Fashion statements: communication and culture

Modern, western people are accustomed to the way in which the clothes they wear begin their lives as ‘trendy’ or ‘stylish’, but then start to age, become ‘stale’ and are no longer trendy or stylish. We are used to the idea that clothes come, or go, in and out of fashion and the English phrase ‘old hat’ would appear to describe a well-understood drift from literal to metaphorical usage. Thus, fashion, the idea that what people wear may or may not be the current or latest style, is clearly understood in modern and western cultures. Also, modern, western people are familiar with the idea that the clothes they and others wear are meaningful. Clothes are selected for purchase, and for wearing, according to the meaning we believe them to have, or the messages we believe them to send. A novelty tie or a strappy frock worn to a job interview in the city, for example, ‘sends out all the wrong messages’. The English phrase again appears to give away an entire culture’s implicit understanding of fashion’s communicative function. Both fashion itself and the communicative function of fashion are perceived as being unproblematic and well-understood in modern western cultures, as evidenced by the title of the current volume (...continues)

Jacques Derrida

A clear and concise survey of some of the most significant writers on photography who have played a major part in defining and influencing our understanding of the medium. It provides a succinct overview of writing on photography from a diverse range of disciplines and perspectives and examines the shifting perception of the medium over the course of its 170 year history

The body, the garment and the Kantian sublime in fashion

This article concerns the ways in which Kant’s account of the sublime may be used to explain fashion. It uses examples from designer Rei Kawakubo and theorist Elizabeth Wilson to introduce the argument that our everyday experiences of the body, the garment and fashion are actually experiences of the sublime. In order to make this argument, the article places these experiences in a western philosophical tradition by considering Hegel’s early-nineteenth-century account of the relation between the garment and the body. The article then argues that Roland Barthes’s account of Erte’s alphabet-drawings is a critique of Hegel and Wilson, and that it presupposes Kant’s idea of the sublime. The article provides an account of Kant’s sublime in the Critique of Judgement, written in 1790, relating it back to his account of the schematism in the Critique of Pure Reason (written in 1781). The conclusion is that the experience of the sublime, of the inadequacy that is necessarily involved in the application of concepts to intuitions or in the subsumption of intuitions under concepts, is found in all experience and thus that fashion is always constituted by the experience of the sublime

In Touch: Textiles and Communication

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Adapting oceanic grazing techniques for use in high productivity aquatic ecosystems

Grazing of phytoplankton by zooplankton plays a crucial role in carbon and nutrient cycling in aquatic systems. While oceanic grazing rates are well studied, grazing rates in more productive freshwater and estuarine systems are less well characterized. This thesis investigates grazing rates across the freshwater-to-marine continuum using dilution grazing assays. By investigating size fractions of dilution-based mortality using three different diluent media (0.7 µm and 0.2 µm filtered site water and major ion solutions (MIS) in a series of dilution grazing bioassays run in lake, river, estuarine (riverine and lagoonal), and oceanic shelf systems), this thesis research evaluated the optimal diluent for use across the freshwater-to-marine continuum. As MIS does not include natural vitamins that would be in filtered water, B vitamin effects on grazing rate determination were also investigated. Results show that the dilution grazing method can be applied across the freshwater-to-marine continuum and its productivity gradients.Master of Scienc

Association of tiered restrictions and a second lockdown with COVID-19 deaths and hospital admissions in England: a modelling study.

