This is Irish dance: innovation and tradition in Irish dance teaching and choreography.

PhD ThesisThis thesis explores alternative forms of Irish dance, examining the work of key choreographers who are creating new Irish dance performances which question what Irish dance is and can be. Innovative Irish dance emerges out of a discontent with the competitive, commercial and regulated nature of traditional Irish dance schools and instead, incorporates training in other dance forms, prioritises dance safety and welcomes improvisation as well as student involvement in the classroom and choreography. To examine the development and possibilities of new forms of Irish dance, the thesis draws on, and contributes to cultural geographical scholarship on dance, space and performance, research on folk dance and music, and Irish dance studies. Together these bodies of literature examine questions around tradition, modernity, authenticity, creativity, cultural change in relation to national cultural practices, and Irish dance more specifically. The thesis examines three main themes: i) the context, networks and motivations behind alternative Irish dance; ii) innovative Irish dance choreography, specifically the influences, form and values that shape and are inspired through new forms of Irish dance and; iii) the approaches, challenges and possibilities that arise through teaching Irish dance. I explore these themes geographically through an attention to the sites and spaces of alternative Irish dance, such as the studio, stage and classroom, and scales including the body, local, regional, national and international dimensions. The empirical findings were generated through a practice-based approach that drew on my experience as a former champion Irish dancer. The research has found that for innovative choreographers and teachers, how a dancer’s body moves in learning and performing Irish dance reflects an approach that does not oppose individual creativity and tradition. The authenticity of the movement depends on a respectful return to and innovative reworking of this cultural form

Implicit rather than explicit threat predicts attentional bias towards Black but not Asian faces in a White undergraduate population

Attentional biases are driven by type of stimulus in our environment (faces capture our attention in preference to non face items, e.g. Ro, Russel & Lavie, 2001), and motivation to seek out specific stimuli (e.g. spider images will capture attention more readily in those with arachnophobia, e.g. Ohman, Flykt & Esteves, 2001). Hence, attentional biases have been used as a behavioural measure of positive or negative attitudes to stimuli in the environment. The finding that the faces of Black people capture attention in a sample of White U.S. participants (Trawalter, Todd, Baird & Richeson, 2008) has been interpreted as Black faces being a threat stimulus, which is an interpretation in accord with other experimental evidence on the stigmatized representation of Black people as threatening (e.g. in a simulated first person shooter task, White participants shoot both armed and unarmed Black targets more frequently and more quickly than White targets, e.g. Correll, Urland and Ito, 2006). Al-Janabi, MacLeod and Rhodes (2012) suggest that attentional bias to Black faces may not represent threat but rather novelty of the stimulus, supported by the finding that an attentional bias was found towards faces of Asian females, where these faces had not been rated as more threatening than White faces. However, as noted as a possibility by these authors and as demonstrated by Donders, Correll and Wittenbrink (2008), implicit measures of danger can predict attentional bias towards Black faces. Implicit attitudes are often poorly correlated with conscious attitudes and are thought to stem from simple exposure to stereotyped information in the environment without being necessarily consciously endorsed. Hence, there is still uncertainty as to whether implicit bias as opposed to explicit bias better underpins attentional bias to other race faces

Measuring implicit bi-dimensional attitudes and predicting speeding behaviour

Attitudes are bi-dimensional predictors of behaviour, meaning that attitudes comprise separate positive and negative dimensions, which both predict behaviour independently (Elliott et al., 2015). Furthermore, the positive dimension of attitude is the stronger predictor for risky behaviours (e.g., speeding). This implies that evaluative beliefs about positive behavioural consequences strongly influence subsequent behavioural performance. Beliefs about negative behavioural consequences do not. In previous research, bi-dimensional attitudes have been measured using questionnaires, which tap explicit cognitive judgements. However, implicit cognitive processes are likely to dictate the performance of habitual behaviours such as speeding. We therefore measured bi-dimensional attitudes using an implicit association test (IAT). The presentation will cover the development of the IAT and the results from regression modelling, in which test performance was used to predict speeding behaviour. The implications for better understanding the cognitive processes that dictate behavioural performance and how to change behaviour will be discussed

