Defining Freedom: An Ethnographic Study with American Vanlifers

Moving alongside the “snowbirds” and grey nomads that have been discussed in the academic literature, there is a group of nomads that appears to have escaped scholarly attention. United under the “vanlife” and “buslife” hashtags, these individuals belong to a community of nomads who convert ordinary (and sometimes, extraordinary) vehicles into living spaces, and travel North America’s backroads in search of freedom and adventure. Using Cresswell’s definition of mobility as the combination of movement, representation, and practice, this thesis explores the meanings that American vanlifers assign to their mobility. Relying on participant observation and ethnographic interview data collected on the road during the summer of 2017, this thesis argues that when we deconstruct vehicle nomads’ use of the word “freedom,” it reveals important information about how they understand their mobility. By using a relational ontology and employing an epistemology of mobility rather than place, this thesis also attempts to expand the ways in which mobility can be understood by geographers. Through a detailed exploration of participants’ representations and practices, this study finds that when vanlifers used the word “freedom,” they were referring to their mobility in three specific senses: as freedom from social norms, freedom from routines and schedules, and freedom to pick up and go whenever they liked. As existing studies on RVers and British traditional nomads have already captured similar uses of the word “freedom” among their participants, this finding draws the existing research on vehicle nomadism into conversation in a productive way

Replacement of dichloromethane within chromatographic purification : a guide to alternative solvents

Replacement of dichloromethane as the bulk medium within chromatographic purification has been evaluated with a broad range of molecules containing functionality common within Medicinal Chemistry programmes. Analysis of the data set has generated a set of general guidelines to assist in the selection of alternative solvents for CH2Cl2 as the bulk media in these ubiquitously employed processes

Perceived Blur in Naturally Contoured Images Depends on Phase

Perceived blur is an important measure of image quality and clinical visual function. The magnitude of image blur varies across space and time under natural viewing conditions owing to changes in pupil size and accommodation. Blur is frequently studied in the laboratory with a variety of digital filters, without comparing how the choice of filter affects blur perception. We examine the perception of image blur in synthetic images composed of contours whose orientation and curvature spatial properties matched those of natural images but whose blur could be directly controlled. The images were blurred by manipulating the slope of the amplitude spectrum, Gaussian low-pass filtering or filtering with a Sinc function, which, unlike slope or Gaussian filtering, introduces periodic phase reversals similar to those in optically blurred images. For slope-filtered images, blur discrimination thresholds for over-sharpened images were extremely high and perceived blur could not be matched with either Gaussian or Sinc filtered images, suggesting that directly manipulating image slope does not simulate the perception of blur. For Gaussian- and Sinc-blurred images, blur discrimination thresholds were dipper-shaped and were well-fit with a simple variance discrimination model and with a contrast detection threshold model, but the latter required different contrast sensitivity functions for different types of blur. Blur matches between Gaussian- and Sinc-blurred images were used to test several models of blur perception and were in good agreement with models based on luminance slope, but not with spatial frequency based models. Collectively, these results show that the relative phases of image components, in addition to their relative amplitudes, determines perceived blur

Escaping the OR

https://digitalcommons.psjhealth.org/summit_all/1007/thumbnail.jp

Exploring online fitness culture and young females

While previous studies have investigated online health communities and health-seeking behaviours, less attention has been directed at the growing impact of the online fitness movement. This paper draws on the concept of biopedagogies to examine the messages transmitted within fitness culture on social networking sites (SNSs), and their role as a channel for health and fitness information. To explore this, a multi-method approach was conducted. The two methods included a netnography (online ethnography) and 22 semi-structured individual interviews with female participants aged 18–24 in Australia. The study suggests that online fitness use is becoming a popular leisure activity and source of health and fitness information. It reveals how SNSs are used as a platform to gather and teach ideas of health and fitness, and the manner in which textual and photographic online communication facilitates the social construction and transmission of this knowledge. Results indicated that although fitness accounts on SNSs offer differing notions to present alternative and competing realities, users predominantly chose to follow the normalised and dominant health discourses. Noteworthy, the onus is firmly placed on the individual within these health and fitness messages to adhere to norms of correct health practices and choices. This has connotations relevant to eHealth literacy

Sustainability of Maine’s Emerging Wine Industry

Consumers, businesses and business sectors, and policymakers are increasingly concerned with sustainability, and the global wine industry has long acknowledged concerns about the social, environmental, and economic sustainability of their industry. Several wine regions, including France, Australia, and South Africa, have developed workbooks and policies for sustainable wine production, but Maine’s emerging wine industry has yet to explore the concept of sustainability as it relates to its operations. In this project, designed in collaboration with the Maine Winery Guild, we interviewed the owners of 10 Maine wineries and analyzed how they define and enact sustainability along with the obstacles they face in sustainability efforts. This research aims to provide baseline information that will help the guild and policymakers formulate actions that enable Maine’s wine industry to grow and compete with other sustainability-conscious wine regions

