Textile History and the Consumer Epidemic: An Anthropological Approach to Popular Consumption and the Mass Market

An issue central to the history oftextiles is how and with what consequences the cultural significance of textiles has changed. In this paper I will use an anthropological perspective to argue that the cultural or symbolic properties of textiles have played an important role in the transformation of western societies from the sixteenth century onwards. This argument will be made in three parts: first, that the western modernity was driven just as much by a "consumer revolution" as an industrial one; second, that the consumer revolution was driven by the effort to invest material culture and clothing with new cultural meanings; and finally, that this process of meaning investment was driven by changing definitions of social groups and the individual. The paper will summarize past research that bears on this question and suggest new avenues of research that issue from it. Résumé L'intérêt que présente l'histoire des textiles tient notamment à la façon dont a évolué la signification culturelle des textiles et à ses conséquences. L'auteur se propose de montrer ici, dans une perspective anthropologique, le rôle important que les propriétés culturelles ou symboliques des textiles ont joué dans la transformation des sociétés occidentales depuis le XVIe siècle. Trois étapes mèneront à cette conclusion. Nous verrons en premier lieu que la modernité occidentale a été le fait tout autant d'une révolution de la consommation que d'une révolution industrielle; deuxièmement, que cette révolution de la consommation s'est produite sous la poussée de l'effort visant à attribuer de nouvelles significations culturelles à la culture matérielle et à l'habillement; enfin, que le processus d'attribution de nouvelles significations découle de nouvelles définitions des groupes sociaux et de l'individu. L'article résume les recherches existantes sur la question et propose de nouvelles avenues de recherche à explorer pour y donner suite

Systematics, Ecology, and Social Biology of the Musk Duck (Biziura Lobata) of Australia.

Musk Ducks (Biziura lobata) exhibit a number of unusual morphological and behavioral traits. The most notable of these include: greatly abducted hind-limbs for underwater swimming efficiency, extreme sexual size dimorphism and pronounced structural dimorphism, lek display activity, elaborate sexual display repertoires, and the distinctly non-waterfowl-like trait of provisioning young with all their food from the time of hatch until fledging. Despite such peculiarities and obvious theoretical potential in the areas of comparative morphology, sexual selection, and brood ecology, few studies of Musk Ducks have been undertaken, and those to date have been either small in scope and design, or focused on captive birds. I present here an investigation of historical, ecological, and social aspects of Musk Duck biology that hitherto have gone unstudied or generally remained unnoticed. Based on phylogenetic analyses of mtDNA sequences of the cytochrome b gene, I conclude that Musk Ducks are not close relatives of other stifftail ducks (e.g., Nomonyx, Oxyura) as previously surmised, but rather, a more distant, independently derived lineage in which hind-limb morphology and other correlated diving adaptations have evolved convergently. Multivariate analyses of sixteen anatomical measurements, likewise, suggest that sexual selection has played an important role in determining overall patterns of male morphometric variation. Niche divergence, on the other hand, can not be ruled out and might also be a viable explanation of observed levels of sexual size dimorphism. Time-budget and activity-pattern information generally support these conclusions, revealing pronounced differences between sexes, in addition to large scale patterns of spatial and temporal variation. Acoustic analyses of sexual advertising displays reveal fixed cultural differences between eastern and western populations consistent with Bassian faunal elements, in addition to previously undescribed variation within populations. Comparisons with immature wild birds and captive adults also indicate that dialects are learned

Paid content strategies for news websites: An empirical study of British newspapers' online business models

This study uses qualitative research interviews and a survey to quantify and analyse business models at online newspapers in the UK. Senior editors and executives reported that news websites rely on advertising income to a greater extent than their print counterparts. Despite this, British news sites continue to charge users for some content, although to a varying degree. The fact that online editions still contribute barely a tenth of total revenues explains this experimental approach towards business strategy. Although paid-for content has mostly failed as a mechanism for the online news business in the past, changes in technology and net culture may mean that it is becoming an option again. The authors examine what content is being charged for and why, and investigate: how the 12 newspapers studied are balancing the need to develop additional revenue streams with the demand for traffic in a buoyant advertising market; the extent to which cannibalisation of the print parent is still a concern; the complementary benefits of developing digital products; strategies towards archived content; the value of columnist content to online users; the success of digital editions and email alerts; the potential of mobile services; and the rapidly developing number of online services and commercial partnerships hosted by newspapers on the Web

Draft genome sequences of seven isolates of Phytophthora ramorum EU2 from Northern Ireland

Here we present draft-quality genome sequence assemblies for the oomycete Phytophthora ramorum genetic lineage EU2. We sequenced genomes of seven isolates collected in Northern Ireland between 2010 and 2012. Multiple genome sequences from P. ramorum EU2 will be valuable for identifying genetic variation within the clonal lineage that can be useful for tracking its spread

The neural mechanisms of mindfulness-based pain relief: a functional magnetic resonance imaging-based review and primer.

