Towards A Poetics of Representation in \u27London, Ontario\u27: or, Local and Universal Passages

This thesis engages a ‘poetics of representation’ of socio-culturally signifying uses of material(ized) elements within ‘London’, Ontario. My model of representational meaning combines Hall’s (1997) representational diagramming, and Hjelmslev’s glossematics, via Deleuze and Guattari (1987). I claim a theoretical primacy of intersubjectivity, using Lefebvre’s (1991) idea of trialectical space; de Certeau’s idea of ‘Concept-city’/‘operational city’ is applied to social-scientific research in ‘London’. I treat local artist Jack Chambers’s work (especially his film The Hart of London) as an ‘everyday’ representational poetics, linking the local and universal, while illustrating how one’s representational poetics may develop, viz., experience. I articulate this analysis, viz., theories of found footage films, to interrogate the materiality of the subject-matter of Chambers’s work. My analysis shifts within this local scope to ultimately problematize the colonial-capitalist model of space and locality (especially placenames) through a decolonizing analysis of the land-language nexus of Deshkan Ziibing (a.k.a., the ‘Thames River’)

Traditional and Non-Traditional Explanations of Food Consumption: The Case of Beef

Changes in the consumption of many foods, particularly beef, underlie the recent interest in isolating factors explaining these trends. This study focuses on three orienting explanations for differential beef consumption--microeconomic, social structural, and risk reduction perspectives. Consumption is defined by past and anticipated future utilization of beef, as well as present beef consumption relative to possible substitutes. While the microeconomic model is the most useful for isolating an individual\u27s beef intake, it is clear that consumption behavior is dependent on more than income and supply factors. Social structural and risk reduction perspectives increase by 83 percent the R² found through inclusion of economic variables alone. Wagner\u27s criteria for examining the complementarity of theoretical perspectives, including their similarity in predicting behavioral outcomes, was applied to the three consumption explanations. Disparate outcomes are observed in projections of future beef consumption using the microeconomic explanation relative to social structural and risk reduction perspectives

The Effects of Moral Obligations to Others and Others\u27 Influence on Veterinarians\u27 Attitudes toward and Recommendations to Utilize Antibiotics in Feedlot Cattle

Decisions to behave in particular ways depend on beliefs, social norms, perceived constraints, and attitudes. Recently, this perspective has been expanded to consider the role of moral obligations in such decisions. Largely ignored are the possible interrelations among moral obligations to significant others and significant others’ influences as they interact to affect decisions. This is of particular interest when a strong moral obligation toward a significant other is associated with strong behavioral expectations by that same significant other. We investigated the interrelations among moral obligations to, and behavioral expectations from, 11 types of significant others in the cattle feeding industry to determine their joint influences on attitudes toward antibiotic use and recommendations for antibiotics in feedlot cattle, drawing data from a random sample of feedlot veterinarians (n=103). Results show that subjective norms and a sense of moral obligation affect both the attitudes toward, and the recommendations for, the use of antibiotics in feedlot cattle. We found several significant interactions among subjective norms and moral obligations, which suggests that perceived moral obligations to peers, clients, and the regulatory norm-setting sector associated with the feedlot industry increase the impact of social pressures from those sectors on the recommendation to use antibiotics in acutely sick, chronically sick, and high-risk feedlot cattle

Availability of healthier options in traditional and nontraditional rural fast-food outlets

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Food prepared away from home has become increasingly popular to U.S. families, and may contribute to obesity. Sales have been dominated by fast food outlets, where meals are purchased for dining away from home or in the home. Although national chain affiliated fast-food outlets are considered the main source for fast food, fast foods are increasingly available in convenience stores and supermarkets/grocery stores. In rural areas, these nontraditional fast-food outlets may provide most of the opportunities for procurement of fast foods.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Using all traditional and nontraditio nal fast-food outlets identified in six counties in rural Texas, the type and number of regular and healthiermenu options were surveyed using on-site observation in all food venues that were primarily fast food, supermarket/grocery store, and convenience store and compared with 2005 Dietary Guidelines.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Traditional fast-food outlets represented 84 (41%) of the 205 opportunities for procurement of fast food; 109 (53.2%) were convenience stores and 12 (5.8%) supermarkets/grocery stores. Although a s imilar variety of regular breakfast and lunch/dinner entrées were available in traditional fast-food outlets and convenience stores, the variety of healthier breakfast and lunch/dinner entrées was significantly greater in fast food outlets. Compared with convenience stores, supermarkets/grocery stores provided a greater variety of regular and healthier entrées and lunch/dinner side dishes.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Convenience stores and supermarkets/grocery stores more than double the potential access to fast foods in this rural area than traditional fast-food outlets alone; however, traditional fast food outlets offer greater opportunity for healthier fast food options than convenience stores. A complete picture of fast food environment and the availability of healthier fast food options are essential to understand environmental influences on diet and health outcomes, and identify potential targets for intervention.</p

Making it real: engaging the consumer in sustainable fashion consumption

With moves towards improving sustainability within the retail sector and a growing requirement to conform to existing and emerging legislation, retailers from ostensibly disparate sectors face the common challenge of encouraging the reduced consumption of saleable products, while simultaneously maintaining their prosperity. Project TRANSFER was initiated to investigate how efforts to promote sustainable consumption within retail is received and responded to by consumers. Consumers and partners in the retail sector were engaged with throughout the research which culminated in three consumer facing outputs; a workshop (Put a Better Foot Forward, The Moor retail destination, Sheffield, UK), installation (Making in Real, pop-up T-Shirt factory, Trinity Shopping Centre, Leeds, UK) and animated short film (Nothing to Wear? available via YouTube and launched at the Sheffield Shorts film screening, Sheffield, UK). Each of the outputs were designed to allow consumers to reflect on their shopping and consumption habits in an engaging, stimulating environment. The key aim was to promote mindfulness and engage consumers in discussion and debate. All the output events were free for the general public to attend / participate in. This paper will discuss the role of engaging the consumer in sustainable fashion research and the impact of consumer facing outputs in education and awareness of sustainable issues in shopping and consumption

