Open Cultural Data: Discussing Digitisation

This post was contributed by symposium organizers PhD candidate Hannah Barton, Dr Joel McKim and Professor Martin Eve. The Open Cultural Data Symposium took place at Birkbeck on the 25 November 2016 and was co-sponsored by the Vasari Research Centre for Art and Technology and the Birkbeck Centre for Technology and Publishing

An Examination of Factors Impacting Executive Functioning in Children with Developmental Delays

Executive functioning abilities have been associated with important behaviors such as adaptive skills and cognitive abilities in children with and without disabilities. Executive functioning has primarily been measured as a strong predictor of later abilities in children with neurodevelopmental disabilities, such as attention-deficit/ hyperactivity disorder. However, little to no research exists on the role of executive functioning in the lives of children with developmental delays. Developmental delay refers to a broad descriptive category that encompasses a heterogeneous group of children who do and do not yet meet diagnostic criteria for a disability but experience delays in at least one developmental domain. This population presents with a wide range of ability levels and life outcomes. Children with developmental delays represent a common, but understudied, population. The current study explored the relation between child variables in preschool with executive functioning in middle childhood as assessed by direct and indirect (caregiver-reported) measures. Ninety-three children who were identified as having a developmental delay in preschool participated in this study. Seventy-nine of the children continued to meet criteria for a developmental delay or disability in middle childhood. Children completed direct measures of overall cognition, autism symptomology, and executive functioning while caregivers reported on their child’s adaptive behavior and executive functioning through an interview and behavior checklist. Child diagnostic classification and adaptive behavior in preschool did not predict later executive functioning, whether reported by parents or directly measured. The addition of variables measuring autism symptomology and overall cognition in middle childhood did not further explain the relation between child characteristics in preschool and executive functioning in middle childhood. However, caregiver-reported adaptive behavior in middle childhood accounted for a significant amount of the variance in caregiver-reported executive functioning. Future research should continue to examine the characteristics of children with developmental delays across different developmental stages. Additional examinations of the directionality of executive functioning and other key child behaviors, such as adaptive skills, are recommended

Proliferate! A techno-social history of the internet meme, from print to platforms

Internet memes are often understood as artefacts that have communicative utility within online discourses replete with legible aesthetic and affective attributes. Accordingly, valuable scholarly work has been done to understand how internet memes function as and within online social interactions. However, less attention has been paid to the ways in which the assemblage of technologies that comprise the internet mediate the social practices that produce internet memes. This thesis attends to this lesser-studied area by acknowledging that it is from the internet, as a particular but evolving assemblage of technologies, that the internet meme emerges. In so doing, I develop an analytic framework which recovers technics as co-constitutive of the social practices that bring forth internet memes. Thus, the techno-social of this thesis’ title references the supposition that internet memes are contingent on the irreducible relationship between the technics of the internet and the associated social practices they mediate. This claim is advanced by historicising the internet meme. In the first half of this thesis, I identify a selection of precursor “memes” that emerged from antecedent techno-social arrangements present in mid-to-late 20th century Anglo / U.S.-centric discourses. These accounts are mobilised to better clarify the specificity of the internet in mediating the techno-social practices that produce internet memes – a dynamic explored in the latter chapters of the thesis. A techno-social history of the meme therefore asserts that memes – internet or otherwise – have historically emerged and will continue to emerge across myriad techno-social milieu; with the historical framing functioning as an analytic device that draws into relief the ways in which the internet makes the internet meme distinct. Such an approach relies on a working definition of the meme, internet or otherwise. This is no simple task. As is recounted in this thesis’ introduction, the concept of “the meme” has been a contested one since the term’s emergence. Drawing on the work of Limor Shifman in particular, I assert that memes can only be differentiated from other forms of cultural production in the specific ways they proliferate – via social practices of reproduction and remix animated by the use of technical media. Notably, the recognition of proliferation as the meme’s defining feature undergirds this thesis’ analytical framing, since proliferation as a social practice, and the aesthetic and affective attributes of the memes that emerge, must be realised in ways contingent on technical affordances. The internet meme then, is recognisable as such since it proliferates, and is rendered distinct through being proliferated on the internet. Having provided terms of definition, Chapter One moves to historicise the proliferating meme. In this section, the manipulation of photographic imagery relating to the Kennedy Assassination – by professional media, governmental bodies, and private citizen researchers – is reconsidered as a form of meme. Articulated as such, this chapter goes on to detail the ways in which the aesthetics and utilities of the Kennedy Assassination “meme” were realised in ways contingent on the techno-social conditions from which it emerged. Chapter Two develops this perspective further in assessing the production of mid-to-late 20th century alt-media as a form of memetic social practice; afforded by the appropriation of reprographic technologies, which in turn supplied the artefactual output with distinct forms and functions, and cultural significances. Having made the case for mobilising a techno-social history of the meme in the preceding sections, Chapter Three moves this work “online”, and offers an account of how the early web of the ’90’s and ‘00’s brought forth its own meme forms, notably the spread of web-based urban legends. Chapter Four then turns to address examples of what might be widely understood as internet memes proper - the Image Macro and GIF formats – and accounts for the ways in which the social usage of the assemblage of digital media technologies that comprise the internet gave rise to and proliferated these meme forms. Finally, Chapter Five will reflexively consider what the framework established in the prior chapters reveals about the contemporaneous internet meme – a meme form that emerges from a platformised techno social milieu – a milieu I’ll argue is characterised by financialised media ubiquity. The framework developed in this thesis provides a lens not only for studying the distinct forms and functions of meme forms, with particular attention paid to the internet meme, but also accounts for the inevitable future evolution of memes as techno-social arrays continue to reconfigur