BACKGROUND: A second wave of COVID-19 cases in autumn, 2020, in England led to localised, tiered restrictions (so-called alert levels) and, subsequently, a second national lockdown. We examined the impact of these tiered restrictions, and alternatives for lockdown stringency, timing, and duration, on severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) transmission and hospital admissions and deaths from COVID-19. METHODS: We fit an age-structured mathematical model of SARS-CoV-2 transmission to data on hospital admissions and hospital bed occupancy (ISARIC4C/COVID-19 Clinical Information Network, National Health Service [NHS] England), seroprevalence (Office for National Statistics, UK Biobank, REACT-2 study), virology (REACT-1 study), and deaths (Public Health England) across the seven NHS England regions from March 1, to Oct 13, 2020. We analysed mobility (Google Community Mobility) and social contact (CoMix study) data to estimate the effect of tiered restrictions implemented in England, and of lockdowns implemented in Northern Ireland and Wales, in October, 2020, and projected epidemiological scenarios for England up to March 31, 2021. FINDINGS: We estimated a reduction in the effective reproduction number (Rt) of 2% (95% credible interval [CrI] 0-4) for tier 2, 10% (6-14) for tier 3, 35% (30-41) for a Northern Ireland-stringency lockdown with schools closed, and 44% (37-49) for a Wales-stringency lockdown with schools closed. From Oct 1, 2020, to March 31, 2021, a projected COVID-19 epidemic without tiered restrictions or lockdown results in 280 000 (95% projection interval 274 000-287 000) hospital admissions and 58 500 (55 800-61 100) deaths. Tiered restrictions would reduce hospital admissions to 238 000 (231 000-245 000) and deaths to 48 600 (46 400-50 700). From Nov 5, 2020, a 4-week Wales-type lockdown with schools remaining open-similar to the lockdown measures announced in England in November, 2020-was projected to further reduce hospital admissions to 186 000 (179 000-193 000) and deaths to 36 800 (34 900-38 800). Closing schools was projected to further reduce hospital admissions to 157 000 (152 000-163 000) and deaths to 30 300 (29 000-31 900). A projected lockdown of greater than 4 weeks would reduce deaths but would bring diminishing returns in reducing peak pressure on hospital services. An earlier lockdown would have reduced deaths and hospitalisations in the short term, but would lead to a faster resurgence in cases after January, 2021. In a post-hoc analysis, we estimated that the second lockdown in England (Nov 5-Dec 2) reduced Rt by 22% (95% CrI 15-29), rather than the 32% (25-39) reduction estimated for a Wales-stringency lockdown with schools open. INTERPRETATION: Lockdown measures outperform less stringent restrictions in reducing cumulative deaths. We projected that the lockdown policy announced to commence in England on Nov 5, with a similar stringency to the lockdown adopted in Wales, would reduce pressure on the health service and would be well timed to suppress deaths over the winter period, while allowing schools to remain open. Following completion of the analysis, we analysed new data from November, 2020, and found that despite similarities in policy, the second lockdown in England had a smaller impact on behaviour than did the second lockdown in Wales, resulting in more deaths and hospitalisations than we originally projected when focusing on a Wales-stringency scenario for the lockdown. FUNDING: Horizon 2020, UK Medical Research Council, and the National Institute for Health Research

DNA melting by RNA polymerase at the T7A1 promoter precedes the rate-limiting step at 37°C and results in the accumulation of an off-pathway intermediate

The formation of a transcriptionally active complex by RNA polymerase involves a series of short-lived structural intermediates where protein conformational changes are coupled to DNA wrapping and melting. We have used time-resolved KMnO4 and hydroxyl-radical X-ray footprinting to directly probe conformational signatures of these complexes at the T7A1 promoter. Here we demonstrate that DNA melting from m12 to m4 precedes the rate-limiting step in the pathway and takes place prior to the formation of full downstream contacts. In addition, on the wild-type promoter, we can detect the accumulation of a stable off-pathway intermediate that results from the absence of sequence-specific contacts with the melted non-consensus –10 region. Finally, the comparison of the results obtained at 37°C with those at 20°C reveals significant differences in the structure of the intermediates resulting in a different pathway for the formation of a transcriptionally active complex

Web-based self-management support for people with type 2 diabetes (HeLP-Diabetes):randomised controlled trial in English primary care

