Of Tigers, Ghosts and Snakes: Children's Social Cognition in the Context of Conflict in Eastern Sri Lanka

This paper is based on field research with Tamil children and adolescents in the war-affected district of Batticaloa in eastern Sri Lanka. It examines young people's experiences of conflict in terms of their social worlds and their relations with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE), finding both to be permeated with ambiguity and dissonance. According to established understandings of social cognitive development this would suggest a significant threat to children's social perception, awareness and skills. Yet, it is found that these children and adolescents hold unexpectedly secure values of sociality. In light of this evidence, the paper raises various questions about the adequacy of current theoretical perspectives on social cognition from psychology and anthropology. In particular, it re-evaluates the common emphasis upon the critical importance of mutuality and durability in the socio-cultural dimension for effective cognitive development.

Children, War and World Disorder in the 21st Century: A Review of the Theories and the Literature on Children's Contributions to Armed Violence

Young populations, and particularly young males, have been attributed a proclivity to aggression and unrest that puts societies at risk. Theories about the dangers of a demographic 'youth bulge' inform public and policy debates about the predictors of violent conflict, as evidenced most recently in the World Bank's World Development Report for 2007. This paper evaluates the validity and utility of claims linking youth bulges to civil conflicts by reviewing different literatures concerning naturalist ideas of young humans' innate aggression and cognitive incompetence as well as environmentalist ideas of environmental stimuli, processes of socialisation, and the dialectical relationship of structural conditions and human agency. This review finds that the moral panic propagated by youth bulge theorists is too often based on only one form of influence on human development and action, whether an aspect of environment, personal experience, or individual traits. A more cogent analysis must integrate the highly complex and dynamic processes involved in cognition and behaviour and aim to develop theories that take account of the social power, ideational and structural forms, and emotional and cognitive processes that young people experience and draw on in times of war. Theories of causality that fail to account for this complexity obscure understanding of the many ways in which young people and conflict may be linked.

Why Does Child Trafficking Policy Need to be Reformed?:The Moral Economy of Children's Movement in Benin and Ethiopia

This paper challenges policy discourses that frame children's independent movement as intrinsically exploitative and threatening to their development. Drawing on research with children and adults in Benin and Ethiopia, two countries caught up in current efforts to eradicate child migration and the trafficking with which it has become associated, the paper critiques assumptions about children's vulnerability and physical dependence and contests the idea that appropriate childhood is necessarily fixed spatially within stable family structures. It, thus, situates children's migration within socio-cultural and economic contexts and suggests that it should be understood as part of a moral economy that confounds simplistic paradigms that conflate migration with trafficking. Policy suggestions are offered for how best to secure children's well-being through acknowledgement of the important relationship between mobility and child maturation

Tracing the consequences of child poverty

Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence. Using life course analysis from the Young Lives study of 12,000 children growing up in Ethiopia, India, Peru and Vietnam over the past 15 years, this book draws on evidence on two cohorts of children, aged from 1 to 15 and from 8 to 22. It examines how poverty affects children’s development in low and middle income countries, and how policy has been used to improve their lives, then goes on to show when key developmental differences occur. It uses new evidence to develop a framework of what matters most and when and outlines effective policy approaches to inform the no-one left behind Sustainable Development Goal agenda

Tracing the consequences of child poverty

Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence. Using life course analysis from the Young Lives study of 12,000 children growing up in Ethiopia, India, Peru and Vietnam over the past 15 years, this book draws on evidence on two cohorts of children, aged from 1 to 15 and from 8 to 22. It examines how poverty affects children’s development in low and middle income countries, and how policy has been used to improve their lives, then goes on to show when key developmental differences occur. It uses new evidence to develop a framework of what matters most and when and outlines effective policy approaches to inform the no-one left behind Sustainable Development Goal agenda

Optogenetics and deep brain stimulation neurotechnologies

Brain neural network is composed of densely packed, intricately wired neurons whose activity patterns ultimately give rise to every behavior, thought, or emotion that we experience. Over the past decade, a novel neurotechnique, optogenetics that combines light and genetic methods to control or monitor neural activity patterns, has proven to be revolutionary in understanding the functional role of specific neural circuits. We here briefly describe recent advance in optogenetics and compare optogenetics with deep brain stimulation technology that holds the promise for treating many neurological and psychiatric disorders

Face-selective electrostatic control of hydrothermal zinc oxide nanowire synthesis

