Re-thinking residential mobility

While researchers are increasingly re-conceptualizing international migration, far less attention has been devoted to re-thinking short-distance residential mobility and immobility. In this paper we harness the life course approach to propose a new conceptual framework for residential mobility research. We contend that residential mobility and immobility should be re-conceptualized as relational practices that link lives through time and space while connecting people to structural conditions. Re-thinking and re-assessing residential mobility by exploiting new developments in longitudinal analysis will allow geographers to understand, critique and address pressing societal challenges

Ocean acidification and hypoxia alter organic carbon fluxes in marine soft sediments

Anthropogenic stressors can alter the structure and functioning of infaunal communities, which are key drivers of the carbon cycle in marine soft sediments. Nonetheless, the compounded effects of anthropogenic stressors on carbon fluxes in soft benthic systems remain largely unknown. Here, we investigated the cumulative effects of ocean acidification (OA) and hypoxia on the organic carbon fate in marine sediments, through a mesocosm experiment. Isotopically labelled macroalgal detritus (13C) was used as a tracer to assess carbon incorporation in faunal tissue and in sediments under different experimental conditions. In addition, labelled macroalgae (13C), previously exposed to elevated CO2, were also used to assess the organic carbon uptake by fauna and sediments, when both sources and consumers were exposed to elevated CO2. At elevated CO2, infauna increased the uptake of carbon, likely as compensatory response to the higher energetic costs faced under adverse environmental conditions. By contrast, there was no increase in carbon uptake by fauna exposed to both stressors in combination, indicating that even a short‐term hypoxic event may weaken the ability of marine invertebrates to withstand elevated CO2 conditions. In addition, both hypoxia and elevated CO2 increased organic carbon burial in the sediment, potentially affecting sediment biogeochemical processes. Since hypoxia and OA are predicted to increase in the face of climate change, our results suggest that local reduction of hypoxic events may mitigate the impacts of global climate change on marine soft‐sediment systems

The Existence of a Hypnotic State Revealed by Eye Movements

Hypnosis has had a long and controversial history in psychology, psychiatry and neurology, but the basic nature of hypnotic phenomena still remains unclear. Different theoretical approaches disagree as to whether or not hypnosis may involve an altered mental state. So far, a hypnotic state has never been convincingly demonstrated, if the criteria for the state are that it involves some objectively measurable and replicable behavioural or physiological phenomena that cannot be faked or simulated by non-hypnotized control subjects. We present a detailed case study of a highly hypnotizable subject who reliably shows a range of changes in both automatic and volitional eye movements when given a hypnotic induction. These changes correspond well with the phenomenon referred to as the “trance stare” in the hypnosis literature. Our results show that this ‘trance stare’ is associated with large and objective changes in the optokinetic reflex, the pupillary reflex and programming a saccade to a single target. Control subjects could not imitate these changes voluntarily. For the majority of people, hypnotic induction brings about states resembling normal focused attention or mental imagery. Our data nevertheless highlight that in some cases hypnosis may involve a special state, which qualitatively differs from the normal state of consciousness

Mapping the links between gender, status and genre in Shakespeare’s plays

The AHRC-funded Encyclopedia of Shakespeare’s Language (ESL) project has produced a resource allowing users to explore Shakespeare’s plays in a variety of (semi-automatic) ways, via a web-based corpus query processor interface (CQPweb) hosted by Lancaster University. It enables users, for example, to interrogate a corpus of Shakespeare’s plays using queries restricted by dramatic genre, gender and/or social status of characters, and to target and explore the language of the plays not only at the word level, but also at the grammatical and semantic levels (by querying part-of-speech or semantic categories). Using keyword techniques, we examine how female and male language varies in general, by social status (high or low), and by genre (comedy, history and tragedy). Among our findings, we note differences in the use of pronouns and references to male authority (female overuse of ‘I’ and ‘husband’; male overuse of ‘we’ and ‘king’). We also observe that high-status males in comedies (as opposed to histories and tragedies) are characterised by polite requests (‘please you’) and sharp-minded ‘wit’. Despite many similarities between female and male usage of gendered forms of language (‘woman’), male characters alone use terms such as ‘womanish’ in a disparaging way

Organizational factors and depression management in community-based primary care settings

Abstract Background Evidence-based quality improvement models for depression have not been fully implemented in routine primary care settings. To date, few studies have examined the organizational factors associated with depression management in real-world primary care practice. To successfully implement quality improvement models for depression, there must be a better understanding of the relevant organizational structure and processes of the primary care setting. The objective of this study is to describe these organizational features of routine primary care practice, and the organization of depression care, using survey questions derived from an evidence-based framework. Methods We used this framework to implement a survey of 27 practices comprised of 49 unique offices within a large primary care practice network in western Pennsylvania. Survey questions addressed practice structure (e.g., human resources, leadership, information technology (IT) infrastructure, and external incentives) and process features (e.g., staff performance, degree of integrated depression care, and IT performance). Results The results of our survey demonstrated substantial variation across the practice network of organizational factors pertinent to implementation of evidence-based depression management. Notably, quality improvement capability and IT infrastructure were widespread, but specific application to depression care differed between practices, as did coordination and communication tasks surrounding depression treatment. Conclusions The primary care practices in the network that we surveyed are at differing stages in their organization and implementation of evidence-based depression management. Practical surveys such as this may serve to better direct implementation of these quality improvement strategies for depression by improving understanding of the organizational barriers and facilitators that exist within both practices and practice networks. In addition, survey information can inform efforts of individual primary care practices in customizing intervention strategies to improve depression management.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/78269/1/1748-5908-4-84.xmlhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/78269/2/1748-5908-4-84-S1.PDFhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/78269/3/1748-5908-4-84.pdfPeer Reviewe

Re-thinking residential mobility: Linking lives through time and space.

