Size Acceptance: a Discursive Analysis of Online Blogs

Traditional views on ‘overweight’ suggest that managing one’s weight is a simple balance of energy for which all individuals have the capacity and affordances to control, as long as they have the willpower to do so. This is problematic because such perspectives are drawn upon as resources for social interaction and can thus translate into deliberate negative actions and discriminatory behaviour. Despite recent evidence suggesting that ‘overweight’ is more complex than first presumed, traditional methods of weight loss remain predominant. Less culturally available perspectives do exist such as those presented by the Size Acceptance (SA) movement. SA has recently developed particular strengths because of the affordances of online blogs, including the potential for wider dissemination of less culturally available perspectives. This research explores the more and less culturally available perspectives around the fat body and how these emerge and are taken up in talk online - specifically by those who engage with SA communities. A discursive thematic analysis is used to explore how SA bloggers construct their position and identities online. Creating an awareness of how language is drawn on to construct fat ‘perspectives’ can help with becoming more resistant to hegemonic power. This research offers a unique contribution in its demonstration of how SA bloggers are positioned in such a way as to provide an alternative claim to “expertise”, which enables their views to be heard as a credible and legitimate alternative to those of more established authority-figures - such as health professionals. Furthermore, the creating of an ‘in-group’ allows for corroboration as a ‘community of experts’ and the de-legitimisation of the ‘out-group’ – that is, again, more established authority-figures, such as health professionals. This has implications for both research and clinical practice in that it can enable professionals working in physical and mental health to better understand why individuals might position themselves in ways such as SA, and what they might give up by accepting more culturally available perspectives as ‘truths’. This can help in gaining an understanding of the resistance fat people can have to professionals and change (i.e. weight loss), which might be experienced in clinical settings. Successful weight loss is deemed unlikely by much of the existing literature and failure to lose weight is associated with poorer mental health, therefore SA online might offer positive implications for mental health (regardless of weight loss) even if not for physical health. It is therefore important for professionals to be mindful of the less culturally available perspectives that exist and what online spaces offer for already-marginalised groups, before making attempts to remove or delegitimise such sites

Differential expression of Toll-like receptors and inflammatory cytokines in ovine interdigital dermatitis and footrot.

Footrot is a common inflammatory bacterial disease affecting the health and welfare of sheep worldwide. The pathogenesis of footrot is complex and multifactorial. The primary causal pathogen is the anaerobic bacterium Dichelobacter nodosus, with Fusobacterium necrophorum also shown to play a key role in disease. Since immune-mediated pathology is implicated, the aim of this research was to investigate the role of the host response in interdigital dermatitis (ID) and footrot. We compared the expression of Toll-like receptors (TLRs) and pro-inflammatory cytokines and the histological appearance of clinically normal in comparison to ID and footrot affected tissues. Severe ID and footrot were characterised by significantly increased transcript levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines TNFα and IL1β and the pattern recognition receptors TLR2 and TLR4 in the interdigital skin. This was reflected in the histopathological appearance, with ID and footrot presenting progressive chronic-active pododermatitis with a mixed lymphocytic and neutrophilic infiltration, gradually increasing from a mild form in clinically normal feet, to moderate in ID and to a focally severe form with frequent areas of purulence in footrot. Stimulation with F. necrophorum and/or D. nodosus extracts demonstrated that dermal fibroblasts, the resident cell type of the dermis, also contribute to the inflammatory response to footrot bacteria by increased expression of TNFα, IL1β and TLR2. Overall, ID and footrot lead to a local inflammatory response given that expression levels of TLRs and IL1β were dependent on the disease state of the foot not the animal.This is the final version published by Elsevier in Veterinary Immunology and Immunopathology under a CC BY license. It was originally published here: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165242714001706

Infusion of P‐Capt prion‐filtered red blood cell products demonstrate acceptable in vivo viability and no evidence of neoantigen formation

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/86946/1/j.1537-2995.2011.03133.x.pd

Ancient dental calculus reveals oral microbiome shifts associated with lifestyle and disease in Great Britain

We thank C. Stringer and R. Kruszynski of the Natural History Museum, London; S. Schiffels; D. Sayer; Oxford Archaeology East; M. Farrell of the Royal College of Surgeons of England; J. Pearson of the Inverness Museum; and all of the museums for access to samples. We also thank the Museum of London for allowing us to collect and destructively analyse archaeological dental calculus samples from their collections from London, particularly J. Bekvalac and R. Redfern. We would also like to acknowledge J. VanderBerg at EnDev Geographic for producing the map used in Fig. 1. A.C., C.A. and L.W. thank the Australian Research Council for research funding (DP110105038) and Laureate (FL140100260). The work was also supported by an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship Award to L.S.W. (FT180100407). This material is also based on work supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program awarded to A.S.G. under Grant No. DGE1255832. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.Peer reviewedPostprintPostprintPostprin

Towards a new generation axion helioscope

We study the feasibility of a new generation axion helioscope, the most ambitious and promising detector of solar axions to date. We show that large improvements in magnetic field volume, x-ray focusing optics and detector backgrounds are possible beyond those achieved in the CERN Axion Solar Telescope (CAST). For hadronic models, a sensitivity to the axion-photon coupling of \gagamma\gtrsim {\rm few} \times 10^{-12} GeV$^{-1}$ is conceivable, 1--1.5 orders of magnitude beyond the CAST sensitivity. If axions also couple to electrons, the Sun produces a larger flux for the same value of the Peccei-Quinn scale, allowing one to probe a broader class of models. Except for the axion dark matter searches, this experiment will be the most sensitive axion search ever, reaching or surpassing the stringent bounds from SN1987A and possibly testing the axion interpretation of anomalous white-dwarf cooling that predicts $m_a$ of a few meV. Beyond axions, this new instrument will probe entirely unexplored ranges of parameters for a large variety of axion-like particles (ALPs) and other novel excitations at the low-energy frontier of elementary particle physics.Comment: 37 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in JCA