The advent of neuroimaging methodologies, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), has significantly advanced our understanding of the neurophysiological processes supporting a wide spectrum of mind-body approaches to treat pain. A promising self-regulatory practice, mindfulness meditation, reliably alleviates experimentally induced and clinical pain. Yet, the neural mechanisms supporting mindfulness-based pain relief remain poorly characterized. The present review delineates evidence from a spectrum of fMRI studies showing that the neural mechanisms supporting mindfulness-induced pain attenuation differ across varying levels of meditative experience. After brief mindfulness-based mental training (ie, less than 10 hours of practice), mindfulness-based pain relief is associated with higher order (orbitofrontal cortex and rostral anterior cingulate cortex) regulation of low-level nociceptive neural targets (thalamus and primary somatosensory cortex), suggesting an engagement of unique, reappraisal mechanisms. By contrast, mindfulness-based pain relief after extensive training (greater than 1000 hours of practice) is associated with deactivation of prefrontal and greater activation of somatosensory cortical regions, demonstrating an ability to reduce appraisals of arising sensory events. We also describe recent findings showing that higher levels of dispositional mindfulness, in meditation-naïve individuals, are associated with lower pain and greater deactivation of the posterior cingulate cortex, a neural mechanism implicated in self-referential processes. A brief fMRI primer is presented describing appropriate steps and considerations to conduct studies combining mindfulness, pain, and fMRI. We postulate that the identification of the active analgesic neural substrates involved in mindfulness can be used to inform the development and optimization of behavioral therapies to specifically target pain, an important consideration for the ongoing opioid and chronic pain epidemic

Gene Flow and Hybridization between Numerically Imbalanced Populations of Two Duck Species in the Falkland Islands

Interspecific hybridization is common in plants and animals, particularly in waterfowl (Anatidae). One factor shown to contribute to hybridization is restricted mate choice, which can occur when two species occur in sympatry but one is rare. The Hubbs principle, or “desperation hypothesis,” states that under such circumstances the rarer species is more likely to mate with heterospecifics. Here we report interspecific hybridization between two waterfowl species that coexist in broad sympatry and mixed flocks throughout southern South America. Speckled teal (Anas flavirostris) and yellow-billed pintails (Anas georgica) are abundant in continental South America, but in the Falkland Islands speckled teal outnumber yellow-billed pintails approximately ten to one. Using eight genetic loci (mtDNA and 7 nuclear introns) coupled with Bayesian assignment tests and relatedness analysis, we identified a speckled teal x yellow-billed pintail F1 hybrid female and her duckling sired by a male speckled teal. Although our sample in the Falkland Islands was small, we failed to identify unequivocal evidence of hybridization or introgression in a much larger sample from Argentina using a three-population “isolation with migration” coalescent analysis. While additional data are needed to determine if this event in the Falkland Islands was a rare singular occurrence, our results provide further support for the “desperation hypothesis,” which states that scarcity in one population and abundance of another will often lead to hybridization

Misguided Optimism Among College Student Smokers: Leveraging Their Quit-Smoking Strategies for Smoking Cessation Campaigns

College student smokers are a unique group who typically plan to quit smoking by the time they graduate, but few succeed and those who do require multiple attempts. This study examines the strategies of college student participants who successfully quit smoking. They tell a story of trial and error in achieving their goal—one that is more likely to end in another failed attempt than a successful effort unless they learn from past mistakes. Their stories not only show misplaced optimism for quitting but also ineffective smoking-cessation efforts

Linked lives: Gender, family relations and recurrent care proceedings in England

In the wake of a “national care crisis” in England, an increasing number of parents return to the family court as repeat respondents in care proceedings and lose successive children from their care. Despite considerable progress in understanding the trends and patterns of mothers' (re)appearances in care proceedings, knowledge of fathers and of parents' family relationships in recurrent care proceedings remains very limited. Whilst such relationships are fundamentally at stake in care proceedings, they remain largely unexplored. Analyzing population-level administrative data from the family courts in England (2007/08–2017/18, N = 25,457), we have, for the first time, uncovered a five-fold typology of family relations between mothers, fathers and children as they navigated repeated sets of care proceedings. We show that each identified profile is characterized by parents' gender as well as distinctive life-course positions of the parents and children. Our findings show that a substantial number of fathers are ‘visible’ in care proceedings, and that the majority of those that return to court do so with the same partners and children, as part of either a recurrent family or recurrent couple. Mothers' recurrence is characterized by their re-partnering experiences and lone appearances before the court. The results underscore the value of applying a relational approach in social work research and practice, to build a fuller picture of recurrent care proceedings. This research provides new evidence to inform the development of holistic, gender-sensitive and father-inclusive services in the English family justice system