severe sepsis. The purpose of this study was to assess the role played by TLR4and by the NLRP3 inflammasome in the cardiac dysfunction that occurs after highgradepolymicrobial sepsis. We performed the colon ascendens stent peritonitis (CASP)surgery in Tlr4-/-, Nlrp3-/- and caspase-1-/- mice. We also assessed for the first time theelectrical heart function in the CASP model. The QJ interval was increased in wild-typeC57BL/6J mice after CASP when compared to sham controls, a result paralleled by anincrease in the cardiac action potential duration (APD). The decreases in ejectionfraction (EF), left-ventricle end diastolic volume (LVEDV), stroke volume, and cardiacoutput found after CASP were similar among all groups of mice. Similar heart responsewas found when Nlrp3-/- mice were submitted to high-grade CLP. Despite developingcardiac dysfunction similar to wild-types after CASP, Nlrp3-/- mice had reducedcirculating levels of IL-1β, IL-6 and TNF-α. Our results demonstrate that the geneticablation of Tlr4, Nlrp3, and caspase-1 does not prevent the cardiac dysfunction, despitepreventing the increase in pro-inflammatory cytokines, indicating that these are notfeasible targets to therapy in high-grade sepsis.Fil: López Alarcón, Maria Micaela. Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro; BrasilFil: Fernandez Ruocco, Maria Julieta. Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro; BrasilFil: Ferreira, Fabiano. Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro; BrasilFil: Paula Neto, Heitor A.. Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro; BrasilFil: Sepúlveda, Marisa Noemí. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - la Plata. Centro de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares ; ArgentinaFil: Vila Petroff, Martin Gerarde. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - la Plata. Centro de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares ; ArgentinaFil: Carvalho, Adriana Bastos. Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro; BrasilFil: Peroba Ramos, Isalira. Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro; BrasilFil: Branda, Hugo Justino. Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro; BrasilFil: Neto Paiva, Claudia. Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro; BrasilFil: Medei, Emiliano. Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro; Brasi

Critical assessment of methods of protein structure prediction: Progress and new directions in round XI

Modeling of protein structure from amino acid sequence now plays a major role in structural biology. Here we report new developments and progress from the CASP11 community experiment, assessing the state of the art in structure modeling. Notable points include the following: (1) New methods for predicting three dimensional contacts resulted in a few spectacular template free models in this CASP, whereas models based on sequence homology to proteins with experimental structure continue to be the most accurate. (2) Refinement of initial protein models, primarily using molecular dynamics related approaches, has now advanced to the point where the best methods can consistently (though slightly) improve nearly all models. (3) The use of relatively sparse NMR constraints dramatically improves the accuracy of models, and another type of sparse data, chemical crosslinking, introduced in this CASP, also shows promise for producing better models. (4) A new emphasis on modeling protein complexes, in collaboration with CAPRI, has produced interesting results, but also shows the need for more focus on this area. (5) Methods for estimating the accuracy of models have advanced to the point where they are of considerable practical use. (6) A first assessment demonstrates that models can sometimes successfully address biological questions that motivate experimental structure determination. (7) There is continuing progress in accuracy of modeling regions of structure not directly available by comparative modeling, while there is marginal or no progress in some other areas

Blind protein structure prediction using accelerated free-energy simulations.

We report a key proof of principle of a new acceleration method [Modeling Employing Limited Data (MELD)] for predicting protein structures by molecular dynamics simulation. It shows that such Boltzmann-satisfying techniques are now sufficiently fast and accurate to predict native protein structures in a limited test within the Critical Assessment of Structure Prediction (CASP) community-wide blind competition

On Relation between Constraint Answer Set Programming and Satisfiability Modulo Theories

Constraint answer set programming is a promising research direction that integrates answer set programming with constraint processing. It is often informally related to the field of satisfiability modulo theories. Yet, the exact formal link is obscured as the terminology and concepts used in these two research areas differ. In this paper, we connect these two research areas by uncovering the precise formal relation between them. We believe that this work will booster the cross-fertilization of the theoretical foundations and the existing solving methods in both areas. As a step in this direction we provide a translation from constraint answer set programs with integer linear constraints to satisfiability modulo linear integer arithmetic that paves the way to utilizing modern satisfiability modulo theories solvers for computing answer sets of constraint answer set programs.Comment: Under consideration in Theory and Practice of Logic Programming (TPLP

Introduction to Protein Structure Prediction

This chapter gives a graceful introduction to problem of protein three- dimensional structure prediction, and focuses on how to make structural sense out of a single input sequence with unknown structure, the 'query' or 'target' sequence. We give an overview of the different classes of modelling techniques, notably template-based and template free. We also discuss the way in which structural predictions are validated within the global com- munity, and elaborate on the extent to which predicted structures may be trusted and used in practice. Finally we discuss whether the concept of a sin- gle fold pertaining to a protein structure is sustainable given recent insights. In short, we conclude that the general protein three-dimensional structure prediction problem remains unsolved, especially if we desire quantitative predictions. However, if a homologous structural template is available in the PDB model or reasonable to high accuracy may be generated

Socioeconomic inequalities in the quality of life of older Europeans in different welfare regimes

Background: Whether socioeconomic inequalities in health and well-being persist into old age and are narrower in more generous welfare states is debated. We investigated the magnitude of socioeconomic inequality in the quality of life of Europeans in early old age and the influence of the welfare regime type on these relationships.<p></p> Methods: Data from individuals aged 50–75 years (n = 16 074) residing in 13 European countries were derived from Waves 2 and 3 of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe. Slope indices of inequality (SIIs) were calculated for the association between socioeconomic position and CASP-12, a measure of positive quality of life. Multilevel linear regression was used to assess the overall relationship between socioeconomic position and quality of life, using interaction terms to investigate the influence of the type of welfare regime (Southern, Scandinavian, Post-communist or Bismarckian).<p></p> Results: Socioeconomic inequalities in quality of life were narrowest in the Scandinavian and Bismarckian regimes, and were largest by measures of current wealth. Compared with the Scandinavian welfare regime, where narrow inequalities in quality of life by education level were found in both men (SII = 0.02, 95% CI: −1.09 to 1.13) and women (SII = 1.11, 95% CI: 0.05–2.17), the difference in quality of life between the least and most educated was particularly wide in Southern and Post-communist regimes.<p></p> Conclusion: Individuals in more generous welfare regimes experienced higher levels of quality of life, as well as narrower socioeconomic inequalities in quality of life.<p></p&gt

Exploiting Homology Information in Nontemplate Based Prediction of Protein Structures

In this paper we describe a novel strategy for exploring the conformational space of proteins and show that this leads to better models for proteins the structure of which is not amenable to template based methods. Our strategy is based on the assumption that the energy global minimum of homologous proteins must correspond to similar conformations, while the precise profiles of their energy landscape, and consequently the positions of the local minima, are likely to be different. In line with this hypothesis, we apply a replica exchange Monte Carlo simulation protocol that, rather than using different parameters for each parallel simulation, uses the sequences of homologous proteins. We show that our results are competitive with respect to alternative methods, including those producing the best model for each of the analyzed targets in the CASP10 (10th Critical Assessment of techniques for protein Structure Prediction) experiment free modeling category