2,696 research outputs found
The personal experience of parenting a child with Juvenile Huntingtonâs Disease: perceptions across Europe
The study reported here presents a detailed description of what it is like to parent a child with juvenile Huntingtonâs disease in families across four European countries. Its primary aim was to develop and extend findings from a previous UK study. The study recruited parents from four European countries: Holland, Italy, Poland and Sweden,. A secondary aim was to see the extent to which the findings from the UK study were repeated across Europe and the degree of commonality or divergence across the different countries. Fourteen parents who were the primary caregiver took part in a semistructured interview. These were analyzed using an established qualitative methodology, interpretative phenomenological analysis. Five analytic themes were derived from the analysis: the early signs of something wrong; parental understanding of juvenile Huntingtonâs disease; living with the disease; other peopleâs knowledge and understanding; and need for support. These are discussed in light of the considerable convergence between the experiences of families in the United Kingdom and elsewhere in Europe
Intergroup struggles over victimhood in violent conflict: The victim-perpetrator paradigm
Most groups in violent, intergroup conflict perceive themselves to be the primary or sole
victims of that conflict. This often results in contention over who may claim victim status
and complicates a central aim of post-conflict processes, which is to acknowledge and
address harms experienced by the victims. Drawing from victimology scholarship and
intergroup relations theory, this article proposes the victim-perpetrator paradigm as a
framework to analyse how, why and to what end groups in conflict construct and maintain
their claims to the moral status of victim. This interdisciplinary paradigm builds on the
knowledge that groups utilise the âideal victimâ construction to exemplify their own
innocence and blamelessness in contrast to the wickedness of the perpetrator, setting the
two categories as separate and mutually exclusive even where experiences of violence
have been complex. Additionally, this construction provides for a core intergroup need
to achieve positive social identity, which groups may enhance by demonstrating a
maximum differentiation between the in-group as victims and those out-groups identified
as perpetrators. The paradigm contributes greater knowledge on the social roots of victim
contention in conflict, as well as how groups legitimise their violence against out-groups
during and after conflict
The BCG World Atlas: A Database of Global BCG Vaccination Policies and Practices
Madhu Pai and colleagues introduce the BCG World Atlas, an open access, user
friendly Web site for TB clinicians to discern global BCG vaccination policies
and practices and improve the care of their patients
Thick disks and halos of spiral galaxies M 81, NGC 55 and NGC 300
By using images from the HST/WFPC2/ACS archive, we have analyzed the spatial
distribution of the AGB and RGB stars along the galactocentric radius of nearby
spiral galaxies M~81, NGC 300 and NGC 55. Using color-magnitude diagrams and
stellar luminosity functions, we gauge the stellar contents of the surroundings
of three galaxies. The red giant population (RGB) identified at large
galactocentric radii yields a distance of Mpc for M~81,
Mpc for NGC 55, and Mpc for NGC 300, and a mean
stellar metallicity of 0.65, 1.25, and 0.87. We find that there are
two number density gradients of RGB stars along the radius, which correspond to
the thick disk and halo components of the galaxies. We confirm the presence of
metallicity gradient of evolved stars at these galaxies, based on the
systematic changes of the color distribution of red giant stars. These results
imply that thick disk might be a general feature of the spiral galaxies, and
endorse a further investigation of the outer stellar edges of nearby spirals,
which is critical in constraining the origin and evolution of galaxies.Comment: 17 pages, 2 tables, 13 figures, accepted to A&
Artery tertiary lymphoid organs control aorta immunity and protect against atherosclerosis via vascular smooth muscle cell lymphotoxin ÎČ receptors
Tertiary lymphoid organs (TLOs) emerge during nonresolving peripheral inflammation, but their impact on disease progression remains unknown. We have found in aged Apoeâ/â mice that artery TLOs (ATLOs) controlled highly territorialized aorta T cell responses. ATLOs promoted T cell recruitment, primed CD4+ T cells, generated CD4+, CD8+, T regulatory (Treg) effector and central memory cells, converted naive CD4+ T cells into induced Treg cells, and presented antigen by an unusual set of dendritic cells and B cells. Meanwhile, vascular smooth muscle cell lymphotoxin ÎČ receptors (VSMC-LTÎČRs) protected against atherosclerosis by maintaining structure, cellularity, and size of ATLOs though VSMC-LTÎČRs did not affect secondary lymphoid organs: Atherosclerosis was markedly exacerbated in Apoeâ/âLtbrâ/â and to a similar extent in aged Apoeâ/âLtbrfl/flTagln-cre mice. These data support the conclusion that the immune system employs ATLOs to organize aorta T cell homeostasis during aging and that VSMC-LTÎČRs participate in atherosclerosis protection via ATLOs
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Audio Cartography: Visual Encoding of Acoustic Parameters
Our sonic environment is the matter of subject in multiple domains which developed individual means of its description. As a result, it lacks an established visual language through which knowledge can be connected and insights shared. We provide a visual communication framework for the systematic and coherent documentation of sound in large-scale environments. This consists of visual encodings and mappings of acoustic parameters into distinct graphic variables that present plausible solutions for the visualization of sound. These candidate encodings are assembled into an application-independent, multifunctional, and extensible design guide. We apply the guidelines and show example maps that acts as a basis for the exploration of audio cartography
A Gradualist Approach to Criminality: Early British Socialists, Utopia and Crime
The attitudes of early British socialists to criminality are a thoroughly under-researched area of historical scholarship. This paper draws on the utopian ideas of Robert Owen, William Morris, H. G. Wells, Robert Blatchford, Edward Carpenter and Ramsay MacDonald as a vehicle for investigating the attitudes of mainstream fin de siĂšcle British socialists to crime, punishment and penal reform. Placing these figures and their utopias along a spectrum that sees radical âArcadianâ socialists on the far left, âtechnologicalâ socialists on the far right, and moderate socialists occupying the middle ground, it presents two principal findings. First it demonstrates how crime was predicted by most of the left to decrease to a minimum level under socialism. âArcadiansâ, âtechnologicalâ and moderate socialists invoked different methods in this pursuit, but each were in essence grappling with the same broader issue of the relationship of the individual to the state under socialism. Secondly, examining the multifaceted ideological heritage of the British left in relation to their approaches to crime, it is argued that, despite the leftâs gradualist philosophy, their own attitudes to criminality actually closely reflected utopian conceptions. Examination of these issues offers an important opportunity to re-evaluate the evolution of British socialist thought
Optimisation of the Schizosaccharomyces pombe urg1 expression system
The ability to study protein function in vivo often relies on systems that regulate the presence and absence of the protein of interest. Two limitations for previously described transcriptional control systems that are used to regulate protein expression in fission yeast are: the time taken for inducing conditions to initiate transcription and the ability to achieve very low basal transcription in the "OFF-state". In previous work, we described a Cre recombination-mediated system that allows the rapid and efficient regulation of any gene of interest by the urg1 promoter, which has a dynamic range of approximately 75-fold and which is induced within 30-60 minutes of uracil addition. In this report we describe easy-to-use and versatile modules that can be exploited to significantly tune down P urg1 "OFF-levels" while maintaining an equivalent dynamic range. We also provide plasmids and tools for combining P urg1 transcriptional control with the auxin degron tag to help maintain a null-like phenotype. We demonstrate the utility of this system by improved regulation of HO-dependent site-specific DSB formation, by the regulation Rtf1-dependent replication fork arrest and by controlling Rhp18(Rad18)-dependent post replication repair
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