Cortisol levels in response to starting school in children at increased risk for social phobia

Background: Research on depression has identified hyperactivity of the HPA axis as a potential contributory factor to the intergenerational transmission of affective symptoms. However, this has not yet been examined in the context of social phobia. The current study compared HPA axis activity in response to a universal social stressor (starting school) in children of 2 groups of women: one with social phobia and one with no history of anxiety (comparison group). To determine specificity of effects of maternal social phobia, a third group of children were also examined whose mothers had generalised anxiety disorder (GAD). Method: Children provided salivary cortisol samples in the morning, afternoon and at bedtime across 3 time-blocks surrounding the school start: a month before starting school (baseline), the first week at school (stress response), and the end of the first school term (stress recovery). Child behavioural inhibition at 14 months was also assessed to explore the influence of early temperament on later stress responses. Results: All children displayed an elevation in morning and afternoon cortisol from baseline during the first week at school, which remained elevated until the end of the first term. Children in the social phobia group, however, also displayed an equivalent elevation in bedtime cortisol, which was not observed for comparison children or for children of mothers with GAD. Children in the social phobia group who were classified as 'inhibited' at 14 months displayed significantly higher afternoon cortisol levels overall. Summary: A persistent stress response to school in the morning and afternoon is typical for all children, but children of mothers with social phobia also display atypical elevations in evening cortisol levels when at school - signalling long-term disruption of the circadian rhythm in HPA axis activity. This is the first study to report HPA axis disruption in children at risk of developing social phobia, and future research should aim to determine whether this represents a pathway for symptom development, taking early temperament into account

Heterogeneity in Kv2 Channel Expression Shapes Action Potential Characteristics and Firing Patterns in CA1 versus CA2 Hippocampal Pyramidal Neurons.

The CA1 region of the hippocampus plays a critical role in spatial and contextual memory, and has well-established circuitry, function and plasticity. In contrast, the properties of the flanking CA2 pyramidal neurons (PNs), important for social memory, and lacking CA1-like plasticity, remain relatively understudied. In particular, little is known regarding the expression of voltage-gated K+ (Kv) channels and the contribution of these channels to the distinct properties of intrinsic excitability, action potential (AP) waveform, firing patterns and neurotransmission between CA1 and CA2 PNs. In the present study, we used multiplex fluorescence immunolabeling of mouse brain sections, and whole-cell recordings in acute mouse brain slices, to define the role of heterogeneous expression of Kv2 family Kv channels in CA1 versus CA2 pyramidal cell excitability. Our results show that the somatodendritic delayed rectifier Kv channel subunits Kv2.1, Kv2.2, and their auxiliary subunit AMIGO-1 have region-specific differences in expression in PNs, with the highest expression levels in CA1, a sharp decrease at the CA1-CA2 boundary, and significantly reduced levels in CA2 neurons. PNs in CA1 exhibit a robust contribution of Guangxitoxin-1E-sensitive Kv2-based delayed rectifier current to AP shape and after-hyperpolarization potential (AHP) relative to that seen in CA2 PNs. Our results indicate that robust Kv2 channel expression confers a distinct pattern of intrinsic excitability to CA1 PNs, potentially contributing to their different roles in hippocampal network function

Automatic and Intrinsic Auditory "What” and "Where” Processing in Humans Revealed by Electrical Neuroimaging

The auditory system includes 2 parallel functional pathways—one for treating sounds' identities and another for their spatial attributes (so-called "what” and "where” pathways). We examined the spatiotemporal mechanisms along auditory "what” and "where” pathways and whether they are automatically engaged in differentially processing spatial and pitch information of identical stimuli. Electrical neuroimaging of auditory evoked potentials (i.e., statistical analyses of waveforms, field strength, topographies, and source estimations) was applied to a passive "oddball” paradigm comprising 2 varieties of blocks of trials. On "what” blocks, band-pass-filtered noises varied in pitch, independently of perceived location. On "where” blocks, the identical stimuli varied in perceived location independently of pitch. Beginning 100 ms poststimulus, the electric field topography significantly differed between conditions, indicative of the automatic recruitment of distinct intracranial generators. A distributed linear inverse solution and statistical analysis thereof revealed activations within superior temporal cortex and prefrontal cortex bilaterally that were common for both conditions, as well as regions within the right temporoparietal cortices that were selective for the "where” condition. These findings support models of automatic and intrinsic parallel processing of auditory information, such that segregated processing of spatial and pitch features may be an organizing principle of auditory functio