Implantable Therapeutic Reservoir Systems for Diverse Clinical Applications in Large Animal Models

Regenerative medicine approaches, specifically stem cell technologies, have demonstrated significant potential to treat a diverse array of pathologies. However, such approaches have resulted in a modest clinical benefit, which may be attributed to poor cell retention/survival at the disease site. A delivery system that facilitates regional and repeated delivery to target tissues can provide enhanced clinical efficacy of cell therapies when localized delivery of high doses of cells is required. In this study, a new regenerative reservoir platform (Regenervoir) is described for use in large animal models, with relevance to cardiac, abdominal, and soft tissue pathologies. Regenervoir incorporates multiple novel design features essential for clinical translation, with a focus on scalability, mechanism of delivery, fixation to target tissue, and filling/refilling with a therapeutic cargo, and is demonstrated in an array of clinical applications that are easily translated to human studies. Regenervoir consists of a porous reservoir fabricated from a single material, a flexible thermoplastic polymer, capable of delivering cargo via fill lines to target tissues. A radiopaque shear thinning hydrogel can be delivered to the therapy reservoir and multiple fixation methods (laparoscopic tacks and cyanoacrylate bioadhesive) can be used to secure Regenervoir to target tissues through a minimally invasive approach.In this study, a new regenerative reservoir platform (Regenervoir) is described for use in large animal models that are easily translated to human studies, with relevance to cardiac, abdominal, and soft tissue pathologies. Regenervoir incorporates multiple novel design features essential for clinical translation, with a focus on scalability, mechanism of delivery, fixation, and filling/refilling with a therapeutic cargo.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/155890/1/adhm202000305.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/155890/2/adhm202000305_am.pd

Genetic determinants of telomere length from 109,122 ancestrally diverse whole-genome sequences in TOPMed

Genetic studies on telomere length are important for understanding age-related diseases. Prior GWAS for leukocyte TL have been limited to European and Asian populations. Here, we report the first sequencing-based association study for TL across ancestrally-diverse individuals (European, African, Asian and Hispanic/Latino) from the NHLBI Trans-Omics for Precision Medicine (TOPMed) program. We used whole genome sequencing (WGS) of whole blood for variant genotype calling and the bioinformatic estimation of telomere length in n=109,122 individuals. We identified 59 sentinel variants (p-value OBFC1indicated the independent signals colocalized with cell-type specific eQTLs for OBFC1 (STN1). Using a multi-variant gene-based approach, we identified two genes newly implicated in telomere length, DCLRE1B (SNM1B) and PARN. In PheWAS, we demonstrated our TL polygenic trait scores (PTS) were associated with increased risk of cancer-related phenotypes

SARS-CoV-2 susceptibility and COVID-19 disease severity are associated with genetic variants affecting gene expression in a variety of tissues

Variability in SARS-CoV-2 susceptibility and COVID-19 disease severity between individuals is partly due to genetic factors. Here, we identify 4 genomic loci with suggestive associations for SARS-CoV-2 susceptibility and 19 for COVID-19 disease severity. Four of these 23 loci likely have an ethnicity-specific component. Genome-wide association study (GWAS) signals in 11 loci colocalize with expression quantitative trait loci (eQTLs) associated with the expression of 20 genes in 62 tissues/cell types (range: 1:43 tissues/gene), including lung, brain, heart, muscle, and skin as well as the digestive system and immune system. We perform genetic fine mapping to compute 99% credible SNP sets, which identify 10 GWAS loci that have eight or fewer SNPs in the credible set, including three loci with one single likely causal SNP. Our study suggests that the diverse symptoms and disease severity of COVID-19 observed between individuals is associated with variants across the genome, affecting gene expression levels in a wide variety of tissue types