Embodied Knowledge: Writing Researchers’ Bodies Into Qualitative Health Research

After more than a decade of postpositivist health care research and an increase in narrative writing practices, social scientific, qualitative health research remains largely disembodied. The erasure of researchers’ bodies from conventional accounts of research obscures the complexities of knowledge production and yields deceptively tidy accounts of research. Qualitative health research could benefit significantly from embodied writing that explores the discursive relationship between the body and the self and the semantic challenges of writing the body by incorporating bodily details and experiences into research accounts. Researchers can represent their bodies by incorporating autoethnographic narratives, drawing on all of their senses, interrogating the connections between their bodily signifiers and research processes, and experimenting with the semantics of self and body. The author illustrates opportunities for embodiment with excerpts from an ethnography of a geriatric oncology team and explores implications of embodied writing for the practice of qualitative health research

Self, memory, and imagining the future in a case of psychogenic amnesia

We report a case of psychogenic amnesia and examine the relationships between autobiographical memory impairment, the self, and ability to imagine the future. Case study JH, a 60 year old male, experienced a 6 year period of pervasive psychogenic amnesia covering all life events from childhood to the age of 53. JH was tested during his amnesic period and again following hypnotherapy and the recovery of his memories. JH’s amnesia corresponded with deficits in self-knowledge and imagining the future. Results are discussed with reference to models of self and memory and processes involving remembering and imagining

Cognitive tests used in chronic adult human randomised controlled trial micronutrient and phytochemical intervention studies

In recent years there has been a rapid growth of interest in exploring the relationship between nutritional therapies and the maintenance of cognitive function in adulthood. Emerging evidence reveals an increasingly complex picture with respect to the benefits of various food constituents on learning, memory and psychomotor function in adults. However, to date, there has been little consensus in human studies on the range of cognitive domains to be tested or the particular tests to be employed. To illustrate the potential difficulties that this poses, we conducted a systematic review of existing human adult randomised controlled trial (RCT) studies that have investigated the effects of 24 d to 36 months of supplementation with flavonoids and micronutrients on cognitive performance. There were thirty-nine studies employing a total of 121 different cognitive tasks that met the criteria for inclusion. Results showed that less than half of these studies reported positive effects of treatment, with some important cognitive domains either under-represented or not explored at all. Although there was some evidence of sensitivity to nutritional supplementation in a number of domains (for example, executive function, spatial working memory), interpretation is currently difficult given the prevailing 'scattergun approach' for selecting cognitive tests. Specifically, the practice means that it is often difficult to distinguish between a boundary condition for a particular nutrient and a lack of task sensitivity. We argue that for significant future progress to be made, researchers need to pay much closer attention to existing human RCT and animal data, as well as to more basic issues surrounding task sensitivity, statistical power and type I error

Challenging Perceptions of Disability through Performance Poetry Methods: The "Seen but Seldom Heard" Project.

This paper considers performance poetry as a method to explore lived experiences of disability. We discuss how poetic inquiry used within a participatory arts-based research framework can enable young people to collectively question society’s attitudes and actions towards disability. Poetry will be considered as a means to develop a more accessible and effective arena in which young people with direct experience of disability can be empowered to develop new skills that enable them to tell their own stories. Discussion of how this can challenge audiences to critically reflect upon their own perceptions of disability will also be developed

On the Day-Night Effect and CC to NC Event Rate Ratio Predictions for the SNO Detector

Detailed predictions for the D-N asymmetry for the Super-Kamiokande and SNO experiments, as well as for the ratio of the CC and NC event rates measured by SNO, in the cases of the LMA MSW and of the LOW solutions of the solar neutrino problem, are derived. The possibilities to further constrain the regions of the LMA MSW and LOW solutions of the solar neutrino problem by using the forthcoming SNO data on the D-N asymmetry and on the CC to NC event rate ratio are also discussed.Comment: 16 pages, LATEX; 10 pages of text, 12 eps-files; the text includes 6 figures; results and conclusions unchanged, the iso-(D-N) asymmetry and CC to NC event rate ratio contour plots (Figs. 1 - 6) are given in the \Delta m^2 - \tan^2\theta plane, a comment about the uncertainty in the theoretical predictions for CC to NC event rate ratio in the absence of solar neutrino oscillations and one sub-figure added; contains 3 more figures with respect to the version to be published in Physics Letters

