The Impact of Intergenerational Projects on the Younger Person\u27s View of Older People

Intergenerational projects and activities have become popular among both youth and senior citizen groups across Ireland. These programmes fill a variety of personal and societal needs as our society becomes increasingly age-segregated. This study examined the impact of intergenerational projects on a group of six girls aged 15 to 16 living in the west of Ireland. It explores preconceptions and changes in views towards older people, as well as personal impacts. All participants were members of a local youth group and had taken part in two intergenerational projects at a local nursing home. The first project involved working with residents to prepare pieces of art for an art exhibition. For the second project the youths discussed hopes and wishes with the residents and from these interactions and in conjunction with the residents, they created wishes for the nursing home Christmas tree. Twenty nursing home residents between the ages of 60 and 99 took part. A focus group was the chosen method of data collection. The main finding was that by taking part in the programme young people’s opinions of older people changed from negative to more positive ones

CheesePi: A Raspberry Pi based measurement platform

We aim to to objectively characterise the service users experience from their home Internet connections. The attributes of an Internet connection (e.g., bandwidth and loss rate) dictate the service quality that can be achieved over it. American video use is increasing rapidly with 70% of broadband users under the age of 35 getting some of their TV from online sources. Measurement of such connections is crucial, their characterisation is useful not only for human users (so people know what service they can receive) but also for the users’ devices for adaptive behaviour. Furthermore, large-scale characterisation data of individual connections can be collated into a characterisation of the whole network. In this paper we will present a distributed measurement system that we have built and the choices that comprise its design

Re-identifying residential mixing: emergent identity dynamics between incomers and existing residents in a mixed neighbourhood in Northern Ireland

Research on residential diversification has neglected its impact on neighbourhood identity and overlooked the very different identity‐related experiences of new and existing residents. The present research examines how incoming and established group members relate to their changing neighbourhood in the increasingly desegregated city of Belfast, Northern Ireland. Thematic analysis of interviews with 24 residents (12 Protestant long‐term residents, 12 Catholic incomers) from an increasingly mixed neighbourhood identified asymmetrical concerns and experiences: Incomers reported undergoing an ‘identity transition’ between local communities, while long‐term residents faced an ‘identity merger’ within their neighbourhood. Where their identity concerns diverged, emergent intergroup perceptions of the residents were negative and divisive; where they accorded, positive intergroup perceptions and a shared neighbourhood identity evolved. From this, we propose a Social Identity Model of Residential Diversification (SIMRD) to encourage future research into how different identity concerns shape emergent intergroup dynamics between long‐term residents and incomers within diversifying neighbourhoods

Predictive and prognostic properties of TB-LAM among HIV-positive patients initiating ART in Johannesburg, South Africa

While the diagnostic properties of the TB LAM urine assay (LAM) have been well-described, little is known about its predictive and prognostic properties at ART initiation in a routine clinic setting. We describe the predictive and prognostic properties of LAM in HIV-positive patients initiating ART at an urban hospital in Johannesburg, South Africa. Retrospective study of HIV-positive adults (>18 years) who initiated  standard first-line ART between February 2012 and April 2013 and had a LAM test at initiation. In  HIV-positive patients with no known TB at ART initiation, we assessed the sensitivity, specificity and positive/negative likelihood ratios of LAM to predict incident TB within 6 months of ART initiation. In addition, in patients with a TB diagnosis and on TB treatment <3 months at ART initiation, we measured the CD4 response at 6 months on ART. Of the 274 patients without TB at ART initiation, 65% were female with median CD4 count of 213 cells/mm3. Among the 14 (5.1%) patients who developed active TB, none were urine LAM +ve at baseline. LAM had poor sensitivity (0.0 % 95 % CI 0.00-23.2) to predict incident TB within 6 months of initiation. We analyzed 22 patients with a confirmed TB diagnosis at initiation separately. Of these, LAM +ve patients (27%) showed lower CD4 gains compared to LAM negative patients (median increase 103 vs 199 cells/mm3; p=0.08). LAM has limited value for accurately predicting incident TB in patients with higher CD4 counts after ART initiation. LAM may help identify TB/HIV co-infected patients at ART initiation who respond more slowly to treatment and require targeted interventions to improve treatment outcomes. Larger studies with longer patient follow-up are needed.Key words: Antiretroviral therapy, HIV, lipoarabinomannan, Mycobacterium, TB LAM, South Afric

Fossilization of melanosomes via sulfurization

Fossil melanin granules (melanosomes) are an important resource for inferring the evolutionary history of colour and its functions in animals. The taphonomy of melanin and melanosomes, however, is incompletely understood. In particular, the chemical processes responsible for melanosome preservation have not been investigated. As a result, the origins of sulfur‐bearing compounds in fossil melanosomes are difficult to resolve. This has implications for interpretations of original colour in fossils based on potential sulfur‐rich phaeomelanosomes. Here we use pyrolysis gas chromatography mass spectrometry (Py‐GCMS), fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and time of flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (ToF‐SIMS) to assess the mode of preservation of fossil microstructures, confirmed as melanosomes based on the presence of melanin, preserved in frogs from the Late Miocene Libros biota (NE Spain). Our results reveal a high abundance of organosulfur compounds and non‐sulfurized fatty acid methyl esters in both the fossil tissues and host sediment; chemical signatures in the fossil tissues are inconsistent with preservation of phaeomelanin. Our results reflect preservation via the diagenetic incorporation of sulfur, i.e. sulfurization (natural vulcanization), and other polymerization processes. Organosulfur compounds and/or elevated concentrations of sulfur have been reported from melanosomes preserved in various invertebrate and vertebrate fossils and depositional settings, suggesting that preservation through sulfurization is likely to be widespread. Future studies of sulfur‐rich fossil melanosomes require that the geochemistry of the host sediment is tested for evidence of sulfurization in order to constrain interpretations of potential phaeomelanosomes and thus of original integumentary colour in fossils