Objective: To determine the effectiveness of a web-based self-management programme for people with type 2 diabetes in improving glycaemic control and reducing diabetes-related distress. Methods Design: Individually randomised two-arm controlled trial Setting: 21 General Practices in England Participants: Adults aged 18 or over with a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes registered with participating general practices Intervention and comparator: Usual care plus either HeLP-Diabetes, an interactive, theoretically informed, web-based self-management programme or a simple, text-based website containing basic information only. Outcomes and data collection: Joint primary outcomes were glycated haemoglobin (HbA1c) and diabetes-related distress, measured by the Problem Areas in Diabetes (PAID) scale, collected at 3 and 12 months after randomisation, with 12 months the primary outcome point. Research nurses, blind to allocation collected clinical data; participants completed self-report questionnaires online. Analysis: The analysis compared groups as randomised (intention to treat) using a linear mixed effects model, adjusted for baseline data with multiple imputation of missing values. Results Of the 374 participants randomised between September 2013 and December 2014, 185 were allocated to the intervention and 189 to the control. Final (12 month) follow up data for HbA1c were available for 318 (85%) and for PAID 337 (90%) of participants. Of these, 291 (78%) and 321 (86%) responses were recorded within the pre-defined “window” of 10-14 months. Participants in the intervention group had lower HbA1c than those in the control (mean difference -0.24%; 95% Confidence Interval -0.44 to -0.049; p=0.014). There was no significant overall difference between groups in the mean PAID score (p=0.21), but pre-specified subgroup analysis of participants who had had diabetes for less than 7 years showed a beneficial impact of the intervention in this group (p = 0.004). There were no reported harms. Conclusions Access to HeLP-Diabetes improved glycaemic control over 12 months

Decline of Leach’s Storm Petrels Hydrobates leucorhous at the largest colonies in the northeast Atlantic

Leach’s Storm Petrel Hydrobates leucorhous has undergone substantial population declines at North Atlantic colonies over recent decades, but censusing the species is challenging because it nests in burrows and is only active at colonies at night. Acoustic playback surveys allow birds present in nest sites to be detected when they respond to recordings of vocalisations. However, not all birds respond to playback on every occasion, response rate is likely to decline with increasing distance between the bird and the playback location, and the observer may not detect all responses. As a result, various analysis methods have been developed to measure and correct for these imperfect response and detection probabilities. We applied two classes of methods (calibration plot and hierarchical distance sampling) to acoustic survey data from the two largest colonies of breeding Leach’s Storm Petrels in the northeast Atlantic: the St Kilda archipelago off the coast of northwest Scotland, and the island of Elliðaey in the Vestmannaeyjar archipelago off the southwest of Iceland. Our results indicate an overall decline of 68% for the St Kilda archipelago between 2000 and 2019, with a current best estimate of ~8,900 (95% CI: 7,800–10,100) pairs. The population on Elliðaey appears to have declined by 40 –49% between 1991 and 2018, with a current best estimate of ~5,400 (95% CI: 4,300–6,700) pairs. We also discuss the relative efficiency and precision of the two survey methods

Decline of Leach’s Storm Petrels Hydrobates leucorhous at the largest colonies in the northeast Atlantic

Leach’s Storm Petrel Hydrobates leucorhous has undergone substantial population declines at North Atlantic colonies over recent decades, but censusing the species is challenging because it nests in burrows and is only active at colonies at night. Acoustic playback surveys allow birds present in nest sites to be detected when they respond to recordings of vocalisations. However, not all birds respond to playback on every occasion, response rate is likely to decline with increasing distance between the bird and the playback location, and the observer may not detect all responses. As a result, various analysis methods have been developed to measure and correct for these imperfect response and detection probabilities. We applied two classes of methods (calibration plot and hierarchical distance sampling) to acoustic survey data from the two largest colonies of breeding Leach’s Storm Petrels in the northeast Atlantic: the St Kilda archipelago off the coast of northwest Scotland, and the island of Elliðaey in the Vestmannaeyjar archipelago off the southwest of Iceland. Our results indicate an overall decline of 68% for the St Kilda archipelago between 2000 and 2019, with a current best estimate of ~8,900 (95% CI: 7,800–10,100) pairs. The population on Elliðaey appears to have declined by 40 –49% between 1991 and 2018, with a current best estimate of ~5,400 (95% CI: 4,300–6,700) pairs. We also discuss the relative efficiency and precision of the two survey methods