Why does public attention to the environment change so much over time?

Martha Kirby highlights how the proportion of the public mentioning the environment as one of Britain’s most important problems has fluctuated in recent decades and links the recent striking rise with protest activity

Too much of a good thing? Weight management, obesity, and the healthy body in Britain, 1950 - 1995

‘Too Much of a Good Thing?’ Weight management, obesity and the healthy body in Britain 1950 – 1995, examines the social and cultural interactions that have helped to forge understandings of the healthy body in Britain since the Second World War. Weight management has occupied a complex cultural space since 1950. The growth of an affluent society created a new set of public health problems for those who sought to improve the health of the nation; yet, the control of one’s weight is a highly individualised task that requires people to develop a form of self-governance that is to be ceaselessly exercised. Every meal, every snack, every drink that passes the lips of the dieting individual has to be measured and accounted for, if one is to succeed in losing weight. Through an examination of state policy, medical advice, and popular culture, this thesis traces the various social actors that have contributed to contemporary understandings of obesity. It is argued that, over the period, the overweight body was re-fashioned from a personal problem, to a public health problem with personal consequences. The greater the perceived threat of obesity to public health, the more carefully individual self-governance was offered as the solution. Self-governance of the ‘weighted self’ was, however, gendered. Women were the central pillar, as the social group most likely to engage in weight control, and in their roles as mothers and wives, around which the web of responsibility for overweight was formed

Maternal age differences in cognitive regulation: examination of associations and interactions between RSA and EEG frontoparietal alpha power coherence

Strong cognitive regulation is advantageous for flexible, responsive parenting. Optimal cognitive regulation is reliant on associations between physiological mechanisms of central and peripheral nervous system functioning. Across middle adulthood there may be shifts in how cognitive regulation functions, reflecting changes in the associations and interactions between these physiological mechanisms. Two physiological indicators of cognitive regulation are autonomic regulation of the heart (e.g., respiratory sinus arrhythmia, RSA) and activity of the brain’s frontoparietal network (e.g., frontoparietal EEG alpha power coherence, FPc). In the current study we examined maternal age differences (N = 90, age M = 32.35 years, SD = 5.86 years) in correlations and interactions between RSA and FPc in the statistical prediction of cognitive regulation [i.e., executive function (EF), effortful control (EC), cognitive reappraisal (CR)]. Age-related patterns involving interaction between RSA and FPc were found, pointing to a potential shift from optimization to compensation for changes with aging or alternately, the effects of age-based decrements in functioning. Findings are discussed in the context of adult developmental changes in maternal caregiving

Supplement 20, Part 4, Parasite-Subject Catalogue: Parasites: Nematoda and Acanthocephala

United States Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Animal Industr

Requirements for Selection of Conventional and Innate T Lymphocyte Lineages

SummaryMice deficient in the Tec kinase Itk develop a large population of CD8+ T cells with properties, including expression of memory markers, rapid production of cytokines, and dependence on Interleukin-15, resembling NKT and other innate T cell lineages. Like NKT cells, these CD8+ T cells can be selected on hematopoietic cells. We demonstrate that these CD8+ T cell phenotypes resulted from selection on hematopoietic cells—forcing selection on the thymic stroma reduced the number and innate phenotypes of mature Itk-deficient CD8+ T cells. We further show that, similar to NKT cells, selection of innate-type CD8+ T cells in Itk−/− mice required the adaptor SAP. Acquisition of their innate characteristics, however, required CD28. Our results suggest that SAP and Itk reciprocally regulate selection of innate and conventional CD8+ T cells on hematopoietic cells and thymic epithelium, respectively, whereas CD28 regulates development of innate phenotypes resulting from selection on hematopoietic cells

Perspectives and limitations of gene expression profiling in rheumatology: new molecular strategies

The deciphering of the sequence of the human genome has raised the expectation of unravelling the specific role of each gene in physiology and pathology. High-throughput technologies for gene expression profiling provide the first practical basis for applying this information. In rheumatology, with its many diseases of unknown pathogenesis and puzzling inflammatory aspects, these advances appear to promise a significant advance towards the identification of leading mechanisms of pathology. Expression patterns reflect the complexity of the molecular processes and are expected to provide the molecular basis for specific diagnosis, therapeutic stratification, long-term monitoring and prognostic evaluation. Identification of the molecular networks will help in the discovery of appropriate drug targets, and permit focusing on the most effective and least toxic compounds. Current limitations in screening technologies, experimental strategies and bioinformatic interpretation will shortly be overcome by the rapid development in this field. However, gene expression profiling, by its nature, will not provide biochemical information on functional activities of proteins and might only in part reflect underlying genetic dysfunction. Genomic and proteomic technologies will therefore be complementary in their scientific and clinical application

Identifying the psychosocial predictors of ultraviolet exposure to the face in patients with xeroderma pigmentosum:A study of the behavioural factors affecting clinical outcomes in this genetic disease

BACKGROUND: For patients with xeroderma pigmentosum (XP), the main means of preventing skin and eye cancers is extreme protection against ultraviolet radiation (UVR), particularly for the face. We have recently developed a methodology for objectively measuring photoprotection behaviour (‘UVR dose to facial skin’) and have found that the degree of photoprotection varies greatly between patients with XP. We have previously identified factors affecting photoprotection behaviour in XP using a subjective measure of photoprotection. Here, we have used this objective methodology to identify the factors which determine photoprotection behaviour in XP. METHODS: We studied 29 psychological, social, demographic and clinical variables in 36 patients with XP. We have previously objectively measured UVR protection (by measuring the dose of UVR reaching the skin of the face over a 3-week period) in these patients. Here, we use linear mixed-effects model analysis to identify the factors which lead to the differences in degree of photoprotection observed in these patients. RESULTS: Psychosocial factors accounted for as much of the interindividual variation in photoprotection behaviour (29%) as demographic and clinical factors (24%). Psychosocial factors significantly associated with worse UVR protection included: automaticity of the behaviours, and a group of beliefs and perceptions about XP and photoprotection known to associate with poor treatment adherence in other diseases. CONCLUSIONS: We have identified factors contributing to poor photoprotection in XP. Identifying these potentially reversible psychosocial features has enabled us to design an intervention to improve photoprotection in patients with XP, aiming to prevent skin and eye cancers in these patients

Supplement 19, Part 3, Parasite-Subject Catalogue: Parasites: Trematoda And Cestoda

United States Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Animal Industry, Animal Parasitology Institute, Agricultural Research Servic

Supplement 18, Part 4, Parasite-Subject Catalogue: Parasites: Nematoda And Acanthocephala

United States Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Animal Industry, National Animal Parasite Laboratory, Veterinary Sciences Research Division, Agricultural Research Servic