Enacting heavy sessional drinking: a multi-sited ethnographic study of young adults’ drinking events and related epidemiology, policy and treatment

Taking cues from science and technology studies, this thesis explores how problems associated with the heavy sessional drinking of young adults are currently enacted in significant sites of research, policy and service provision. It demonstrates that alcohol epidemiology, policy initiatives to change ‘drinking culture’, and the clinical science associated with alcohol and other drug treatment erase the effects of socioeconomic disadvantage. With reference to ethnographic data, it proposes a range of alternate formulations

Alcohol and alcohol effects: Constituting causality in alcohol epidemiology

Taking cues from Science and Technology Studies, we examine how one type of alcohol epidemiology constitutes the causality of alcohol health effects, and how three realities are made along the way: (1) alcohol is a stable agent that acts consistently to produce quantifiable effects; (2) these effects may be amplified or diminished by social or other factors but not mediated in other ways; and (3) alcohol effects observable at the population level are priorities for public health. We describe how these propositions are predicated upon several simplifications and that these simplifications have political implications, including the attribution of responsibility for health effects to a pharmacological substance; the deletion of other agentic forces that might share responsibility; and a prioritization of simple effects over complex effects. We argue that epidemiological research on alcohol might expand its range of ontological, epistemological and methodological practices to identify new ways of understanding and addressing health effects

Measurement-induced phases of matter require feedback

We explore universality and phases of matter in hybrid quantum dynamics combining chaotic time evolution and projective measurements. We develop a unitary representation of measurements based on the Stinespring Theorem, which we crucially identify with the time evolution of the system and measurement apparatus, affording significant technical advantages and conceptual insight into hybrid dynamics. We diagnose spectral properties in the presence of measurements for the first time, along with standard, experimentally tractable probes of phase structure, finding no nontrivial effects due to measurements in the absence of feedback. We also establish that nonlinearity in the density matrix is neither sufficient nor necessary to see a transition, and instead identify utilization of the measurement outcomes (i.e., ``feedback'') as the crucial ingredient. After reviewing the definition of a phase of matter, we identify nontrivial orders in adaptive hybrid dynamics -- in which measurement outcomes determine future unitary gates -- finding a genuine measurement-induced absorbing-state phase transition in an adaptive quantum East model. In general, we find that only deterministic and constrained Haar-random dynamics with active feedback and without continuous symmetries can realize genuine, measurement-induced phases of matter.Comment: 36 + 8 pages, 9 figures; v2 includes numerical simulations of adaptive dynamics, clarifications throughou

Development of outbred CD1 mouse colonies with distinct standardized gut microbiota profiles for use in complex microbiota targeted studies.

Studies indicate that the gut microbiota (GM) can significantly influence both local and systemic host physiologic processes. With rising concern for optimization of experimental reproducibility and translatability, it is essential to consider the GM in study design. However, GM profiles can vary between rodent producers making consistency between models challenging. To circumvent this, we developed outbred CD1 mouse colonies with stable, complex GM profiles that can be used as donors for a variety of GM transfer techniques including rederivation, co-housing, cross-foster, and fecal microbiota transfer (FMT). CD1 embryos were surgically transferred into CD1 or C57BL/6 surrogate dams that varied by GM composition and complexity to establish four separate mouse colonies harboring GM profiles representative of contemporary mouse producers. Using targeted 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing, subsequent female offspring were found to have similar GM profiles to surrogate dams. Furthermore, breeding colonies of CD1 mice with distinct GM profiles were maintained for nine generations, demonstrating GM stability within these colonies. To confirm GM stability, we shipped cohorts of these four colonies to collaborating institutions and found no significant variation in GM composition. These mice are an invaluable experimental resource that can be used to investigate GM effects on mouse model phenotype

The Simplest Walking Robot: A bipedal robot with one actuator and two rigid bodies

We present the design and experimental results of the first 1-DOF, hip-actuated bipedal robot. While passive dynamic walking is simple by nature, many existing bipeds inspired by this form of walking are complex in control, mechanical design, or both. Our design using only two rigid bodies connected by a single motor aims to enable exploration of walking at smaller sizes where more complex designs cannot be constructed. The walker, "Mugatu", is self-contained and autonomous, open-loop stable over a range of input parameters, able to stop and start from standing, and able to control its heading left and right. We analyze the mechanical design and distill down a set of design rules that enable these behaviors. Experimental evaluations measure speed, energy consumption, and steering

The effects of extended public transport operating hours and venue lockout policies on drinking-related harms in Melbourne, Australia: Results from SimDrink, an agent-based simulation model.