Neutrino-Deuteron Scattering in Effective Field Theory at Next-to-Next-to Leading Order

We study the four channels associated with neutrino-deuteron breakup reactions at next-to-next to leading order in effective field theory. We find that the total cross-section is indeed converging for neutrino energies up to 20 MeV, and thus our calculations can provide constraints on theoretical uncertainties for the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory. We stress the importance of a direct experimental measurement to high precision in at least one channel, in order to fix an axial two-body counterterm.Comment: 32 pages, 14 figures (eps

Stay calm! Regulating emotional responses by implementation intentions: assessing the impact on physiological and subjective arousal

Implementation intention (IMP) has recently been highlighted as an effective emotion regulatory strategy (Schweiger Gallo et al., 2009). Most studies examining the effectiveness of IMPs to regulate emotion have relied on self-report measures of emotional change. In two studies we employed electrodermal activity (EDA) and heart rate (HR) in addition to arousal ratings (AR) to assess the impact of an IMP on emotional responses. In Study 1, 60 participants viewed neutral and two types of negative pictures (weapon vs. non-weapon) under the IMP “If I see a weapon, then I will stay calm and relaxed!” or no self-regulatory instructions (Control). In Study 2, additionally to the Control and IMP conditions, participants completed the picture task either under goal intention (GI) to stay calm and relaxed or warning instructions highlighting that some pictures contain weapons. In both studies, participants showed lower EDA, reduced HR deceleration and lower AR to the weapon pictures compared to the non-weapon pictures. In Study 2, the IMP was associated with lower EDA compared to the GI condition for the weapon pictures, but not compared to the weapon pictures in the Warning condition. AR were lower for IMP compared to GI and Warning conditions for the weapon pictures

B→τμ(X)B\to\tau\mu (X) decays in SUSY models without R-parity

Being strictly forbidden in the standard model, experimental detection of the lepton flavor violating decays $B(\bar B)\to\tau^+\mu^-$ and $b(\bar b)\to X\tau^+\mu^-$ would constitute an unmistakable indication of new physics. We study these decays in supersymmetric models without R-parity and without lepton number. In order to derive order of magnitude predictions for the branching ratios, we assume a horizontal U(1) symmetry with horizontal charges chosen to explain the magnitude of fermion masses and quark mixing angles. We find that the branching ratios for decays with a $\tau\mu$ pair in the final state are not particularly suppressed with respect to the lepton flavor conserving channels. In general in these models {\rm B}[b\to\mu^+\mu^-(X)]\lsim {\rm B}[b(\bar b)\to\tau^+\mu^-(X)] \lsim {\rm B}[b\to\tau^+\tau^-(X)]. While in some cases the rates for final states $\tau^+\tau^-$ can be up to one order of magnitude larger than the lepton flavor violating channel, due to better efficiencies for muon detection and to the absence of standard model contributions, decays into $\tau\mu$ final states appear to be better suited to reveal this kind of new physics.Comment: 15 pages, LaTeX, 3 ps-figures (uses epsfig.sty) Minor typos corrected, one normalization factor added to Eq. (3.11). To be published on Phys. Rev.

Dioxin Toxicity In Vivo Results from an Increase in the Dioxin-Independent Transcriptional Activity of the Aryl Hydrocarbon Receptor

The Aryl hydrocarbon receptor (Ahr) is the nuclear receptor mediating the toxicity of dioxins -widespread and persistent pollutants whose toxic effects include tumor promotion, teratogenesis, wasting syndrome and chloracne. Elimination of Ahr in mice eliminates dioxin toxicity but also produces adverse effects, some seemingly unrelated to dioxin. Thus the relationship between the toxic and dioxin-independent functions of Ahr is not clear, which hampers understanding and treatment of dioxin toxicity. Here we develop a Drosophila model to show that dioxin actually increases the in vivo dioxin-independent activity of Ahr. This hyperactivation resembles the effects caused by an increase in the amount of its dimerisation partner Ahr nuclear translocator (Arnt) and entails an increased transcriptional potency of Ahr, in addition to the previously described effect on nuclear translocation. Thus the two apparently different functions of Ahr, dioxin-mediated and dioxin-independent, are in fact two different levels (hyperactivated and basal, respectively) of a single function