Genome-by-Trauma Exposure Interactions in Adults With Depression in the UK Biobank

IMPORTANCE: Self-reported trauma exposure has consistently been found to be a risk factor for major depressive disorder (MDD), and several studies have reported interactions with genetic liability. To date, most studies have examined gene-environment interactions with trauma exposure using genome-wide variants (single-nucleotide variations [SNVs]) or polygenic scores, both typically capturing less than 3% of phenotypic risk variance. OBJECTIVE: To reexamine genome-by-trauma interaction associations using genetic measures using all available genotyped data and thus, maximizing accounted variance. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: The UK Biobank study was conducted from April 2007 to May 1, 2016 (follow-up mental health questionnaire). The current study used available cross-sectional genomic and trauma exposure data from UK Biobank. Participants who completed the mental health questionnaire and had available genetic, trauma experience, depressive symptoms, and/or neuroticism information were included. Data were analyzed from April 1 to August 30, 2021. EXPOSURES: Trauma and genome-by-trauma exposure interactions. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES: Measures of self-reported depression, neuroticism, and trauma exposure with whole-genome SNV data are available from the UK Biobank study. Here, a mixed-model statistical approach using genetic, trauma exposure, and genome-by-trauma exposure interaction similarity matrices was used to explore sources of variation in depression and neuroticism. RESULTS: Analyses were conducted on 148 129 participants (mean [SD] age, 56 [7] years) of which 76 995 were female (52.0%). The study approach estimated the heritability (SE) of MDD to be approximately 0.160 (0.016). Subtypes of self-reported trauma exposure (catastrophic, adult, childhood, and full trauma) accounted for a significant proportion of the variance of MDD, with heritability (SE) ranging from 0.056 (0.013) to 0.176 (0.025). The proportion of MDD risk variance accounted for by significant genome-by-trauma interaction revealed estimates (SD) ranging from 0.074 (0.006) to 0.201 (0.009). Results from sex-specific analyses found genome-by-trauma interaction variance estimates approximately 5-fold greater for MDD in male participants (0.441 [0.018]) than in female participants (0.086 [0.009]). CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: This cross-sectional study used an approach combining all genome-wide SNV data when exploring genome-by-trauma interactions in individuals with MDD; findings suggest that such interactions were associated with depression manifestation. Genome-by-trauma interaction accounts for greater trait variance in male individuals, which points to potential differences in depression etiology between the sexes. The methodology used in this study can be extrapolated to other environmental factors to identify modifiable risk environments and at-risk groups to target with interventions

Application-based fault tolerance techniques for sparse matrix solvers

High-performance computing systems continue to increase in size in the quest for ever higher performance. The resulting increased electronic component count, coupled with the decrease in feature sizes of the silicon manufacturing processes used to build these components, may result in future exascale systems being more susceptible to soft errors caused by cosmic radiation than in current high-performance computing systems. Through the use of techniques such as hardware-based error-correcting codes and checkpoint-restart, many of these faults can be mitigated at the cost of increased hardware overhead, run-time, and energy consumption that can be as much as 10–20%. Some predictions expect these overheads to continue to grow over time. For extreme scale systems, these overheads will represent megawatts of power consumption and millions of dollars of additional hardware costs, which could potentially be avoided with more sophisticated fault-tolerance techniques. In this paper we present new software-based fault tolerance techniques that can be applied to one of the most important classes of software in high-performance computing: iterative sparse matrix solvers. Our new techniques enables us to exploit knowledge of the structure of sparse matrices in such a way as to improve the performance, energy efficiency, and fault tolerance of the overall solution. </jats:p

TRANSFER - Trading Approaches to Nurturing Sustainable consumption in Fashion and Energy Retail

ESRC funded this project explores how energy and fashion retailers face the common challenge of encouraging the reduced consumption of a saleable product in order to promote sustainability and conform to existing and emerging legislation, while simultaneously maintaining growth and financial prosperity. Energy retailers are experienced in such practices having been legally required to promote energy-efficiency to consumers for some years. This is paired with a growing recognition among fashion retailers of the need to engage in activities that help to promote sustainable consumption among consumers. An installation took place in Feb 2014 in Leeds, inviting the public to visit the TRANSFER factory and chat with a specialist team who asked a series of questions derived from their research about shopping habits. Answers to the questions directly informed how the participants T-Shirt was manufactured, from the colour to the pattern and print. At the end of the interview a personalised manufacturing docket was passed to a group of skilled makers and machinists. The interviewee was then be able to watch their T-Shirt being brought to life by the team. Each garment was a unique money can’t buy item to their exact specifications. Each shopper to visit the exhibition was invited to be photographed for the project and asked what shopping and style means to them. A project website has been created, as well as animations and films. In September 2015 the project film & animation was launched (http://www.project-transfer.com/public-engagement-impact/). Two further films sharing the process behind the project and the public response to the work were published in April 2016 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwtkLB-G-BQ and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBZ0B8QmGBc). Principal Investigator: Christopher Jones (Psychology, University of Sheffield) Co-Investigators: Lenny Koh (Management, Sheffield); Helen Storey, Alex McIntosh, Professor Dilys Williams (University of the Arts London