Comparative analysis of the surface exposed proteome of two canine osteosarcoma cell lines and normal canine osteoblasts

BACKGROUND: Osteosarcoma (OSA) is the most common primary bone tumor of dogs and carries a poor prognosis despite aggressive treatment. An improved understanding of the biology of OSA is critically needed to allow for development of novel diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic tools. The surface-exposed proteome (SEP) of a cancerous cell includes a multifarious array of proteins critical to cellular processes such as proliferation, migration, adhesion, and inter-cellular communication. The specific aim of this study was to define a SEP profile of two validated canine OSA cell lines and a normal canine osteoblast cell line utilizing a biotinylation/streptavidin system to selectively label, purify, and identify surface-exposed proteins by mass spectrometry (MS) analysis. Additionally, we sought to validate a subset of our MS-based observations via quantitative real-time PCR, Western blot and semi-quantitative immunocytochemistry. Our hypothesis was that MS would detect differences in the SEP composition between the OSA and the normal osteoblast cells. RESULTS: Shotgun MS identified 133 putative surface proteins when output from all samples were combined, with good consistency between biological replicates. Eleven of the MS-detected proteins underwent analysis of gene expression by PCR, all of which were actively transcribed, but varied in expression level. Western blot of whole cell lysates from all three cell lines was effective for Thrombospondin-1, CYR61 and CD44, and indicated that all three proteins were present in each cell line. Semi-quantitative immunofluorescence indicated that CD44 was expressed at much higher levels on the surface of the OSA than the normal osteoblast cell lines. CONCLUSIONS: The results of the present study identified numerous differences, and similarities, in the SEP of canine OSA cell lines and normal canine osteoblasts. The PCR, Western blot, and immunocytochemistry results, for the subset of proteins evaluated, were generally supportive of the mass spectrometry data. These methods may be applied to other cell lines, or other biological materials, to highlight unique and previously unrecognized differences between samples. While this study yielded data that may prove useful for OSA researchers and clinicians, further refinements of the described techniques are expected to yield greater accuracy and produce a more thorough SEP analysis

Limits on initial mass segregation in young clusters

Mass segregation is observed in many star clusters, including several that are less than a few Myr old. Timescale arguments are frequently used to argue that these clusters must be displaying primordial segregation, because they are too young to be dynamically relaxed. Looking at this argument from the other side, the youth of these clusters and the limited time available to mix spatially distinct populations of stars can provide constraints on the amount of initial segregation that is consistent with current observations. We present n-body experiments testing this idea, and discuss the implications of our results for theories of star formation. For system ages less than a few crossing times, we show that star formation scenarios predicting general primordial mass segregation are inconsistent with observed segregation levels.Comment: 12 pages, to appear in MNRA

Towards an uncertain politics of professionalism: teacher and nurse identities in flux

This paper is about the nature of contemporary professional identity. It looks at the ways in which 'discursive dynamics' come to re-write the professional teacher and nurse as split, plural and conflictual selves, as they seek to come to terms with a political impetus written through what the authors term an 'economy of performance' in uncertain conflict with various 'ecologies of practice'. The teacher and nurse are thus located in a complicated nexus between policy, ideology and practice. Epistemologically, the paper offers a deconstruction of professional identities, and criticizes the reductive typologies and characterizations of current professionalism. Politically, it reaches towards a more nuanced account of professional identities, stressing the local, situated and indeterminable nature of professional practice, and the inescapable dimensions of trust, diversity and creativity

The impact of competition on elephant musth strategies: a game–theoretic model

Mature male African Savannah elephants are known to periodically enter a temporary state of heightened aggression called “musth,” often linked with increased androgens, particularly testosterone. Sexually mature males are capable of entering musth at any time of year, and will often travel long distances to find estrous females. When two musth bulls or two non-musth bulls encounter one another, the agonistic interaction is usually won by the larger male. However, When a smaller musth bull encounters a larger non-musth bull, the smaller musth male can win. The relative mating success of musth males is due partly to this fighting advantage, and partly to estrous females’ general preference for musth males. Though musth behavior has long been observed and documented, the evolutionary advantages of musth remain poorly understood. Here we develop a game–theoretic model of male musth behavior which assumes musth duration as a parameter, and distributions of small, medium and large musth males are predicted in both time and space. The predicted results are similar to the musth timing behavior observed in the Amboseli National Park elephant population, and further results are generated with relevance to Samburu National Park. We discuss small male musth behavior, the effects of estrous female spatial heterogeneity on musth timing, conservation applications, and the assumptions underpinning the model