This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from SAGE via http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0309132515575417While researchers are increasingly re-conceptualizing international migration, far less attention has been devoted to re-thinking short-distance residential mobility and immobility. In this paper we harness the life course approach to propose a new conceptual framework for residential mobility research. We contend that residential mobility and immobility should be re-conceptualized as relational practices that link lives through time and space while connecting people to structural conditions. Re-thinking and re-assessing residential mobility by exploiting new developments in longitudinal analysis will allow geographers to understand, critique and address pressing societal challenges.Rory Coulter’s work on this paper was partly supported by an Economic and Social Research Council grant [ES/L009498/1]. Maarten van Ham’s contribution was supported by funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007–2013) / ERC Grant Agreement n. 615159 (ERC Consolidator Grant DEPRIVEDHOODS, Socio-spatial inequality, deprived neighbourhoods, and neighbourhood effects); and from the Marie Curie programme under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007–2013) / Career Integration Grant no. PCIG10-GA-2011-303728 (CIG Grant NBHCHOICE, Neighbourhood choice, neighbourhood sorting, and neighbourhood effects). Allan Findlay’s work was supported by an Economic and Social Research Council grant [ES/K007394/1]

Determinants of Dwell Time in Visual Search: Similarity or Perceptual Difficulty?

The present study examined the factors that determine the dwell times in a visual search task, that is, the duration the gaze remains fixated on an object. It has been suggested that an item’s similarity to the search target should be an important determiner of dwell times, because dwell times are taken to reflect the time needed to reject the item as a distractor, and such discriminations are supposed to be harder the more similar an item is to the search target. In line with this similarity view, a previous study shows that, in search for a target ring of thin line-width, dwell times on thin linewidth Landolt C’s distractors were longer than dwell times on Landolt C’s with thick or medium linewidth. However, dwell times may have been longer on thin Landolt C’s because the thin line-width made it harder to detect whether the stimuli had a gap or not. Thus, it is an open question whether dwell times on thin line-width distractors were longer because they were similar to the target or because the perceptual decision was more difficult. The present study de-coupled similarity from perceptual difficulty, by measuring dwell times on thin, medium and thick line-width distractors when the target had thin, medium or thick line-width. The results showed that dwell times were longer on target-similar than target-dissimilar stimuli across all target conditions and regardless of the line-width. It is concluded that prior findings of longer dwell times on thin linewidth-distractors can clearly be attributed to target similarity. As will be discussed towards the end, the finding of similarity effects on dwell times has important implications for current theories of visual search and eye movement control

Pre-Operative Risk Factors Predict Post-Operative Respiratory Failure after Liver Transplantation

OBJECTIVE: Post-operative pulmonary complications significantly affect patient survival rates, but there is still no conclusive evidence regarding the effect of post-operative respiratory failure after liver transplantation on patient prognosis. This study aimed to predict the risk factors for post-operative respiratory failure (PRF) after liver transplantation and the impact on short-term survival rates. DESIGN: The retrospective observational cohort study was conducted in a twelve-bed adult surgical intensive care unit in northern Taiwan. The medical records of 147 liver transplant patients were reviewed from September 2002 to July 2007. Sixty-two experienced post-operative respiratory failure while the remaining 85 patients did not. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: Gender, age, etiology, disease history, pre-operative ventilator use, molecular adsorbent re-circulating system (MARS) use, source of organ transplantation, model for end-stage liver disease score (MELD) and Child-Turcotte-Pugh score calculated immediately before surgery were assessed for the two groups. The length of the intensive care unit stay, admission duration, and mortality within 30 days, 3 months, and 1 year were also evaluated. Using a logistic regression model, post-operative respiratory failure correlated with diabetes mellitus prior to liver transplantation, pre-operative impaired renal function, pre-operative ventilator use, pre-operative MARS use and deceased donor source of organ transplantation (p<0.05). Once liver transplant patients developed PRF, their length of ICU stay and admission duration were prolonged, significantly increasing their mortality and morbidity (p<0.001). CONCLUSIONS: The predictive pre-operative risk factors significantly influenced the occurrence of post-operative respiratory failure after liver transplantation

Differential clonal evolution in oesophageal cancers in response to neo-adjuvant chemotherapy

How chemotherapy affects carcinoma genomes is largely unknown. Here we report whole-exome and deep sequencing of 30 paired oesophageal adenocarcinomas sampled before and after neo-adjuvant chemotherapy. Most, but not all, good responders pass through genetic bottlenecks, a feature associated with higher mutation burden pre-treatment. Some poor responders pass through bottlenecks, but re-grow by the time of surgical resection, suggesting a missed therapeutic opportunity. Cancers often show major changes in driver mutation presence or frequency after treatment, owing to outgrowth persistence or loss of sub-clones, copy number changes, polyclonality and/or spatial genetic heterogeneity. Post-therapy mutation spectrum shifts are also common, particularly C&gt;A and TT&gt;CT changes in good responders or bottleneckers. Post-treatment samples may also acquire mutations in known cancer driver genes (for example, SF3B1, TAF1 and CCND2) that are absent from the paired pre-treatment sample. Neo-adjuvant chemotherapy can rapidly and profoundly affect the oesophageal adenocarcinoma genome. Monitoring molecular changes during treatment may be clinically useful