Background: The late-night accessibility of entertainment precincts is a contributing factor to acute drinking-related harms. Using computer simulation we test the effects of improved public transport (PT) and venue lockouts on verbal aggression, consumption-related harms and transport-related harms among a population of young adults engaging in heavy drinking in Melbourne. Methods: Using an agent-based model we implemented: a two-hour PT extension/24-hour PT; 1 am/3 am venue lockouts; and combinations of both. Outcomes determined for outer-urban (OU) and inner-city (IC) residents were: the number of incidents of verbal aggression inside public and private venues; the number of people ejected from public venues for being intoxicated; and the percentage of people experiencing verbal aggression, consumption-related harms and transport-related harms. Results: All-night PT reduced verbal aggression in the model by 21% but displaced some incidents among OU residents from private to public settings. Comparatively, 1 am lockouts reduced verbal aggression in the model by 19% but led to IC residents spending more time in private rather than public venues where their consumption-related harms increased. Extending PT by 2 h had similar outcomes to 24-hour PT except with fewer incidents of verbal aggression displaced. Although 3 am lockouts were inferior to 1 am lockouts, when modelled in combination with any extension of PT both policies were similar. Conclusions: A two-hour extension of PT is likely to be more effective in reducing verbal aggression and consumption-related harms than venue lockouts. Modelling a further extension of PT to 24 h had minimal additional benefits but the potential to displace incidents of verbal aggression among OU residents from private to public venues

Concert recording 2016-02-28

[Track 01]. Bagatellen. Elegie ; [Track 02]. Scherzo ; [Track 03]. Aria ; [Track 04]. Gigue / Erwin Dressel -- [Track 05]. Sonata. Allegro, ma non troppo ; [Track 06]. Sarabande ; Allegro / Wolfgang Jacobi -- [Track 07]. Flirtations. Sweet nothings ; [Track 08]. These soft shoes ; [Track 09]. Showtune / Michael Markowski -- [Track 10]. Sonata. Allegro ; [Track 11]. Andantino cantabile ; [Track 12]. Allegro vivace / Lawson Lunde

Microtubule Interaction Site of the Kinesin Motor

AbstractKinesin and myosin are motor proteins that share a common structural core and bind to microtubules and actin filaments, respectively. While the actomyosin interface has been well studied, the location of the microtubule-binding site on kinesin has not been identified. Using alanine-scanning mutagenesis, we have found that microtubule-interacting kinesin residues are located in three loops that cluster in a patch on the motor surface. The critical residues are primarily positively charged, which is consistent with a primarily electrostatic interaction with the negatively charged tubulin molecule. The core of the microtubule-binding interface resides in a highly conserved loop and helix (L12/α5) that corresponds topologically to the major actin-binding domain of myosin. Thus, kinesin and myosin have developed distinct polymer-binding domains in a similar region with respect to their common catalytic cores

Emotional arousal in agenesis of the corpus callosum

While the processing of verbal and psychophysiological indices of emotional arousal have been investigated extensively in relation to the left and right cerebral hemispheres, it remains poorly understood how both hemispheres normally function together to generate emotional responses to stimuli. Drawing on a unique sample of nine high-functioning subjects with complete agenesis of the corpus callosum (AgCC), we investigated this issue using standardized emotional visual stimuli. Compared to healthy controls, subjects with AgCC showed a larger variance in their cognitive ratings of valence and arousal, and an insensitivity to the emotion category of the stimuli, especially for negatively-valenced stimuli, and especially for their arousal. Despite their impaired cognitive ratings of arousal, some subjects with AgCC showed large skin-conductance responses, and in general skin-conductance responses discriminated emotion categories and correlated with stimulus arousal ratings. We suggest that largely intact right hemisphere mechanisms can support psychophysiological emotional responses, but that the lack of interhemispheric communication between the hemispheres, perhaps together with dysfunction of the anterior cingulate cortex, interferes with normal verbal ratings of arousal, a mechanism in line with some models of alexithymia