Britain and Latin America: 'Hope in a Time of Change?'

In the first section we propose briefly to look at the history of British-Latin American relations since the 1930s to emphasise what is perhaps common knowledge: the steady decline in the relationship, which reached its lowest point during the war in the South Atlantic in 1982. Although this story has already been told elsewhere, we summarise it here both to provide a backdrop and to illustrate the contrasts with the later period. We will then turn to an examination of the recent signs of revival. Using parliamentary records, some official unpublished documents, newspaper publications, and other secondary material, we will look at the evidence that points to a relative renewal of Anglo-Latin American relationship in the past decade. The last section of the paper will consider the limitations of this revival before speculating about the prospects for the long-term strengthening of British ties with Latin America

The Middle East in the international system: improving, understanding and breaking down the international relations/area studies divide

The year 2016 is a particularly timely one for a re-launch of the Institute for Middle East and Islamic Studies at Durham University. Events in the Middle East and North Africa continue to present huge challenges for regional and international order and yet remain poorly understood by scholars and policy makers alike. This underlines the importance of area studies centres like this one to promoting a better understanding of the contemporary international system and represents a welcome reversal, or at least slowing down, of a trend towards the closure of different area studies institutes and the resulting loss of these centres of expertise. Once gone they are hard to replace. In this short paper, the aim is to promote thinking and further discussion about the relationship between Middle East Studies and International Relations (IR) and the ways in which the two may be more fruitfully engaged in order to better understand the politics of change in the Middle East

Changes in dietary patterns and body composition within 12 months of liver transplantation

Background: Cardiometabolic risk factors are increasing in liver transplant recipients (LTR). Influencing dietary factors have not been assessed. The aim of this observational study was to assess changes in weight, metabolic function, dietary intake and eating behaviours in the first year after orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT). Methods: Consecutive recruitment of 17 patients (14 males) awaiting OLT at a single tertiary hospital. Dietary intake, food behaviours and anthropometry were recorded at baseline, and 6 and 12 months posttransplant. Results: By 12 months, patients had gained on average 7.3% of body weight. The prevalence of overweight or obesity increased from baseline 53% to 77% (P=0.001). By 6 months, 65% (n=11/17) of patients had altered glucose metabolism. Dietary intake was consistent with a Western-style dietary pattern with high saturated fat. Over half of the patients (69%, n=11/16) reported low to no depressive feelings and rated their self-esteem as good (53%, n=9/16). The Power of Food Scale increased between pre and post-transplant, indicating a stronger appetitive drive. Conclusions: Weight gain occurs early post-transplant, with significant metabolic dysfunction present within 6 months, however is not associated with significant psychological distress. Early dietary intervention designed to limit weight gain and target cardiometabolic health is recommended for this unique patient population

En la tierra de las oportunidades : los sirios-libaneses en Colombia

Cuando Alfonso López Pumarejo le preguntó a Alejandro Galvis por qué se empeñaba tanto en la candidatura de Gabriel Turba y, en la década de 1940, Galvis respondió: "porque él es santandereano como yo, y desde los tiempos de Aquileo Parra no tenemos un presidente en nuestra región"

Arabes y judíos en el desarrollo del Caribe colombiano, 1850-1950

En este ensayo, que pretende hacer un análisis de la inmigración árabe y judía en la costa norte de Colombia -el Caribe- se tratarán concretamente tres corrientes migratorias: judíos sefardíes, principalmente de Curazao y otras Antillas Neerlandesas, que llegaron a Colombia en la segunda mitad del siglo XVll/; sirio-libaneses que vinieron, primero del imperio otomano y después de Siria, Líbano y Palestina, entre 1880 y 1930, y judíos europeos y levantinos, que llegaron entre los años 30 y 40. A pesar de que no eran grupos muy numerosos y su experiencia en muchos aspectos era muy distinta, estas comunidades de inmigrantes se establecieron rápidamente y prosperaron en el medio relativamente hospitalario de la costa caribe colombiana. Arabes y judíos ascendieron pronto a posiciones prominentes en diversos campos e hicieron una contribución muy significativa al desarrollo de esta regió

Diagnostic accuracy of MRI for identifying posterior element bone stress injury in athletes with low back pain: a systematic review and narrative synthesis

Objective To investigate the diagnostic accuracy of MRI for identifying posterior element bone stress injury (PEBSI) in the athletic population with low back pain (LBP).Study Design A systematic review searched for published sources up until July 2020. Eligibility criteria: prospective cohort design, MRI diagnosis, adolescents/young adults, chief symptoms of LBP, PEBSI as the clinical diagnosis and SPECT-CT as reference standard. Risk of bias and overall quality were assessed using QUADAS-2 and GRADE, respectively. A narrative synthesis was conducted.Results Four studies were included, with three included in the quantitative synthesis. Compared with SPECT-CT, two studies involving MRI demonstrated sensitivity and specificity of 80% and 100%, and 88% and 97%, respectively. Compared with CT, one study involving MRI demonstrated sensitivity and specificity of 97% and 91%, respectively. Risk of bias was moderate to high although consistency across studies was noted.Conclusion Findings support further research to consider MRI as the modality of choice for diagnosing PEBSI. MRI was consistent with SPECT-CT for ruling-in PEBSI, but the clinical value of cases where MRI had false negatives remains uncertain due to possible over-sensitivity by SPECT-CT.PROSPERO registration number CRD42015023979