3,3′-Diethylthiatricarbocyanine Iodide: A Highly Sensitive Chiroptical Reporter of DNA Helicity and Sequence

Using UV-vis absorption and circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopies, we explored the binding interactions of 3,3′-diethylthiatricarbocyanine iodide (Cy7) with polynucleotides of different sequences and helicity. CD showed to be a very diagnostic tool giving different spectroscopic chiroptical signatures for all explored DNA sequences upon Cy7 binding. Cy7 was able to spectroscopically discriminate between the right handed B-DNA of poly(dG-dC)2 and its left handed Z-DNA counterpart induced by spermine or Co(III)hexamine via nearly opposite induced circular dichroic signal

Processing of alcohol-related health threat in at-risk drinkers: an online study of gender-related self-affirmation effects

Aims: Defensiveness in response to threatening health information related to excessive alcohol consumption prevents appropriate behaviour change. Alternatively, self-affirmation may improve cognitive-affective processing of threatening information, thus contributing to successful self-regulation. Methods: Effects of an online self-affirmation procedure were examined in at-risk university student drinkers. Participants were randomly assigned to a self-affirmation (writing about personally relevant values) or control task (writing about values relevant to another person) prior to presentation of alcohol-related threatening information. Assessment of prosocial feelings (e.g. ‘love’) after the task served as a manipulation check. Generic and personalized information regarding the link between alcohol use and cancer was presented, followed by assessment of perceived threat, message avoidance and derogation. Page dwell-times served as indirect indices of message engagement. Alcohol consumption and intention to drink less were assessed during the first online session and at 1-week and 1-month follow-up. Results: Although self-affirmation resulted in higher levels of prosocial feelings immediately after the task, there was no effect on behaviour in the self-affirmation group. Effects on intention were moderated by gender, such that men showed lower intention immediately after self-affirmation, but this increased at 1-week follow-up. Women's intention to reduce consumption in the self-affirmation group reduced over time. Trend-level effects on indices of derogation and message acceptance were in the predicted direction only in men. Conclusion: It is feasible to perform self-affirmation procedures in an online environment with at-risk drinkers. However, use of internet-based procedures with this population may give rise to (gender-dependent) effects that are substantially diluted compared with lab-based experiments

Burden of Human Papillomavirus among Haitian Immigrants in Miami, Florida: Community-Based Participatory Research in Action

