Comfort in clothing: a Baumanian critique of how clothing contributes to the well-being of women in the United Kingdom.

This Comfort in Clothing study explores how fashion, clothing and dress practices contribute to the psychosocial well-being of women in the UK. Fashion is a global industry, fuelled in recent times by the growth of the athleisurewear sector, reflecting the postmodern preoccupation with comfort, leisure and well-being in Western societies. Well-being is identified as important to the individual and on a wider societal level, with rising mental health issues identified as a global health concern and well-being statistics reported by numerous developed economies. Bauman, a prominent sociologist, acknowledged the anxieties of the postmodern actor in his concept of Liquid Modernity, attributing them to the fast pace of change and overwhelming freedom of choice, factors inherent in today's fashion industry. Thus, this study makes an original contribution to theoretical knowledge by applying Bauman's concept of Liquid Modernity to the phenomenon of well-being in relation to clothing artefacts, fashion and dress practice. Literature related to comfort in clothing, well-being, positive psychology and identity was reviewed. Research exists in terms of physical and physiological comfort in clothing, however a gap was identified in terms of the psychological comfort gained from the everyday use of non-elite fashion and clothing. The key elements of well-being were identified as community, work, time, the body, place, individuality, emancipation, income, colour and confidence, with these being mapped to the research focus of fashion, clothing and dress practice. The concepts of hedonic and eudaimonic well-being and positive psychology were also explored. Examination of existing fashion research revealed the applicability of an interpretive world-view and multi-modal qualitative methodology. Qualitative data was gathered in the form of innovative, participant-produced image/narrative elicitations from a key informant sample. In addition, focus groups were conducted with an expanded sample. All participants were females currently living in the UK, who were mostly interested or very interested in fashion. Triangulation of the resultant multiple data types was employed during the analysis stage. The value of this Comfort in Clothing study lies in the contribution to knowledge of everyday dress practices in the postmodern era, and how those lived experiences and autobiographical memories of dress impact the psychosocial well-being of the participants. The key findings confirm that female appearance management remains firmly focused on the body and controlled by the fear of judgement, both self-judgement and the judgement of others. Hedonic well-being, gained from presenting oneself properly in public and feeling good through looking good was prevalent. Bauman's definition of the individualistic person was found to dress as a community-minded citizen, seeking the solidity of normative, ritualised dress practices and rejecting fashion's fast-paced and perpetual change. This suggests a disconnect between the fashion industry as a driver of creative destruction and constant consumption, and the clothing consumer's need for the safety and solidity of routine and the known. A hierarchy of attachment emerged, which found clothing to be under-valued, suggesting an opportunity for increased eudaimonic well-being through adoption of clothing with longevity, enabling meaning and memory to accrue and ultimately, to provide comfort in Liquid Modernity

Does Practice Make Perfect? A Randomized Control Trial of Behavioral Rehearsal on Suicide Prevention Gatekeeper Skills

Suicide is the third leading cause of death among 10-24-year-olds and the target of school-based prevention efforts. Gatekeeper training, a broadly disseminated prevention strategy, has been found to enhance participant knowledge and attitudes about intervening with distressed youth. Although the goal of training is the development of gatekeeper skills to intervene with at-risk youth, the impact on skills and use of training is less known. Brief gatekeeper training programs are largely educational and do not employ active learning strategies such as behavioral rehearsal through role play practice to assist skill development. In this study, we compare gatekeeper training as usual with training plus brief behavioral rehearsal (i.e., role play practice) on a variety of learning outcomes after training and at follow-up for 91 school staff and 56 parents in a school community. We found few differences between school staff and parent participants. Both training conditions resulted in enhanced knowledge and attitudes, and almost all participants spread gatekeeper training information to others in their network. Rigorous standardized patient and observational methods showed behavioral rehearsal with role play practice resulted in higher total gatekeeper skill scores immediately after training and at follow-up. Both conditions, however, showed decrements at follow-up. Strategies to strengthen and maintain gatekeeper skills over time are discussed

Comparative genomics of Cluster O mycobacteriophages

Mycobacteriophages - viruses of mycobacterial hosts - are genetically diverse but morphologically are all classified in the Caudovirales with double-stranded DNA and tails. We describe here a group of five closely related mycobacteriophages - Corndog, Catdawg, Dylan, Firecracker, and YungJamal - designated as Cluster O with long flexible tails but with unusual prolate capsids. Proteomic analysis of phage Corndog particles, Catdawg particles, and Corndog-infected cells confirms expression of half of the predicted gene products and indicates a non-canonical mechanism for translation of the Corndog tape measure protein. Bioinformatic analysis identifies 8-9 strongly predicted SigA promoters and all five Cluster O genomes contain more than 30 copies of a 17 bp repeat sequence with dyad symmetry located throughout the genomes. Comparison of the Cluster O phages provides insights into phage genome evolution including the processes of gene flux by horizontal genetic exchange

Prevalence and architecture of de novo mutations in developmental disorders.

The genomes of individuals with severe, undiagnosed developmental disorders are enriched in damaging de novo mutations (DNMs) in developmentally important genes. Here we have sequenced the exomes of 4,293 families containing individuals with developmental disorders, and meta-analysed these data with data from another 3,287 individuals with similar disorders. We show that the most important factors influencing the diagnostic yield of DNMs are the sex of the affected individual, the relatedness of their parents, whether close relatives are affected and the parental ages. We identified 94 genes enriched in damaging DNMs, including 14 that previously lacked compelling evidence of involvement in developmental disorders. We have also characterized the phenotypic diversity among these disorders. We estimate that 42% of our cohort carry pathogenic DNMs in coding sequences; approximately half of these DNMs disrupt gene function and the remainder result in altered protein function. We estimate that developmental disorders caused by DNMs have an average prevalence of 1 in 213 to 1 in 448 births, depending on parental age. Given current global demographics, this equates to almost 400,000 children born per year

Functional mechanisms underlying pleiotropic risk alleles at the 19p13.1 breast-ovarian cancer susceptibility locus

A locus at 19p13 is associated with breast cancer (BC) and ovarian cancer (OC) risk. Here we analyse 438 SNPs in this region in 46,451 BC and 15,438 OC cases, 15,252 BRCA1 mutation carriers and 73,444 controls and identify 13 candidate causal SNPs associated with serous OC (P=9.2 × 10-20), ER-negative BC (P=1.1 × 10-13), BRCA1-associated BC (P=7.7 × 10-16) and triple negative BC (P-diff=2 × 10-5). Genotype-gene expression associations are identified for candidate target genes ANKLE1 (P=2 × 10-3) and ABHD8 (P<2 × 10-3). Chromosome conformation capture identifies interactions between four candidate SNPs and ABHD8, and luciferase assays indicate six risk alleles increased transactivation of the ADHD8 promoter. Targeted deletion of a region containing risk SNP rs56069439 in a putative enhancer induces ANKLE1 downregulation; and mRNA stability assays indicate functional effects for an ANKLE1 3′-UTR SNP. Altogether, these data suggest that multiple SNPs at 19p13 regulate ABHD8 and perhaps ANKLE1 expression, and indicate common mechanisms underlying breast and ovarian cancer risk