More Religious and Less Moral: The Changing Face of Religious Coexistence in Ladakh

Ladakh hosts a mixed population of Buddhists and Muslims that belies its popular image as a solely Buddhist replica of Tibet. Despite its unique history of religious integration, new pressures linked to globalisation are pulling the communities apart, with occasional and previously unheard-of communal conflict breaking out in recent decades. Through a comparison of historical and primary sources alongside first hand observation, this project traces the effects of external religious forces, the communal style of Indian politics, and the pressures of ‘development’ upon the local reality of religious coexistence in Ladakh. Despite the largely harmonious environment, it is clear that the foundations of a common Ladakhi identity are being undermined in favour of increasingly communalist, religious definitions of self. As well as providing an insight into the contemporary face of religion in the region, the Ladakhi situation offers a framework through which to examine the role of globalised forces upon the cohesiveness of local communities

Oxygen and nitrogen abundances in Virgo and field spirals

The oxygen and nitrogen abundances in the HII regions of the nine Virgo spirals of the sample from Skillman et al (1996) and in nine field spiral galaxies are re-determined with the recently suggested P - method. We confirm that there is an abundance segregation in the sample of Virgo spirals in the sense that the HI deficient Virgo spirals near the core of the cluster have higher oxygen abundances in comparison to the spirals at the periphery of the Virgo cluster. At the same time both the Virgo periphery and core spirals have counterparts among field spirals. We conclude that if there is a difference in the abundance properties of the Virgo and field spirals, this difference appears to be small and masked by the observational errors.Comment: 16 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysic

Does It Matter Who Writes Medical News Stories?

David Henry and colleagues review Australian news stories over a five-year period to assess whether quality is associated with who wrote the story: a specialist health journalist or a non-specialist

Eyewitness identification in child witnesses on the autism spectrum

Background. Although there is increasing interest in the capabilities of children with autism at different stages of the criminal justice process, there is little research into how well this group perform when asked to identify perpetrators from identification lineups. This is despite theoretical and empirical literature suggesting that autistic children experience face recognition memory difficulties. Method. As part of a broader study into eyewitness memory skills, 50 children with autism and 162 children with typical development (TD) (all with IQs > 69) watched a mock crime event (either live or on a video) involving two male perpetrators. One week later, their eyewitness identification skills were compared, with children asked to identify the perpetrators from two ecologically valid video lineups. The children were also assessed on a standardised face memory task. Results. When asked to identify perpetrators in the video lineups, in many respects the autistic children performed at an equivalent level to the TD children. This was despite the TD children outperforming the autistic children on the standardized face memory task. Conclusions. These preliminary findings suggest that group differences between autistic and TD children may not always emerge on an ecologically valid, real world eyewitness identification lineup task, despite autistic children showing poorer performance on a standardized face memory task. However, as identification performance in both groups was low, it remains important for future research to identify how to scaffold eyewitness identification performance in both children with and without an autism diagnosis

Regulation of the host immune system by helminth parasites

Helminth parasite infections are associated with a battery of immunomodulatory mechanisms, which impact all facets of the host immune response to ensure their persistence within the host. This broad-spectrum modulation of host immunity has intended and unintended consequences, both advantageous and disadvantageous. Thus the host may benefit from suppression of collateral damage during parasite infection, and from reduced allergic, autoimmune and inflammatory reactions. However, helminth infection can also be detrimental in reducing vaccine responses, increasing susceptibility to co-infection, and potentially reducing tumor immunosurveillance. In this review we will summarize the panoply of immunomodulatory mechanisms used by helminths, their potential utility in human disease, and prospective areas of future research

Verbal and non-verbal fluency in adults with developmental dyslexia: Phonological processing or executive control problems?