Background. Haitian immigrant women residing in Little Haiti, a large ethnic enclave in Miami-Dade County, experience the highest cervical cancer incidence rates in South Florida. While this disparity primarily reflects lack of access to screening with cervical cytology, the burden of human papillomavirus (HPV) which causes virtually all cases of cervical cancer worldwide, varies by population and may contribute to excess rate of disease. Our study examined the prevalence of oncogenic and nononcogenic HPV types and risk factors for HPV infection in Little Haiti. Methods. As part of an ongoing community-based participatory research initiative, community health workers recruited study participants between 2007 and 2008, instructed women on self-collecting cervicovaginal specimens, and collected sociodemographic and healthcare access data. Results. Of the 242 women who contributed adequate specimens, the overall prevalence of HPV was 20.7%, with oncogenic HPV infections (13.2% of women) outnumbering nononcogenic infections (7.4%). Age-specific prevalence of oncogenic HPV was highest in women 18–30 years (38.9%) although the prevalence of oncogenic HPV does not appear to be elevated relative to the general U.S. population. The high prevalence of oncogenic types in women over 60 years may indicate a substantial number of persistent infections at high risk of progression to precancer

Escape the welcome cliché

The University of Surrey Library and Learning Support Services (LLSS) recognised an increasing need to transform its welcome, induction and orientation activities for students. Past activities have entailed delivering information to students in ways which may have led to information overload and lack of engagement by students with library services. The LLSS have been exploring innovative ways to welcome students to university, moving away from didactic approaches. This paper presents one such innovation produced among a series of activities during 2017/18, an educational escape room, informed by the work of Walsh (2017). This activity invited students to solve a series of themed puzzles in the escape room, introducing them to library services and information literacy (IL) skills to support their studies. This report provides an account of the challenges and positive outcomes encountered in designing the escape room, with a view to sharing good learning and teaching practice

Evidence for the Use of Triage, Respiratory Isolation, and Effective Treatment to Reduce the Transmission of Mycobacterium Tuberculosis in Healthcare Settings: A Systematic Review.

Evidence is limited for infection prevention and control (IPC) measures reducing Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) transmission in health facilities. This systematic review, 1 of 7 commissioned by the World Health Organization to inform the 2019 update of global tuberculosis (TB) IPC guidelines, asked: do triage and/or isolation and/or effective treatment of TB disease reduce MTB transmission in healthcare settings? Of 25 included articles, 19 reported latent TB infection (LTBI) incidence in healthcare workers (HCWs; absolute risk reductions 1%-21%); 5 reported TB disease incidence in HCWs (no/slight [high TB burden] or moderate [low burden] reduction) and 2 in human immunodeficiency virus-positive in-patients (6%-29% reduction). In total, 23/25 studies implemented multiple IPC measures; effects of individual measures could not be disaggregated. Packages of IPC measures appeared to reduce MTB transmission, but evidence for effectiveness of triage, isolation, or effective treatment, alone or in combination, was indirect and low quality. Harmonizing study designs and reporting frameworks will permit formal data syntheses and facilitate policy making

Alterations in the steroid hormone receptor co-chaperone FKBPL are associated with male infertility: a case-control study

RIGHTS : This article is licensed under the BioMed Central licence at http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/license which is similar to the 'Creative Commons Attribution Licence'. In brief you may : copy, distribute, and display the work; make derivative works; or make commercial use of the work - under the following conditions: the original author must be given credit; for any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are.Abstract Background Male infertility is a common cause of reproductive failure in humans. In mice, targeted deletions of the genes coding for FKBP6 or FKBP52, members of the FK506 binding protein family, can result in male infertility. In the case of FKBP52, this reflects an important role in potentiating Androgen Receptor (AR) signalling in the prostate and accessory glands, but not the testis. In infertile men, no mutations of FKBP52 or FKBP6 have been found so far, but the gene for FKBP-like (FKBPL) maps to chromosome 6p21.3, an area linked to azoospermia in a group of Japanese patients. Methods To determine whether mutations in FKBPL could contribute to the azoospermic phenotype, we examined expression in mouse and human tissues by RNA array blot, RT-PCR and immunohistochemistry and sequenced the complete gene from two azoospermic patient cohorts and matching control groups. FKBPL-AR interaction was assayed using reporter constructs in vitro. Results FKBPL is strongly expressed in mouse testis, with expression upregulated at puberty. The protein is expressed in human testis in a pattern similar to FKBP52 and also enhanced AR transcriptional activity in reporter assays. We examined sixty patients from the Japanese patient group and found one inactivating mutation and one coding change, as well as a number of non-coding changes, all absent in fifty-six controls. A second, Irish patient cohort of thirty showed another two coding changes not present in thirty proven fertile controls. Conclusions Our results describe the first alterations in the gene for FKBPL in azoospermic patients and indicate a potential role in AR-mediated signalling in the testis.Published versio