Being framed by irony : AIDS and the art of General Idea

This thesis investigates transformations that took place within the work of the Toronto-based art collaborative General Idea before and after it came to deal with the AIDS crisis in the late 1980s and early 1990s and it explores how these relate to its ongoing concern with irony. In General Idea's work of the 70s, irony appears in many playful varieties. Yet the collaborative's irony seemed to wane as its work dealt increasingly with AIDS or, at least, its character seemed to change: it appeared to become more wry, critical, and less exuberant. In The AIDS Project (after 1987) and other, later works, General Idea's visual language becomes sparer and develops a public or installation-based inquiry into ambiguities around originality and cultural transmission and dissemination that parallels the behaviour of the AIDS virus itself or aspects of its cultural contexts. But this thesis argues that these later series represent a continuation of many of the collaborative's earlier concerns and not at all their abandonment. Drawing upon close analysis of works throughout General Idea's oeuvre , as well a theoretical investigation of irony, "Being Framed by Irony: AIDS and the Art of General Idea" seeks to anatomize and explain these developments

Anthony Blunt and Nicolas Poussin: A Queer Approach

The art historian Anthony Blunt (1907-1983), a homosexual and famously a Soviet spy, was a leading authority on the French painter Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665). In recent years, several scholars have noticed strange affinities between these two figures, affinities that relate to their ideas, to a common interest in secrecy and in covert knowledge, as well as to less definite attitudes that these scholars have had difficulty pinning down. This thesis proposes that these strange affinities may be explained by means of Queer Theory, which has afforded art historical scholarship a language and sets of concepts that allow the more difficult aspects of Blunt’s relationship to Poussin to be carefully anatomized. I argue that Blunt may have found in Poussin’s complex and ambiguous pictorial worlds both an inspiration for and a reflection of his multiple, contradictory identities and commitments. Meanwhile, I investigate what properties in Poussin’s art make possible this relationship, exploring how a kernel of homoerotic sensibility, entering Poussin’s oeuvre from the Arcadian pastoral tradition grows and diversifies to depict what I call queer bodies and to construct what I call queer spaces. Blunt’s art historical account of Poussin, the most influential account of the painter in the twentieth century, turns out to be but one facet of a deep and mutually-constitutive encounter between artist and art historian

Being framed by irony : AIDS and the art of General Idea

This thesis investigates transformations that took place within the work of the Toronto-based art collaborative General Idea before and after it came to deal with the AIDS crisis in the late 1980s and early 1990s and it explores how these relate to its ongoing concern with irony. In General Idea's work of the 70s, irony appears in many playful varieties. Yet the collaborative's irony seemed to wane as its work dealt increasingly with AIDS or, at least, its character seemed to change: it appeared to become more wry, critical, and less exuberant. In The AIDS Project (after 1987) and other, later works, General Idea's visual language becomes sparer and develops a public or installation-based inquiry into ambiguities around originality and cultural transmission and dissemination that parallels the behaviour of the AIDS virus itself or aspects of its cultural contexts. But this thesis argues that these later series represent a continuation of many of the collaborative's earlier concerns and not at all their abandonment. Drawing upon close analysis of works throughout General Idea's oeuvre , as well a theoretical investigation of irony, "Being Framed by Irony: AIDS and the Art of General Idea" seeks to anatomize and explain these developments

Nurse Retention Strategies in the Healthcare Industry

Nurse turnover in the healthcare industry is detrimental to the quality-of-care patients receive, organizational financial health, and nurse job satisfaction. Nurse managers who lack effective nurse retention strategies might struggle to reduce voluntary turnover, which can adversely impact nurse job satisfaction and patient care quality. Guided by the unfolding model of voluntary employee turnover and job embeddedness theory, the purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore retention strategies nurse managers use to reduce the voluntary turnover of nurses. The participants were three nurse managers at three hospitals in central and southern Illinois with proven strategies to reduce nurse turnover. Data collection included semistructured video conferencing interviews with participants and analysis of publicly available company documents and analyzed using Yin’s five qualitative data analysis stages. Three key themes emerged: employee-organization relationships and communications; benefits, rewards, and recognition; and employee engagement and participation. The key recommendation is for nurse managers to foster employee-organization relationships by implementing strategies to drive timely and effective communication. Implications for positive social change include the potential to improve quality-of-care for patients, increase organizational stability, promote nurse job satisfaction, and potentially reduce healthcare, which could benefit community members

The Effect of Self-Reported REM Behavior Disorder Symptomology on Intrusive Memories in Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Background: PTSD is characterised by severe sleep disturbances, which is increasingly recognised to in many cases consist of similar symptomology to sleep disorders such as REM Behaviour Disorder (RBD). The present study aimed to investigate whether different aspects of sleep quality influence intrusive memory development and whether PTSD status moderates this relationship.Participants and Methods: 34 PTSD, 52 trauma-exposed (TE) and 42 non-trauma exposed (NTE) participants completed an emotional memory task, where they viewed 60 images (20 positive, 20 negative and 20 neutral) and, two days later, reported how many intrusive memories they had of each valence category. Participants also completed three measures of sleep quality: the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, the REM Behaviour Disorder Screening Questionnaire and total hours slept before each session.Results: The PTSD group reported poorer sleep quality than both TE and NTE groups on all three measures, and significantly more negative intrusive memories than the NTE group. Mediation analyses revealed that self-reported RBD symptomology before the second session mediated the relationship between PTSD status and intrusive memories. Follow-up moderation analyses revealed that self-reported RBD symptomology before the second session was only a significant predictor of intrusion in the PTSD group, though with a small effect size.Conclusions: These findings suggest that RBD symptomology is an indicator of consolidation of intrusive memories in PTSD but not trauma-exposed or healthy participants, which supports the relevance of characterising RBD in PTSD

