There’s more to us than this: A qualitative study of Black young adults’ perceptions of media portrayals of HIV

The extent to which the targeted group attends to and is engaged by HIV/STI prevention messages is one component of effective health communication. Through an empirical examination of the cumulative perceptions of HIV/STI prevention media messages targeted to Black youth and young adults, this qualitative study privileges the voices of Black/ African American young adults as a group that is frequently targeted in HIV prevention campaigns. Semi-structured interviews with 23 Black/African American young adults yielded key themes that suggest barriers to effective health communication. Traditionally, health promotion has advocated for targeted messages as a means to increase risk perception and promote behavior change. For some study participants, the unintended consequences of this approach with HIV prevention included a perception that cumulatively media messages (1) portrayed HIV as a “Black disease; (2) blamed Black people for the HIV epidemic; and (3) fostered negative judgments about Black people. Participants described mixed feelings because they perceived that the messages simultaneously increased awareness for HIV prevention in the Black community as well as perpetuated stigma of the Black community. The findings challenge existing notions about targeting health communication particularly when focusing on stigmatized illnesses

TGF-beta signaling proteins and the Protein Ontology

The Protein Ontology (PRO) is designed as a formal and principled Open Biomedical Ontologies (OBO) Foundry ontology for proteins. The components of PRO extend from a classification of proteins on the basis of evolutionary relationships at the homeomorphic level to the representation of the multiple protein forms of a gene, including those resulting from alternative splicing, cleavage and/or posttranslational modifications. Focusing specifically on the TGF-beta signaling proteins, we describe the building, curation, usage and dissemination of PRO. PRO provides a framework for the formal representation of protein classes and protein forms in the OBO Foundry. It is designed to enable data retrieval and integration and machine reasoning at the molecular level of proteins, thereby facilitating cross-species comparisons, pathway analysis, disease modeling and the generation of new hypotheses

The reliability of 31P-MRS and NIRS measurements of spinal muscle function

This is the accepted, peer reviewed version of the article, which has been published in final form at doi: 10.1055/s-0034-1372639Phosphorous magnetic resonance spectroscopy (31P-MRS) and near-infra red spectroscopy (NIRS) provide methods for measuring spinal muscle function non-invasively but their reliability is not established. The aim of this study was assess the reliability (ICC) and error magnitude (CV%) of measurements of muscle phosphocreatine (PCr), tissue oxygenation index (TOI), and muscle deoxyhaemoglobin (HHb) acquired during fatigue and in recovery after 24 s exercise in the lumbar muscles. Ten healthy participants (19-25 years, 5 male, 5 female) performed exercise that involved holding the upper body unsupported in slight extension until fatigue and then, after 30 minutes of rest, for repeated bursts of 24 seconds. ICCs indicated good to excellent reliability of baseline measures (TOI:0.75) and of amplitude changes during fatigue (PCr:0.73, TOI:0.69, HHb:0.80), and recovery (HHb:0.96) and poor to fair reliability for time constants describing rates of change during fatigue (PCr:0.11) and recovery (PCr:0.31, HHb:0.47). CV% indicated varying relative measurement error across baseline measures (TOI:5%), amplitude changes during fatigue (PCr:7%, TOI:38%, HHb:31%) and recovery (HHb:31%), and in time constants for fatigue (PCr:39%) and recovery (PCr:20%, HHb:37%). The results suggested that reliability would be sufficient for future studies on spinal muscle function but that measurement error may be too large to evaluate individuals.NIHREPSR

Reviving WHAAM! a comparative evaluation of cleaning systems for the conservation treatment of Roy Lichtenstein's iconic painting

Abstract Roy Lichtenstein's Whaam! (1963) is an iconic artwork in Tate's collection (T00897). Over the past 50 years, the painting has been on almost continuous display and had accrued a layer of deposited soiling, which resulted in the dampening of Lichtenstein's vibrant colours and the masking of numerous subtleties across the painting surface. This paper outlines the design and execution of an optimal soiling removal strategy for this challenging work; utilising collaborative, practice-based research. The conservation treatment employed was derived through an iterative process that reflected and supported the conservation decision-making process. The research strands included: technical and art historical investigations to determine the materials and construction of Whaam! and to define the aims of the conservation treatment; preparation of accelerated aged and artificially soiled test (mock-up) paint samples based on contemporary equivalent materials and a comparative evaluation of a range of established and novel soil-removal systems, followed by further tailoring for use on the work of art. The range of cleaning systems evaluated included free-solvents, gels and emulsifiers; which were documented using star diagrams, digital microscopy and infrared spectroscopy. After a rigorous process of assessment and refinement, the strategy taken forward to Whaam! included the use of a polyvinyl alcohol-based polymeric hydrogel (Nanorestore Gel® Peggy 6), uploaded with tailored aqueous solutions. This process facilitated a low risk, controlled and even-removal of the soiling layer, enabling the successful treatment of this sensitive painting for the first time in the painting's history

Reflections on equality, diversity and gender at the end of a media studies headship

This article reflects, from a feminist perspective, on a five-year period as Head of a School of Media. It considers the position of media studies within the new academic capitalism, and the re-masculinisation of the university that this has produced. It considers strategies employed by the field to stake its own claim to that masculinisation, in particular the embrace of ‘the digital’. Finally it describes the challenges this posed for the author, and tactics employed in dealing with them

TGF-beta signaling proteins and the Protein Ontology

BACKGROUND: The Protein Ontology (PRO) is designed as a formal and principled Open Biomedical Ontologies (OBO) Foundry ontology for proteins. The components of PRO extend from a classification of proteins on the basis of evolutionary relationships at the homeomorphic level to the representation of the multiple protein forms of a gene, including those resulting from alternative splicing, cleavage and/or post-translational modifications. Focusing specifically on the TGF-beta signaling proteins, we describe the building, curation, usage and dissemination of PRO. RESULTS: PRO is manually curated on the basis of PrePRO, an automatically generated file with content derived from standard protein data sources. Manual curation ensures that the treatment of the protein classes and the internal and external relationships conform to the PRO framework. The current release of PRO is based upon experimental data from mouse and human proteins wherein equivalent protein forms are represented by single terms. In addition to the PRO ontology, the annotation of PRO terms is released as a separate PRO association file, which contains, for each given PRO term, an annotation from the experimentally characterized sub-types as well as the corresponding database identifiers and sequence coordinates. The annotations are added in the form of relationship to other ontologies. Whenever possible, equivalent forms in other species are listed to facilitate cross-species comparison. Splice and allelic variants, gene fusion products and modified protein forms are all represented as entities in the ontology. Therefore, PRO provides for the representation of protein entities and a resource for describing the associated data. This makes PRO useful both for proteomics studies where isoforms and modified forms must be differentiated, and for studies of biological pathways, where representations need to take account of the different ways in which the cascade of events may depend on specific protein modifications. CONCLUSION: PRO provides a framework for the formal representation of protein classes and protein forms in the OBO Foundry. It is designed to enable data retrieval and integration and machine reasoning at the molecular level of proteins, thereby facilitating cross-species comparisons, pathway analysis, disease modeling and the generation of new hypotheses