The International Axion Observatory (IAXO)

The International Axion Observatory (IAXO) is a new generation axion helioscope aiming at a sensitivity to the axion-photon coupling of a few 10$^{12}$ GeV$^{-1}$, i.e. 1 - 1.5 orders of magnitude beyond the one currently achieved by CAST. The project relies on improvements in magnetic field volume together with extensive use of x-ray focusing optics and low background detectors, innovations already successfully tested in CAST. Additional physics cases of IAXO could include the detection of electron-coupled axions invoked to solve the white dwarfs anomaly, relic axions, and a large variety of more generic axion-like particles (ALPs) and other novel excitations at the low-energy frontier of elementary particle physics. This contribution is a summary of our paper [1] to which we refer for further details.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures. To appear in the proceedings of the 7th Patras Workshop on Axions, WIMPs and WISPs, Mykonos, Greece, 201

A chemical survey of exoplanets with ARIEL

Thousands of exoplanets have now been discovered with a huge range of masses, sizes and orbits: from rocky Earth-like planets to large gas giants grazing the surface of their host star. However, the essential nature of these exoplanets remains largely mysterious: there is no known, discernible pattern linking the presence, size, or orbital parameters of a planet to the nature of its parent star. We have little idea whether the chemistry of a planet is linked to its formation environment, or whether the type of host star drives the physics and chemistry of the planet’s birth, and evolution. ARIEL was conceived to observe a large number (~1000) of transiting planets for statistical understanding, including gas giants, Neptunes, super-Earths and Earth-size planets around a range of host star types using transit spectroscopy in the 1.25–7.8 μm spectral range and multiple narrow-band photometry in the optical. ARIEL will focus on warm and hot planets to take advantage of their well-mixed atmospheres which should show minimal condensation and sequestration of high-Z materials compared to their colder Solar System siblings. Said warm and hot atmospheres are expected to be more representative of the planetary bulk composition. Observations of these warm/hot exoplanets, and in particular of their elemental composition (especially C, O, N, S, Si), will allow the understanding of the early stages of planetary and atmospheric formation during the nebular phase and the following few million years. ARIEL will thus provide a representative picture of the chemical nature of the exoplanets and relate this directly to the type and chemical environment of the host star. ARIEL is designed as a dedicated survey mission for combined-light spectroscopy, capable of observing a large and well-defined planet sample within its 4-year mission lifetime. Transit, eclipse and phase-curve spectroscopy methods, whereby the signal from the star and planet are differentiated using knowledge of the planetary ephemerides, allow us to measure atmospheric signals from the planet at levels of 10–100 part per million (ppm) relative to the star and, given the bright nature of targets, also allows more sophisticated techniques, such as eclipse mapping, to give a deeper insight into the nature of the atmosphere. These types of observations require a stable payload and satellite platform with broad, instantaneous wavelength coverage to detect many molecular species, probe the thermal structure, identify clouds and monitor the stellar activity. The wavelength range proposed covers all the expected major atmospheric gases from e.g. H2O, CO2, CH4 NH3, HCN, H2S through to the more exotic metallic compounds, such as TiO, VO, and condensed species. Simulations of ARIEL performance in conducting exoplanet surveys have been performed – using conservative estimates of mission performance and a full model of all significant noise sources in the measurement – using a list of potential ARIEL targets that incorporates the latest available exoplanet statistics. The conclusion at the end of the Phase A study, is that ARIEL – in line with the stated mission objectives – will be able to observe about 1000 exoplanets depending on the details of the adopted survey strategy, thus confirming the feasibility of the main science objectives.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

To conserve African tropical forests, invest in the protection of its most endangered group of monkeys, red colobus

Forest loss and overhunting are eroding African tropical biodiversity and threatening local human food security, livelihoods, and health. Emblematic of this ecological crisis is Africa's most endangered group of monkeys, the red colobus (genus Piliocolobus). All 17 species, found in forests from Senegal in the west to the Zanzibar archipelago in the east, are threatened with extinction. Red colobus are among the most vulnerable mammals to gun hunting, typically disappearing from heavily hunted forests before most other large-bodied animals. Despite their conservation status, they are rarely a focus of conservation attention and continue to be understudied. However, red colobus can act as critical barometers of forest health and serve as flagships for catalyzing broader African tropical forest conservation efforts. We offer a plan for conservation of red colobus and their habitats and discuss conservation and policy implications.Additional authors: Deo Kujirakwinja, Barney Long, W. Scott McGraw, Russell A. Mittermeier, Thomas T. Struhsake

The IAXO Helioscope

The IAXO (International Axion Experiment) is a fourth generation helioscope with a sensitivity, in terms of detectable signal counts, at least 104 better than CAST phase-I, resulting in sensitivity on ga¿ one order of magnitude better. To achieve this performance IAXO will count on a 8-coil toroidal magnet with 60 cm diameter bores and equipped with X-ray focusing optics into 0.20 cm2 spots coupled to ultra-low background Micromegas X-ray detectors. The magnet will be on a platform that will allow solar tracking for 12 hours per day. The next short term objectives are to prepare a Technical Design Report and to construct the first prototypes of the hardware main ingredients: demonstration coil, X-ray optics and low background detector while refining the physics case and studying the feasibility studies for Dark Matter axions