The popular music heritage of the Dutch pirates: illegal radio and cultural identity

This article explores how cultural identities are negotiated in relation to the heritage of illegal radio in the Netherlands. The term ‘pirate radio’ commonly refers to the offshore radio stations that were broadcasting during the 1960s. These stations introduced commercial radio and popular music genres like beat music, which were not played by public broadcasters at the time. In their wake, land-based pirates began broadcasting for local audiences. This study examines the identities that are constituted by the narrative of pirate radio. Drawing on in-depth interviews with archivists, fans and broadcasters, this article explores the connection between pirate radio, popular music heritage and cultural identity. Moreover, it considers how new technologies such as internet radio provide platforms to engage with this heritage and thus to maintain these local identities. To examine how the memories of pirate radio live on in the present a narrative approach to identity will be used

First Test of Lorentz Invariance in the Weak Decay of Polarized Nuclei

A new test of Lorentz invariance in the weak interactions has been made by searching for variations in the decay rate of spin-polarized 20Na nuclei. This test is unique to Gamow-Teller transitions, as was shown in the framework of a recently developed theory that assumes a Lorentz symmetry breaking background field of tensor nature. The nuclear spins were polarized in the up and down direction, putting a limit on the amplitude of sidereal variations of the form |(\Gamma_{up} - \Gamma_{down})| / (\Gamma_{up} + \Gamma_{down}) < 3 * 10^{-3}. This measurement shows a possible route toward a more detailed testing of Lorentz symmetry in weak interactions.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figure

Locked down apps versus the social media ecology : why do young people and educators disagree on the best delivery platform for digital sexual health entertainment education?

This article reports on focus groups exploring the best way to reach young men with vulgar comedy videos that provide sexual health information. Young people reported that they found the means by which the material was presented - as a locked down app - to be problematic, and that it would better be delivered through social media platforms such as YouTube. This would make it more 'spreadable'. By contrast, adult sex education stakeholders thought the material should be contained within a locked down, stand-alone app - otherwise it might be seen by children who are too young, and/or young people might misunderstand the messages. We argue that the difference in approach represented by these two sets of opinions represents a fundamental stumbling block for attempts to reach young people with digital sexual health materials, which can be understood through the prism of different cultural forms - education versus entertainment

Consumption patterns and living conditions inside Het Steen, the late medieval prison of Malines (Mechelen, Belgium)

Excavations at the Main Square (Grote Markt) of Malines (Mechelen, Belgium) have unearthed the building remains of a tower, arguably identifiable as the former town prison: Het Steen. When this assumption is followed, the contents of the fills of two cesspits dug out in the cellars of the building illustrate aspects of daily life within the early 14th-century prison. An integrated approach of all find categories, together with the historical context available, illuminates aspects of the material culture of the users of the cesspits, their consumption patterns and the living conditions within the building

Technologies of memory: practices of remembering in analogue and digital photography

This article demonstrates the need always to consider change against continuity and continuity against change in the analysis of mnemonic technologies. It does so by exploring what has happened in the move from analogue to digital photography, looking in particular at how this has affected the meanings of personal photographs and the practices of remembering associated with them. In contrast with technologically determinist perspectives which have been, however latently, manifest in writing on new media, the value of exploring vernacular photography as a specifically mnemonic practice is that it turns our attention to the ways in which photographic practices are bound up with longer-term social uses and cultural values. Our analysis focuses on changes in four key categories of photographic practice that relate to the analogue/digital shift: photo-taking; photo-storing; photo-viewing; photo-sharing – all of which have consequences for the uses of photography as a mnemonic resource. They have all been altered in varying degrees by the advent of digital technologies, but with people continually making comparative evaluations of old and new, drawing on the former as a key aspect of learning how to use the latter

Yours ever (well, maybe): Studies and signposts in letter writing

Electronic mail and other digital communications technologies seemingly threaten to end the era of handwritten and typed letters, now affectionately seen as part of snail mail. In this essay, I analyze a group of popular and scholarly studies about letter writing-including examples of pundits critiquing the use of e-mail, etiquette manuals advising why the handwritten letter still possesses value, historians and literary scholars studying the role of letters in the past and what it tells us about our present attitudes about digital communications technologies, and futurists predicting how we will function as personal archivists maintaining every document including e-mail. These are useful guideposts for archivists, providing both a sense of the present and the past in the role, value and nature of letters and their successors. They also provide insights into how such documents should be studied, expanding our gaze beyond the particular letters, to the tools used to create them and the traditions dictating their form and function. We also can discern a role for archivists, both for contributing to the literature about documents and in using these studies and commentaries, suggesting not a new disciplinary realm but opportunities for new interdisciplinary work. Examining a documentary form makes us more sensitive to both the innovations and traditions as it shifts from the analog to the digital; we can learn not to be caught up in hysteria or nostalgia about one form over another and archivists can learn about what they might expect in their labors to document society and its institutions. At one time, paper was part of an innovative technology, with roles very similar to the Internet and e-mail today. It may be that the shifts are far less revolutionary than is often assumed. Reading such works also suggests, finally, that archivists ought to rethink how they view their own knowledge and how it is constructed and used. © 2010 Springer Science+Business Media B.V