Rational control over the morphology and the functional properties of inorganic nanostructures has been a long-standing goal in the development of bottom-up device fabrication processes. We report that the geometry of hydrothermally grown zinc oxide nanowires can be tuned from platelets to needles, covering more than three orders of magnitude in aspect ratio (~0.1–100). We introduce a classical thermodynamics-based model to explain the underlying growth inhibition mechanism by means of the competitive and face-selective electrostatic adsorption of non-zinc complex ions at alkaline conditions. The performance of these nanowires rivals that of vapour-phase-grown nanostructures and their low-temperature synthesis (<60 °C) is favourable to the integration and in situ fabrication of complex and polymer-supported devices. We illustrate this capability by fabricating an all-inorganic light-emitting diode in a polymeric microfluidic manifold. Our findings indicate that electrostatic interactions in aqueous crystal growth may be systematically manipulated to synthesize nanostructures and devices with enhanced structural control.National Science Foundation (U.S.) (MIT Center for Bits and Atoms (NSF CCR0122419))Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Media LaboratoryKorea Foundation for Advanced StudiesSamsung Electronics Co. (research internship)Harvard University. Society of FellowsWallace H. Coulter Foundation (Early Career Award)Brain & Behavior Research Foundation (Young Investigator Award)National Science Foundation (U.S.)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Director’s New Innovator Award

Effects of long-term moderate exercise and increase in number of daily steps on serum lipids in women: randomised controlled trial [ISRCTN21921919]

BACKGROUND: This study was designed to evaluate the effects of a 24-month period of moderate exercise on serum lipids in menopausal women. METHODS: The subjects (40–60 y) were randomly divided into an exercise group (n = 14) and a control group (n = 13). The women in the exercise group were asked to participate in a 90-minute physical education class once a week and to record their daily steps as measured by a pedometer for 24 months. RESULTS: Mean of daily steps was significantly higher in the exercise group from about 6,800 to over 8,500 steps (P < 0.01). In the control group, the number of daily steps ranged from 5,700 to 6,800 steps throughout the follow-up period. A significant interaction between the exercise group and the control group in the changes og total cholesterol (TC), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDLC) and TC : HDLC ratio could be observed (P < 0.05). By multiple regression analysis, the number of daily steps was related to HDLC and TC : HDLC levels after 24 months, and the changes in TC and HDLC concentrations. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that daily exercise as well as increasing the number of daily steps can improve the profile of serum lipids

Sequence of a complete chicken BG haplotype shows dynamic expansion and contraction of two gene lineages with particular expression patterns.

Many genes important in immunity are found as multigene families. The butyrophilin genes are members of the B7 family, playing diverse roles in co-regulation and perhaps in antigen presentation. In humans, a fixed number of butyrophilin genes are found in and around the major histocompatibility complex (MHC), and show striking association with particular autoimmune diseases. In chickens, BG genes encode homologues with somewhat different domain organisation. Only a few BG genes have been characterised, one involved in actin-myosin interaction in the intestinal brush border, and another implicated in resistance to viral diseases. We characterise all BG genes in B12 chickens, finding a multigene family organised as tandem repeats in the BG region outside the MHC, a single gene in the MHC (the BF-BL region), and another single gene on a different chromosome. There is a precise cell and tissue expression for each gene, but overall there are two kinds, those expressed by haemopoietic cells and those expressed in tissues (presumably non-haemopoietic cells), correlating with two different kinds of promoters and 5' untranslated regions (5'UTR). However, the multigene family in the BG region contains many hybrid genes, suggesting recombination and/or deletion as major evolutionary forces. We identify BG genes in the chicken whole genome shotgun sequence, as well as by comparison to other haplotypes by fibre fluorescence in situ hybridisation, confirming dynamic expansion and contraction within the BG region. Thus, the BG genes in chickens are undergoing much more rapid evolution compared to their homologues in mammals, for reasons yet to be understood.This is the final published version. It was originally published by PLOS in PLOS Genetics here: http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pgen.1004417

Identification and reconstruction of low-energy electrons in the ProtoDUNE-SP detector

Measurements of electrons from $\nu_e$ interactions are crucial for the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) neutrino oscillation program, as well as searches for physics beyond the standard model, supernova neutrino detection, and solar neutrino measurements. This article describes the selection and reconstruction of low-energy (Michel) electrons in the ProtoDUNE-SP detector. ProtoDUNE-SP is one of the prototypes for the DUNE far detector, built and operated at CERN as a charged particle test beam experiment. A sample of low-energy electrons produced by the decay of cosmic muons is selected with a purity of 95%. This sample is used to calibrate the low-energy electron energy scale with two techniques. An electron energy calibration based on a cosmic ray muon sample uses calibration constants derived from measured and simulated cosmic ray muon events. Another calibration technique makes use of the theoretically well-understood Michel electron energy spectrum to convert reconstructed charge to electron energy. In addition, the effects of detector response to low-energy electron energy scale and its resolution including readout electronics threshold effects are quantified. Finally, the relation between the theoretical and reconstructed low-energy electron energy spectrum is derived and the energy resolution is characterized. The low-energy electron selection presented here accounts for about 75% of the total electron deposited energy. After the addition of lost energy using a Monte Carlo simulation, the energy resolution improves from about 40% to 25% at 50~MeV. These results are used to validate the expected capabilities of the DUNE far detector to reconstruct low-energy electrons.Comment: 19 pages, 10 figure