Threat analysis for more effective lion conservation

We use comparable 2005 and 2018 population data to assess threats driving the decline of lion Panthera leo populations, and review information on threats structured by problem tree and root cause analysis. We define 11 threats and rank their severity and prevalence. Two threats emerged as affecting both the number of lion populations and numbers within them: livestock depredation leading to retaliatory killing of lions, and bushmeat poaching leading to prey depletion. Our data do not allow determination of whether any specific threat drives declines faster than others. Of 20 local extirpations, most were associated with armed conflicts as a driver of proximate threats. We discuss the prevalence and severity of proximate threats and their drivers, to identify priorities for more effective conservation of lions, other carnivores and their prey

"2A-like" signal sequences mediating translational recoding : a novel form of dual protein targeting

The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the UK Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) who funded this research. The authors also gratefully acknowledge the support of the Wellcome Trust for the provision of mass spectrometry facilities at St Andrews.We report the initial characterisation of an N-terminal oligopeptide ‘2A-like’ sequence that is able to function both as a signal sequence and as a translational recoding element. Due to this translational recoding activity, two forms of nascent polypeptide are synthesised: (i) when 2A-mediated translational recoding has not occurred: the nascent polypeptide is fused to the 2A-like N-terminal signal sequence and the fusion translation product is targeted to the exocytic pathway, and, (ii) a translation product where 2A-mediated translational recoding has occurred: the 2A-like signal sequence is synthesised as a separate translation product and, therefore, the nascent (downstream) polypeptide lacks the 2A-like signal sequence and is localised to the cytoplasm. This type of dual-functional signal sequence results, therefore, in the partitioning of the translation products between the two sub-cellular sites and represents a newly described form of dual protein targeting.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

FMDV replicons encoding green fluorescent protein are replication competent

The study of replication of viruses that require high bio-secure facilities can be accomplished with less stringent containment using non-infectious 'replicon' systems. The FMDV replicon system (pT7rep) reported by Mclnerney et al. (2000) was modified by the replacement of sequences encoding chloramphenicol acetyl-transferase (CAT) with those encoding a functional L proteinase (Lpro) linked to a bi-functional fluorescent/antibiotic resistance fusion protein (green fluorescent protein/puromycin resistance, [GFP-PAC]). Cells were transfected with replicon-derived transcript RNA and GFP fluorescence quantified. Replication of transcript RNAs was readily detected by fluorescence, whilst the signal from replication-incompetent forms of the genome was >2-fold lower. Surprisingly, a form of the replicon lacking the Lpro showed a significantly stronger fluorescence signal, but appeared with slightly delayed kinetics. Replication can, therefore, be quantified simply by live-cell imaging and image analyses, providing a rapid and facile alternative to RT-qPCR or CAT assays

Implementation of non-communicable disease policies: a geopolitical analysis of 151 countries.

BACKGROUND: Most countries have endorsed WHO non-communicable disease (NCD) best buy policies, but we know very little about global implementation patterns and about the geopolitical factors affecting implementation. We aimed to assess global implementation based on analysis of multiple geopolitical datasets. METHODS: We used the 2015 and 2017 WHO NCD progress monitor reports to calculate aggregate implementation scores for 151 countries, based on their implementation of 18 WHO-recommended NCD policies. We ranked all countries and used descriptive statistics to analyse global trends. We used linear regression to assess the associations between policy implementation and World Bank geographic region, risk of premature NCD mortality, percentage of all deaths caused by NCDs, World Bank income group, human capital index, democracy index, and tax burden. FINDINGS: In 2017, the mean NCD policy implementation score was 49·3% (SD 18·4%). Costa Rica and Iran had the joint-highest implementation scores (86·1% of all WHO-recommended policies). Scores were lowest in Haiti and South Sudan (5·5%). Between 2015 and 2017, aggregate implementation scores rose in 109 countries and regressed in 32 countries. Mean implementation rose for all of the 18 policies except for those targeting alcohol and physical activity. The most commonly implemented policies were clinical guidelines, graphic warnings on tobacco packaging, and NCD risk factor surveys. Our multiple linear regression model explained 61·1% of the variance in 2017 aggregate scores (p<0·0001), but we found evidence of a high degree of collinearity between the explanatory variables. INTERPRETATION: Implementation of WHO-recommended NCD policies is increasing over time. On average, countries implemented just under half of the NCD policies recommended by WHO in 2017. Nutrition-related policies saw gains, while those related to alcohol and physical activity were the most likely to have been dropped. Aggregate implementation scores tended to be highest in high-income countries that invest in health care and education. FUNDING: National Institute for Health Research, Imperial College London, University of Oxford