Patients undergoing elective coronary artery bypass grafting exhibit poor pre-operative intakes of fruit, vegetables, dietary fibre, fish and vitamin D

CHD may ensue from chronic systemic low-grade inflammation. Diet is a modifiable risk factor for both, and its optimisation may reduce post-operative mortality, atrial fibrillation and cognitive decline. In the present study, we investigated the usual dietary intakes of patients undergoing elective coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG), emphasising on food groups and nutrients with putative roles in the inflammatory/anti-inflammatory balance. From November 2012 to April 2013, we approached ninety-three consecutive patients (80% men) undergoing elective CABG. Of these, fifty-five were finally included (84% men, median age 69 years; range 46-84 years). The median BMI was 27 (range 18-36)kg/m(2). The dietary intake items were fruits (median 181g/d; range 0-433g/d), vegetables (median 115g/d; range 0-303g/d), dietary fibre (median 22g/d; range 9-45g/d), EPA+DHA (median 014g/d; range 001-106g/d), vitamin D (median 49g/d; range 19-112g/d), saturated fat (median 131% of energy (E%); range 9-23E%) and linoleic acid (LA; median 63E%; range 19-113E%). The percentages of patients with dietary intakes below recommendations were 62% (fruits; recommendation 200g/d), 87% (vegetables; recommendation 150-200g/d), 73% (dietary fibre; recommendation 30-45g/d), 91% (EPA+DHA; recommendation 045g/d), 98% (vitamin D; recommendation 10-20g/d) and 13% (LA; recommendation 5-10E%). The percentages of patients with dietary intakes above recommendations were 95% (saturated fat; recommendatio

The narrative self, distributed memory, and evocative objects

In this article, I outline various ways in which artifacts are interwoven with autobiographical memory systems and conceptualize what this implies for the self. I first sketch the narrative approach to the self, arguing that who we are as persons is essentially our (unfolding) life story, which, in turn, determines our present beliefs and desires, but also directs our future goals and actions. I then argue that our autobiographical memory is partly anchored in our embodied interactions with an ecology of artifacts in our environment. Lifelogs, photos, videos, journals, diaries, souvenirs, jewelry, books, works of art, and many other meaningful objects trigger and sometimes constitute emotionally-laden autobiographical memories. Autobiographical memory is thus distributed across embodied agents and various environmental structures. To defend this claim, I draw on and integrate distributed cognition theory and empirical research in human-technology interaction. Based on this, I conclude that the self is neither defined by psychological states realized by the brain nor by biological states realized by the organism, but should be seen as a distributed and relational construct

Folate reference interval estimation in the Dutch general population

Background: Folate functions as an enzyme co-factor within the one-carbon metabolic pathway, providing key metabolites required for DNA synthesis and methylation. Hence, insufficient intake of folate can negatively affect health. As correct interpretation of folate status is dependent on a well-established reference interval, we set out to perform a new estimation following the restandardization of the Roche folate assay against the international folate standard. Materials and methods: The folate reference interval was estimated using samples obtained from the Dutch population-based Lifelines cohort. The reference interval was estimated using two methods: a nonparametric estimation combined with bootstrap resampling and by fitting the data to a gamma distribution. The lower reference limit was verified in a patient cohort by combined measurement of folate and homocysteine. Results: Dependent on the method used for estimation and in- or exclusion of individuals younger than 21 years of age, the lower reference limit ranged from 6.8 to 7.3 nmol/L and the upper reference limit ranged from 26 to 38.5 nmol/L. Applying a lower reference limit of 7.3 nmol/L resulted in the following percentage of folate deficiencies over a period of 12 months: general practitioner 15.5% (IQR 4.0%), general hospital 12.8% (IQR 5.3%), academic hospital 9.6% (IQR 4.3%). Conclusions: We estimated the folate reference interval in the Dutch general population which is not affected by a folic acid fortification program and verified the obtained lower reference limit by homocysteine measurements. Based on our results, we propose a folate reference interval independent of age of 7.3-38.5 nmol/