Governing the souls of young women: exploring the perspectives of mothers on parenting in the age of sexualisation

The sexualisation of young women has emerged as a growing concern within contemporary western cultures. This has provoked adult anxieties that young women are growing up too fast by adopting inappropriate sexual practices and subjectivies. Psychological discourses have dominated which position sexualisation as a corrupting force that infects the ‘true self’ of young women, so they develop in abnormal ways. This in turn allows psychological practices to govern how to parent against sexualisation within families. To explore this further, six mothers each with daughters aged between eight and twelve years old took part in one to one semi-structured interviews designed to explore how they conceptualised and parented against the early sexualisation of young women. A Foucauldian inspired discourse analysis was employed, which suggested that the mothers talk was situated within a psychological discourse. This enabled sexualisation to be positioned as a corrupting force that disrupted the natural development of young women through deviant bodily practices (e.g. consuming sexualised goods), which prevented them from becoming their ‘true self’. Through the disciplinary gaze of psychology, class inequalities were reproduced where working class families were construed as ‘chavs’ who were bad parents and a site of contagion for sexualisatio

Community structure and diversity of tropical forest mammals: Data from a global camera trap network

Terrestrial mammals are a key component of tropical forest communities as indicators of ecosystem health and providers of important ecosystem services. However, there is little quantitative information about how they change with local, regional and global threats. In this paper, the first standardized pantropical forest terrestrial mammal community study, we examine several aspects of terrestrial mammal species and community diversity (species richness, species diversity, evenness, dominance, functional diversity and community structure) at seven sites around the globe using a single standardized camera trapping methodology approach. The sites-located in Uganda, Tanzania, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Suriname, Brazil and Costa Rica-are surrounded by different landscape configurations, from continuous forests to highly fragmented forests. We obtained more than 51 000 images and detected 105 species of mammals with a total sampling effort of 12 687 camera trap days. We find thatmammal communities from highly fragmented sites have lower species richness, species diversity, functional diversity and higher dominance when compared with sites in partially fragmented and continuous forest. We emphasize the importance of standardized camera trapping approaches for obtaining baselines for monitoring forest mammal communities so as to adequately understand the effect of global, regional and local threats and appropriately inform conservation actions. © 2011 The Royal Society

A communal catalogue reveals Earth's multiscale microbial diversity

Our growing awareness of the microbial world's importance and diversity contrasts starkly with our limited understanding of its fundamental structure. Despite recent advances in DNA sequencing, a lack of standardized protocols and common analytical frameworks impedes comparisons among studies, hindering the development of global inferences about microbial life on Earth. Here we present a meta-analysis of microbial community samples collected by hundreds of researchers for the Earth Microbiome Project. Coordinated protocols and new analytical methods, particularly the use of exact sequences instead of clustered operational taxonomic units, enable bacterial and archaeal ribosomal RNA gene sequences to be followed across multiple studies and allow us to explore patterns of diversity at an unprecedented scale. The result is both a reference database giving global context to DNA sequence data and a framework for incorporating data from future studies, fostering increasingly complete characterization of Earth's microbial diversity.Peer reviewe

A communal catalogue reveals Earth’s multiscale microbial diversity

Our growing awareness of the microbial world’s importance and diversity contrasts starkly with our limited understanding of its fundamental structure. Despite recent advances in DNA sequencing, a lack of standardized protocols and common analytical frameworks impedes comparisons among studies, hindering the development of global inferences about microbial life on Earth. Here we present a meta-analysis of microbial community samples collected by hundreds of researchers for the Earth Microbiome Project. Coordinated protocols and new analytical methods, particularly the use of exact sequences instead of clustered operational taxonomic units, enable bacterial and archaeal ribosomal RNA gene sequences to be followed across multiple studies and allow us to explore patterns of diversity at an unprecedented scale. The result is both a reference database giving global context to DNA sequence data and a framework for incorporating data from future studies, fostering increasingly complete characterization of Earth’s microbial diversity

Staff stress and morale in non-congregate and congregate community settings for people with challenging behaviour (CB).

Aim: To compare stress, morale, and intended job turnover in staff in non-congregate settings where the minority of residents had CB and congregate settings where the majority of residents had CB. Method: A self-completion survey questionnaire was used to collect information on the characteristics of staff, staff stress, job satisfaction, and propensity to leave employment. Information was also collected on the characteristics and working practices of settings. Results: There were few significant differences between non-congregate and congregate settings. Over 25% of staff reached criterion on the GHQ-12 for experiencing emotional distress. Over 33% were likely to seek new employment in the next year. The greatest sources of stress were lack of resources and lack of staff support, not service user CB. Lowest satisfaction was with rate of pay. Those in non-congregate settings reported greater stress due to lack of procedures to deal with CB. Conclusions: High levels of staff intended turnover are due more to job insecurity and lack of support than service user CB, even in settings where the majority of residents display CB. Employers seeking to reduce turnover should pay attention to pay and conditions, and staff training in methods for dealing with CB

Evidence and implications for early intervention in bipolar disorder

Aims: To review the evidence that supports early intervention in the treatment of bipolar disorder.Background: Bipolar disorder is a pleomorphic condition, with varying manifestations that are determined by a number of complex factors including the &lsquo;&lsquo;stage&rsquo;&rsquo; of illness. It is consequently a notoriously difficult illness to diagnose and as a corollary is associated with lengthy delays in recognition and the initiation of suitable treatment.Methods: A literature search was conducted using MEDLINE augmented by a manual search.Results: Emerging neuroimaging data suggests that, in contrast to schizophrenia, where at the time of a first-episode of illness there is already discernible volume loss, in bipolar disorder, gross brain structure is relatively preserved, and it is only with recurrences that there is a sequential, but marked loss of brain volume. Recent evidence suggests that both pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy are more effective if instituted early in the course of bipolar disorder, and that with multiple episodes and disease progression there is a noticeable decline in treatment response.Conclusions: Such data supports the notion of clinical staging, and the tailored implementation of treatments according to the stage of illness. The progressive nature of bipolar disorder further supports the concept that the first episode is a period that requires energetic broad-based treatment, with the hope that this could alter the temporal trajectory of the illness. It also raises hope that prompt treatment may be neuroprotective and that this perhaps attenuates or even prevents the neurostructural and neurocognitive changes seen to emerge with chronicity. This highlights the need for early identification at a population level and the necessity of implementing treatments and services at a stage of the illness where prognosis is optimal.<br /