Follow Your Food: An Investigation of Podcasting to Communicate the Complexity of Food Choice and How It Impacts us, Our Communities and the Earth

This professional project explores the popular and relatively new media communications vehicle of podcasting to engage and inform the general public about the complexity of the food system. It has involved background research on the dynamics of podcasting from production to marketing and distribution, including surveys of academic literature and existing podcasts in the subject area, as well as informational interviews with several podcast producers. It has also included development and sample production of a potential podcast series, starting with a weeklong podcast training and concluding with a fully produced pilot episode, plus additional scripts using material from 11 audio interviews with practitioners and subject experts. The resulting Follow Your Food is positioned as an immersive podcast about the influences on and impacts of our food choices on us, our communities and the Earth. Each episode will explore a different aspect of the big question: Can a plant-based diet save us? My approach has leveraged transdisciplinary food systems research combined with journalistic practices to investigate, dimensionalize and humanize this question. Preliminary response to the sample episode and overall concept demonstrates strong potential for a podcast series that brings to life for listeners the potential impacts of a livestock-free eating shift on the environmental, economic and socio-cultural landscape of Vermont, and also explore the ethical and health implications for Vermonters. More work needs to be done on evaluating communication efficacy of the podcast, including comparing different lengths, and developing a plan for production and marketing

Fermi condensates for dynamic imaging of electro-magnetic fields

Ultracold gases provide micrometer size atomic samples whose sensitivity to external fields may be exploited in sensor applications. Bose-Einstein condensates of atomic gases have been demonstrated to perform excellently as magnetic field sensors \cite{Wildermuth2005a} in atom chip \cite{Folman2002a,Fortagh2007a} experiments. As such, they offer a combination of resolution and sensitivity presently unattainable by other methods \cite{Wildermuth2006a}. Here we propose that condensates of Fermionic atoms can be used for non-invasive sensing of time-dependent and static magnetic and electric fields, by utilizing the tunable energy gap in the excitation spectrum as a frequency filter. Perturbations of the gas by the field create both collective excitations and quasiparticles. Excitation of quasiparticles requires the frequency of the perturbation to exceed the energy gap. Thus, by tuning the gap, the frequencies of the field may be selectively monitored from the amount of quasiparticles which is measurable for instance by RF-spectroscopy. We analyse the proposed method by calculating the density-density susceptibility, i.e. the dynamic structure factor, of the gas. We discuss the sensitivity and spatial resolution of the method which may, with advanced techniques for quasiparticle observation \cite{Schirotzek2008a}, be in the half a micron scale.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figure

Lukutaito monimediaisessa maailmassa

Tiivistelmä. Nykypäivänä lukutaidon merkitys korostuu erilaisissa tekstiympäristöissä. Tekstien kentällä perinteiset kirjat ovat murroksessa ja digilaitteet ovat ottaneet valtaa. Voidaan todeta, että tekstit ovat tänä päivänä multimodaalisempia kuin aiemmin. Kaiken teknologisen kehityksen keskellä monilukutaidon merkitys kasvaa ja kriittinen medialukutaito korostuu, jotta yksilö kykenee suhtautumaan kriittisesti kohtaamaansa sisältöön. Opettajan näkökulmasta koululla on merkittävä rooli yksilön monilukutaidon opetuksessa. Kandidaatin tutkielmani tavoitteena on selvittää, millaisia tekstejä lasten ja nuorten maailmassa on, millainen yhteys digilaitteiden käytöllä on yksilön lukutaitoon ja miten koulu voi tukea yksilön kriittistä lukutaitoa monimediaisten tekstien maailmassa. Tutkielma on toteutettu kvalitatiivisena tutkimuksena, jossa hyödynnän kuvailevaa kirjallisuuskatsausta ja tarkemmin määriteltynä narratiivista yleiskatsausta. Olen kerännyt aineistoni hyödyntäen eri tietokantoja, joista olen poiminut sekä kotimaisia että kansainvälisiä vertaisarvioituja lähteitä. Tutkielmani tulokset osoittavat, että tekstit voidaan jakaa sekä painettuihin että digitaalisiin teksteihin. Painettuja tekstejä ovat esimerkiksi kirjat ja sanomalehdet. Digitaalisessa muodossa olevat digitaaliset tekstit, kuten videot, kuvat ja musiikki sekä näiden semioottisten piirteiden sekoittuminen eli multimodaalisuus, haastaa perinteisiä painettuja tekstejä. Kaiken kaikkiaan tekstien ymmärtämisen perustana on hyvä peruslukutaito. Internetin käyttäminen itsessään ei ole tutkimusten mukaan suoraan yhteydessä heikkoon lukutaitoon, sillä ratkaisevaa on se, miten sitä käytetään. Koululla ja opettajalla on tärkeä rooli peruskouluikäisten kriittisen medialukutaidon tukemisessa mediakasvatuksen avulla. Monilukutaito sivuaa medialukutaitoa sekä mediakasvatusta, ja se on nostettu myös perusopetuksen opetussuunnitelman perusteissa yhdeksi laaja-alaisen osaamisen tavoitteeksi. Tekstien murroksellisuus ei ole kuitenkaan pysähdyksissä, vaan kehitys jatkuu koko ajan. Opettajan on ajankohtaista pysähtyä pohtimaan ratkaisuja siihen, kuinka laajasti omassa opetuksessa voi hyödyntää mediakasvatusta, jotta yksilö pystyy suhtautumaan mahdollisimman kriittisesti ympäröiviin teksteihin ja kehittämään monilukutaitoaan