Employability and higher education: contextualising female students' workplace experiences to enhance understanding of employability development

Current political and economic discourses position employability as a responsibility of higher education, which deploys mechanisms such as supervised work experience (SWE) to embed employability skills development into the undergraduate curriculum. However, workplaces are socially constructed complex arenas of embodied knowledge that are gendered. Understanding the usefulness of SWE therefore requires consideration of the contextualised experiences of it, within these complex environments. This study considers higher education's use of SWE as a mechanism of employability skills development through exploration of female students' experiences of accounting SWE, and its subsequent shaping of their views of employment. Findings suggest that women experience numerous, indirect gender-based inequalities within their accounting SWE about which higher education is silent, perpetuating the framing of employability as a set of individual skills and abilities. This may limit the potential of SWE to provide equality of employability development. The study concludes by briefly considering how insights provided by this research could better inform higher education's engagement with SWE within the employability discourse, and contribute to equality of employability development opportunity

Experimental evolution, genetic analysis and genome re-sequencing reveal the mutation conferring artemisinin resistance in an isogenic lineage of malaria parasites

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Classical and quantitative linkage analyses of genetic crosses have traditionally been used to map genes of interest, such as those conferring chloroquine or quinine resistance in malaria parasites. Next-generation sequencing technologies now present the possibility of determining genome-wide genetic variation at single base-pair resolution. Here, we combine <it>in vivo </it>experimental evolution, a rapid genetic strategy and whole genome re-sequencing to identify the precise genetic basis of artemisinin resistance in a lineage of the rodent malaria parasite, <it>Plasmodium chabaudi</it>. Such genetic markers will further the investigation of resistance and its control in natural infections of the human malaria, <it>P. falciparum</it>.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A lineage of isogenic <it>in vivo </it>drug-selected mutant <it>P. chabaudi </it>parasites was investigated. By measuring the artemisinin responses of these clones, the appearance of an <it>in vivo </it>artemisinin resistance phenotype within the lineage was defined. The underlying genetic locus was mapped to a region of chromosome 2 by Linkage Group Selection in two different genetic crosses. Whole-genome deep coverage short-read re-sequencing (Illumina^®Solexa) defined the point mutations, insertions, deletions and copy-number variations arising in the lineage. Eight point mutations arise within the mutant lineage, only one of which appears on chromosome 2. This missense mutation arises contemporaneously with artemisinin resistance and maps to a gene encoding a de-ubiquitinating enzyme.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This integrated approach facilitates the rapid identification of mutations conferring selectable phenotypes, without prior knowledge of biological and molecular mechanisms. For malaria, this model can identify candidate genes before resistant parasites are commonly observed in natural human malaria populations.</p

Exome-wide analysis of copy number variation shows association of the human leukocyte antigen region with asthma in UK Biobank

BackgroundThe role of copy number variants (CNVs) in susceptibility to asthma is not well understood. This is, in part, due to the difficulty of accurately measuring CNVs in large enough sample sizes to detect associations. The recent availability of whole-exome sequencing (WES) in large biobank studies provides an unprecedented opportunity to study the role of CNVs in asthma.MethodsWe called common CNVs in 49,953 individuals in the first release of UK Biobank WES using ClinCNV software. CNVs were tested for association with asthma in a stage 1 analysis comprising 7098 asthma cases and 36,578 controls from the first release of sequencing data. Nominally-associated CNVs were then meta-analysed in stage 2 with an additional 17,280 asthma cases and 115,562 controls from the second release of UK Biobank exome sequencing, followed by validation and fine-mapping.ResultsFive of 189 CNVs were associated with asthma in stage 2, including a deletion overlapping the HLA-DQA1 and HLA-DQB1 genes, a duplication of CHROMR/PRKRA, deletions within MUC22 and TAP2, and a duplication in FBRSL1. The HLA-DQA1, HLA-DQB1, MUC22 and TAP2 genes all reside within the human leukocyte antigen (HLA) region on chromosome 6. In silico analyses demonstrated that the deletion overlapping HLA-DQA1 and HLA-DQB1 is likely to be an artefact arising from under-mapping of reads from non-reference HLA haplotypes, and that the CHROMR/PRKRA and FBRSL1 duplications represent presence/absence of pseudogenes within the HLA region. Bayesian fine-mapping of the HLA region suggested that there are two independent asthma association signals. The variants with the largest posterior inclusion probability in the two credible sets were an amino acid change in HLA-DQB1 (glutamine to histidine at residue 253) and a multi-allelic amino acid change in HLA-DRB1 (presence/absence of serine, glycine or leucine at residue 11).ConclusionsAt least two independent loci characterised by amino acid changes in the HLA-DQA1, HLA-DQB1 and HLA-DRB1 genes are likely to account for association of SNPs and CNVs in this region with asthma. The high divergence of haplotypes in the HLA can give rise to spurious CNVs, providing an important, cautionary tale for future large-scale analyses of sequencing data