Excursions into Otherness: Performative Cosmopolitanism and Movement Culture

Embarking on an interdisciplinary study of movement practices that transcend traditional spaces and modes of transfer, I ask if it is possible to politicize our use of Yoga, Muay Thai and Capoeira. Can framing these practices as part of movement culture allow us to view the complexity of performative cosmopolitanism? Introducing my project, Chapter One argues for the importance of theorizing practices we use to regulate our bodies and express our identity. Chapter Two offers theoretical backbone – a literature review of cosmopolitan theory and scholarship on consumerism, Neo-Primitivism and Orientalism. Exploring how cosmopolitanism is signified by consumption of otherness, I suggest alternatives highlighting the terms of cultural exchange. Chapter Three analyzes how each practice is framed through advertising and social media in order to signal specific lifestyles and identities. I consider how myths are activated in order to consolidate whiteness. In Chapter Four a performance analysis of cultural festivals allows me to position cosmopolitanism as performative – generating difference as much as embracing it. Displaying, performing and consuming otherness at festivals simultaneously butts up against more resistant challenges to dominant culture also being created. Embodiment of form is my focus in Chapter Five. Through autoethnography I consider classes as performances of everyday interculturalism. Describing how practices function to perpetuate myths of Neo-Primitivism and Orientalism and become vehicles to inscribe power and consolidate whiteness, I also consider the forms of resistance created at the level of individuals and communities. My conclusions analyze how movement culture highlights the performative nature of cosmopolitanism, and the power embodiment has in de-centering, challenging and re-positioning us in intimate ways. I suggest that recognizing the structures of inequity we live through, marking the myths of otherness we consume and seeing the places where power is subverted through practice can describe a form of embodied postcoloniality that reflects our globalized, networked world and moves us toward interconnection

An Examination of the Relationship Between Childhood Punishment and Adult IPV

The goal of this project is to examine the relationship between childhood punishment and experiencing intimate partner violence (IPV) as an adult. Using an anonymous, self-report survey, students from Georgia Southern University were asked about their experiences with IPV, as well as their experiences of childhood punishment administered by both mother and father. The results show that children who receive corporal, verbal, and emotional punishment from their mother are more likely to experience all forms of IPV later in life. When analyzing the same relationships with fathers, corporal punishment is not associated with IPV while verbal and emotional punishment is

Markers of Field Cancerization: Proposed Clinical Applications in Prostate Biopsies

Field cancerization denotes the occurrence of genetic, epigenetic, and biochemical aberrations in structurally intact cells in histologically normal tissues adjacent to cancerous lesions. This paper tabulates markers of prostate field cancerization known to date and discusses their potential clinical value in the analysis of prostate biopsies, including diagnosis, monitoring progression during active surveillance, and assessing efficacy of presurgical neoadjuvant and focal therapeutic interventions

Unusual manifestations of secondary urothelial carcinoma

AbstractHigh-grade papillary urothelial carcinoma regularly invades the bladder wall, adjacent prostate, seminal vesicles, ureters, vagina, rectum, retroperitoneum, and regional lymph nodes. In advanced stages, it may disseminate to the liver, lungs, and bone marrow. On rare occasions, unusual metastatic foci like skin have been reported. The incidence of urothelial carcinoma has increased with associated rise in variants of urothelial carcinoma and unusual metastatic foci. It is imperative that urologists and pathologists are aware of the unusual variants and unusual metastatic locations to expedite the diagnostic process. Hereby we report an unusual case of secondary involvement of spinal nerve by conventional urothelial carcinoma. Also a second case of rhabdoid variant of urothelial carcinoma showing synchronous involvement of bladder and subcutaneous tissue of upper extremity is presented

Telehealth Versus Face-to-face Psychotherapy for Less Common Mental Health Conditions: Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials

BACKGROUND: Mental disorders are a leading cause of distress and disability worldwide. To meet patient demand, there is a need for increased access to high-quality, evidence-based mental health care. Telehealth has become well established in the treatment of illnesses, including mental health conditions. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to conduct a robust evidence synthesis to assess whether there is evidence of differences between telehealth and face-to-face care for the management of less common mental and physical health conditions requiring psychotherapy. METHODS: In this systematic review, we included randomized controlled trials comparing telehealth (telephone, video, or both) versus the face-to-face delivery of psychotherapy for less common mental health conditions and physical health conditions requiring psychotherapy. The psychotherapy delivered had to be comparable between the telehealth and face-to-face groups, and it had to be delivered by general practitioners, primary care nurses, or allied health staff (such as psychologists and counselors). Patient (symptom severity, overall improvement in psychological symptoms, and function), process (working alliance and client satisfaction), and financial (cost) outcomes were included. RESULTS: A total of 12 randomized controlled trials were included, with 931 patients in aggregate; therapies included cognitive behavioral and family therapies delivered in populations encompassing addiction disorders, eating disorders, childhood mental health problems, and chronic conditions. Telehealth was delivered by video in 7 trials, by telephone in 3 trials, and by both in 1 trial, and the delivery mode was unclear in 1 trial. The risk of bias for the 12 trials was low or unclear for most domains, except for the lack of the blinding of participants, owing to the nature of the comparison. There were no significant differences in symptom severity between telehealth and face-to-face therapy immediately after treatment (standardized mean difference [SMD] 0.05, 95% CI −0.17 to 0.27) or at any other follow-up time point. Similarly, there were no significant differences immediately after treatment between telehealth and face-to-face care delivery on any of the other outcomes meta-analyzed, including overall improvement (SMD 0.00, 95% CI −0.40 to 0.39), function (SMD 0.13, 95% CI −0.16 to 0.42), working alliance client (SMD 0.11, 95% CI −0.34 to 0.57), working alliance therapist (SMD −0.16, 95% CI −0.91 to 0.59), and client satisfaction (SMD 0.12, 95% CI −0.30 to 0.53), or at any other time point (3, 6, and 12 months). CONCLUSIONS: With regard to effectively treating less common mental health conditions and physical conditions requiring psychological support, there is insufficient evidence of a difference between psychotherapy delivered via telehealth and the same therapy delivered face-to-face. However, there was no includable evidence in this review for some serious mental health conditions, such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorders, and further high-quality research is needed to determine whether telehealth is a viable, equivalent treatment option for these conditions

Thinking big and thinking small: A conceptual framework for best practices in community and stakeholder engagement in food, energy, and water systems

Community and stakeholder engagement is increasingly recognized as essential to science at the nexus of food, energy, and water systems (FEWS) to address complex issues surrounding food and energy production and water provision for society. Yet no comprehensive framework exists for supporting best practices in community and stakeholder engagement for FEWS. A review and meta‐synthesis were undertaken of a broad range of existing models, frameworks, and toolkits for community and stakeholder engagement. A framework is proposed that comprises situational awareness of the FEWS place or problem, creation of a suitable culture for engagement, focus on power‐sharing in the engagement process, co‐ownership, co‐generation of knowledge and outcomes, the technical process of integration, the monitoring processes of reflective and reflexive experiences, and formative evaluation. The framework is discussed as a scaffolding for supporting the development and application of best practices in community and stakeholder engagement in ways that are arguably essential for sound FEWS science and sustainable management

ReViMS: Software tool for estimating the volumes of 3-D multicellular spheroids imaged using a light sheet fluorescence microscope

Cancer 3-D spheroids are widely used to test drugs and radiotherapy treatments. These 3-D cell clusters range from tens to hundreds of micrometers in size, with shapes that typically differ from a perfect sphere. Change in spheroid volume is one of the most important parameters for evaluating treatment efficacy, and using light sheet fluorescence microscopes (LSFM), optical sections of samples in that size range can be obtained. However, there remains a lack of validated methods for quantifying the volumes of 3-D multicellular aggregates. Here, we present Reconstruction and Visualization from Multiple Sections (ReViMS), an open-source, user-friendly software for automatically segmenting z-stacks of fluorescence images and estimating the volumes of 3-D multicellular spheroids. To assess the precision and accuracy of the volume estimates obtained with ReViMS, we used several cancer spheroids imaged with LSFM. Both the precision and accuracy were >95%, demonstrating the effectiveness of ReViMS