The executive function of fluency describes the ability to generate items according to specific rules. Production of words beginning with a certain letter (phonemic fluency) is impaired in dyslexia, whilst generation of words belonging to a certain semantic category (semantic fluency) is typically unimpaired. However, in dyslexia, verbal fluency has generally been studied only in terms of overall words produced. Furthermore, performance of adults with dyslexia on non-verbal design fluency tasks has not been explored but would indicate whether deficits could be explained by executive control, rather than phonological processing, difficulties. Phonemic, semantic, and design fluency tasks were presented to adults with dyslexia and without dyslexia, using fine-grained performance measures and controlling for IQ. Hierarchical regressions indicated that dyslexia predicted lower phonemic fluency, but not semantic or design fluency. At the fine-grained level, dyslexia predicted a smaller number of switches between subcategories on phonemic fluency, whilst dyslexia did not predict the size of phonemically-related clusters of items. Overall, the results suggested that phonological processing problems were at the root of dyslexia-related fluency deficits; however, executive control difficulties could not be completely ruled out as an alternative explanation. Developments in research methodology, equating executive demands across fluency tasks, may resolve this issue

Group therapy for binge eating in Type 2 diabetes: A randomized trial

Aims: This preliminary study addresses three related issues. First, there is a need to test the effectiveness of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) for binge eating in populations with Type 2 diabetes. Second, the impact of a treatment for binge eating on diabetes management is unknown. Finally, whilst a number of treatment modalities have been shown to improve binge eating, there has not been a comparison between CBT and a non-specific therapy for binge eating. Methods: Group CBT for binge eating was compared with a group nonprescriptive therapy (NPT), a therapy for which there is no theoretical or empirical support in eating disorders, in a randomized trial which included a post-treatment assessment and a 3-month follow-up. Results: There were no differences between CBT and NPT at post-treatment, with both treatments being associated with significant changes in binge eating, mood and body mass index. However, there was a significant relapse in binge eating at the 3-month follow-up in the NPT condition. This was in contrast to the CBT condition, where treatment gains were maintained. Finally, across treatments, reduction in binge eating from pre- to post-treatment was associated with reduction in HbA. Conclusions: Binge eating in Type 2 diabetes is responsive to psychosocial treatment, and reduction in binge eating appears to improve glycaemic control. However, this is a small study with a short follow-up period. Future studies will need to extend the follow-up period to assess for long-term maintenance of the effects of CBT on binge eating and diabetic control in this population

The Bristol CMIP6 Data Hackathon

The Bristol CMIP6 Data Hackathon formed part of the Met Office Climate Data Challenge Hackathon series during 2021, bringing together around 100 UK early career researchers from a wide range of environmental disciplines. The purpose was to interrogate the under-utilised but currently most advanced climate model inter-comparison project datasets to develop new research ideas, create new networks and outreach opportunities in the lead up to COP26. Experts in different science fields, supported by a core team of scientists and data specialists at Bristol, had the unique opportunity to explore together interdisciplinary environmental topics summarised in this article

The Herschel Virgo Cluster Survey. IX. Dust-to-gas mass ratio and metallicity gradients in four Virgo spiral galaxies

Using Herschel data from the Open Time Key Project the Herschel Virgo Cluster Survey (HeViCS), we investigated the relationship between the metallicity gradients expressed by metal abundances in the gas phase as traced by the chemical composition of HII regions, and in the solid phase, as traced by the dust-to-gas mass ratio. We derived the radial gradient of the dust-to-gas mass ratio for all galaxies observed by HeViCS whose metallicity gradients are available in the literature. They are all late type Sbc galaxies, namely NGC4254, NGC4303, NGC4321, and NGC4501. We examined different dependencies on metallicity of the CO-to-H$_2$ conversion factor (\xco), used to transform the $^{12}$CO observations into the amount of molecular hydrogen. We found that in these galaxies the dust-to-gas mass ratio radial profile is extremely sensitive to choice of the \xco\ value, since the molecular gas is the dominant component in the inner parts. We found that for three galaxies of our sample, namely NGC4254, NGC4321, and NGC4501, the slopes of the oxygen and of the dust-to-gas radial gradients agree up to $\sim$0.6-0.7R$_{25}$ using \xco\ values in the range 1/3-1/2 Galactic \xco. For NGC4303 a lower value of \xco$\sim0.1\times$ 10$^{20}$ is necessary. We suggest that such low \xco\ values might be due to a metallicity dependence of \xco (from close to linear for NGC4254, NGC4321, and NGC4501 to superlinear for NGC4303), especially in the radial regions R$_G<$0.6-0.7R$_{25}$ where the molecular gas dominates. On the other hand, the outer regions, where the atomic gas component is dominant, are less affected by the choice of \xco, and thus we cannot put constraints on its value.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figures, A&A accepte