Hole concentration and phonon renormalization in Ca-doped YBa_2Cu_3O_y (6.76 < y < 7.00)

In order to access the overdoped regime of the YBa_2Cu_3O_y phase diagram, 2% Ca is substituted for Y in YBa_2Cu_3O_y (y = 7.00,6.93,6.88,6.76). Raman scattering studies have been carried out on these four single crystals. Measurements of the superconductivity-induced renormalization in frequency (Delta \omega) and linewidth (\Delta 2\gamma) of the 340 cm^{-1} B_{1g} phonon demonstrate that the magnitude of the renormalization is directly related to the hole concentration (p), and not simply the oxygen content. The changes in \Delta \omega with p imply that the superconducting gap (\Delta_{max}) decreases monotonically with increasing hole concentration in the overdoped regime, and \Delta \omega falls to zero in the underdoped regime. The linewidth renormalization \Delta 2\gamma is negative in the underdoped regime, crossing over at optimal doping to a positive value in the overdoped state.Comment: 18 pages; 5 figures; submitted to Phys. Rev. B Oct. 24, 2002 (BX8292

Pro-anorexia, weight-loss drugs and the internet: an 'anti-recovery' explanatory model of anorexia

This paper explores the online ‘pro-anorexia’ underground, a movement that supports those with anorexia and adopts an ‘anti-recovery’ perspective on the disease. While encouraging a ‘healthy’ diet to sustain an anorexic way-of-life, the movement also recommends the radical use of weight-loss pharmaceuticals to pursue and maintain low body weight, in contrast to their conventional use to treat obesity. Using ethnographic and interview data collected from participants in the ‘Anagrrl’ website and online forum, we analyse the pro-anorexia (or ‘pro-ana’) movement in terms of its underlying ‘explanatory model’ of the disease, and contrast it with medical, psychosocial, sociocultural and feminist models that encourage a ‘normalisation’ of body shape and weight. We suggest that for participants in pro-ana, anorexia represents stability and control, and Anagrrl offers support and guidance for those who wish to remain in this ‘sanctuary’. We discuss the pro-anorexia movement's use of the internet to facilitate resistance to medical and social theories of disease, and its subversion of pharmaceutical technologies

Bio-Psycho-Social Reasoning in GPs’ Case Narratives: The Discursive Construction of ME Patients’ Identities

This article takes a discursive psychology approach to the analysis of medical case narratives. An analysis of interview extracts on the topic of ME (CFS)shows how GPs use bio-psycho-social reasoning to construct the patient's identity and to define their illness as mental or physical. Patients' identities are 'talked up' using bio-psycho-social 'evidence'; they are constructed in the process of explaining the origins of an illness as mental or physical. This has much in common with identity construction in the illness narratives of ME patients. The analysis also shows how identity construction can function as a justification for defining an illness as psychosomatic and effectively 'shifting the blame' for what might otherwise be treated as medical failure or uncertainty. These processes show how a discursive analysis can shed more light on how bio-psycho-social reasoning functions in doctors' case constructions