Building solidarity through comparative lived experiences of post-conflict: Reflections on two days of dialogue

Occasions for in-depth dialogue among academics in times of conflict are rare. Drawing upon such a dialogue between Syrian academics and international counterparts from contexts undergoing conflict or grappling with post-conflict legacies, we identity seven dominant themes that emerged from these discussions and reflect on participants’ strategic insights and mutual support, in addition to highlighting the consciousness that was raised around the agency, limitations, complicity and intergenerational legacies borne by academics and the academy in crisis contexts

Shift work and serum 25-OH vitamin D status among factory workers in Northern Italy : cross-sectional study

Low levels of vitamin D are related to muscle weakness, poor balance, and higher risk of falls, and can therefore have a major impact on performance and safety at work. Little knowledge exists on the association between work environment and vitamin D status. This study evaluates vitamin D status in shift workers. In this cross-sectional study, led during early springtime, 96 male shift workers at an engineering factory in Northern Italy, and 100 male daily workers operating nearby, participated. 25-OH vitamin D concentration, anthropometric indexes, fasting glycemia and triglycerides were detected. 51 shift workers underwent anamnesis collection on lifestyle and habits and determination of heel bone mineral density. Vitamin D levels were lower in shift workers than daily ones (13.4\ub15.3 ng/mL versus 21.9\ub110.7 ng/mL, p<0.001). Linear regression analysis adjusted for age, body mass index and smoking habits confirms a statistically significant association between shift work and vitamin D levels (p<0.0001). An association trend between cigarette smoking and low vitamin D values was found. No significant association was detected between the heel bone mineral density values and vitamin D levels or smoking habits. In conclusion, this cross-sectional study highlights the high prevalence of vitamin D deficit among shift workers compared with daily ones

Nutritional and oxidative status in occupational obese subjects

Nutritional status, referred to meat and vegetable food consumption, is related to folate and B12 vitamin levels; hyperhomocysteinemia (HHcy) is due to folate and B12 vitamin-methionine metabolism imbalance, which can lead to oxidative stress, OS (imbalance between reactive oxygen species, ROS, and total antioxidant capacity, TAC). Possible early vitamin B12 (B12) deficiency can be highlighted by holotranscobalamin (HoloTC, bioactive cobalamin fraction) assay. Erythrocyte folate is a biomarker of 2- to 3-month folate storage. To evaluate nutritional status and OS we conducted an observational study on 118 occupational obese subjects (34M/84F, aged 16-69, median 46.5 years; BMI 26.5-54.1, median 33.3 kg/m2) without previous cardiovascular disease. Serum TAC and ROS (spectrophotometry, Diacron International, Italy), serum B12 and HoloTC, serum and erythrocyte folate, plasma Hcy (immunoenzymatic, AxSYM, Abbott Diagnostics, USA), lipid panel and inflammatory parameters by routine methods. All subjects showed adequate serum and erythrocyte folate levels, but HoloTC values revealed cobalamin deficiency in 30% of cases not congruent with B 12 concentrations, low only in 10%. 43% of cases showed mild HHcy (>10.5 μmol/L; median 12.44 μmol/L, IQR 11.2-16.2). OS was found by normal mean TAC values (370.5 micromolHClO/mL, 340-405; n.v. > 350) but increased mean ROS concentrations (386 CarrU, 337-434; n.v. 250-300) in 93% of subjects. Normal folate and B12 vitamin levels revealed a good nutritional status in our occupational obese subjects. The presence of Oxidative Stress, due to imbalance between ROS and TAC and mild hyperhomocysteinemia may heighten the obesity-related cardiovascular risk. © 2010 Springer-Verlag

Critical Discourse Analysis: Definition, Approaches, Relation to Pragmatics, Critique, and Trends

This chapter introduces the transdisciplinary research movement of critical discourse analysis (CDA) beginning with its definition and recent examples of CDA work. In addition, approaches to CDA such as the dialectical relational (Fairclough), sociocognitive (van Dijk), discourse historical (Wodak), social actors (van Leeuwen), and the Foucauldian dispositive analysis (Jager and Maier) are outlined, as well as the complex relation of CDA to pragmatics. Next, the chapter provides a brief mention of the extensive critique of CDA, the creation of critical discourse studies (CDS), and new trends in CDA, including positive discourse analysis (PDA), CDA with multimodality, CDA and cognitive linguistics, critical applied linguistics, and other areas (rhetoric, education, anthropology/ethnography, sociolinguistics, culture, feminism/gender, and corpus studies). It ends with new directions aiming towards social action for social justice