Multifrequency Observations of the Gamma-Ray Blazar 3C 279 in Low-State during Integral AO-1

We report first results of a multifrequency campaign from radio to hard X-ray energies of the prominent gamma-ray blazar 3C 279 during the first year of the INTEGRAL mission. The variable blazar was found at a low activity level, but was detected by all participating instruments. Subsequently a multifrequency spectrum could be compiled. The individual measurements as well as the compiled multifrequency spectrum are presented. In addition, this 2003 broadband spectrum is compared to one measured in 1999 during a high activity period of 3C 279.Comment: 4 pages including 6 figures, to appear in: 'Proc. of the 5th INTEGRAL Workshop', ESA SP-552, in pres

Downregulation of HLA Class I Renders Inflammatory Neutrophils More Susceptible to NK Cell-Induced Apoptosis

Neutrophils are potent effector cells and contain a battery of harmful substances and degrading enzymes. A silent neutrophil death, i.e., apoptosis, is therefore of importance to avoid damage to the surrounding tissue and to enable termination of the acute inflammatory process. There is a pile of evidence supporting the role for pro-inflammatory cytokines in extending the life-span of neutrophils, but relatively few studies have been devoted to mechanisms actively driving apoptosis induction in neutrophils. We have previously demonstrated that natural killer (NK) cells can promote apoptosis in healthy neutrophils. In this study, we set out to investigate how neutrophil sensitivity to NK cell-mediated cytotoxicity is regulated under inflammatory conditions. Using in vitro-activated neutrophils and a human skin chamber model that allowed collection of in vivo-transmigrated neutrophils, we performed a comprehensive characterization of neutrophil expression of ligands to NK cell receptors. These studies revealed a dramatic downregulation of HLA class I molecules in inflammatory neutrophils, which was associated with an enhanced susceptibility to NK cell cytotoxicity. Collectively, our data shed light on the complex regulation of interactions between NK cells and neutrophils during an inflammatory response and provide further support for a role of NK cells in the resolution phase of inflammation

Stereospecific modulation of GABA(A) receptor function by urocanic acid isomers

A deamination product of histidine, urocanic acid, accumulates in the skin of mammals as trans-urocanic acid. Ultraviolet (UV) irradition converts it to the cis-isomer that is an important mediator in UV-induced immunosuppression. We have recently shown that urocanic acid interferes with the agonist binding to GABAA receptors. We now report that the effects of urocanic acid on binding of a convulsant ligand (t-butylbicyclo[35S]phosphorothionate) to GABAA receptors in brain membrane homogenates are dependent on pH of the incubation medium, the agonistic actions being enhanced at the normal pH of the skin (5.5). Using Xenopus laevis oocytes expressing recombinant rat alpha1beta1gamma2S GABAA receptors, the low pH potentiated the direct agonistic action of trans-urocanic acid under two-electrode voltage-clamp, whereas cis-urocanic acid retained its low efficacy both at pH 5.5 and 7.4. The results thus indicate clear differences between urocanic acid isomers in functional activity at one putative receptor site of immunosuppression, the GABAA receptor, the presence of which in the skin remains to be demonstrated.</p

The effectiveness of neuromuscular warm-up strategies, that require no additional equipment, for preventing lower limb injuries during sports participation: a systematic review

PMCID: PMC3408383The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7015/10/75. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited