Environmental Issues in Animal Agriculture

Environmental Economics and Policy, Livestock Production/Industries, Q0, F2, Q25, Q30, R52,

The changing body work of abortion: a qualitative study of the experiences of health professionals

‘Body work’ has emerged at the nexus of sociologies of work and bodies as a means of conceptualising work focusing on the bodies of others. This article utilises this analytical tool in the context of contemporary abortion work. Abortion provision in Britain has seen significant change in the last 25 years, paralleling developments in medical methods, and the option for women under nine weeks' gestation to complete the abortion at home. These shifts raise questions around how abortion work is experienced by those who do it. We apply the conceptual lens of body work to data drawn from in-depth interviews with 37 health professionals involved in abortion provision, to draw out the character, constraints and challenges of contemporary abortion work. We explore three key themes: the instrumental role of emotional labour in facilitating body work; the temporality of abortion work; and bodily proximity, co-presence and changes in provision. By drawing on the conceptual frame of body work, we illuminate the dynamics of contemporary abortion work in Britain and, by introducing the idea of ‘body work-by-proxy’, highlight ways in which this context can be used to expand the conceptual boundaries of body work

Evidence, Theory and Context: Using intervention mapping to develop a worksite physical activity intervention

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The workplace is an ideal setting for health promotion. Helping employees to be more physically active can not only improve their physical and mental health, but can also have economic benefits such as reduced sickness absence. The current paper describes the development of a three month theory-based intervention that aims to increase levels of moderate intensity physical activity amongst employees in sedentary occupations.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The intervention was developed using an intervention mapping protocol. The intervention was also informed by previous literature, qualitative focus groups, an expert steering group, and feedback from key contacts within a range of organisations.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The intervention was designed to target awareness (e.g. provision of information), motivation (e.g. goal setting, social support) and environment (e.g. management support) and to address behavioural (e.g. increasing moderate physical activity in work) and interpersonal outcomes (e.g. encourage colleagues to be more physically active). The intervention can be implemented by local facilitators without the requirement for a large investment of resources. A facilitator manual was developed which listed step by step instructions on how to implement each component along with a suggested timetable.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Although time consuming, intervention mapping was found to be a useful tool for developing a theory based intervention. The length of this process has implications for the way in which funding bodies allow for the development of interventions as part of their funding policy. The intervention will be evaluated in a cluster randomised trial involving 1350 employees from 5 different organisations, results available September 2009.</p

Pre-adolescent children’s experiences of receiving diabetes-related support from friends and peers: a qualitative study

BackgroundWhile pre�adolescent children with type 1 diabetes receive most support from their parents/caregivers, others also contribute to their care. This study explored pre�adolescent children's experiences of receiving diabetes�related support from friends and peers. The objective was to identify how children could be better supported by their friends and peers to undertake diabetes self�management.MethodsIn�depth interviews with 24 children (aged 9�12 years) with type 1 diabetes. Data were analysed using an inductive, thematic approach.ResultsChildren gave mixed accounts of their experiences of speaking to their school/class about diabetes with some indicating that this had resulted in unwanted attention. Most individuals reported that other children had a limited understanding of diabetes and sometimes acted in insensitive ways or said things they found upsetting. Virtually all children described having a small number of close friends who were interested in learning about diabetes and provided them with support. These friends provided support in three overlapping ways, as �monitors and prompters,� �helpers� and �normalizers.� While some children described benefiting from meeting peers with type 1 diabetes, most indicated that they would prefer to develop friendships based on shared interests rather than a common disease status.Discussion and conclusionsFriends and peers provide several kinds of support to pre�adolescent children with diabetes. Health professionals could consider ways to assist small friendship groups to undertake monitoring and prompting, helping and normalizing roles. Parents, schools and health professionals could explore ways to normalize self�management practices to better support children with diabetes in school settings.</p

Characterization and gene expression analysis of the cir multi-gene family of plasmodium chabaudi chabaudi (AS)

Background: The pir genes comprise the largest multi-gene family in Plasmodium, with members found in P. vivax, P. knowlesi and the rodent malaria species. Despite comprising up to 5% of the genome, little is known about the functions of the proteins encoded by pir genes. P. chabaudi causes chronic infection in mice, which may be due to antigenic variation. In this model, pir genes are called cir s and may be involved in this mechanism, allowing evasion of host immune responses. In order to fully understand the role(s) of CIR proteins during P. chabaudi infection, a detailed characterization of the cir gene family was required. Results: The cir repertoire was annotated and a detailed bioinformatic characterization of the encoded CIR proteins was performed. Two major sub-families were identified, which have been named A and B. Members of each sub-family displayed different amino acid motifs, and were thus predicted to have undergone functional divergence. In addition, the expression of the entire cir repertoire was analyzed via RNA sequencing and microarray. Up to 40% of the cir gene repertoire was expressed in the parasite population during infection, and dominant cir transcripts could be identified. In addition, some differences were observed in the pattern of expression between the cir subgroups at the peak of P. chabaudi infection. Finally, specific cir genes were expressed at different time points during asexual blood stages. Conclusions: In conclusion, the large number of cir genes and their expression throughout the intraerythrocytic cycle of development indicates that CIR proteins are likely to be important for parasite survival. In particular, the detection of dominant cir transcripts at the peak of P. chabaudi infection supports the idea that CIR proteins are expressed, and could perform important functions in the biology of this parasite. Further application of the methodologies described here may allow the elucidation of CIR sub-family A and B protein functions, including their contribution to antigenic variation and immune evasion

Adaptation to vocal expressions and phonemes is intact in autism spectrum disorder

Several recent studies have demonstrated reduced visual aftereffects, particularly to social stimuli, in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This putative impairment of the adaptive mechanism in ASD has been put forward as a possible explanation for some of the core social problems experienced by children with ASD (e.g., facial emotion or identity recognition). We addressed this claim in children with ASD and typically developing children by using an established methodology and morphed auditory stimulus set for eliciting robust aftereffects to vocal expressions and phonemes. Although children with ASD were significantly worse at categorizing the vocal expressions compared with the control stimuli (phoneme categorization), aftereffect sizes in both tasks were identical in the two participant groups. Our finding suggests that the adaptation mechanism is not universally impaired in ASD and is therefore not an explanation for the social perception difficulties in ASD

Magnetic resonance imaging detects significant sex differences in human myocardial strain

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The pathophysiology responsible for the significant outcome disparities between men and women with cardiac disease is largely unknown. Further investigation into basic cardiac physiological differences between the sexes is needed. This study utilized magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-based multiparametric strain analysis to search for sex-based differences in regional myocardial contractile function.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>End-systolic strain (circumferential, longitudinal, and radial) was interpolated from MRI-based radiofrequency tissue tagging grid point displacements in each of 60 normal adult volunteers (32 females).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The average global left ventricular (LV) strain among normal female volunteers (n = 32) was significantly larger in absolute value (functionally better) than in normal male volunteers (n = 28) in both the circumferential direction (Male/Female = -0.19 ± 0.02 vs. -0.21 ± 0.02; p = 0.025) and longitudinal direction (Male/Female = -0.14 ± 0.03 vs. -0.16 ± 0.02; p = 0.007).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The finding of significantly larger circumferential and longitudinal LV strain among normal female volunteers suggests that baseline contractile differences between the sexes may contribute to the well-recognized divergence in cardiovascular disease outcomes. Further work is needed in order to determine the pathologic changes that occur in LV strain between women and men with the onset of cardiovascular disease.</p